I almost didn’t write one of these today because our week really was that boring.
This past week it was mainly schoolwork, failing at cleaning the house, washing dishes that got used less than an hour later and were once again dirty, and worrying about a ton of things I can’t control.
I did have my regular tea and honey so that made me happy.
I spent a lot of the week trying to plan homeschool lessons and trying to figure out what to do with all the books I bought from a recent library sale to use for pleasure reading and homeschool.
I also spent a lot of time looking at a space at the bottom of our pantry where I could place some of these books but which is full of miscellaneous items and would take a long time to clean out. I mean, I could clean that space out and have a place for the books but then where will I put the garbage that I clean out?
This is the dilemma of people who don’t know how to throw anything out.
We enjoyed nice fall weather most of this past week but, and I can’t even believe I am writing this, this next week the temperatures are going to be in the high 80s. I am so depressed about it and I’m serious. I know how sad it sounds to be depressed about warm weather but I was looking forward to chilly and cozy weather.
I am trying to look forward to another chance to take the littlest swimming but the idea of climbing in and out of a pool and peeling wet clothes off doesn’t really appeal to me anymore.
We did a lot of that all summer and it was fun but it had its season and that season should be over. At least I know that much of the rest of the country will be experiencing this hot weather as well.
Because of the weather I wanted to stay inside this week but it looks like I’ll have to go out at least three days. On Tuesday I am going to get my hair cut because my mom subtly hinted it looks awful and said she’d pay me to get it done. Ahem. Mothers are lovely, aren’t they? My mother is a sweet woman and I know she meant well, but it was a little annoying since I did not want to go out and sweat this week.
On Wednesday my daughter goes back to Kids Club at a local church. On Thursday she has gymnastics. I’ll be taking her to at least one of those if not both.
Next Saturday we have a 60th anniversary party planned for my parents but so far there aren’t tons of people saying they will attend so I don’t think it will be as big of an undertaking as I thought it would be.
Our neighbors invited us to a cookout tomorrow since their daughter is home from college and I’m sure we will go to my parents on Monday.
That’s if none of us come down with the cold that The Boy caught and dealt with yesterday. I am trying my best to make sure my parents do not get sick before their party on Saturday. It doesn’t help that The Boy was with his grandparents the day before the symptoms hit. Sigh.
I did not pick my camera up all week so I have no photos to share with you but I’m sure I will next week since we will be doing summery things this week.
How about you? How was your week? Are you ready for cozy weather and getting it or are the warm temperatures hitting you as well?
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.
I wrote more about what has been occurring in my post yesterday, but will share here a few things: homeschool started, we had what was probably our last swim last weekend, and cooler weather is moving in. If you want to read what I wrote yesterday, that post is HERE.
Last night we had some family time and it was really nice. The Boy wanted to make cookies for the neighbor next door because she always makes cookies for us either when the mood strikes her or around Christmas. He bought the ingredients we didn’t have and he and his sister made the cookies themselves with only a little bit of help from their mom (uh, me) while we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding (getting ready for the third movie in this series).
Our oven has been broken for a while so we cooked them in the air fryer and they came out pretty good, actually.
The Boy and Little Miss ran them over to the neighbor, even though it was 10:30 at night, because we saw her on her porch. They are night owls like us. Unfortunately they almost gave her a heart attack when they appeared out of the darkness. Luckily she recovered and she and her husband were very appreciative of the gift.
They are experiencing a new season in their life after their daughter left for college last week. It is the first time in 31 years they haven’t had children in their house so we are trying to treat them a little as they adjust.
This morning we watched church and afterward Pixel, our older cat, was yowling on the front porch. The Husband stepped outside and she was sitting there with a dead bird that she appeared to be presenting us with as a gift. She doesn’t bring us dead animals as much as the younger cat, Scout, because she has gotten a little bit lazy as she’s gotten older. We were sad that she grabbed a young bird, but she was so proud of herself so I told her she’d done a good job while The Husband scooped up the bird to prepare it for what he calls a “Viking” burial in our burn barrel.
Photos from Last Week
What I/we’ve been Reading
Anyone who is new here should probably know up front that I am not a book blogger. I don’t read fast. I read slowly. Mainly because I read a couple books at a time, write my books, and homeschool throughout the week. I also don’t enjoy reading so many books that I don’t even remember what I read. I’m old, peeps. If I read too many books, then I just can’t remember what the book was about down the road because my brain has absorbed it into all the other things I have forgotten thanks to my old age.
With all that being said, I’m still reading All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese (enjoying it more than I thought I would), Crime and Poetry by Amanda Flower, and Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery.
I plan to finish All That Really Matters and Crime and Poetry this week. Both flow along quite quickly and easily.
Later this week I plan to share some books I plan to read this fall.
The keywords in the above sentence are “plan to”. I may never get to them, but I “plan to” read them.
Little Miss and I are back to Little House books for the nighttime at her request. They are comfort reads for her and with the changes in our family schedule this week I think she just wants some comfort reads. We are reading On the Shores of Silver Lake. During the day we will be reading Gone Away Lake for School.
The Boy and I will be starting The Red Badge of Courage this week for literature and history.
What We watched/are Watching
This past week I watched two Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers’ movies. One was Flying Down to Rio and the other was Shall We Dance.
I liked Flying Down to Rio better than Shall We Dance. One major issue I had with Shall We Dance was the scene at the end with a bunch of women who were dancing while wearing masks that looked like Ginger. Talk about upping the creepy factor to ten.
Still, the dancing was amazing as always.
Flying Down to Rio was the first movie that Fred and Ginger ever made together and they were not the main characters. They were, however, supporting characters who stole the show.
The pair went on to make ten movies together. Nine of those movies were made from 1933 to 1939 and were in black and white, which always leaves our daughter and I to guess what colors Ginger’s dresses are. In 1949 they filmed a technicolor film together – The Barkleys of Broadway – and that was their last together.
I hope to watch that soon and offer a little review of it. I think I might offer a review of Flying Down to Rio later this week too because that film was a lot better than I expected.
Have you watched any of Fred and Ginger’s movies? Which ones were your favorites?
What I’m Writing
I am working on blog posts right now. I have a few ideas and things I want to share so I’ve been focusing on writing them ahead of time the last few days.
I am also, of course, working on Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage so I can release it in November.
This week on the blog I shared:
What I’m Listening To
There are so many new albums out this week, which The Husband let me know about. I do not pay attention to new releases very well. Tim McGraw and Brooke Ligertwood have new albums and Steven Furtick put out a new motivational message to music so I am checking all three of those out. I am also behind on listening to Elevation Worship’s new album and then Brandon Lake also has two new songs that I haven’t listened to yet. I need more hours in the day.
I’ve also enjoyed finding this new artist from his viral song, Rich Men North of Richmond:
(*language warning*)
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.
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.
I didn’t share a Saturday Afternoon Chat post yesterday because my week was fairly boring, but also because we were too busy yesterday for me to sit and write it. I like to start the post ahead of time but didn’t do it this week for some reason.
We didn’t do a ton during the week other than some cleaning at my parents, a bit of planning for homeschool next week, writing for me, and the last week of work for The Boy who is getting ready to start a half day at a career center next week, in addition to homeschool.
Yesterday we had a wonderful family day out. We visited one of our favorite restaurants, located next to a covered bridge and a creek in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere in our county.
After lunch there we visited the local state park which is literally up the road from the restaurant. I had no idea the state park was that close, but really I should have known since I used to visit there with my family when I was younger.
I had not visited there in years. It seemed smaller than I remember but the trails and cabins are all throughout the 780-acre park so we didn’t see all of it, of course. The park, incidentally, is called World’s End State Park. I’ve always wondered where the name of the park came from so I searched online last night and according to Wikipedia: “The name Worlds End has been used since at least 1872, but its origins are uncertain. Although it was founded as Worlds End State Forest Park by Governor Gifford Pinchot in 1932, the park was officially known as Whirls End State Forest Park from 1936 to 1943.” So, there you go.
I had hoped to take Little Miss to the swimming area there, which I went to a couple time as a kid, but it was closed because of high, rushing water, caused by heavy rains we had a couple of days ago. It was an insane storm that went on for two hours, with part of that time consisting of very heavy rain.
Not being able to visit the swimming area wasn’t a huge loss because it was not super hot yesterday. It was actually perfect fall weather – not too warm, not too cold. It was lovely and Little Miss was happy with being able to stick her feet in the edge of the creek. The rest of it was rushing water and wilder than I’ve seen a creek that close up in a long time. I am sure creeks have been that wild over the years, but I haven’t been that close to them before.
While we were by the water and put our feet in it, a young girl and her parents were making their way through the water and were making me very nervous. I was concerned the dad was going to get to close to the rapids and be swept away. Luckily, they were fairly close to the edge of the creek and being very careful not to get pulled down by the rapids. They were in swimsuits and swim shoes, so they were either camping there or had visited hoping to swim at the swimming area and were unable to.
The woman found a stick that looked like Moses’ staff in The Ten Commandments and she and I joked about parting the waters.
We were able to take Zooma the Wonder Dog with us to both places yesterday. Seating is outside for the restaurant and they welcome pets as long as they are on a leash. They even sell a “doggy meat bowl” for the dog’s that visit. Zooma, of course, received her own bowl. We were glad to be able to take her because many times we have to leave her home on our excursions.
She loved sniffing all over the parts of the state park we walked in as well but did not like when The Husband disappeared inside the visitor’s center without her.
We joke in our family about who Zooma loves more and the rest of the family says it is me, but I do notice she seems concerned when any member of the family disappears for too long. Yesterday she whimpered a couple of times when she couldn’t go where the rest of the family went or when one of them disappeared.
She was very happy when we were all together and she also passed out like a toddler who runs themselves into exhaustion when we arrived home.
Today Little Miss will have a couple of friends over for our last summer pool gathering before school begins on Monday. The pool is probably going to be way too cold to play in because the days and nights have been cooler, but we will see how it goes.
I can’t even believe summer is pretty much over. It went very fast and I feel like we didn’t do as much as we usually do as far as family outings and trips. It was a very hectic and stressful summer for many reasons and I am looking forward to a slower autumn. I laughed as I wrote the previous sentence because I said something similar in July about August and … well, it didn’t happen.
September will be a bit busy because my parents 60th wedding anniversary is September 8 and we are holding an open house/anniversary party on September 9. I was all calm about it and figured we could handle it but as we get closer, I feel a bit anxious about pulling it off. Thankfully my brother and sister-in-law are helping me since it was sort of their idea (and sort of mine too). We are renting a place down the road from my house and hopefully it all works out well.
What I/we’ve been Reading
I finished Ellie Alexander’s Meet the Baker Friday and two books I’ve been wanting to read came in from Libby this week: Crime and Poetry by Amanda Flowers and Paper Cuts by Ellery Adams. They are both cozy mysteries.
Crime and Poetry came first so I am going to start that first. This will be my third book by Amanda. I’ve heard great things about Paper Cuts and it will be my first by Ellery Adams.
I am also reading a few chapters a week of Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery. This is my first time reading it and it’s already a comfort read for me. I’ve been taking these books slow, partly because of the old language, and partly because I love to savor them. My husband purchased the series for me two Christmases ago so I’ve been making my way through them since then.
I am making a list of books I want to read this fall and I’ll probably ramble about them next week.
The Husband finished Born Standing Up by Steve Martin and now he is reading Plan B by Lee and Richard Child.
Little Miss and I are reading a cute mystery she picked up at the library sale a couple of weeks ago. I don’t have it in front of me right now and I don’t want to go find it, so I don’t know the title.
I plan to start Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright, which Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, and her son Wyatt sent to us, with her tomorrow as part of our school lessons.
The Boy is not reading anything right now but he will start The Red Badge of Courage later this week for school.
Photos from Last Week
What We watched/are Watching
It has been a Newhart week this week. I’ve needed the escape for sure.
I started The Misfits with Marilyn Monroe and will finish it this week. It’s depressing.
The Husband and I also watched an episode of Poirot.
Little Miss watched a ton of Bluey and Duck Tales and now she’s rewatching The Lion Guard.
What I’m Writing
I am still working on Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage and I shared the first chapter on Friday.
I hope to share additional chapters in the following weeks.
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.
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 week I finished The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz. I enjoyed it very much and will have a review up for it at some point this week (I hope! My plans keep getting messed up each week, so we will see).
This week I am reading Meet Your Baker by Ellie Alexander. It is a cozy mystery.
I also plan to read a couple chapters of Anne of Ingleside because I enjoy the little stories in the book and it’s just something lovely and light to read.
I may also start one of the books I picked up at the library book sale last week. As I mentioned in my post yesterday – I went a little crazy with picking up books. My son claims I won’t read any of them and tried to say I hadn’t read any of the ones I’d picked up at the last sale. That’s actually untrue. I read at least one or two and my daughter and I read a few together as well. This year I picked up a lot of books we can use for homeschooling so I am very sure I will read those too.
I really want to finish When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr that I picked up from the library but it has an awful smell to it because it is so old and it is giving me a headache. I have to be careful with mildew smells. They tend to overwhelm me. I got halfway through the book before it really bothered me so maybe I can push through because I am enjoying it. It is a middle grade book but it has a lot of deep themes.
The Husband is reading The Devil’s Hand by Jack Carr.
Little Miss and I finished The Boxcar Children: Surprise Island this past week and have not started a new book yet. She’s reading Saving Winslow by Sharon Creech on her own or I read some at night.
I also ordered her her own copy of Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman and she breezed through most of that on two car rides this week. I thought she’d love to hold the book and look at the photos since we’ve mainly listened to it and the other copy we have is my son’s. He’s very possessive about it because that’s one of the main books his dad read to him when he was little and it’s a core memory for him. She was happier when she opened that book than when she opened a stuffed toy I picked her up this past week and if you knew Little Miss, you would know she’s obsessed with what she calls “stuffies.” I wish I had taken a photo of her holding that book and jumping up and down.
What’s Been Occurring
Things were crazy last week and I wrote about it in yesterday’s post if you want to check it out.
Writing it all out here again would be tedious, traumatizing and exhausting so I don’t think I will.
Photos from Last Week
What We watched/are Watching
I watched All About Eve and will have a post about it and Monkey Business for my Summer of Marilyn feature this week. I also plan to watch The Misfits and write about it. that will close out my Marilyn Monroe feature for this summer and then Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be joining together for a fall and winter feature of movies that I will update you on later.
This week I also clamored for comfort watches like All Creatures Great and Small (the new one), Anne of Green Gables from 1985 (Which Little Miss and I are making The Husband watch with us), and Newhart.
I will probably watch a lot of those same shows this week. What I’m Writing
I’ve been working on Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage off and on and I hope to write more this week but, again, my plans have been all over the place. I also have several blog posts started that I hope to finish.
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.
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 week I haven’t been able to read anything other than The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz because I just have to know what happened. This is a book where the author has made himself part of the story and it’s brilliantly done.
I’ve mentioned before that Horowitz has created or written for several well-known television shows including Foyle’s War, Midsomer Murders, Poirot, Injustice, New Blood and Collision.
He also is the only author approved by the Arthur Conon Doyle Estate to write Sherlock books and he has written two — Moriarty and House of Silk.
His other books include the Alex Rider series (for teens), The Magpie Murders, the Power of Five, Diamond of Five.
At one point I thought the book might be wandering into territory I didn’t want to read about and I considered dropping it but then Horowitz, writing as himself since he is the main character/narrator of the book, said he was only continuing to talk to the rude consultant to the police because he had to know what happened to the victim. It was how I felt too. I can’t stop reading until I know what happens so more than once I’ve been up late reading the book, desperate for a resolution.
The book starts with a woman walking into a funeral parlor and arranging her own funeral. Odd enough but then later that day she’s murdered – strangled in her home by a cord on her curtains. A man named Hawthorne is called in as a consultant and Horowitz decides to write a book about Hawthorne and the investigation. Hawthorne is rude and blunt and Horowitz starts to second guess the decision but he’s already invested and needs to know what happened to the victim so he pushes forward – much like the reader.
Horowitz does such a wonderful job crafting the story and weaving in humor that you can’t help but want to push forward, though.
This is the first of four books in the series. I started reading book four when I saw my husband’s library book on the kitchen table, opened it to see what it was about, and couldn’t put it down. That’s when he told me it was book four and he had the other books in his Kindle. Our accounts are connected so I downloaded the first book immediately.
I’m also listening to Death by the Seaside by T.E. Kinsey when I drive somewhere or wash the dishes and I hope to finish When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr this week as well.
Little Miss and I will be finishing up the second book in the Boxcar Children series this week – Surprise Island.
The Husband is reading. I can’t tell you what because he was attending a car show for work (he is a newspaper reporter/editor) so he’s not here for me to ask.
What’s Been Occurring
I wrote about what’s been occurring in my post yesterday and the only new thing that has happened since then is that Little Miss and I went swimming yesterday afternoon at my parents. We will be doing the same this afternoon.
I’m still hoping for a fairly relaxed week coming up. I have to take our van to a local scrapyard to see if they will buy it off us and take Little Miss to gymnastics and then that’s about it. I’d like to spend a good part of the week putting my grandfather’s poems in scrapbooks before my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary party in September.
I’m really looking forward to fall this year, which I’ve mentioned a couple of times recently. Summer just feels so busy and I really want some days where I can stay inside and accomplish some of the things I need to do for my books and journals and stock photography since those are my own sources of side income right now. Plus they are fun.
What We watched/are Watching
This past week we watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (we actually still have to finish it), The Super Mario Brothers movie, Newhart, Designing Women, and I finished Monkey Business with Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe because I kept getting interrupted while watching it. This upcoming week I am watching All About Eve with Marilyn.
I also watched a video with Darling Desi on Youtube where she talked about how she is ready for fall. I’m right there with her.
What I’m Writing
This past week I worked on Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage and am going to work on it through August and hope to finish it by the beginning of September so I can continue on Cassie for the Apron Strings book series. My book for that series comes out in August of 2024.
Little Miss and I have been listening to a playlist that includes a lot of Christian musical artists while we swim. Those artists include: Matthew West, Elevation Worship, Crowder, Keith Green, MercyMe, and a few others.
Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week
I am severely behind on blog posts but did read a few. I’ll leave a link to some of my favorites next week.
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.
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.
I will be finishing up Elementary She Read by Vicki Delany tonight and I have to be honest that I did not enjoy the second half as much as the first half. The second hash seemed like a rehashing of the first half. I don’t know how to explain that other than the author repeating themselves a lot about the characters and points of the story like she herself forgot some of those points and wanted to be sure the reader didn’t as well. I will probably try another Delany book but maybe not in this series. The main character of this series sort of grates on my nerves but maybe she will grow on me if I try book two.
The only reason I kept reading the book was because it was due back on Libby yesterday. As soon as it was returned for me, however, before I finished it mind you, I asked to have it put on hold again. At first it said there were two people ahead of me. Then it said that I could have the book back again. So I took it back to finish it.
This week I plan to focus on The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz.
I also plan to read a chapter or two of Anne of Ingleside, which I believe is the last book in the series that focuses on Anne, Gilbert, and her family exclusively.
Next week I hope to finish Nicole Deese’s book All That Really Matters which I started at the beginning of the summer and got distracted from. It was a pretty good book, even though I can tell it’s going to be a typical romance of he doesn’t like her but he’s going to fall for her, blah, blah. Oh, wait. I write that stuff too sometimes. Ha.
The Husband is reading a Joe Pickett novel.
Little Miss and I read a stack of picture books yesterday and she started a book called Saving Winslow that she picked out on the last day of summer reading.
The Boy isn’t really reading right now as he tries to enjoy the last bits of summer before school starts the 24th.
What’s Been Occurring
I talked about what has been occurring in yesterday’s post. After our crazy busy week, Little Miss had some sort of allergy attack or brief illness (which would be the second in two weeks) and had a runny nose and dry cough all day yesterday. She slept hard last night and into this afternoon and now she’s a little bit better. Because of her not feeling good yesterday we are staying home today instead of visiting my parents but will probably see my parents later in the week. We will definitely see them on Thursday, which is my mom’s birthday. Also, she’s going to be 79, not 80. I aged her a year (again) in a post last week.
This next week we do not have a ton to do, luckily. I might ride with my dad to his physical therapy 45 minutes south on Tuesday and Thursday, but otherwise, it should be a relaxed week. You know how it goes when I say that in my posts, though. The week usually doesn’t end up being relaxed at all.
I will start my job as a sales representative for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine as an independent contractor around August 7.
Photos from Last Week
What We watched/are Watching
Last week The Husband and I watched a lot of Newhart and it was nice and relaxing.
I watched half of Monkey Business with Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe and will watch the rest today. I also hope to watch some All Creatures Great and Small, even though I’ve seen all the episodes.
I also have had to watch a ton of Snake Discovery, which is a YouTube channel about snakes that Little Miss loves.
What I’m Writing
I worked on Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage this week and I am having a lot of fun writing it. I also wrote at least one blog post I’ll be sharing tomorrow and started a couple more. On the blog, I shared:
This week I will be listening to Elevation Worship. When I drive anywhere I will be listening to Death Beside the Seaside by T.E. Kinsey as an audiobook.
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.
Good afternoon! Oh, right. By the time I got this done, it was evening.
Sit! Let me make you a cup of something – well, probably not warm for most of us because it has been ridiculously hot out there for most of us.
Yuck!
So let me pour you a glass of lemonade instead. Or iced tea. Or a cold soda. Anything to cool you off.
After another long week, I am very excited to announce that next week we do not have any activities scheduled. I am so excited I can’t stand it!
Summer finally hit us for a few days this past week and it can go away for all I care. I am not a summer fan at all. The heat and humidity make me feel zoned out and sick.
I would have preferred to sit inside all day long in front of the air conditioner, but there were a few activities we had to attend and a few errands to run this week.
On Monday we were supposed to go to a day camp but ran out of energy from our busy week and pool visits the week before. We went to the day camp the next day instead. It was being held every day last week but it was a half an hour from our house and during the hottest week of the summer and we had other responsibilities or plans on the other days so we only attended the camp one day.
It was a Christian camp and Little Miss loved it. It was a camp for her age group so The Boy stayed home and then worked the next day with my dad at his house.
Wednesday sent us to the last day of the summer reading program where Little Miss picked out a book of her own but didn’t realize until that night that it was her book to keep.
“This is my first novel!” she cried. “And it’s mine! Now I can read it and shove it under my pillow and not feel guilty if I bend a page.”
Poor child. She’s inherited my fear of damaging a library book, which is a fear I’ve mentioned on here before.
After summer reading we took The Boy to work with his grandfather and then I headed to the local high school to fill out paperwork for The Boy to attend a career center this school year. He will attend the career center in the mornings and have homeschool lessons in the afternoon. It starts in two weeks and he is not really ready for it at all. I’m not sure I am either. He’s growing up so fast and I really need a brake lever to pull and slow it all down.
A couple of weeks ago we had to buy him a new phone because his was dying. We bought a refurbished one, actually. For the last five or six years his phone has been connected to my AppleID and my phone. His photos and memes, music, etc., all showed up in my phone and vice versa.
We both decided it would be easier on both of us if he got his own AppleID with this new phone. That way he doesn’t have to swipe past all my memes and ads for my books and I don’t have to swipe by his Gen Z humor-based memes and weird photographs. I also don’t have to weed through his heavy metal to get to my Christian music and jazz.
Once we made that move, though, we both agreed it felt weird for us to have our own phones.
In fact, he said it felt “lonely.”
He was right. It felt lonely not to see the photographs he takes of frogs he finds when weed whacking at the pond at my parents or the weird photos he takes of his one friend crossing his eyes at the camera or the random photos of what he’s cooking in the middle of the night. He also takes some really nice photographs of storms or scenery, such as these two last week when a nasty storm was headed our way:
Speaking of him cooking in the middle of the night, last night he was cooking garlic to add to his pasta and the smell upstairs was overwhelming. I texted him to tell him the smell was so overwhelming that it woke me up. He insisted the smell wasn’t that strong. I’m very sensitive to smells, sometimes to the point it triggers anxiety for me if I can’t get the smell out of my nose. After I complained to him I could smell an air freshener that The Husband picked up about a month ago and that bothered me too.
He texted that there was no way I could smell the air freshener as he had barely sprayed it by the stove downstairs.
I texted back a realization.
I could smell the garlic and it smelled like garlic. For almost two years I have not been able to smell garlic correctly. My smell has been distorted since I had a severe case of Covid in late November 2021. Garlic, onions, peppers, and several other things had a very distinct smell that I could only describe as “the Covid smell.” It was like a cross between burnt rubber and sweaty feet. I don’t know how to describe it at all.
Garlic, onions, and peppers also tasted horrid and for the most part still do.
My smell has also been reduced since even before Covid so the fact that I could smell that garlic so distinctly was actually a good thing in some ways. Smelling that much at one time wasn’t really fun, however.
Thursday was a lighter day last week. At least for me. The Husband had a lot going on and then he took Little Miss to gymnastics so he could sit in the parent area and read a book.
On Friday, Little Miss had two friends over for swimming at my parents’ pool.
She and her one friend proceeded to argue almost the entire time and I was ready to ground them both before their time together was over. They both have very strong, determined personalities and neither likes to back down when they want their way. They argue constantly yet still call each other their best friends. It’s a bit strange.
In some ways it was good that we didn’t have a ton of time for swimming because of the arguing. Little Miss and I had a talk about her behavior specifically later in the day. She is learning how to communicate with others and, like adults, she sometimes slips up. I hope her bullheadedness and tendency to be rude when she doesn’t get her way is something we can continue to work on and improve as she grows.
We didn’t have a lot of time for swimming because I had to ride with The Husband 45 minutes South to pick up our – okay, his – new-to-him truck. The truck is a 2004 Chevy Avalanche and is much bigger than any other vehicle we’ve owned before. It will be nice for The Husband to have this winter when he has to come home on very slippery, narrow roads to get home from work.
The whole family took a ride in the truck earlier today and it is nice, even though it is louder than our other cars, other than the van when the exhaust system needed to be replaced.
I truly hope this next week is a bit less crazy. We don’t have any events scheduled.
I have taken a job with a company that I will talk about in a later post, but it is a work-from-home job for 15 or so hours a week and doesn’t being until August 7 or later.
As I mentioned above, school starts August 24 and we will be home a lot more after that.
How about you?
Have you been having busy summer days or nice and relaxed ones?
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.
I am very late in posting today because I simply ran out of brain power after a busy week last week of running around a lot. I spent the day resting, vegging, and reading some.
What I/we’ve been Reading
I did not have a lot of time for reading last week so I am still reading the same books from last week:
Secrets of the Amish Diary by Rachael Phillips and The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz.
These books could not be more different from each other and I like that because if I am not in the mood for one, I pick up the other.
I don’t remember if I offered descriptions for the books last week but I will do so today.
When Liz Eckardt leaves behind her hectic life as a Boston lawyer to become an innkeeper in charming Pleasant Creek, Indiana, she hopes to find solace – and answers – as she mourns the loss of her mother, Abigail. Along with her mother’s diary and an antique heirloom quilt, Liz inherited a family secret: Abigail cut ties with her Amish family years ago – a family Liz never knew existed – and Liz yearns to unravel the mystery of her mother’s past.
Liz settles into her new life at the Olde Mansion Inn with the help of the town’s quirky quilting group, the Material Girls, and several members of the Amish community. She bonds instantly with her new Amish friend, Miriam Borkholder, and enjoys the success of her burgeoning bed and breakfast.
That is, until one of her guests, the unpopular Clarence Peabody, is found dead in the lake behind her inn . . . and Miriam’s son is the prime suspect!
Convinced of the Amish boy’s innocence, Liz begins to piece together the evidence, learning quickly that the killer will stop at nothing to hide the truth. When Liz receives a cryptic letter written in the local Amish dialect, the message is clear: Stay out of this . . . or else. Who sent the letter? And is Clarence’s murder somehow tied to her family’s secret past?
Join Liz and her lively team of crafty investigators as they stitch together clues and uncover the cause of the unusual events happening in Pleasant Creek. Will they discover the truth about Liz’s family before someone else is silenced?
The Word is Murder has one of the most unique plots I’ve ever seen:
A woman crosses a London street. It is just after 11 a.m. on a bright spring morning, and she is going into a funeral parlor to plan her own service. Six hours later the woman is dead, strangled with a crimson curtain cord in her own home.
Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric man as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. And Hawthorne has a partner, the celebrated novelist Anthony Horowitz, curious about the case and looking for new material. As brusque, impatient, and annoying as Hawthorne can be, Horowitz—a seasoned hand when it comes to crime stories—suspects the detective may be on to something, and is irresistibly drawn into the mystery.
But as the case unfolds, Horowitz realizes that he’s at the center of a story he can’t control, and his brilliant partner may be hiding dark and mysterious secrets of his own.
The Husband is reading a Walter Mosely book called The Man In My Basement.
Little Miss and I are reading a variety of things right now, including re-reading Paddington one night when she felt frightened and sad about something (Paddington cheers her up) and listening to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe on Audible.
The Boy is on a reading break because it is summer break and he’s been working a lot, either with my dad or at his job as a dishwasher at a local restaurant.
What’s Been Occurring
I rambled a lot about what we’ve been up to in my post yesterday if you would like to catch up.
Today we stayed home and rested. I have a job interview in the morning for a job that would be from home and around 15 hours a week. I’m nervous but hopeful it works out. Our family could use the financial help like a lot of other families.
What We watched/are Watching
Last week I watched a lot of Just A Few Acres Farm on YouTube. The farmer, Pete’s voice is very soothing to me because he’s so calm and cheerful about life. He seems to stay positive a lot and I really need that in my life. On Friday when I had to drive 45 minutes up and 45 minutes back from somewhere, after doing the same thing the day before, I told myself I would channel Pete to make it through the day. I purposely focused on slowing my thoughts and speech down throughout the day and just being like Pete. “I am Pete,” I said each time I became stressed. It helped a lot and I have a feeling I’ll have to do more of that this week.
I also watched an episode of Miss Scarlet and The Duke and a few episodes of Newhart, as well as an episode of Poirot with The Husband.
I watched Some Like It Hot last week and wrote about it on the blog (link below).
This week I’ll be watching The Seven Year Itch.
What I’m Writing
Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing came out this week! You can snatch a copy, or read it on Kindle Unlimited, HERE.
I am working on book two of the series now. It’s called Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage.
I am listening to a mystery on audible: Death Beside the Seaside by T.E Kinsey.
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.
Can I interest you in a slice of cake? A cookie? A cup of tea?
Honestly, I don’t have the cake or cookies so you will just have to have the tea, but I do have some fresh raspberries if you’d like some of those.
Let’s kick our Saturday afternoon chat off with a weird question:
Did you hear of the man who stabbed his colleague at a science lab in Antarctica in 2018 because the colleague kept telling him the end of the books he was reading?
Do you think you’d ever go that far?
I hope I wouldn’t but I would guess that there was a lot more to that man’s stress than simply being told the end of books. The man who was stabbed lived, by the way.
Anyhow, I somehow made it through this week without stabbing anyone despite all the running around and mental gymnastics my brain kept doing.
This summer has been very busy for us in some ways, but usually we’ve only had one thing to do a day. That one thing has often been in the middle or end of the day so it has thrown some things off but that’s okay. We’ve adjusted.
I am looking forward to autumn and winter this year simply for the fact that I will have an excuse to say I can’t attend something.
“Oh, so sorry but we’re supposed to get bad weather and … yeah. I’d love to, but you know. The roads could be dangerous.”
I have that excuse practiced pretty well but, alas, I can’t use that one in the summer. Unless we get flash flooding, and I’d prefer that didn’t happen.
So, Monday I volunteered to pull weeds in my dad’s garden. I forgot how uncomfortable a person’s muscles can get after pulling weeds so the next morning I was hurting quite a bit.
I couldn’t mope around too long, though, because Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing came out on Tuesday and I worked on marketing for that most of the morning. In the afternoon Little Miss and I went swimming at my parents’. She talked me into a couple of swimming competitions which were easier for her because she was in an inflated inner tube and I was using my actual muscles to swim. Using muscles I don’t use enough other times of the year two days in a row left me in a lot of pain later that night and into Wednesday.
Working those muscles, in other words, was both good and bad for me. I had a hard time walking and sleeping this week but I was glad I got out and did things and I was proud of myself for whining less than I normally do when I am in pain.
On Wednesday I drove Little Miss about 15 minutes away to a park for the county library’s Summer Reading program. That’s one thing I don’t think I have ever mentioned on here – our county is so small population wise, we only have one library. It isn’t our town library – it’s the county library and it’s where everyone in the county goes for books and activities, etc. Since it is the county library, they try to hold events in places other than the most populated town in the county, which is my town.
The children at Wednesday’s event painted rocks, played on the playground, and participated in a rock relay race where they had to race to place rocks in the shapes that they belonged to on a large piece of cardboard.
Little Miss had fun but was ready to go home fairly quickly because there were new episodes of Bluey on Disney Plus. These episodes have been withheld for some reason for the last year or so and they were much anticipated in our house. I was glad we didn’t have anywhere else to go the rest of that day.
On Thursday, The Husband took the day off so we could one, take his car 45 minutes north to be worked on and two, go out to dinner for our anniversary.
Our view while we drove. My lunch.
After we dropped the car off, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant we enjoy near us. The Husband took Little Miss to gymnastics that evening and I stayed home and watched an episode of Miss Scarlet and the Duke while turning the air conditioning up full blast to make the house feel like fall. I made myself a cup of peppermint tea with honey and sipped that while I watched the show and designed journals. I know I should live in the present and not wish for it to be another season, but I do have to say, yet again, how much I miss the cooler months where I can snuggle under a blanket with a good book.
Yesterday a friend came to visit for a couple of hours, and then it was back up to pick up The Husband’s car and then he went grocery shopping, something he does because he is very nice, but also because I think he just doesn’t want to deal with whatever weird calamity befalls me if I go.
If you are new here, you may not know that almost every time I go grocery shopping something weird happens to me and I have some kind of emotional breakdown because I am a bit of a mental case at times (that’s the understatement of the year).
One time I locked the keys in the car and we didn’t have a spare. The last time I lost the key fob to the van and thought we didn’t have another one so I burst into tears. It wouldn’t be so bad except we have to drive 20 minutes away from home to get our groceries and I hate when I have to inconvenience someone to dig me out of whatever trouble I have gotten myself into.
I’m a bit high maintenance, which makes it a surprise to me at times that The Husband hasn’t run away screaming and that we’ve actually made it to 21 years.
He’s really very sweet to do the grocery shopping. It helps so much, especially because, even though I hate admitting it, my chronic health issues often leave me feeling drained and achy for a day after I do something like grocery shopping or anything that leaves me on my feet for quite a while.
He does a lot for our family and we’d be lost without him.
Today I really want to stay home and do absolutely nothing other than catch up on blog posts by other bloggers, write some more in the second Gladwynn Grant Mysteries book, or read a book, but it is supposed to get up to 87 and it would be a good day for Little Miss and I to go swimming. We will see how well I get around. Tomorrow, however, I am drawing the line and staying home all day so I can do some housework and catch up on blog posts, etc., because next week promises to be another long week with a church program at a local church, Summer Reading, and probably visits to the pool again.
The pull off along the scenic bypass we travel down to go home.
How about you? How was your week last week? What have you been sipping while you work, travel, or read this week?
