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. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
Right before I hit post on that post, everything I wrote about having a relaxing Saturday afternoon was blown to smithereens when my husband called to tell me he was parked along the road because smoke and flames had been pouring from his right front tire while he was on his way to work 45 minutes away. He had gotten about 20 minutes away when he called me. He had to call 911 and I came back to edit that this will most likely not be an easy fix, sadly. It looks like a major injury to the truck my daughter has named Methuselah after an alligator character on a kid’s radio drama that we listen to.
My dad and I drove up so The Husband could take a car and continue on to work and then Dad and I waited for the tow truck. It was a cold, rainy, and windy day and I was glad that we didn’t have to wait long. Sadly, though, my relaxing afternoon was gone.
At least I was able to see a pretty view while I waited. The building below is where my son goes to school.
I was able to salvage some of the day by going home and watching a movie with The Boy. He groaned when I made him watch The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth, but he started to like it after a half hour or so. I mean, he played a game on his phone through most of it so he sort of paid attention. He did, however, tell me this movie choice was a reason why I never get to pick movies for movie nights.
What I/we’ve been Reading
I’ve been reading a lot of cozy mysteries and have a lot on my upcoming reading lists.
Currently:
Murder Always Barks Twice by Jennifer Hawkins
The Deeds of the Deceitful by Ellery Adams and Tina Radcliffe
Listening to Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne with The Boy
Reading The Secret Garden with Little Miss
Just Finished:
The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts by Lilian Jackson Braun
The Mystery at Lilac Inn by Carolyn Keene
Soon/Eventually to be read:
The Women of Wyntons by Donna Mumma
The Real James Herriott: A Memoir of My Father by Jim Wight
Apple Cider Slaying by Julie Anne Lindsey
Death At A Scottish Christmas by Lucy Connelly
What We watched/are Watching
Last week The Boy and I watched Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings.
He and his sister also watched the first Harry Potter movie and I watched a little with them.
Last night, as I mentioned, we watched The King’s Speech.
I also watched an episode of All Creatures Great and Small this past week.
I found a new vlogger who I really enjoy and have enjoyed her book recommendations:
What I’m Writing
Cassie is with my editor and I’ve started on book three in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series. The title is Gladwynn Grant Shook the Family Tree and I am excited to tell you all about it more in the future.
What I’m Listening to
I am listening to Around the World in 80 Days. Music wise I’ve been listening to Ellie Holcomb lately.
Photos from Last Week
I don’t have a ton of photos from last week but here are a few:
Now it’s your turn
Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
Did you ever feel like you are the outside looking in?
I’ve felt this a lot but specifically, I am talking about people who have read classic books like Little Women and I haven’t, or well hadn’t.
After reading Little Women this year I finally feel like I know what everyone is talking about when it comes to Jo and Laurie.
Finally!
I mean I have seen movies based on the book but only by reading the book did I really get why Jo and Laurie simply couldn’t be together at the end. They were too much alike. Both impulsive and passionate in ways that weren’t always good. Yes, as they grew they could have changed and mellowed but I can’t see that happening really. I think as they grew older they may have bounced off each other even more and ended up arguing all of the time, making for a miserable marriage.
They both needed partners to offset their personalities.
Jo needed someone more calming like The Professor and Laurie needed someone willing to be more genteel like Amy.
Part of me still doesn’t like that Amy and Laurie ended up together. My heart says it wasn’t right, but I can also see why Alcott didn’t make Jo and Laurie a couple. She needed to do something different – shake up the readers’ expectations and leave everyone talking for the next hundred or so years. If Laurie and Jo had ended up together then Little Women would have always been seen as a sweet book but maybe not the one ahead of its time that it is now.
What do you think? *looking at those who have read Little Women with a wide-eyed, somewhat crazed expression*
Relaxing breath.
Okay. With that off my chest, we can now move on to our regularly scheduled program of me reviewing my past week.
Today I am going to be sipping something warm – most likely tea – while writing blog posts, brainstorming more ideas for Gladwynn Shakes the Family Tree (book three in my cozy mystery series), and reading a cozy mystery. It’s a little chilly today after some very nice and warm days earlier in the week.
We had warm days and cold nights. Warm enough that our tulips came up and I thought one night they’d die in the frost we had forecasted, but they survived.
Next week I need to prepare myself to be at the playground a lot because it is supposed to be warm and sunny pretty much all week.
We spent time at the playground three days this week and a lot of time outside sitting on the porch and playing with the dog on other days.
In between all of that, we had school lessons as we marched toward the end of our school year. We will be finishing up around the first week of June.
I picked The Boy up from his trade school yesterday and we headed over to an additional location for a bakery near us that has become very, very popular before picking up our groceries.
The kids picked out some sweet treats – two Boston cream donuts for The Boy and three Oreo cupcakes for Little Miss (and an extra for dad) and three Hershey kiss cookies for me. The Boy also ordered an iced coffee but, sadly, said it had more ice than coffee. It was still good, though, he said and he will try again for one another time. He said he actually doesn’t like coffee that much but always feels like he should so he keeps ordering different kinds to see if the love for it will finally catch on.
There was a mix up at our pick up when the young man who brought out my groceries gave me two or three bags that were not mine.
I’m so glad I checked before I left because more than half my order was missing. He had grabbed the wrong stack of bags. I had to go into the store and track him down when I noticed the mistake. When he came out to the car to help correct, I let him know that I’m not in diapers yet so the one bag clearly wasn’t supposed to go me.
He was very polite and apologetic and the mistake was taken care of very quickly.
After we left there it was a quick snack from Wendy’s, which my son said was disgusting.
From there we headed home and the kids spent part of the afternoon watching Harry Potter and then a half hour at the playground.
Today The Husband has to work almost the entire day so it will be just me and the kids. We will probably watch a movie together later tonight – I’m trying to find something different that The Boy might like. He always suggests the weirdest movies so this time he’s going to watch something that I like.
Tomorrow we will visit my parents for Sunday lunch and to hang out. Little Miss likes to play games when we are there but I’m hoping that this time we can watch a fun or interesting movie instead.
This morning I spent some time crying over Tom Jones singing on The Voice. I never knew much about Tom Jones until I saw some clips on the UK version of The Voice and oh my. He is still amazing and he’s in his 80s! Just what?!
Here are a couple clips I just loved listening to while I procrastinated on cleaning the house and organizing my homeschooling supplies:
How was your week last week? Let me know in the comments and if you have a similar weekly catch-up post – no matter when you post it – link up with me.
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. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
I wrote about what’s been going on in yesterday’s post so I won’t repeat it. You can pop over to that post if you want to catch up.
What I/we’ve been Reading
Currently:
I was looking for a comfort read last week and looked to see if I had any The Cat Who books on Kindle that I hadn’t read yet. I ended up finding one – The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts – and I think I never read it because I started it and it started in first person and I am used to the books in the series being in third person so I put it aside. The POV actually switches back to the third person and so far has been one of my favorite books, even though one of my favorite characters was killed off. There are some very funny lines in it and more of Qwill’s personality of being wary around children and women who talk to their pets like children.
I absolutely laughed out loud at these parts:
Before he could reply with a stiff “How do you do,” the parents had spotted the Lanspeaks and descended on them, leaving him with Baby. She looked up in wonder at his moustache and said in her clear, precise speech, “What’s that thing on your face?”
“That’s my nose,” said Qwilleran. “Doesn’t your father have a nose?”
“Yes, he has a nose.”
“How about your mother? Does she have a nose?”
“Everybody has a nose,” said Baby with disdain, as if dealing with a dolt.
“Then you should recognize a nose when you see one.”
Baby was not fazed by his evasive logic. “Where do you work?” she asked.
And
All of this he could understand, and he could handle it, but her gushing over the kitten was more than he could stomach. There would be no more relaxing country weekends at Polly’s cottage with just the two of them— reading Shakespeare aloud and playing music—not while Bootsie diffused her attention. Bootsie! It was a vile name for a Siamese, Qwilleran insisted.”
Qwill can be such an elitist and in his case I love it.
I’m also reading The Secret Garden but I’ve paused my own reading of it and have started reading it with Little Miss. So far she’s really enjoying it.
I started The Deeds of the Deceitful by Ellery Adams and Tina Radcliff as well. I just started it but it’s okay so far.
Just Finished:
Last week I finished The Divine Proverb of the Streusel by Sara Brunsvold and I really enjoyed it. I will have a review of it up next week.
Soon to be read:
Murder Always Barks Twice by Jennifer Hawkins
Death At A Scottish Christmas by Lucy Connelly
What We watched/are Watching
This week I watched some Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, All Creatures Great and Small, and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
What I’m Writing
I am working on the latest Gladwynn Grant mystery and having fun trying to figure out what direction I want to take the story. I’m hoping for a subplot related to Gladwynn’s ancestors.
I let my daughter in on the brainstorming and she suggested that someone in the Grant family line be an assassin. I was a bit stunned since I write cozy, light mysteries and told her that.
Then The Boy got in on the action and suggested that her ancestors be involved in human trafficking.
Needless to say, I will not be taking any more advice from my children.
This week I also announced that Cassie, the book that is part of the Apron Strings Book Series is up for pre-order. You can find it HERE.
Here is a description: One cookbook connects them all… Cassie ~ Book Eight in a string of heartfelt inspirational stories, featuring different women throughout the decades from 1920 to 2020.
Cassie Drake starred in a popular sitcom over a decade ago, but she hasn’t been able to find a job since the show ended five years ago.
Now it’s 1995 and fired by her talent agency, Cassie decides to accept her sister’s offer for an extended visit in their hometown. Back in Coopers Grove, she’s just Cassie Mason, sister to Bridget Martin, the local volunteer extraordinaire with the handsome husband and three wonderful children.
When an accident at the site for the Martin family’s new café and farm store leaves Bridget frantic for help with the community center open house she’s planning, Cassie feels forced to step up—even though it involves something she’s clueless about.
Cooking.
Even with Mrs. Canfield’s Cookery Book, Cassie fails at every attempt. Fortunately, her sister’s handsome neighbor, Alec Alderson, steps in.
As a former chef, he’s more than capable of giving her some tips. Will his charming smile during cooking lessons be too distracting though?
Watching others use their talents leaves Cassie wondering if God, whom she’s barely spoken to in the last few years, is telling her she was made for more than the career that became her identity.
I am currently listening to Watership Down and Around the World in 80 Days on Audible.
For music, I am listening to a variety of artists from Needtobreathe to early Mumford and Sons, The Civil Wars, and Danny Gokey.
Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
She’s here! Cassie’s cover is done and she’s ready to be pre-ordered. Okay, that sounded weird, but Cassie’s book is up for pre-order.
Cassie is book eight in the series and takes place in the 1990s.
If you’re curious what her story will be about, here is a quick description:
Cassie Drake starred in a popular sitcom over a decade ago, but she hasn’t been able to find a job since the show ended five years ago.
Now it’s 1995 and fired by her talent agency, Cassie decides to accept her sister’s offer for an extended visit in their hometown. Back in Coopers Grove, she’s just Cassie Mason, sister to Bridget Martin, the local volunteer extraordinaire with the handsome husband and three wonderful children.
When an accident at the site for the Martin family’s new café and farm store leaves Bridget frantic for help with the community center open house she’s planning, Cassie feels forced to step up—even though it involves something she’s clueless about.
Cooking.
Even with Mrs. Canfield’s Cookery Book, Cassie fails at every attempt. Fortunately, her sister’s handsome neighbor, Alec Alderson, steps in.
As a former chef, he’s more than capable of giving her some tips. Will his charming smile during cooking lessons be too distracting though?
Watching others use their talents leaves Cassie wondering if God, whom she’s barely spoken to in the last few years, is telling her she was made for more than the career that became her identity.
Is it just me or is it sort of weird and a bit sad that most of the classic romance authors of the 18th century never actually married?
Jane Austen?
Never married.
Emily and Anne Bronte?
Nope.
In fact, they died so young they never even had a chance to really have much of a life or enjoy their success in writing.
Yet all three women wrote about romance as if they knew all about it. I’m sure there are other classic romance authors who never married or had deep relationships either.
Of course, all three women may have known about romance and love even though they didn’t marry so it’s not like I believe you have to be married to fully understand love.
Also, before I get too into the topic of this post, let me explain a few things about my relationship with romances.
I’ve never been one to exclusively read or watch romances. I like romances but they aren’t my go-to genre.
I am a fan of romantic themes in a movie but strict romances often seem formulaic to me and I quickly lose interest – especially when it comes to books. This doesn’t mean I never watch or read romances. I certainly do. I get as giddy as the next girl when a couple finally professes their love to each other after pages and pages or two hours of dancing around their feelings.
At the same time, all the back and forth looks and touches and misunderstandings, etc. just get old to me at times, if not written or produced well. Listen, I’ve written four romances so I am in no way knocking romance stories, books, or movies.
My romances, however, have storylines in addition to the romance and I like books and movies that are similar. If I’m going to be honest, the idea of “keeping within the writing rules for a romance” became too much for me by book four and I decided I needed to write in a different genre – one that I read more of – cozy mysteries or mysteries in general. I will, however, be writing a book five of that series because I need to wrap up one character’s story. (Hello, Alex Stone, you’re getting your own book.)
One reason I don’t like reading a lot of romance is that I feel – and please read those words I feel again so you remember that this is an opinion — that they can create unrealistic expectations of love and romance for women and men, whether they want to admit it or not.
Some readers of romance books will say they don’t really believe that real-life love has to be the way it is written in the books but I feel that the idea of what romance should be is being subconsciously ingrained into their mind and many times they may judge their own lives on those books.
Thoughts like, “I know those books aren’t real life but if only my husband thought to bring me flowers like Patrick did in …” could creep in without them (us) even realizing it. Yes, even I have fallen prey to this way of thinking at times.
Now, even with all that being said, I don’t think all romance readers are this way. Sometimes they simply want a happy escape from life. They know the books aren’t realistic, but they are an idea of how life could be for them or others.
I also feel odd reading books that don’t have any romance at all in them. I like when a book has a romantic aspect to it – like a mystery with an underlying love story, so I am not, in any way, bashing romance itself or even strict romance books. There are some really good ones out there. I don’t endorse romance books with “smut” in them, of course, because that’s where the real unrealistic expectations of love lives set in.
One thing I’ve been noticing lately, though, is how at least three of the authors we consider the “founders” of romance books never married.
Does this make them frauds? No, I don’t think so.
Does it make them less reliable sources for the idea of romance? I don’t think so either.
I often wonder how hard it was for these women not to marry and have children, dreams they seem to have had and wrote about in their books. Though maybe it was just their characters that had these dreams of romance and marriage.
An amateur sketch of Jane by Cassandra Austen, Jane’s sister.
Jane Austen wrote about romance and how to find romance in books such as Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, but she herself never married. There are different theories as to why and one of those theories is that she knew how to write about broken hearts because she absolutely had one.
Historians know from letters that Jane was proposed to once and she accepted it but then withdrew that acceptance a day later.
I wrote a bit about Jane’s love life in January when I wrote a review of the movie Miss Austen Regrets, which is very loosely based on letters between Jane and her sister Cassandra and her niece Fanny.
In that blog post, I mentioned that we don’t know a lot about Jane’s personal life because her sister burned tons of letters Jane sent to her. Some historians believe Jane wrote thousands of letters to her sister Cassandra over the years, but in the end, only about 150 survived and many of those were redacted or cut apart to keep certain information out of the public eye.
Some historians also surmise that Cassandra wanted to protect the privacy of her sister. Jane was known to be very blunt and straightforward in her commentary and it is possible she was a bit opinionated about some in the family or others the family knew. Cassandra didn’t want people to see those comments. Or she might have wanted to protect Jane’s love life from a curious family and public.
Either way, some vital information that would have shed even more light on who Jane was in her personal life is no longer available.
Some of those bits of information would have been about her love life – like if she really was going to marry Rev. Brooks Edward Bridges, who is mentioned in Miss Austen Regrets, or Tom LeFroy who is mentioned in her letters (and other movies).
According to an article on the Jane Austen Society website, in 1805 during a visit to Godmersham, Edward Austen’s estate in Kent, Austen wrote to her sister Cassandra: “[W]e could not begin dinner till six. We were agreeably surprised by Edward Bridges’s company to it. . . . It is impossible to do justice to the hospitality of his attentions towards me; he made a point of ordering toasted cheese for supper entirely on my account.”
While there are some who believe Bridges did propose to Jane and she may have turned him down, there is no evidence of this happening, mainly because of the above mentioned burning of the letters. Jane did, however, turn down an offer of marriage from the rich brother of a friend in 1802. She accepted, then rejected in one days time.
Someone else historians would like to know more about is Tom LeFroy who Jane was said to have flirted with quite often in her 20s. While some say Tom may have broken her heart at one point, some historians say they don’t believe so based on the lighthearted tones of letters she wrote to Cassandra that mentioned Tom.
Jane met Tom, an Irishman, in 1795 when he was studying law in London. They attended several balls and dances together but then he went back to law school and she went back to writing.
“We don’t even know if Jane wanted to marry, which would almost certainly have meant giving up any chance to be a writer,” reads an article on Jane Austen’s House. “She certainly didn’t pursue marriage at all costs, as some of her female characters do. . . Her great love was her writing. Her books were her children – she famously referred to Pride and Prejudice as her ‘darling child’.”
The Bronte sisters also didn’t marry, except Charlotte.
Left: Branwell Bronte’s ‘Pillar’ portrait of the Bronte sisters. It was hidden away and not seen by the public until 1914. Right: The collodion photo which dates from the 1850s. If these are the Bronte sisters then the photo is a copy of an 1840s daguerreotype. (credit: https://brontesisters.co.uk/)
The Bronte sisters are famous for the books: Jane Eyre, Villette, and The Professor by Charlotte, Wuthering Heights by Emily, and Agnes Gray by Anne.
Though she married, Charlotte died without ever having a child leaving no Bronte heir, though there were many who believed she was pregnant at the time of her death. Some historians now believe she died of hyperemesis gravidarum, which causes pregnant women to become very sick and constantly throw up, leading to dehydration and death if not treated.
There are rumors that Charolette’s younger sister Anne was in love with a local curate and he may have felt the same about her, but Emily was never linked to anyone romantically, despite the passion of one of the Bronte sister’s most popular books, Wuthering Heights.
While some base their assumptions that Emily had a romance with someone named William Weighton from a movie loosely based on Emily’s life (it isn’t easy to make a movie about her life that isn’t conjecture since she was a recluse who died at the age of 30), an article on the Digital Spy says that there is more evidence that William and Anne were actually the ones in love with each other.
“William Weightman was a real person, and he really was Patrick Brontë’s curate in the Haworth parish from 1839 until his death from cholera in 1842,” the article states. “He became good friends with all the Brontë siblings, and, in his eulogy, Patrick said he was like a son.”
In a letter to a friend, Charlotte Bronte wrote, “He sits opposite Anne at church sighing softly and looking out of the corners of his eyes to win her affection – and Anne is so quiet, her looks so downcast – they are a picture.”
Some believe that Anne’s best-known novel, Agnes Gray, was written about her feelings for William. She also wrote some very heartbroken poems after his untimely death.
While most reports say the deaths of Emily and Anne and their brother were caused by tuberculosis, some information suggests their deaths were both from the effects of tuberculosis (which claimed two other sisters years before) and a weakened immune system caused by their drinking water being tainted by decomposing bodies from the town cemetery. (Read more about that here and here.)
A drawing of Charlotte said not to do her justice.
Another one of Patrick Bronte’s curates fell for Charlotte Bronte and was married to her for the last nine months of her life, which I find so heartbreaking. Charlotte was 38 when she passed away. Her husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls lived until he was 87 years old. He cared for Patrick Bronte after Charlotte died because she was the last of Patrick’s children. Arthur eventually moved back to Ireland, left the ministry and remarried. There is a lot of debate over whether his marriage to Charlotte was really for love as well as how he handled her estate, including her manuscripts, after her death.
The love affair between him and Charlotte does seem legit, though, from what I’ve read. It almost didn’t happen because Patrick didn’t think a poor Irish curate should be asking his famous author daughter for her hand in marriage. Arthur apparently left the parish at one point because he could not marry Charlotte but continued to meet her in secret. He had originally asked Patrick for Charlotte’s hand in marriage in 1852 but it took Patrick until 1854 to allow them to marry.
Poor Charlotte was dead a year later.
Arthur ended up spending much of his life after her death defending her reputation and dealing with the fallout of it being announced that she was the real author of Jane Eyre. After Patrick died, he took the manuscripts and other personal items of the family and moved back to Ireland.
There is heartache in the stories of many people from the past but for some reason, I always seem to find the heartache of those who wrote about love — and either didn’t find it or found it for only a short amount of time — the saddest stories of all.
Maybe that’s just because as much as I don’t like reading strict romances, I am really a romantic at heart.
No, romantic love is not all that life is about.
There is family and friendship love, experiences like traveling and just having joy with those close to us, and a relationship with nature, wildlife, God, and the overall beauty of the earth.
But when a person writes about love as if they want to experience it or experienced it and lost it — that makes me sad. I hate to think about them missing out on what they wanted so much.
When I was in elementary school, and probably a bit beyond, I would walk down the long driveway toward my home, knowing what waited for me there.
My mom would be in the kitchen, the smell of whatever she was cooking drifting to me as soon as I opened the door. That door opened into a dining room with one of the ugliest green carpets you have ever seen but I didn’t know it was ugly back then. In that room was a large dining room table to my left and in front of me was a dresser with a mirror.
To my right was the living room where our old black and white TV (later it was a color one our grandmother gave us when she got a new one) sat, ready to be turned on so I could flop down in front of it and eat a snack and watch Little House on the Prairie, which would come on around 4 on our local PBS channel. The show was based on the book series of the same name by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the show’s premiere so there has been a lot of talk about it. There was even a three-day festival recently held on the ranch where the show was filmed.
By the time I was watching the show in the mid-1980s, the show had been off the air for about three years so these were all reruns. I found it relaxing to watch a show about people living life in the later 1800s, experiencing life as pioneers on the prairie. I didn’t realize or comprehend some of the harsh conditions and darker storylines until I was older.
I was probably reading the books around the same time I was watching the show, but I can’t remember for sure. I do remember reading the books late into the night, sometimes pulling the covers over my head and using a flashlight to finish a chapter or two or three. They were paperback books that had a paper and ink smell that I credit for igniting my interest in all things printed – including the print media I would work in for almost 15 years.
Sadly we lost my set during our move four years ago and it still breaks my heart. I truly hope we find them packed away in some box somewhere in the house.
I remember Mom standing in my doorway one night on her way to bed saying, “Lisa, I love that you are reading but you’ll have to continue tomorrow because at this rate you’re going to have a very hard time getting up for school in the morning.”
I’m sure that the next morning was rough for me but I was not allowed to stay home because I’d been up late reading. Books later became an escape for me during school, which my introverted self was not a fan of. I read historical fiction throughout most of high school and I’d imagine that was because my first introduction into literature was through Laura’s historically-based books.
The Little House show wasn’t exactly like the books and that was fine with me. It was still fun seeing the characters come to life in a way through Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon and all the other actors.
Watching clips of the recent 50th-anniversary festival on various social media outlets made me feel a type of connection with others who grew up watching the show. I did not, however, know as much about the show or remember as many of the episodes as some of those fans did. I was also not as obsessed as some of them, but, hey, they were having good, clean fun by dressing up as characters and waiting in long lines to get autographs from the actors who played the characters so more power to them.
I remember the earlier episodes the most, maybe because our PBS station only ran certain seasons before starting over again. I watched the rest of the seasons when I got older but remember them not being as magical to me as the earlier seasons.
Once Mary (spoiler alert) lost her eyesight and Laura lost her son in infancy, I started to get depressed and turn it off. It was all based on the true stories of the women, of course, but I still found it heartbreaking to watch. It was no longer the escape I thought I needed.
In real life, as detailed in the books and other historical sources, Mary Ingalls did lose her eyesight. Carolyn and Laura Ingalls both gave birth to baby boys that did not survive and, in fact, none of the Ingalls women could carry boys to term and in some cases they had no children at all.
Dean Butler, who played Almonzo Wilder, Laura’s husband, on the show spearheaded the effort for the festival, along with Alison Arngrim who played the easy-to-hate Nellie Olson.
It was nice to hear that, for the most part, the time filming that show was pleasant for the cast. While the woman who played Carolyn, Karen Grassle, has made some unpleasant accusations against show creator Michael Landon, the cast has still said that their experience filming the show and in the years afterward have been pleasant. Of course, Grassel didn’t have to make accusations about some things – many people know that Landon had an affair with a makeup artist while filming, something that destroyed his marriage. That affair resulted in his third marriage.
Grassel recently said in an interview that she was never able to clear the air, so to speak, with Landon about the issues between them (one large one having to do with Grassel’s lack of a pay raise while filming and another one having to do with jokes Landon would sometimes make on set) but she was able to talk to him before he passed away from pancreatic cancer in 1991 and they were able to get along well without bringing up the past.
What I learned from watching the retrospect of the cast members during the festival held a couple of weeks ago was that even with some of Landon’s failings many in the cast look back on their time on the set as a simpler time in their lives. They look to Landon as a father figure, who was not perfect, but who was still special and important to them.
Even with some hard moments between herself and Landon, I think even Grassel saw her life during those years as somewhat simpler, at least based on some of the memories she shared.
The set was relaxed and joyful and there was a lot of free time for the children to explore and simply be children. They played in the creeks and learned old-fashioned games and values that they carried with them throughout their lives.
Melissa Gilbert and I would not see eye-to-eye these days on some political or social issues, but we would see eye-to-eye on the idea of simple living. She spent many years in Hollywood working her way up the acting ladder, falling prey to the idea that to be happy in life you needed to work hard all of the time and look the way Hollywood said you should look. Now Melissa is in her 60s and she is embracing the simple pleasures of life. She’s let go of looking like a Hollywood starlet and she’s enjoying cooking on her own having a home in the country and just simply stepping away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the world.
She co-runs a company called Modern Prairie and has fully embraced her past identity as the TV version of Laura Ingalls Wilder, even as some in the world want to criticize Wilder for the topics they feel she didn’t handle sensitively enough in her books.
Melissa’s brother Jonathan Gilbert played Willie Olson on the show and for years he didn’t attend fan events or even talk about his time on the show. He walked away from acting and became a stock broker for a few years. Now, though, as he moves through his 50s, he said at the festival that he sees his time on Little House as one of the times when he really feels like he was home.
There was a definite spiritual component to the show, spearheaded by Michael Landon’s faith. Some of you may remember he also developed and produced a show called Highway to Heaven starring himself as an angel who came to earth to help people. Victor French, who played Mr. Edwards on Little House, co-starred on Highway to Heaven with him.
Christianity was the main focus of the spiritual element, which could be seen in many of the episodes but especially the Christmas episodes and a two-parter called The Lord is My Shepherd. This is interesting because Landon was raised Jewish. His father was Jewish and his mother was Christian, but in interviews, he said the Christian holidays he celebrated were mainly for family time and not out of religious devotion. Michael was born Eugene Maurice Orowitz, by the way. He changed his name for acting purposes.
Ironically, after the divorce, his ex-wife, Lynn, did become a Christian and Michael’s son Michael Jr., became one as well and has since helped make some Christian movies and entertainment.
A couple of weeks ago I read a very interesting comment on social from someone who watched the show and picked up on the Christian undertones when they watched the show as a child, which led to an eventual life-changing experience.
“I had a realization as I was watching the Church service [at the festival] that I wanted to share,” Meryl Heilberg Jefferson wrote. “I was raised Jewish. My grandfather was actually a Rabbi. I was at my grandparents’ house every weekend from Friday until Sunday from the beginning of my memory. That being said, I was a voracious reader from a young age. Not to mention an AVID LHOTP reader and series watcher. I used to play LHOTP in the schoolyard, (It was vast like a prairie) across from my house. I had a SUNBONNET and prairie-style clothing. I was hard-core living the prairie life in the 1970’s. “
“In 2010 I became a Christian,” Jefferson continued. “(I had actually been attending churches long before, but afraid to say anything to anyone for fear of my family’s rejection.) I truly believe that one of my mustard seeds, God put MANY in my path, was my love for anything and everything that had to do with Laura Ingalls Wilder. Hearing Wendi Lou Lee (Hester Sue in the show) speak tonight really spoke to my heart and reminded me of some of the memories I had suppressed from my childhood. I think Michael Landon shared the Gospel with me. I wish he was here so I could thank him personally. It is one of the first things I will do when I see him in Heaven! I now wonder if that was his intent. Or, was he looking to put wholesome television in front of families.”
It may not have been Landon’s intention to bring a generation to Christ but in some cases, it was what he did.
I’ve seen people react in anger when someone says that the past was simpler, easier or more pleasant. People often shoot back with, “There was crime and war and horrors back then too. The time you lived in wasn’t so special.”
Yes, there was war, crime, sadness, heartache, and tragedy back when I was a child. The difference was that I didn’t have it shoved in my face all day long on my phone or computer, in the store, on TV, and anywhere else that I turn.
My parents didn’t shelter me but they also didn’t talk as openly about the sadness in the world, partially because it wasn’t something they could constantly learn about through computers, smartphones, or 24/7 news services.
So for me, it was a simpler time. It was a calmer time.
It was a time when I had a routine. I went to school and then no matter what kind of day I had I could count on coming home and my mom being there cooking dinner and me eating a snack (usually peanut butter on toast) while watching Little House on the Prairie reruns. Later the PBS station would switch between Little House and The Waltons so I also watched The Waltons. At 6 they would air either The Dick VanDyke Show or Burns and Allen.
These shows were comfort watches for me back then. Now that I am older, caught up in a world that seems to be spinning faster than ever, they have become even more important to me. They are now touching points for me — a point in my life I can reconnect with, find those simpler moments again, and escape, even if only briefly, from a world that makes less and less sense each day.
Here is an interview with Melissa Gilbert about the show three years ago.
And here is an interview with Alison Arngrim from the 50th-anniversary festival in California:
And here is one of my favorite scenes from the show:
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. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
Last week was a crazy week in some ways and I detailed that more in my Saturday Morning Chat. The long and short of it is that there were some health issues within our family, everyone is okay, and my brain is trying to recover from it all.
Yesterday I didn’t have tons of time for my brain to recover since our daughter had a friend over and they tend to be a little crazy when they get together. They had a lot of fun, though, and it was a good day. And they weren’t really that crazy. We went to the playground and then they had fun splashing in the bathtub in their bathing suits. Earlier in the day they went to two Easter egg hunts as well.
And I did have some downtime for reading and watching Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, at least.
Today we are going to my parents for Easter dinner and an Easter egg hunt.
What I/we’ve been Reading
Currently:
I’m reading Murder in an Irish Village by Carlene O’Connor and Night Falls on Predicament Avenue by Jamie Jo Wright still thanks to the aforementioned crazy week. Both are very good. I’ll probably be finished with Murder in an Irish Village today and Night Falls… later in the week.
The Secret Garden is also being read but slowly.
Soon to be read:
The Divine Proverb of Streusel by Sara Brunsvold
The Mystery at the Lilac Inn by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew)
What We watched/are Watching
This week I watched Little House on the Prairie and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.
I also enjoyed relaxing to my favorite YouTube farmer, Farmer Pete:
There is something comforting about watching Pete and his wife work on the farm – feeding the cows and the chickens, fixing tractors, cooking beef brisket and just doing what they do every day.
I also watched this interview with two of the authors I am in a multi-author project with.
You can learn more about our project by watching this video or visiting our Facebook group.
Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
Murder Plainly Read by Isabella Alan, the fourth book in the Amish Quilt Shop Mysteries, was hard for me to put down not only because I wanted to find out who committed the crime in this super cozy mystery, but because I became attached to the main character Angela “Angie” Braddock and those around her.
Angie owns a fabric and quilting shop in the small town of Millersburg, which has a very large Amish population. She owns two pets – a loveable French Bulldog named Oliver and an aloof cat named Dodger. She’s dating the town’s sheriff, James Mitchell, which creates some interesting situations when she’s trying to investigate things she shouldn’t really be investigating.
Angie’s friends work in the shop or are connected to the shop in some way and are Amish. There are two different types of Amish sects in this community – more strict and more liberal. Angie’s employees – Anna and Mattie – are a mix of both.
Anna cracked me up because she is Amish but also wants to get to the bottom of things and in this case those “things” are surrounding the murder of a very cranky bishop of the Old Order Amish named Bartholomew Belier. He’s found dead in the library bookmobile by Angie and Angie’s “prim and proper” mother. Standing over him is brash librarian Austina Shaker, who is quickly blamed for the murder.
Angie isn’t sure if Austina is guilty or not but when Austina begs her to help clear her name, Angie can’t seem to help trying to find out. Anna also pushes Angie to get involved, certain she can help get to the bottom of what really happened to Bartholomew.
Angie does have a history of trying to solve murders, after all since she’s investigated and solved three murders previously. I should add that I didn’t realize this was the fourth book in this series when I started it and I had no issues understanding what was happening despite not reading the previous three yet.
The loveable cast of characters in the book include Anna and Mattie, Angie’s friends Rachel and Jonah, who are also Amish, Mitchell and his son Zander, a mischievous goat named Petunia, and Angie’s parents.
Her father is extra loveable and fun as he tries to navigate life after retirement. Her mother is more on the irritating side of things as she tries to run the show a lot and seems a bit stuck up but she keeps the storyline even more interesting as the reader braces themselves for what she’s going to say or do next.
There is much more than a mystery going on in this book and I like that. I like the little side stories with the different characters. I also loved the undercurrent of romance between Mitchell and Angie and how Alan didn’t need to add anything explicit or detailed to get across the feelings between the two.
There were even a few swoon-worthy scenes that made me giggle with delight over the gentle affection shown between the couple – affection that didn’t involve anything blush-worthy.
It’s amazing to me how just Mitchell brushing his fingertips against the back of Angie’s arm was enough to hint at sexual tension. No spicey scenes or language were needed.
I am looking forward to reading more books in this series.
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. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
It’s still been very cold this past week so we have been lighting a fire every other day. We lit one last night as the temperature dropped to somewhere around 22 degrees. It looks like temps will warm up this week as we move into Good Friday and Easter.
I wrote a bit about our week last week in yesterday’s Saturday Afternoon Chat post if you want to catch up on other “events” of our week. Spoiler – there weren’t a lot of events actually.
What I/we’ve been Reading
I’m reading A Murder in an Irish Village by Carlene O’Connor. It is very authentic Irish and I’m enjoying it.
I just started The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett but will probably read this one very slowly because of some books I’m reading for tours and to review for Clean Fiction Magazine. I already know the story of The Secret Garden from watching the movie.
I have also started Night Falls on Predicament Avenue by Jamie Jo Wright. This one is for a book tour in April. I honestly think it is going to be too creepy for me but I guess it is good to branch out once in a while.
Just Finished:
Murder Plainly Read by Isabella Alan and The Middle Moffat by Eleanor Estes.
Currently:
I enjoyed both of these books and will have reviews up soon.
Soon to be read:
The Divine Proverb of Streusel by Sara Brunsvold
Who Brought The Dog to Church? By Tracy Smoak
When You Returned by Havelah Mclat
What others in the family are reading: The Boy is reading Horus Rising and listening to A Tale of Two Cities. Little Miss is listening to The Railway Children and we are reading The Middle Moffat together.
The Husband is reading Do the New You by Steven Furtick
What We watched/are Watching
This weekend I watched all things Little House on the Prairie. This year is the 50th anniversary of the debut of the show and they are holding a festival with many of the old cast members in California. I have been watching the show and some footage from the festival such as interviews with Melissa Gilbert and Dean Butler, etc.
I didn’t realize how attached I was to the show until I saw Melissa Gilbert come out in front of all her fans and begin to cry and then I began to cry as well. I have good memories of running home from the bus stop to watch the show when I was a kid. I’ll ramble about that in a future blog post.
Here is the video I watched of the Melissa Gilbert interview if you are interested:
My daughter and I watched a couple of the episodes based more directly on stories in the books, which we read over the last couple of years and then watched three more that were loosely based on stories. I, of course, had to watch with her the episode when Laura pushes Nellie down the hill to prove she has been lying about not being able to walk. After that one, Little Miss was hooked and asked to watch more.
Earlier in the week I always watched Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and Lark Rise to Candleford.
Over the weekend I watched original Perry Mason episodes with The Husband.
What I’m Writing
I am on the epilogue of Cassie and then I will be beginning book three of the Gladwynn Grant mysteries.
This post cracked me up, especially this line: “This was all just to warm up to the topic of my husband being a human Winnie the Pooh, but one who wears pants of course.”
Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
