Sunday Bookends: Sunday Bookends: Dick VanDyke, Hercule Poirot, and a cat falling off the roof

December 14, 2025December 14, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 18 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to. Feel free to link your posts about

I usually mention what I have been watching down below but today I thought I’d mention part of what I’ve been watching here because I have been watching a lot of clips of or interviews with or about Dick VanDyke since yesterday was his 100^th birthday and he’s still alive.

When I was a kid, I watched The Dick VanDyke Show on PBS in the evenings after dinner and it became a comfort watch to me. As my mom said last night, The Dick VanDyke Show was something you could watch and know it was just going to be good, clean comedy and fun.

The show still holds up today too. I still watch The Dick VanDyke Show, especially when I am down about something.

In fact, when I am down or sad about something my husband will ask, “What can I do? How about I make a cup of tea and find you a Dick VanDyke episode to watch?” Sometimes he doesn’t even suggest it, he simply turns an episode on and backs away — much like a man might toss a bar of chocolate to a woman on her period and run away.

Of course I have also watched Dick VanDyke in movies like Mary Poppins, but, for me, my memories of him will always circulate around The Dick VanDyke Show.

I loved this interview with him from People Magazine. My brother sent it to me last night and I cried because it was just nice to see him doing so well at his age and hearing all his memories of the various projects he was involved with over the years.

This past week we were plunged into deep cold and also had snow a couple of days which left it hard for me to back out of our steep driveway. Yesterday was my first day out all week and the kids and I took some bean soup to my parents…yes, that bean soup from my post yesterday.

We are facing below freezing temps today, but later in the week temps will rise into the mid-40s. Why do I give weather reports in my blog posts?! I have no idea, but I always do it.

Our cats aren’t sure what to think of the weather. Somedays they want to go out but within ten minutes they are back at the kitchen window begging to come in.

We had a bit of cabin fever this week so Little Miss took Zooma The Wonder Dog for a walk down the street. Scout decided she wanted to see what was going on but she didn’t last outside long, dashing back inside through our side door when I wasn’t looking.

Since I wasn’t looking, I panicked a bit later when I couldn’t find her in the house and it was getting dark

I feel like I spend most of my days counting fury heads and asking, “Has anyone seen…” whichever cat I haven’t seen for a while.

Cass is our “new cat” who we’ve had since the end of October. He is a he and not a she like we normally thought and we are getting much better at calling him “he” as we get used to that change. We called him “she” for the first month of his life.

Our cat Scout has always been the crazy one, climbing up trees and having to be rescued by the fire company or falling out of them and almost dying, but now Cass is the craziest because we’ve found him on our snowy roof twice this month and twice he stole chicken from the stove or counter when I wasn’t looking.

I discovered him on the roof after a small snowstorm this week when Zooma was barking at him and snow trickled down from the roof as I opened the door. Our son looked out his upstairs window to see if he could bring Cass in but he had already found a way down to the porch so he could come in the door the normal way.

Yesterday, the same thing happened, but this time Cass thought he could climb onto the open door frame and jump down. The only problem was once he got on the narrow door frame he tried to step on our wreathe which kept moving and then panicked. He had no idea how to get off the door frame so eventually our son reached up for him and Cass fell, upside down, into his arms.

I’ve learned to duct tape the knobs on the stove so he won’t hit them with his foot when he thinks he can jump up. I’m also learning not to leave food on the counter that I plan to eat unattended. I hope to break him of these stealing habits soon — probably with a spray bottle, which is how I had to stop Scout from climbing our window screens when we first adopted her.

I’m curious if he will calm down once he is neutered a few days before Christmas.

This is off the subject — I don’t know about any of you have bots on your site or not lately, but I have tons from China and have for about three months. I’ve contacted WordPress but have been told to ignore them unless I start receiving a ton of comments. That’s great, I guess, because right now I get 30,000 fake views a week from China and I’ve heard and read on forums that this happening to a ton of other blogs and sites in the United States.

REMINDERS*: Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

We are also hosting Comfy Cozy Christmas! As Erin said on her blog, “Anything holiday related – any December holiday – at all that strikes your fancy and you write about, please think about sharing on our linky.” You can find the link for that at the top of my page in the menu or here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.

At the beginning of the week I stayed up past 1 a.m. one night finishing Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. While I felt it was a bit wordy at times and maybe even a little repetitive with all that comparison by the second Mrs. DeWinter of herself to Rebecca, I really enjoyed it and do think it is as good as so many reviews I have read said it was (that sentence doesn’t make much sense but hopefully you can decipher it.)

Last night I finished Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie. It was very good, (though a bit rushed) but I think I’ll look for sweeter reads for the next couple of weeks as we make our way toward Christmas.

Little Miss and I also finished Caddie Woodlawn’s Family (also known from it’s original title Magical Melons).

I will probably read a couple of Christmas short stories by Dickens and L.M. Montgomery, as well as finishing reading A Christmas Carol to Little Miss. I will also read at least part of Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon.

Coming up soon will be a book of short stories by Louis L’Amour, Damsel in Distress by P.G. Woodhouse, and Murder, She Wrote Brandy and Bullets. I’m also hoping to start Glorious Intruder by Joni Eareckson Tada as a slow read. After all that or somewhere in between I want to start The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.

This past week I rewatched part of Meet Me In St. Louis, Wartime Christmas, and on YouTube a couple episodes of Real Vintage Dolls House. I started a couple of movies too but have not finished them yet.

I’ll be making a formal announcement later, but I’ll be watching James Cagney movies this winter and I’m looking forward to it because I’ve only ever watched one Cagney movie, so I will probably add one of his movies into my Christmas movie watching this week.

This morning, we watched the first episode of the new season of Shakespeare & Hathaway. It wasn’t as good as the earlier seasons (we skipped Season 4 filmed during “You Know What” because the one episode was just bad beyond bad) but it was nice to see their banter again after a two-year break. We will see how the rest of the season is.

I also watched “my farmer”, Pete, on Just A Few Acres Farm, which I do almost every Sunday after watching online church.

I made a lot of progress on Gladwynn book four this past week. I thought I’d share a little description I put together:

Small town newspaper reporter Gladwynn Grant is not going to get involved in any more mysteries. She’s learned her lesson. The hard way.

Her resolve starts to crumble, though, when someone tries to drop an industrial size light fixture on the Brookstone School District Superintendent during an interview. Was Superintendent Ellerton the intended target, though? Or was it actually Gladwynn herself?

While all this is unfolding her ever-busy grandmother, Lucinda, has been told by her doctor she needs to rest more and run around less while Gladwynn’s sister, Iona, is feeling overwhelmed with her role as a mother of three.

A new friendship between State Police Detective Tanner Kinney and Pastor Luke Callahan, the two men family and friends like to joke are battling for Gladwynn’s affections, has Gladwynn a bit perplexed, but also relieved.

Will Gladwynn be able to help find out if someone wants Superintendent Ellerton out of the picture, all while trying to keep Lucinda resting, Iona from cracking, and everyone in town from spreading rumors about her and one of the men in her life?

Find out in the latest Gladwnn Grant Mystery, Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School.

If you want to read the previous three books, you can find links at the bottom of the page. They are available as ebooks and paperbacks.

On the blog I shared:

I’ve been listening to Letters From Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Mystery of Stillness by BettieG’s RA Seasons

Gingerbread and Pear Pudding by Scratch Made Food and DIY Homemade Household

Silent Movies: Christmas Dream by Cat’s Wire

Friday Morning Coffee Catch Up by Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this. You can copy my blog graphic to your computer if you want to participate in my link party or you can join the other awesome link ups below.

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Sunday Bookends: Snow. Beautiful book. Old movies.

December 7, 2025December 7, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 24 Comments

Some husbands show their wives their love by buying them flowers or chocolate. My husband shows me love by buying me books and I’m here for it.

A couple of months ago he bought me My Beloved, the new book by Jan Karon, for my birthday/early Christmas gift. I haven’t read it yet because I gave it to my mom to read first.

Yesterday The Husband went Christmas shopping for the kids and came home with gifts for them but also a pretty copy of A Christmas Carol for me.

It’s a reproduction of a reproduction but that doesn’t matter to me. I love it, and I love how it includes the original introduction and preface that was in the 1922 version. To explain, there was a version of Dicken’s original version of A Christmas Carol published in 1922 by the National Book Trade Provident Society. Their version was republished this year by another publisher. So, a reproduction of a reproduction.Whatever it is, I love it. It’s little and cute and inside it features an introduction by GK Chesterton and original illustrations published in the original A Christmas Carol.

I read the story to my son several years ago so Monday I plan to start reading it to Little Miss.

This week we received our first snowfall of the year, and since the temps dropped so fast afterward, we still have snow on the ground and probably will for a while. Temps are going to stay very low for several more days.

I took this photo at my parents yesterday. I love this view.

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

This past week I breezed through a novella called Christmas in Harmony by Phillip Gulley. I really enjoyed it. It’s part of the Harmony series by Gulley, which I recommend if you’ve never tried it.

I almost finished Rebecca and probably will finish it by tomorrow. It was very slow at first with so much melodrama and description but it picks up halfway through and now I have to read to the end, even though I did see the movie in the past. I forgot the ending of the movie so this will remind me if the two are the same.

I am taking part in the 13^th annual Ho Ho Ho Readathon from November 26 to December 17^th. I finished my first Christmas/winter themed book with Christmas in Harmony.

This week I’ll be starting A Christmas Carol with my daughter and also continuing Hercule Poirot’s Christmas and A Christmas Scrapbook, a short story by Phillip Gulley.

I will also be reading excerpts from Little Women and Shepherd’s Abiding (a Jan Karon book and part of the Mitford series) at some point.

If you want to know more about the challenge, hop over here:

https://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/2025/10/13th-annual-ho-ho-ho-readathon-sign-up.html

Little Miss and I will finish Magical Melons or Caddie Woodlawn’s Family (which the name was changed to) by Carol Ryrie Brink this week. This is the sequel to Caddie Woodlawn, which we listened to on Audible. We’ve been slowly reading it along with other school books for quite a while now. Each chapter is like its own short story. I really enjoyed a chapter we read this past week about Christmas and ended up crying over it. I’ll share more about the book in a future post.

I have a Murder, She Wrote book, The Murder of Twelve, by Donald Bain on tap for sometime soon, but will probably end up reading more Christmas stories/books throughout December.

This week I watched an old movie called Ball of Fire, part of the PBS Little Women mini-series, and tried to watch a movie called Wonder Man with Danny Kaye but couldn’t get into it.

I honestly can’t remember what else I watched this past week so I guess it wasn’t very exciting.

Today I will be watching some sort of Christmas movie but I am not sure which one yet.

I added a couple thousand words to Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School last week.

Last week on the blog I shared:

I am listening (off and on) to Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Now It’s Your Turn

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Top Ten Quotes from my favorite Christmas book: Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon

December 2, 2025December 2, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week we could choose whichever topic we wanted so I chose: Top Ten Quotes from my favorite Christmas book (or one of them): Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon.

A description of the book:

Experience the joys of a small town Christmas in this novel in the beloved Mitford series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jan Karon.

Millions of Americans have found Mitford to be a favorite home-away-from-home, and countless readers have long wondered what Christmas in Mitford would be like. The eighth Mitford novel provides a glimpse, offering a meditation on the best of all presents: the gift of one’s heart.

Since he was a boy, Father Tim has lived what he calls “the life of the mind” and has never really learned to savor the work of his hands. When he finds a derelict nativity scene that has suffered the indignities of time and neglect, he imagines the excitement in the eyes of his wife, Cynthia, and decides to undertake the daunting task of restoring it. As Father Tim begins his journey, readers are given a seat at Mitford’s holiday table and treated to a magical tale about the true Christmas spirit.

I try to read either all of this book, or parts of it, each year at Christmastime.

“Lord, make me a blessing to someone today!” He uttered aloud his grandmother’s prayer, raised his umbrella, and, beneath the sound of rain thudding onto black nylon, turned left, and headed to Lord’s Chapel to borrow a volume of Jonathan Edwards from the church library.

The day after his visit to Oxford Antiques, he realized that the angel had seized his imagination. He was surprised by a vivid recollection of her face, which he’d found beautiful, and the piety of her folded hands and downcast eyes. As for the missing wing, wasn’t that a pretty accurate representation of most of the human horde, himself certainly included?

In the back room of Happy Endings, Hope finished reading the second letter on her desk and held it for a moment close to her heart. She had never received a love letter before. She was, of course, the only one who would think it a love letter, as there was no mention of love in it, at all. Yet she could feel love beating in each word, in every stroke of the pen, just as it beat in the heart and soul of the chaplain of Hope House and expressed itself in everything he did.

His father gazed at him for an instant more, then walked up the steps and into the house. He sat there, numb with a mixture of joy and bewilderment. In one brief and startling moment, he realized that he was, after all, seen — and perhaps even loved.

When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.

Blast it! No! He would not forfeit the glad rewards of this rare, unhurried moment. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and closed his eyes. Thank you, Lord, for the grace of an untroubled spirit, and for the blessings which are ours in numbers too great to count or even recognize. . . . He sat for some time, giving thanks, and then, without precisely meaning to, remembering. . . .

But, no. He didn’t want the Holy Family to go faster. He’d developed a special tenderness toward the last of this worshipful assembly, and wanted to give them his best effort, his deepest concentration. Indeed, it seemed to be the wont of most people in a distracted and frantic world to blast through an experience without savoring it or, later, reflecting upon it.

“I brought it home and thought, Timothy gave Hélène his beautiful bronze angel, I want to do this for him. Because if I could do it, it would represent the very reason Christ was born. He came to put us back together, and make us whole.”

“Christmas is real,” he said. “It’s all true.”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s all true.

“Merry Christmas, my love.”

“Merry Christmas, dearest.”

“I’m a sinner saved by grace, Lew, not by works. It doesn’t matter a whit that I’m a priest. What matters is that we surrender our hearts to God and receive His forgiveness, and come into personal relationship with His Son.”

Bonus: He leaned down and took her chin in his hand and kissed her, lingering. “I like to see your eyelashes go up and down and the little stars come out of you.”

This post is part of Comfy, Cozy Christmas, being hosted by me and Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Sunday Bookends: It’s A Wonderful Life Radio Play and a Beatrix Potter-based cozy mystery series

November 30, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 15 Comments

Yesterday the kids and I went to see The Husband in the play version of It’s A Wonderful Life. Attending the play has become such a wonderful kick off to the Christmas season for us since he was also in the play last year.

This play is set up as a “radio play” where the characters are radio personalities presenting a play for an audience who only had access to a radio not a TV. This means the characters are reading from scripts but there are sound effects and voice changes that bring it all alive.

Each actor plays a couple of different characters so they have to change their voices or tones throughout. The Husband played four different characters but my favorite was Mr. Potter who I think he pulled off perfectly.

After the play an older man approached by husband and told him he had brought his blind adult son. The son thanked my husband and said the production came alive for him because of the voice changes and the sound effects added in.

My husband was so touched that the production meant that much to the young man, especially since there wasn’t a huge crowd there.

I hope more people attend the production today because the play version almost touched me more than the movie version, which I totally loved. I teared up a couple of times during it — especially at the end when George realizes how special his life is and how lost those in his life would be if he’d never been born.

It’s also interesting to note that Philip Van Doren Stern who wrote the original short story was born in the small town where my husband performed the play. He didn’t grow up there, but he was born there in 1900 and his father lived there for a time. (source Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Van_Doren_Stern)

If you don’t know the story, Stern wrote the short story for Christmas cards he and his daughter were sending out in 1943. He tried to get the story published but publishers didn’t pick it up so he self-published it. Later the short story was used for a full play and then for a screenplay for what has become one of the most famous Christmas movies of all time.

Now that we’ve seen the play, I feel like I can fully immerse myself in the Christmas season and am looking forward to making a list of Christmas movies to watch and Christmas books to read.

I thought I should mention here like I did in yesterday’s post that the girl kitten I’ve been writing about that was dropped off at our house a few weeks ago, is not actually a girl. We discovered some appendages this week that girl kittens do not have so our girl kitten is a boy kitten, but we are sticking with the name Cas.

It explains a lot about his behavior and his incessant yowling too.

We will also be hosting Comfy Cozy Christmas starting tomorrow! As Erin said on her blog, “Anything holiday related – any December holiday – at all that strikes your fancy and you write about, please think about sharing on our linky.”

Last night I finished The Tale of Hill Top Farm by Susan Wittig Albert.

The concept of this book was a good one — Beatrix Potter, the children’s book author as a amateur sleuth — but when I finally got into the book, she wasn’t actually doing much sleuthing. She wasn’t even really the main character at times. There also wasn’t a ton of real “mystery” involved.

Instead, Beatrix wandered around talking to people and drawing pictures and meeting children while other characters (including the talking animals who were only understood by each other) did most of the solving of the very simple mysteries. There was more than one POV while I thought Beatrix would provide the main one.

The main mystery was a bit of a letdown for me in the end, but overall, the book had some cute, sweet moments. This was definitely a very, very light mystery with no gruesome of violent aspects (other than an owl making a meal out of some rats) and that isn’t a bad thing at all.

I don’t know if I will read more of this series or not yet. I’ll have to be in the mood for a leisurely wander rather than a strict whodunit if I do. That happens a lot so I’m sure book two will be read sometime in 2026.

I’m still reading Rebecca by Daphne DeMauier and will probably finish it this week unless I get wrapped up in Christmas movies and specials.

I might finish Nancy Drew: The Triple Hoax but I won’t finish it in time for Nancy Drew November.

I’m not really liking it, so it isn’t a priority for me.

I just ordered a copy of Letters From Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien and it won’t be here until a week before Christmas, but I think that will be perfect timing.

I plan to read at least one more Agatha Christie before the year ends and I think it will be Partners in Crime, my first Tommy and Tuppence mystery.

I also hope to read another Murder, She Wrote book but that might wait until after my Christmas reads, which including reading at least parts of Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon and Little Woman.

I watched my first James Cagney movie, Strawberry Blond, this week. I enjoyed it and will be watching it for my planned Winter of Cagney that I will be starting in January. I will be doing that at the same time I rewatch all of the Thin Man movies in order. It will be a fun month of old movies.

I also watched my second Bette Davis movie, Another Man’s Poison, (my first was All About Eve) this past week, and hope to watch more of her movies soon for Spring of Bette.

I watched The Barney Miller Show and episodes of TJ Hooker and Hunter with The Husband. We also watched a Murder, She Wrote episode. This week I hope to watch some more old movies, maybe a couple of Christmas movies, and some movies based on Agatha Christie books or stories. I also hope to watch at least one The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries episode so I can recap it on the blog.

I am working on book four of the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series. If you would like to read the first three before it releases in February, you can find them on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited (until the end of December): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBB42YM6?binding=kindle_edition&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tkin

On the blog last week I shared:

Yes, I have already listened to this:

Now It’s Your Turn

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Sunday Bookends: I think I’ll stop tracking how many books I read and just…gasp! Read!

November 23, 2025November 23, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 24 Comments

Before I get too far into this post, I want to mention that today is my husband’s birthday and my brother and sister-in-law’s anniversary.

Happy birthday to The Husband and happy anniversary to Butthead and Kim. Er….Bryan and Kim.

I have to say that I feel a bit bad telling this next story, considering it is my husband’s birthday, but I am going to do so anyhow because he’s a good sport. And please know that this story is shared in good humor, not as an actual complaint – since you can’t hear my tone which would be one tinged with laughter.

Last night he picked me up from my parents where I had been visiting them after he dropped me off. He suggested I sit in the back with our dog who tries to push her way into the middle console and bump against his arm while he’s trying to drive if there isn’t someone in the backseat with her.

I did so and when we got home, after dark mind you, my husband asked the dog if she was going to exit through the front door or would wait for me to move so she could exit through the back door. The dog stayed sitting next to me, so The Husband closed the door and walked into the house.

I thought he was going to go turn the outside light on and come back to help me with my bags, but instead when the dog and I got out of the car I found out we were totally alone in the driveway and backyard.

We’ve been married for 23-years and the man didn’t even open the door for me. Gasp! I was certain he would look out the back door to see if I was coming but after a few minutes, Zooma the Wonder Dog and I were still outside in the cold. I went inside and said, “Hey! Thanks a lot for leaving me!”

I found The Husband staring at The Avengers movie with the kids.

“I could have been eaten by a bear!” I told him.

“You wouldn’t have been eaten by a bear,” he insisted. “We’re located in a fairly safe neighborhood with a fairly well lit driveway. You were fine.”

For the record, we live on the end of a street at the far end of a tiny town, surrounded by the woods, and a couple of months ago Zooma the Wonder Dog had a stand off with a black bear in our backyard – a few hundred feet from where I was standing (alone and in semi-darkness).

“I just read a story about a black bear chasing a boy into a Dollar General in Pennsylvania!” I told him.

“What part of Pennsylvania?” he asked.

“Pittsburgh area but we still have bears around here you know!”

Chivalry is dead, ya’ll. Dead.

Something else that is also dead is my desire to worry about the number of books I am reading each year.

In 2026 I am simply going to read whatever I want and take as long as I want to read the books I choose. It isn’t that I worry about how many books I’ve read in a year too often anyhow, but sometimes I do find myself feeling bad I’m not reading more, usually because I am comparing myself to other bloggers or readers on social media.

It’s really silly to compare ourselves to others, especially at my age, but luckily it is a very brief comparison when I do so.

This year, I chose books I wanted to read, not books others said I should read, and I hope to do the same next year. I still want to list the books I read in my reading journal because I enjoy doing that and looking back at them at the end of the year, partially so I can recommend them (or not) to others, but I think next year I’ll simply list and not number. Or maybe I’ll just stop overthinking it? That might work too. *wink*

We will also be hosting Comfy Cozy Christmas starting the day after Thanksgiving! As Erin said on her blog, “Anything holiday related – any December holiday – at all that strikes your fancy and you write about, please think about sharing on our linky.”

I finished The Whispering Statue last week. It’s a Nancy Drew mystery and it had a lot of plot issues, but yet, it was also an interesting mystery, or had interesting aspects.

I am still reading Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier — a few chapters a week.

I added The Tale of Hilltop Farm by Susan Wittig Albert to break up the drama of Rebecca.

Here is a quick description of the book from online: “The author of Peter Rabbit and other tales, Beatrix Potter is still, after a century, beloved by children and adults worldwide. In this first Cottage Tale, Albert introduces Beatrix, an animal lover and Good Samaritan with a knack for solving mysteries. With help from her entourage of talking animal friends, Beatrix sets out to win over the human hearts of Sawrey, where she’s just bought an old farm–and plans to stay.”

Up soon I plan to read an Agatha Christie book but I haven’t decided which one yet.

I have been watching mostly old shows again but also movies with the kids who are making their way through the Marvel movies. This would be a first time for Little Miss (11) and many times for The Boy (19).

This past week it was The Avengers and Iron Man 3. I hate Iron Man 3 so I tried to do other things while it was on. It was like watching a train wreck. It is the worst of the series for the Iron Man part. We just skipped the second Thor movie (The Dark World) because it is also horrible.

I also started a Bob Hope movie called I’ll Take Sweden. Frankie Avalon is also in it and it’s ridiculous. I had to go to bed before I could finish it.

And I watched a couple of YouTubers this week, including The Cottage Fairy who has been gone for a long time after having a baby but put up a new video this week.

On the blog I shared:

I’ve been listening to The Jack Benny Show at night before bed.

Now It’s Your Turn

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Children’s Books I Read After I Was An Adult

November 18, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 21 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt was: Modern Books You Think Will Be Classics In The Future (submitted by Veros @ Dark Shelf of Wonders).

I don’t read a ton of modern books so I couldn’t think of any for that prompt. Instead I decided to share ten children’s books I didn’t read as a child but did read as an adult.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I saw a movie adaption of this when I was a child but never read the book. I honestly think I appreciated it more as an adult. I read it myself and the next week read it aloud to my 11-year-old daughter and she enjoyed it too. What a sweet book with so many lessons. I didn’t like the way it ended, but only because I wanted more. I think most people know what this one is about but a quick summary is that it is about a girl who is orphaned, is sent to live with her eccentric and strange uncle at his mansion on the moor of England. While there she uncovers some family secrets and learns how to be kind and to love life.

2. Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright

This was a quirky one but very fun to read with our daughter. This one is about two kids who go to visit their cousin and find an abandoned village that was left when the dam was destroyed and the lake that had been there disappeared. It turns out, though, that the whole village isn’t abandoned. There is a brother and sister living in two of the houses that are still standing.

3. The Middle Moffat by Eleanor Estes

This is a book in the series of books about The Moffat family. This one is about Jane Moffat, who is the middle Moffat. It is such a cute book with each chapter being it’s own story, yet one theme running throughout — the theme of Jane’s relationship with a 100-year-old Civil War vet. It was so sweet. I read this one first and then read it again with our daughter.

4. Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

Little Miss and I listened to this one on Audible and really enjoyed it. Well, most of it. There are some chapters we skip because the stories are either dark or weird.

The story follows the Woodlawn family in Wisconsin, with the main focus being on 10-year-old Callie. It takes place during the Civil War years.

5. The Good Master by Karen Seredy

Little Miss and I just finished this one.

It takes place in Hungary and follows the adventures of young Kate and her cousin Jancsi. Kate is sent to stay with Jancsi and her aunt and uncle because, quite frankly, she is a brat and her dad wants his brother to teach her to be a nicer little girl.

Kate learns about sheep farming, life in a rural area, and how to be part of a family in this sweet book (though it did also have a disturbing chapter where she is kidnapped by gypsies).

6. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

I saw the 1985 version of this when I was young, but didn’t read the book until a few years ago. Two years ago I read it, while summarizing some parts, to Little Miss. We loved this book and love Anne. I think most readers of my blog know what Anne is all about, but if you don’t — it’s about an orphan who is mistakenly sent to live with an older couple and grows up to be a charming, whimsical and spunky child.

7. Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen

I loved this one and read it in the spring two years ago. I then read it this past spring to Little Miss. This is the story of a young girl whose father has PTSD from World War II. The family goes to stay at the girl’s great-grandmother’s farm, abandoned since the great-grandparents passed away. They go for the visit to help her father heal but it becomes a place for the whole family to heal.

8. The Green Ember by S.D. Smith

I read this one with my son years ago and enjoyed it and have started it with Little Miss. This book is an adventure book that stars young rabbits with swords who go on a quest that leads them through a journey of good and evil, searching for family, and learning about themselves and what they can do.

9. The Black Stallion by William Farley

I saw the movie adaptation when I was a child but did not read the book until about a year ago. I read it to Little Miss and it was good but there were some sections we skipped because it just dragged and dragged. This book is about a boy who is shipwrecked with a wild, Arabian stallion which he befriends and takes with him when he is rescued. Eventually he begins to work with a trainer to make the horse a race horse.

10. The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz

This one is about a young pioneer girl from Pennsylvania whose family moves from the Philadelphia area to a very rural area of the state and learns what it means for a family to become self-sufficient and help to settle a new world.

Have you read these books? What did you think of them?

Are there children’s books you didn’t read until you were an adult?

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Sunday Bookends: Loss and comfort reading, watching

November 16, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 12 Comments

Last week I mentioned our cat Scout had been injured. She was unable to put weight on her back paw.

We had a vet appointment for her last week but thought she was doing better and canceled it. Sadly, she came back into the house that day and was not doing better so we now have another appointment for next week and are on a cancellation list.

She is allowing us to touch her paw now and is less cranky. She is also learning how to run on three legs, like when she slips out the door and tries to run off down the street. We’ve let her outside a couple of times, either because we thought she was better, or yesterday because I knew she could get away from a predator fast even with her injury. I watched her run on three legs at me across the yard the day before when I called her inside.

The animals have been a comfort to me this week as we mourn the death of a close family friend.

This weekend I focused on comfort shows and books and shut down social media and news sites. It’s been so nice, I’ll probably continue it into the rest of the week.

This week I finished Nancy Drew: The Mystery of The Fire Dragon and started The Mystery of The Whispering Statue for Nancy Drew November.

I also finished At Home in Harmony by Philip Gulley.

I really enjoyed The Mystery of The Fire Dragon, even though the Nancy Drew books are pretty simply. I definitely loved the heartwarming stories in At Home in Harmony and will read more of the books in the series. The chapters are a series of short stories that connect with the same characters.

As I mentioned, I am reading The Mystery of The Whispering Statue but I am also reading Rebecca by Daphne De Mauier.

I plan to read The Triple Hoax, a Nancy Drew Mystery, later this week and follow it with Pure Poison, another Nancy Drew Mystery.

Then I will start My Beloved by Jan Karon.

Little Miss and I are reading a book about two young girls who went through the Civil War — one as a regular citizen in the South and the other as a undercover boy/soldier for the North.

This week I watched Murder, She Wrote, The Dick VanDyke Show, and started a movie called A Weekend At the Waldorf but it got a bit boring so I bailed for now. I also rewatched a couple of All Creatures Great and Small episodes as a comfort watch.

My son has been showing his sister all the Marvel movies so this week we watched Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers. Or I should say rewatched since I’ve seen most of these movies more than three times over the years, some of them in the theaters.

This is a comic book house for sure.

This past week on the blog I shared:

|| In Which I Find Comfort in a Book by Linda Stoll ||

|| An Autumn Chat About Prayer by Homespun Devotions ||

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.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom (Episode 1) Recap

November 11, 2025November 11, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

Here I am with another recap of an episode from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries show from 1977 to 1979. This month it’s perfect because it fits in with my Nancy Drew November event.

As I’ve mentioned before in previous recaps, in the first season of this series, the episodes switched back and forth from The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew episodes and in the next season, which is the season I am in now, they started to join together. Eventually, they began to phase out the Nancy episodes and focus more on The Hardy Boys. A new actress also stared as Nancy part way through season two when Pamela Sue Martin became disenchanted with the lack of parts that were being written for her character.

According to trivia on IMdb: “Upon Janet Julian replacing Pamela Sue Martin in the second half of season two, Nancy Drew was only seen teaming up with the Hardy Boys, and never any solo stories. ABC however, did continue to air Martin’s episodes over rerun periods. For the third season, Nancy Drew was completely eliminated from the series, which was re-titled simply “Hardy Boys.””

I haven’t decided if I will watch the episodes that are just Hardy Boys, but I probably will.

This time around, I am tackling The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew: The Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom.

This is the second two parter I am writing about, with the first being The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula.

This time around I am going to share my recap in two posts, instead of one.

In this first episode, Nancy and the boys fly, separately, to Hollywood to take part in a detective conference. As Nancy is walking into the terminal, we see someone cutting a pol polaroid picture of her, removing her head. When she pauses at the payphones to call Bess (her sidekick for this season, but who does not show up in these episodes other than that call), we see someone cutting across a photograph of a man wearing a cowboy hat, and removing his head (in the photograph, I mean) as well.

We then see the Hardy brothers walking through the airport and picking on each other.

When Nancy looks across the airport, she sees a man trying to put a polaroid in the bag of the man with the cowboy hat. She runs to stop him, but the other man gets away and the cowboy thinks she’s the one trying to put something in his bag.

Frank and Joe see the interaction and rush to her rescue, telling the cowboy that they are with the airport police, juvenile division. Joe says to Nancy he thought he told her not to show up at that airport anymore.

The cowboy isn’t buying it and tells them he thinks they are all in on it together and were trying to steal from him.

As usual, Nancy is a bit uptight about it all when the cowboy leaves, but laughs a little at the boys. She catches a taxi and leaves them behind, being somewhat rude as usual.

The Hardy boys figure out she’s going to the same conference and will see her at the hotel.

While in the taxi, Nancy pulls out the photo of herself with the head missing. That means someone was able to shove a photo into her bag too. On the back are the words, “No one will shed a tear when you’re gone” written in sharpie.

Back at the hotel famous detectives are arriving but then we also see Fenton Hardy’s head being cut off in a photo too. Someone is using a typewriter to write, “The best shall also go.” The camera pans up, and we see a person wearing a creepy blue rubber mask.

A detective named Jason Fox arrives and the media all rush to talk to him. Fox chats with the media some, then brushes them off and see Fenton and goes to talk to him while the cowboy — Arlo Weatherly — comes in behind Fox and grabs him in a bear hug. They are all old buddies, I guess.

Weatherly sees Nancy, excuses himself, and approaches her. Nancy says she’s an investigator and Weatherly asks her why she put a photo of him with his head missing in his bag.

Nancy says she didn’t put the photo there and shows her own photo.

The Hardy Boys show up and together they all decide that this must be some sort of prank, even though Weatherly’s photo says, “You’re first, Cowboy.”

The boys later find similar photos in their room. “Brothers can disappear too,” is written on the back.

Soon Fenton, Nancy, and the boys are all comparing their photos.

Nancy says she thinks it is something important and dangerous and the boys laugh it off, because, you know, chauvinism.

Jason Fox shows up, and he says the same thing, reminding Fenton of all the pranks they’ve pulled in the past at this, and other, conferences.

The boys and Nancy start to walk back to their rooms later and Nancy says she still feels like something bad is going on. Frank pulls the sexist line, “Is this what you call women’s intuition?”

Then Nancy throat punches him. Oh. No. I mean. She should have.

Instead, she just roasts him by saying, “It’s called detectives intuition. Don’t you have any at all?”

Joe and Frank watch her leave and are like, “Girls. Psht. Whatever.”

Next, we are on a tour with the attendees. They are touring the sets and various sites of the movie and television making industry. Part way through, though, Nancy announces that Arlo Weatherly is missing.

She asks the boys if they remember the threat he got. That he’d be the first to go?

The boys brush her off yet again.

“Please, Nancy, don’t start on all that again,” Frank says with an eye roll.

Nancy shows them there was a polaroid on Weatherly’s seat and it’s the second half of his photo, his head.

The boys still aren’t buying it. Because they are stupid and don’t remember she helped solve the mystery with Dracula the last time they met her. Duh-uh!

So, Frank and Nancy go off to look for Weatherly and run into Columbo or Peter Falk who is shooting his show but wait — that’s not really Peter Falk. It’s an imposter! Something is off.

Oh, because that isn’t really Peter Falk. It’s ….. Casey Kasem?!

No. It legitimately it is. But his name in the show is Paul Hamilton and he eventually tells them that is who he is.

He does impressions and used to have a show in the 1950s called The Raiders, he says.

“Ever heard of it?”

Nancy and Frank have no idea what he’s talking about.

On the other side of the park Joe and Fenton are trying to find the Cowboy too but Jason Fox shrugs it off again and says it’s just a prank.

We see it isn’t a prank in the next scene when we see Weatherly sitting in a chair with his hands tied behind his back in a dark and empty cell.

Back in the park, a security guard questions Frank and Nancy about what they are doing there and escorts them out of the park.

Later that night at the conference, the boys ask Nancy if she’s heard anything on Weatherly.

She hasn’t but she has found a shooting schedule for a movie called The House on Bracken Moor.

The boys are confused and she explains that it is based on a book where eight people are stranded in an old house on an English Moor and they each receive a photograph of themselves and then each one disappears. (This is similar to the plot of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, by the way).

The boys are still not convinced that it has anything to do with Weatherly’s disappearance but Nancy points out that they were on a studio tour when he disappeared and that studio is shooting The House on Bracken Moor.

To keep the plot going, the boys dismiss her again and she says she’s going to go find the set herself and investigate.

I don’t blame her this time around. I find Pamela’s portrayal of Nancy overly aggressive on a god day, but the boys are being absolute jerks this time around.

To speed things up a bit, Nancy goes to the studio were the movie is being shot and finds a set with a picture propped up that features photos of all of the main detectives at the conference. Someone laughs and she runs after him, chasing the down a dark alley. She eventually finds herself on a set that looks like a dock and soon is tilted off a platform into some water. A fake shark chases her (think Jaws style), but she’s able to get out of the water. Staggering down the sidewalk, much less soaked than she should be if she’d really fallen into water, a truck attempts to back over her, but she is rescued by a man on horseback.

That man turns out to be Dennis Weaver who was acting in a show called McCloud at the time.

He takes her back to the hotel where the boys meet her, and Weaver tells them someone tried to run her over.

She tells the boys about the picture and as she goes in to change her clothes, she is thoroughly annoyed at them. After she leaves, they talk amongst themselves and finally agree that she’s been right all along after all.

They see Bronson, one of the detectives at the conference, get an envelope with a photograph and Frank goes to find Nancy. Nancy opens the door to her hotel room, but says, “Turn around, I’m getting dressed,” after he comes inside. Ummm…so what was she wearing when she opened the door?

Let us not think about that.

Anyhow, they confront Bronson and he says it’s a photograph of his son, not of him. They’re barking up the wrong tree, he adds.

He says Jason Fox is trying to play pranks on people and not to worry about it.

Nancy feels like the boys still won’t believe her now and they all go downstairs and see Jason Fox who is looking for Fenton because it appears that he is now also missing.

Joe, Nancy, and Jason start to go to look for Fenton, but Franks sees a photo in Bronson’s mailbox. He says Bronson sent him to get it. It’s a photo with Bronson’s head cut off.

They can’t find their dad and meanwhile we’re shown that Weatherly and Fenton are tied to chairs. Fenton says, “We should have believed Nancy. This guy’s crazy.”

Fenton’s ring, Arlo Weatherly’s watch, and some pendant belonging to Bronson are in a box given to Jason Fox. They all decide it is time to call the police, even though a ransom note in the box with the items says not to — just to bring money.

“Three of your detectives already gone,” the note reads. “$500,000 will free them. Don’t call the police.”

Jason says he will call the police and the boys apologize to Nancy for not believing her and they all agree to combine their forces and find out what is going on.

There is an argument between Frank and Nancy because Nancy was pushed into water earlier and could be in danger, but she points out she came there alone without them before because they didn’t want to believe her so she will be fine.

After Joe urges them to put their argument aside, they go onto the set and find the same photograph that Nancy told them about.

As they are talking someone begins to laugh again and they see the person’s silhouette outside the set window.

They all take chase. Joe gets onto a golf car type thing, while Nancy runs for help, and Frank gets stopped by studio security. Joe is busy searching an abandoned set when he is also snatched.

That ends episode one. I’ll share about episode two in a separate blog post tomorrow.

Before, I close, I will share what I liked about episode one: I liked the intrigue and how everyone was blowing off the idea that something dangerous was really going on util Fenton and Bronson disappeared along with Weatherly.

What I didn’t like was how all the men treated Nancy like she was a hysterical girl. I think that they could have moved the plot of the show along even if they had believed her. They really didn’t have to be so rude to her all of the time.

Even though, again, I feel Nancy is often rude in these shows. I think the writers, and Pamela herself, were trying to make Nancy appear confident, but instead I feel like it makes her look curt, abrupt and dismissive.

If you want to read other recaps from this show you can find them here:https://lisahoweler.com/old-tv-show-recaps/

Sunday Bookends: Our son turns 19, injured cat, new mystery book to read

November 9, 2025November 9, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 36 Comments

Our son turned 19 on Friday. We had a chilled day that day and didn’t do a lot at his request but yesterday he and his dad went to a college town a couple of hours away and explored the town, visited a comic shop, had breakfast and lunch, and just generally had a great time.

The Boy picked up this awesome double record of Johnny Cash at a used book/record store.

The Husband found this for me at a store —

I used to drink these all the time in college and was thrilled to have a bit of a blast from the past.

We call him “The Boy” by the way as a sign of affection because he is the only boy grandson out of seven grandchildren on my husband’s side. Someone my husband knows was afraid the term would offend our son (she was very polite in her concern), but we mainly only use it online and sometimes my husband will jokingly say, “Where is the boy?” when he walks in the house. We obviously call him by his given name offline.

I also don’t use his real name on my blog to protect his privacy a little because I used to use it and … it was sort of weird for him, even though I no longer share anything too personal about his life here. He wasn’t angry about me using his real name but I felt like I should protect him and Little Miss as they grow. They are okay with me occasionally posting photos at least.

Today we plan to go to my parents and have lunch with them and make apple pie together for The Boy’s birthday, which is a tradition because he is not a cake fan.

On Friday night, our cat Scout was unable to put weight down on her back paw.

All the vets around her in the Middle of Nowhere Land are closed for the weekend so we’ve tried to make her comfortable until we can get in somewhere. If she were yowling the whole time and it was clearly broken, we’d call the emergency line of the vet we usually go to. For now, she’s just extremely angry we won’t let her outside, so I am guessing she’s going to be okay.

She also bit me this morning while I tried to see if there is something in her paw or if it had been cut. We think, however, that the paw got pinched between the bed and the wall when Scout tried to curl up with Little Miss on Friday morning.

I am not the type of person who can handle a cat being in pain or upset, so this has been emotional for me. Having a new kitten in the house has also thrown things off, and our eldest cat has been angry and hissing and also trying to bite. I’m about to take them all to the no-kill shelter and be done with it, but, of course, I really can’t do that. They are family, and we just need to adjust to living as a family with a new member.

I am reading my first book for my Nancy Drew November, The Mystery of the Fire Dragon. I will have it finished today. Honestly, it’s pretty good other than Nancy getting hit in the head AGAIN and no one taking her to the hospital AGAIN. This time it was a flowerpot that fell from a third story window. In reality she’d be dead.

I am also reading Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier. Earlier this week I mentioned on Instagram that I was reading Rebecca by didn’t say by who and some very young Bookstagrammer said, “Oooh…what’s that?”

I felt very old. Another person thought I was reading Rebecca Yaros and said they loved Fourth Wing. Siiiiigh.

I’m really enjoying Home the Harmony by Phillip Gulley. I was reading it before bed the week before last but laid it aside most of this week to read Nancy Drew and Rebecca. Last night I picked it up again and ended up laughing so hard at one part. The book isn’t really a cohesive story, but a series of short stories about the same characters, with the main character being a Quaker minister. I am fairly certain I read part of this book if not all of it when I was in my 20s, and it seems familiar, but I don’t remember a lot of it so it’s like reading it all over again. I am enjoying it and would recommend it for a light, humorous and touching read.

Coming up, I hope to read another Nancy Drew, but my husband also picked me up a fancy copy of The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie. I’ve never read or heard of this one so I might bump one of my planned autumn reads to read this one instead.

After that, probably more toward December, I want to start My Beloved by Jan Karon. I am so excited for it but my mom loves Jan Karon so I let her read the copy The Husband bought me first. She hasn’t shared what she thinks of it yet, but I hope it is good.

Little Miss and I are reading a Civil War-based book right now for school called Secrets of Civil War Spies by Nancy LeSourd.

This past week I watched a movie called Storm in a Teacup with Rex Harrison and Vivien Leigh. I believe it was released in 1937 and is an English movie. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed seeing both actors when they were so young.

I watched a couple of later episodes of Murder, She Wrote, my farmer (Just A Few Acres) on YouTube, and more The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries from the 1970s. The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries are both good and horrible at the same time.

I just wanted to leave a little note to thank any of my blog readers who have taken the time to read my cozy mysteries, the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries. Those stories are fun for me to write, and I appreciate anyone who indulges my little hobby. I would love to say writing books is more than a hobby but for now it’s essentially a time consuming hobby and I’m finally okay with that.

I am working on book four, Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School, and it is taking me a while but I do have much of it outlined so I am hoping I can get it finished and released by February.

I have links to the books at the bottom of this post.

This week on the blog, I shared:

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.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Boondock Ramblings

A little bit about a lot of things

mystery

Sunday Bookends: Sunday Bookends: Dick VanDyke, Hercule Poirot, and a cat falling off the roof

Sunday Bookends: Snow. Beautiful book. Old movies.

Top Ten Quotes from my favorite Christmas book: Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon

Sunday Bookends: It’s A Wonderful Life Radio Play and a Beatrix Potter-based cozy mystery series

Sunday Bookends: I think I’ll stop tracking how many books I read and just…gasp! Read!

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Children’s Books I Read After I Was An Adult

Sunday Bookends: Loss and comfort reading, watching

Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom (Episode 1) Recap

Sunday Bookends: Our son turns 19, injured cat, new mystery book to read

Now It’s Your Turn

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