Welcome to the A Good Book & A Cup of Tea (A Monthly Bookish Link Party)!! This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!).
1. For Bloggers, you can link unlimited posts related to books and reading. They can be older posts or newer posts. These can be posts about what you’re reading, book reviews, books you’ve added to your shelf, reading habits, what you’ve been reading, about trips to the bookstore, etc. You get the drift.
2. Link to a specific blog post (URL of a specific post, not just your website). Feel free to link up any older posts that may need some love and attention, too.
3. Please visit at least two other bloggers on this list and comment on their posts. Have fun! Interact! Get some book recommendations.
4. Readers can click the blue button below to visit blog posts.
5. If you add a link you are giving me permission to share and link back to your post(s).
Please be sure to visit other posts in the link-up and support each other!
We’ve been reading The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery and this week we are discussing chapters 11 to 23. You can find the discussion on Chapters 1 through 10 here.
An original copy of The Blue Castle.
When I first read this book, the chapters we are discussing today were where I really fell in love with the book, and it wasn’t any different this time. I fell in love with the story and book again in these chapters. There are so many swoonworthy moments in this book it makes me question how our dear Maud was not called one of the greatest romance writers in history.
In these chapters, we see Valancy Stirling finally spread her wings, leaving behind her family to take care of a dying woman and also finding love. All of this is to the horror of her family, of course, but Valancy ignores her family and doing so feels amazing to her.
The family dinner is where her rebellion really kicks in as she levels mouthy comebacks after mouth comeback at her aunts, uncles, cousins, and mother.
It’s a sight to behold – or a chapter to read and laugh at in the least.
Something has snapped in Valancy, who believes she is dying of a heart condition. She decides she has nothing to lose, so she goes full bore on saying what she wants when she wants.
Her uncle Benjamin is always making silly jokes that he expects everyone to laugh at. When Valancy doesn’t, he is offended and calls her disrespectful.
“Doss,” said Uncle Benjamin. “When I am dead you may say what you please. As lon as I am alive I demand to be treated with respect.”
Valancy (whose nickname is Doss, which she hates) says, “Oh, but you now we’re all dead. The whole Stirling clan. Some of us are buried and some aren’t — yet. That is the only difference.”
It goes on like this throughout the night, her comments becoming more and more biting and caustic and her chest starts to hurt so she goes to bed.
This is the first time we really start to see Valancy rebel beyond simply cutting at a rose bush that was given to her but never bloomed.
Then the local drunk comes by to make repairs in the house and when he tells Valancy about his dying daughter and how he needs help caring for her and the house, Valancy jumps at the chance. It will get her away from her family, but she also feels it is the right thing to do.
“’Cissy Gay is dying,’ she said. ‘And it’s a shame and disgrace that she is dying in a Christian community with no one to do anything for her. Whatever she’s been or done, she’s a human being.”
For years, there have been all kinds of rumors about the dying girl. One was that she had a child out of wedlock, and that child died as punishment for her sins. The other rumor is that Barney Snaith, a free spirit whom Valancy has already met, was the father.
Valancy goes to live with Abel and Cissy, and her mother about dies from the shock and scandal of it all.
It is at Roaring Abel’s house that Valancy learns more about herself and what she is actually capable of, but also bonds with Cissy, who she knew in her childhood. At the Stirling home, Valancy was always told that she was too weak or sickly to do. At Abel and Cissy’s, she cooks food and cleans, but most importantly, she gives companionship to Cissy.
And she also gets to know Barney Snaith more because he often stops to see or bring treats to Cissy to help cheer her up.
It is in these chapters that Valancy realizes she’s fallen in love with Barney.
Her family keeps trying to bring her home, even sending the pastor, their greatest weapon. She almost caves to him but then ….
“Valancy was on the point of obeying Dr. Stalling. She must go home with him — and give up. She would lapse back to Doss Stirling again and for her few remaining days or weeks be the cowed, futile creature she had always been. It was her fate — typified by that relentless, uplifted forefinger. She could no more escape from it than Roaring Abel from his predestination. She eyed it as a fascinated bird eyes the snake. Another moment —
‘Fear is the original sin,’ suddenly said a still, small voice away back — back — back of Valancy’s consciousness. ‘Almost all the evil in the world has its origins in the fact that someone is afraid of something.’
Valancy stood up. She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul was her own again. She would not be false to that inner voice.”
I just love this part. I love the idea that she was afraid and did it anyway. She stood her ground and refused to go back home and become oppressed and sad again. She got a taste of the wind, a feel of it under her wings, and she was never going back.
This makes me think of all the years I tried to please people and make everyone happy, and how I slowly stopped doing it and caring what others thought. It isn’t that I didn’t care about people, but I realized I didn’t have to do everything everyone wanted me to do. I felt a freedom to be myself and to ignore disapproving words or looks.
This has been even more true in the last couple of years as I have stood up for myself in various situations and walked away from situations I would have put up with a lot longer in the past.
I love this line: “She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul was her own again.”
She was afraid, even of all the new freedom she had, but she owned that fear, had chosen that fear, had allowed her soul to waken up. She wasn’t about to put it all back to where she had been before — with no choice and no life of her own.
Dr. Stalling is, of course, appalled that Valancy will not go back home simply because he tells her to, but there are better things in store for Valancy.
Love is in store for Valancy.
She has already started noticing she feels different around Barney, but those feelings are growing.
“Valancy was conscious that Barney had sprung from it and was leaning over the ramshackle gate. She suddenly straightened up and looked into his face. Their eyes met — Valancy was suddenly conscious of a delicious weakness. Was one of her heart attacks coming on? But this was a new symptom.”
***
“Good evening, Miss Stirling.”
Nothing could be more commonplace and conventional. Anyone might have said it. But Barney Snaith had a way of saying things that gave thm poignancy. When he said good evening you felt that it was a good evening and that it was partly his doing that it was. Also, you felt that some of the credit was yours. Valancy felt a this vaguely, but she couldn’t imagine why she was trembling from head to foot — it must be her heart. If only he didn’t notice it!”
Then Valancy takes her biggest step of freedom yet by going to a late-night party with Abel. She gets a bit more than she bargained for, though, and is completely relieved and smitten when Barney comes to rescue her from some very handsy men.
When Barney’s car runs out of gas as they are fleeing, Valancy has even more time to process her feelings for him.
I love the passages Montgomery writes about Valancy’s love for Barney. To me, they are more romantic than most romance books of today.
“Valancy was perfectly happy. Some things dawn on you slowly. Some things come by lightning flashes. Valancy had a lightning flash.
She knew quite well now that she loved Barney. Yesterday, she had been all her own. Now she was this man’s. Yet he had done nothing, said nothing. He had not even looked at her as a woman. But that didn’t matter. Nor did it matter what he was or what he had done. She loved him without any reservations. Everything in her went out wholly to him. She had no wish to stifle or disown her love. She seemed to be his so absolutely that though apart from him — thought in which he did not predominate — was an impossibility.
She had realized, quite simply and fully that she loved him, in the moment when he was leaning on the car door, explaining that Lady Jane had no gas. She had looked deep into his eyes in the moonlight and had known. In just that infinitesimal space of time everything was changed. Old things passed away and all things became new.
She was no longer unimportant, little old main Valancy Stirling. She was a woman, full of love and therefore rich and significant — justified to herself. Life was no longer empty and futile, and death could cheat her of nothing. Love had cast out her last fear.”
Whew!
And what is fun about this book is that there is even more to come.
What did you think of these chapters?
Of Valancy refusing to go home and the reactions of her family to these refusals?
Let me know in the comments.
This cover is so ridiculous if you’ve read the book. At least to me! This makes it look like some ridiculous romance book and it is much more than that. Also, that dude looks nothing like Barney is described.
If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.
I recently saw a YouTube video where a booktuber suggested reading just 12 pages a day of a classic to make it feel less daunting for readers who don’t usually read classics.
There are a couple of reasons he suggested this tactic.
One: it gives you time to read slowly and truly immerse yourself in the story.
Two: it helps you pay attention to the writing, the words connected together, the style of that particular author.
Three: Gives you time to write notes about what you are reading or underline a quote that really stands out to you. This gives you time to really think about that quote or section that really stands out to you.
Four: It gets you off a device. Stops you scrolling on “the attention hog” that has trained you to keep scrolling through 30-second to 1-minute clips. Doing this mentally and physically fatigues us. The makers of social media know how to addict us but our mind biologically loves to dwell on things, to feel like it is learning something and this is done better at a slower pace. Reading instead of scrolling releases the brain from repeated dopamine hits.
Five: Creates a sense of patience, self-control, and a “stick-to-it” attitude. As humans we feel a sense of pride when we push through something and accomplish what we set out to do.
Six: It helps to quell comparison to other readers that we need to do; the fear-of-missing-out tendency, the desire to “have read” certain books. We want to be able to say “I have read…” but don’t want to sit and really read something well. Reading this way, we can focus on reading well — taking our time to really take it in and not worry about rushing on to the next book. Those books will be there when we are done with this one.
Extra tips: Doing this at night can help you feel like you don’t have to rush and “get through” your allotted pages before you have to do something else. You can do this with other books, not just classics.
What do you think of reading some books this way? Yay or Nay? What say you?
Source: Tristan Reads Classics. Video: The One Tip You Need More Classics and Enjoy Them.
If you want a fuller explanation of what Tristan was talking about, you can watch his video here:
Welcome to the A Good Book & A Cup of Tea (A Monthly Bookish Link Party)!! This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!).
1. For Bloggers, you can link unlimited posts related to books and reading. They can be older posts or newer posts. These can be posts about what you’re reading, book reviews, books you’ve added to your shelf, reading habits, what you’ve been reading, about trips to the bookstore, etc. You get the drift.
2. Link to a specific blog post (URL of a specific post, not just your website). Feel free to link up any older posts that may need some love and attention, too.
3. Please visit at least two other bloggers on this list and comment on their posts. Have fun! Interact! Get some book recommendations.
4. Readers can click the blue button below to visit blog posts.
5. If you add a link you are giving me permission to share and link back to your post(s).
Please be sure to visit other posts in the link-up and support each other!
The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie is the first of two books which feature Superintendent Battles and in the autumn my husband picked me up a gorgeous copy of it during a trip to a Barnes and Noble about 90 minutes away.
I had looked at the copy the year before so the gift was exciting and I enjoyed reading it as my third book this year.
Anthony Cade dominated the majority of the story, more so than Battle, and I was fine with that. He was a blast and had all the best lines. For some reason, I kept picturing Cade as Hugh Fraser, who plays Colonel Hastings in the Poirot TV show and movies, as I was reading.
From what I have read about this series, this is also where we Agatha readers meet Bundle – real name Lady Eileen Brent, but I also didn’t feel she dominated much of the story either. I read that she is even more in the second book of this duology, Seven Dials, which was recently released as a mini-series on Netflix. No, I haven’t seen it as I don’t a subscription to Netflix.
Sh was a fun addition who I would have liked to seen more of in the book really. So many Agatha fans seem to love her. This is not a complaint in anyway. Just an observation of a character I liked and wanted more of. I believe I will get that in the second book.
This one features a ton of political intrigue and some call it more of a thriller than a detective/crime fiction book, like many of Agatha’s other books. There is also a bit of romance, though, and I found the romance so sweet and the romantic lines swoon-worthy.
A quick description from the Agatha Christie site: A young drifter finds more than he bargained for when he agrees to deliver a parcel to an English country house. Little did Anthony Cade suspect that a simple errand on behalf of a friend would make him the centerpiece of a murderous international conspiracy.”
Chimneys, by the way, is the name of the house/estate – not an appendage on a roof.
Here are some quotes from the book that I enjoyed:
“Detective stories are mostly bunkum,” said Battle unemotionally. “But they amuse people, he added, as an afterthought. And they’re useful sometimes.”
“In what way?” asked Anthony curiously.
“They encourage the universal idea that police are stupid. When we get an amateur crime such as a murder, that’s very useful indeed.”
***
‘Lord no. It’s the red signal again. When I first saw you—that day in Pont Street, I knew I was up against something that was going to hurt like fun. Your face did that to me—just your face. There’s magic in you from head to foot—some women are like that, but I’ve never known a woman who had so much of it as you have. You’ll marry someone respectable and prosperous, I suppose, and I shall return to my disreputable life, but I’ll kiss you once before I go—I swear I will.’
***
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’ve got a plan. But I’ve got an idea. It’s a very useful thing sometimes, an idea. – Superintendent Battle
***
“You understand well enough, I dare say,” said Anthony, breaking the silence. “You know when a man’s in love with you. I don’t suppose you care a hang for me – or for anyone else – but, by God, I’d like to make you care.”
As for the mystery, I didn’t fully guess the guilty party but was starting to get an idea of who certain people really were toward the end of the book.
Have you read this one? What did you think?
If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.
On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.
I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.
If you would like to support my writing (and add to the fund for my daughter’s online art/science classes), you can do so here.
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.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
As I am starting this post on Saturday night, we had temps — er – temp of 5. In the morning snow is supposed to start and when it all ends Monday night, we are supposed to have close to 18 inches of snow.
I really hope we don’t get as much as they say, though, because the high temp is supposed to be 15 degrees, which I think means this will be a very heavy, wet snow. We live in a rural area so that could mean power outages. We have a woodstove that could keep us warm downstairs but we would have to worry about our pipes freezing since we do not have a generator. I believe that’s something we will need to invest in at some point soon. Our neighbors have generators, which I think they purchased after a tornado hit here on our street about six years ago, wiping out power for several days.
I’m sure many of you, if you are in the Northern and Middle U.S. are facing a similar situation as us. Stay safe out there, everyone.
Since we are going to be snowed in, I have been planning how to get through it all without worrying too much. I plan to watch movies, read books, and sip tea or cocoa.
To keep themselves occupied, Little Miss has been video chatting with her friend and The Boy has been chatting with his friend and playing video games. The Husband has been cleaning the house (he’s much better at that than I am) and reading and doing a little work for the newspaper he is at the editor at.
He expects to be snowed in Monday and will work from home. As long as we have power that is.
Erin (www.crackercrumblife.com) and I held our Crafternoon Zoom call yesterday and it was very nice to chat with people from all over the world. We chat while we craft and if you are interested in taking part, please let me or Erin know. It is just a relaxed time to chat, make new friends, and forget about our troubles. We keep conversations as free of politics or hard stuff as much as we can.
UPDATE:
It is 12:24 P.M. as I am finishing up this post and it is about 10 degrees out (-12 C) and we have about six inches of snow on the ground. The snow is supposed to stop sometime tonight and we are expected to have up to 18 inches of snow when it is all done.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
I didn’t finish anything this weekend.
In Progress
I’ve been reading Miss Read’s Village Diary by Miss Read, The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery (a reread), and just started Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien.
I’m enjoying all three. Miss Read’s books are such easygoing, relaxing reads.
Up Soon
I hope to finish Miss Read this week so I can add The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham to my reading line up.
I read the first few pages about a month ago and it intrigued me.
Cat from Cat’s Wire needs to let me know if it is good or not. *wink*
After that I plan to start the February Agatha Christie Read for the Agatha Christie challenge, Mrs. McGinty’s Dead.
What The Family is Reading
Little Miss and I started The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy. We’ve also been listening to Winnie The Pooh on Audible.
The Husband is reading….
What I/We’ve Been Watching
I loved this YouTube video about how to read more classic books.
And this video about how to cut back on buying books you never read.
I watched After The Thin Man, the second movie in The Thin Manseries, yesterday, and earlier in the week I watched episode two of season six of All Creatures Great And Small.
Today I hope to watch another old movie, probably a James Cagney, for my Winter of Cagney.
I’ve had to change my schedule of Cagney movies again because I have found yet another movie that is not streaming anywhere and can’t be found for very cheap on DVD. Two movies now, Man of a Thousand Faces and Angels With Dirty Faces, are going to have to be taken off my list as I figure out how to watch them in the future.
The Husband says these movies are most likely no longer in print and have not been licensed for streaming, hence my challenge in finding them. Man of A Thousand Faces costs $40 most places and is mainly on BluRay and Angels With Dirty Faces (a movie with Cagney and Humphrey Bogart) is on DVD but $19.95. I will probably set the aside for another time and slide two Cagney movies that I can find streaming into my list instead.
David Phelps with Laura Osnes singing a song from The Phantom of the Opera.
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? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
I should be able to manage this one since I am in a Christie reading challenge for 2026. I tried it last year and failed but I think I’ll do better this year.
I read The Secret of Chimneys for January and already have the book for February — Mrs. McGinty’s Dead.
I will be reading An Autobiography by Agatha Christie for the challenge as well, which will actually cross off another of my goals down below.
Two. Read at least three classic books this year
I want to read at least two classics this year, and I hope one of them will be The Count of Monte Cristo.
I will be reading Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien as well.
Other classic book goals for me this year are to read at least one book by a Bronte sister, finish Mansfield Park (despite the gag factor I have with it), and a re-read of Tom Sawyer, which I haven’t read since I was maybe 11.
To get through these classics I will be using advice that a booktuber I just found gave on his channel and that I mention more in detail below. Keep reading if you want to find out what that advice is.
Three. Read at least two autobiographies
I already have a couple I want to read — Maureen O’Hara, Myrna Loy, and Paul Newman’s, but then I heard that James Cagney’s is very good, so I am looking for that one on Thriftbooks.
Four. Read at least two non-fiction books
I hope to read at least one C.S. Lewis book, Mere Christianity, and as for another non-fiction, I’m not sure yet. Feel free to recommend a good one in my comments.
Five. Read more Christian Fiction books
I did not read a ton of Christian Fiction books in 2025. Not for any bad reason. I just didn’t seem to find a ton that interested me last year. I was also more interested in mysteries. I have a few lined up for this year, though, including:
Finding Lady Enderly by Joanna Davison Politano, Stories That Bind Us by Susie Finkbeiner, A Desperate Hope by Elizabeth Camden, and Long Way Gone by Charles Martin.
A lot of Christian Fiction is very intense.
Do any of my blog readers know of Christian Fiction that is less intense? Rom-coms, I know, but those are hit or miss for me.
Mystery and thriller books in Christian Fiction seem to be all overdramatic and formulaic and not a simple, fun mystery like Agatha Christie or the Golden Age crime writers, which is why I don’t often read Christian Mystery.
Six. Weed out books I’m not reading or probably won’t to straighten shelves
My shelves are overflowing with books I grabbed at used book sales and will probably never read. I need to weed them out and make more room on our bookshelves. As the vlogger I watched this morning said, we buy new books because we get an endorphin hit at the idea of what the story will hold but then when that endorphin hit wears off, we just end up leaving the books piling up and not reading them.
Seven. Find another place in the house for another bookcase
This brings me to seven — we need more bookcases, even if I weed some of the books out. I really want another one for our bedroom since we are currently using an old coffee table and piling them up there. A bookcase would look better there, and it would be easier to find the books we want to read if we had a bookcase. Right now, most of those books are The Husbands, but to find one, he has to shift through the stacks. I’m not sure how we would get a bookcase up the stairs, but I suppose we could get one that can be assembled after we buy it.
And a few writing goals:
Eight. Finishing Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School and start a planned Christmas cozy mystery
I watched a video this morning from a booktuber who was sharing about how to read more books instead of buying them and never reading them. One thing he said was to set aside a certain time for reading, and while reading, don’t think about all the other things you need to do. Instead, tell yourself, “I am reading for one hour, and I can do those other things later,” and then immerse yourself in the story. Focus on the words and the use of them and the play of them. Don’t think about the end goal of finishing the book, but instead think about the words as you read them and really be mindful of what you are reading.
While I want that goal in reading, I also want it in writing this year.
I want to set aside an hour or two a day and just write and enjoy the act of writing instead of constantly being focused on the need to finish this book and add it to the series. I think that’s what has been holding me up. I haven’t been having fun with writing — I have been looking at the end and how far I am from it instead of taking one step at a time and focusing on the path in front of me. I’ve been so focused on the thought, “I need to get this done” that it has become a chore rather than a joy.
So, I will be enjoying creating scenes and scenarios for Gladwynn and her friends more and looking at how far I am behind in word count etc. less.
Nine. Figure out a way to finish my small town contemporary romance series, The Spencer Valley Chronicles
I am very behind on this one. I released my last Spencer Valley Chronicles book, Shores of Mercy, in 2022. I really need to wrap up the series and how I want to do that is to write a final book with Alex Stone, Molly Tanner’s love interest, as the main character. He has some demons he needs to tackle, mainly from his broken relationship with his verbally and emotionally abusive father.
The one problem is that I don’t write contemporary romance or any romance anymore. I would have to rewrite a lot of the series because I don’t really enjoy looking back at it and seeing my writing at that time.
Ten. Figure out how to advertise my books (without breaking the bank) and sell more of them
This one will be an ongoing process. Right now, my free ways of advertising my books are here on my blog and various social media accounts. It gets tedious to plug the books all the time, though, and I prefer to have fun posting bookish memes and reels and talking about old movies or books.
I’m horrible at self-promoting. Even doing it in this post is making me feel icky.
Still, I write the stories so I should have people read them, and it’s fun when they do and let me know they like them.
I don’t have deep pockets for paid advertising, but I hope to find a few ways to do that this year.
So…..these are some of my bookish and writing goals for 2026. What are some of yours?
If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.
On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.
I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.
If you would like to support my writing (and add to the fund for my daughter’s online art/science classes), you can do so here.
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.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
Latey I’ve become even more diligent about calming my nervous system and one way I am doing that is by choosing when I see or hear national or international news.
Previously, if I logged into my Chrome app on my phone headlines popped up at me and I was hit full in the face with some horrible headline about some horrible thing going on in the world.
Two days ago I found a way to change the home screen so there are no news headlines slamming me in my face first thing. I didn’t know I could do that before but it has been so helpful. Now all that pops up are sites I visit the most and none of those are news sites.
If I do visit news sites, I am trying to do it briefly on my laptop and for only about two minutes.
I have also been trying to read more and watch TV less. If I watch TV it is usually All Creatures Great or Small, an old detective show, or old movies.
I listen to light, older/classic books and even childrens’ books (like Winnie the Pooh) while doing dishes or housework.
Worship music a few times a week has been a must lately but I have not always been doing that like I should.
I feel much calmer when I listen to worship music at some point during my day but the earlier the better because then the song is stuck in my head throughout the day and I can sing it when I feel stressed.
I have a couple of devotionals in my kindle I want to start but I also want to get some hard copies of devotionals so I can underline and write in the margins.
This past week was fairly calm with me visiting my parents a couple of times to visit and help clean up and with doing school with Little Miss. Our most productive school day was Thursday because we discussed the end of the Civil War and other historical subjects.
The other days of the week we focused on math, trying to figure out what book we want to read next for Literature, and Little Miss attended the four classes and two clubs she has online.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
This week I finished Miss Read’s Village School by Miss Read and The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie.
They were both very good and made up for my first read of the year, My Beloved by Jan Karon, which I did not enjoy (unlike her previous 14 books, which I did very much enjoy).
The Secret of Chimneys was more like an international mystery than her normal mysteries, but I liked that even more.
I do have to say — a lot of rich people get murdered in her books. Ha! She was a member of the upper class in England, but I think she had a grudge to,o because she was frequently killing off the richest or the people who wanted to be the richest. That wasn’t the actual case in this latest one, so I didn’t spoil anything, but the mystery does involve rich and powerful people who want things kept a secret.
In Progress
I am now reading Miss Read’s Village Diary, which is similar to Village School. It follows Miss Read, a teacher at a small, rural school and the mix of characters around her. It is just a simple, calm book, without a deep plot. It’s perfect for what I want to read right now.
I’ve also started The Blue Castle for a re-read.
Up Soon
I hope to continue The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham because I started the first few pages to see if I liked it and got pulled right in.
After that I am going for lighter fare with a Murder, She Wrote book, but I am not sure which one yet. I have one that takes place in Hawaii and that might be a good one to help me forget about how cold it is right now where I live.
What The Family is Reading
Little Miss and I are starting The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy.
The Husband is reading The Housemaid is Watching by Frieda McFadden.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week I watched a movie called It Happened Tomorrow about a man who receives a newspaper that tells him the future, and it changes his entire life. It is a lighthearted film, and I would guess it was movie behind the idea for the show from the 1990s with a similar plot. The movie starred Dick Powell and Linda Darnell.
I also watched The Million Pound Note with Gregory Peck. It wasn’t too bad. A bit strange, but cute and fun. I originally was going to write that this was only the third Gregory Peck movie I have watched, but then I did a search to remind me the name of the one movie and saw others of his I had watched, starting with The Guns of Navarone, which my mom really likes. The second was Roman Holiday. Then it was To Kill A Mockingbird a couple of years ago and then this movie.
I watched the first episode of the sixth season of All Creatures Great and Small Friday night at the end of a very relaxing time of reading and cuddling under a warm blanket with a dog next to me and a cat on my chest.
Little Miss and I also watched the first episode ever of Little House on the Prairie, at her request.
I also watched “10 ways to live like a Grandma in 2025” On the Real Vintage Dollhouse YouTube channel.
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? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to. Feel free to link your posts about
I am starting this post on Christmas night, cuddled up under a blanket with a heating pad because we chose not to light our fire since we were going to be gone most of the day, visiting my parents for Christmas. We have another heat source but it’s hard to get the house warm on cold nights like this with just the baseboard heat. It’s 18 degrees tonight and tomorrow (Friday) we are set to get a few inches of snow as well as ice. We are definitely lighting our fire tomorrow.
The Husband is off work for the next couple of weeks, and Little Miss is off school as well.
We don’t have any grand plans, other than going to see a light display at a golf course near us.
On Monday, The Husband took our new cat Cass up to an animal clinic about 45 minutes north to be neutered in the morning. The kids and I headed up in the afternoon to pick Cass up but the trip took longer since we had to run to the Wal-Mart near there to pick up a gift for my dad and some grocery items at the pickup area in the parking lot.
The wait to get those items turned out to be a lot longer than we had anticipated because of how busy it was since it was three days before Christmas. My son was driving and it was very nerve-racking for him (a new driver) to be driving in a packed parking lot while people walked to their cars, without even paying attention to the cars trying to get through the parking lot and back onto the street.
There were cars everywhere in this town, which is much bigger than where we live now and by the time we reached the road that would lead us to where we could pick up Cass, The Boy and I were both a bit on edge. I took over the driving to the animal clinic when we stopped to grab a couple slices of pizza but let The Boy drive again after we picked Cass up because it was getting dark and I can’t see as well in the dark as I once could.
We were given a cone to put on Cass’s head to keep him from licking or chewing at the stitches and it was while working to put that on him Monday night that I smelled something awful. Apparently, Cass was having some issues controlling his spraying because before I knew it, I smelled like cat urine.
It was on my clothes and somehow in my hair so I had to head up the stairs to take a shower and on my way up the stairs I mumbled, “Well I didn’t have getting cat pee in my hair on my bingo card for today.”
When we left the clinic, the woman at the front desk gave me a long list of guidelines for Cass. At the top of the list was to make sure he didn’t lick his wounds too much. Next, we were told to make sure he didn’t jump and leap around too much. Huh. Yeah right.
We have two archways (or whatever they are called) in our living room, high windows in our laundry room, and his food is on a counter, so the dog doesn’t eat it.
By the second day, he kept jumping on anything high to try to find a way out. On the third day he fell into a laundry basked under our laundry room window while trying to get to the window to see if it was a way for him to get out.
The day after Christmas, he climbed the glass doors in our living room — how, I have no idea.
Last night I found him in the other laundry room window and when I told him to get down he jumped about three feet, landing on top of the washer. I am beginning to think he’ll be safer when he can go outside and stalk birds or whatever he does out there.
Back to Sunday now and I am writing after Little Miss had a wildly fun sleepover with her friend, complete with sledding, cooking making, and general mayhem without devices other than the ring camera where they kept recording hilarious messages for me.
The friend is going home today as we try to beat another freezing rain winter storm coming in this afternoon.
It will continue into tomorrow and then there will be just rain.
This weekend has been very nice and cozy, though, and so much fun. It was fun to watch the girls have so much fun together. We still have another week with everyone off work/school, so there will hopefully be more of these fun moments.
Our Christmas was nice and quiet with my family visiting my elderly parents for the day.
I didn’t finish anything this past week but am reading My Beloved by Jan Karon and The Christmas Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini. I might give up on The Christmas Quilt because it is more like being told the story instead of being immersed in the story.
My Beloved is not what I expected and while the story is a cute idea and there are sweet moments so far, it also seems oddly set up with individual very short chapters from the POV of different characters. I sort of wonder why Jan’s editors didn’t combine some of the chapters instead of making them separate chapters. I love Jan’s books and her writing, but this one simply isn’t clicking with me like most of her previous novels. I am withholding my final opinion until I have finished the book, though.
Coming up next week, I hope to read some more mystery books. I did not receive any new books for Christmas, which is okay because My Beloved was my birthday/Christmas gift and because I have sooo many books on my shelves already. I did receive a very nice journal/personal planner, though, that I am already starting to use.
Little Miss and I will be starting a new historical fiction book when our new year starts and I purchased fantasy books by Ted Dekker and his daughter for Christmas for her so I am hoping she will start one of those.
The Husband just finished a Cormac McCarthy book called Stella Maris.
I watched a few movies this past week, either with the kids or The Husband, including:
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, The Thin Man, White Christmas, The Bishop’s Wife, The Benson Murder Case, Tenth Avenue Angel and part of It’s A Wonderful Life.
I also started Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney for my Winter with Cagney movie event for the blog but had to stop it to go to bed. That movie is a lot longer than I realized. So far, I am enjoying it, even though it is a bit schmaltzy at times.
I also have to finish A Child’s Christmas in Wales today, which my brother recommended to me on Christmas Day. I got interrupted watching it and just remembered I haven’t finished it yet!
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.
We are also hosting Comfy Cozy Christmas until the end of this week! As Erin said on her blog, “Anything holiday related – any December holiday – at all that strikes your fancy and you write about, please think about sharing on our linky.” You can find the link for that at the top of my page in the menu or 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? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this. You can copy my blog graphic to your computer if you want to participate in my link party or you can join the other awesome link-ups below.
