Tag: reading

Sunday Bookends: Relaxing in front of the fire, middle grade books, disappointing mystery books

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends11 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.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.



The weather was 22 degrees (F) with a wind chill of 12 and the fire lit on the first try for me. I was thrilled and since I couldn’t feel my toes at that point because I hadn’t wanted to turn the heat up and use up heating oil, I stuck my feet out toward the woodstove, opened the book I started this week – Miracle on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen – and proceeded to read for the next 90 minutes. I also made myself some hot cocoa and a type of Chex Mix concoction with sugar, cinnamon, and maple syrup, baked in the oven.


After I read some, I worked a bit on my novel, cooked some steaks and roasted potatoes for me and my daughter since The Boy was at a friend’s house and The Husband was at a work event. It was a very relaxing day and it was mainly relaxing because I shut social media completely off and was more intentional about doing the things that help to relax me.

My week wasn’t super busy this past week. I had dinner with my parents on Wednesday when my mom made dinner for Little Miss and I because we were borrowing their car to take Little Miss to Kid’s Club at a local church. Our headlights are still out on the car that hit a deer ran into in October.

On Thursday I planned to take them sone dinner I had cooked and return the car but as I headed out, the rain we’d been having all day turned into snow. No warning. Just snow and it started piling up. I thought it would be a brief snow, but instead, the roads became slick and I ended up staying home.

I took them lunch the next day instead when I took their car back, grabbed my car, and headed 20 minutes north to pick up the groceries from Aldi.

It looks like Saturday will be the last super cold day for the week, even though night temps will be low. Day temps, however, will be in the mid-40s to mid-50s starting Monday.

Today we are all staying home and having a family day because my husband has been working so much. We plan to make pizzas. usually visit my parents on Sunday but the kids and I will see them tomorrow most likely. I have been having Little Miss interview her grandma for history and I think we will do that again this week and add her grandpa in as well.

What I/we’ve been Reading
 

I finished Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson and while Craig is a great writer, I will be taking a break from his books for a while. I was very annoyed with this one and how I had it figured out way before it finished. I’m not a fan of books where part of the characters are ghosts and I know they are but the author tries to pretend I don’t know. Plus, almost the entire book was “in Longmire’s head” and not really action, like the other books have been. That was disappointing because it was almost like Johnson ran out of things to write about and it was only the seventh book in the series. I will read other books in the series later, but for now, I need to read some books that are a little less dark and … well, strange.

Saying the above sentence may be fairly ironic when I say that the next book I am reading, at the urging of a friend, is about World War II, but it’s a different kind of dark, okay?

I am reading All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr because a friend read it and wants to know what I think. It’s not my usual read, but I’m giving it a try. It’s interesting so far but it is a little jarring because you only read about a character for about two pages and it switches to another character or place and it does that throughout the whole book.

It is a Pulitzer-winning book and was recently made into a movie on Netflix, though, so what might be a bit jarring to me apparently didn’t matter to a lot of other people.

I mentioned above I am also reading Miracles on Maple Hill, which is a middle-grade level book but something I feel like I needed this winter.

I liked that the beginning of the book featured a story about collecting sap and making maple syrup because we are in that season in Pennsylvania right now and my husband just visited a large maple syrup operation at a farm near us. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the book’s setting is Pennsylvania. Because the family comes to the rural area from the city it makes me think of the many people who visit our area from Philadelphia.

Up Next (or soon):

Blessed Is the Busy Body by Emilie Richards

Fields of Fire by Ryan Steck

I know I’ve mentioned before that I am a mood reader so I like to have a couple of books going so that I can pick whichever one my mood fits at that time. I have to say that I am finding it a little stressful to have more than two books going at a time so I have decided to only switch between two books – one a little lighter and one a little heavier.

I am not a fast reader and do not usually have a high read count at the end of the year but I am proud of myself that I have read nine books so far this year. I think that is the most I have ever read in two months. At least one of those was a carryover from 2023 and two of them were middle grade reads, but still, better than other years and I’m glad I’m reading more and watching things less.

What We watched/are Watching

This past week I watched a lot of Lark Rise to Candleford. I also watched a couple of YouTubers, but I read more than I watched this week, which is an unusual thing for me.

This week I hope to catch up on All Creatures Great and Small and Miss Scarlet and The Duke.


What I’m Writing

I made a lot of progress this week on Cassie, which releases in August.

On the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening to

Little Miss and I are listening to Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink on Audible. I am listening to In this Mountain by Jan Karon (A Mitford Series book) and crying through it. I’ve read this book before but somehow having it read to me by an amazing narrator (John McDonough) makes it even more emotional. It is also emotional because since I first read the book something happened in my family that makes it easier to relate to Father Tim’s tragic situation. There is nothing like standing over one’s dirty dishes and sobbing to make that person (me) realize how much I’ve shoved down over the last decade of my life.

This week I will set In This Mountain aside and start listening to A Tale of Two Cities because The Boy and I are reading/listening to it for English. We set it aside for a couple of months but are going back to it.

Photos from Last Week

I haven’t touched the Nikon in more than a month but I hope to change that as the weather warms up. Here are a few photos from the new cellphone instead.

Your Turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Mid Week Catch Up: The weather, homeschool update, books, and other ramblings

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings9 Comments

The fire in the woodstove just would not cooperate Monday morning when I tried to get it to light. I am convinced something is wrong with our draft, like maybe it is stuck or something. I gently wiggled it a few times and the fire finally started to take off after burning up a ton of cardboard, papers, and even the box for some caffeine-free Diet Pepsi my son picked up the other day.

We will have to light a fire all week with the cold temperatures but soon we will be able to light a fire less and still turn the heat down. Having the fire helps us not to have to use as much heating oil and kept our heating oil usage down from mid-October through last week.

It is actually progress that my son purchased that soda I mentioned above since in the past he wouldn’t pick it up because it reminded him too much of his great-aunt, my aunt Dianne, who he loved immensely. She passed away in 2018. Talking about her was very painful for years but now he’s able to talk about her more, sharing the good and happy memories he has of her with his sister.

Buying the Pepsi was a chance for him to show Little Miss a version of Dianne’s favorite drink. Dianne drank Pepsi for years, partially because it was what she was used to since my grandfather worked for Pepsi in North Carolina for 30 years.

It’s Monday when I am starting this post and I have given Little Miss the day off from school since her brother had it off from the technical school he attends for President’s Day.

Tomorrow we will be back to our regular lessons.

This year she and I have been studying a lot of history through a variety of different ways, including a textbook through The Story of Our World. Like last year we are learning about history through historical fiction as well.

This week we will be starting a historical fiction book about Pocahontas.

I actually have two books about Pocahontas but decided that the one book may be for older children so have decided to go to one written by Jean Fritz, who we have read books by before, including The Cabin Faced West, which we finished a couple of weeks ago. The other book is written by Joseph Bruchac, who wrote Children of the Longhouse, which Little Miss absolutely loved, but seems to be written for teenagers. I am sure it is a clean book but it just seems a little older so I decided I am going to read it this spring and see if it is something Little Miss will like.

Reading historical fiction books helps us to branch out into other topics that are brought up in the stories, including information about historical figures or events. The textbook provides us with fairly dry facts only.

The subject I have struggled with the most this year for Little Miss has been science because I’m never happy with the science curriculum we have. I also never have the supplies we need for experiments. I always feel like I’m not teaching her enough science or the right science. She, however, has learned a lot of science from the educational shows she watches so I often find her correcting me when I am teaching her science from a book.

We really liked The Good and the Beautiful science but it is a bit expensive so I have decided to wait until we have that extra money to purchase curriculum and will probably purchase from there toward the end of our school year and then finish up the curriculum in our next school year. While their sets are expensive, they are nice and thorough.

We have used their energy, birds, and ecosystem curriculum and enjoyed them all.

Homeschool for The Boy is more stressful for me these days because he will be a senior next year and I feel like I have taught him nothing this school year.

For him it’s English where I feel like I have really dropped the ball. We have bailed on almost every book we have started this year because it has either been too wordy, too old-fashioned, or just didn’t hold our attention. That will change next week because I have decided we are starting A Tale of Two Cities and plowing through the difficult beginning and flowery writing to get to the story.

That way I can at least feel like I have exposed him to some more classic writers.

We have already read books by George Eliott, J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen Crane, William Golding, and Mark Twain.

I hope before I am done with him (so to speak) we will read books by Dickens, Steinbeck, and maybe George Orwell. I’d really like to add Austen in there as well but we will see. We will be starting, or re-starting, A Tale of Two Cities next week.

For history I decided to purchase a book called A History of the Twentieth Century by Martin Gilbert. This has a comprehensive list of facts that will provide us a look at history that we can then use to jump off from with videos and further study.

The Boy will be a senior next year as I just mentioned and I’m having a hard time wrapping  my mind around it. He’s already checked out of schoolwork pretty much but I’m not ready to let him go. How is it possible he will be 18 in November? The thought has me weepy beyond belief these days. How does the time go by so fast? I should probably stop thinking about it or my computer screen is going to be soaked with my tears in a moment.

This is totally a topic shift again, but do you ever find yourself without a pen and paper or your phone and you have to remember something for like, say, your grocery list and you keep repeating what you need to add to the list because you’re afraid you’ll forget it?

Well, I have because for about half an hour this morning, I found myself repeating “maple syrup and hot dog buns” as I did other tasks around the house. I didn’t have my phone next to me to add it to my Instacart list.

I finally added it to my list but now I’m still singing “maple syrup and hot dog buns” to myself.

What I should probably add to that list is mouse traps, but I am hoping our hunter cats will finally get all the mice out of our house this week. A few months ago Scout (our youngest) had a mouse pinned in our heating vent but never got to it. This weekend The Boy reported a mouse ran across his feet while he was playing a video game because both cats were chasing it. He then watched them double up on this mouse with one of them hiding under the couch to scare it and the other one waiting at the end to grab it. Then they batted the thing around for a while and apparently lost it because they were more interested in toying with it.

Sunday we left them in the house together while we went to visit my parents and when we came back I joked with them that they had better have caught that mouse. I was saying all this while I was reaching for the light. It was dark in the kitchen and when I felt something squish under my boot while joking, I thought, “Oh, Lord, let that be a grape we dropped earlier in the week.”

It was not a grape and I was very glad I hadn’t kicked my boots off yet because it was indeed a dead mouse and my foot on it made sure it was even more dead – let’s just leave it at that.

That wasn’t the end of the story though, because yesterday Scout was chasing another mouse and it came running toward me, resulting in a lot of screaming from me because I didn’t want it to scamper across my bare feet like it had my son’s the other day.

I can’t believe it but the intrepid huntress lost this mouse too and as far as I know it is now hiding under our stove and The Husband has declared he’s searching the house this weekend to “find where these creatures are coming from.”

As I write this, the sun is pouring in our windows and the temperature outside is the warmest it has been in a week, but still at a chilly 40 degrees.

I’ll be lighting the fire before I get ready to take Little Miss to Awana at a church 20 minutes away to try to stretch what wood we have left into March, since Pennsylvania doesn’t believe in early springs no matter what the groundhog says.

So how is your week going so far?

I hope it is going well.

Let me know in the comments, even if it isn’t going well.

Sunday Bookends: Books with no plot, Lark Rise to Candleford, and praise music

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends20 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.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.


What I/we’ve been Reading

Currently Reading:

The Cat Who Went Into The Closet by Lilian Jackson Braun

Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson

Do The New You by Steven Furtick

Recently Finished:

Sisterchicks Do the Hula by Robin Jones Gunn

This book wasn’t horrible but there wasn’t really an actual plot and that annoyed me. I kept waiting for something to happen – like a mystery or a trial they had to overcome or .. well, anything really. Like a plot maybe. Once I decided and accepted that was never going to happen it was much easier to skim ahead and just see what happened at the end and move on to the next book.

Update: I went back and read some of the parts I had skimmed and decided the book is actually very sweet. A bit slow but sweet and relaxing. I think I’m going to try the first book in the series, which I heard was better, and other books in the series as well. I was excited to see that they are now on Kindle Unlimited and it looks like the author updated some terms, etc. for now.

Up Next or Soon:

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

Bats Fly At Dusk by Erle Stanley Gardner

This week Little Miss and I finished The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz. I hope to finish The Borrowers with her this week but she’s been reading Fortunatly the Milk by Neil Gaiman to me.

What We watched/are Watching

This past week I watched Miss Austen Regrets and wrote about it on the blog. I really enjoyed it. The rest of the week I watched Lark Rise to Candleford and Miss Scarlet and the Duke.
What I’m Writing

I’m plugging away on Cassie and hope to have it finished at the end of this month so I can start the third book in the Gladwynn Grant series.

Last week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

This week I listened to this song on repeat:

And loved this version of it:


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.

Sunday Bookends: Miss Marple, Little Women (yes, still!), Lark Rise To Candleford and the cold weather returns

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends10 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.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

I rambled about last week in yesterday’s Saturday Afternoon Chat post if you would like to catch up there. I will mention that today our weather doesn’t know what it wants to do as it is snowing and raining and switching back and forth. The weather has been warm this week so the ground isn’t as cold as it could be. It remains to see how much of the stuff will actually stick

What I/we’ve been Reading

Currently Reading:

Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott and Sisterchicks Do The Hula by Robin Jones Gunn

Little Women is relaxing and enjoyable and I will have it done this week. I’ve been reading it very, very slow and only a chapter or two a day, in case you’re wondering why I keep saying I’m STILL reading it. (Since the end of November! Ha!). This week I’m just going to read it through and finish it up so I can move to another classic – which one I don’t know yet.

The Sisterchicks book is just a light, fun read that is a very nice distraction from life. I’m reading through it quickly so I will probably have it done this week as well.

Recently Finished:

Dysfunction Junction by Robin W. Pearson

Up Next or Soon:

The Cat Who Went Into The Closet by Lilian Jackson Braun

Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson

The Bungalow Mystery (A Nancy Drew Mystery) by Carolyn Keene

Little Miss and I are reading: The Borrowers by Mary Norton and The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz

The Boy is reading: Lost Names: Stories from a Korean Boyhood by Richard Kim

The Husband is reading: Fury by Salaman Rushdie

What We watched/are Watching

Yesterday I started Agatha Christie’s Marple, the BBC show that ran from 2004 to 2013 and was based on the Miss Marple books by Agatha Christie. I have never wanted to watch anyone as Miss Marple other than Joan Hickson but after someone mentioned the show to me on Instagram, I decided to give it a try since The Husband  had to work and the kids were doing other things.

There were so many actors in Season 1 Episode 3 who I recognized from other shows. The episodes, like the episodes from the Miss Marple series, were like mini-movies at 90 minutes each. Episode 3 was called What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw but was based on the novel 4.50 from Paddington.

The one actress I was most surprised to see in his episode was Amanda Holden who I’ve only seen as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent. I always wondered what the woman actually did to land her on that show as a judge. I had no idea she was an actual actress. I thought she was a talking head on a news show in addition to being a judge.

She wasn’t too bad of an actress but I kept waiting for her to say, “That was lovely. Good job.” And push the golden buzzer.

I also recognized Michale Landes who  played an American in the British sitcom Miranda. When I saw him in that show, I thought he was British doing a horrible American accent. I looked him up while watching this because he was playing an American again and it turns out he has a horrible American accent despite being an American.

He has been acting since the late 1980s and has been on several shows, often as secondary or one-off characters.

He was really the weak link in this episode.

After I watched Marple, I watched a couple episodes of Lark Rise To Candleford. I had started to watch this show years ago but only made it to season three, I’m not sure why. I think there was some cast change I didn’t like. I don’t remember a lot of it so I am rewatching it and plan to go through all four seasons.

It’s a very nice distraction from life.

This upcoming week I will be watching Miss Austen Regrets for our last movie for Jane Austen January. The link up for Jane Austen January will still be up until Saturday if you want to add a post.


What I’m Writing

This week I worked on Cassie, which comes out in August of 2024. On the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening to

A Tale of Two Cities on Audible

New audible books I hope to listen to soon:

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz, The Jane Austen Collection by Jane Austen and In This Mountain by Jan Karon.

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

Emma Film by Joy’s Book Blog

I love it when Joy writes about the real-life places you can visit in the Jane Austen movies.

Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Books I want to read for the remainder of the winter

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, everyday musings10 Comments

Winter can last a long time in Northern Pennsylvania, which is why choosing what I want to read for the rest of winter here means I am choosing books for the rest of January, all of February, and a good portion of March. It has even been known to snow in April and the first week of May here, but I still consider the end of March and all of April to be spring, so that will require a new list.

I always list a lot of books I plan to read, or want to read, knowing full well I will not get them all read and will probably become distracted in the middle by another read.

For example, this week I am reading Little Women and finished another book I’d been reading for a bit but I got distracted by a lighter read called Sisterchicks Do the Hula by Robin Jones Gunn. After finishing the one book, I needed something lighter. Little Women is lighter but I like to read that book before bed as my nightly routine. I’m a bit of a creature of habit sometimes. I would, however, like to finish Little Women since I’ve been reading it leisurely since the end of November, so I will probably start reading it at other times as well. Anytime I need a bit of downtime and breather from life, I think.

Anyhow, enough rambling. Here are the books on my winter to be read list (subject to change):

The Bungalow Mystery and The Mystery At Lilac Inn (Nancy Drew Mysteries) by Carolyn Keene.

These two came together in one volume from Thriftbooks. I enjoy disappearing into these light, sometimes silly mysteries as a way to escape my worries.

Can I tell you how stupid I felt this week when I read that these books were written by several authors, just like the Hardy Boys? Talk about a facepalm moment. I had heard that years ago and then completely forgot that Carolyn Keene was simply a pen name.

Well, it doesn’t really matter. These classics are still a nice escape.

The Cat Who Went Into The Closet by Lillian Jackson Braun.

Braun’s books are a comfort read for me. I’ve already started this one and will probably continue it this week or next since I did get distracted by the fun Sisterchicks book. It will be a perfect read for the darkness of February – the month that seems like it will never end even though it is shorter than other months of the year.

Blessed Is the Busybody by Emilie Richards

This is a cozy mystery I picked up. It looked like it might have some faith elements but after reading part of Chapter 1 I see that the main character is a member of a Unitarian Universalist church and . . . well, I won’t comment here but that’s probably not the type of faith book I’m looking for. I don’t think? Still, most cozy mysteries I pick up have been clean and fun so I’m sure this one will be too.

I doubt it will be preachy because most cozy mysteries I’ve read aren’t, even if they are in the Christian fiction category. I only picked up one that went off about breast cancer and the importance of getting checked for a few pages, which totally threw me off since I read books to escape and this book read like a non-fiction book. I put that one aside and haven’t read anything by that author since, just as a way to protect myself from finding non-fiction subjects shoved at me in my fiction.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

My son and I started this classic in the fall, became very bored and disenchanted and set it aside but now I am listening to it on Audible and it is making more sense. I am going to try to finish it and then he and I will “read it” (probably listen to it) again in March or April as part of his English course. This way I’ll have more of an idea of what is happening and can explain it to him instead of us both wandering around in the dark looking for a clue.

A Taste of Fame by Linda Evans  Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson

This is a Christian fiction/cozy mystery and is part of a series of books. I’ve never read any books from these authors so I’m looking forward to seeing if the book is good or not.

Midwinter Murder by Agatha Christie

I have been saying I would read this book for the last two years and I am determined to do it this year. This is a collection of stories from Agatha, I believe.

Hell Is Empty by Craig Johnson

I didn’t read one Longmire Mystery book last year so I hope to remedy that this year. Johnson’s books are pretty dark but also have some humor in them. Still, the darkness is what often keeps me away from them in winter (when I deal with some seasonal depression but better than in the past) so I will probably read this one toward the end of the winter.

Do The New You by Steven Furtick

I’ve already started this book and hope to continue reading it and I know I’ll be reading it with my online Bible study group through February.

Under the Magnolias by T.I. Lowe

I heard about this book when it first came out a couple of years ago and I’m finally deciding to tackle it now. This may end up getting pushed into the spring, though.

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

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Cold weather, a warm fire, and making myself sit down and read.

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea9 Comments

The fire is still burning away today in our woodstove, orange and yellow merging together in a cacophony of raging warmth to chase away the insanely bitter cold outside. All week the family has been stuck inside because of the fall in the thermometer and the additional lower temperature brought by the windchill.

The fun of playing in fallen snow by the youngest was stolen by the cold. She lasted about ten minutes outside before she announced she couldn’t feel her face, her fingers, or her toes, even with all her thick winter gear on.

Zooma the Wonder Dog was quite depressed that the ground was white with snow but she and her favorite playmate weren’t out, rolling in it, tossing it in the air, and catching snowballs.

Instead, we had to find inside activities to do. I tried to read and work on my book. Little Miss was able to talk to her friends on the phone and play online games with them. The cats slept almost all day every day, especially when the fire was roaring. The Boy played some video games, did some homework and helped bring in wood to keep the fire going.

He also walked to the neighbor’s house one day and helped clean the snow off her steps and car. He only had one day of school again this week. He attends the morning session of a vocational school and if the local school district calls for a two-hour delay then the morning session is canceled.

He has been enjoying his time off and is a bit disappointed that the weather looks better next week and he’ll have to go back. We encouraged him to take a building and construction course at the local trade school as part of his education but so far it is not his favorite thing to do. He might change his course next year or try something else, but at least he has some experience and knows more what he doesn’t want to do when he gets out of school.

I’ve been missing going to my parents but either our driveway was slippery or it was super cold outside. I mentioned in the Sunday Bookends last week that I had tried to go to my parents on Sunday afternoon but there were tree branches in the road and ice forming as the temperatures dropped as we tried to drive there so I turned around. It will still be cold this Saturday but it shouldn’t be slippery or windy so we will be heading there for lunch and maybe a movie and a game of cards.

A couple of days this week I forced myself to sit down in front of our woodstove with a book to feel the warmth and enjoy some quiet time. I don’t sit down and just read like I want to very often so I have to say to myself, “No. You’re not going to pick up the room.  You’re not going to wash dishes. You’re not going to work on your book or scroll through Instagram. You’re going to sit on this floor and read this book and lose yourself in it.”

It’s like I feel like it is wrong to just be sitting and reading but really, there are times we need to do that. We need to sit and take even 15 minutes to ourselves to settle our brains and calm our souls. We can either read a book we like, read the Bible, read a verse, listen to an encouraging sermon, worship music, or journal but we need to take that time for ourselves more than most of us do.

I don’t know why we don’t take the time we should for ourselves but I say this year work to feel less guilt when you sit in some quiet for yourself. I know that’s a goal for me.

I had to laugh the one night because both of my kids kept talking to me as I tried to read, as if I wasn’t sitting there, on the floor, with a physical book opened, clearly reading.

“Oh. You’re trying to read, aren’t you?” asked my son.

“No. No. I’m just holding this book to make myself look smarter,” is what I could have said, but what I really said was, “Yes, but it is okay. I like to talk to you.”

And I do like to talk to him because soon he will be grown up and out of the house and I won’t have as many opportunities to talk to him. He and I are both night owls who open up at night. I am not as much of a night owl as I used to be because I am old and start to fade by 11. If I get a second wind, though, I’m often up until 1 a.m. reading. After 11 is the only quiet time I get to read unless I wake up early to do so instead.

The Boy might not talk to me all day but when midnight hits that’s when he wants to talk so that’s when we talk. I’m fine with it unless I’m fading and feel guilty because I am not really listening.

How was the weather where you were this week? I know most of the United States was thrown into an arctic freeze and I think most of us will be out of it next week.

Have you been trying any new teas?

This week I drank my regular tea and some hot cocoa. I have tried a new probiotic tea and that was okay. What I hope to get some more of soon is some elderberry tea.

Let me know how you’ve been in the comments and I’ll see you again tomorrow for Sunday Bookends.

Sunday Bookends: arctic temps, still reading the same books (sigh), and binging Northern Exposure

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon17 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.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.


What’s Been Occurring

I talked a little bit about what’s been occurring yesterday in my Saturday Afternoon Chat. Mainly we’ve been dealing with weird weather of snow and rain and ice and high winds. Today our temps dropped very fast so we will be dealing with arctic temperatures for the whole week.  I will be inside the whole week, other than picking our son up at the bus stop (which is our local convenience store) because I don’t want him to have to walk up the hills to our house in the frigid temps.

I also woke up this morning to find out we have a wind advisory again so now it feels like 16 instead of 28. I was on my way to my parents this afternoon (they’re about eight minutes from our house) but when we saw a tree being removed from the bottom of our street and then another one hanging on a line, across the road and almost to the height of our car, I decided we would pick up my son and head back home to wait for the wind advisory to expire before we try again tomorrow.

We might have been fine but looking around seeing trees smashed along the road, limbs broken in the road and evidence of trees having been chainsawed to clear the roadway, we decided to err on the side of caution.

The Husband dropped some homemade soup I was taking off at my parents so they could at least have lunch.

Tomorrow’s temperatures will be frigid but at least we won’t have to be concerned about trees falling on us while battling the cold.

We have a lot of dead ash trees around us so those are ripe for falling down and causing issues. In the summer my daughter and I were at my parents’ swimming in the pool and one fell down behind my parents’ house in the woods. It wasn’t even windy that day. It just fell over. If it can happen without wind then it can definitely happen in 25 to 45 mph wind gusts.

What I’m/We’re Reading

I’m still reading Little Women and Dysfunction Junction.  I am enjoying both and like to switch off between them. I will probably finish Dysfunction Junction (by Robin W. Pearson) this week.

After that, I’ll be reading The Cat Who Went Into A Closet and The Bungalow Mystery – a Nancy Drew Mystery.

I am also reading Do The New You By Steven Furtick as a Netgalley read which was perfect timing since our online Bible study is going to be reading it in February.

At night Little Miss and I are reading The Borrowers.

What We watched/are Watching

I watched Northern Exposure over 20 years ago (probably) and started watching it again this week. I don’t remember much of anything about it so it’s like watching it for the first time.

It really was well written and holds up pretty well actually.

I also watched Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice for the Jane Austen January feature I’m doing with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. If you want to join in our link-up to discuss all things Jane (including the books) you can find the link up above.

I watched Miss Scarlet and the Duke last week and will probably watch more today and this week since I will be hiding in the house until the weather gets better.

The Husband and I watched the 1978 version of Death on the Nile. It held up pretty well despite Bette Davis looking like she’d come out of a crypt.


What I’m Writing

I am working on Cassie, which releases in August. I hope to have it finished by February. If you are curious what the book will be about, here is a very loose description:

It’s 1995 and 32-year-old Cassie Mason is an actress who made it big on a sitcom in the mid-1980s but hasn’t been able to find a job since the show ended five years ago.

After being fired by her talent agency, Cassie takes her sister Bridget up on her offer for Cassie to come back to their hometown for an extended visit to unwind and regroup.

While there Cassie finds out her younger sister – the one with the handsome husband and three kids and running a farm – is going to open a café and farm store in the small town they grew up near. Cassie decides to stay long enough to help with the grand opening, though she isn’t sure what she can do since she doesn’t know a thing about cooking like her mom and sister and isn’t great at organizing either.

In fact, Cassie isn’t sure what’s she is good at other than acting. Bridget hasn’t been able to help out at the Berrysville Community center like she’d like to with all that has to be done to open the business so she asks Cassie to fill in for a couple of volunteer opportunities. That’s when Cassie finds out that her sister’s neighbor, Alec, isn’t only a small farmer – he’s also someone who knows how to cook and showcases those talents in a weekly cooking class at the community center.

During her visit home, Cassie struggles to figure out not only where she fits in and feels most at home but also to figure out if acting is all she is meant to do with her life or if there is another way God wants to use her talents.

And God? There’s someone else she needs to learn more about on this break from the career she thought she’d always have.

I’ve also been writing blog posts:

What I’m Listening To

This week I have been listening to James Herriot’s Treasury for Children but this upcoming week I will be back to listening to A Tale of Two Cities.

Next week I hope to return to sharing blog posts from other bloggers that I enjoyed from the week. I haven’t been reading as many blogs as I would like to and I’m really looking forward to getting back to that this year.

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Crazy weather and crazy weather and some reading time

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea5 Comments

I read on Instagram that today is National Drink Hot Tea Day. There is always a national something or other day and I sometimes wonder who even keeps track of them all so people on social media can use it as content to talk about.

Anyhow, I’m drinking some peppermint tea with honey later today, not because I don’t have any other tea, but because I had some other types of tea earlier in the week and I wanted my old standby today.

Also later today I will be lighting a fire because our temps are going to plummet very fast this afternoon into this evening until they are in the 20s tomorrow and then the single digits at night and in the mornings starting Monday.

We are also under a high wind advisory today and when you live in a semi-rural area surrounded by trees (including a really old, really tall one in front of my house), you tend to get very nervous about high wind advisories. You also expect to lose power at some point, which makes me a little nervous since today it will be just me and Little Miss at home. The Husband is working and The Boy is going to a friend’s house.

I don’t do well health-wise in either very hot temperatures or very cold ones so I am not looking forward to the cold weather. I will not be leaving my house much at all during the cold weather snap because it irritates my asthma. I will be going out enough to pick up my son from the bus stop because I don’t want him to have to walk up our hill in such cold weather.

I am supposed to go visit my parents for lunch tomorrow when it is only supposed to be about 26 but I’ll see if I still want to do that or not. I practically have to be dragged outside kicking and screaming when it is super cold or when it is super hot.

The weather has been very odd here lately but that is somewhat normal for Pennsylvania this time of year.

Last weekend we had a snowstorm that lasted two days. By Tuesday it was rain and wind and the threat of flooding. Then off and on during the week snow and hail came and last night there was a burst of snow that covered the ground right before freezing rain came in and left the entire yard in a sheen of ice. To say winter has decided to show up this month is an understatement.

This past week I stayed inside every day and was a slug part of the time because of the weather. I read books, worked on my novel, wrote some blog posts, made some social media posts, enjoyed the fire, sipped tea and cocoa, cooked dinner, did the dishes a couple of times, ignored piles of books and papers I don’t know what to do with, and overall just enjoyed being a hermit and not having to go anywhere.

Yesterday I had to go pick up groceries but I really can’t complain because one, I had to drive there and they put them in the car, and two, my husband had to go out in this awful weather all week for work so he’s got the real cruddy end of the bargain here.

No one went with me to pick up groceries this time so it was just me in the car, listening to James Herriot’s Treasury for Children on Audible. I was going to listen to a Jane Austen collection but my phone claimed it wasn’t downloaded and it turned out better to listen to the one from James Herriot anyhow because it is so relaxing and my day really wasn’t relaxing for a variety of reasons – mainly family stuff and a lot of things on my mind about said family.

Today I hope to relax some but Little Miss wants me to play a video game with her and watch a movie. I honestly do not understand why my children always want me to play video games with them. I do not enjoy video games but they are just so excited to show Mom how to play it and then laugh at her when she can’t figure it out. My son wanted me to play Skyrim one time and I ran the guy into the wall over and over for like ten minutes.

It’s now a running joke in our house. My son will say something like, “Look, I’m Mom playing Skyrim,” and then just run into a wall several times while looking over his shoulder saying, “Don’t worry, Havar. I’m coming! I swear! If I can figure out this controller, I’m coming to help you.”

Of course, by then Havar was dead because I was still running into a wall.

This upcoming week I really need to work more on my book, Cassie. It’s been hard to get going on it but I hope to have it done in February so I can start work on my next Gladwynn book.

This week my dad left me a comment on my Facebook cover where I was promoting the second book and it really meant a lot because my dad is not a reader. He’s really never had time to read and if he did, he chose non-fiction books, such as theology books.

Mom told me he read my first book in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, though, reading a chapter or so a night before bed. When he was done, he told me it felt weird not having the book to read so I was glad that it wasn’t long after that when I realized the second book.

Now he is in the middle of the second book so I really need to start writing book three for him.

This is the message he left on the photograph for the book on my page: am not much of a reader at all and very seldom read fiction and I watch very few movies.

Like who wants to read about something that is not? Lol. Evidently a lot of people.

Anyway, I got into the first Gladwyn Mystery and found it intriguing, and starting this one I find it more so.

Sometimes I think wow, I never knew that 😉lol. You see Gladwynn Grant, a mixture of intelligent, ditzy curious, and almost cunning, was my mother’s name.

Okay off to store a few more clues and along the way to the hometown theater find out what happened to Samantha.👩‍💼🧐🤔 🙂😋“”

Dad hasn’t always been super supportive of me writing fiction (“You have to actually go places to write books and you don’t go anywhere or have a lot of experience,” he told me once. Sigh. Dads.) so the fact he’s enjoyed these Gladwynn books has meant a lot to me.

Well, I am off to watch the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice, which I am watching as part of Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and my Jane Austen January Feature. I will warn you that this version is not my favorite and I am actually finding it a bit annoying at this point. I promise to try my best to be polite about it when I write about it on Thursday.

I will be back tomorrow with Sunday Bookends, where I will ramble about what I’ve been reading and what I hope to read and all that jazz.

How was your week last week? Did you do anything exciting? And what’s your tea of choice these days?


`10 on 10: Ten Things I want to accomplish, learn, master or create

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn 10 on 10, everyday musings11 Comments

I am finally joining up with Marsha in the Middle’s 10 on 10 today. I have forgotten to do it every other month, but here I am to talk about ten things I want to accomplish, learn, master, or create this year or in the future. I don’t know if it has to be this year but, in the future, at least.

So here we go:

1. I want to learn more about taking photos with film and developing it myself.

I have taken photographs for years, starting out in film when I was in high school. I didn’t know enough about film back then to know what I was doing. I simply took the photographs and then took them to be developed at a drug store like Rite Aid or CVS. When I worked in newspapers in college, we had a staff photographer who would develop all the film and refused to teach me how to do it when I asked.

All I knew was there was a rotating door that spun him into some dark room and he developed film until one day he didn’t anymore because we either took the photographs to Rite Aid or we started using digital cameras.

To this day, he is one of the best photographers I have ever seen, but back then he could be a real jerk to the newbies. I still wish he’d slowed down and taught me more about film photography.

2. I want to learn to cook better.

I can cook fine to make dinner for The Husband and kids, but I really want to learn more about how to cook different dishes and how to bake. Our oven has been broken for a couple of years now but we hope to have it fixed soon so that will help some of my efforts to become a better cook. I have learned more about cooking in an electric frying pan, an air fryer, and an Instapot without the oven, though.

3. I want to create a book of my dad’s writings and my grandfather’s poems and I hope to do that this year.

I already have the poems and all I have to do is typeset (old newspaper word) them into the computer and get them ready for publication. Wish me luck. My grandfather wrote poems about anything and everything. My dad writes little pieces of prose and I’d love to put them in the book as well and give it to my dad for Father’s Day.

My maternal grandmother was also a writer and poet so her work will be next on my list.

4. I want to be able to finish this book I am writing now.

I am really struggling with my latest manuscript and it is one hundred percent my fault. I agreed to join a multi-author project where there were all these rules about what I could write and how for the book I am contributing. In my own defense, there weren’t that many rules when I agreed to do it. All I knew was the book had to be written in the 1990s and it had to be a certain word length and there would be a cookbook involved that would tie all the books in the series together.

Once I signed on even more rules were thrown in and I was stuck because pulling out of the project meant leaving the other authors hanging. So I am plodding forward and asking God for help because this is not how I usually write my novels. I have my own ideas of how I want the story to go, who I want the characters to be and what the plot will be. The story is my own. In this instance, it does not feel like it is my own. Pray for me.

5. Start a clean fiction book club either online or in person

I would really love to start a book club for clean fiction either in person or online. We’d choose one book, read it for the month, and then discuss it at the end of the month. This would be easy to do, I just don’t seem to be able to slow down and do it.

6. To move forward and not hold on to the hurts of my past.

This one will not be easy for me. I have a lot of hurts from the past that I am holding on to. Almost all of them were betrayals and abandonment by people who were close to me at one time (not my parents so, no, this isn’t a therapy session. Ha!). I want to let all of that go and hold on to my word for the year – onward.

By onward I mean I want to go, “yes, I was hurt, but no I won’t react like I usually do and retreat away from that person or life. I won’t purposely ignore a person if they reach out, even if they hurt me. That doesn’t, however, mean I will fully trust them or open myself up to a friendship or relationship with them but I want to say, “That happened. They hurt me. Move on and let them live their life without me sitting and seething inside about how they hurt me.”

It will be hard for me because I put up walls very fast and behind those walls I ruminate about the hurt I’ve been inflicted. For years and years. I hope to let that go this year and in future years – or at least keep working on doing so.

7. Start a podcast with Erin and not be afraid of public speaking.

So this is actually two but they go hand in hand. Erin and I from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs want to start a podcast and ramble about whatever we ramble about. We are both trying to be brave and not only offer ourselves and others an escape from the stresses of life but maybe find ways to earn extra income for our families. How will we do that through a podcast? I have no idea. Maybe we can tell people about my books and Erin’s journals and books and who knows. The avenues to reach our goals are wide open, we just have to take them.

8. Reading more of the Bible and recording the verses I read.

I have started a yearly Bible verse reading project and I really hope to stick with it throughout the year. I want to get up in the mornings and read my verse and write it down in my journal to work on memorizing scripture and taking in what the verses really mean. How to apply them to my life, in other words.

Right now I am using a list I found on Instagram, which Erin shared with me and hopefully, I can use a list from the same account throughout the year. So far, I only have January’s list.

9. Master how to write a novel quickly.

This goes along with my other writing goals but I really do want to learn how to quickly write a novel and plot better. Right now I write most of my novels by the seat of my pants and in the writing world that is known as “pantsing.” I really hope to be able to plot a bit better in the future and bring the stories together a little faster so I can hit the deadlines I set for myself. As an indie author, I set my own deadlines for most of my books (except the book I mentioned above where deadlines were set for me.)

10. Travel more and have more experiences outside my house.

I suffer from some chronic health issues and sometimes crippling anxiety so I really would love to travel more and have some more experiences outside of my house and immediate area at some point in my life. Erin and I have discussed meeting each other halfway so we can actually meet each other in person so that is a goal for me. I also want to get over my fear of having a “spell” in public because that is one thing (along with time and money) that holds me back.

I do have vertigo and weakness spells a lot and that seems to go with whatever autoimmune issues I have (doctors haven’t really diagnosed me with anything because they just think I’m crazy and pretty much tell me so and offer me antidepressants.). I want to be able to manage them and the crazy anxiety symptoms that come as well, so I can travel further and just live a little more.

    So this was my 10 on the 10th for the month. How about you? Do you have accomplishments you want to reach? Things you want to master or conquer?  Let me know in the comments and if you want to join in on Marsha’s 10 on 10, find her link up here: https://marshainthemiddle.com/10-on-the-10th-january-2024/