Sarah mondragon

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.

Saturday, the family and I got out of the house for an outing for the first time in months.

We drove about an hour south to attend a gathering at a pottery studio with the local homeschooling group.

The group leader had set up a chance for our students to visit the studio and paint pottery. It was a gloomy day to travel on, but it was still nice to get out. We didn’t stay as long at the studio as I hoped, with Little Miss declaring she was done and over it all within a half hour of arriving.

I had gone to the car to get a drink of water and The Husband and she had stayed back to finish her project, which was very small and not terribly exciting to me, and when I looked back up after a few minutes of being in the car they were walking toward me.

They were done and ready to get lunch, The Husband said.

Little Miss chose a small paw print to paint. If that’s what she wanted, that was okay, of course, and it was one of the cheaper items available so it worked out well but I still thought she’d really want to paint a larger piece of pottery.

I thought she might choose something larger which would give us longer to interact with the other children there. Unfortunately only four families showed up and there were only about six kids there, including mine, and three of them were boys and Little Miss had no interest in talking to them.

I had these grand visions of introducing Little Miss to the fellow homeschooled children casually by asking the children what they were working on and then telling them what Little Miss was working on and how old she was, etc. etc. but Little Miss has a mind of her own and when she’s done with her art or project, she simply likes to leave.

(I am editing my original post here to make it clear that I love Little Miss has a mind of her own so this isn’t a complaint. As the comments came in I realized I hadn’t really clarified that.

It just cracks me up that I always have these plans to try to encourage her to step out of her comfort zone and she’s like, “nope. This is how it’s going to be..” and is not swayed one bit. I think it’s going to really pay off as she gets older to be that aware of what she wants and not compromise…. Though it would be nice if she stepped out just a bit so she can meet some new people but that will come organically over time.)

At lunch at a local restaurant we found online, Little Miss also said she thought my plan sounded creepy.

“Hey, little girl,” she said in a creepy voice, I guess pretending to be me. “How old are you?”

The Husband and The Boy thought her impression was pretty funny, but that is not how I was going to ask. I was going to attempt to engage them in conversation so Little Miss could also engage them in conversation. These attempts of mine pretty much fail every time. We will have other opportunities with events going on with the local 4-H and homeschool groups this spring as well.

The hamburger I ordered was the largest I have ever seen circumference-wise!

Yesterday Little Miss and The Husband went to see Paddington 3 and The Boy and I stayed at home and did our own thing. He played a video game (Skyrim) and I doodled in my reading journal, colored in some Nancy Drew illustrations, worked on blog posts (including this one), snuck a couple spoonfuls of some ice cream we’d picked up the day before, and watched some YouTubers.

This week we don’t much planned, other than me going to my parents at least once or twice to help clean.

I finished Every Living Thing by James Herriot and Nancy Drew: The Sign of the Twisted Candles by Carolyn Keene this past week.

Now I’m reading Grandma Ruth Doesn’t Go To Funerals by Sarah Mondragon and really enjoying it. I found it for free on Hoopla and I can only read it on my phone, which is terribly annoying. Hoopla doesn’t allow it to be sent to a Kindle and I don’t have a notebook to read it on. It can be read on my laptop but that isn’t very comfortable for me. I don’t want to pay full price for it until I am sure I like it and it released in February so..this is my only option at the moment.

Little Miss and I are reading Miracles on Maple Hill for school after finishing The Sign of the Beaver last week. I’ve read Miracles on Maple Hill before but wanted to read it with Little Miss this time of year (maple season in Pennsylvania) and it will fit with Middle Grade March.

I’ll also be reading The Moffats by Eleanor Estes and Violet Jenkins Saves The Day by Stacey Faubion for Middle Grade March. I may try to squeeze in Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry but that might have to wait until March.

The Husband is reading The Maltese Iguana by Tim Dorsey.

The Boy is reading Frankenstein.

This past week I watched All Creatures Great and Small’s season finale and cried through it. I also watched Edwardian Farm, which was more of a rewatch because I watched it before but missed a ton of it because I kept wandering out of the room or family members talked through it. Ha. Family. I tell ya.

I also watched The Rise of Catherine the Great as part of my Winter of Douglas Fairbanks Jr., which finishes up this week.

In April and May, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching movies that take place in Paris. We will update you more on that and our choices when it gets closer to the start date.

I am working on making all of my ebooks of my fiction books available for purchase through my site so you can “own” the ebook (or the license to read it) and read it where you want to.

I started brainstorming more of book four of the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series as well.

Last week on the blog I shared:

|| Glimpses of February by The Farm Wife Reads ||

|| Fridays Fave Five by Stray Thoughts ||

|| Late Snack by Words From Anneli ||

|| Grief Journey Day 197 by A Little Bit of Everything With Love ||

|| Review: Pioneer Girl, The Annotated Autobiography of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Impressions in Ink ||

Now It’s Your Turn!

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

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