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.

I am loving all the celebrations for our country’s 250^th anniversary! Last night our local Catholic Church put on an amazing display that our entire town was able to watch because the church is located on a hill.

Little Miss’s little friend was over and played the Star Spangled Banner as the show went on which made it even more patriotic. Zooma the Wonder Dog did freak out some but she was so excited that Little Miss’s friend was over that she was distracted from being afraid from the loud banging.

I actually forgot about the fireworks display so when it went off I thought it was gunshots which is not unusual in this area since we have so many hunters, but still, we don’t usually hear that many at a time.

I’ll be looking forward to seeing fireworks displays around the country next week too. Our town has flags all over – it’s fun to see.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

This week  I finished The Ivory Dagger by Patricia Wentworth. It was my first book by her and I enjoyed it. It reminded me of Agatha Christie with more descriptions. This was a book from the Miss Silver series. I’m going to go back to the beginning of the series and start there.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month. I’m still reading Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson but I put it aside to finish The Ivory Dagger. I’ll continue it this week because I am enjoying it.

Up Soon

Up soon I will be reading Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are reading Heidi. My son is listening to a Warhammer book. I forgot to ask The Husband what he is reading.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

Last week I received a delivery of nine middle grade books for Little Miss and I to read  together. They included: Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright, The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keattey Snyder, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle, Across the Lines by Carolyn Reeder, The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks, Moccasin Trail by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac, Calico Girl by Jerdine Nolen, and  Phoebe the Spy by Judith Berry Griffin.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

 I was depressed this week to find that Murder, She Wrote was taken of Amazon Prime, where I was able to watch it without commercials. I hate commercials because it seems most of streaming commercials are for pharmaceutical companies and politics. Blah.

I’ve decided I am going to start ordering them on DVD like I am my movies. I’m tired of putting up with tech companies telling me when and how I can watch my shows! And I don’t care if I sound like an old lady. Ha.

I did watch some Murder, She Wrote on the On Demand feature on Amazon. I also watched a movie called Tell It To the Judge with Rosalind Russell and Robert Cummings, a Myrna Loy and William Powell movie called Double Wedding, and several episodes of As Time Goes By.

What I’ve Been Writing

I’m working on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School, book four in the Gladwynn Grant series.

This week on the blog I shared:

• Classic Movie Impression: Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
• Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot June 26
• Ten mysteries I hope to read this summer
• Book recommendation: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I’ve been listening to The Essential Dean Martin Collection and a Murder, She Wrote book.

Photos From Last Week

Some Housekeeping

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

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

Now It’s Your Turn

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

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

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

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

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

In Progress

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

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

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

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

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

Up Soon

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

What The Family is Reading

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

New arrivals to my bookshelf

Nothing this week!

What I/We’ve Been Watching

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

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

What I’ve Been Writing

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

This week on the blog I shared:

• Classic Movie Impressions. Spring of Bette Davis: The Petrified Forrest (1936)
• Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot June 19
• Book recommendation: Amish Inn Mystery, Stolen Past by Tara Randel
• 15 Books I Hope To Read This Summer

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

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

Some Housekeeping

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

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

Now It’s Your Turn

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

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

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

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

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

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

In Progress

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

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

Up Soon

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

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are making good progress on Heidi.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

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

What I/We’ve Been Watching

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

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

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

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

“She won’t miss you, you narcissist!”

“You don’t deserve to have her!”

“Go off, Queen!”

“That’s right, you tell him!”

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

“He’s old enough to be your father!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What I’ve Been Writing

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

Last week on the blog, I shared:

• Spring of Bette Davis: Now, Voyager
• Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot June 12
• What I Read in Spring
• Ten Books with Handwriting on the Cover 
• Sunday Bookends: Celebratory dinner, disturbing Rita Hayworth documentary, and the same books

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

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

Photos From Last Week

Some Housekeeping

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

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

Now It’s Your Turn

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

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

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

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I didn’t finish anything last week.

In Progress

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

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

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

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

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

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are continuing Heidi.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

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

What I/We’ve Been Watching

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

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

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

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week on the blog I shared:

• Classic movie impressions: Spring of Bette Of Human Bondage (1934)
• Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot June 5
• Book recommendations: The Labors of Hercules by Agatha Christie
• Ten Books I can’t believe I’ve never read
• A Good Book & A Cup of Tea (Monthly Bookish Blog Party) for June
• Sunday Bookends: Old recordings from relatives found and watching an old Miss Marple and a new “Miss Bennet”

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

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

Photos From Last Week

Some Housekeeping

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

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

Now It’s Your Turn

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

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

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

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

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

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

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