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.
The Cat Who Went Into The Closet by Lilian Jackson Braun
Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson
Do The New You by Steven Furtick
Recently Finished:
Sisterchicks Do the Hula by Robin Jones Gunn
This book wasn’t horrible but there wasn’t really an actual plot and that annoyed me. I kept waiting for something to happen – like a mystery or a trial they had to overcome or .. well, anything really. Like a plot maybe. Once I decided and accepted that was never going to happen it was much easier to skim ahead and just see what happened at the end and move on to the next book.
Update: I went back and read some of the parts I had skimmed and decided the book is actually very sweet. A bit slow but sweet and relaxing. I think I’m going to try the first book in the series, which I heard was better, and other books in the series as well. I was excited to see that they are now on Kindle Unlimited and it looks like the author updated some terms, etc. for now.
Up Next or Soon:
Hidden Figuresby Margot Lee Shetterly
Bury Your Deadby Louise Penny
Bats Fly At Duskby Erle Stanley Gardner
This week Little Miss and I finished The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz. I hope to finish The Borrowers with her this week but she’s been reading Fortunatly the Milk by Neil Gaiman to me.
What We watched/are Watching
This past week I watched Miss Austen Regrets and wrote about it on the blog. I really enjoyed it. The rest of the week I watched Lark Rise to Candleford and Miss Scarlet and the Duke. What I’m Writing
I’m plugging away on Cassie and hope to have it finished at the end of this month so I can start the third book in the Gladwynn Grant series.
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.
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 rambled about last week in yesterday’s Saturday AfternoonChat post if you would like to catch up there. I will mention that today our weather doesn’t know what it wants to do as it is snowing and raining and switching back and forth. The weather has been warm this week so the ground isn’t as cold as it could be. It remains to see how much of the stuff will actually stick
What I/we’ve been Reading
Currently Reading:
Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott and Sisterchicks Do The Hula by Robin Jones Gunn
Little Women is relaxing and enjoyable and I will have it done this week. I’ve been reading it very, very slow and only a chapter or two a day, in case you’re wondering why I keep saying I’m STILL reading it. (Since the end of November! Ha!). This week I’m just going to read it through and finish it up so I can move to another classic – which one I don’t know yet.
The Sisterchicks book is just a light, fun read that is a very nice distraction from life. I’m reading through it quickly so I will probably have it done this week as well.
Recently Finished:
Dysfunction Junction by Robin W. Pearson
Up Next or Soon:
The Cat Who Went Into The Closet by Lilian Jackson Braun
Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson
The Bungalow Mystery (A Nancy Drew Mystery) by Carolyn Keene
Little Miss and I are reading: The Borrowers by Mary Norton and The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz
The Boy is reading: Lost Names: Stories from a Korean Boyhood by Richard Kim
The Husband is reading: Fury by Salaman Rushdie
What We watched/are Watching
Yesterday I started Agatha Christie’s Marple, the BBC show that ran from 2004 to 2013 and was based on the Miss Marple books by Agatha Christie. I have never wanted to watch anyone as Miss Marple other than Joan Hickson but after someone mentioned the show to me on Instagram, I decided to give it a try since The Husband had to work and the kids were doing other things.
There were so many actors in Season 1 Episode 3 who I recognized from other shows. The episodes, like the episodes from the Miss Marple series, were like mini-movies at 90 minutes each. Episode 3 was called What Mrs. McGillicuddy Sawbut was based on the novel 4.50 from Paddington.
The one actress I was most surprised to see in his episode was Amanda Holden who I’ve only seen as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent. I always wondered what the woman actually did to land her on that show as a judge. I had no idea she was an actual actress. I thought she was a talking head on a news show in addition to being a judge.
She wasn’t too bad of an actress but I kept waiting for her to say, “That was lovely. Good job.” And push the golden buzzer.
I also recognized Michale Landes who played an American in the British sitcom Miranda. When I saw him in that show, I thought he was British doing a horrible American accent. I looked him up while watching this because he was playing an American again and it turns out he has a horrible American accent despite being an American.
He has been acting since the late 1980s and has been on several shows, often as secondary or one-off characters.
He was really the weak link in this episode.
After I watched Marple, I watched a couple episodes of Lark Rise To Candleford. I had started to watch this show years ago but only made it to season three, I’m not sure why. I think there was some cast change I didn’t like. I don’t remember a lot of it so I am rewatching it and plan to go through all four seasons.
It’s a very nice distraction from life.
This upcoming week I will be watching Miss Austen Regrets for our last movie for Jane Austen January. The link up for Jane Austen January will still be up until Saturday if you want to add a post.
What I’m Writing
This week I worked on Cassie, which comes out in August of 2024. On the blog I shared:
I love it when Joy writes about the real-life places you can visit in the Jane Austen movies.
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.
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 talked a little bit about what’s been occurring yesterday in my Saturday Afternoon Chat. Mainly we’ve been dealing with weird weather of snow and rain and ice and high winds. Today our temps dropped very fast so we will be dealing with arctic temperatures for the whole week. I will be inside the whole week, other than picking our son up at the bus stop (which is our local convenience store) because I don’t want him to have to walk up the hills to our house in the frigid temps.
I also woke up this morning to find out we have a wind advisory again so now it feels like 16 instead of 28. I was on my way to my parents this afternoon (they’re about eight minutes from our house) but when we saw a tree being removed from the bottom of our street and then another one hanging on a line, across the road and almost to the height of our car, I decided we would pick up my son and head back home to wait for the wind advisory to expire before we try again tomorrow.
We might have been fine but looking around seeing trees smashed along the road, limbs broken in the road and evidence of trees having been chainsawed to clear the roadway, we decided to err on the side of caution.
The Husband dropped some homemade soup I was taking off at my parents so they could at least have lunch.
Tomorrow’s temperatures will be frigid but at least we won’t have to be concerned about trees falling on us while battling the cold.
We have a lot of dead ash trees around us so those are ripe for falling down and causing issues. In the summer my daughter and I were at my parents’ swimming in the pool and one fell down behind my parents’ house in the woods. It wasn’t even windy that day. It just fell over. If it can happen without wind then it can definitely happen in 25 to 45 mph wind gusts.
What I’m/We’re Reading
I’m still reading Little Women and Dysfunction Junction. I am enjoying both and like to switch off between them. I will probably finish Dysfunction Junction (by Robin W. Pearson) this week.
After that, I’ll be reading The Cat Who Went Into A Closet and The Bungalow Mystery – a Nancy Drew Mystery.
I am also reading Do The New You By Steven Furtick as a Netgalley read which was perfect timing since our online Bible study is going to be reading it in February.
At night Little Miss and I are reading The Borrowers.
What We watched/are Watching
I watched Northern Exposure over 20 years ago (probably) and started watching it again this week. I don’t remember much of anything about it so it’s like watching it for the first time.
It really was well written and holds up pretty well actually.
I also watched Sense and Sensibilityand Pride and Prejudicefor the Jane Austen January feature I’m doing with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. If you want to join in our link-up to discuss all things Jane (including the books) you can find the link up above.
I watched Miss Scarlet and the Duke last week and will probably watch more today and this week since I will be hiding in the house until the weather gets better.
The Husband and I watched the 1978 version of Death on the Nile. It held up pretty well despite Bette Davis looking like she’d come out of a crypt.
What I’m Writing
I am working on Cassie, which releases in August. I hope to have it finished by February. If you are curious what the book will be about, here is a very loose description:
It’s 1995 and 32-year-old Cassie Mason is an actress who made it big on a sitcom in the mid-1980s but hasn’t been able to find a job since the show ended five years ago.
After being fired by her talent agency, Cassie takes her sister Bridget up on her offer for Cassie to come back to their hometown for an extended visit to unwind and regroup.
While there Cassie finds out her younger sister – the one with the handsome husband and three kids and running a farm – is going to open a café and farm store in the small town they grew up near. Cassie decides to stay long enough to help with the grand opening, though she isn’t sure what she can do since she doesn’t know a thing about cooking like her mom and sister and isn’t great at organizing either.
In fact, Cassie isn’t sure what’s she is good at other than acting. Bridget hasn’t been able to help out at the Berrysville Community center like she’d like to with all that has to be done to open the business so she asks Cassie to fill in for a couple of volunteer opportunities. That’s when Cassie finds out that her sister’s neighbor, Alec, isn’t only a small farmer – he’s also someone who knows how to cook and showcases those talents in a weekly cooking class at the community center.
During her visit home, Cassie struggles to figure out not only where she fits in and feels most at home but also to figure out if acting is all she is meant to do with her life or if there is another way God wants to use her talents.
And God? There’s someone else she needs to learn more about on this break from the career she thought she’d always have.
This week I have been listening to James Herriot’s Treasury for Children but this upcoming week I will be back to listening to A Tale of Two Cities.
Next week I hope to return to sharing blog posts from other bloggers that I enjoyed from the week. I haven’t been reading as many blogs as I would like to and I’m really looking forward to getting back to that this year.
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.
I read on Instagram that today is National Drink Hot Tea Day. There is always a national something or other day and I sometimes wonder who even keeps track of them all so people on social media can use it as content to talk about.
Anyhow, I’m drinking some peppermint tea with honey later today, not because I don’t have any other tea, but because I had some other types of tea earlier in the week and I wanted my old standby today.
Also later today I will be lighting a fire because our temps are going to plummet very fast this afternoon into this evening until they are in the 20s tomorrow and then the single digits at night and in the mornings starting Monday.
We are also under a high wind advisory today and when you live in a semi-rural area surrounded by trees (including a really old, really tall one in front of my house), you tend to get very nervous about high wind advisories. You also expect to lose power at some point, which makes me a little nervous since today it will be just me and Little Miss at home. The Husband is working and The Boy is going to a friend’s house.
I don’t do well health-wise in either very hot temperatures or very cold ones so I am not looking forward to the cold weather. I will not be leaving my house much at all during the cold weather snap because it irritates my asthma. I will be going out enough to pick up my son from the bus stop because I don’t want him to have to walk up our hill in such cold weather.
I am supposed to go visit my parents for lunch tomorrow when it is only supposed to be about 26 but I’ll see if I still want to do that or not. I practically have to be dragged outside kicking and screaming when it is super cold or when it is super hot.
The weather has been very odd here lately but that is somewhat normal for Pennsylvania this time of year.
Last weekend we had a snowstorm that lasted two days. By Tuesday it was rain and wind and the threat of flooding. Then off and on during the week snow and hail came and last night there was a burst of snow that covered the ground right before freezing rain came in and left the entire yard in a sheen of ice. To say winter has decided to show up this month is an understatement.
This past week I stayed inside every day and was a slug part of the time because of the weather. I read books, worked on my novel, wrote some blog posts, made some social media posts, enjoyed the fire, sipped tea and cocoa, cooked dinner, did the dishes a couple of times, ignored piles of books and papers I don’t know what to do with, and overall just enjoyed being a hermit and not having to go anywhere.
Yesterday I had to go pick up groceries but I really can’t complain because one, I had to drive there and they put them in the car, and two, my husband had to go out in this awful weather all week for work so he’s got the real cruddy end of the bargain here.
No one went with me to pick up groceries this time so it was just me in the car, listening to James Herriot’s Treasury for Children on Audible. I was going to listen to a Jane Austen collection but my phone claimed it wasn’t downloaded and it turned out better to listen to the one from James Herriot anyhow because it is so relaxing and my day really wasn’t relaxing for a variety of reasons – mainly family stuff and a lot of things on my mind about said family.
Today I hope to relax some but Little Miss wants me to play a video game with her and watch a movie. I honestly do not understand why my children always want me to play video games with them. I do not enjoy video games but they are just so excited to show Mom how to play it and then laugh at her when she can’t figure it out. My son wanted me to play Skyrim one time and I ran the guy into the wall over and over for like ten minutes.
It’s now a running joke in our house. My son will say something like, “Look, I’m Mom playing Skyrim,” and then just run into a wall several times while looking over his shoulder saying, “Don’t worry, Havar. I’m coming! I swear! If I can figure out this controller, I’m coming to help you.”
Of course, by then Havar was dead because I was still running into a wall.
This upcoming week I really need to work more on my book, Cassie. It’s been hard to get going on it but I hope to have it done in February so I can start work on my next Gladwynn book.
This week my dad left me a comment on my Facebook cover where I was promoting the second book and it really meant a lot because my dad is not a reader. He’s really never had time to read and if he did, he chose non-fiction books, such as theology books.
Mom told me he read my first book in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, though, reading a chapter or so a night before bed. When he was done, he told me it felt weird not having the book to read so I was glad that it wasn’t long after that when I realized the second book.
Now he is in the middle of the second book so I really need to start writing book three for him.
This is the message he left on the photograph for the book on my page: am not much of a reader at all and very seldom read fiction and I watch very few movies.
Like who wants to read about something that is not? Lol. Evidently a lot of people.
Anyway, I got into the first Gladwyn Mystery and found it intriguing, and starting this one I find it more so.
Sometimes I think wow, I never knew that lol. You see Gladwynn Grant, a mixture of intelligent, ditzy curious, and almost cunning, was my mother’s name.
Okay off to store a few more clues and along the way to the hometown theater find out what happened to Samantha.“”
Dad hasn’t always been super supportive of me writing fiction (“You have to actually go places to write books and you don’t go anywhere or have a lot of experience,” he told me once. Sigh. Dads.) so the fact he’s enjoyed these Gladwynn books has meant a lot to me.
Well, I am off to watch the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice, which I am watching as part of Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and my Jane Austen January Feature. I will warn you that this version is not my favorite and I am actually finding it a bit annoying at this point. I promise to try my best to be polite about it when I write about it on Thursday.
I will be back tomorrow with Sunday Bookends, where I will ramble about what I’ve been reading and what I hope to read and all that jazz.
How was your week last week? Did you do anything exciting? And what’s your tea of choice these days?
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.
Welcome to my last Sunday Bookends for 2023. Crazy, isn’t it? Tomorrow it will be 2024.
2023 flew by for us in some ways and dragged in others.
This past week we ended the year with a lot of family time.
It was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my parents and two family days and a lot of relaxing together and watching movies.
Today and tomorrow will be more relaxing and then it will be back to school for the kids and I on Tuesday.
I wrote a bit about our last week in my post yesterday if you would like to catch up.
I was watching a video by Darling Desi on YouTube yesterday and she talked about how many years ago in our country we used to celebrate the Christmas season until January 6 and that we should give ourselves permission to do that if we want to. So this week I’m giving myself permission to continue celebrating Christmas with Christmas movies and books that I didn’t get to in the month of December.
I started watching It’s A Wonderful Life last night so I can watch some of my favorite scenes and before bed I read from a vintage Christmas book.
What I’m/We’re Reading
I didn’t read a ton on my break but I did read some. I finished Christmas in Abasorka Countyby Craig Johnson and made progress on Southern Snow by B.R. Goodwin.
The one by Craig Johnson is a small collection of short stories featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire from his Longmire Mysteries series.
I should have Southern Snow finished this week. I am not taking so long to read it because it is bad. I just stopped reading it to read some other Christmassy-themed books like the collection of vintage Christmas stories, the Johnson one, and a few chapters of Little Women, which I am making my way through slowly. Southern Snow does feature Christmas but I believe it can be read any time of the year.
Early last week I started an ARC by Kristen Perrin called How To Solve Your Own Murder and I was hooked and am blazing through it.
For those who like clean reads – this is clean so far but I’m only on chapter 10. There has been one swear word and it could get worse as things get intense, but I’m not sure. In other words, if you usually read Christian or clean fiction like me – just be warned that this is not listed in those categories.
I’ve also started Dysfunction Junction by Robin W. Pearson, which is another ARC read. The book releases February 6.
In January I’m focusing on cozy like I did in December so I hope to read some more cozy mysteries, including The Cat Who Went Into The Closet which my husband ordered for me and a couple of Nancy Drew books.
I’m also reading A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens with The Boy for English.
Little Miss and I have been listening to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever but I’m trying to get her to let me read her The Borrowers at night before bed.
We will be back to reading a history-related book for school on Tuesday, but I’m not sure which one yet.
The Husband is reading John Connolly books because Connolly has just put up his entire catalog on Kindle Unlimited. If that isn’t a sign of things to come in the publishing industry I don’t know what is. That means his ebooks are exclusively only on Amazon and he’s a NY Times Best Seller. They cannot be purchased anywhere else for 90 days. Interesting.
Also interesting is that the book we downloaded, The Furries: A Charlie Park Book begins in the town my husband and I lived in for 20 years for me and more than 20 for him. It is the town he now drives through to go to his second job because the towns up there all run together. The Furries is actually two books in one and the first one that mentions the town is The Sisters Strange.
It’s so bizarre to see the town in the book because it is truly a tiny little area essentially in the middle of nowhere. There are about 3,200 people in the town he’s talking about and maybe 13,000 altogether in the three towns that run together. I may be off on that number – I didn’t check the census but it is definitely under 30,000 these days.
I’m very curious now to know how Connolly knew about it or his connection to the area. He even writes about the flood we went through there in 2011. Thankfully it did not hit our home since we were at a higher elevation but it did flood the historic and business district of the town. I was working for the newspaper at the time and took photographs of the destruction but almost forgot to take them because I was just standing on the hill looking down into the rest of the flooded town in shock.
I’d also love to know if any of his characters are based on any real-life residents. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if they were. I don’t know that Connolly’s books are my cup of tea but after reading the first chapter I am hooked and if he goes back to Athens in this book, I know I will be trying to see which characters might be based on people I know from there.
In an interview with a Maine television station, Connolly said he wrote this mainly in lockdown during the pandemic so he was mainly in Ireland at the time (which is where he is originally from). This makes the book partly taking place in Athens that much more interesting to me. He also released the book in chapters like I have done on my blog. Maybe Mr. Connolly saw my blog and copied me. *wink* Ha. Ha.
What We watched/are Watching
I watched a ton of Christmas-themed shows and movies since I last posted a Sunday Bookends.
A Christmas Carol from 1938
White Christmas
Elf (for the second time)
Trading Christmas
A Biltmore Christmas
A Christmas Story
A half of The Man Invented Christmas (need to get back to it)
Half of Blithe Spirit (need to finish it when The Husband is home from work)
The Christmas special from last year of All Creatures Great and Small
The Little House on the Prairie Christmas special
A Christmas episode from M.A.S.H.
We also watched a couple other episodes of M.A.S.H., a couple episodes of Miss Scarlet and The Duke, the first episode of C.B. Strike (based on the books by Robert Gailbraith. I read the first one and enjoyed it even though it was dark and full of obscenities – just a warning for anyone who might try it), a lot of Newhart, Forgotten Way Farms, Darling Desi, Doctor Quinn Medicine Women, and The Pioneer Woman.
I probably watched some other things as well but it has been two weeks so I’m not sure.
What I’m Writing
I’m working on my book Cassie and blathered on about a bunch of movies and other stuff here on the blog.
Next week I will be writing about the movie Persuasion to kick off Jane Austen January. Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be starting buddy watches of movie adaptations of Jane movies January 11. We have started a link up that you can access through the menu at the top of my page.
I listened to Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon before and during Christmas week.
I have also been listening to a collection of audio productions of Jane Austen’s books on Audible and plan to start Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry on audible at some point, but probably not until February because I’ll be listening to the Jane Austen for Jane Austen January.
Photos from this week
Christmas:
Local light display:
Fun outing:
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.
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 yesterday that I tested positive for Covid on Friday. I must have been at the tail end of it because yesterday morning I woke up with my nose clear and able to taste and smell again. I pretty much felt like I hadn’t had anything at all. I had written yesterday’s blog post on Friday evening when I was at my worst – congested and swollen in my nose, no smell or taste, and this horrible burning up my nose and through my sinuses that kept coming in waves and making my eyes water so bad I couldn’t see.
I literally cried when I could taste peanut butter and smell my essential oils in the morning. I know it seems dramatic and if you don’t know my back story with Covid-induced smell and taste loss then it does seem that way.
My previous smell and taste loss lasted a couple of weeks or more and when it returned my smell and taste were distorted for months afterward.
You can read more about that on the blog by searching Covid in the search bar to the right, though I’d just skip it because it’s depressing. Ha! It’s depressing but also gets hopeful later and taught me about trusting God.
Today when I made myself some deli ham on lettuce with Italian dressing (I’m trying to cut bread all the way out for health reasons) and I could taste the Italian dressing I felt weepy. I really did.
Every time I can smell something or taste something I feel immediate gratitude.
While I didn’t like the fear that came with getting Covid again since my last bout sent me to the hospital for five days (hooked up to a very low dose of oxygen for a day and a half of those days), I do like the reminder God gave me with this that he got me through that first bout and he is going to get me through whatever struggles I am facing now.
Much like a rainbow is a reminder of God’s promise to never flood the earth again, being able to smell and taste is like a reminder to me that God hasn’t failed me and doesn’t intend to let me fall now.
This illness was like a short head cold but I was very concerned part of the time it would be longer, like Covid was for me and my family before. I remained calm most of the time with a few breakdowns of crying, but trying to remember the verses about Jesus giving us peace that passes all understanding.
Most of the time I felt very peaceful. I did not feel dragged out like I did when I’ve been sick in the past.
Still, I prayed to God on Friday and asked him to please give me a sign that I was going to be okay. I prayed again very, very early Saturday morning when I couldn’t breathe through my nose. I asked God to forgive me for me being annoyed because I had just been thankful for being able to smell and taste a few days before and now it was being taken away again. I asked God to forgive me for not being thankful that I was breathing okay.
At 6:45 a.m. I still couldn’t smell anything.
At 9:30 a.m. I could both smell and taste.
Little Miss and my fever were gone (mine had been gone even when I tested positive for Covid the day before) and we both felt almost like we’d never been sick in the first place.
Talk about an answer to prayer.
We are in quarantine another day and then I can finally see my parents in person for the first time in two weeks.
What I/we’ve been Reading
Because my eyes were watering a lot this week, I didn’t read as much as I wanted to. I did continue some of my Christmas Regency romance book, which is a collection of novellas in one book. I am in the second novella now.
I also read a little of Southern Snow by B.R. Goodwin. I hope to have at least Southern Snow finished this week, but I also hope to finish Christmas in Absaroka by Craig Johnson.
Since it is the week before Christmas, I will probably continue to read A Vintage Christmas: A Collection of Classic Stories and Poems, which is a collection of Christmas stories by a variety of authors, including L.M. Montgomery, Louise May Alcott, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain as well.
Oh, and I will definitely be finishing up my audiobook ofShepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon which I have been listening to each night before bed. I mentioned before on here that I didn’t know if I liked the narrator but I absolutely love him as I continue to listen so I wanted to correct that. From what I understand he also narrates the other audiobooks of the Mitford series so I hope to collect them over time.
Since we couldn’t leave the house last week, I watched more than I do other weeks.
I watched We’re Not Angels as a buddy watch with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, and blogged about it.
I also watched Going My Way, the prequel to The Bells of St. Mary’s. I’ll blog about it later this week but really enjoyed it. I might have liked The Bells of St. Mary’s better, though. I don’t know. They were both very good and watching them close together was a good idea.
I then watched the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol and while I am about done with watching any more movies based on this book, I loved this one. This is probably my favorite version so far.
My aunt used to look for this version every year and I didn’t know why until I watched it this week. I wish I had taken the time to watch it with her when she was still alive.
I will blog about it later this week but for now, I will say I loved the acting in the movie. I also loved how I really feel this movie gave us more time with each character and gave us a more well-rounded impression of them. That well-rounded impression connected me to the characters more than any other movie I’ve seen and maybe even more than the book itself, which made the emotional impact of what unfolded even more powerful for me.
I highly recommend this version if you’re going to watch a movie adaptation of this story.
Last night I watched a Christmas episode of All Creatures Great and Small (the latest version).
This week I plan to load myself up on Christmas movies including The Man Who Invented Christmas, The Man Who Came To Dinner, White Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and maybe Arthur Christmas.
I will also be watching Christmas-themed YouTube videos and a couple of Christmas specials from the creators of The Chosen.
What I’m Writing
This past week I shared a lot of Christmas-themed blog posts including:
I am listening to audiobooks such as Shepherd’s Abiding and The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever and also Christmas music about the reason for the season (at least in my family) – Jesus’ birth.
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.
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 don’t read as many books in a year as other people and this year I decided that was okay and I don’t care.
I sometimes do not finish books either and I decided this year I was also okay with that.
Every week or so my husband announces how many books he’s read so far in the year and I like hearing it. I like that he keeps track of it and that he reads over 80 books each year.
He was also a more avid reader than I was. I only started reading more books again in the last few years. I used to read all the time as a teenager, took a break in college and while working for newspapers and even while raising my son. Now I’m loving how reading has become an escape from the real world for me again.
For a while, I wanted to be like my husband and count all my books read and be able to announce the totals to him and the world.
There were several problems with this, though. One, I’m a slower reader. It isn’t that I read slow. It’s that I get interrupted a lot while reading a book so it takes me a while to finish one. People or pets aren’t always what interrupt me. Sometimes it is housework or homeschooling or my own writing or simply because I can’t seem to stay as focused as I used to.
I like that The Husband tells me his book count. It used to irritate me because I felt less than but now (okay in the last week) I let it go.
I don’t have to read a bunch of books in a year to be a reader. I don’t have to finish a book I started to be a reader because life it is too short to worry about competition in something like reading which is supposed to be relaxing and it is too short to keep reading a book you’re not enjoying.
There are also too many good books in the world to waste our time on a book that might be good but isn’t working for us personally.
I often think things like, “But this is a popular book. It’s on the NYT bestseller list. It must be good, right?”
Well, it may be that it is good for some and not for me and that’s okay.
I read a lot more than books during the year, as well – textbooks with the kids and blogs, articles, etc. So I do read a lot just not always full books. Again. That’s okay. If it is okay for me, it is okay for you.
If you’ve been holding on to all these imaginary ideas of what it means to be a reader and a book blogger or whatever – let them go.
We all have our own journey and path and just because we don’t inhale books like Galactus eats planets, we are still readers.
Anyhow…on to what I’ve been reading this week.
This week I have mainly been reading The Spectacular. Every other day I was reading a chapter from either Little Women or The Cat Who Talked Turkey (a cozy mystery). I dropped The Cat Who book last night because there was no mystery. It was driving me crazy. I was on chapter 4 and still nothing had happened other than Qwill looking for someone to narrate some presentation he was giving.
This book was one of the ones written later when people suspected Lilian Jackson Braun had gotten a bit too old to write and had a ghostwriter. It showed. I have a soft spot for the Cat Who books but I had to set aside for now because I have so many other books I want to tackle. Not every book in a series can be a winner.
I love reading Little Women a chapter at a time. I don’t mind dragging out the enjoyment of reading it because it gives me something to look forward to every night.
The Spectacular is fairly slow moving so far and I’m on Chapter 12. My husband insists that something is going to happen soon and I hope so because I’m a bit bored. I read a lot of boring books this year so in 2024 I am going back to Longmire and Anthony Horowitz to give myself some excitement. Those and some more Christian fiction because I know there are some good ones out there I haven’t read yet by authors like Nicole Deese.
I still haven’t finalized what I will read this winter but The Boy and I are reading The Tale of Two Cities for his English so I do know I’ll be reading that.
I also just ordered a Christmas regency-era book recommended to me by Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.
Little Miss and I just finished The Black Stallion. Talk about boring and wordy.
She just wanted to watch the movie but I insisted we finish the book. Then I ended up skimming two chapters and getting us to the end because good grief there was way too much explanation and rambling in that book. I mean how many times could the dude describe what it was like for Alec to ride the horse? And for three to four pages every time. Plus the dialogue which was repetitive.
We are listening to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson at night now. I read this book to her last year and I wouldn’t mind reading it again but one night I was too tired to read so we put the audiobook on and now she enjoys the narrator more than me (I think. She didn’t actually say it), so we are listening instead of me reading it.
The Husband is reading In The Blood by Jack Carr.
What’s Been Occurring
Last night The Husband, Little Miss, and I went to a Christmas parade about half an hour from us. We saw some of our friends and visited for a bit, The Husband took some photos for the newspaper and we headed home. On the way to the event and back we saw a ton of deer and had to put our brakes on more than once. About ten minutes after an eight-point buck that was blending in with the center line, turned and crossed in front of us, another deer came out of nowhere from the right and there was no missing it when it turned to go back in front of us. We slammed into it but I have no idea what happened to it, though I vaguely remember it darting off to the left.
It did some extensive damage to the front of our car, smashing in our left headlight and the body of the car in that same area, but allowing us to get home without any damage to us.
We were really very lucky considering I’ve heard stories of deer being hit that way and rolling up onto the hood and through the windshield.
We aren’t sure if our insurance will cover the accident since we adjusted our deductible to make our premiums less. We will find out more later this week but for now the car is parked in the garage. The deer left part of its fur under the edge of the hood.
All three of us were fairly shaken up and a bit in shock from it all so at first we didn’t think about how much the damage would cost us. I think we were all simply happy it wasn’t worse. There have been a lot of accidents in our area caused by deer lately and I’ve never seen as many as I have this year.
It is hunting season in our area right now so I don’t know if the deer are running wild because of that or not but driving is certainly nerve-wracking for now whatever the reason.
The Boy was at a friend’s house spending the night so I called to let him know about the incident. I also sent him some photos to which he replied, “She’ll be fine with some Flex Tape.”
Having the car out of commission is a bit sad for me as I finally had a car to drive that had heated seats and a stereo system I could patch my music into.
My husband gave me the car after he bought his truck, which we call Bambi Killer. Sadly, it has horrible gas mileage so we took the car to save on gas. Had we had the truck, there would have been very little damage to the vehicle but a lot to the deer.
What We watched/are Watching
This past week I watched Beyond Tomorrow, a fairly obscure Christmas movie from 1940. I wrote about it on the blog Thursday.
I also watched – or well, watched most of The Bells of St. Mary’s, which I hope to finish later today.
Little Miss and I watched A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, which has become an annual tradition for us now.
We also watched Elfat Little Miss’s request.
I’m sure there will be other Christmas movies and specials on our list this upcoming week.
I also plan to continue watching Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman this week. I am rewatching it after last seeing it some 20 years ago when I was in high school.
I started Men In Kilts: A Roadtrip with Sam and Graham this past week as well. I enjoyed the first episode.
What I’m Writing
Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage comes out Tuesday in ebook on Amazon. Amazon messed something out with the paperback so it is out now.
I am working on Cassie and made a bit of progress on it this week.
Erin and I are also hosting a Comfy, Cozy Christmas feature where other bloggers can link up their Christmas/holiday-themed blog posts. You can find the link up here:
I listened to a lot of Needtobreathe’s The Cave this week.
Photos from Last Week
I didn’t take a ton of photos last week. I hope to remedy that this week and get my camera out more.
Here are a couple from the parade we went to a display in the town.
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.
Jenny Knipfer has a way of melodically weaving a story through well-written prose that takes you into the past, a world she easily strolls through in her latest historical novella Violet’s Vow.
The story of Violet takes the reader on an emotional journey as Violet navigates loss, anger, and love after the unexpected death of her husband, Roger. Violet knows how her husband died but throughout the book, she feels she must find out why her husband died. Was it truly an accident, or was there something more sinister at play? No matter the reason behind his death, his loss has left Violet insecure and unsure of her future, which she thought would involve running the flower shop she and Roger owned together, into their old age.
When Violet begins to receive love notes I was pulled into the mystery of who has feelings for her and why they aren’t telling her in person. As I continued the journey with Violet, I also began to wonder which man in her life I wanted to have written the letters, since each one seemed to have something suspect about their past. As in her other books, Jenny uses poetic language to create a story worth following to the end. There is heartbreak yet hope within the pages of each book she writes, and Violet’s Vow is no different.
Author: Lucinda J. Miller (Last name now Kinsinger)
Genre: Memoir
Release date: July 25, 2017
Plain? Yes. Simple? Well…
If you live in a conservative Mennonite community, edges are sewn shut and questions have answers. So if you’ve got a saucy tongue and a roving curiosity about the world, you’ve got a story to tell.
As a schoolteacher in a small Mennonite school in rural Wisconsin, Lucinda J. Miller wears long dresses and a prayer covering. But she uses a cell phone and posts status updates on Facebook. So why would a young woman with access to all these technologies remain in a sheltered community like the Plain Mennonites? How can someone with an eye for beauty and a sometimes sardonic wit stay within a tradition that values discipline and submission and uniformity?
Anything But Simple is the stirring memoir of a young woman’s rich church tradition, lively family life, and longing for a meaningful future within her Mennonite faith.
As I began to read Anything But Simple I saw so many similarities between the author Lucinda J. Miller and me that I found myself glued to the pages. Our life similarities include her ideas about writing, her experiences with her family, her view of her father, and her many questions and doubts about her faith, though she never left her faith and neither have I. I found those similarities despite the fact I did not grow up as a Mennonite and Lucinda did.
When I was reading this book, I saw another review for it where the reader said they were bothered the book didn’t offer any explanations of what the difference between the Amish and Mennonites was. I was baffled by this review because the book’s subtitle is “My life as a Mennonite.” I bring this up not to criticize the reviewer, who may have sure misunderstood the goal of the book, but to bridge into the issues Miller herself dealt with while writing the book.
When she was writing this book, she had a friend suggest she write about how Mennonites are “different from everyone else.” Miller doesn’t feel different from everyone else, other than how her faith shapes how she looks at life. In many ways, her family is the same as every other family, so her goal in this book is not to show how Mennonites are different from others but how they are the same.
This book does a very good job of showing how similar humans are no matter what faith they are a part of. The human condition isn’t something limited by the faith we were brought up in. Miller tells us her personal story in an entertaining way that delicately balances triumph and heartache. There are times I can’t help but feel heartbreak for the internal struggles she faced during her teen and early adult years, probably because they so closely mirrored mine. These struggles — the feeling she didn’t fit in and how she often felt shy and withdrawn — though tough, was what helped shape her foundation for a fulfilling adulthood. Seeing her spread her wings and step into a future as a writer, one she wasn’t sure she could have with the background she was brought up in, was very satisfying, again because I could relate so viscerally to what writing represents to her.
“Writers did not have to be pretty,” she writes. “They were very often odd-looking, according to their pictures. And the odder the writer, the better the writing. Reclusiveness, for a writer, was expected. Unhappiness was just a bonus that gave you something to write about and opened up the wells of passion within your being. If you were miserable, ugly, hated, alone, still you were okay. Because you still had the Dream. No one could take it from you.”
Some memoirs turn into a negative look back at their childhood, but Miller’s book doesn’t do that, or at least not often. For the most part, she looks back at her life as a Mennonite as a positive experience, not as something to be spurned or mocked. She writes about her journey through life, and how being a Mennonite affected that journey, but also about Mennonites in general and how they look at life and relate to others.
Miller’s prose is poetic, making what could have been a mundane retelling of a life feel more like a majestic journey into the mind of an intellectualist who has finally allowed herself to be an intellectual and not feel guilty about it.
About the Author
Lucinda J Miller Kinsinger has always viewed herself as a shy little Mennonite girl, but refuses to let that stop her from pursuing what she loves—whether that’s writing with honesty and vulnerability or traveling to a remote village in China. In 2019, she married Ivan, the love of her life, and moved from the flat, tree-lined fields of her childhood home in Wisconsin to the rolling hills of Garrett County, Maryland. The couple has a baby daughter, Annalise. Since the publication of Anything but Simple, Lucinda has published a second memoir, Turtle Heart: Unlikely Friends with a Life-Changing Bond. She is a columnist for Anabaptist World and blogs at lucindajkinsinger.com.
More from Lucinda
Me, and The People Who Shaped Me
My dad used to say that every person in your life is placed there by God for a reason. Even the ones you don’t like are there to teach you something.
Learn.
If you don’t, God may send someone else to teach you the same lesson you couldn’t learn the first time around.
Anything But Simple is my story, the story of a shy little Mennonite girl growing up to be a writer and asking questions along the way. It is also the story of the many people who enriched my life.
My dad, with his black hair and handsome face and stories from his past.
My mom, with her smooth sweaters and her sure and solid love.
My bishop with his mouth that turned down like a turtle’s.
My creative writing professor who loved words in a way I had never seen in anyone but myself.
Charlene.
Mara.
Deqo.
Jake.
From these people and alongside these people I arose, breathing, questioning, earnest.
Our journey, like the journey of all the squiggly and intricate humans that wander the face of the earth, is anything but simple.
