I had an ‘old lady’ weekend and loved it

On November 18, 2024November 20, 2024 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings13 Comments

I had an old lady weekend this past weekend.

What in the world do I mean by that?

Well, nothing too serious really and I am certainly not saying all “old ladies” do these things.

I guess you could say I am drawing on the stereotypes of “old ladies”, not the realities, so please do not take offense if you do consider yourself an actual “old lady.”

The stereotypes I am talking about are where they eat prunes (well, we—I mean they — have to because their digestive systems slow down!), curl up under blankets (hey, their circulation isn’t what it used to be), watch Murder She Wrote (hey, it’s a fun escape!), pet their cats (cats are cozy!), and sip warm herbal tea.

Of course, I know they (um….we?) aren’t all like that, but this weekend we came home from taking one of Little Miss’s friends back to her dad and I realized I had the rest of the night to myself. I opened the fridge to pour myself a glass of lactose-free milk (hey, don’t judge – it’s not an old lady thing. I’ve been lactose-intolerant since I was born.) and saw my prunes in the fridge door.

Yes, I have prunes. Let’s not talk about why. I grabbed a couple and declared to my husband, “You know, I actually enjoy prunes!”

In the next few seconds, I remembered I hadn’t finished an episode of Murder She Wrote before we left so I said, “Oh! I have a Murder She Wrote episode to finish!” I think I might have even clapped. The very idea of getting my warm blanket, making a cup of tea, and watching Murder She Wrote was just thrilling to me.

And that’s when it hit me.

I actually am old. I’m not even 50 yet but I looked at my husband and said, “I’m old! I’m eating prunes and watching Murder She Wrote!”

He said something along the line of, “You’re not old – now go in and cuddle under your blanket and maybe make some tea later while you finish your episode, dear.”

I confess to you that I did not watch just that one episode of Murder She Wrote. No. I watched two more and Little Miss watched them with me.

We were like two little old ladies.

I was under one blanket and she was under another.

She had a dog and cat with her and then the cat curled up on me part of the time too.

Every little while one of us would comment about the show, but mainly we were fairly quiet.

“There’s something not right about that ginger,” she said at one point. “Something about her eyes are crazy.”

“I think that guy did it,” I said. “They always have the innocent looking ones that we all fall in love with be the bad guy in these shows.”

Then her, “Yeah you two could be friends under different circumstances — like if you hadn’t straight up killed that man!”

Continuing the old lady theme throughout the weekend, Little Miss and I watched a couple episodes of Mary Berry’s show and I read from a series of Christmas novellas/Amish romances.

I hadn’t seen this series of Mary Berry on Amazon before so I was giddy with excitement. The series was filmed in 2022. Mary is 89 this year. She was 87 years old and looks like she’s in her 60s and still as perky and active as ever. I know that won’t be me at her age – if I even make it that far, but I wish it could be. Heck, I wish I could be like her at my age.

I am not usually a fan of Amish romances, but these were written well and very sweet. The book is called A Christmas Gathering with novellas by Shelly Shepard Gray, Rachel J. Good, and Lenora Worth, in case you were wondering.

The time with Little Miss and reading my sweet Amish romances was the most relaxed I’ve been in weeks. I think I’m going to draw into the “old lady” hobbies more this winter and not feel even a little bit guilty about it!

(If I start knitting or making quilts, though, you better come rescue me. It means I’ve sunk too far down into old lady land. *wink* )

Sunday Bookends: Already in my old lady phase and so is my 10-year-old daughter

On November 17, 2024November 16, 2024 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings16 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.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

I am officially an old lady. I was telling my husband how much I enjoy prunes and a few minutes later I gasped and said, “Oh! I have a Murder She Wrote episode to finish! I’m so excited!”

My husband then reminded me I should brew a cup of tea before I got comfortable under my blanket on the couch. All I need is my slippers and a few more cats and my Old Lady Kit is complete.

The best thing is that my 10-year-old daughter, Little Miss, is watching with me, curled up under her own blanket with the dog curled next to her, saying things like, “There’s something wrong with the ginger here. Look at her eyes.” or “yeah, you could be friends under different circumstances because you literally killed a man…” and “Bro really needs some better pants.”

She’s starting her kit early.

Then she said, “Honestly, I would have liked to have had that lady as my grandma on my dad’s side.” (Since she never knew his mom for a variety of not-so-fun reasons.)

When I told her after the second episode that we could watch something else she said, “No! More!”

So we launched into our third episode.

Earlier this week Little Miss finished the art class we’ve been attending that was sponsored by the county library. Friday night The Husband took her to an art reception for her work and I stayed home with a sinus headache or neck thing…not sure which. It was so fun to see her so excited about her work, which the teacher had them name and then set a price on, if they wanted to.

I thought it was very interesting to see which drawing she decided to list as “not for sale” and which one she said she would sell for $20. Nothing would change her mind either.

What I/we’ve been Reading

The Christmas Gathering – a book full of three novellas by Shelley Shepard Gray, Lenora Worth, Rachel J. Good (because I needed something happy and light to read)

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Christy by Catherine Marshall (this is my slow and easy read)

The Secret of the Wooden Lady by Carolyn Keene

The Maestro’s Missing Melody by Amy Walsh, which I reviewed here.

The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashi

Little Men by Louisa Mae Alcott

Little Miss and I finished The Four Story Mistake and started And Then There Were Five in The Melendy Children series by Elizabeth Enright.

Little Miss is also reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets some nights.

The Husband is reading The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood because I told him to. Ha! Okay, because he really wanted to.

The Boy is reading The Hound of the Baskervilles.

What We watched/are Watching

Above I mentioned what an old lady I have become and I really have because last night I found a new-to-me series of Mary Berry on Amazon Prime and just about giggled with delight. Little Miss was very excited too. We absolutely love Mary Berry. The fact they have several specials or series with her on Amazon now that I didn’t see before has me very excited. One thing I love about her shows is that they don’t only show viewers how to cook but also provide some background about the dish they are cooking or some education about cultures.

The episode we watched last night was about an Indian wedding. It was extremely interesting.

Tonight we will be watching Chocolat, together via a watch party and YOU are invited. We will be pressing play together on the movie and chatting in our Discord server, which you can join here: https://discord.gg/TpWNxJ4Z

I really hope you will join us! If not, it will just be Erin and I chatting with each other and that’s not all bad either. Haha!

What I’m Writing

I finished the rough draft of Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree this past week and now I am in the rewriting and editing stage. It will be released in 2025.

On the blog this past week I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I am listening to The Hound of the Baskervilles some and reading it other times.

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

|| A Visit to Lincoln Home by Amy’s Creative Pursuits ||

|| Third Days Tripping Our Way by Mama’s Empty Nest ||

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.

Sunday Bookends: birthdays, baking pies, and finishing up the third Gladwynn book

On November 10, 2024November 10, 2024 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends8 Comments

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

This past week was an interesting one in some ways and a regular one in others.

On Tuesday I had a not-so-fun experience at the polling place in my little tiny town. Lesson learned to mail-in ballots from now on. It had nothing to do, by the way, with who I voted for. It just had to do with adults who were rude to my child and it really ticked me off. This paragraph is completely unrelated to politics other than I was in a polling place for an election.

Thursday was better, though, because it was our son’s 18^th birthday. My neighbor asked how I felt having an 18-year-old.

I sent her this gif:

Then I told her I was also very proud of my son because he’s grown into a wonderful young man.

It’s all gone by so insanely fast, though. There is so much I miss about him being younger but so much that is also great about this age.

We bought him a War Hammer model set and he’s having a blast painting them. It is a new hobby for him. Little Miss and I traveled to my parents on Thursday to help make apple pies for The Boy because he prefers pie over cake.

My mom ended up coming down with a sinus infection that triggered a flare of her fibromyalgia while we were there. It was a little scary as she was in excruciating pain all over and having some trouble walking. That night she spiked a fever.

We still had a nice day and the next day she was much better and the fever was gone. None of us can really understand why whatever she had only lasted a day and went away, but I do know I prayed a lot that day and night for her healing.

The pie, by the way, was “great” according to The Boy who doesn’t easily give compliments out so Little Miss and I, with my parent’s directions, pulled it out after all.

Yesterday The Boy and The Husband had fun during a father-son day in a city about an hour away. They visited a comic book shop where he picked up some more figures to paint.

They then walked around town, visiting the local university and a used book shop where my husband picked this up for me:

He knows me way too well. That’s an original 1941 Hardy Boys book. I can not wait to read it – as long as the mildew smell doesn’t mess with my sinuses. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.

I forgot to mention that on Friday we had an art class and then drove the 30-minutes north to pick up our groceries.

Yesterday I spent the day relaxing with an old movie and a new cozy mystery show and also worked on the final chapters of Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree.

I definitely am not used to Daylight Savings yet I’ve come to realize. I was so tired all day yesterday, for one, and then at one point I yawned and thought how I could go to bed soon. That’s when I looked at my laptop clock and it said 6:42.

“6:42? For real??” I cried. “I thought it was 8!!”

I suppose my body will get used to it – you know, by spring when we spring forward.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I am reading The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Christy by Catherine Marshall, and The Maestro’s Missing Melody by Amy Walsh

The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood. Yes, I enjoyed it and yes I just started the series and no it does not keep to the book.

The Secret of the Wooden Lady by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew)

The Farmer’s Son by John Connell

The Husband is reading The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden

What We watched/are Watching

This week Erin and I watched Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema.

I watched Harvey with Jimmy Stewart on my own.

I also watched the first two episodes of The Marlow Murder Club on Amazon (that is all that is out so far).

What I’m Writing

I sound like a broken record but I am finishing Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree.

This past week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I am listening to The Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon on Audible.

I am also listening to this song my Downhere:

Photos from Last Week

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.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot

On November 7, 2024November 7, 2024 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Weekend Traffic Jam13 Comments

Welcome back to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot! Whoot! This link up is hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food & DYI Homemade Household, Sue from Women Living Well After 50, and me. Look for the link party to go live on Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT.

This is a blog link-up where we not only allow you to share your past posts but we encourage it. So share away!

Today is my son’s 18^th birthday! So that is pretty exciting for our family.

Let’s move on to our most clicked posts for this week.

|| Rolling in Dough Week Three Of At Home by From This Side of the Pond ||

My highlights for this week:

|| Maple Syrup Roasted Butternut Squash by Esme Salon ||

|| Coloring Through the Book of Psalms by Amy’s Creative ||

|| Yielding to the Fire by A New Lens ||

I’m so glad you are here and participating in our weekly link-up of family-friendly, fun, educational, interesting, crafty, fashionable, and whatever else posts. I hope you’ll tell your followers about our post (feel free to copy and paste the graphic) and visit the blogs in the link-up.

Now it is your turn to link up your favorite posts. They can be fashion, lifestyle, DIY, food, etc. All we ask is that they be family friendly. You can link up posts from last week or even from years ago. You can share up to three links each week.

We are always looking for additional hosts so let us know if you want to help out and we are also looking for more links from fashion bloggers so let your fashion bloggers know!

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten books with cats on the cover

On November 5, 2024November 5, 2024 By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, everyday musings, top-ten-tuesday16 Comments

|| Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. ||

Today the theme was top ten covers with [an item of your choice] n the front and I chose top ten covers with cats because I have a lot of books with cats on the front. That’s probably because I read a lot of cozy mysteries and cozy mystery readers and authors like cats in their books and on their covers. Sometimes they barely mention a cat in the book but they still put a cat on the cover. Cozy mystery readers and authors also like dogs but today I went with bookcovers with cats on them.

The Cat Who Sniffed Glue by Lilian Jackson Braun

When I looked through my The Cat Who books I was actually surprised by how many of the covers didn’t have cats on them. They had paw prints, but no actual cats. It looks like there are some knock-off covers online but those are not the official covers so I did not include them. A couple of the books, such as this one, did have cats on them, though.

2. The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai

I have not read this one yet but I hope to this winter. I have had it on my list for a while and planned to read it but got distracted by some other books first. Yes, the story of my life.

2. Mums and Mayhem by Amanda Flowers.

The cat is part of the story in this series but not a huge part. The fox pictured here is more a part than the cat.

4. Read and Buried by Eva Gates

I’ve only read one book in this series and it was pretty good. From what I remember, the cat was a big part of it.

5. A Fatal Footnote by Margaret Loudon

This one was on my fall TBR but I don’t think I’m going to get to it so I am pushing it off until winter. My daughter picked this one out because of the cat, which looks a lot like our cat Scout.

6. Apple Cider Slaying by Julie Anne Lindsey

I don’t really remember there being cats in this book but I liked the cats on the cover at least.

7. We’ll Prescribe You A Cat by Syou Ishida

I have not read this one yet, but it is on my list and I like the name because cats often help me when I don’t feel well or I am down. Sometimes they drive me crazy too.

8. Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing by Lisa R. Howeler

Yes this is my book but it has a cat on the front so…I shamelessly added it. It is on sale on Amazon and can also be read on Kindle Unlimited if you are interested. *wink*

9. Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody

This is a writing craft book that I have read part of and would like to read more of but have put it somewhere and can’t find it.

10. The Crime That Binds by Laurie Cass

I’ve had this one on my shelf for over a year so I really hope to get it read soon. This series looks so good and I am interested to see how the cat fits in to the story.

How about you? Do you have books with either cats on the cover or a lot of books with similar images?

Goodbye, October. Hello, November.

On November 2, 2024 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings5 Comments

Do you ever look back at the previous month and can’t remember what you did during it or if any of it was worth mentioning?

That’s me pretty much every month. Ha! But last month really was not terribly exciting for us and I think that is just fine.

We did celebrate Little Miss’s birthday at the beginning of the month. We took her roller skating with a friend and she also had a sleepover.

The Husband and I both remembered our grandmothers in October since they both had October birthdays.

Little Miss and I started taking art classes at the beginning of the month that will last another week and that has been fun. There will be a reception the week after next for the art the children produced in their class and then they will be on display at the library in town (which is also the county library because it is the only library in this tiny county).

I attended one of the adult art classes and will try to attend the last two. The instructor doesn’t really instruct, though, and I find drawing bottles absolutely dull, but I guess it gives me a bit of time to decompress and relax, away from responsibilities at home.

The Boy has also been getting back into art again. He drew these characters from various video games on the white board in his classroom at the technical school:

Our leaves changed rather slowly this year and did offer us some brilliant yellows and deep oranges. We still have a few on the trees, but for the most part the autumn winds have knocked them down. Little Miss and The Boy had one leaf-jumping day and then it became too cold. When it did warm up, we didn’t think about going back in the leaves again.

We had a mix of cold and warm weather in October, which sent our sinuses on a rough ride part of the time, especially last week when Little Miss and The Boy ended up with very short colds.

The Boy felt awful the day we took Little Miss trick-or-treating in a town about 30 minutes away so she could go with her friend and The Husband could take photos for the paper he works for.

*Little Miss’s friend photobombing The Husband’s photo of the paper was one of my favorite moments of October.*

The Boy and I sat in the car and listened to an audiobook he’s been enjoying while The Husband walked around town with her and her little friend, something he loves to do (don’t worry, I didn’t make him! Ha!).

By Sunday Little Miss was hit hard with the cold and on Monday she was absolutely miserable with a sore throat and pouring nose. On Tuesday she was better and was totally over it by Wednesday.

I thought I was going to get it as well but in the end, it somehow skipped me, other than a headache and minor sinus stuff on Monday.

As an example of the weird weather this week, yesterday it was 67 degrees and today it is 50. The day before yesterday it was 75. Today it is 50. I wish Pennsylvania didn’t have the yo-yoing weather it has. Pick one, Pennsylvania! Seriously, though, the nice and warm days were welcome, even if they felt a little odd to be having.

I’m looking forward to cooler temps in November that will leave me with an excuse to stay home, cuddled under a blanket. We will have to wait and see what happens and will make the best of it no matter what.

We have two birthdays to celebrate in November – The Boy’s first and then The Husband’s.

The Husband’s is on the same day as my brother and sister-in-law’s anniversary.

As for the rest of November, we don’t have a ton planned.

I will be finishing up the last draft of Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree and passing that on to editors and beta readers to read. I will be glad to have the project finished and plan to take a month-long break from novel writing and just enjoy some reading and movie-watching time in preparation for the Christmas season.

How did you October go? I hope it went well. Do you have anything exciting planned for November?

Sunday Bookends: Books with errors, the last of warm days, old movies, and a movie watch party

On October 27, 2024October 29, 2024 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends16 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.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

The beginning of this week the weather was beautiful which led my dad to decide to take my kids for a hike along the old railroad tracks near his house two days in a row. I stayed back at my parents and helped my mom with cleaning the house.

The kids enjoyed walking the path where the train tracks used to be and my dad told them the history of where the station was and where the trains traveled. He also talked to Little Miss about where the old French mill used to be along the creek.

Zooma The Wonder Dog also loved the trip. She and Little Miss splashed in the creek and looked for fish, but didn’t see any.

The kids took some photos:

Two days later our little town was placed under a water boil advisory when there was a water main break. This made cooking and washing dishes a challenge, but we managed – not without complaint from me. The advisory was lifted on Friday, thankfully.

Last week I wrote a bit about our family’s cats over the years and barely scratched the surface of all the cats we’ve had over the years. I’ve decided I’m going to sit down one day this week and write about all the cats I can remember us having. Cats have such interesting personalities and each one seems to be different.

I also hope to write a blog post in the next month or so about the letters we have between my great-grea-grandfather and his brothers and mother that were written during the Civil War. They are very interesting.

What I/we’ve been Reading

The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood and The Anne of Green Gables Devotional by Rachel Dodge

Murder Handcrafted by Isabella Alan, which I have been sharing the wrong title of for a couple of weeks. So this one was good but also annoying. First, I didn’t know it was the last book in the series until I read some reviews. Second, there were some super weird typo and consistency issues that really threw me out of the story. I was surprised to see this because the book was published by Random House Publishing.

I really shouldn’t have been surprised because I’ve seen some errors like this before in Amanda Flowers’ books and Isabella Alan and Amand Flowers are the same person. There are so many books out by Amanda that I feel like they are trying to push them out way too fast and therefore letting quality slide.

Now, as someone who is independently published and has a lot of errors in her book as well, I’m not trying to act superior. I’m just surprised because so many readers are so negative about independently published books because of their supposed lack of quality but I am seeing that lack across the board in publishing right now.

In some ways I think the production of books needs to slow down and focus on quality over quantity. There are just too many rushed books out there.

All of this said I did enjoy the story of the book. I was, however, really annoyed to find out this was the last book in the series and she did not wrap up the love story between the main character very well (I mean they were still together so I guess that’s good at least) and left the storylines of other characters hanging. I still enjoy the stories and her writing, though, so this doesn’t mean I won’t read further books by her. Just not for a while.

I need to take a break from mysteries for a bit so I am going to try either Miracle in a Season by Sarah Loudin Thomas or Finding Lady Enderly by Joanna Davidson Politano

I haven’t read either of these authors before.

I decided to put The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun aside for now since I learned it was one of the later books in the series. I read one or two of those and they weren’t as good, and I think it might have been because Lilian was quite old by then and others may have been writing them or she was, and they just weren’t as good.

The Husband is reading Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

Little Miss is reading Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone. At night we are sometimes reading The Four Story Mistake. During the school days we are reading Johnny Tremaine.

The Boy is listening to an audiobook – Tales From The Gas Station Part Four.

What We watched/are Watching

Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown. This was my first time watching this one and I found it very interesting. It sent me down a rabbit hole of reading the real story of John Brown and Queen Victoria.

For Comfy, Cozy Cinema with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, I watched Dial M for Murder. If you want to join in on our movie marathon posts for the rest of October and November you can follow the list here:

You don’t have to blog about them if you watch them but if you do write a blog post about your impression about the movies, we will be adding a link up at the end of our posts.

On Nov. 14 we will be watching Chocolat as a group watch. We will be pushing play together at the same time and then chatting about the movie in our Discord group (The Dames), which you can join for free now here: https://discord.com/invite/J7qQ36Uf

On my own I watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (original with Danny Kaye) this weekend and really enjoyed it. I loved the music and Danny Kaye’s performance overall. I watched an episode of the first season of Only Murders In The Building as well last week. I am really enjoying it and it’s hard not to binge watch it but I’m trying to wait for my husband to be home to watch it with me.

What I’m Writing

I am getting much closer to the end of the third Gladwynn book.

I released the description this past week, if you are curious:

https://lisarhoweler.substack.com/p/gladwynn-returns-in-2025-book-recommendations

This week on the blog I shared:

Photos from Last Week

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.

Top Ten Tuesday: How My Reading Habits Have Changed Over Time

On October 22, 2024 By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, top-ten-tuesday18 Comments

|| Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. ||

Today’s topic is: How My Reading Habits Have Changed Over Time (submitted by Lydia @ https://lydiaschoch.com)

I don’t really know how to do this as a top ten list so I thought I’d just chat about it.

I started reading fiction fairly consistently when I was a kid and then even more when I was a teenager. When I was a “kid” – like under the age of 13 – I read books like the Little House series and the Chronicles of Narnia and sometimes I used a flashlight to finish a chapter because Mom had said I needed to go to bed and shut my light off but I didn’t want to go to bed yet.

I never read books quickly but I consistently had a book with me when I was a teenager. Back then I read mainly historical fiction and some clean/Christian romance. Now I read mainly mysteries – clean and cozy mainly.

In high school I got in trouble at least twice for reading in class. It’s not my fault my Roman-based epic was way more interesting than the football coach rambling about driver safety. Or a book from that same series (The Mark of the Lion series by Francine Rivers) was way more interesting than my history teacher who never really taught but mostly talked about football because he was the other football coach. Huh. Coincidence there? I think not.

I remember my mom came to a parent teacher conference, holding one of those books because we had picked it up at the local Christian bookstore (which only lasted about two years in our tiny community) and the teacher said, “Oh. Is that one of those books you got caught reading in class the other day?”

My mom, with her quick wit, said, “Yes, it probably is but it is based in history at least.”

I don’t think she meant that as a slam against that teacher but he was the one who used to start classes each year by holding up the text book and saying, “You can take this an use it to prop up a window.” Then he’d spend the rest of the year talking about who knows what from the front of the classroom with very little of it being actual history.

The only thing I remember from his class is how he told us all not to mess around with pimples and other spots on our skin because his mom had one she didn’t get checked and it was cancer. I don’t know if she died from it or not but that unlocked a new fear for me.

In college I mainly read textbooks. I didn’t seem to have time for reading fiction. I started working full time my senior year of college and there was no time for reading. I was taking classes twice a week and working like 60 hours a week, sometimes seven days. That’s about the time I killed my thyroid and my mental health but I was young and stupid.

I don’t really remember picking many fiction books back up again until a few years ago when I really got back into reading again. When I had my kids I was working full time at newspapers or writing blog posts or completely immersed in photography and homeschooling while taking care of kids. I didn’t take a lot of time for myself or to escape the stress of life by reading fiction. I wish I had because it would have helped all the stress back then.

Now I always have a hard copy of a book and my Kindle in my purse or with me wherever I go. I may not always read the book but I have it with me “just in case.” Instead of watching TV or surfing online all the time, I now carve out time for reading, even on the days I think I don’t feel like reading. I’ll find that once I start reading, I get caught up in the story and I start to relax and forget about all the things I was stressed about. I think I recently heard that reading even 15 minutes a day can help a person relax and reset their emotional state. Something like that anyhow. I don’t know – just go with it and pretend I’m smart. *wink*

Now that I am reading more, I have gotten caught up more than once with feeling like I have to read what other people are reading instead of what I want to read. It’s crazy that even at my age I can be influenced by what is popular or talked about a lot or what others say I should or shouldn’t read. Luckily, I have pushed aside a lot of that in the last year and now I really am reading what I want to read.

Sure, I see recommendations and sometimes I take them but I don’t just read a book because a lot of people claim it is good. Yes, I have read books that I’ve seen recommended a few times, but I don’t feel like I have to anymore. I do it because the book actually interests me.

Honestly, I find myself leaning away from books that are heavily recommended more than I lean toward them. I’ve been burned more than once by books that were supposed to be so amazing and then turned out to be complete duds or pushed agendas or morals that didn’t fit with mine.

Becoming an independent author opened my eyes to the publishing world and how reviews can be bought, essentially, or reviewers can be swayed to give a book a good review because they either don’t want to be excluded from other advanced reader groups or because they don’t be the one to step out of line and say, “I didn’t like this book everyone else liked.”

Before this year I was susceptible to getting wrapped up in all those “BookTok” (not on TikTok though. What a nightmare that app is!) “Bookstagram” drama sessions about – well, everything about reading. This year, though, I couldn’t care less what some Bookstagrammer says I should or shouldn’t read or what I shouldn’t or shouldn’t say on social media.

I read books, I share about the ones I like, I move on. Life is way too short to be so dramatic about reading. Good grief. Reading is for leisure and enjoyment. There was a time when only the rich could read books and then it became so everyone could read books as long as they had a good education and were taught to read.

Now we teach children to read at a young age so the world is opened wide to them. They can learn so much from books – fiction and non-fiction. This can be a bad thing, of course, if the subject matter is not age appropriate but in the vast majority of cases being able to read is a wonderful thing.

Because reading is a gift, I don’t believe we should try to finish books that don’t bring us joy. I do not continue reading a book I am not connecting with. A couple of years ago I made way too many commitments to read books and review them without knowing what I was really getting into. This year I have been reading books because I want to.

I read a couple of books for author friends and ran into trouble because the books were okay but they simply weren’t for me. Then what do I do? I don’t want to keep reading the book simply because the person is a friend if it is taking the joy out of reading for me. That’s why I’m now deciding that if I do read a book by an author friend, I’m not going to tell them I am reading it in case I don’t enjoy it.

Life is too short to read books qw aren’t enjoying. This is something I’ve heard said in reading circles again and again and it is something that we readers need to heed more.

Sometimes I do break my own “rules”, though. I’m reading one right now that isn’t one I’d probably finish if it was just me reading for fun, but I’m reading it to review for a magazine. Just because the book isn’t really for me, doesn’t mean it won’t be for someone else. The fact I am pushing myself through this book, though, has made me decide I probably won’t be doing reviews for magazines anymore unless I have already read the book first and enjoyed it.

My motto the rest of this year and next, therefore, is to read what I want and review it only if I want to.

I hope I can keep up with that because taking the pressure off something that should be done for enjoyment and relaxation is what I really need in my life right now.

How has what and how you read changed over the years?

Sunday Bookends: Changing leaves, more mysteries (yes again), and my parents’ cats

On October 20, 2024October 20, 2024 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends8 Comments

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

The leaves have almost all fallen off here in Pennsylvania which means it is time for leaf jumping for our youngest and maybe for our oldest too if the youngest can convince him to jump with her.

I don’t remember jumping in piles of leaves very often when I was younger but my kids have always loved it. Little Miss raked some leaves yesterday to get ready for more jumping today and as she raked, my parents’ cat, Molly, watched quietly from the porch. Looking at Molly I thought about how little I know about my parents’ current cats. My parents don’t seek out pets. Any cats my parents end up with were dropped off at the non-working barn on the property or wandered up from the neighbors who seem to refuse to spay or neuter.

Two cats, both now passed away, were mine/ours. When my parents first moved to my grandmother’s house when I was in college, our all-black at Zorro came with us. We had moved from my great-grandparent’s house across a little creek (over the creek and through the woods was how we got to grandma’s house) so I was worried Zorro would try to walk through the woods back to our old house, but, as far as I remember, he never did.

Between college and when I got married, I lived at that old house (built in the mid-1800s) and had a cat named Four that I rescued from my pet-hoarding mother-in-law’s house. The cat once belonged to my sister-in-law who adopted pets and got rid of them like she did old shoes. The cat was mostly gray but had a number 4 in orange in the gray for on the top of her head. When my sister-in-law had her, she peed on my ex-brother-in-law’s side of the bed because she hated him. I wish my sister-in-law had seen that as an omen since she didn’t see his drug use and abuse as one and remained with him for years until he cheated on her after baby number five.

My parents took Four in and when my aunt moved in she fell in love with Four.

Both Four and Zorro are gone now and I miss them terribly.

When I was in college someone dropped a cat off at my parents/grandmother’s house and I named the him before my parents and grandmother could even consider sending him to the shelter. I knew if I named him, it would be harder for them to get rid of him. I named him Leonardo after Leonardo DiCaprio because he was very popular at the time – Romeo and Juliet and Titanic had both come out that year.

Mom said there was no way she was going to go out on the back porch and yell “Leonardo!” but she did for the next several years, including one week when he went missing and we all thought he died somewhere. Instead, my dad went to the small granary where he stores lawn equipment and various other items and a skinny cat darted out and ran to the patio. Mom said, “Well, what cat is that? It’s not Leonardo. He’s too skinny.”

Poor fat Leonardo had been locked in the granary for almost a week and had lost a ton of weight.

I always wanted to pet Leonardo but he had no interest in letting me. In fact, the only one he would let pet him was my 88 year old grandmother who sat calmly in her chair on the deck to enjoy the sun. He would curl up next to her and she’d rub his head. She was not a animal person either. I never remember her ever having a pet when I grew up. Leonardo loved her though.

Anyhow, back to my parents’ current cats. They are Buzz, a gigantic, fluffy, orange beast who looks like a Main Coon, and Molly, a black and white polydactyl. I visit them once or twice a week but don’t know the cats well because they are usually hiding from Zooma The Wonder Dog when we visit which means I can’t sit and really learn about them. I’ve only managed to pet Molly once.

Buzz is almost feral, though, so I wouldn’t get to know him anyhow. My dad is the only one who can pet Buzz and the one Molly will come right up to. I think her tendency to run when we are there and her usual fear of us is why I was surprised she watched us in the yard yesterday. Zooma was even with us, which made it even more surprising. I think both Zooma’s smell and eyesight were broken because she never saw Molly or chased after her like she usually does.

By the way, none of the cats we’ve ever had have been able to be inside cats since my mom is actually very allergic to cats. They make her itch all over.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I am still reading The Case of the Innocent Husband by Deborah Sprinkle and Handcrafted Murder by Isabella Alan. I will finish The Case of the Innocent Husband this week.

I have put the Lilian Jackson Braun book on the backburner because I would really like to read The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood to see what it is like.

After that I would like to finish The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, which I recently started.

Little Miss is reading Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone at night (I’m trying to convince her to also read it during the day. Not going so well.). Some nights she and I are reading The Four Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright and during the school day we are reading Johnny Tremain which we are both enjoying. Last week we painted pumpkins while listening to it on Audible, but normally I read the book to her as part of our school day.

The Husband is reading Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

The Boy and I will be starting The Hound of the Baskerville by Arthur Conan Doyle this week after suffering through Beowulf, which I actually just read the summary of. I’m not going to lie about that.

What We watched/are Watching

This past week I rewatched parts of Rear Window so I could write about it for my blog post and then I watched a lot of Murder She Wrote.

The Husband and I watched an episode of the new Frasier show as well. I started watching Only Murders in the Building now that we have a Hulu subscription and then made The Husband watch the first episode with me. We are hooked and I can’t promise I won’t watch more of the show without him since he often has night meetings and I am impatient to find out what happens.

I hope to watch some more old movies this week in addition to Dial M for Murder that I am watching for the Comfy, Cozy Cinema.

What I’m Writing

Still working on Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree and having fun.

On the blog I shared:

Photos from Last Week

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.