Sunday Bookends: Cow beauty pageant and new authors to me

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watchingand what I’ve been writing.

I’ve been enjoying the cooler temps we’ve been having. I am not a summer girl, but I do like nicer weather where I can sit on the back porch and read. We’ve had that a lot the last week or so and I have been making the most of it.

I stayed home and enjoyed the nice weather and a quiet day yesterday while Warren (The Husband) and Little Miss went to a cow beauty pageant.

Yes, you’ve read that correctly. It was a cow beauty pageant. They judged cows in front of the county courthouse, choosing the prettiest one. One-hundred years ago, a similar contest was held so the county tourism board or ag board, I can’t remember which, decided to hold it as a nostalgic event.

Little Miss sent me plenty of photographs of the event, many of them taken behind the county’s veteran’s memorial, which is actually quite nice and impressive for a small county. The county they went to is the one next to ours, so it’s a bit bigger with 50,000 to 60,000 people, while ours has about 5,000.

Then later that night, she and her dad went to our county’s dairy parade downtown. I can’t show you many photographs of that because she took a video and the majority of it is of the sidewalk while she looks down to pick up all the candy that was thrown at her. She was on a corner where hardly any other kids were so she made out like a bandit. When she came home, though, she told me she’d hardly gotten any candy and The Husband said he was surprised they didn’t throw out as much candy at this parade as they used to.

Then he opened his camera bag and dumped out a huge pile of candy onto the chair in the living room.

It was a fun day for them. Today we are going to see my parents for Father’s Day.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie last week. Someone online spilled the beans that the ending was shocking and a twist so that had me trying to figure out the twist through most of the book, which means I figured out the killer but still had to be sure I was right and still wanted to know how Agatha lead the reader there. I was right but I still enjoyed the book immensely. Agatha really was ahead of her time with her plot twists and stories overall

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

I am finally reading my first D.E. Stevenson book, Miss Buncle’s Book, and so far it is very fun and entertaining. It was written in the 1930s so it’s got an older, slower-paced style, but that’s fine for me.

The premise of the book involves Miss Barbara Buncle writing a book to earn some extra money and being excited when a publisher accepts it.

When it is released, the people in her small town start to recognize themselves in the pages. The names are different but the personalities and situations are the same. They don’t know who has written it, though, because Miss Buncle has used a male pen name. I believe the majority of the book is going to be them trying to figure out who wrote this book about every day life in a small English village where nothing really happens, but, for some reason, it’s still entertaining. That’s exactly Miss Buncle’s Book. It’s just a book about everyday life in an English village with a bit of a bonus plot of the people in the village trying to find out the identity of the author, but somehow it is very entertaining.

I am also reading The Ivory Dagger (A Miss Silver Mystery) by Patricia Wentworth. I’m enjoying it so far, though I’m not sure where Miss Silver comes in. This is my first book by this author, too so this is a week of new-to-me authors.

Up Soon

After these two, I have another Agatha on tap – The Rose and the Yew Tree, which she wrote under the pen name of Mary Westcott and a Margery Allingham, Mystery Mile.

What The Family is Reading

The Husband is reading The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead and Little Miss and I are halfway through Heidi (we didn’t read it very much this past week).

New arrivals to my bookshelf

Nothing this week!

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched The Thin Man Goes Home, a 1930s Nancy Drew Movie called Nancy Drew Detective, two more episodes of The Other Bennett Sister, a couple more episodes of As Time Goes By, Around The World in 80 Days, and The Lady Eve.

I ended my Spring of Bette Davis feature but I will be writing about Around the World in 80 Days with David Niven and The Thin Man Goes Home this week.

What I’ve Been Writing

I made a lot of progress on book four of The Gladwynn Grant Mysteries!

This week on the blog I shared:

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I am listening to Murder, She Wrote: The Maine Mutiny by Donald Bain on Audible.

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?


This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/


Sunday Bookends: school’s out for … a month anyhow. Watching musicals.

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watchingand what I’ve been writing.

Thursday was a relaxing day that was ruined at the end by outside forces but Friday was super relaxing with lots of reading and movie watching, which was very nice.

 Wednesday, the kids and I drove 50 minutes to our homeschool evaluator. The Boy went as a backup in case I needed it because my neck has been bothering me lately.  Due to a detour, we got a longer tour of the area we used to live in, and while I don’t miss that area immensely, I do miss some of the convenience of it.

Little Miss will be going into sixth grade next year, and we are excited to have a break from school for a little while. She will be taking art classes online this summer through the program we’ve been using throughout the school year, but otherwise, we will be lax on strict lessons until mid-July.

My Gladwynn Grant Mysteries are on sale this weekend through next week on Amazon if you are interested in reading them. The first book is free.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished two books, Stolen Past by Tara Randel and The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.

For children’s books, the Narnia books are quite thought-provoking. Very in fact.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month. I am also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

I am currently reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd on my Kindle.

Up Soon

I will be starting Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson this week.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are making good progress on Heidi.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

I obtained (bought when I shouldn’t have) three new books: The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis, Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson, and The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes (to read with my daughter).

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week The Husband (who I am just going to call Warren from now on. Anyone who knows me, know his first name anyhow) and I watched The Petrified Forrest, a Bette Davis movie that I felt was better than most of the other movies I watched during my Spring of Bette Davis feature. I will share a blog post about it later this week.

I also watched The Other Bennett Sister and several episodes of As Time Goes By, a British sitcom that is a comfort watch for me.

Little Miss and I watched My Fair Lady, or finished, last night. She was disgusted that Eliza ended up staying with Professor Higgins, who was “old” and “horrible.”

Some things she said as she watched it, “Dude. I’d just punch him. Dump that tea on him! Throw that pot at him!”

“She won’t miss you, you narcissist!”

“You don’t deserve to have her!”

“Go off, Queen!”

“That’s right, you tell him!”

“I don’t care if he’s a senior citizen! I’ll throw him in front of a bus!”

“He’s old enough to be your father!”

“Gravity is natural, right? We can push him off a building and say he died of natural causes.”

“No! You are in a toxic relationship! This girl can’t walk away from a toxic relationship.”

“They make women in these movies out to be morons!”

When I told her the ending of the play was that she leaves with Freddy, she dropped to her knees, raised her arms, and cried, “yes!”

We are making our way through the old musicals I grew up on.

I’ve already shown her Singing in the Rain, but she was very young so I need to show her again. It’s my favorite movie, next to The Quiet Man.

Next up is West Side Story. Some others on the list: South Pacific, Oklahoma (which I’ve never actually watched myself), and  The Sound of Music.

Which others should I show her to rage-bait her into another ten-minute rant about old movies and musicals and how they portray women?

What I’ve Been Writing

I’ve been working on book four of the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School.

Last week on the blog, I shared:

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

Cat’s chat about how many books people read at a time was very interesting and fun for me.

Photos From Last Week

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?


This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/


Sunday Bookends: Celebratory dinner, disturbing Rita Hayworth documentary, and the same books

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watchingand what I’ve been writing.

This weekend seemed hectic but it really wasn’t that bad.

I helped my parents a couple of days and then on Friday we had a family outing where Little  Miss and I got our hair cut and we had lunch out to celebrate my husband’s promotion at work.

On Saturday the kids and The Husband went to a mall an hour away and I stayed home and watched movies and caught  up on some shows I’ve been watching. It was nice to have a relaxing day.

This week Little Miss and I meet with our homeschool evaluator to close out our homeschool year. We are taking a month off and will start up with some school again in July to allow us some time off throughout the school year. She will continue her Outschool art classes throughout the summer, at her request.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I didn’t finish anything last week.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month.

I’m still reading The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis and Stolen Past by Tara Randle.

I’m enjoying them both, but didn’t seem able to focus on reading as much this week. My mind was busy I guess.

I also started The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie for the June Reading Christie 2026 Challenge.

And then, because I know I will probably finish The Silver Chair this week, I also started All The Broken Places by John Boyne. I don’t know anything about it so I’ll see how it goes.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are continuing Heidi.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

The Husband picked up a Terry Pratchett book for me at Barnes and Noble:

What I/We’ve Been Watching

I’ve been watching The Other Bennet Sister and yesterday I also finished the first season of Ludwig. I watched a Sherlock Holmes movie with Basil Rathbone that was a bit convoluted and treated Dr. Watson like a total moron.

I watched a documentary on Rita Hayworth that was disturbing, to say the least. That poor woman overcame a lot to become an actress but even then she was abused (by her own father), taken advantage of, and rebuilt (physically and otherwise) to become who we watched in the movies.

It was hard to watch You’ll Never Get Rich with her and Fred Astaire after seeing the documentary since one of the plot lines of the movie is a predatory married man trying to buy her gifts and hit on her and later involves her being tricked to marry Fred, who is a heck of a lot older than her.

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week on the blog I shared:

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

Little Miss and I are listening to Little House in the Big Woods before bed.

Photos From Last Week

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?


This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Notice: This post may contain affiiate links. If you purchase the product from these links I will receive a small compensation at no extra charge to you.


Book recommendations: The Labors of Hercules by Agatha Christie

I’ve been participating in the  Read Christie 2026 Challenge, and for May, I read The Labors of Hercules.

It is a collection of short stories featuring Christie’s Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot.

The stories all connect and follow the theme of Poirot sharing twelve cases to close his career as a private detective. Because he was named after Hercules (though his name does not have the “s”), he decides his final cases will be those that follow the Greek myth of the 12 Labors of Hercules.

I don’t really know a lot about Greek mythology, but I figured it out along the way.

Agatha wrote these as serialized stories in The Strand magazine from 1939 to 1940, with the last one being written for the collection in 1947.

I wasn’t too sure about this one when I started it, but the book, with each chapter focused on a short mystery, grew on me as I kept going. Some of the stories were more serious than the others.

I almost gave up after the second story, since the first couple were not written well to me, but I’m glad I didn’t give up because the stories got better – especially the final one where Poirot ran into a woman he used to have an attraction to – Countess Vera Rossakoff.

There was a lot of humor and just a good story in that one, which was entitled The Capture of Cerberus.

Here are a couple of quotes I enjoyed from that story:

“It is the misfortune of small precise men to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination the Countess held for him. Though I was something like twenty years since he had seen her last, the magic still held. Granted that her makeup now resembled a scene-painter’s sunset, with the woman under the makeup well hidden from sight, to Hercule Poirot she still represented the sumptuous and the alluring.”

When Poirot first sees her again after so many years, it is on an escalator and she shouts back at him to meet her in hell. He later learns from his secretary, Miss Lemon, that Hell is a nightclub, and he later learns the countess owns it.

At first, though, he is totally baffled.

“But what had she meant by it? Had she meant London’s Underground Railways? Or were her words to be taken in a religious sense? Surely, even if her own way of life made Hell the most plausible destination for her after this life, surely—surely her Russian Courtesy would not suggest that Hercule Poirot was necessarily bound for the same place?”

Then, when he finally does get to the club…

“The place was full and it had about it that unmistakable air of success which cannot be counterfeited. There were languid couples in full evening dress, Bohemians in corduroy trousers, stout gentlemen in business suits. The band, dressed as devils, dispensed hot music. No doubt about it, Hell had caught on.

“We have all kinds here,” said the Countess. “That is as it should be, is it not? The gates of Hell are open to all?”

“Except, possibly, to the poor?” Poirot suggested.

The Countess laughed. “Are we not told that it is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Naturally, then, he should have priority in Hell.”

I was surprised by how much Agatha wrote about cocaine use and its destruction in these stories. Sometimes I am very naïve and forget that cocaine and drug abuse was a very real thing even back then.

If I didn’t think it would bore both you and me, I would go through each story and tell you why I did or didn’t like it, and share some quotes. Instead, I will simply reiterate that there were good stories and not as good stories, in my opinion, but that I would read them all because what one person doesn’t like, another person might like.

My mom and I share a Kindle/Goodreads account and I noticed when I finished it that she gave it a three star. I bumped it up to a four, but without that last story I might have given it a three too (or 3.5), even though the idea behind it was very ingenious.

Have you read this collection yet?

Up next for me for the Read Christie 2026 challenge is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Sunday Bookends: Old recordings from relatives found and watching an old Miss Marple and a new “Miss Bennet”

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watchingand what I’ve been writing.

Last weekend my daughter and husband found a couple of cassette tapes in my late aunt’s old dresser. My aunt passed away in 2018 and I’m not sure how we didn’t see these tapes before but there they were — recordings that someone had made, we are not sure who, of my grandfather, great-grandmother and another relative on one cassette singing and, at least according to the label, my grandmother and grandfather on another cassette singing.

My grandfather played the harmonica and the Hawaiian steel guitar and had a band with his brothers at one time. I really didn’t know if my grandmother sang but apparently she did some with my grandfather, based on these recordings.

My mom is 81 (82 in August) and she said she wasn’t totally sure it was her parents, since it had been so long since she’d heard their voices. The more she listened, though, she thought it must be, but when they were much younger, which is why they didn’t sound as familiar.

I have not heard my grandmother’s voice since 2002 since she died in early 2003, but something about the laugh made me thin it was her.

I was only 9 when my grandfather died, so I can’t be sure it was him either.

My mom was certain the other woman on the other cassette was her grandmother. The first time we listened to it she was trying to hear the voices, be sure it was them. The second time we listened she cried, but didn’t say why, only saying it wasn’t about being sad. I think a lot of good memories of her grandmother came back hearing those songs.

I texted my great aunt and she confirmed that the voice on the one cassette tape were her brother (my grandfather) and her mother.

Grandpa played bluegrass-style music, or maybe it would be described as Apalachian-style.

The songs we heard on the cassettes were mainly hymns, with some instrumentals on either the Hawaiian steel guitar, the dobro, guitar, or harmonica.

I don’t know why, but I ended up with one of my grandfather’s harmonicas when he died.

I only saw my grandfather once a year since he lived in North Carolina and we lived in Pennsylvania, so I wasn’t very close to him. From what I hear, he wasn’t an easy man for anyone to get close to, but that’s another story for another day.

Quick update on the older cat: she’s doing much better but still not eating well. She is moving better, wants to cuddle more, and is on the mend, even though her left eye is still goopy. The other cats seem fully recovered and are actually back to being a bit annoying.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I just finished The Cat Who Brought the House Down by Lilian Jackson Braun.

It was a very, slow, light cozy mystery with a pretty dark ending (though not described in detail). I enjoyed it even though it was more like reading a gentle vintage fiction book than a mystery. And that ending…it was like a Christie ending. Not bad, actually good, but really out of place for the rest of the book.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month. I am also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, but had put it aside for a bit. I hope to pick it up again this week.

Stolen Past by Tara Randel, an Amish Inn Mystery, and The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.

Up Soon

I’ll be reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie soon for the 2026 Christie Reading Challenge.

What The Family is Reading

The Husband is on assignment for the paper so I didn’t get a chance to ask him what he’s been reading. Little Miss and I took a break from Heidi this week but are picking it back up this upcoming week during our last week of homeschool for a month.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

No new arrivals for now.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched The Other Bennett Sister, The Letter (a movie with Bette Davis that I wrote about), and A Caribbean Mystery – a Miss Marple Mystery with Joan Hickson.

A Caribbean Mystery was so well done and very close to the book. The people they cast for the characters  were absolutely perfect — especially Mr. Rafiel. I am glad they got rid of a three of the characters from the book, though, because it was a little confusing at times and would have been even more confusing in a movie.

There were a few other changes from the novel, including a more prominent role of Island resident Inspector Weston in the movie/TV show. The actor was excellent and I actually enjoyed him being more involved.

The one woman’s American/Southern accent was atrocious though. I really wish the British productions would hire actual Americans for these roles or get someone who doesn’t butcher a Southern accent at least.

There were these horrid crickets or tree frogs or something sounding during many of the nighttime scenes and I wondered why they didn’t cut the sound out but toward the end I realized it created an unsettling feeling that added to the story/mystery.

What I’ve Been Writing

On the blog I shared:

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I am listening to  Murder, She wrote: The Maine Mutiny by Donald Bain. It’s slow going because I usually only listen to audiobooks when I am driving and I have not been driving a lot lately. Or at least alone.

Photos From Last Week

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?


This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/


Sunday Bookends: More Agatha Christie and still sick cat

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watchingand what I’ve been writing.

Happy Memorial Day weekend to all the Americans visiting today! To the rest of ya’….happy weekend!

This past week was fairly uneventful other than our oldest cat, Pixel, continuing to battle the same virus all our other indoor/outdoor cats battled. She also wedged herself in a dirty crawlspace in our basement, which led to my claustrophobic son having to climb in and get her out.

The youngest cat did fairly well with the virus but the two older cats ended up at the vet.

This week The Husband took Pixel to the vet 45-minutes away and then we drove up to pick her back up later in the day. She received an antibiotic, a fever reducer, and anti-nausea meds and perked back up some that night.

 Thursday and Friday she wasn’t doing well, though, and yesterday she was somewhat better but still sleeping a ton and not eating or drinking much.

Here is Pixel before she got sick. She’s so much skinnier now.

I wrote about the cat and some other things on my Saturday Link Up, which is a new link up for bloggers to share their posts of any kind — weekly round-ups or just posts you’d like to get some eyes on. Old posts are always welcome.

I hope Pixel gets better soon so I can write about more than my sick cats….not that I have a ton else going on in my life.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished The Labors of Hercules this week. It is a collection of short stories by Agatha Christie featuring her detective Hercules Poirot.

I didn’t like the first couple of stories but pushed through and ended up enjoying some of the other stories, especially the final story, which I think should have been included in the collection first. I imagine a lot of people gave up on the collection because the first couple of stories really weren’t very good — well, to me anyhow.

The idea of the book was for Poirot to be working toward retirement and in order to make his last cases interesting, he decides to learn about his namesake, Hercules, and then mimic Hercules Twelve Labors.

There are 12 short stories to match up with the twelve labors. I will have a full review up at some point in the future.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month.

I am currently reading The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun. It is a very slow-burning mystery. I’m on chapter 9 and the mystery just happened, but that is how Lilian’s books are. I am also reading Summer by the Tides by Denise Hunter. This is a women’s fiction/romance and so far it is heavy on women’s fiction but not heavy topic wise

Up Soon

I’ll be reading ABC Murders by Agatha Christie, Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham, and The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis soon.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are continuing Heidi.

The Husband is reading Chasing the Bear by Robert B. Parker.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

This week I added Garage Sale Secret by Elizabeth Ludwig to my bookshelf, thanks to my husband, who grabbed it at a local library/used bookshop.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This week I watched the first episode of The Other Bennett Sister, a movie called My Sister Eileen, and part of the Bette Davis movie The Letter.

This morning I am watching old videos of Just A Few Acres Farm. Sadly, Pete ended his YouTube channel but at least left the old videos up. I felt bad that he shut off all commenting on the video where he announced he was leaving. It seemed rather harsh to not let his fans thank him and say goodbye but I guess he was just over it all already. Plus, mixed in with the good comments will always be some bad and I think he was getting sick of the bad.

What I’ve Been Writing

This week on the blog I shared:

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I am only listening to Jack Benny at nights before bed. I want to listen to some more music this upcoming week.

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

Mountain Adventures by The Farm Wife Reads

Secondary Characters Who Took Center Stage by Great and Noble Tasks

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?


This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/


Sunday Bookends: A  missing cat, a returning cat, a good old movie, a bad old movie

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watchingand what I’ve been writing. Some weeks, I share what I am listening to.

I hesitate to write about my cat drama yet another week, so I will keep it as short as I can this time around. If you follow my blog on days other than Sunday (and don’t worry if you don’t. There are just so many good blogs out there. It is terribly hard to keep up!) you will see that I already wrote about our family’s cat drama here and then here.

What I will share here is that our elder cat, Pixel, disappeared for four full days and five full nights, and because she is not a cat who has ever wandered away for more than a couple of hours, I was convinced she had died.

She had been sick before she disappeared, and when you grow up in a rural area with outside cats, you learn that they sometimes wander off to die. I did not think that Pixel was that sick when she disappeared so that was bewildering to me.

She’d been let out briefly last week while sick, but seemed to have recovered, and we didn’t imagine she was strong enough yet to take off. Apparently, she was because when we went back to find her under the bush she had been sitting under Sunday morning, she was gone.

To make a really long, emotionally distressing story short — she showed back up on our porch Thursday morning and I was in total shock.

She has been upstairs since then, not coming down to eat but instead preferring we bring her food to her, still recovering from the virus she had when she wandered off. She did jump up on a bed to sleep today, instead of snoozing under my son’s coffee table in his room or a bed or in a spot on the corner of the stairs, which is where she’s been since returning.

The Husband said she even came down to try to get back outside this morning.

I think not, cat. You don’t disappear for four full days and think you’re going back outside anytime soon.

We still do not know if she was in someone’s shed or where in the world she was.

Also, what happened to me making this story shorter?!

So…moving on….

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished Nancy Drew: Nancy’s Mysterious Letter by Carolyn Keene.

I decided to put Thrush Green by Miss Read aside for a bit. I was about 50 pages in an just couldn’t get into it the way I had hoped to. I might try again later in the summer. Maybe it will hit me right where I need it then.

In Progress

I am slowly reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month.

I am reading The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie, which is a short story collection featuring her detective Hercule Poirot. I am not enjoying it as much as the standalone novels of hers I have read.

Up Soon

I found two books on my bookshelf that I want to start soon — one that I said I would read two summers ago but never did and another one that I thought I had read but haven’t.

The one I was going to read two summers ago is Summer By The Tides by Denise Hunter. I haven’ t read any of her books and might not enjoy it since it is romance, but I’m going to give it a try.

The one I thought I had already read is a Cat Who book by Lilian Jackson Braun — The Cat Who Brought Down the House. I have read most of the series, but have not read this one and a few more from the series so I added it to my summer hopefuls list.

What The Family is Reading

I am so proud of The Husband. I actually convinced him to not finish a book he was reading and hating. He usually pushes through no matter what, whining the entire time about how bad the book is. I don’t know why he does that when there are so many good books out there to read.

Maybe the book just isn’t for him. He needs to admit that and move on, so I told him that and this time, for the very first time, he actually listened to me about it. In order to take my advice, though, he said I had to pick out his next book.

I picked out the sixth, and latest, book in the Hawthorn and Horowitz mystery series, A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz. So far he is breezing through it, so I picked well.

Little Miss and I are still reading Heidi.

The Boy is listening to a Warhammer book, but I forget which one.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched Dangerous with Bette Davis and did not like it. It was not very interesting and Bette was super whiney and dramatic in it. Plus it seemed to be a typical movie from the 1930s where “woman bad, man good” was the main theme.

I will talk about it more later this week when I write a blog post about it.

Yesterday I watched The Heiress with Olivia de Haviland and it was so  much better than Dangerous and just good overall. Olivia won an Oscar for her performance, and I can totally see why. I plan to write a blog post about this one as well.

I started My Sister Eileen last night as well. This one was recommended to me by my friend Heather. This particular movie is a  musical but there is a black and white movie with the same story called The Lady Eve. I plan to watch that one too.

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week on the blog, I shared:

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I’m still listening to The Jack Benny Radio Show (a podcast with full episodes) when I go to bed. I often fall asleep before I can hear the entire episode, however, so I just load up the que each night and see how far I get – often waking up with episodes still playing and catching a bit more when I fall back asleep (I ask up a lot for a variety of reasons.)

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?


This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.


Sunday Bookends: Bookstore finds, cat number three gets the virus, and happy Mother’s Day

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watchingand what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

Even though our vet wasn’t initially sure, we now know that what has been making our cats sick is some sort of virus. We know this because a couple of days ago, our oldest cat started exhibiting the same symptoms as the other two — mainly being lethargic and refusing to eat or drink.

All of our cats have been vaccinated for distemper, so we aren’t sure what virus this is and neither does the vet.

The vet actually wanted us to bring our middle cat, Scout, to them Thursday to be observed all day but Wednesday night she perked up and not only started eating, but using the litter box.

I felt weird constantly observing her to see if she was going to use the litter box and was grateful when Little Miss saw her. I texted a friend and my husband when she finally went to the bathroom. This is where my life is — telling people when my cat has peed.

As was the case when the youngest started all of this, Scout started to feel better about the time our oldest cat, Pixel, started not to feel good.

Pixel is my buddy, similar to Scout, but more mouthy and sassy. If she chooses to lay on my chest or on my side (at night) then she pushes her way there whether I want her there or not. She often pushes her way into a cuddle when I am trying to work on my laptop or read a book or go to sleep. She sometimes doesn’t appreciate being moved in those moments, either. She will hiss and bite at me if I try to push her off, but luckily not every time.

She’s also the cat we call “fat cat” and she’s gotten fatter since I started feeding her wet food. One day she was sitting in our living room, a bit above me, and when I looked up at her I couldn’t see her chin.

I asked what had happened to her chin, she was so fat I couldn’t see it anymore, and she slowly turned my head and gave me this look :

A look that said, “Excuse me?”

Because, honestly, I’m having a similar issue with my chin and I knew she was thinking, “You don’t have anything to say, lady.”

Unlike Scout, Pixel has moved a little bit more in less time. Yesterday morning, about three days since her symptoms started, she jumped onto the bathroom sink counter, which she does when she is well, to get a drink of water. We have dishes of water down for the animals but I guess she wants it from the source. I was encouraged to see her looking for water that way.

She is still refusing to eat, however, which is what Scout did as well. And Pixel can be a lot more stubborn, so I really hope she pulls through.

I’m guessing by the way she was able to rip herself from the towel we had her wrapped  up in to give her her antibiotic yesterday morning, though, that she must be feeling a little bit better. We have an antibiotic, but since it is a virus, I don’t really think she needs it. This will have to run its course like a virus does for a human, I think.

Yesterday The Husband, the kids, and I visited a college town about an hour from us and stopped in to a small, used bookstore there.

Most of the books were political or historical from one standpoint, but there were a few treasures in the children’s section, including a stack of Hardy Boys books, which I only chose two from. One of them I grabbed by accident because I already have a copy of it, but the later, revised version. This one was published in 1939

I also found an Applewood Books version of a Hardy Boys book, which is a reproduction of the original manuscript.

I rounded out my purchases with The Giver by Lois Lowery and a collection of short stories and essays by Mark Twain.

The Husband also purchased a book of “booklover stickers” for me at the Barnes and Noble in town that I can’t wait to add to my reading journal.

I didn’t visit the Barnes and Noble because that one doesn’t usually have any books I am interested in. It’s a college town so there are a lot of romances and textbooks. I’m sure we will go another time and if we do I’ll check it out and see what’s there that I might like.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

Aloha Betrayal by Donald Bain. This was a Murder, She Wrote mystery, and it was very good, but I wanted a more definitive ending in some ways. It was a little open-ended but that made it more interesting than some of these assembly-line style book series that are out there.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month. I am also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

I am also currently reading The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie for the 2026 Christie Reading Challenge and Thrush Green by Miss Read.

Up Soon

On tap soon is  Stolen Past – An Amish Inn Mystery and The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.

What The Family is Reading

The Husband just finished, The Big Gold Dream by Chester Himes. Little Miss and I are reading Heidi and she is reading The Dragon Rider by Ted and Rachel Dekker.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

I am watching Blandings and Ladies of Letters.

This past week I watched the movies Enchanted April and A Month In The Country.

I’ll be watching the Bette Davis movie Dangerous this week.

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week on the blog I shared:

Book and movie recommendation: The Enchanted April/Enchanted April

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot May 8

Spring of Bette (Davis): Jezebel (1938). Otherwise known as the movie that made me say, “Well, that escalated fast.”

Top Ten – Er – Eight Authors I wish were Still Writing Today

A Good Book and A Cup of Tea May Link Up

When technology determines if your creativity is worthy or not, we have a problem

Photos From Last Week

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?


This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.


Top Ten – Er – Eight Authors I wish were Still Writing Today

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt is:  Authors You Wish Were Still Writing Today

I only came up with eight authors I wished were still writing, all of them long dead, but I think it’s a good list.

Agatha Christie

The fun she’d have with modern times and modern toys to mix in her plots. The only drawback is that some of her plot points might not work since we now have so many conveniences and cameras and things that could make getting away with murder even more difficult. That might be a challenge Agatha would love to take on, though.  

Margery Allingham

Margery would also love to use some of the more modern elements to knock off a few victims, I think. But she would write it in a much more poetic way than Agatha. This woman’s way with words….wow.

Erle Stanley Gardner

Perry Mason on his cellphone  telling Burger to stuff it where the sun don’t shine. Also, just more great stories with other characters — Bertha Cool on a podcast, telling everyone stories about her greatest cases.

L.M. Montgomery

I would love to read more sweet, touching stories by her. Whatever she wants to write. Clean, no swearing, just writing about every day life in a beautiful rural setting in Canada.

Donald Bain

Donald was a prolific ghost writer, but I just need him to write more Murder, She Wrote books that feel like authentic Jessica. I love how he makes her so real and fleshed out. He writes it from a first-person point of view and adds in her thoughts about her late husband Frank. She’s always so caring about her friends too. I mean, I really forget it is a man writing it. I feel like he’s truly seeing Jessica’s world through the eyes of a woman. I also love when he adds in history and facts about Maine or whatever city or country Jessica is visiting. He completely immerses you in the story.

Mildred Wirt Benson

I love Mildred’s children’s mystery books. If you don’t know, she was the author who helped create the Nancy Drew books and was the first Carolyn Keene. She later went on to write other children’s books with girl detectives, such as the Penny Parker series

I loved the plots she came up with and always find her plots in the Nancy Drew books so much better than ones written by other authors using the pseudonym.

Mildred wrote 130 books for juveniles and a few for adults. I hope to look up those adult ones soon.

J.R.R. Tolkien

I would love if Tolkien was still  writing and would infuse some of his wisdom and purity into fantasy books of today. He would, however, probably find some of his work edited so we don’t have to read so many descriptions of trees.

C.S. Lewis

I would love to particularly read Clive’s theological thoughts in relationship to the unique challenges of our modern world, which really aren’t that unique, but feel like they are. I would love to know what he thinks of the modern church, our crazy leaders, Christians who are so obsessed with politics that they’ve lost sight of Jesus…and so much more. I have a feeling he would anger so many people.

Are there any authors that you wish were still writing today?


If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.