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.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to. Feel free to link your posts about
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Today’s prompt was: The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf (Stand in front of your book collection, close your eyes, point to a title, and write it down. If you have shelves, point to your physical books. If you have a digital library, use a random number generator and write down the title of the book that corresponds with the number you generated. You get bonus points if you tell us whether or not you’ve read the book, and what you thought of it if you did!)
I did pick these books randomly, which you might question when you see the one. I was surprised that I have only read two out of all the picks I made. I did it by closing my eyes and just feeling around each shelf.
The Devil’s Hand by Jack Carr
I have not read this one. It is actually from my husband’s collection. He is a very avid reader (more so than me) so our books are mixed. He’s a big Jack Carr fan. I may read this at some point.
2. As The Crow Flies by Craig Johnson (A Walt Longmire Mystery)
This series is about the sheriff of Wyoming’s Absaroka County and the various cases he has to solve. Yes, the show Longmire is based on the series. Walt’s sidekick is Henry Standing Bear, and his deputies are Victoria “Vic” Moretti and Santiago Saizarbitoria. I have not read this one yet but I have read several in the series so far and enjoy them. They can get a little repetitive but I love the characters and Johnson’s writing.
One thing you come to expect from a Walt Longmire Mystery is that there is going to be a fairly gruesome murder, Walt is going to have to go on a long journey (often in the snow) where he will probably see his Native American spirit guides, Henry is going to be both a support and a smart mouth that provides the comic relief, and Vic is going to figure out how to make complete sentences using only the words “the” and the f-word. So, no, these are not “clean” books. But the writing is really great.
3.Summer HIll Sisters by Beverly Lewis
I have never actually read Beverly Lewis. We found this book and several Elm Creek Quilting books by Jennifer Chiavarini in our attic a couple of years ago. I am guessing the previous owner left them. I will probably read this at some point.
4. Very Good, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
I have read two in this series but not this one yet. These are sort of like short stories. They were first published in either a magazine or newspaper back in the 1920s. I will read this one at some point.
5. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
I actually read this earlier this year. I will be reading Return of the King this winter
6. Known to Evil by Walter Mosley
Another of my husband’s books. He reads a lot of Mosley, but I have not yet. Hope to soon.
7. The Farmer’s Daughter by Lisa R. Howeler (yeah…me)
I promise I did NOT pick this one on purpose. I didn’t even know it was on that shelf. I considered putting it back and choosing another one but I wanted to keep true to the prompt so I kept it here. I won’t provide a link so I’m not being spammy. It is on Kindle Unlimited if you want to look it up. It is a Christian romance. I now write cozy mysteries instead of romance but at some point I need to write the last book in this series.
8. My Beloved by Jan Karon
My husband just bought this for me and it came out in October. I can’t wait to read it but I think I might let my mom read it first. She loves Jan Karon books and I do have some other books I can read first. Plus, she’s a very fast reader so I’ll have it back quick I’m sure.
9. Cold Company by Sue Henry
I haven’t read any books by this author. I had never even heard of her before my daughter picked this out for me at a used book sale. I’ll get to it eventually.
10. An Amish Inn Mystery: Plain Deception by Tara Randel
I have read other books in this series and enjoyed them but I have not read this one yet. Probably soon, though.
Have you read any of these books? Let me know in the comments!
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.
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.
Last night, The Husband, Little Miss, and I went to a theater near us to watch K-Pop Demon Hunters Sing Along on the big screen.
There weren’t as many people as I thought there would be and Little Miss was a bit embarrassed by her old mom singing and trying to dance. I was trying to fill in for her friend who wasn’t able to attend with us.
Afterward we visited one of the last classic Pizza Huts in the country for some dinner.
Here is a video I saw on YouTube that talks about it.
I ordered a salad since I’m not supposed to be eating gluten but I did taste some of the pizza Little Miss and The Husband ordered. Little Miss ordered her own personal pan pizza with green peppers, roasted red peppers, banana peppers and extra cheese. She was so excited to have her own pizza and said, “I can eat the toppings off if I want to since it is my own pizza!”
The Boy was spending the weekend at a friend’s house. It felt weird to go out to eat without him.
Earlier in the week, the Cat Distribution System found us and dropped off an all-black cat. This is strange since all of our pets (the two cats and a dog) are black and white. We are not sure where this kitten came from but it wants in our house and is very lovable. An abandoned house was pulled down on the street below us and my son says a lot of stray cats lived there. We think they are trying to find somewhere warm to go but what I can’t figure out is why this one cat wants to adopt us. We really don’t need anymore pets and feel the cat is probably full of fleas so we’ve placed it our garage with some food and a bed at nights and plan to give it flea medicine today.
My kids had decided in less than five minutes we were adopting the cat while I was still trying to say it could be a neighbors. The cat hasn’t gone home since Thursday, however, and even The Husband who doesn’t even like the cats we have (because he misses the cats we had for 19 years and refuses to open his heart to other cats. Yes, those cats were that old!) has been cradling this cat and suggesting we can make it work with three cats.
Pray for me. I’m losing the battle to keep our household to two cats and a dog.
Erin and I are also hosting a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. You can find that link up for this month here.
Also, my book Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing is available for free in ebook form on Amazon until tomorrow (Monday) night. It’s a cozy mystery:
I am currently reading Hero Debut By Angela Ruth Strong and Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier.
4793 hero cover w quote.indd
Hero Debut is a romantic comedy and has most of my attention right now as it is light and easy to read.
I’m also reading At Home In Harmony by Phillip Gulley off and on before bed. Each chapter is like a short story of its own and centers around a Quaker pastor.
For November, I am planning on reading a selection of Nancy Drew books for an event I created for fun — Nancy Drew November.
I’ll be listing which books I am going to read in a post later this week.
I am very anxious to read My Belovedby Jan Karon but I think I’m going to wait to start it until further into November so I can read it slowly for the Christmas season.
Last week I watched a movie called Phffft! with Jack Lemmon and Kim Novak. It was funny and cute.
I also watched a couple of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries episodes.
Last night I watched a couple of episodes of Murder, She Wrote from the early 1990s. It was interesting to see Kevin Sorbo and Mickey Rooney in the two episodes I watched. I’m fairly certain the one actor was Patrick Swazy’s brother. His name was Don and he looked exactly like Patrick so I’d say they were brothers. Of course, Mickey was playing a horse trainer. That’s a role he was used to from his movie days, that is for sure.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
This week’s prompt was Halloween Freebie, but since I don’t really read Halloween books, I chose to list my last ten most recent reads.
My last ten reads have been fairly simple reading with four Nancy Drew books and two Murder, She Wrote books mixed in. I’m going to go from my last read down to the tenth last read.
The Nancy Drew Files: Win, Lose, or Die by Carolyn Keene
2. Murder, She Wrote: Trick or Treachery by Donald Bain
3. Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowen
4. A Fatal Harvest by Rachael O. Phillips
5. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
6. Nancy Drew: The Clue of the Broken Locket by Carolyn Keene
7. Murder, She Wrote: Gin and Daggers by Donald Bain
8. The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller
9. But First, Murder by Bee Littlefield
10. Nancy Drew: Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene
What have you been reading lately?
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.
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 I received book-related stickers in the mail and was thrilled because I love stickers and putting them in books. I don’t have a lot of places to stick these stickers but it is still fun to have them. I have a reading journal, so I stuck some there and Little Miss took some for her phone.
Do you keep a reading journal? I was all excited to get one (which is just a journal with blank pages that I fill in) but then I ended up not taking the notes about the books I was reading, or doing much of anything I planned to do with it. I do keep a list of the books I’ve read throughout the year (which is much lower this year than last year) in it. I also keep a list of books recommended to me, books I want to read, my favorite books read, movies I’ve watched, and movies I want to watch.
I have a list going of Nancy Drew books I’ve read so far in it and that list actually isn’t that big. I think next year I will start a list of The Hardy Boys books I’ve read. So far, it’s exactly one.
I also ordered a set of magnetic bookmarks with cats on them last week. That was also exciting for me, but I will lose them quickly because I always seem to. I don’t know how. I lay them down next to me, get up, and they’ve fallen into some sort of portal! For example, I stood up tonight while reading to go pick up my kids after they were trick-or-treating and I dropped the bookmark and it was gone. Just gone. It’s possibly buried in my all-black purse, but even the purse seemed like some sort of portal because when I looked inside, it was gone.
Luckily, I have about 20 other bookmarks I can choose from to replace it. And then lose them as well.
In addition to the stickers and bookmarks, I also received an order of five books from Thriftbooks.
One of them is for Little Miss for school. It’s called Secrets of Civil War Spies by Nancy LeSourd.
The other four were:
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Bombs on Aunt Dainty by Judith Kerr
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
Murder, She Wrote: Aloha Betrayed by Donald Bain
The week before I received three new Nancy Drew books via the True Drew Podcast shop.
Those books were two from the 80s and 90s: The Nancy Drew Files Win, Lose or Die and The Nancy Drew Files Pure Poison. I also ordered an original book, The Mystery of the Fire Dragon.
This week I finished Trick or Treachery by Donald Bain, a Murder, She Wrote book. I finished it in three days after Little Miss told me I couldn’t finish it by the weekend. I showed her. I finished it three days early. She may have had an ulterior motive because with me reading she could get away doing what she wanted during the day. Hmmm…wait a minute!
I also started Home to Harmony by Phillip Gulley and The Nancy Drew Files Win, Place, or Die by Carolyn Keene. The Nancy Drew book is one of the books from the 1990s series. I’m about 50 pages from the end, which isn’t saying much since these books are only 150 pages total. I’ll finish it today. I have to say, I know these books are for kids or preteens, but the plot of this one really isn’t that bad. This is the first one I’ve read as an adult from this particular series. I am certain I read one in high school.
The Husband ordered me a copy of the latest Mitford book by Jan Karon (My Beloved) as a surprise, and it came yesterday. I’d had a bit of a rough few days with a sore tooth and feeling overwhelmed in life, so it was a wonderful surprise that brought me to tears.
I am going to start it sometime in November or maybe even December because it has a Christmas theme. I will not lie, I opened the book after I took a photo of it and inhaled deeply. It was so comforting.
Little Miss and I finished The Good Master this week, and we have been listening to — I kid you not — a Murder, She Wrote book before bed at night.
She said she’s actually enjoying it, so she requests it.
We are also reading the Civil War themed book for school and finishing the second Caddie Woodlawn book, which we forgot to finish when we got distracted by The Good Master.
The Husband is reading….? Oops … forgot to ask but it was Boone’s Lick by Larry McMurty.
The kids and I watched Mrs. Doubtfire last night. It has been years since The Boy has seen it and Little Miss has never seen it.
Earlier in the week I watched Petticoat Junction and yesterday I watched part of The Big Trail with John Wayne from 1930. That movie — wow. That was a crazy journey with very realistic scenes of the wagon trains traveling into the West.
I think I will write a post about it once I finish it. I would love to know more about the making of that movie.
I also watched another two-part Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mystery. Yes, I’ll definitely recap this one because it was a crazy ride with more romance between Nancy and Frank.
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.
This past week was fairly busy with vet appointments and sitting with my mom who is a fall risk. I went alone on Tuesday and on Wednesday Little Miss and I went together. She and I had fun spending time with Mom and then taking a ride on the golf cart on Wednesday after my dad arrived home. It was fun to watch little Zooma the Wonder Dog sprint next to us as we rode. She likes to race us but also likes to take a quick break by jumping on the cart with us. I had to hold her tight when we rode up to the neighbors because they raise labradors and although they are in kennels, I didn’t want her to stir them up.
Little Miss had four online classes as part of her homeschooling this week, which also kept us busy.
Thursday and Friday were days for relaxing, though, luckily. I was also so happy this week to see the hostages from Israel released and hope to see peace come to Israel and to the Gazans with the hopeful removal of Hamas’s power.
I am not sure what is coming up for this week other than homeschooling and an extra class for Little Miss on Outschool. I know it will be cold, though, because cool autumn air is definitely here with some of our nights dropping into the thirties already!
Don’t forget that Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Link up for all book related posts. You can find that link here:
This past week I finished A Fatal Harvest by Rachael O. Phillips and Come, Tell Me Where You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowen.
A Fatal Harvest was a cozy mystery and I will have a review of it up on the blog tomorrow.
Come, Tell Me Where You Live was non-fiction. It was a type of memoir by Agatha of her time in Syria with her archaeologist husband.
Now I am reading Trick and Treachery by Donald Bain. It’s a Murder, She Wrote Mystery.
I am also going to start A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse this week.
I am supposed to receive a copy of Rebecca by Daphne DeMauier this week and I hope to start that soon as well.
Last night I rewatched the Anne of Green Gables movie from 1985 with Little Miss. Earlier in the week I watched The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula to prepare for writing about the two-parter later this week.
I’m working on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School for a February release.
I didn’t take this particular photo, but I saw it yesterday while looking at other photos and was just struck by its composition and beauty. It is obviously an Associated Press photo, so they get the credit.
Here are some photos I did take:
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 in my new link party if you also write a weekly update like this.
