Sunday Bookends: We missed a 100-year old tradition & more mysteries

February 15, 2026February 15, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 20 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.

Our family tried to go to a 120-year-old tradition of riding a homemade wooden sled down a hill on a track made of 13-inch blocks of ice yesterday but the wait was 3-hours.

We opted for food at an inn and tavern instead and left the waiting to others.

The Eagles Mere Toboggan Ride is held only if the Eagles Mere Lake freezes enough that the fire company can cut the blocks to build the slide.

It doesn’t happen every year so we have to take the chance when we can but it’s been so severely cold that we made the mistake of waiting.

Since the weather is warming up, this weekend was probably the last chance.

It was a nice day despite the kids and husband not being able to go down the historic slide. What? You didn’t think I was going down that thing, did you?

They walked around town on their way back and stopped by the little bookstore I love to visit. I was waiting in the car, though, and didn’t know they were visiting it and when we drove by later, finding a parking space was impossible. So I didn’t get to go to the bookstore, but Little Miss and The Husband picked up a couple books for me.

Then it was on to the tavern for an amazing lunch while taxidermy animals looked down on us.

If you would like to know more about the toboggan ride, you can watch this video:

What I/We’ve Been Reading

In Progress

I am reading Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie for the Read Christie 26 Challenge.

I am also reading The Blue Castle, Return of the King, and Murder, She Wrote: Bullets and Brandy by Donald Bain.

Up Soon

How To Seal Your Own Fate by Kristin Perrin.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are reading The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy together and listening to The Green Ember by S.D. Smith.

The Husband is reading The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

I don’t know if I need a life or if my life is okay but my big thrill this week was when my Blu-ray of Angels With Dirty Faces — a movie with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart from the late 1930s — arrived in the mail. The icing on the cake was that The Husband was just as excited to see it and warned me I can’t watch it without him.

I am watching it for next week’s Winter of Cagney.

The husband and I watched an episode of Kate and Allie last night. I forgot about that show.

I watched White Heat for the Winter of Cagney and will write about it Monday.

I also watched All Creatures Great and Small.

What I’ve Been Writing

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I am listening to Shakespeare. The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brenden O’Hea because I found it more interesting to listen to than read.

Some Housekeeping

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

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

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. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

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

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Sunday Bookends: Severe cold weather, a new-to-me author, and a needed cry

February 8, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 18 Comments

As I am starting to write this post on a Saturday night our WiFi is out so I am using the unlimited data on my phone plan to draft this. Our internet company thinks the severe cold is our issue. (Update: It came back this morning and they still think it was the nasty cold).

This weekend’s weather here is taking the cake for this winter.

When I woke up this morning it was -6 without the windchill. The feels like temp was -30F (0 Celsius).

That temp continued to drop throughout the day.

Today our high will be 8F.

Obviously, we are staying hunkered down at home today.

We have three cats, Scout, Pixel and Cass and it is driving them crazy right now that they cannot go outside. We live in a semi rural area, so we normally let them outside in our backyard for a little bit, and they explore between the house and our wood pile and a little bit beyond and then they come back in. Scout is the hunter and sometimes we’ll disappear for a day and warmer weather coming back on occasion with a dead bird mouse or other animal.

Pixel is our home body. She mainly sits on the back porch and watches to see what scout does. Cass is new to us after being dropped off near our property the day before Halloween last year. So I’m not totally sure of his habits just yet, but he seems to be more like a hunter like Scout..

The bitter cold weather we have been having for the last month has meant keeping the cats in more than usual though. This is driving them absolutely insane and they pace in front of the door or smack each other around and have all out cat fights. I like winter in some ways because it means I can stay inside and write or read but right now I am ready for some warmer weather if only to get these cats out of the house and out of my hair. It would be one thing if they just enjoyed curling up but these are roaming cats and for them just to sleep all day isn’t really an option. They do sleep a lot, however.

I needed to slow down yesterday and have a good cry.

Another friend of the family passed away, and I realized I’d been telling myself I didn’t have time to sit down and cry about it.

Yesterday was his funeral and the severe cold and the possibility of me coming down with something kept me from going.

I busied myself throughout the day and then, right before dinner, I thought about how he is gone and I won’t see him again and I let myself have a good long cry.

I don’t like to break down and cry because I worry if I do I won’t stop and I’ll fall into a very deep depression. The problem is that I also sink into a deep depression if I hold in my sadness so it’s probably better to let some of the pressure off with a good cry instead.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham last night.

It was very good but different than I expected with a lot more cerebral and deep descriptions and a more artistic ending than I thought it would have. There was also very little sleuthing with the guy I thought was the main character – Albert Campion – but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I will eventually post a review of it.