I’ve had a few new visitors to the blog lately so I thought I would bring back my Fiction Friday feature for this week to reintroduce Gladwynn Grant, the main character of my cozy mystery series.
There are only two books in the series so far, with both of them currently on Kindle Unlimited, which is an ebook subscription service through Amazon for those who aren’t familiar with it. It is also available for sale as an ebook on Amazon and as paperbacks on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Gladwynn Grant is a young woman who has moved in with her eccentric grandmother after being laid off from her job as a research librarian at a community college. Let’s be honest, she also moves to her grandmother’s small town to get away from her ex-boyfriend, Bennet Steele.
She used to visit her grandparents in Brookstone as a child and teenager and always thought the town was fairly quiet. Her image of the place is shattered, though, when she finds out in the first book that someone may have tampered with the brakes on the local bank loan manager’s car and again when someone drops a car on a disagreeable resident in the county.
The first book, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, will be part of a blog tour with Celebrate Lit beginning March 12.
For the blog tour, I shared a bit about how I came up with Gladwynn’s name and personality so I thought I’d share that here today too.
I can’t say that Gladwynn Grant’s character is based completely on my grandmother, but, in some ways, I did. I named her Gladwynn after my paternal grandmother whom I grew up living over the creek and through the woods from.
Gladwynn was her middle name but I’m not really sure how she spelled it because she never really used it. She usually just wrote G. as the middle initial. When we did a search on Ancestry, we saw that some spellings on her documents were Gladwin and some were Gladwyn. I guess her family wasn’t sure either, but if I remember right (I don’t have the document right in front of me) on her birth certificate it was spelled Gladwin.
I liked the spelling of Gladwynn with a “y” and two “n’s” though so that is how I spelled Gladwynn’s name for the books.
My grandmother was tough and to the point. She wasn’t mean but she didn’t pull punches. She was not super maternal or affectionate. Again, though, she was not mean.
She lived through the Great Depression and raised children during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
Her youngest, my dad, was in the Air Force when Vietnam broke out. He was never sent overseas but he helped build bombs and work on airplanes during that time.
She knew about hardship, trials, and heartbreak. Her husband died of cancer when he was in his 60s and she spent the next 35 years without him. She began to lose her eyesight to macular degeneration in her 80s.
None of what life threw at her stopped her from living her best life.
She still traveled and kept her house and property up. At the age of 86 I caught her on a ladder cleaning out the gutters. Around the same age she marched down the dirt road in front of her house with a walking stick and told the township road workers to make sure the drainage pipe they were putting in didn’t run into her field and flood it.
If she was afraid of things, she didn’t show it very often.
My family lived with her while I was in college and I learned so much about how to preserve and live a happy and fulfilled life despite the tragedies or trials of my life.
When I started thinking about writing a cozy mystery series, I wanted the main character to be a lot like grandma, but also more affectionate and sentimental than my grandmother seemed at times.
I only remember my grandmother telling me she loved me once or twice in my life, but I know she did because she showed it in her actions toward me.
I wrote Gladwynn to be bold and tough, but also to be affectionate and open with her feelings – a lot like my grandmother, but also a little different.
I think my grandmother would love the idea that I am writing a series of books based on her name and partially on her personality.
I will be sharing about the tour again when it comes closer to the actual launch date for it. If you would like to check out the books from the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, you can find them here, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1KSQJXP and Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CB74L7TQ
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.
I rambled about last week in yesterday’s Saturday AfternoonChat post if you would like to catch up there. I will mention that today our weather doesn’t know what it wants to do as it is snowing and raining and switching back and forth. The weather has been warm this week so the ground isn’t as cold as it could be. It remains to see how much of the stuff will actually stick
What I/we’ve been Reading
Currently Reading:
Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott and Sisterchicks Do The Hula by Robin Jones Gunn
Little Women is relaxing and enjoyable and I will have it done this week. I’ve been reading it very, very slow and only a chapter or two a day, in case you’re wondering why I keep saying I’m STILL reading it. (Since the end of November! Ha!). This week I’m just going to read it through and finish it up so I can move to another classic – which one I don’t know yet.
The Sisterchicks book is just a light, fun read that is a very nice distraction from life. I’m reading through it quickly so I will probably have it done this week as well.
Recently Finished:
Dysfunction Junction by Robin W. Pearson
Up Next or Soon:
The Cat Who Went Into The Closet by Lilian Jackson Braun
Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson
The Bungalow Mystery (A Nancy Drew Mystery) by Carolyn Keene
Little Miss and I are reading: The Borrowers by Mary Norton and The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz
The Boy is reading: Lost Names: Stories from a Korean Boyhood by Richard Kim
The Husband is reading: Fury by Salaman Rushdie
What We watched/are Watching
Yesterday I started Agatha Christie’s Marple, the BBC show that ran from 2004 to 2013 and was based on the Miss Marple books by Agatha Christie. I have never wanted to watch anyone as Miss Marple other than Joan Hickson but after someone mentioned the show to me on Instagram, I decided to give it a try since The Husband had to work and the kids were doing other things.
There were so many actors in Season 1 Episode 3 who I recognized from other shows. The episodes, like the episodes from the Miss Marple series, were like mini-movies at 90 minutes each. Episode 3 was called What Mrs. McGillicuddy Sawbut was based on the novel 4.50 from Paddington.
The one actress I was most surprised to see in his episode was Amanda Holden who I’ve only seen as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent. I always wondered what the woman actually did to land her on that show as a judge. I had no idea she was an actual actress. I thought she was a talking head on a news show in addition to being a judge.
She wasn’t too bad of an actress but I kept waiting for her to say, “That was lovely. Good job.” And push the golden buzzer.
I also recognized Michale Landes who played an American in the British sitcom Miranda. When I saw him in that show, I thought he was British doing a horrible American accent. I looked him up while watching this because he was playing an American again and it turns out he has a horrible American accent despite being an American.
He has been acting since the late 1980s and has been on several shows, often as secondary or one-off characters.
He was really the weak link in this episode.
After I watched Marple, I watched a couple episodes of Lark Rise To Candleford. I had started to watch this show years ago but only made it to season three, I’m not sure why. I think there was some cast change I didn’t like. I don’t remember a lot of it so I am rewatching it and plan to go through all four seasons.
It’s a very nice distraction from life.
This upcoming week I will be watching Miss Austen Regrets for our last movie for Jane Austen January. The link up for Jane Austen January will still be up until Saturday if you want to add a post.
What I’m Writing
This week I worked on Cassie, which comes out in August of 2024. On the blog I shared:
I love it when Joy writes about the real-life places you can visit in the Jane Austen movies.
Now it’s your turn
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.
This month Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are watching movie adaptations of Jane Austen’s books for Jane Austen January. We are also offering a link-up for anyone who wants to discuss the movies, or anything else Jane-related, on their blogs.
I feel like Erin and I batted maybe not zero but around five this week by choosing to watch Emma. Both of our choices really weren’t very good and both of us agreed we didn’t want to see the 2020 version at all. We did want to watch the 2009 BBC miniseries but it would have been about four hours long. It might have been worth it to not to have to see the fifteen minutes of the 1996 televised version that I had to suffer through, however.
The 2009 version stars Romola Garai and to me it is very well done. Mr. Knightly is a mix of charming and playful, Emma is still a brat but shows a transformation more so than in the Paltrow version, and the characters are better developed. Of course, they had time to develop characters since they had two hours more than the other movies.
(Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that I have not read the book so I can’t say if any of the movies keep in line with the book or not.)
So, as I mentioned, Erin and I both abandoned our first choice of the 1996 televised movie with Kate Beckinsal after only about 15 minutes for me (maybe less for Erin. Ha.)
My word that version was so dull – in the acting and in their outfits. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie where everyone wore brown and white against a set of more brown and white. Ew.
Now, as for our decision to shift our choice to the 1996 big screen version with Gwyneth Paltrow, I want to say up front that I am not always a fan of Americans doing British accents – especially in period pieces.
I don’t know what that is about but I guess it takes me completely out of a story knowing that the actress is really from California and not Sussex. It seems less refined somehow, which is funny since people from Sussex aren’t necessarily all refined either.
I have also been taken out of a story when a British actor is doing a Southern accent and I know there isn’t one Southern thing about him.
With that one complaint about Gwenyth not actually being British behind us, lets get to the rest of the movie.
First, the story of Emma.
Emma is about Emma Woodhouse, a young woman who is constantly meddling in the love lives of other people. She lives with her hypochondriac father and they are both often visited by their good friend Mr. Knightly.
Emma’s meddling sometimes is successful and leads to marriage, but other times, it leads to heartache, confusion, and people being hurt. It also keeps Emma from focusing on her own love life, which is beneficial to her because she doesn’t have to commit but hurtful to the men who fall for her.
Emma uses various schemes and tactics to keep some couples apart and bring other people together. She’s actually very manipulative and it takes most of the story and her being told by Mr. Knightly – a man who is a close friend of the family and almost like a brother to her – that her schemes are ruining people’s lives.
Like Pride and Prejudice, this movie had a lovely dance scene between Emma and her friend, Mr. Knightly. One of those where their attention is on each other and no one else. It was a lovely scene.
Unlike Pride and Prejudice (2005) the scenery isn’t as pretty in this movie to me. For example, at one point Emma and Mr. Knightly are shooting arrows and the pond behind them is covered in algae. The director couldn’t have set the shot up better to remove that from the background or had the body of water treated? I felt completely shallow, but I couldn’t even pay attention to the argument happening between the two because I was staring at the dirty, green water.
The movie was directed by Douglas McGrath.
He wanted Gwyneth Paltrow, according to Wikipedia, because, “she did a perfect Texas accent. I know that wouldn’t recommend her to most people. I grew up in Texas, and I have never heard an actor or actress not from Texas sound remotely like a real Texan. I knew she had theater training, so she could carry herself.”
Um..okay? I guess that’s a good reason to cast her?
Anyhow, it did not surprise me at all that Harvey Weinstein the co-chairman of Miramax at the time gave the movie the greenlight but said Gwenyth had to be in the movie The Pallbearer first.
She then had a month to herself while recovering from wisdom-tooth surgery to research for the part by studying horsemanship, dancing, singing, archery, and dialect.
If you don’t know the story behind Weinstein, you can look it up online but needless to say he was a big jerk who manipulated and physically attacked women but also controlled actors and actresses careers.
I thought it was interesting to read that the characters of Mrs. Bates and Miss Bates in the movie were played by an actual mother and daughter – Phyllida Law and Sophie Thompson.
Thompson revealed that it was a coincidence that she and her mother were cast alongside each other, as the casting director had their names on separate lists. She was actually one of the funnier and more refreshing characters to me.
I had to giggle when I saw Ewan McGregor as Frank Churchill and apparently, he cringes and giggles a bit as well for the same reason – his hair.
He told The Guardian that he chose to star in Emma because he thought it would be something different from his previous role in Trainspotting (a movie about a heroin addict).
“My decision-making was wrong,” he said in the interview. “It’s the only time I’ve done that. And I learnt from it, you know. So I’m glad of that – because it was early on and I learnt my lesson. It’s a good film, Emma, but I’m just… not very good in it. I’m not helped because I’m also wearing the world’s worst wig. It’s quite a laugh, checking that wig out.”
When I looked online for reviews of this movie, I found that most people generally liked it, including Roger Ebert who called it “a delightful film–second only to “Persuasion” among the modern Austen movies, and funnier, if not so insightful.”
Back in 1996, though, some college students called the film obnoxious. I had to laugh at the review of the review by Ebert when he wrote that the young student’s review was “posted on the Internet.” Ah, the early days of the Internet.
The college student wrote: “a parade of 15 or 20 or 8 billion supporting characters waltzes through the scenes. Each is called Mister or Miss or Mrs. Something, and each of them looks and acts exactly the same (obnoxious).”
I don’t know if I agree that the movie was that bad, or that there were really that many characters to keep track of.
I do agree that some of them were obnoxious – including Emma herself but we also have to remember that Emma was supposed to be young (21) and still learning about herself and how not to meddle in the lives of other people.
Ken Eisner, writing for Variety, said of Gwyneth that she shone “brightly as Jane Austen’s most endearing character, the disastrously self-assured matchmaker Emma Woodhouse. A fine cast, speedy pacing and playful direction make this a solid contender for the Austen sweepstakes.”
Ebert also liked Gwyneth in the role, writing, “Gwyneth Paltrow sparkles in the title role, as young Miss Woodhouse, who wants to play God in her own little patch of England. You can see her eyes working the room, speculating on whose lives she can improve. “
If you want to read about the different versions of the Emma adaptations yourself, you can see some comparisons at the following sites:
This was the last of our book adaptations. Next week we will be watching Miss Austen Regrets, which focuses on the life of Jane Austen.
Erin didn’t get a chance to write about Emma today as she isn’t feeling well, but if you want to share your thoughts on the movie(s) or book Emma, or anything else related to Jane Austen, you can add a link to our link-up HERE.
Have you seen this version of Emma? Or the 1996 television version?
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.
I talked a little bit about what’s been occurring yesterday in my Saturday Afternoon Chat. Mainly we’ve been dealing with weird weather of snow and rain and ice and high winds. Today our temps dropped very fast so we will be dealing with arctic temperatures for the whole week. I will be inside the whole week, other than picking our son up at the bus stop (which is our local convenience store) because I don’t want him to have to walk up the hills to our house in the frigid temps.
I also woke up this morning to find out we have a wind advisory again so now it feels like 16 instead of 28. I was on my way to my parents this afternoon (they’re about eight minutes from our house) but when we saw a tree being removed from the bottom of our street and then another one hanging on a line, across the road and almost to the height of our car, I decided we would pick up my son and head back home to wait for the wind advisory to expire before we try again tomorrow.
We might have been fine but looking around seeing trees smashed along the road, limbs broken in the road and evidence of trees having been chainsawed to clear the roadway, we decided to err on the side of caution.
The Husband dropped some homemade soup I was taking off at my parents so they could at least have lunch.
Tomorrow’s temperatures will be frigid but at least we won’t have to be concerned about trees falling on us while battling the cold.
We have a lot of dead ash trees around us so those are ripe for falling down and causing issues. In the summer my daughter and I were at my parents’ swimming in the pool and one fell down behind my parents’ house in the woods. It wasn’t even windy that day. It just fell over. If it can happen without wind then it can definitely happen in 25 to 45 mph wind gusts.
What I’m/We’re Reading
I’m still reading Little Women and Dysfunction Junction. I am enjoying both and like to switch off between them. I will probably finish Dysfunction Junction (by Robin W. Pearson) this week.
After that, I’ll be reading The Cat Who Went Into A Closet and The Bungalow Mystery – a Nancy Drew Mystery.
I am also reading Do The New You By Steven Furtick as a Netgalley read which was perfect timing since our online Bible study is going to be reading it in February.
At night Little Miss and I are reading The Borrowers.
What We watched/are Watching
I watched Northern Exposure over 20 years ago (probably) and started watching it again this week. I don’t remember much of anything about it so it’s like watching it for the first time.
It really was well written and holds up pretty well actually.
I also watched Sense and Sensibilityand Pride and Prejudicefor the Jane Austen January feature I’m doing with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. If you want to join in our link-up to discuss all things Jane (including the books) you can find the link up above.
I watched Miss Scarlet and the Duke last week and will probably watch more today and this week since I will be hiding in the house until the weather gets better.
The Husband and I watched the 1978 version of Death on the Nile. It held up pretty well despite Bette Davis looking like she’d come out of a crypt.
What I’m Writing
I am working on Cassie, which releases in August. I hope to have it finished by February. If you are curious what the book will be about, here is a very loose description:
It’s 1995 and 32-year-old Cassie Mason is an actress who made it big on a sitcom in the mid-1980s but hasn’t been able to find a job since the show ended five years ago.
After being fired by her talent agency, Cassie takes her sister Bridget up on her offer for Cassie to come back to their hometown for an extended visit to unwind and regroup.
While there Cassie finds out her younger sister – the one with the handsome husband and three kids and running a farm – is going to open a café and farm store in the small town they grew up near. Cassie decides to stay long enough to help with the grand opening, though she isn’t sure what she can do since she doesn’t know a thing about cooking like her mom and sister and isn’t great at organizing either.
In fact, Cassie isn’t sure what’s she is good at other than acting. Bridget hasn’t been able to help out at the Berrysville Community center like she’d like to with all that has to be done to open the business so she asks Cassie to fill in for a couple of volunteer opportunities. That’s when Cassie finds out that her sister’s neighbor, Alec, isn’t only a small farmer – he’s also someone who knows how to cook and showcases those talents in a weekly cooking class at the community center.
During her visit home, Cassie struggles to figure out not only where she fits in and feels most at home but also to figure out if acting is all she is meant to do with her life or if there is another way God wants to use her talents.
And God? There’s someone else she needs to learn more about on this break from the career she thought she’d always have.
This week I have been listening to James Herriot’s Treasury for Children but this upcoming week I will be back to listening to A Tale of Two Cities.
Next week I hope to return to sharing blog posts from other bloggers that I enjoyed from the week. I haven’t been reading as many blogs as I would like to and I’m really looking forward to getting back to that this year.
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 read on Instagram that today is National Drink Hot Tea Day. There is always a national something or other day and I sometimes wonder who even keeps track of them all so people on social media can use it as content to talk about.
Anyhow, I’m drinking some peppermint tea with honey later today, not because I don’t have any other tea, but because I had some other types of tea earlier in the week and I wanted my old standby today.
Also later today I will be lighting a fire because our temps are going to plummet very fast this afternoon into this evening until they are in the 20s tomorrow and then the single digits at night and in the mornings starting Monday.
We are also under a high wind advisory today and when you live in a semi-rural area surrounded by trees (including a really old, really tall one in front of my house), you tend to get very nervous about high wind advisories. You also expect to lose power at some point, which makes me a little nervous since today it will be just me and Little Miss at home. The Husband is working and The Boy is going to a friend’s house.
I don’t do well health-wise in either very hot temperatures or very cold ones so I am not looking forward to the cold weather. I will not be leaving my house much at all during the cold weather snap because it irritates my asthma. I will be going out enough to pick up my son from the bus stop because I don’t want him to have to walk up our hill in such cold weather.
I am supposed to go visit my parents for lunch tomorrow when it is only supposed to be about 26 but I’ll see if I still want to do that or not. I practically have to be dragged outside kicking and screaming when it is super cold or when it is super hot.
The weather has been very odd here lately but that is somewhat normal for Pennsylvania this time of year.
Last weekend we had a snowstorm that lasted two days. By Tuesday it was rain and wind and the threat of flooding. Then off and on during the week snow and hail came and last night there was a burst of snow that covered the ground right before freezing rain came in and left the entire yard in a sheen of ice. To say winter has decided to show up this month is an understatement.
This past week I stayed inside every day and was a slug part of the time because of the weather. I read books, worked on my novel, wrote some blog posts, made some social media posts, enjoyed the fire, sipped tea and cocoa, cooked dinner, did the dishes a couple of times, ignored piles of books and papers I don’t know what to do with, and overall just enjoyed being a hermit and not having to go anywhere.
Yesterday I had to go pick up groceries but I really can’t complain because one, I had to drive there and they put them in the car, and two, my husband had to go out in this awful weather all week for work so he’s got the real cruddy end of the bargain here.
No one went with me to pick up groceries this time so it was just me in the car, listening to James Herriot’s Treasury for Children on Audible. I was going to listen to a Jane Austen collection but my phone claimed it wasn’t downloaded and it turned out better to listen to the one from James Herriot anyhow because it is so relaxing and my day really wasn’t relaxing for a variety of reasons – mainly family stuff and a lot of things on my mind about said family.
Today I hope to relax some but Little Miss wants me to play a video game with her and watch a movie. I honestly do not understand why my children always want me to play video games with them. I do not enjoy video games but they are just so excited to show Mom how to play it and then laugh at her when she can’t figure it out. My son wanted me to play Skyrim one time and I ran the guy into the wall over and over for like ten minutes.
It’s now a running joke in our house. My son will say something like, “Look, I’m Mom playing Skyrim,” and then just run into a wall several times while looking over his shoulder saying, “Don’t worry, Havar. I’m coming! I swear! If I can figure out this controller, I’m coming to help you.”
Of course, by then Havar was dead because I was still running into a wall.
This upcoming week I really need to work more on my book, Cassie. It’s been hard to get going on it but I hope to have it done in February so I can start work on my next Gladwynn book.
This week my dad left me a comment on my Facebook cover where I was promoting the second book and it really meant a lot because my dad is not a reader. He’s really never had time to read and if he did, he chose non-fiction books, such as theology books.
Mom told me he read my first book in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, though, reading a chapter or so a night before bed. When he was done, he told me it felt weird not having the book to read so I was glad that it wasn’t long after that when I realized the second book.
Now he is in the middle of the second book so I really need to start writing book three for him.
This is the message he left on the photograph for the book on my page: am not much of a reader at all and very seldom read fiction and I watch very few movies.
Like who wants to read about something that is not? Lol. Evidently a lot of people.
Anyway, I got into the first Gladwyn Mystery and found it intriguing, and starting this one I find it more so.
Sometimes I think wow, I never knew that lol. You see Gladwynn Grant, a mixture of intelligent, ditzy curious, and almost cunning, was my mother’s name.
Okay off to store a few more clues and along the way to the hometown theater find out what happened to Samantha.“”
Dad hasn’t always been super supportive of me writing fiction (“You have to actually go places to write books and you don’t go anywhere or have a lot of experience,” he told me once. Sigh. Dads.) so the fact he’s enjoyed these Gladwynn books has meant a lot to me.
Well, I am off to watch the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice, which I am watching as part of Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and my Jane Austen January Feature. I will warn you that this version is not my favorite and I am actually finding it a bit annoying at this point. I promise to try my best to be polite about it when I write about it on Thursday.
I will be back tomorrow with Sunday Bookends, where I will ramble about what I’ve been reading and what I hope to read and all that jazz.
How was your week last week? Did you do anything exciting? And what’s your tea of choice these days?
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.
I wrote yesterday that I tested positive for Covid on Friday. I must have been at the tail end of it because yesterday morning I woke up with my nose clear and able to taste and smell again. I pretty much felt like I hadn’t had anything at all. I had written yesterday’s blog post on Friday evening when I was at my worst – congested and swollen in my nose, no smell or taste, and this horrible burning up my nose and through my sinuses that kept coming in waves and making my eyes water so bad I couldn’t see.
I literally cried when I could taste peanut butter and smell my essential oils in the morning. I know it seems dramatic and if you don’t know my back story with Covid-induced smell and taste loss then it does seem that way.
My previous smell and taste loss lasted a couple of weeks or more and when it returned my smell and taste were distorted for months afterward.
You can read more about that on the blog by searching Covid in the search bar to the right, though I’d just skip it because it’s depressing. Ha! It’s depressing but also gets hopeful later and taught me about trusting God.
Today when I made myself some deli ham on lettuce with Italian dressing (I’m trying to cut bread all the way out for health reasons) and I could taste the Italian dressing I felt weepy. I really did.
Every time I can smell something or taste something I feel immediate gratitude.
While I didn’t like the fear that came with getting Covid again since my last bout sent me to the hospital for five days (hooked up to a very low dose of oxygen for a day and a half of those days), I do like the reminder God gave me with this that he got me through that first bout and he is going to get me through whatever struggles I am facing now.
Much like a rainbow is a reminder of God’s promise to never flood the earth again, being able to smell and taste is like a reminder to me that God hasn’t failed me and doesn’t intend to let me fall now.
This illness was like a short head cold but I was very concerned part of the time it would be longer, like Covid was for me and my family before. I remained calm most of the time with a few breakdowns of crying, but trying to remember the verses about Jesus giving us peace that passes all understanding.
Most of the time I felt very peaceful. I did not feel dragged out like I did when I’ve been sick in the past.
Still, I prayed to God on Friday and asked him to please give me a sign that I was going to be okay. I prayed again very, very early Saturday morning when I couldn’t breathe through my nose. I asked God to forgive me for me being annoyed because I had just been thankful for being able to smell and taste a few days before and now it was being taken away again. I asked God to forgive me for not being thankful that I was breathing okay.
At 6:45 a.m. I still couldn’t smell anything.
At 9:30 a.m. I could both smell and taste.
Little Miss and my fever were gone (mine had been gone even when I tested positive for Covid the day before) and we both felt almost like we’d never been sick in the first place.
Talk about an answer to prayer.
We are in quarantine another day and then I can finally see my parents in person for the first time in two weeks.
What I/we’ve been Reading
Because my eyes were watering a lot this week, I didn’t read as much as I wanted to. I did continue some of my Christmas Regency romance book, which is a collection of novellas in one book. I am in the second novella now.
I also read a little of Southern Snow by B.R. Goodwin. I hope to have at least Southern Snow finished this week, but I also hope to finish Christmas in Absaroka by Craig Johnson.
Since it is the week before Christmas, I will probably continue to read A Vintage Christmas: A Collection of Classic Stories and Poems, which is a collection of Christmas stories by a variety of authors, including L.M. Montgomery, Louise May Alcott, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain as well.
Oh, and I will definitely be finishing up my audiobook ofShepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon which I have been listening to each night before bed. I mentioned before on here that I didn’t know if I liked the narrator but I absolutely love him as I continue to listen so I wanted to correct that. From what I understand he also narrates the other audiobooks of the Mitford series so I hope to collect them over time.
Since we couldn’t leave the house last week, I watched more than I do other weeks.
I watched We’re Not Angels as a buddy watch with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, and blogged about it.
I also watched Going My Way, the prequel to The Bells of St. Mary’s. I’ll blog about it later this week but really enjoyed it. I might have liked The Bells of St. Mary’s better, though. I don’t know. They were both very good and watching them close together was a good idea.
I then watched the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol and while I am about done with watching any more movies based on this book, I loved this one. This is probably my favorite version so far.
My aunt used to look for this version every year and I didn’t know why until I watched it this week. I wish I had taken the time to watch it with her when she was still alive.
I will blog about it later this week but for now, I will say I loved the acting in the movie. I also loved how I really feel this movie gave us more time with each character and gave us a more well-rounded impression of them. That well-rounded impression connected me to the characters more than any other movie I’ve seen and maybe even more than the book itself, which made the emotional impact of what unfolded even more powerful for me.
I highly recommend this version if you’re going to watch a movie adaptation of this story.
Last night I watched a Christmas episode of All Creatures Great and Small (the latest version).
This week I plan to load myself up on Christmas movies including The Man Who Invented Christmas, The Man Who Came To Dinner, White Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and maybe Arthur Christmas.
I will also be watching Christmas-themed YouTube videos and a couple of Christmas specials from the creators of The Chosen.
What I’m Writing
This past week I shared a lot of Christmas-themed blog posts including:
I am listening to audiobooks such as Shepherd’s Abiding and The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever and also Christmas music about the reason for the season (at least in my family) – Jesus’ birth.
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.
I don’t read as many books in a year as other people and this year I decided that was okay and I don’t care.
I sometimes do not finish books either and I decided this year I was also okay with that.
Every week or so my husband announces how many books he’s read so far in the year and I like hearing it. I like that he keeps track of it and that he reads over 80 books each year.
He was also a more avid reader than I was. I only started reading more books again in the last few years. I used to read all the time as a teenager, took a break in college and while working for newspapers and even while raising my son. Now I’m loving how reading has become an escape from the real world for me again.
For a while, I wanted to be like my husband and count all my books read and be able to announce the totals to him and the world.
There were several problems with this, though. One, I’m a slower reader. It isn’t that I read slow. It’s that I get interrupted a lot while reading a book so it takes me a while to finish one. People or pets aren’t always what interrupt me. Sometimes it is housework or homeschooling or my own writing or simply because I can’t seem to stay as focused as I used to.
I like that The Husband tells me his book count. It used to irritate me because I felt less than but now (okay in the last week) I let it go.
I don’t have to read a bunch of books in a year to be a reader. I don’t have to finish a book I started to be a reader because life it is too short to worry about competition in something like reading which is supposed to be relaxing and it is too short to keep reading a book you’re not enjoying.
There are also too many good books in the world to waste our time on a book that might be good but isn’t working for us personally.
I often think things like, “But this is a popular book. It’s on the NYT bestseller list. It must be good, right?”
Well, it may be that it is good for some and not for me and that’s okay.
I read a lot more than books during the year, as well – textbooks with the kids and blogs, articles, etc. So I do read a lot just not always full books. Again. That’s okay. If it is okay for me, it is okay for you.
If you’ve been holding on to all these imaginary ideas of what it means to be a reader and a book blogger or whatever – let them go.
We all have our own journey and path and just because we don’t inhale books like Galactus eats planets, we are still readers.
Anyhow…on to what I’ve been reading this week.
This week I have mainly been reading The Spectacular. Every other day I was reading a chapter from either Little Women or The Cat Who Talked Turkey (a cozy mystery). I dropped The Cat Who book last night because there was no mystery. It was driving me crazy. I was on chapter 4 and still nothing had happened other than Qwill looking for someone to narrate some presentation he was giving.
This book was one of the ones written later when people suspected Lilian Jackson Braun had gotten a bit too old to write and had a ghostwriter. It showed. I have a soft spot for the Cat Who books but I had to set aside for now because I have so many other books I want to tackle. Not every book in a series can be a winner.
I love reading Little Women a chapter at a time. I don’t mind dragging out the enjoyment of reading it because it gives me something to look forward to every night.
The Spectacular is fairly slow moving so far and I’m on Chapter 12. My husband insists that something is going to happen soon and I hope so because I’m a bit bored. I read a lot of boring books this year so in 2024 I am going back to Longmire and Anthony Horowitz to give myself some excitement. Those and some more Christian fiction because I know there are some good ones out there I haven’t read yet by authors like Nicole Deese.
I still haven’t finalized what I will read this winter but The Boy and I are reading The Tale of Two Cities for his English so I do know I’ll be reading that.
I also just ordered a Christmas regency-era book recommended to me by Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.
Little Miss and I just finished The Black Stallion. Talk about boring and wordy.
She just wanted to watch the movie but I insisted we finish the book. Then I ended up skimming two chapters and getting us to the end because good grief there was way too much explanation and rambling in that book. I mean how many times could the dude describe what it was like for Alec to ride the horse? And for three to four pages every time. Plus the dialogue which was repetitive.
We are listening to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson at night now. I read this book to her last year and I wouldn’t mind reading it again but one night I was too tired to read so we put the audiobook on and now she enjoys the narrator more than me (I think. She didn’t actually say it), so we are listening instead of me reading it.
The Husband is reading In The Blood by Jack Carr.
What’s Been Occurring
Last night The Husband, Little Miss, and I went to a Christmas parade about half an hour from us. We saw some of our friends and visited for a bit, The Husband took some photos for the newspaper and we headed home. On the way to the event and back we saw a ton of deer and had to put our brakes on more than once. About ten minutes after an eight-point buck that was blending in with the center line, turned and crossed in front of us, another deer came out of nowhere from the right and there was no missing it when it turned to go back in front of us. We slammed into it but I have no idea what happened to it, though I vaguely remember it darting off to the left.
It did some extensive damage to the front of our car, smashing in our left headlight and the body of the car in that same area, but allowing us to get home without any damage to us.
We were really very lucky considering I’ve heard stories of deer being hit that way and rolling up onto the hood and through the windshield.
We aren’t sure if our insurance will cover the accident since we adjusted our deductible to make our premiums less. We will find out more later this week but for now the car is parked in the garage. The deer left part of its fur under the edge of the hood.
All three of us were fairly shaken up and a bit in shock from it all so at first we didn’t think about how much the damage would cost us. I think we were all simply happy it wasn’t worse. There have been a lot of accidents in our area caused by deer lately and I’ve never seen as many as I have this year.
It is hunting season in our area right now so I don’t know if the deer are running wild because of that or not but driving is certainly nerve-wracking for now whatever the reason.
The Boy was at a friend’s house spending the night so I called to let him know about the incident. I also sent him some photos to which he replied, “She’ll be fine with some Flex Tape.”
Having the car out of commission is a bit sad for me as I finally had a car to drive that had heated seats and a stereo system I could patch my music into.
My husband gave me the car after he bought his truck, which we call Bambi Killer. Sadly, it has horrible gas mileage so we took the car to save on gas. Had we had the truck, there would have been very little damage to the vehicle but a lot to the deer.
What We watched/are Watching
This past week I watched Beyond Tomorrow, a fairly obscure Christmas movie from 1940. I wrote about it on the blog Thursday.
I also watched – or well, watched most of The Bells of St. Mary’s, which I hope to finish later today.
Little Miss and I watched A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, which has become an annual tradition for us now.
We also watched Elfat Little Miss’s request.
I’m sure there will be other Christmas movies and specials on our list this upcoming week.
I also plan to continue watching Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman this week. I am rewatching it after last seeing it some 20 years ago when I was in high school.
I started Men In Kilts: A Roadtrip with Sam and Graham this past week as well. I enjoyed the first episode.
What I’m Writing
Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage comes out Tuesday in ebook on Amazon. Amazon messed something out with the paperback so it is out now.
I am working on Cassie and made a bit of progress on it this week.
Erin and I are also hosting a Comfy, Cozy Christmas feature where other bloggers can link up their Christmas/holiday-themed blog posts. You can find the link up here:
I listened to a lot of Needtobreathe’s The Cave this week.
Photos from Last Week
I didn’t take a ton of photos last week. I hope to remedy that this week and get my camera out more.
Here are a couple from the parade we went to a display in the town.
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.
Friday and yesterday were busy for me so I did not have a lot of time to write a Saturday Afternoon Chat post. That means I’ll share a little more here this week about what has been occurring.
Last week’s weather was gorgeous so Little Miss and I spent time outside and on the neighbor’s trampoline part of it.
I took photographs of the leaves while we were up by the trampoline, especially on Friday when Little Miss had a couple of her friends over.
I had never really looked to see where the little woods behind our outbuilding and our neighbor’s shed go but on Friday I could see that it leads to the backyards of the houses on another street. The woods are a little deeper further to the left and even further out they are deeper still.
I would guess the deer that show up in our backyard come from the deeper woods that lead out of town. Our one neighbor feeds the deer, which is actually illegal, and I’ve considered calling the Game Commission on him several times but two weeks ago his wife died and now I can’t bring myself to do it.
After talking to him one day this week I learned she’s been sick for a while now after a freak accident two years ago when she fell and hit her head. I wonder if he wanted the deer to come down so she could see them from the kitchen window. I get annoyed with the deer being in our yard and the yards of my neighbors because with White-Tailed Deer in Pennsylvania come deer ticks. I have two friends who died from complications from untreated Lyme, some family friends who were hit hard by it (one still deals with chronic Lyme), and my dad dealt with Lyme several years ago and is still suffering from the effects of it.
I will pray we can keep ourselves safe from the ticks so my neighbor can still see the deer while he mourns his wife. My neighbor is elderly and sometimes complains about everything when I talk to him, including the neighbors I am close to. Because he said some disparaging things about my neighbors, who have become friends, I am never anxious to talk to him but I took a container of homemade chicken noodle soup to him on Wednesday night anyhow. He was very appreciative, even as he tried to launch into a series of complaints about a variety of things.
Yesterday he returned the container with a post-it note on top.
“God bless you. Thank you.” And he signed his name.
It melted my heart.
I think he needed that act of kindness right now whether he’s always been kind or not himself.
So, as another act of kindness, I’m going to try to tolerate the deer in our backyards and hope they don’t cause an accident on the street and treat the pets with tick medicine and us with tick spray.
Little Miss and her friends had a lot of fun playing with the leaves and jumping on the trampoline Friday. I had fun having what felt like a real autumn experience. It was a nice warm day and I didn’t have the weird symptoms I sometimes have when the weather is cold and the pressure is low.
The girls were able to see each other again last night when we went trick-or-treating with them in their town, which is about a 40-minute drive from us. There was a Trunk-or-Treat and then a costume competition that I attended, but after that The Husband walked with Little Miss and her friends and parents around town and I sat in the car and enjoyed some coveted reading time.
Today I am going to see my parents for the afternoon. It is supposed to rain all day and the temperature will be dropping, which makes me sad because on Wednesday I am supposed to take Little Miss to a reptile zoo an hour from us. She absolutely loves reptiles and I had no idea this place was so big so I am excited to take her. It is a trip with the library. I do see we might get some – I can’t even say the word – that wet, cold, white stuff that day so we will see how it goes. I hope the trip isn’t canceled.
What I/we’ve been Reading
I did not have as much time to read this past week as I had hoped. I was editing and revising Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage so it can be edited and proofread or spending time outside much of the week.
That is why the books I am reading are the books I was reading the week before. It also doesn’t help that I am a mood reader. I may have started a book and be enjoying it but there are some days when a book simply doesn’t fit my mood. For example, I am reading one book that I like very much but the subject matter can be heavy. There is a boy who saw his mother murdered and is in foster care, a woman who used to be a prostitute, and a man whose wife was murdered. The writing in the book is amazing but there are times I don’t feel I’m emotionally stable to read the book. The writer is very good so I feel like I’m living the book and there are days I don’t want to live that and then go to bed thinking about it.
Those are the days I am glad to be able to read books with my 9-year-old, like The Black Stallion which we started last week.
Have you ever read the book?
I never have but I have seen the movie. Several times. I have always loved it.
So far, I am really enjoying the book, though we are at the part on the island and that can be a bit tedious. I am looking forward to when they get rescued. The problem is, my daughter is also a mood reader so the nights I am in the mood to read to her from one book, she wants something completely different. When she feels insecure or has overheard something scary from the news, she wants to go to her comfort reads – much like I do. This past week those comfort reads were Paddington and Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman. Actually, we listen to Fortunately the Milk usually. Sometimes she reads to me from the book and it is so entertaining to hear her trying to do the British accents. I always do the accents of the characters in the books so she feels like she has to as well but I have been reminding her that her mother is an old lady whose practiced accents a long time. She’s just starting so she’ll get better at it as she grows.
Back to my reading, I’ve been bouncing between three books but this week I am focusing on one, finishing it and then the next one.
I had been bouncing between Walls Crumbling by Alicia Gilliam, Polly by Naomi Musch, and When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr.
This week I plan to finish Polly, then finish When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and then finish Walls Crumbling.
I also want to finish The Red Badge of Courage, which I am listening to with my son, and Death at the Seaside, which I have also been listening to. I have about 40 minutes in both the books and I am certain I’ll be doing dishes this week so I’ll have time to listen.
I looked at the books I said I wanted to read this autumn last week and would love to a couple more books from that list by mid-November. Then I want to start my winter list, which will include Little Women. I hope to stretch that book out into the long, dark months that come with winter in Pennsylvania. It will be my first time reading it.
What We watched/are Watching
Last week I watched Rebecca for the Comfy, Cozy Cinema and then the rest of the week I really did not watch a lot other than Newhart. The Husband and I did watch episodes of old British sitcoms, The Manor Born and Yes, Minister.
This week I hope to watch some Miss Scarlet and The Duke and maybe Death in Paradise, which I have not watched in a long time. I have not seen any of the episodes with the latest detective.
What I’m Writing
As I mentioned above, I am finishing Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage and will have that out to be edited by Wednesday. I plan to continue writing Cassie and hope to finish it by the end of the month or mid-December since it is a smaller book.
Needtobreathe has a new album out so I will be listening to that all week, I am sure.
Here is one of the latest songs:
Photos from Last Week
As I mentioned above, I took a lot of photos of autumn leaves last week.
I’ll share some of those photos here today and the rest in a separate post later in the 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.
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.
I’m writing this post this week with a heavy heart. I’m overwhelmed mentally and emotionally with world events and personal situations. I almost didn’t write a post this week but I also know that trying to keep a routine and do something other than sit and cry about things is good for me so here I am.
I rambled about what has been going on in my world in my post yesterday if you would like to check it out.
Today we are huddled at home with cold wind and weather swirling around outside. I have taken almost no fall photos this year so I am hoping that there will be some sun tomorrow and I can take a few, even if it is only of the leaves on the ground.
Unrelated to my week or what has been occurring, but did you know I host a Clean/Christian Fiction Book Club on Facebook? If you’re interested, you can find it HERE. Soon we will be offering giveaways and author parties and chances for readers to meet new authors. I hope you will join us to discuss any clean or Christian books you are reading right now.
What I/we’ve been Reading
I didn’t read much at all this week.
I am reading Death Bee Comes Her by Nancy Coco and Walls Crumbling: A Seth Browne Novel by Alicia Gilliam.
Both are very good but I think I am enjoying Walls Crumbling a bit more. Alicia is such a good writer.
I am also listening to Death at the Seaside by T.E. Kinsey and I feel like I will never finish it because I keep getting interrupted. I am determined to finish it this week!
Little Miss and I will finish Gone Away Lake this week.
The Boy and I will probably finish Red Badge of Courage this week.
The Husband is reading The Dark Wind by Tony Hillerman.
What We watched/are Watching
I watched way too much news this past week and I will be changing that this upcoming week. I plan to watch Strangers on a Train for Erin’s and my Comfy, Cozy Cinema (see our last comfy, cozy post about that feature and how you can get involved).
We watched The Lady Vanishes last week and it was very good. It was an early Hitchcock film but more joyful than some of his films.
I watched Forgotten Way Farms on YouTube and that was so relaxing and nice. I also watched several Newhart episodes. Having my 9-year-old daughter ask to watch Newhart never gets old either.
This upcoming week I also hope to watch as much calming, fall stuff as I can, along with reading more. I need to decompress, even as I think of all those in the world who don’t have that option.
What I’m Writing
Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage is almost done but took a bit of a back burner this week, partially because I filled my mind with too much news and partially because I didn’t know how to end it. I think I’ve found my ending but it’s not what I wanted. Sadly, it is apparently what was meant to be and a character I didn’t want to be guilty is. Sometimes characters tell me their stories and I don’t like them.
I forgot to share a couple chapters from the book for Fiction Friday but will share a couple more this Friday.
I have joined a couple of other bloggers to co-host a blog link-up on Thursday nights/Fridays called Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot. Bloggers can link their favorite blog posts on any topic from the week. You can learn more in this post: https://lisahoweler.com/2023/10/12/weekend-traffic-jam-reboot-add-your-links/
This week I listened to a lot of Matthew West and Brandon Lake.
Little Miss actually asked for Matthew West. His music is such a comfort to us when we are feeling down.
Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week
I am behind on reading blog posts but I’d love it if readers would leave their own favorites this week in the comments for me to look at.
Now it’s your turn
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.
Mention the group on Facebook and the blog share link thing..Weekend Traffic Jam
