I am joining this week’s Hodge Podge with From This Side of the Pond.
Here are the questions we were asked to answer this week:
What’s your favorite room in your house and why?
I guess I would say the living room is my favorite room in the house. It had tons of windows and well-lit and it’s where everyone in the family hangs out together. It has easy access to the kitchen and the bathroom, the TV, and the front and back porches. The woodwork and the well painted white ceiling also add to the atmosphere of the room. If only I was a better housekeeper and kept it cleaner. Ha. That’s something I definitely want to work on.
What’s something that will instantly annoy you?
How much time do you have? Kidding. One thing that will instantly annoy me is when I sit down, ready to read or write a blog post, after being in the kitchen washing dishes and cooking for two hours and my daughter will ask me if I can cut her up an apple.
I’m so glad to have her and I’m even glad to be available to wait on her but sometimes she gets wrapped up in what she’s doing and doesn’t recognize that any time in those two hours I was already up on my feet doing things is when she could have asked for the snack she wanted.
She’s also 10 now and can start getting these snacks on her own. I like to cut the apple up for her because I don’t want her to accidentally cut herself.
May 28th is National Hamburger Day…will you celebrate? How do you like yours? If you’re not cooking at home is there a favorite place you like to go for a burger? Did you ever work in a fast food restaurant?
That’s a lot of questions! I didn’t know it was National Hamburger Day, and I wish I had because I used the hamburger we had to make meatballs yesterday.
I am a huge hamburger fan, as long as it is made well. I don’t like any pink in mine, but I also don’t want it burned.
There is a restaurant near me that makes the best hamburgers but we don’t go there often. There was another restaurant near us that used to make amazing burgers but that changed in recent years so I haven’t tried again.
I have never worked at a fast food restaurant or any restaurant.
What are three scents you like?
Three scents I like are chocolate chip cookies while they are baking, a citrus essential oil I have, and coffee brewing (but I don’t actually drink it).
What do you miss most about being a kid?
So much. Most of all I miss that someone else was in charge and was protecting me. Now I am in charge and have to protect myself and my children. It honestly stresses me out.
I miss how carefree childhood was too. Riding scooters down the streets of the little town my friends lived in, exploring the creek, swinging on swings until we almost threw up and not caring that we almost threw up.
Having friends is something else I miss about childhood. I don’t have friends now and I did then. They were best friends too. We did a ton together and had sleepovers. Those same friends no longer speak to me. I guess life got too busy and I got too much to deal with because of my chronic illness stuff and anxiety and who knows what else. I tried to keep in contact with them but after awhile it became disappointing to be the only one trying.
Insert your own random thought here.
I just wrote a blog post about Murder She Wrote, and I spent several days researching it. Just for my blog where I only get about 100 views a day. I’m starting to wonder about my sanity. I’m sure there are better things I could do with my time but I keep doing things that help me avoid focusing on all the stressful things in my life. I suppose it is a little normal but also . . . I think I might have issues.
How would you answer any of these questions?
Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.
You can find her 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.
This past week was a fairly relaxed one until yesterday.
Little Miss needed some cheering up, so I suggested that after I picked up a friend of The Boy’s we head up to the town where we used to live to watch The Minecraft movie.
The kids were excited but since I wasn’t really interested in watching the movie, so instead I headed to an Italian Deli and Bakery near the theater after I dropped them off and picked up some cookies and cannoli, headed back to the park across from the theater and sat in my car reading books and eating fudge filled cookies.
Well, I ate one cookie actually and then I ate some string cheese and drank a natural ginger ale. It was nice and relaxing, as the rain fell around me.
One weird thing and funny thing that happened while I was sitting in the car: a car pulled up next to me and parked and then three people got out – they looked to be about the age of a mom, a dad, and maybe a 12-year-old boy. The park has a sidewalk that goes all the way around, and this family started walking on the sidewalk and then walked all the way on the other side of it toward the hospital, which is across the street from the park. They disappeared from my sight, so I went back to my book. About ten minutes later they passed in front of my car again, and I noticed all of them were looking at their phones. The mom said something to the boy, and he laughed, but they kept their eyes on their phones.
Then they started another loop around the park. I thought maybe they were playing something like Pokemon Go (is that still a thing), but they were just walking in a circle, staring at their phones.
They did this four more times, then crossed the street near the gas station, came back again, walked to their car, got in and left.
It was kind of, well, creepy … and funny. I have no idea what was going on, but it felt like some kind of Twilight Zone episode. Part of me wanted to ask them what was going on, but in this day and age, I think it is just better not to know.
For some reason, the movie didn’t start for almost 45 minutes after it was supposed to start so we got home a lot later than I wanted to. Remember when I told you last week that to get anywhere with places like theaters we have to drive 45 minutes north, south, east or west? To get to the theater, we had to drive 45 minutes north and then 45 minutes back home.
I was pretty tired by the end of the day and ready for my blanket and tea.
I didn’t actually have tea when I got home, and the evening wasn’t as relaxed as I wanted but maybe I can find some relaxation tonight instead.
This past week I finished Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke and The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis.
I am still reading The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien and enjoying it.
I am also reading All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot.
Next week I am going to be looking for another mystery but I might step out of my comfort zone and try a Christian regency romance by Joanna Davidson Politano. We will see how that goes.
I forgot to ask The Husband what he is reading before I wrote this. He’s taking a brief nap after a busy morning so I’ll update this later or share next week.
Little Miss and I are going to be finishing up The Littlest Voyageur this week for school and she is finishing up the third Harry Potter book.
I had to step away from Great Canal Journeys. It was becoming too heartbreaking to watch with Pru’s mental and physical health declining.
Pru is the wife of the canal riding team and it’s starting to really wear on me to watch her forget what she’s doing some days. I have elderly parents and them developing dementia is a huge worry for me.
Last week I watched How to Steal A Million as part of the Springtime in Paris feature I am doing with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.
You can still jump in to watch the movies on the list and write about them. We have a link up where you can link to your posts until May 10th. The link and our list of movies and where you can find them can be found at the link at the top of my page.
This week we are watching Paris Blue with Paul Newman (swoon), Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier, and Diahann Carroll.
When I am doing dishes during the week, I listen to The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien, and the rest of the week, I read it.
Photos from the week
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.
Throughout my childhood and teenage years my family and I would visit my mom’s side of the family in Jacksonville, N.C. for Christmas at my grandmother and aunt’s house.
One day when I was about 18 or so, my parents told me we were going to drive a couple hours west to see my mom’s aunt and uncle and cousins in a little town called Farmville.
I had never met this part of the family before so I didn’t know what to think of them. The house was full of chatter as soon as we arrived. Chatter and offers of food.
“Y’all come on in here and get yourself some food,” Cousin Joyce said from the kitchen.
Conversations began to take the path they usually do in Mom’s family — several of them being held at once all at the same time, back and forth between each other. I did my best to keep track. The conversations were mainly between my grandmother, mom, aunt Dianne, Cousin Joyce, Cousin Janet and Aunt Mattie.
Uncle Ray — full name Ashley Ray Waignwright (isn’t the quentissintial Southern name?!), a short man with very little hair, wearing a pair of small, wire-rimmed glasses, and looking a bit somber, was sitting in a little rocking chair. He was participating in some of the conversations but not much. Mainly he was observing.
At some point I developed the hiccups. They were painful and wouldn’t stop.
Mom suggested I drink some water. Aunt Dianne said a spoonful of sugar. Someone else suggested holding my breath.
Uncle Ray narrowed his eyes.
“Heard what you been saying about me, girl.”
I was startled. Was he looking at me? I looked behind me. There was no one there. It had to be me he was talking to.
“I—I’m sorry?”
He frowned. “You. I heard what you been saying about me.”
“I-I – know I haven’t said anything.”
Mom hadn’t mentioned her uncle Ray was going senile but this conversation was getting weirder by the moment.
“You sure did,” he said. “You know it and I know it so you just need to apologize.”
“I—I .. but…”
His grim expression didn’t crack. “Where those hiccups gone?”
“What? What do you mean?”
A small smile tipped the corner of his mouth upward. “Your hiccups. They’re gone, aren’t they?”
I dragged in a ragged breath and let it out again.
The rest of the conversations had stopped during this exchange and I heard my mom laugh.
It was beginning to hit me now.
“He got you, didn’t he?” Mom asked.
Uncle Ray was smiling more now. Yes, he’d got me, and the panic I’d felt at thinking he thought I’d said something awful about him had been enough to stop the hiccups
I am juggling a few books right now – I know that sounds weird, but I do that because I read one during the day and one at night sometimes.
I prefer to read my mysteries during the day and more relaxing or light books before bed. I’ve found if I read mysteries before bed, I dream about people dying or chasing me. Even with cozier mysteries. Not always, but sometimes. If the mystery is too good, I still read it at night and just put up with the weird dreams.
Anyhow, I just finished The Tuesday Night Club (Miss Marple short stories) by Agatha Christie and ended up liking it more as I continued it. It is a series of short stories involving several familiar characters from Miss Marple books all gathered together discussing mysterious cases they’d heard of or investigated and asking if everyone listening could figure out what really happened.
There was a lot of subtle humor in the book that ended up making the repetitiveness of how almost each story ended with Miss Marple solving the case presented by each person and then that person, who previously said they didn’t know the solution, or someone else in the room, saying that they suddenly had remembered she was right and they had heard what had really happened. It was a bit tedious but not every story ended that way, luckily. I mean, Miss Marple did solve it every time, but there wasn’t always a sudden realization from someone else in the room knew what really happened.
I will finish Every Living Thing by James Herriot this week, as far as I know anyhow.
I’ve already started The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman and I’m not sure what I think so far. POV’s keep changing and there is a lot more detail about a lot of characters than I think is needed so….we will see if I can make it through or not. I’ve heard good things about it, so I’m sure I will end up liking it.
I will need a slightly lighter read for nights later this week so I will be picking up Little Men again or finishing up Nancy Drew: The Sign of the Twisted Candles.
Little Miss and I have almost finished Sign of the Beaver for history.
The Boy and I are still pushing through Frankenstein. I don’t want to talk about it. I just can’t wait to graduate him this year. We are starting Romeo and Juliet in March. Lord, be with us.
He’s also listening to No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
The Husband is reading Hot Property by Mike Lupica.
This week I watched Murder She Wrote, Victorian Farm, All Creatures Great and Small, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with the kids (let’s be honest. I didn’t pay much attention to it.), my farmer on YouTube (Just a Few Acres), and Sinbad the Sailor.
Upcoming in April: Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, and I are planning on a Paris themed movie marathon. We will keep you updated.
I’ll be starting book four in the Gladwynn Grant series soon and have decided I’ll probably only write six books in this series and, yes, I will wrap up that “love triangle” in book four or five. Probably book four. It’s boring even for me at this point.
I am listening to Frankenstein on Audible and hope to continue it this 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.
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It was so cold this past week that our animals had no interest in going outside, which is unusual for the cats who like to go out even if it is snowing or raining.
I’m very glad they stayed inside because I worry about them when they are outside. Yes, we have outside cats. We live in a rural area and allow them to wander during the day and they come in whenever they want or they come in at night because I do not want them out at night with the various critters we have out here. I’ve had people on social media be very rude to me in the past and tell me I’m a horrible pet owner for letting my pets outside so I just thought I’d add a little context. I’m not flinging my animals out the back door into the wilderness.
They absolutely thrive when they can go outside and they stay close to our house and then return, often with a dead mouse to present to us. I sometimes forget that those who don’t live in a more rural area don’t let their pets outside for safety reasons so they misunderstand and think I’m pushing the cats out into danger.
That all being said, they have not wanted to go outside because of the cold lately, so it has been nice to have them want to cuddle and to watch them sleep curled up on the coffee table or sprawled out in front of the lit woodstove.
The oldest cat, Pixel, has been making me a little nervous lately. I don’t know if she feels well, and I’ve found a couple of bumps on her head. She’s been a lot more desperate to sit on me and be petted. Ever since I read that cats purr when they are happy or in pain, I’ve wondered/worried why my cats are purring and hope they aren’t in pain. Hopefully she’s okay. She’s pulled this on me before and bounced right back, so we will see.
I am reading three books at the moment. Christy by Catherine Marshall (with some heavy stuff amidst the inspirational, so I need breaks), Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography by Laurie Woolever (with some heavy stuff amidst the inspirational, so I need a break), and A Body in the Library by Agatha Christie (because a nice old fashioned murder always breaks up the heavy stuff. Hee. Hee.).
Little Miss and I are starting The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare for school this week. At night we are listening to a collection of Henry Huggins books by Beverly Cleary and read by Neil Patrick Harris and William Roberts.
The Husband just finished The Quiet American by Graham Greene.
The Boy is getting ready to read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
I finished the first season of Only Murders in the Building last night and really liked it. I’m looking forward to the other seasons.
My brother said he got bored with the show after season two, but he gets bored easily so I’m going to keep going. (*wink*)
As evidenced by the fact I am only just watching Only Murders in the Building, I often watch popular shows years after they ended. That’s why I have also started Castle, with Captain Mal — oh, I mean Nathan Fillion.
If you don’t understand that niche joke, I can’t help you — well, I can, but I’m going to make you search it up on your own instead.
Actually, The Husband started it for me last week (he’s watched it before) and now I’m continuing to watch it on my own.
I’m also watching Tudor Monastery Farm and this has me wondering a lot about this show and its spinoffs (Victorian Farm, Edwardian Farm, Wartime Farm) and how they work. Do these historians really do all these things they record, and do they really stay at these old buildings and houses? Or do they just film a little bit for educational purposes and move on. I guess I will have to step into the rabbit hole and figure this out this week.
I also watched Morning Glory with Katharine Hepburn and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., a couple episodes of Monarch of the Glen, and an episode of No Reservations (with Anthony Bourdain) last week.
I’ve started a Substack for cozy mystery, vintage movies, and book enthusiasts, as well as readers of my books.
For $3 a month you can join in and geek out with me about vintage Nancy Drew, classic movies, classic books, Gladwynn Grant and so much more.
You will be added to my book club Discord, A Good Book, and A Cup of Tea, and receive sneak peeks, exclusive discounts, access to various products, and whatever else comes to mind as I grow my space.
I miss my Saturday Afternoon Chat with my bloggy friends.
I tried to combine this post with my Sunday Bookends, but I don’t find I enjoy it as much because I don’t want to ramble in that post since it is mainly about books and what I’m watching and part of a link up.
On Saturdays I can ramble a bit and it feels more like I am chatting with my friends. Not that people who read my Sunday posts aren’t friends….yep. there I go again. Digging a hole. Ha! I have a talent at that.
Well, hopefully my regular readers understand me and how much I just miss chatting with you like old times.
It isn’t that I have a ton to chat about right now — or at least anything exciting.
Little Miss has had a light cough and a fever, but not a lot else, for the last three days. Her illness started on Thursday and messed up plans she had to go visit her friends today, but, hopefully, we can reschedule.
She had us a bit nervous Friday night as her temp jumped to 103 and then 103.4 Saturday morning but she was otherwise acting fine. Her nose wasn’t even running. She was somewhat tired, had no appetite, and that annoying dry cough, but it didn’t hit her as hard as some other illnesses have.
The plan before she became sick was for The Husband and I to hang out alone in the afternoon — at least after the Crafternoon Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I hosted (more on that further down in this post). The Boy was going to go with her too so he could see his friend, who is the brother of Little Miss’s friend.
We’re a little baffled how Little Miss caught anything since we’ve been out of the house only once this past week. Her symptoms developed 12 hours after that one quick outing and we think that was much too quick, but, of course, it is possible. Our other theory is that one of the boys brought it in and passed it on to Little Miss (and probably me in a couple of days) but didn’t get any symptoms. The Boy is especially good at being a bug carrier, not getting sick, and then passing it on. We tease him about it sometimes.
It’s been too cold to leave the house and do much.
Some days the temps have been 14 to 17 degrees with windchills of -5 to 3.
I am not a fan of the severe cold we often experience in January and February in our state. We often have more cold than snow. I was looking through some videos from last winter yesterday, though, and it looks like we had some warmer days in February because I have videos of Little Miss and her friend playing at the playground in shorts and sweatshirts.
Circling back to the Crafternoon event — it was so much fun! Erin and I joined four other women and a junk journal group to do crafts and chit chat via Zoom. It is such an amazing thing to me that we can all see each other almost in person, via our phones and laptops, and connect in a different way than blogging, maybe even a deeper way. Being able to actually see faces and chat back and forth is a wonderful way to get to know people, hear different perspectives and make friends from all over the world.
We had a citizen of the UK, someone from Germany, and a handful of Americans all on the same call sharing about their lives and showing their crafts and simply having fun on a chilly winter afternoon.
We are going to host another one of these in two weeks so if you are interested please email me at lisahoweler@gmail.com or Erin at crackercrumblife@gmail.com and we will add you to the email list and send you the Zoom link.
Since I’m not sure if I can pass anything on to my parents, we are probably staying home Sunday (tomorrow) instead of visiting them like we usually do on Sundays.
That will give us another day to recover and relax.
Next week Little Miss and I will be back into the swing of school which has been including studying early American History, including the Revolutionary War. We just finished a historical fiction book called Johnny Tremain that focused on the early days of our country, right before the Revolutionary War started. Next up we are reading The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare.
In Science we are studying Marine Biology and I think I might be having more fun with that than Little Miss some days. She knows a lot about life in the ocean so she sometimes fills me in on whatever the curriculum didn’t.
One thing I learned that totally shocked me — sand dollars are alive.
Yes, I might be a bit of a moron. I made it this far in life without knowing that. I think I was probably taught this at some point but just forgot because, seriously, how can we remember everything we learn in school or life? It’s just not possible.
This information sent me down a YouTube rabbit hole of watching sand dollars move on the ocean floor.
Here is one of the videos I watched with Little Miss.
In math we are studying division. Little Miss hates math but once she catches on, she does very well.
In English we are reading books and studying a variety of subjects — singular and plural nouns, how to write addresses, and how to write book reviews, which I thought was interesting.
The Boy is still attending a technical school in the mornings. He learns about a variety of subjects, including masonery, which is their current area of study.
A couple of weeks before Christmas he dropped a large concrete block on his finger and I received a call from the school. The shock of the pain caused him to faint and his finger was also very sore for a few weeks. The nail did get dark but it did not fall off like the school nurse thought it might.
For English, he and I are making our way through some British literature and poets. We finished The Hound of the Baskerville’s by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and are now planning to start Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
Before the end of the year, I hope to study some poets, Shakespeare, and finish off the year with an Agatha Christie book.
My son is a senior this year and I’m struggling with accepting that I will not have to plan for his school year next year. Usually, I am choosing curriculum for the kids in early summer but this year I will only be choosing curriculum for Little Miss and that is a bit . . . I’m not sure what word I want to use here. Disconcerting? Depressing? Heartbreaking?
I’m excited for The Boy who will be moving on to his next chapter in life, but I’m also worried about him. Life is so crazy for a young person when they are first starting out and — well, that’s another topic for another day, I suppose. I could fall down a rabbit hole of worry with that topic.
It’s no surprise that the Bible verses that speak the most to me these days are focused on worrying about the future.
One of the things I am worrying about is a sore knee that is clearly a pull of some sort but one I hope will heal and not require a doctor’s visit or surgery of some sort. I’ve ordered a knee brace and am occasionally using a cane to keep weight off of it while I work on healing it. I am a horrible patient because I do not do well just sitting and propping my leg up to wait for it to heal.
I’m not a very athletic person but I do get up to do dishes, cook, let the dog and cat in and various other things. Sitting in one spot and asking others to do it for me is not easy for me to do.
So that’s a little of what has been going on with us.
How are all of you doing?
About the two canes….and how they made my personalities change
Do you ever look back at the previous month and can’t remember what you did during it or if any of it was worth mentioning?
That’s me pretty much every month. Ha! But last month really was not terribly exciting for us and I think that is just fine.
We did celebrate Little Miss’s birthday at the beginning of the month. We took her roller skating with a friend and she also had a sleepover.
The Husband and I both remembered our grandmothers in October since they both had October birthdays.
Little Miss and I started taking art classes at the beginning of the month that will last another week and that has been fun. There will be a reception the week after next for the art the children produced in their class and then they will be on display at the library in town (which is also the county library because it is the only library in this tiny county).
I attended one of the adult art classes and will try to attend the last two. The instructor doesn’t really instruct, though, and I find drawing bottles absolutely dull, but I guess it gives me a bit of time to decompress and relax, away from responsibilities at home.
The Boy has also been getting back into art again. He drew these characters from various video games on the white board in his classroom at the technical school:
Our leaves changed rather slowly this year and did offer us some brilliant yellows and deep oranges. We still have a few on the trees, but for the most part the autumn winds have knocked them down. Little Miss and The Boy had one leaf-jumping day and then it became too cold. When it did warm up, we didn’t think about going back in the leaves again.
We had a mix of cold and warm weather in October, which sent our sinuses on a rough ride part of the time, especially last week when Little Miss and The Boy ended up with very short colds.
The Boy felt awful the day we took Little Miss trick-or-treating in a town about 30 minutes away so she could go with her friend and The Husband could take photos for the paper he works for.
Little Miss’s friend photobombing The Husband’s photo of the paper was one of my favorite moments of October.
The Boy and I sat in the car and listened to an audiobook he’s been enjoying while The Husband walked around town with her and her little friend, something he loves to do (don’t worry, I didn’t make him! Ha!).
By Sunday Little Miss was hit hard with the cold and on Monday she was absolutely miserable with a sore throat and pouring nose. On Tuesday she was better and was totally over it by Wednesday.
I thought I was going to get it as well but in the end, it somehow skipped me, other than a headache and minor sinus stuff on Monday.
As an example of the weird weather this week, yesterday it was 67 degrees and today it is 50. The day before yesterday it was 75. Today it is 50. I wish Pennsylvania didn’t have the yo-yoing weather it has. Pick one, Pennsylvania! Seriously, though, the nice and warm days were welcome, even if they felt a little odd to be having.
I’m looking forward to cooler temps in November that will leave me with an excuse to stay home, cuddled under a blanket. We will have to wait and see what happens and will make the best of it no matter what.
We have two birthdays to celebrate in November – The Boy’s first and then The Husband’s.
The Husband’s is on the same day as my brother and sister-in-law’s anniversary.
As for the rest of November, we don’t have a ton planned.
I will be finishing up the last draft of Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree and passing that on to editors and beta readers to read. I will be glad to have the project finished and plan to take a month-long break from novel writing and just enjoy some reading and movie-watching time in preparation for the Christmas season.
How did you October go? I hope it went well. Do you have anything exciting planned for November?
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.
Yesterday Dad, Little Miss, and I took my mom leaf peeping before all our leaves are gone. We didn’t have a very pretty year because of the warmer, dry temps we had in August and part of September but we did see some pretty trees on our drive.
We drove on some back roads (a.k.a. dirt roads) near my parents and eventually ended up at a house and former farm where some of my dad’s distant family used to live.
Throughout my whole life anytime we decided to go for a drive around the area or anywhere else, what normally would have been a routine or sightseeing trip became a weird adventure. My parents are 80 now so I thought our days of adventure were over but once again a simple leaf peeping trip became a little weird. First we passed a field of modern art sculptures all lined up in a field – sort of weird.
And when we stopped at the distant relative’s house things also got very weird.
We didn’t know who still lived at the house Dad used to visit as a kid, so Dad climbed out of the car and disappeared over a hill between the house and garage for a bit while he looked for the homeowner. While waiting for him, Little Miss, Mom and I watched another car rip into the long driveway, continue between two trees and stopped near our car. I rolled my window down and apologized for being in the way but the woman frowned and just said, “That’s fine.”
She went into the house without even asking why we were in her drive. I decided it was time to look for Dad in case she was really ticked off at us for being there, so I climbed out after telling my mom that the woman looked very familiar. I thought she looked like the manager of our local Dollar General.
A few minutes later, my dad and another man were walking from the back of the house, up the hill, and the woman, who had left the house to put the dog on a lead, marched toward my dad with her finger pointing at him and said, “You get your car out of my driveway!”
I panicked. Our trip was taking a very dark turn and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get my dad away from the crazy woman. But Dad was smiling and so was the man. I couldn’t see the woman but then she was patting my dad on the shoulder and I realized she was messing with my dad – probably how he picks on her when he stops in at the Dollar General.
In the end, we all had a good conversation and Dad shared some memories of visiting the former farm years before – like when he was 12 or 13.
After that, we took the long way home, and Little Miss and I spent the afternoon having dinner with my parents before heading home.
Today I have to pick up The Boy from a friend’s house and we will stop for lunch at my parents on the way back. Hopefully, we don’t have another weird adventure.
What I/we’ve been Reading
The Case of the Innocent Husband (A Mac and Sam Mystery Book 1), Murder Handcrafted by Isabella Alan, and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.
The Secret of Red Gate Farm by Carolyn Keene (A Nancy Drew Mystery)
The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun
The Marlow Murder Clubby Robert Thorogood
Little Miss is reading the first Harry Potter book at night. I love that she’s reading but she starts too late at night and then I have to tell her that it’s time for bed and she tries to make me feel guilty by saying things like, “But I only have 15 minutes of the chapter left to go!”
Stupid Kindles and their ability to tell you how many minutes of a chapter you have to go.
We are also reading The Four-Story Mistakeby Elizabeth Enright on some nights. For school/during the day we are reading Johnny Tremain.
The Husband just finished The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christies and is getting ready to read book 99. He is going to read The Satanic Verses by Salaman Rushdie for book 100.
What We watched/are Watching
Last week I watched a lot of Lovejoyand Murder She Wrote, Blithe Spirit with Erin for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema, and Reading Rainbow for old time’s sake.
What I’m Writing
I am still writing Gladwynn Grant Shakes The Family Tree and announced on Instagram that I will be pushing off the release date to 2025 so I can take some more time on it. I was pushing myself too hard to get it done before the end of October and now I realize that I am stressing myself out about a book that I am not under a publishing contract for and that I am writing more for fun than anything else.
I was listening to Ever After by Karen Barnett but I am not a big fan of the narrator so not sure I’ll finish it.
Photos From Last Week
Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
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.
Yesterday my husband and I celebrated 22 years of marriage. We went to dinner at a nearby restaurant and watched a movie together after shipping off the kids and dog to the grandparents.
It was a nice, quiet, relaxing day and very welcome.
I rambled about our trip to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon in my post yesterday if you want to read about that.
What I/we’ve been Reading
The Dandelion Cottage by Carol Watson Rankin
Version 1.0.0
Return to Gone Away by Elizabeth Enright (a read aloud with Little Miss).
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
When You Returned by Havelah Mclat
Live and Let Chai by Bree Baker (I wanted to like this much more than I did. Not the worst but pretty much like a previous book I read by the author under her real name).
Reneeby Sandra Ardoin
Clueless at the Coffee Stationby Bee Littlefield
Little Menby Louisa Mae Alcott
The husband is reading the latest installment in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series by Anthony Horowitz.
Also, for those who wanted to know, he did enjoy the Patrick Stewart biography.
The boy is in between books because he finished his last read which was an audio version of a Warhammer book.
What We watched/are Watching
Just a Few Acres Farm
There is something so relaxing about just watching Farmer Pete work on his farm or dig holes in his field or feed the cows. When my brain is spinning or I just feel off-kilter, I turn on Pete and just remember the simple things of life.
Last night the kids and I watched Monty Python’s Search for The Holy Grail because we needed a laugh.
The husband and I watched Breakheart Pass with Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland (Bronson’s wife) after our anniversary dinner. I didn’t think it was very romantic but then I got wrapped up in it and needed to know what happened. I’m going to make him watch a romantic comedy with me later in the week.
During the week I watched this YouTube channel because it is also relaxing: Under A Tin Roof.
What I’m Writing
We had a busy week so I did not write as much as I wanted to but I did work on Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree a little bit.
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.
Welcome to my weekly chat. I can make you a cup of tea, pour you a glass of juice or milk, or hand you a water bottle. Which would you prefer?
Today I thought we’d chat about my week last week and then you can share about your week in the comments.
I’ll start with yesterday and work backward.
Yesterday was a somewhat long day so I am glad that it is raining today, giving me an excuse to stay home and read, write, and watch some comforting shows.
I really didn’t have to do that much but for some reason it felt like a lot. I dropped The Boy off at my parents to help Dad mow the lawn on their large property, picked up groceries and a prescription 20 minutes away, dropped off a few items my mom had asked for, came home and unloaded the car alone (something The Boy usually helps with but couldn’t because he was still at my parents), cooked dinner and relaxed for a bit, and then finished out the day by taking Little Miss to her first Horse and Pony Club 4-H meeting about five minutes from our house.
I don’t mention my chronic illnesses a lot, mainly because I have not been officially diagnosed with the one illness (Fibromyalgia), but it’s that one that leaves me so dragged out after driving a lot and after a busy day.
When I have a busy day one day, I find I need one or two days afterward to recover my energy and get my muscles to stop burning or aching. I am better off than a lot of people but if I do too much in one week, I actually end up with what is called “a flare” and that sometimes takes me out for a week.
A few weeks ago I had a good week where I felt like I could do a lot. I kept going and by Saturday of that week, I was having stomach issues, exhaustion, brain fog, aching, and all kinds of other odd symptoms. My mom, who has Fibromyalgia, said it sounded like a flare and she may have been right but a couple of weeks later (if there are men here, feel free to skip the lady talk coming up), I started my period, which I have not had in a few months. In other words, I’m not sure if it was a full-on flare of just hormones. Whatever it was, it was annoying and frustrating.
I push through the days even when I have flares, though, and I’ve had more good days than bad in the last several months so I’ll take it. I never have a day where I am completely pain-free or without having to rest through a period of exhaustion, but I do have days where the pain is better and the exhaustion is a little less intense.
In addition to possible fibro I take medicine for hypothyroidism and that is a mess – trying to balance out side effects from the medicine and also get my levels to where it will help the low thyroid issue. I’ve dealt with that for over ten years and it is not fun at all.
I don’t ask anyone to diagnose me with fibro because I’ve tried to mention it to two primary doctors who dismissed me – with one sort of laughing at me and telling me it’s not hereditary when I told her my mom and grandmother both had been diagnosed. Mom says that there isn’t much doctors will do for you anyhow, unless it gets bad enough for them to give you pain meds but the pain meds can also lead to some very debilitating side effects so she doesn’t use them often. If it gets to the point I can’t function at all because of the pain, I will push harder for a diagnosis.
Now, back to the horse and pony club I took Little Miss to yesterday. We’ve been looking for some activities for Little Miss to become involved with and in this area, 4-H is one of the main activities. We don’t live on a farm so we can’t raise a farm animal, but luckily the program offers several different types of clubs for young people to participate in. Little Miss doesn’t have a horse but she is hoping to learn more about them and be around them so we decided to try the horse club.
She is also interested in the Lego Club, a baking club, and maybe a knitting club. A couple of those only meet in the winter. We are waiting for more information on when their meetings will be.
I knew a couple of the parents who were at the meeting last night, but I don’t know them well enough to talk to them and they were all in their own little chat groups so I sat in my car and texted my “online friend” (she’s a real friend that I hope to meet in person soon) instead. While sitting there I noticed that every car around me was a jeep or SUV and all of them were either white or black. It was a bit weird actually.
It was also a reminder to me that a lot of people in my area who are in programs like this have a lot more money than me. Those were some expensive cars. I’m sure many of them have car payments but I still felt out of place with my beat-up 12-year-old Lincoln with the left front still mashed in from the deer we hit last year because we couldn’t afford to fix it.
I also have a headlight that isn’t working because the brackets have broken off the one we purchased that my dad was going to replace for us. That’s a long story but hopefully, we can get it replaced soon.
None of the people there made me feel like a redneck outsider, by the way. They were very polite and kind people who answered questions when I asked. I felt like a redneck outsider on my own because of the damaged front end of my car and the fact I was drinking rootbeer out of a brown glass bottle, making it look like I was kicking back a beer in my old beater car.
Honestly, I’d rather be in the old beater car because it’s not bad inside with heated and AC seats, Bluetooth capability and a built-in GPS.
It also provides me with a comfortable creaking sound that comes from the undercarriage as I take turns. That creaking keeps my life exciting and me on my toes because I’m never sure when the car might fall apart underneath me.
Because of the broken headlight, I needed to get out of there before dark and I thought the meeting was only about an hour but it was going on two and I was starting to panic.
Little Miss still hadn’t had a chance to lead the pony around and she really wanted to do that so I had to wait because she would have complained the whole way home how she had to sit through them talking about how to take care of a horse and when it came her time to actually lead a pony she didn’t get that chance.
Driving home in the dark on one headlight or listening to the 9-year-old whine about how she never gets to do anything. Hmmmm….I chose the one headlight which then resulted into my humming that 90s song by the Wallflowers. “We can drive it home with one headlight…”
I’m like that character in the British sitcom Miranda when certain words or phrases in everyday conversation make her think of certain songs and she just belts them out. Well, she isn’t just a character since the sitcom was based on the life of comedian and author Miranda Hart.
Anyhooooo…. Need an earworm? I can provide that for you:
The farm where this meeting was held was gorgeous, by the way. There was a small barn/stable and four or five horses in the field, beautiful views and the clouds were amazing last night.
There was also a random guinea fowl wandering around that I thought belonged to the people who owned the house but later learned had just wandered onto their property earlier in the week.
They had no idea who it belonged to. These birds are great in our area though because they eat deer ticks which can help to cut down on the population. We have a high number of Lyme disease causing ticks in our area so the less of them, the better.
Earlier in the week Little Miss and I visited a greenhouse near us that is open for about a month out of the year. They used to be open all summer and longer but the children of the original couple who opened it run it part time now since their father passed away a few years ago and their mother is older now and can’t easily help run it.
I was so excited to see her this week when we visited, though, because she is a beloved member of the little community where I grew up and she has one of the best smiles and the most cheerful spirits I have ever seen. Seeing that smile of hers was just heartwarming and I almost hugged her but since I don’t know her that well, I held back. My mom would have hugged her, though, so I at least told her Mom said ‘hello.’
It began to rain while we were there so we didn’t stay long and for one of the first times in the last few years we’ve visited, I didn’t take photographs during our visit.
I did take a couple of photographs as we drove over the hill to my parents, however. Well, Little Miss took this one.
And then I took one as Little Miss planted one of her flowers later that day in the rain, with her winter coat and gloves, even though it was not that cold out.
We’ve actually been having warmer temps this week. These are the temps I would love for us to have all summer because I do not do well at all in warmer temperatures.
Speaking of flowers, the lilacs in our backyard bloomed, but only on one smaller bush.
It appears that our big, very old lilac bush has actually died and will not be blooming this year. That was heartbreaking. I’m not sure if the early frost got to it or what happened, but for some reason the younger bush did bloom. We may have to eventually remove the older, gnarled tree that probably has seen a lot of history. I wonder if it as old as our large rose bush, which my neighbor told me is over 100 years old. Her grandparents or aunt and uncle, one or the other, used to live here and she lived with them for a while.
I am looking forward to when those roses start blooming in June, around the same time as the peonies. Our backyard is alive in the early summer and it’s exciting. I couldn’t believe how one day in early May the trees were naked and then suddenly they were green. It was really exciting to see this year.
Watching things bloom the next couple of weeks will be a nice respite from homeschool which is actually a little more stressful this time of year as we try to finish up units and testing before June 4 comes. June 4th will be our last day of school. The main thing I have to complete is a standardized test for Little Miss, which is required in third, fifth, and eighth grades in the state of Pennsylvania. We can use a standardized test from another state so we are using the California Assessment Test. It is an untimed test so we can take breaks from it, which we did a lot this past week because there were so many multiple choice questions to answer.
The grade on the test doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we do it and my homeschool evaluator sees it and says, “It was done and you met that requirement.” The local school district does not have access to the scores. Only I do. What the scores help me with is learning what areas of math and language arts we need to focus on next year. These tests only test those subjects. I have already learned, through the test we did Wednesday and Thursday, that I need to focus more on punctuation with Little Miss next year. She reads wonderfully but does not know much about punctuation.
Getting both of the kids to the end of the homeschool line has been like dragging a stubborn mule which has rolled itself on its side in the mud and closed its eyes. I can’t wait until the final day and will be glad for our summer break.
In closing, I thought I would mention that I have been trying to share videos of myself on social media to connect with my readers and I hate it. I hate how I look, sound, and talk. Still, I’m trying to push forward and connect in a different way with readers. I may chase some people away but some people might actually like placing a face with the account and following along on my writing/author journey. I have met new readers and writers and bloggers after posting new videos and that’s been nice so I guess I’ll keep doing this from time to time. I even set up a – gasp – YouTube Channel, but I don’t plan to be posting my face on there very often. I actually don’t know what I’ll be doing with that yet. Maybe nothing. Time will tell.
So, how was your week this past week?
Is the weather getting nicer where you are?
Have you been drinking any nice teas? Taking any hikes? Sniffing any flowers?
