Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot July 17th

On July 17, 2025July 17, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Weekend Traffic Jam9 Comments

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it. Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

My husband and I celebrated our 23^rd wedding anniversary on Sunday and we had such a nice day. We visited a nearby bookstore (in a village in the middle of nowhere) and then had lunch at a cute café with amazing food.

We watched a movie together at home after that and now my husband has been off from work all week and we’ve been spending time together as a family.

I hope you have been having a great week!

Now, let’s introduce our hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Sue from Women Living Well After 50 started blogging in 2015 and writes about living an active and healthy lifestyle, fashion, book reviews and her podcast and enjoying life as a woman over 50. She invites you to join her living life in full bloom.

We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting: Karin’s Kottage

A little about Karin: Collaborating with brands is like adding a sprinkle of excitement to my blogging journey! It’s not just about products; it’s about weaving stories that resonate with my wonderful readers who are mostly over 50.

It’s like throwing a fantastic party and inviting everyone to join in the fun – and who doesn’t love a good party? So, here’s to more brand collaborations that light up our lives and homes together!

Some of the brands I have worked with are Nearly Natural, Shutterfly, Fabric Wholesale Direct, Turtle Fur, Poster Store, Personal Creations and Basic Invite.

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

I love reading Cat’s posts about silent movies

(I love these ideas from DIY Party Mom)

(Loved Amy’s trip to Jamestowne!)

I liked this review from Unsolicited Advice – I’ve read Horowitz’s Moriority and this reminded I want to read this one soon.

Important things to know about the link up:

You may add unlimited family-friendly blog post links, linked to specific blog posts, not just the blog.
Be sure to visit other links and leave a kind comment for each link you post (it would be too hard to visit every link, of course!)
The party opens Thursday evening and ends Wednesday.
Thank you for participating. Have fun!

*By linking to The Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot Link Up, you give permission to share your post and images on the hosts’ blogs.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

Hardy Boys Episode Recap: Wipe Out (Did the Hardy Boys just rob the hotel?!)

On July 16, 2025July 16, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries8 Comments

Here I am with another recap of an episode from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries show from 1977.

As I’ve mentioned before, in the first season of this series, the episodes switched back and forth from Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew episodes and in the next season, they started to join together. Eventually, they began to phase out the Nancy episodes and focus more on The Hardy Boys. A new actress also started as Nancy when Pamela Sue Martin became disenchanted with the parts that were being written for her character.

This week I watched a Hardy Boys centered episode called Wipe Out.

This episode was one of the better ones, which I seem to be writing a lot more as I continue through the show. It seems the show got a lot better as it went on. Episodes still have some cheesy moments, sure, but the mysteries are better than in the beginning.

I spent the entire first half of this episode thinking our boys might have gone rogue and had become criminals. Luckily, things started to make sense at the halfway point.

We open this episode with a surfing competition underway and soon learn that Frank is in the competition and the boys are in Hawaii.

They aren’t only in Hawaii, they have found two girls who are hanging all over them and going to luaus with them. Of course Joe (Shaun Cassidy) is asked to sing at one of them and of course Frank wanders off to investigate something while Joe is singing. Frank’s wandering off continues a series-long inside joke.

After Frank’s competing, which brings him accolades and a chance to compete for a bigger prize, the boys head back to their hotel room and find out they’ve been robbed. This sends them to the police station where a cop sort of brushes them off because he says their stuff is long gone by now.

This will mean the boys will to call their dad, Fenton Hardy, and see if he can wire them some money for the rest of their trip. Joe says Frank has to call him because he’s the one that wanted to come and be in the surfing competition.

Frank has a better idea and the next thing we now the guys are breaking into a room after swiping the key of a couple at the hotel. I watched in horror as our heroes started loading up bags with the jewelry and money of the people and even more horror as they went to dinner and ordered big ticket items, telling the waitress they were fine on money.

She knew they’d been robbed, though, so she was pretty horrified like me, suspicious of how they got the money to pay for their meal.

This episode did a very good job of keeping us guessing what was going to happen next and tossing in characters we thought were going to bust the boys somehow.

We had hotel cops and town cops coming after them and suspecting them of theft. Then we eventually discover there is a burglary ring, and we wonder how the boys got themselves wrapped up in it. Or did they? What is going on?

Even the girls they are seeing are starting to ask questions, like why they have a pair of fancy binoculars that look like some stolen by a couple at the hotel.

Usually I give spoilers in these posts but today I won’t because it might be fun if you want to watch it later on your own and find out what was really going on.

If you like listening to Shaun Cassidy sing you’ll get your chance a few times in this episode, especially at the beginning and end when he is singing Beach Boys songs.

The joke about Frank never hearing Joe sing continues on as Joe keeps trying to play a cassette for Frank so he can finally hear the performance. That was a fun gag but less fun was having to see Shaun’s short-shorts and hair leg every single time they focused on the cassette player in his hand.

The surfing scenes were a lot of fun to watch and I have a feeling that young ladies back then just loved to see Parker Stevenson running in and out of the waves. I will say that they kept the show very chaste because he always wore a shirt. There was one scene where Shaun was shirtless while he was rescuing Parker …er.. Frank and I’m guessing the young ladies would have liked that.

You can find the posts I’ve written about other Hard Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries shows by searching on the search bar to the right.

Up next I’ll be watching a Nancy Drew centered mystery, The Mystery of the Ghostwriter’s Cruise.

Little, used bookstores are the best and an anniversary outing

On July 13, 2025July 13, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon20 Comments

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

Today is my husband’s and my 23rd wedding anniversary, and we went to a used bookstore near us because we are both serious nerds.

Then we visited a small café across the street for lunch.

Dinner and a book. That’s us, although it wasn’t always me. I read some but not as much, or as much variety, as I do now.

My husband has always been a big reader — sometimes a book a day or 3 to 5 a week.

I’m a much slower reader.

At the bookstore, I found three new (to me) Nancy Drew books, three Murder She Wrote books, and a cozy mystery by an author I am not familiar with — Betty Rowlands.

The Nancy Drew books I brought home were Mystery of the Tolling Bell, Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk, and The Clue of the Broken Locket.

The Murder She Wrote books are Killer in the Kitchen, Murder in Red, and The Murder of Twelve. I have a feeling they might be awful and I’m here for it. I started Murder in Red to see what I thought, though, and the first few pages was good.

The other cozy mystery was A Melissa Craig Mystery: A Little Gentle Sleuthing by Betty Rowlands.

There are so many variety of books there. I could have stayed there an hour but The Husband, alas, was hungry so we had to head out for some food which was odd because I am usually the one who needs to leave places for food.

After the bookstore and the dinner we headed home and watched a Frank Sinatra/Gene Kelly movie called Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

Yesterday I shared a bit about our week last week on my Saturday Evening Chat post.

A couple of quick reminders:

I have a monthly book-related link party if you are interested. You can find the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea link party at the top of my page or here.

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are still holding Drop-In Crafternoons once or twice a month.

We will be holding another one Saturday, July 19 at 1 p.m.

The Crafternoons are events where we gather on Zoom and craft at our respective homes and chat while we work on various projects. We are calling them drop-in crafternoons because you can drop in and out during the time we are on (usually from about 1 to 3 p.m. EST US time). No need to stay the whole time if you can’t. Come late if you want or leave early.

If you want to join in, email Erin at crackcrumblife@gmail.com and she will add you to the mailing list.

I finished The Imitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse this past week and really enjoyed it. It was so much fun and exactly what I needed right now.

I started The 100-year-old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared and I don’t know if I am exactly enjoying it but it’s different. I’ll see what I think.

I also started Spill the Jackpot by Erle Stanley Gardner. It’s a Cool and Lamb Mystery. I am not enjoying this one much at all so I’ll see if I finish it. There were three pages of a guy describing how to use slot machines! Why??? Ugh! The first in the series was so much better. This is number four.

I started Memory Lane by Becky Wade to see what I thought because I have wanted to read a light romance but have not enjoyed the two I tried by Courtney Walsh. I just think she isn’t my cup of tea but I’ve read Becky’s before and have enjoyed her so I thought I’d try this one and … I liked the beginning so I am going to read that when I need a light read.

Before bed I am enjoying Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis.

I plan to read one of the Murder She Wrote I picked up soon.

Last week I watched The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982), The Pirates of Penzance, and A Hole in the Head.

I don’t recommend A Hole in the Head. It’s a Frank Sinatra/Edward G. Robinson film and it has some cute and fun moments but fell apart hard toward the end and didn’t resolve well at all. It’s like they just ran out of time and said “welp, that’s it! We’re done!”

I also watched an episode of The Dick VanDyke Show and The Husband and I watched Take Me Out to the Ballgame and the Canary Murder Case, a Philo Vance Mystery from the 1930s.

Last week on the blog I shared:

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.

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

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot July 11

On July 10, 2025July 9, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Weekend Traffic Jam7 Comments

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

This week has been difficult for many people, especially those in Texas, but I think really the whole country has felt the heartache of the sudden losses in the floods on July 4^th. It a sick, has left me with sick, heavy feeling the stomach for most of the week and I’ve been trying to regain some joy as the week has gone on.

I’ve been watching movies and reading funny books and just doing anything I can to distract myself which has also meant limiting my news consumption.

For now let’s distract ourselves with introducing our hosts, our featured blogger, and highlighting a few posts.

Our hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting: From This Side of the Pond

A little about Joyce: Welcome to This Side Of The Pond! I’m Joyce and I’ve been blogging in my little corner of the Internet since 2009. When I started this blog a) we were living in England, b) my girls were in university on the other side of the pond (technically now this side of the pond), and c) I had no idea what blogging was all about???

Since then we’ve moved three times, both my girls have graduated (one twice!), and I’ve decided I use too many words to meet the traditional definition of blogger, but I’m okay with that. Making a short story long is my superpower.
We’ve moved nine times in our 35+years of marriage (you do the math) with stints in Tennessee, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey (twice), Maryland, England (sigh), and most recently South Carolina (the Upstate, not the Low Country).

My college sweetheart (aka the hubs) retired in February 2015, went back to work in 2016, re-retired in 2017, got his real estate license in 2018 and you can see why I need to eat my Wheaties, right?

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

LI enjoyed this look back at relaxed Summer/homeschool days from Slices of Life!

(Yummy bread from Melynda at Scratchmade Food For Hungry People)

(I love these outfits from Midlife and Beyond!)

Important things to know:

You may add unlimited family-friendly blog post links, linked to specific blog posts, not just the blog.
Be sure to visit other links and leave a kind comment for each link you post (it would be too hard to visit every link, of course!)
The party opens Thursday evening and ends Wednesday.
Thank you for participating. Have fun!

*By linking to The Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot Link Up, you give permission to share your post and images on the hosts’ blogs.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Books I have or would reread

On July 8, 2025July 8, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading23 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Top Ten Tuesday July 8: Books I’d Like to I Re-read (Share either your favorite books that you enjoy re-reading or books that you’d like to read again!) (Submitted by Becky @ Becky’s Book Blog)

I don’t reread books a lot but there a few I would read again, and I guess for this post, I need to come up with ten that I have reread or would reread. I think I can do that.

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

It took me until last year to read this book and I ended up loving it. I would love to reread it again this year and I probably will.

2. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

I know! So cliché! But here is another one that I read late in life and now I want to read it again because it was so lovely and cozy and interesting. I never imagined I’d get so wrapped up in these characters. I used to roll my eyes at people who would gush about this book and the movies based on it and then I read it. Oh, my! I understand the gushing now.

3. Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

This book is just as sweet and touching as the Hallmark movie from the 1990s was, which is how I first knew about the story. Of course, the book came first. I didn’t read the book until I read it to my daughter a couple of years ago and I just loved it. I also loved the sequels, especially Skylark.

4. At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon

I have read this one more than once and I could read it again and again. There is always something new that I pick up on in it. I have also read Shepherd’s Abiding, the Christmas book more than once but now I read certain sections that are my favorite instead of the whole book.

5 The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

I read this one several years ago with my son and I would like to reread it but I have to finish The Lord of the Rings trilogy first. I have The Return of the King to read next.

6. The Cat Who Saw Ghosts by Lilian Jackson Braun

This is my favorite book of this series. It’s a lot different than the others in the series and sometimes I wonder if Lilian wrote it. The main character, Qwill, shows even more of his personality in this one and even shows his tenderness toward a young child in the book. The story/mystery is also a solid one. As with any long running series, there are aways going to be duds along the way, but this was not one of them.

7. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I first read this book in sixth grade by myself and again in eighth grade, though I don’t remember reading it in eighth grade. I know it was part of our curriculum but I guess my teacher wasn’t very memorable in her teaching. I remember she said, “What do you mean you’ve already read it?” She was surprised a sixth grader had taken it upon herself to read something so deep and advanced, I suppose, and I didn’t do that very often but in this case, I did read it because my mom suggested it and then started to read it to me in her southern accent. After I heard her Southern accent reading it, that’s how I heard the narrator (Scout) for the rest of the book.

I know I didn’t understand the intricacies of the message of this book when I was a child so reading it again as an adult about three years ago with my son for his English was a much different experience. I sobbed through the second half of the book as an adult because I understood so much more about the story, about Atticus, about the world and the ugliness and also goodness, the third time around. It is a book I think needs to be read several times for the message to really hit home.

8. Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

This is another book that I read at an age that other kids these days probably wouldn’t have read it. I did not do that a lot so don’t let me mislead you into thinking I read a ton of classics or harder books as a child. I did this occasionally and this one was one of those. The language is a challenge since it is written in the 1800s, but I really had fun with the story. It was a lot of fun, much more so than Huckleberry Finn, which had a lot of serious moments mixed in with the adventure. I liked Huck Finn too, though. I hope to read this one again at some point soon.

9. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

This is a book I read for the first time with my daughter last year. I would read it again because I truly enjoyed the story, even the harder parts I didn’t like in the movie version I saw as a child. I wanted a bit more from the ending but I really enjoyed the other parts of the book and could see myself reading it again.

10. Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

This is a book with a lot of tough subjects, but one I haven’t read since I was about 11. I would like to read it again because I have a feeling it will hit me in a different way, similar to the way To Kill A Mockingbird did. I actually have this as one book I want to read this summer.

Are there books that you have reread or want to reread? Or are you more of a one and done person like I usually am?

Book review: The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

On July 7, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading10 Comments

I know I talk a lot on here about Agatha Christie, but I actually have not yet read a ton of her books. Quite a few, but not a ton.

Most of the Agatha Christie books I have read have been either Poirot or Miss Marple mysteries. I decided to read The Pale Horse, which is not about either of those sleuths when the Agatha Christie official website suggested it a few months back as one of the challenges for their 2024 reading challenge. I have not kept up on that challenge this year but might try for the remainder of the year.

This month they are suggesting Come, Tell Me How You Live, which is a memoir of Agatha’s travels with her husband Archie. This is perfect timing because I have been watching Travels with Agatha Christie with Sir David Suchet and though he isn’t talking about this book in the show, it would still tie into her traveling. The book he actually mentions would have focused on her trip with her husband Archie and this book was written after she remarried years later. It’s actually listed under Agatha Christie Mallowan. I will probably have to order it new or through Thriftbooks, but I think it would be a fun read.

Anyhow, on to The Pale Horse.

I didn’t actually read the description of this book before I started it but as I was getting into it I saw a review of it and became a little nervous. The review mentioned that it deals with the occult and seances, etc., and that is just not my thing. I decided to plow forward, though, and in the end the book did mention those topics but — without giving too much away — that is not where the story landed, shall we say.

The story is written in both third and first person, which threw me off a bit.

We start with a man named Mark Easterbrook trying to write a mystery and switch to an actual mystery when a dying woman asks for a priest to come so she can tell him something before she dies. We don’t know what she tells him, but we know that he is murdered shorty before she does tell him.

Eventually we are led back to the man we met in the first chapter and he finds himself trying to figure out why the priest was murdered and what three creepy women living together in an old inn called The Pale Horse, might have to do with his murder and the mysterious deaths of several others in the community.

When the priest died, he had a list of last names in his shoe and the police are eventually joined by Easterbrook to find out who the people on the list are or were. Sadly, some of them are in the past tense and Easterbrook is worried that if he doesn’t hurry up and figure out what is going on, more of them will be in the same tense.

One of Mark’s friends is a mystery writer, Mrs. Oliver, and she is friends, sort of, with the creepy women but she doesn’t enjoy the way they talk about occult and seances, etc. In this scene I am Mrs. Oliver:

Thyrza shot her a quick glance.

“Yes, it is in a way.” She turned to Mrs. Oliver. “You should write one of your books about a murder by black magic. I can give you a lot of dope about it.”

Mrs. Oliver blinked and looked embarrassed.

“I only write very plain murders,” she said apologetically

Her tone was of one who says, “I only do plain cooking.”

“Just about people who want other people out of the way and try to be clever about it,” she added.

I wasn’t sure where the book was going part of the time and that made me a bit nervous and I got even more nervous when Mark and a new friend of his decided they would set up the people they thought might be involved in the murders. I was also caught up in it all before that but was biting my nails (literally) once the plot moved to entrapment.

I’ve mentioned before that one thing I am not a fan of when it comes to Agatha is how she doesn’t add a lot of description of surroundings or characters. I don’t like a ton of description in my books but a little more than what she offers sometimes would be nice. Her lack of description was not an issue for me in this book, which felt like a more well-rounded novel to me than some of the ones from the series.

A description example I don’t remember reading much in other of her novels I have read (which remember is very few):

The vicarage sitting room was big and shabby. It was much shaded by a gargantuan Victorian shrubbery that no one seemed to have had the energy to curb. But the dimness was not gloomy for some peculiar reason. It was, on the contrary, restful. All the large shabby charis bore the impress of resting bodies in them over the years. A fat clock on the chimneypiece ticked with a heavy, comfortable regularity. Here there would always be time to talk, to say what you wanted to say, to relax from the cares brought about by the bright day outside.”

A couple of other quotes I enjoyed from the book:

“My husband’s a very good man,” she said. “Besides being the vicar, I mean. And that makes things difficult sometimes. Good people, you see, don’t really understand evil.” She paused and then said with a kind of brisk efficiency. “I think it had better be me.”

“People are so proud of wickedness. Odd, isn’t it, that people who are good are never proud of it? That’s where Christian humility comes in, I suppose. They don’t even know they are good.”

I considered Hermia disapassionately across the table. So handsome, so mature, so intellectual, so well read! And so — how could one put it? So — yes, so damnably dull!”

“Yes,” I said. “The supernatural seems supernatural. But the science of tomorrow is the supernatural of today.”

Have you read this one? What did you think?

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

The day Thriftbooks sent me a book I did not order, and it turned out to be a collectible

On July 6, 2025July 12, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon30 Comments

Thursday I received a package from Thriftbooks and inside was supposed to be a copy of Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis (check), a copy of The Nancy Drew Scrapbook by Karen Plunket-Powel (check), and a Murder She Wrote Mystery (no check). Instead of the Murder She Wrote mystery, I found a very old book with a crumbling dust jacket and more dust than this mild-asthmatic with allergies was comfortable with. I barely looked at the book but I thought the title looked French.

Later that night after sending off an annoyed email to Thriftbooks to tell them they sent me the wrong book, I decided to take a closer look at the book, to at least find out the name.

I had never heard of the book, but it was called Murder A La Stroganoff by Caryl Brahms and SJ Snow. Inside the cover, it had a stamp that said it was from the Newberry Library, had been retired from their shelves, and was part of the Barzel Dance Collection. I searched a little more online and these books are fairly rare because it is a first edition from 1938 and the book is no longer in print. They did issue a paperback copy in 1985, but there are not a ton of the hardcovers published by The Crime Club, Doubleday & Co, New York out there.

Sadly, the book isn’t necessarily worth a ton without the dust jacket, which crumbled in my hands when I opened the package, but I couldn’t find one online being sold for less than $20 so, hey, if I ever do decide to sell it, I could make at least $20 off something I was shipped for free. With the dust jacket it could be worth up to $150. Apparently there aren’t a ton of these first editions out there and it’s a bit of a cult classic among mystery readers.

Thriftbooks did get back to me, by the way, and didn’t get the point that they sent the wrong book. Instead, they said they were sorry the book didn’t show up the way I wanted it to and that they didn’t have any other books with that title (they still think it is the Murder She Wrote book I first ordered) so to just keep the book and do what it with I wanted. They then issued me a refund for the book.

The book is a mystery and crime book with some satire mixed in about the ballet industry and is the second book in a series. I can not find a description of the book line but I think I actually want to read it so I might get a copy of the paperback instead of trying to read this older book which might bother my allergies.

I will be writing a blog post in the future about the book and its authors, though, because I fell down a rabbit hole researching what the book might be worth. I suppose that in the end getting the wrong book wasn’t such a bad thing.

Last week I finished The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie and The Clue in the Diary by Carolyn Keene (A Nancy Drew Mystery).

I’ll have reviews of both of them soon but I did enjoy them both. The Pale Horse was obviously more adult — I mean, not like “adult-adult” but more mature themes. But not like … mature-mature. *wink*

I’ve been enjoying some leisurely reading of P.G. Wodehouse’s The Imitable Jeeves.

The book is so funny and witty. It’s been a very nice escape. The Jeeves books are comedic books about Bertie Wooster, a British gentleman from London, who is always getting into somewhat weird situations where he has to be bailed out or helped by his valet Jeeves.

This book is exactly what I have needed this week.

I think I’m going to have to give up on The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley by Courtney Walsh before I even really get too far in it. I pushed through the first chapter wondering why the author was giving me so much information at once and when she was going to get to an actual story. The first chapter is entirely Isadora standing in a supermarket, thinking about her life with very little interaction with anyone else or action. It looks to me like the whole book is mainly her thinking about things and dumping a lot of info on the reader all in one go. I just can’t get into it, in other words.

I might try again this week, but otherwise I am going to move on to Prince Caspian and then But First Murder by Bee Littlefield.

This week I watched Gaslight (1944) as part of my Summer of Angela movie watching event and really enjoyed it. It isn’t a movie I’d watch over and over because it is pretty dark in some ways, but I did enjoy it. I also watched The Rains Came, a 1939 movie with Myrna Loy and Tyrone Powers and Abbott and Costello in The Jack and The Beanstalk.
This morning I watched church with Lisa Harper as the guest pastor and followed it up with a couple episodes of Just A Few Acres Farm.

I’m working on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School and wrote a little more this past week. I hope to have more time to write this week since Little Miss is going to VBS and I’ll probably wait at the church for her to save gas.

On the blog I shared:

Saturday Evening Chat: Fourth of July and prayers, not blaming, for Texas

Summer of Angela: Gaslight (1944)

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot July 4th!

A Good Book And A Cup of Tea Link Up for July

Top Ten Tuesday: The Ten Most Recent Books I’ve Read

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.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot July 4th!

On July 3, 2025July 3, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Weekend Traffic Jam6 Comments

Happy Fourth of July!! (To us Americans anyhow!)

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it. Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

I hope you are all having a nice summer. Ours has been pretty tame, but we still have two months, so we will see if we find some adventure for July and August. I’ve been spending my summer reading, working on the fourth book in my cozy mystery series, and watching movies. I’ve also been helping my elderly parents some and figuring out some health issues (the good news is that things are getting a little better as I figure out some things. It’s going slow but, yes, I am seeing some progress and I am so thankful to God for that.)

Once again this week I want to mention the loss of a member of our blogging community a couple of weeks ago. Patrick Weseman, author of Adventures in Weseland passed away the week before last and we only learned of it after we posted our Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot post, which featured his blog.

Please find this wonderful tribute to him on Shelbee on the Edge’s blog to learn more about him.

Now, let’s introduce our hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting: Style Splash

A little about Emma: Hello, I’m Emma Peach, a 49-year-old journalism graduate. I grew up in Cambridgeshire, then at the age of 26 I moved to Nottingham for 13 years (where I did a Masters in TV Journalism) before relocating to the North West in 2013. I’ve worked in broadcasting since 2001, mainly TV, but also online and radio. When I moved to Cheshire, I took the plunge and left my staff job to go freelance and have never regretted it!

I started Style Splash when my daughter was two years old; it was the culmination of finally feeling like I had regained my identity since becoming a mum. I’d always loved fashion and beauty so it seemed like the perfect creative outlet. I have to admit that I was more than a little intimidated by all the blogs featuring flawless 20-somethings wearing the latest designer clothes, but while there’s certainly a place for those blogs, along with the glossy magazines for us to aspire to, they don’t reflect the day to day existence of most people. Becoming a mum or reaching a milestone birthday shouldn’t create fashion boundaries…style has no age limit!

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

Great makeup tips from Style Yourself Confident!

(Here is a fun one about children’s books from Cat’s Wire)

(Debbie Dabble’s tea set and dining room set up is lovely!)

Beautiful photos and wrap up from Slices of Life

Important things to know:

You may add unlimited family-friendly blog post links, linked to specific blog posts, not just the blog.
Be sure to visit other links and leave a kind comment for each link you post (it would be too hard to visit every link, of course!)
The party opens Thursday evening and ends Wednesday.
Thank you for participating. Have fun!

*By linking to The Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot Link Up, you give permission to share your post and images on the hosts’ blogs.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

Top Ten Tuesday: The Ten Most Recent Books I’ve Read

On July 1, 2025July 2, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, top-ten-tuesday31 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt is: Freebie/Throwback (Come up with a topic you’d like to do or go back and do an old topic you missed or just want to do again!)

So this week, I chose to share my last ten reads so far this year with quick, two to three sentence reviews for each.

I am telling you, guys and gals, I am reading so slowly this year! The number of books I have read so far is a very sad amount. I know what is important is that I’m reading at all, not how many I have read, but ugh! I feel like I am not spending enough time just relaxing and reading!

Of course, I also have started some books that took up quite a bit of time and then decided I couldn’t finish them. I also read two very long books that took me longer than most of the books I read.

Anyhow, on with the post!

The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

This third book in the Chronicles of Narnia series was a very fun read with a lot of humor, but yet also seriousness, thrown in. It is a children’s book, but there is a lot of spiritual wisdom if you read between the lines.

2. The Tuesday Night Club by Agatha Christie

Interesting and intriguing collection of short stories that are connected by the fact a group of people are sitting around sharing their stories about mysteries they experienced and either couldn’t solve or did later. This is a Miss Marple book and in many of the stories Miss Marple ended up solving the crime. This wasn’t my favorite Agatha Christie book but it was an interesting concept.

3. Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke

I’ve heard tons about this series over the years and I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I did not like this book as much I hoped I would. I liked most of it, but toward the end it totally fell apart for me. I might try others in the series but at this point, my expectations have been lowered.

4. The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

It took me quite a long time to get through The Fellowship of the Ring but once I really sat down and got into this one, it took a lot less time. I very much enjoyed this one. I love the friendships, the fight of good against evil, the adventure, all of it. I do not like that the two “bad guys” have names that are so similar to each other, though. Up next in this series will be, of course, Return of the King, and I’m saving that for late fall, early winter.

5. The Twisted Claw by Franklin W. Dixon (A Hardy Boys)

This was the first Hardy Boys book I read and I ended up enjoying it. I’m looking forward to reading others.

6. Peg and Rose Solve a Murder by Laurien Berenson

I enjoyed this first in a new series and by a new-to-me author. I am looking forward to finding and reading book two soon.

7. Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (On A Dead Man) by Jesse Sutanto

This one was the second book in a series and it was not as good as the first, at least for me. I enjoyed Vera’s character like I did in the first book, but in this second book, things took a really dark turn and I was having a hard time pushing through. I didn’t connect with the characters in this second book like I did with the first either. It was still a pretty good book and I will read more in this series, if there is more.

8. The Wishing Well by Mildred Wirt

I enjoyed this juvenile mystery by the original Carolyn Keene. It is a book from the Penny Parker Mysteries and the wit and quick tongue moments in this book were Wirt at her finest. In these books Wirt is free to write how she wants and not how Harriet Adams of Stratemeyer Publishing wanted her to write.

If you want to read more about Mildred, you can do so here https://lisahoweler.com/2025/05/05/tell-me-more-about-mildred-millie-wirt-benson/

You can also read a full review of this book here: https://lisahoweler.com/2025/06/09/book-review-the-wishing-well-by-mildred-wirt-benson/

9. All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot

This book felt very long to me because it was broken down into a lot of short stories with the related thread being James’ time in the military. It was a little tedious to me to read straight through, so I took breaks and read it a few times a week, a couple of chapters at a time. In the end, I really enjoyed the book, the stories about James in the military and his family life, and the stories about Tristan, which were hilarious. I could absolutely picture the actor who plays Tristan in the new series as I read stories he was a part of. When I was done with the book, I actually felt a little sad because it had been part of my life for at least three months, and I felt like I had been reading about family in some ways. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the books that I haven’t read yet in the series.

10. The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

I finished this one just Sunday night and enjoyed it when I originally thought I wouldn’t. This book deals a lot with occult and mediums, etc., which is not my thing, so I didn’t think I would like it. About halfway through, I had to find out what happened and couldn’t put the book down. I felt a little stupid that I didn’t figure out who the guilty party was until it was revealed, since it was a little obvious, but I like how it was brought out, and I really liked the very ending. That’s all I will say about that.

What are some of the recent books you’ve read?

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

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