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.

Happy 250^th, America! Whoo-hoo! What an exciting weekend for our country. The heat wave we’ve had this past week has not been welcome, keeping me locked inside so I don’t trigger any of my weird health issues, but I’ve made the best of it by reading books, watching movies and shows, and working a bit on book four in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries.

I did escape yesterday to go to my parents and it was nice to get out of the house. While we were there a huge storm came in, I watched a huge bolt of lightening slam into the hillside across the valley, and the  heatwave finally broke.

The weather canceled most of the fireworks in the area but we could hear some going off in the neighborhood.  

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished The Unsolicited Journals of Emma Lion Vol. 1 by Beth Brower this past week. It was more of a novella. It was okay but I was not bowled over by it.

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 for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

I’m still reading Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson and enjoying it. I’ll have it finished today.

Up Soon

I’ll be starting The Rose and The Yew Tree by Mary Westcot (Agatha Christie) for the Christie Reading Challenge this week.

What The Family is Reading

The husband is reading The Land of Lost Things by John Connelly.

Little Miss and I are still reading…. Yes, you guessed it. Heidi. We have no been consistently reading it but will be this week. When we are done with that we will be reading Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

No new arrivals this week.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched Enchanted with David Niven, Teresa Wright, Evelyn Keyes, and Farley Granger. It was …. Interesting. Not the best, not the worst. A film with a little lesson on love and life at the end, but a lot of holes and storylines that just…fizzled.

I also watched a short comedy movie from the 1940s called Niagara Falls. It was a ridiculous comedy about a man and a woman who have a bad interaction on the their way to Niagara Falls and everyone assumes they are a married couple just  having a spat so they keep trying to get them back together.  It was just over the top humor.

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 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?

---

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.

---

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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