It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
This past week sucked for so many reasons but I was so excited to see that Amazon had put The Monkees on Prime this week.
This was a show produced in the 1960s but aired on Nickelodeon in the 1980s. It was a show that I loved to watch as a kid at my friend’s house, because we didn’t have cable at my house. I always loved the goofiness of it and the music. Watching it was such a wonderful distraction. I laughed and just enjoyed the ridiculousness of it.
What is crazy is that WordPress showed me what I wrote last year on this same date and I also mentioned The Monkees in that post! Ha! Apparently remembering the show and band always happens in September for me and maybe that is because the show debuted on September 12, 1966.
I also wanted to clarify my comments last week about how many books people read in a month. I am not sure it was clear that my original thought were “people can’t read that many books” but then I thought about all the reasons they could read that many.
I also appreciated all the comments from other readers about why people can read a larger amount of books in a month compared to other readers. Go back and read some of those comments if you get a chance.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Recently Finished
I didn’t finish any books this week but instead kept starting new ones.
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 for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
I am also reading A Crime At Black Dudley by Margery Allingham, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, and The Moss Covered Mansion by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew).
Up Soon
I just ordered The Two Mrs. Abbotts by D.E. Stevenson so I can read that soon and I also ordered a copy of Endless Nights by Agatha Christie to read for the Christie Reading Challenge’s September read.
What The Family is Reading
Little Miss and I are still reading Rascal by Stirling North for school and for fun we are reading ThePink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink.
New arrivals to my bookshelf
I received a copy of Miss Silver Comes to Stay by Patricia Wentworth that I purchased off Thriftbooks.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week I watched The Monkees as I mentioned, a couple of silly movies – Cactus Flower and Romance on the High Seas – as well as a couple of The Hardy Boys episodes from the 1970s after they dropped Nancy Drew from the show.
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?
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
Bear with me on my thoughts this week…read to the end before getting offended! *wink*
I was going to make a comment this week about how I think it’s absolutely crazy when a Booktuber (someone who talks about books on YouTube) or book blogger comes out and says that they read 14 books in one month.
Sometimes I think that’s ridiculous (unless you’re retired) because that’s four books a week and I just can’t imagine fitting in four books a week with the rest of life.
But then I had to remind myself that books are all different sizes and some take less time than others. Then I had a fairly depressing end of my week and realized that disassociating by reading a lot of books is actually not the worst thing in the world and it’s a lot healthier than going out and committing crimes or drinking a bottle of whiskey to get through the hard time (neither of which I did, by the way. I drank herbal tea, ate some chocolate, cried, and read a book).
So it was a bit of a reality check for me that when I wanted to “criticize” somebody for saying they read a lot of books, I really should be telling myself to read more and disconnect from life more. I wasn’t really criticizing but questioning…originally that is.
Luckily, most of those who I watch who talk about how many books they read are not bragging or saying people have to read that many books. They’re simply sharing what they read and many times I like what they’ve read so I had them to my list of “need to read” books.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Recently Finished
Murder, She Wrote: A Slaying in Savannah by Donald Bain and “Jessica B. Fletcher”. I wasn’t sure I was going to like this one when I started it but I ended up liking it quite a bit.
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 for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
I am also reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, and The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink, The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham. I’m reading whichever one I am in the mood for that day or night.
Up Soon
I will be starting Endless Night by Agatha Christie, The Two Mrs. Abbott’s by D.E. Stevenson, and Nancy Drew: The Mystery of the Moss Covered Mansion.
What The Family is Reading
Little Miss and I are reading Rascal by Sterling North and started The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink together.
New arrivals to my bookshelf
I added three more Tommy and Tuppence books to my shelves last week: Partners in Crime, N or M?, and the first book in their series, The Secret Adversary.
My husband also picked me up two newer Nancy Drew books at a local fair.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week I watched a couple episodes of The Hardy Boys from the 1970s. This was after they dropped Nancy Drew from the show.
I also watched Son of Fury with George Sanders and Tyrone Power and started Cactus Flower with Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman, and Goldie Hawn but didn’t finish it before it went off Amazon Prime and now I’m not really sure I want to pay to rent it. It wasn’t really something I was enjoying that much.
I also enjoyed this short video that featured an interview with Miss Read (real name Dora Saint):
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?
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/
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
I’m not someone who follows a ton of celebrities closely but this week was quite a week for deaths so it was hard not to pay attention.
Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, and Peter Cullen are the three deaths I am referring to.
I’m sure almost all of you knew who Dolly Parton was and even Tim Curry (you might not have realized you knew Tim until you saw a list of the various movies he was in and roles he played), but you may be asking yourself … who was Peter Cullen?
You may not think you know who he is, but I bet you have heard his voice. He was the voice of Optimus Prime from the animated Transformer series for 40 years as well as the voice of Eeyore on The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and many other animated or robot characters.
He was the voice of Kit, the car on Knight Rider, and Predator, the Red Skull…the list goes on.
So when it came to which death hit this family harder this week, it was probably Peter Cullen, even though we were also fans of Tim Curry and somewhat of Dolly. No shade on Dolly because — wow — she was an amazing person who never slowed down, but Peter was tied tightly to my and my husband’s childhood and our son’s.
I cried over Dolly videos all week (her nephew’s announcement .. ooof… so classy and respectful and heartbreaking), but I didn’t have as much time to process Peter’s death because I was a little busy the second half of the week. Friday night, though, I watched a video that used his voice talking about how his brother who was a Marine in Vietnam, inspired the voice of Optimus Prime, and then I was a bawling mess again.
I watched Transformers with some friends when we were kids back in the 1980s and then again with my son when he was a kid. Friday night we sat and watched a few old Transformer episodes in his honor. During them my son did have to point out how a new character was introduced every episode just so the toy company could release a new toy, but I put that out of my mind and focused on my and his childhood memories instead.
All of these celebrity deaths coupled with the death of my cat a couple of weeks ago and a friend cleaning out her mom’s apartment after her mom’s passing had me crying a lot BUT some of it felt good and necessary under the circumstances.
Please keep praying for my friend. If you are a regular on this blog I am sure you know who I am talking about. The grief doesn’t ever really go away and I pray for comfort for her in the days ahead.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Recently Finished
I finished my Nancy Drew book last week and, well, it was not my favorite. I know they are kids books but The Mystery of The Brass Bound Trunk just was not very good.
It had so many plot holes and craziness in it. I wonder if the original (since this was a revised version) was better. I will have to look for it for my Nancy Drew November.
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 for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also slow reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
I jumped into a Murder, She Wrote book — A Slaying in Savannah — by Donald Bain even before I finished the Nancy Drew book and it’s okay but a little slow. The Murder, She Wrote books are usually a bit slow but this one seems even more drawn out, maybe because it is taking place in the south? I have no idea. It’s not bad, though, and I do like books that take a leisurely stroll at times so I would still recommend it.
I’m also reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, which is a lot of fun. I haven’t read it since I was about 12.
I started The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham as well, to see how I liked it, and I think it will be interesting. It’s the first book in the Albert Campion series.
Up Soon
I’ve already made my list of hopefuls for Autumn 2026 and after these books I think I will start with The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink for September. It is a children’s mystery book and I will probably read it with Little Miss.
I also hope to read The Two Mrs. Abbotts by D.E. Stevenson in September and I will be reading three Agatha Christie books for the Christie reading challenge — Endless Night, Sleeping Murder, and The Secret Adversary.
What The Family is Reading
Little Miss and I finally finished Heidi and are starting Rascal by Sterling North this week.
The boy is listening to a Warhammer book.
The Husband is reading The Bridges of Toko-Ri by James Michener.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week we watched some Transformers episodes in honor of Peter Cullen.
I also watched The Maltese Falcon and I must have watched something else but I can’t remember right now! Ha! Gott a love thyroid brain fog.
I am listening to The Maine Mutiny (A Murder, She Wrote book) by Donald Baine.
My son came home with a record of Englebert Humperdink from the local thrift store and, for some reason, was very excited about it, so we listened to one of his songs and then I made my son listen to Tom Jones. We watched Tom performing “It’s Not Unsual” on Ed Sullivan too and I still wonder why they let that man have a seizure on live TV and didn’t help him.
But luckily he survived it because have you seen this man sing lately? He’s a judge on The Voice UK and even at 85, he’s still got it. This aired this week but is probably from a few months ago.
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?
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/
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
I debated whether I wanted to write about this week, or even at all, but since I had shared off and on since April or May about our cats and their various illnesses, I thought I would mention that our oldest cat, Pixel, was put to sleep last Sunday.
The reason I didn’t want to write about it is that it is just too difficult to do so. Sometimes I want to believe it is a nightmare I will wake up from at some point.
The short version is that Pixel continued to decline after she became sick in May around the same time our other cats also caught some sort of virus.
We spent about four months battling various ailments or incidents with out cats, starting with the youngest being sprayed by a skunk, getting an eye infection, and then some sort of virus that passed to our middle cat and made her very sick. We had to get antibiotics and other medicine for her because she was only sleeping and not eating and just declining fast. As she started to get better, the oldest cat caught it and before we could get her to the vet, we let her outside to rest under her favorite bush and then she disappeared for three days and four nights.
We thought she was dead and when she returned I imagined some romantic idea that we’d get her well and she’d live another five years.
Sadly, that was not to be and I blame myself for this in some ways so I don’t feel like I can write a lot more about it. My friends and family say I did all I could but I question that and wish I had taken her to a different vet for a second opinion. In the end, the virus most likely attacked her liver, or her inability to eat from the side effects of the virus, led to her decline.
We have had Pixel since early 2017 so it’s been quite an adjustment not to see her in the house, let her out and in, have her climb on my side or chest while I was reading a book at night, lift her to the bathroom sink where she liked to drink from and seeing her every day during my morning bathroom trip when she’d pace infront of me and make little noises to try to get me to pet her even though I was …. Busy.
One day a few months ago I asked her how she’d gotten so fat and where her chin was and I swear she looked at me just like this…slowly turning her head as if to say, “Like you’ve got room to talk, lady.”
She wasn’t a very loud cat so sometimes we wouldn’t even notice she was there ….
But she was there. Always.
And now she’s not.
And that’s very strange, very hard, and, for me, overwhelmingly heartbreaking.
It all just adds to a lot of sadness going on with friends who are losing their human loved ones, which, in most cases, is way more difficult that losing a pet friend (though that is very hard too).
When she wanted to come in from outside she’d look in our kitchen window like this – as if we had kicked her out or something. Don’t mind the dirty glass — it’s for paint water.
So, while my family and I were super sad this week, we tried to find joy, to give ourselves grace when we felt sad and down, and give our other pets a lot of extra love.
Slowly starting school for Little Miss and working on my Gladwynn book helped to distract me and yesterday The Husband took Little Miss and The Boy to a family amusement park about 90 minutes away, which I think helped distract the kids.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Recently Finished
Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson and By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie.
I loved them both for different reasons. Miss Buncle Married because it was relaxing and By The Pricking of My Thumbs because it was horrifyingly thrilling in some parts, but also had some humor spread throughout. It was my first Tommy and Tuppence Mystery and I’ll have a review up later this 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 for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
I’m currently reading a Nancy Drew Mystery — The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk.
I’m also about to start a Murder, She Wrote Mystery: A Slaying in Savannah by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain.
Up Soon
I plan to start The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain in September.
I’ll also be reading Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie for the Christie Reading Challenge 2026 and really hope to read Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham soon as well.
And I can’t wait to order a copy of The Two Mrs. Abbotts by D.E. Stevenson to continue with the Miss Buncle storyline.
What The Family is Reading
Little Miss and I are on the last, very long chapter, of Heidi. She read two chapters on her own this week and I was proud of her because she hasn’t been reading on her own much lately. She’s like me as a kid, I think. I would go through spurts of reading and then do other things, like art, and then come back to reading. She has been drawing a lot lately in a sketchbook I bought her.
We will be starting a book for history/literature this week as school starts but we have not decided which one.
The Boy is listening to a Warhammer book but I forget which one and he’s not downstairs where I can ask him right now.
Warren (aka The Husband) is reading The Bigger They Come by Erle Stanley Gardner.
New arrivals to my bookshelf
I am on a “book-buying ban” this month but still ordered a copy of A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis and Warren bought me a cozy mystery called Midsummer Murder by Rebecca Kelly at a library book sale.
And I may or may not have ordered the remaining copies of the Tommy and Tuppence series by Agatha Christie that will hopefully match the edition I have.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
An episode of Midsomer Murders. We watched an episode from Season 17 Episode 1 and whoa. Most shows jump the track by season 17…not this one. I haven’t watched these in order. My husband watches them more and says they do hold up well throughout all the seasons.
A couple of Murder, She Wrote episodes. Mary Berry 90th birthday episodes.
Movies: Irene and Vernon Castle, Project Hail Mary, Private Detective 62, Lady Killer, Little Caesar, and Ladies They Talk About.
What I’ve Been Writing
I made a lot of progress on the manuscript of Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School this past week.
Maine Mutiny by Donald Bain. It’s a Murder, She Wrote book and I only listen to it when I am driving somewhere but I’m really getting into it so I am going to have to listen to it other times as well.
Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed
Mama (not her real name *wink*) from Mama’s Empty Nest writes the most interesting blog posts about her and her family’s travels around the country. I learn something new every time I read one. Today I am sharing two of her posts, one from this past week, and one from a year ago that she linked to from this week’s post.
I also liked this post about God’s Growing Garden seeing a hummingbird.
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?
I read Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson in July and finished the second book in the trilogy, Miss Buncle Married, this past week.
The first book details Miss Barbara Buncle’s sticky situation that results after she writes a fiction book based on the people in her little English village and that book becomes a best seller.
Before long people in the village begin to recognize themselves and chaos erupts but luckily Barbara has used a pseudonym, so no one knows she wrote the book.
There is a bit of a spoiler to even give the title of the second book, but, yes, Barbara does marry at the end of the first book – hence the title of Miss Buncle Married.
I found the first book, very charming, engaging, and full of humor which is why I wanted to read the second book and continue Barbara’s adventures.
I read the second book in the trilogy with my friend Cat of Cat’s Wire.
In this second book, Miss Buncle is now Mrs. Abbott and is living in a new town. She and her husband, Arthur, are enjoying themselves until they become so popular in the social scene that they get overwhelmed with never having a night off from a party, a dinner, or a game of cards. This prompts them to look for a new house in a new village, and that gives readers a new cast of characters and a new adventure to enjoy.
Here is a quick description from Goodreads: “In this charming follow-up to Miss Buncle’s Book, readers will follow Barbara Buncle’s journey into married life in a new town filled with fascinating neighbors…who may become the subjects of Barbara’s next novel! Miss Buncle may have settled down, but she’s already discovered that married life has done nothing to prevent her from getting into humorous mix-ups and hilarious hijinx. Readers will continue to fall in love with Barbara as she hilariously navigates an exciting new beginning.”
There are misunderstandings and confusion which create hilarious scenes throughout the book. The addition of Arthur and Barbara’s partying and shiftless nephew, Sam, and lecherous artist neighbor creates even more craziness and upheaval throughout the book.
Barbara has essentially retired from writing in this book after all the drama that evolved from her first two books.
She has decided she will no longer write any books. In this book, however, the writing bug bites her again.
In some ways I felt like we got to know the people of the town and their stories more in the first book, but this book provided us with a more intimate look at Barbara herself and how she thinks and her and Arthur’s relationship.
As in the first book, this book also provided a look into Barbara’s writing process, which is also the writing process of many other authors. As a writer myself, I especially enjoyed reading about how Barbara couldn’t avoid writing about her new neighbors, even though she tried not to. There was just something in her that made her feel like she needed to create a fictionalized version of the town and the people in it. When she started writing she became a feral mad woman who couldn’t leave her room until all her ideas were written down. I can relate to this feeling quite a bit.
What’s funny is how often Barbara and Arthur both claim throughout the book that Barbara doesn’t have an imagination, but she creates entire scenarios that jump off the situations involving the people in the village and that’s still imagination to me.
They both claim she doesn’t have an imagination because she has to base her ideas of the situations she experiences or hears about around her but this is ridiculous, of course, because all Barbara needs is a little idea and she’s off. I think that’s a biggest “joke” of the book.
I like both of these books individually but I love them even more as a whole story, read back-to back. Miss Buncle Married feels more like a continuation of the first book, as it should, rather than a separate book and I am glad to have that because I did want to read more about Miss Buncle.
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You can find my book reviews, movie reviews, and ramblings about the books I write on Instagram.
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.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
My mom turned 82 this past week and that morning I called to wish her a happy birthday. I did that but then my dad got on the phone to ask my something and let me know he and my mom had been up until 2:30 that morning watching Crocodile Dundee and cooking hamburgers.
My parents are not super active anymore since my mom is unable to get around well and mainly sits in her chair and Dad has Parkinson’s so hearing that they were partying all night and eating hamburgers at midnight just cracked me up.
On Mom’s birthday the kids and I went over for dinner, and Little Miss made her a watermelon and berry “cake” because Mom doesn’t eat sweets very much anymore (not diabetic) and never was a big fan of cake.
This week we were told our cat is dying – which seems to be something our vet didn’t make clear at the last visit. When we tried to get her an appointment Friday, they told us she was dying and there was nothing more they could do for her so refused to set one up until she needs to be euthanized. At first, I understood the conversation but as the days went on, I found myself pretty disgusted with the vet not wanting to help our cat as much as they could.
They gave us medicine for her before but this time wouldn’t even check her to see if it had helped at all. My son called to try to persuade them to see her one more time and they refused again. He said they spoke to him like he was 12 instead of almost 20. This sounds petty but if we do get to the point of having to euthanize her, I’ve decided I won’t give them money to do it. We will take her somewhere else, which is hard to do in this area where vets are limited.
(Edit: I contacted the vet the day after I wrote this and they offered to refill the medicine she was on before. To shorten the story, I’ll just say I received an apology for them not offering to refill her medicine before and they also said we could take her to a higher end clinic to have imaging done and determine why she is having liver issues. I don’t think we need to do that because her liver only became an issue after she contracted a virus. We worked things out, in other words. Also, we are not sure the medicine will work. It might be too late, but at least we gave it one last try.)
Before I move on, I do want to mention that my friend Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs lost her mom this past week. If you could remember her and her family in your prayers that would be appreciated.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
I finished Celia’s House by D.E. Stevenson this past week and wasn’t a big fan. It was okay and after talking to a friend about it, I understand the style more but still didn’t enjoy it as much as the Miss Buncle series I am in the middle of now.
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 for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
I’m still reading Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson. I’m liking this one a lot.
I’m also reading a Nancy Drew book — Mystery of the Brassbound Trunk by Carolyn Keene.
Up Soon
Later this week I hope to start By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie for the Christie Reading Challenge.
I’m not really sure what I will read the rest of the month, but would love to squeeze The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in before the end of the summer.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week I watched The Big Sleep, A Scandal in Paris, and Footsteps in the Dark.
I also started watching the episodes of Mary Berry’s show about her 90th birthday, which was last year.
Because I have watched so many Jack Lemmon films lately, and have watched more over the last year than I realized, I will probably be switching things up and doing an Autumn of Jack for Fall and moving Jimmy Stewart movies to winter.
What I’ve Been Writing
I made some progress and a major decision this week for my fourth Gladwynn Grant book. It will help me move forward on the story.
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?
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/
I’m not sure why I got it in my head that I wanted to read John Steinbeck’s nonfiction book Travels with Charley in Search of America this summer since I have only read two only other small works of his and that was many years ago. I guess I thought it would help me get to know the man whose books I wanted to read in the future.
It is true I have not read Steinbeck’s “big works” — East of Eden or Grapes of Wrath but I did read Of Mice and Men and The Pearl in high school…or college. I can’t remember which now. High school was Of Mice and Men and The Pearl was college.
I think.
I don’t know!
I’m old.
Leave me alone!
Anyhow, because I didn’t read a lot of him, in my head I always thought of him as the guy I had to read in high school who had all those run-on sentences. In reality, I realized recently, it was William Faulkner who had all the run-on sentences and I don’t remember minding them when I had to read excerpts of his work.
I did get to know about Steinbeck during this book and learn what an amazing writer he is.
When I finished this book, I was actually a bit sad because I missed curling up in bed at night and reading a chapter or two before I went to sleep, which is something I did for about a month; reading and adding annotation tabs on quotes I wanted to read one again later or share with others.
Steinbeck had a special camper made for him and his dog Charley for a 1960 road trip that he wrote about in the book released in 1962. He named the camper Rocinante after Don Quixote’s horse and traveled from Long Island, N.Y., along the outer border of the United States from Maine to the Pacific Northwest, down to Salina Valley in California (where he grew up), across Texas, through the deep South and back to New York.
There were stops in Chicago, California, and Texas, where he met up with his wife (his final and third) and/or family/friends. He didn’t go into a ton of details about those visits, other than the one in Texas where his use of the word “orgy” had me looking up the various definitions of the word. It was not the definition I thought it was. It just meant a several-day party with friends and booze.
In my opinion, the last few chapters of the book were among the most impactful with him learning first hand about Americans and what makes them tick when he drove to New Orleans and decided to watch the circus that surrounded US marshals walking young black girls into white schools.
Before that much of the book was more like a history and geography lesson with some interesting tidbits thrown in about Steinbeck and the relationship to his dog Charley.
Don’t get me wrong, all of the early stories were good as well. Steinbeck had very serious and deep observations about people, places and other events throughout his journey, but he became the most descriptive when he wrote about the nausea that overcame him while watching racist, demonic women scream at small black children, as the children were walked into schools that the states made them go to during desegregation.
He wanted to see a group of women called “the cheerleaders.” These white women would gather with other whites from town and scream obscenities at the little black children being ushered into the schools the state was requiring them to attend to end the racism of segregation. Most in the town, the state of Lousiana, and the country, seemed to see these women as some kind of heroes.
Steinbeck saw them as something much more evil.
“No newspaper had printed the words these women shouted. It was indicated that they were indelicate, some even said obscene. On television, the soundtrack was made to blur or had crowd noises cut to cover. But now I heard the words, bestial and filthy and degenerate. And along and unprotected life I’ve have seen and heard the vomiting of demonic humans before why then these screams fill me with a shocked and sick sorrow?
The words written down are dirty, carefully and selected filthy. But there was something far worse here than dirt, a kind of frightening witches’ Sabbath. Here was no spontaneous cry of anger, of insane rage. Perhaps that is what made me sick with weary nausea. Here was no principle good or bad, no direction.
These blowzy women, with their little hats and their clippings, hungered for attention. They wanted to be admired. They simpered in happy, almost innocent triumph when they were applauded. Theirs was the demented cruelty of egocentric children, and somehow this made their insensate beastliness much more heart-breaking. These were not mothers, not even women. They were crazy actors playing to a crazy audience.”
Steinbeck said he had a hard time understanding racism because when he grew up he lived in a town where the most talented, prominent, and kindest people was an African-American family that the entire town, white and black, looked up to.
Before this part of the book, Steinbeck wrote a lot about how unfriendly the country had become and that struck me because I thought this disconnect Americans had started developing with their fellow man had started much later, like the late 1990s and early 2000s.
There were so many well written passages and quotable sentences in this book, many focusing on the desire of Steinbeck, and he believed, most members of mankind, especially Americans, to love the idea of traveling, progressing, going somewhere new.
“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don’t improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself.”
I’m glad I read this book before I read Steinbeck’s deeper or more acclaimed works. I was able to learn more about what Steinbeck felt was important in life – what virtues and morals he grew up with (even if he didn’t always practice them) and how they shaped his thinking about how the world should be even when it wasn’t.
“We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.”
Let me know if you have read this book or other Steinbeck works and I’ll leave you with a few more quotes from the book that I enjoyed or that made me think because they made me so uncomfortable.
“ I think today if we forbade our illiterate children to touch the wonderful things of our literature, perhaps they might steal them and find secret joy.”
***
“I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study and the passionate possession of all Texans.”
***
“Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins, the so-called packaging we love so much. The mountains of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use. In this, if in no other way, we can see the wild and reckless exuberance of our production, and waste seems to be the index. Driving along I thought how in France or Italy every item of these thrown-out things would have been saved and used for something. This is not said in criticism of one system or the other but I do wonder whether there will come a time when we can no longer afford our wastefulness—chemical wastes in the rivers, metal wastes everywhere, and atomic wastes buried deep in the earth or sunk in sea. When an Indian village became too deep in its own filth, the inhabitants moved. And we have no place to which to move.”
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
My husband has been rehearsing for a couple of months now for a community theater production of Little Shop of Horrors and yesterday the kids and I were able to see the result of his and the cast and crew’s hard work.
He did an amazing job as Mr. Mushnik, the shop owner, if you are familiar with the play/movie.
Everyone else did as well. The singing, acting, the effects, and the Audrey II puppet made by a local college student. Most of the cast were college age, except for my husband.
This was the play version so the ending was quite different than the movie ending (different = sadder), but it was …. Sort of okay.
I got attached to the girl who played Audrey and, let’s just say, I shouldn’t have.
The girl who played Audrey is so talented.
You can see her performance (complete with my horrible videography) here:
And I hope my husband doesn’t mind but here he is performing his song, which he was so nervous about doing.
This is now the fourth or fifth production he’s done with the local theater group and he gets better every time.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
I finished Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck earlier in the week and will have a review for it later this week.
I enjoyed it and thought the last two or three chapters when he was down South witnessing the desegregation of schools was the most well written and interesting of the whole 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 for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
I am reading two D.E. Stevenson books right now — Celia’s House and Miss Buncle Married.
I am doing a buddy read of Miss Buncle Married with Cat from Cat’s Wire.
Miss Buncle Married is the sequel to Miss Buncle’s Book, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I’m focusing on these two books only for now and expect to have Celia’s House finished halfway through this week.
Up Soon
I’ll be reading By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie after I finish the Stevenson books, for the August pick for the 2026 Christie Reading Challenge.
What The Family is Reading
The Husband is reading Tell Me What You Did by Carter Wilson.
The Boy is listening to The Flight of the Eisenstein by James Swallow.
Little Miss and I … well, still reading Heidi because we’ve been distracted by other summer things. I hope to have it finished this week so we can jump into our reads for school, which I am starting in two weeks.
New arrivals to my bookshelf
Recently, I added Cagney on Cagney by …. yes, James Cagney, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Steveson, Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Moss Covered Mansion,Nancy Drew: The Message in the Hollow Oak, and Murder, She Wrote: The Queens Jewels by Donald Baine (and Jessica Fletcher).
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week I watched a few movies including: Without Love (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy), The Mark of Zorro, It Should Happen to You with Jack Lemmon and Judy Holliday, Love Crazy (Myrna Loy and William Powell), The Fortune Cookie, and Little Shop of Horrors (1986).
What I’ve Been Writing
I worked on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School this week and was able to write quite a bit! I’m excited to keep moving forward on it.
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?
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/
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
With cooler weather coming in this week, it almost feels like autumn in summer, which stinks for some, but has been so welcome for me. When it is super warm out I like to turn the AC up high for a while and get a blanket and pretend it is autumn already.
The week before last the heat wave, combined with wildfire smoke from Canada, plus some life stress, made me very sick, which is why the cooler temps are such a welcome respite for me.
Luckily it has been still warm enough during the day that we can take our daughter swimming at the YMCA, which is about a half an hour north.
Last Sunday I took her to their outside pool for the first time. I don’t do super well in direct sunlight but they had thin fabric covers over the tables and it was very nice. The Husband has taken her before, but I had never been there. It’s a nice set up and I’m shocked I’ve lived my whole life in the area and never been there. This is one of those old concrete pools and is probably 60 years old.
Little Miss and her friend both took a test to allow them to swim in the deeper part of the pool and were very proud of themselves. I was too.
It wasn’t a super warm day so the pool wasn’t overly crowded either.
The rest of this past week was fairly uneventful.
I started planning for Little Miss’s upcoming school year, visited my parents a couple of times, and picked up groceries from the Aldi pick up on Friday.
Yesterday was a mostly relaxing day with some worrying about aforementioned homeschool year, overthinking the fact that young people today are reading less and therefore not being exposed to the more eloquent and poetic writing of classic literature, watching The Mark of Zorro, reading a bit of my John Steinbeck book, and cooking a self-created combination dish of turkey bacon, brussels sprouts, onions, and sweet peppers.
Rain is being called for almost every day this upcoming week. We do not have any grand plans for the week other than watching Warren (yes, that is The Husband’s real name) in a community play version of Little Shop of Horrors this weekend. After reminding myself of the difference between the play and the 1986 movie, I think I’ll probably leave Little Miss with her friend or my parents.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
Last week I finished Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie for the July book for the Christie Reading Challenge for 2026. It was very good and I’ll share a review of it soon.
I was supposed to read The Rose and the Yew Tree by Mary Westmacott, which was Christie’s pen name, but I just couldn’t get through it. I was terribly dull. I feel like I want to know the ending (as I mentioned last week) so I think I might pick it up again in August and just finish it up.
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 for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
Right now I am reading Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. It is a non-fiction about his traveling across the country in a camper in 1961 with his dog to learn more about the people of the United States. I’m enjoying it and will finish it this week.
I am also reading Celia’s House by D.E. Stevenson before bed. It’s a very relaxed, gentle read so far. It is the story of a woman named Celia who is in her 90s, getting ready to pass, and tells her nephew she wants him to have her house and pass it on to a future daughter of his that she wants him to name Celia.
Up Soon
I will be reading By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie for the August read for the Christie Reading Challenge.
I ordered a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain because I have been determined to read it again for the first time since I was a kid.
I’ve also ordered a copy of Mrs. Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson, which his a sequel to Miss Buncle’s Book.
What The Family is Reading
The Boy is listening to False Gods by Graham McNeal.
Little Miss and I are going to finish Heidi this week.
Warren is reading The Committee Chairs by James Mishner.
New arrivals to my bookshelf
no new arrivals
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week, I watched the movies The Mark of Zorro (with Tyrone Powers), Without Love (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy), Witness to Murder (with Barbara Stanwyck and George Sanders), and Singing in the Rain (which I watched with my daughter for the first time. The first for her, not me, of course).
What I’ve Been Writing
This week on the blog I shared very little actually!
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?
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/
