Tag: week in review

Sunday Bookends: Snow returns, Charles Bronson movies and fathers in my reading

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends4 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What I/we’ve been Reading

I have started my annual reading for Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon. I love this sweet story about Father Timothy Kavanaugh who finds a nativity set that he wants to repaint and fix up for his beloved wife Cynthia. Sigh. It’s just such a sweet story.

(If you haven’t read Mitford before, Father Tim is Episcopalian so he is allowed to marry. *wink*)

I am also continuing with the Father Brown Collection by G.K. Chesteron, which is a collection of short stories. I’m a mood reader so I read a story and then switch to a different book for a bit.

I’ve also started Love and A Little White Lie by Tammy L. Gray and am enjoying it so far. It’s about a woman who has taken a job at a church but doesn’t feel she belongs there. It is the first book in a three book series.

At night I have been reading Paddington Races Ahead with Little Miss.

I am also reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain off and on during the week with The Boy, who is reading it for school.

The Husband is reading…. Oops. I forgot to ask before I scheduled this and he’s already asleep.

What’s Been Occurring

I rambled about what has been occurring on a post from Friday and not much more has happened since then. In that post, I shared that we had our first official snowfall earlier in the week, only a couple of days after it was in the low 70s. Last night we had more snow, but only about an inch and a half.

This week we are looking forward to celebrating The Husband’s birthday by attending a festival of lights display about 45 minutes from us and then a quiet Thanksgiving with my parents. We are also looking to five days off from school since the kids seemed to be burned out on lessons. Yes, already burned out. This early in the school year.  

What We watched/are Watching

The Husband and I watched two Charles Bronson films this week: Mr. Majestyk and Red Sun. They were both very good. Red Sun featured a bit of female nudity that we weren’t expecting and Mr. Majestyk featured swearing that was tame compared to the movies of today but still swearing. That’s just a disclaimer for anyone who is sensitive to those aspects of movies.

I also watched two Hallmark Christmas movies. Sign, Sealed, Delivered for Christmas made me cry and Trading Christmas made me smile. I own Trading Christmas because it is just a light movie I enjoy watching. Both are on Amazon.

I also watched The Christmas Carol Goes Wrong for the ‘Tis The Season Cinema feature with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

This week Erin and I will be watching White Christmas and posting our impression of it on Saturday. Please feel free to join us and post your impressions as well.


What I’m Writing

I’ve started writing a new book while I am editing Shores of Mercy, but I am not ready to share it yet and not sure I will share it on the blog or not this time. It’s going to be different than my previous books, in some ways, and it is not part of The Spencer Valley Chronicles, or any series. I can tell you that the main character is male, over the age of 50, and it will be one point of view, third person. I’ll keep all of you updated.

This week on the blog I shared:

A Chat and a Cup of Tea or Something Warm

‘Tis The Season Cinema: A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong

Special Fiction … Wednesday? Mercy’s Shore Final Chapters

Educationally Speaking: Fall Homeschool Update

What I’m Listening To

While I am watching Christmas movies early, I haven’t yet started Christmas music and won’t do that until December, most likely. When I do it will be the Michaels – Smith and Buble.

I found a Youtube video of worship music being played on a guitar that I’ve been listening to while I write.



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.

Sunday Bookends: friend visits, warm weather, and Christmas movies

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 I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What I/we’ve been Reading

I have been reading a collection of Father Brown stories by G.K. Chesterton and have been enjoying them for the most part. The third one I read went off on a weird ramble for several pages that had nothing to do with the story I thought but these were written in the early 1900s so I cut Chesterton some slack.

I have also been reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain with The Boy for school and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe with Little Miss.

I’ll probably start a new fiction book this week, but I’m not sure which one yet. I have a few I’ve read the first few pages of an am liking so I just need to pick one. The Seven and a half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle has caught my attention so far.



What’s Been Occurring

This past week Little Miss and I were both surprised when her little friends who moved to Texas a year and a half ago, came back to stay.

Little Miss had a blast visiting with them during the week. We were still able to finish schoolwork but it was pushed off to the evenings to they could play together.

The friends are signed up back into school now so we won’t have our school days interrupted as much.

She was able to visit with some other friends yesterday.

We didn’t do a lot last week other than school. We had been doing game nights once a week with my parents but I had congestion and they were doing other things most days so we will have to have a game night another time.

The weather was oddly warm all week and then today it dropped into the 40s and it is literally downhill from here. It’s like we were in spring and then drastically plunged into winter. Our sinuses are definitely going to suffer even more this week. As I was writing this actual snow started to fall. Yuck.

What We watched/are Watching

This week I watched light and fluffy stuff including a couple of Hallmark movies even though I am not the biggest fan of Hallmark movies. I do like the movies based on the short-lived show Signed, Sealed, Delivered which follows a group of employees in the Dead Letter Office of the United States Postal Service. The premise – of them solving mysteries surrounding lost letters or packages — is a bit far fetched but the overall stories are uplifting and encouraging.

Earlier in the week I watched The Man Who Invented Christmas as part of the ‘Tis the Season Cinema feature Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I started this week. We are watching Christmas movies from now until the week before Christmas. Next up is A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong which you can find here on YouTube:

This special was on the BBC and is part of a series of specials and shows about a theater group who is always messing up or somehow ruining their shows with misspoken words or mishaps.

What I’m Writing

I didn’t share much on the blog this week other than the last chapters of Mercy’s Shore (Shores of Mercy).

I had to add a quick chapter to Shores of Mercy and also started a couple other stories to see which one sticks in my brain for me to continue it.

I did share a blog post about The Man Who Invented Christmas.

What I’m Listening To

I am listening to a lot of Family Life, our local Christian radio station.


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.

Sunday Bookends: The Boy turning 16, Mary Berry, and warmer weather

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends11 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What I/we’ve been Reading

This week I finished Dog Days of Summer by Kathleen Y’Barbo for a book tour. It was okay, but I was disappointed halfway through, unfortunately, and need a break from book tour books for now. Those are books I don’t have the benefit of abandoning for a different one.

I switched over to GK Chesterton’s Father Brown stories and am really enjoying it so far. Many of these stories were the basis for the British show, both the original 70s series and the more modern one.

I have a few choices to start as novels next, including The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton, Miss Julia Knows A Thing Or Two by Ann B. Ross, a Longmire book, or a Joe Pickett book, and Criss Cross by C.C. Warren.

The Husband is reading Tishomingo Blues by Elmore Leonard.

The Boy is reading a Percy Jackson book.

Little Miss and I are still reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe at night.

What’s Been Occurring

This past week I thought I had caught a cold, but it appears to be sinus drainage from the weather change this week which included temps jumping up, especially over the weekend. I was better yesterday during the day but I continued to cough from what felt like mucous draining down the back of my throat during the night. I think if the weather would stabilize, that would help my sinuses a lot. What I am thankful for is that it hasn’t affected Little Miss like it usually does.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow we are celebrating my son turning 16. He had friends over yesterday and today. We will visit my parents today and are cooking steaks on the grill — a treat since steaks have been so expensive. Yesterday Little Miss and I helped my mom make two apple pies for The Boy who is not a fan of cake but loves his grandmother’s apple pie.


Tomorrow he gets a day off school and we will celebrate some more.

What We watched/are Watching

I failed at No News November so far but hope to do better this week and plan to use shows like Classic Mary Berry to help stay away from news as we move into elections here in the United States.

I won’t completely stay off news, especially Wednesday, but I will be taking a longer break.

If you don’t know who Mary Berry is, she is a cook from the U.K. who might be well-known to fans of The Great British Baking Show, which airs on PBS in the U.S. I had to Google how old she is because during one episode she said she’d been cooking one recipe for 60 years and she learned it in college. It turns out she is 87 and her full name is Dame Mary Rosa Alleyne Hunnings DBE. I know this particular series must have been filmed years ago because there is no way she is 87 in this series. I looked it up and she was 83. Good grief. She ages well. I read that her mom died when she was 105 so it sounds like Mary could have many more years of creating cooking shows.

Part of the time I am confused while watching her cook because they either use a different name for the ingredient over there or I’ve absolutely never heard of a particular ingredient.

I didn’t watch much else this past week, but hope to watch some more old movies, etc. this week.



What I’m Writing

I am currently editing Shores of Mercy and hope to start another story, outside the Spencer Valley Chronicles, this week. I have actually started four other books, but I have to decide which one I am going to continue to work on to release next.

On the blog this week I shared:

What I’m Listening To:

This week I listened to various praise and worship songs.

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.

Sunday Bookends: Radio shows and stations, fun books and classics, and cooking shows

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends2 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays I ramble about what’s been going on, what I and the rest of the family have been reading and watching, what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.

What’s Been Occurring

Each evening I look around our living room and count heads. Not the heads of children, but pets. I make sure that both our cats and our puppy are inside, safe and sound.

It makes me smile when I look around and they are all there, usually curled up in a dog bed (that’s often our old cat) or a recliner (taking up space where we could sit).

This week I have been trying to remind myself that I get to have this life, especially when I have to do something I don’t really want to do — like drive Little Miss to gymnastics or walk her to the trampoline up the hill, or go get groceries. There is a lot about my life I am blessed to be able to do. I’m blessed, after last year, to still be here.

Our local Christian radio station has had a family hour from 7 to 8 p.m. on weekdays for more than 20-years. They play Adventures in Odyssey and follow it with Down Gilead Lane, Lamplighter Theater,  The Pond, or Animal Jam. These are all children’s Christian radio dramas produced by Focus on the Family.

Little Miss and I started listening to the last half hour on the way home from Awana a month ago but I would forget to turn it on the radio at home. I finally put a reminder on my phone to turn the radio on so Friday night Little Miss was so excited and ran around the house as I turned it on, shutting off all the lights to make it “more like a long,  boring car ride.”

We huddled under my huge, fuzzy blanket and listened to the stories, imagining what was happening, which was nicer than her playing video games or watching cartoons that are full of subjects I am not too sure about.

This radio station has been a real blessing to our family, especially me this week when I had to drive on a road I am not comfortable driving in the daylight, let alone at night, three times in one night. I turned the station on and listened to encouraging Christian music all the way to take Little Miss to gymnastics, then back, then back to the same place to pick up my husband (who was waiting for someone to unlock our van, but that person never came). I’ve heard people say that turning on this radio station is liking reconnecting with a long lost friend and they are right. Much like God never changes, this station has been there for almost my entire life when I’ve needed it the most. If you are ever in the area, it is Family Life out of Bath, N.Y. and they have transmitters throughout Upstate New York and northern Pennsylvania.

They also offer music streams on their webpage (https://www.familylife.org/).

Temperatures have been dropping very fast at night but we have been dragging our feet on turning the heat on because of how high the oil prices are. When it hit 28 one night this week, I decided we are going to have to break down and turn it on.

What We’ve Been Reading

This week I am finishing up Dog Days of Summer by Kathleen Y’Barbo, which I am enjoying so far.

Here is a description:

Mishaps Abound as Second Chance Ranch Struggles to Get Its Start
 
Grab a lap dog to cuddle and relax into a fun small-town mystery as a new dog rescue project turns into a three-ring circus of calamities in book 2 of the Gone to the Dogs series.
 
Trina Potter, Nashville country music star, buys a ranch near her hometown in Brenham, Texas, to help her niece open a rescue facility for dogs. Her presence in town stirs up some old high school rivalries—and romance. Finding property to buy is a challenge, convincing her mother to move there with her is daunting, and navigating a string of strange accidents is perplexing. Sometimes Trina feels like she’s purchased her own three ring circus instead of a beautiful piece of land. But her first priority will be figuring out who wants Second Chance Ranch shut down before they even have the grand opening.

More in the Gone to the Dogs Series:
Book 1 – Off the Chain by Janice Thompson
Book 2 – Dog Days of Summer by Kathleen Y’Barbo
Book 3 – Barking Up the Wrong Tree by Janice Thompson

I am also reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because The Boy is also reading it for English LIT.

After Dog Days of Summer I hope to dive into (in no particular order):

The Father Brown Mysteries by G.K. Chesterton;

Criss Cross by C.C.  Warrens;

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz;

Miss Julia Knows A Thing or Two by Ann B. Ross

At night I am reading The Light, The Witch, and The Wardrobe with Little Miss. I haven’t read this book all the way through since I was a kid so I am excited to read it with her.

The Husband hasn’t — gasped — started a new book yet.

What I’ve Been Listening To

There are so many Christian musicians with new albums out including:

Cody Carnes,

Steven Curtis Chapman

Anne Wilson

and

Mercy Me

I’ll be listening to a lot of new music this week.

What We’ve Been Watching/Watched

Little Miss and  both enjoy cooking or baking shows so she asked for the Great British Baking Show, but it wasn’t showing up on the streaming services we have so we opted for Mary Berry’s show called Classic Mary Berry.

Little Miss was absolutely delighted when it started and said, “I love these shows!”

The one downside was the commercials. But we had fun watching Mary whip up a variety of dishes. I’ve never had a poached egg, have you? And if I haven’t eaten one, then I’ve never cooked one. Have you?

I also watched part of the Dove Awards and hope to watch more later:

The Husband and I also watched A New Kind of Love with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

What I’m Writing

I am finishing up Shores of Mercy and excited to start a new book while I let the book set for a couple of weeks and then start editing and rewrites. The book is up for pre-order on Amazon HERE (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BK5CQDVZ)

This week on the blog I shared:

Now it is your turn. What are you reading, watching, listening to, or doing? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: Fall colors fading and a movie week

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends3 Comments

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to

What’s Been Occurring

As I started this post, my cat, Pixel, is asleep in the dog bed (because it’s obviously not for the dog in her mind), snoring away. Yes, literally snoring. I often find myself looking around the room for the source of the snore and finding her as if I keep forgetting that she snores. There is a reason I call her my spirit animal. We’re both fatter than we should be, both snore softly (sometimes louder) and both have sinus issues.

We are also both moody, but that’s a story for another time.

As I continue the post, Saturday afternoon, the wind is blowing hard outside, ripping the last of the brightly colored leaves from the trees and scattering them across the yard, reminding me Autumn has been a beautiful yet short season this year and soon cold will settle in for good for at least four months. I’m not ready for winter, as I never am. I want to hold on to the crisp autumn weather with its mixed days of sun and rain, brilliant colors splashed across the hillside, and leaves crunching under my feet.

We were able to see a lot of the changing foliage Friday, before the wind moved in, as we traveled an hour away to Wilkes-barre (right by Scranton) to visit a mini-Build-A-Bear store for Little Miss to use a gift card she’d received. We traveled some backroads, cutting down on our travel time and adding to the beauty of the journey. It isn’t a trip we’d probably take often due to the twists and turns of the road, how it took us up to higher elevation then back down into valleys, which would leave those roads an icy or snowy mess during the winter months.

I took my camera and my phone, but the camera card malfunctioned, and the phone was barely charged, leaving me frustrated as I couldn’t grab as many photos as I had planned to. Luckily, The Husband let me use his phone for some photos and then he ran into a Wal-Mart and grabbed a spare card for me. That let me take some more photos, but I was still kicking myself for all the missed opportunities earlier in the day.

What I’ve Been Reading

Last week I abandoned the Donald Westlake book, High Adventure, at least for now, because I realized I hated all the characters and didn’t care what happened to them. I may pick it back up again this week because I am curious to see what happens.

This week I am reading The Do Over by Sharon Peterson which I may or may not finish depending on how risqué it gets since it is a mainstream romance and I usually read clean romances.

I am also reading You Are The Reason by Mary Felkins.

Little Miss and I are reading Paddington At Work at night and will be starting a book about Booker T. Washington for school this week.

The Husband is reading Q-Squared by Peter Davidson.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This week I watched The Baroness and the Butler from 1938 on YouTube. It starred William Powell and a French actress who simply went by Annabella. It was the story of a butler in the house of the Prime Minister of Hungary who gets elected to parliament in the party that opposes his employer.

There is, of course, romance involved.

The Boy and I also watched The Nightmare Before Christmas for the Spooky Season Cinema feature I am doing with Erin of Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

Then we watched The Emperor’s New Groove for nostalgic reasons for him, since he watched the  movie as a young kid.

Last night The Husband and I watched Patriot Games, which I had never seen before and he saw many years ago.

What I’m Writing

I’ve been steadily working on Shores of Mercy so I can start the full edits and get it to editors in November and release in January.

This week on the blog I shared:

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.


Sunday Bookends: Birthday, fall is coming – oh, it’s here, and cat books

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends1 Comment

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to.


What I/we’ve been Reading

Last week I finished The Cat Who Wasn’t There by Lilian Jackson Braun.

Description:

Persuaded by his beloved companion to join her in a group tour of Scotland, Qwill expects to revel in his Scottish heritage while keeping Polly Duncan safe from the Pickax Prowler. Instead, his trip is cut short when a thief swipes a suitcase, the bus driver disappears, and a fellow tourist is found dead, all in the same day.

Although the town of Pickax is in a tizzy over the recent events, Qwill has other, more puzzling worries on his mind. Who is the fellow still following Polly? Why is Koko licking Qwill’s photographs of Scotland and tackling him on the apple barn stairs? Upon investigating the secret life of the deceased and the bizarre behavior of one of the tour’s members, Qwill’s sensitive moustache tells him one thing: more trouble is on the way.


I then started Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan. I’m reading it via a library book and as many of you know, I have a library book phobia because I am always afraid I will dent it or mark it up. So I tried reading the library book without moving anywhere, but I leaned up to get something and bent the pages slightly. It freaked me out so bad that I looked up on Amazon how much it would cost to get my own copy. It turns out it was on Kindle Unlimited so I downloaded it through there and I’m taking the library book back out of fear of ruining it. I know. I have issues.

I’m also listening to The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip by Sara Brunsvold on Audible.

The Boy was reading War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (yes, still) but then Little Miss left some slime around that hardened on it so the book was damaged. This became a bit of a family crisis because The Husband said he’s owned the book since he was 15 and it won’t be the same thing if I buy him a new copy. Sigh.

The Husband is reading Raising Steam by Terry Pratchet.

Little Miss and I are finishing up a Paddington book we hadn’t read before (Paddington On Top) and during the day we are reading The Year of Miss Agnes, which we might have finished last week if I hadn’t lost the book. Argh!



What’s Been Occurring

The nights are getting colder and in the second half of this week temperatures didn’t get past 65 during the day. It looks like it will be the same next week. Our leaves are turning much slower than I thought they were going to but it looks like we might have some bright colors in October.  

My birthday was Monday, and it was cold and rainy and I was excited. I know. I’m weird. I literally giggled with glee because I knew it meant I could read a book, under a blanket, while it rained.

I opened a book and watched a Thin Man movie. I literally did nothing Monday and making myself do nothing was fun. That night we all watched The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill and Came Down a Mountain.

The day before my birthday we went to my parents where they made me a delicious lunch of beef ribs, homemade onion potatoes and cabbage from my dad’s garden. Yum!

My dad also gave me some sunflowers from his garden and my mom gave me a check and told me I couldn’t spend it on the kids or groceries like I usually do. It was very hard because I had a couple pieces of curriculum I wanted to get, but in the end I bought myself a booklight, a journal, a paperback of one of The Cat Who books, and a new cover for my Kindle.

I wrote in my recent Randomly Thinking post that our kitten is a killer. Both my cats are actually, so imagine our surprise on Sunday when The Husband and The Boy saw a mouse running out from under our stove. Hmmmm…. The cats can apparently kill rodents outside the house, but not inside.

Wednesday night, though, our older cat, Pixel was lying in wait by the couch because the mouse ran under the couch Tuesday night after it scampered all over the living room, trying to get away from her. We still haven’t seen a sign that she’s caught it, since The Boy said she was still looing for it Friday night.

What We watched/are Watching

I already mentioned I watched a Thin Man movie for my birthday. I watched it all by my little ole’ self. It was The Thin Man Goes Home and I don’t remember seeing it before.

I also mentioned we watched The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill and Came Down a Mountain. If you haven’t seen the movie before, it’s really enjoyable and fun.

Last night The Boy and I watched Benny and Joon with Mary Stuart Masterson and Johnny Depp. It’s a movie I remembered from my teen years and it was my first intro to Johnny Depp.

Earlier in the week we watched Shaun of the Dead, which I wrote about for my Spooky Season Cinema Post.

What I’m Writing

I’m continuing to work on The Shores of Mercy. I’d hoped to have the first draft finished by the end of September but it looks like it will be mid-October now.

Last week on the blog I shared:



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.

Sunday Bookends: The last swim, the passing of a queen, and a variety of books

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends15 Comments

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I finished Junkyard Dogs, A Walt Longmire Mystery, by Craig Johnson yesterday. It was hard to put down, it was constant action, as usual. It is the sixth book in the series. The eighteenth book in the series came out last Tuesday and The Husband is excited. I don’t usually like books with harsh language but I’ve read a lot worse (or started to and put them down), there is no on-page sex (except in one book and it was thankfully really brief), and I love the characters.

I hope to finish Refuge of Convenience by Kathy Geary Anderson by today or tomorrow.

I was glad to have the two books to switch back and forth on since the Longmire book has heavier topics and isn’t as clean. Kathy’s books are all listed under Christian Historical Fiction and are engaging and make me want to find out what happens.

Up next in my list is The Cat Who Wasn’t There by Lilian Jackson Braun, a book from a cozy-mystery series I enjoy. It’s a comfort read to me.

Little Miss and I are reading either Paddington or Anne of Green Gables at night. She’s enjoying Anne so much that she has even been drawing photos of her. We are also reading The Year of Miss Agnes for her school lessons.

The Boy is reading War of the Worlds by H.G. Welles for school.

The Husband is reading Hell and Back by Craig Johnson.


What’s Been Occurring

Last Sunday we attended a picnic at our neighbors and my parents came as well. It was a super nice day.

It wasn’t a hot day, which made it even nicer, but Little Miss still took a dip in their little pool in the backyard. She talked me into going in as well and it was awful. It was so cold it was like standing in a large glass of ice water. I lasted about seven minutes.

It appears that it will be our last swim in a pool this season, unless the weather warms up this week.

It’s supposed to rain all day today and part of tomorrow.

Zooma the Wonder Dog even got some socialization in, visiting with the neighbors’ Shitzu dogs while Little Miss jumped in the pool.

Today we have a family reunion to attend. It should be interesting in the rain and will probably consist of me talking to former neighbors of mine who I am not actually related to but attend the reunion every year because they are like family.

Last week was our first week of homeschool and it got off to a bit of a bumpy start for Little Miss and me because neither of us has actually adjusted to being back at school. She wasn’t ready to sit and learn just yet and I was way too uptight about it all so on Thursday we both feels to separate parts of the house to have a good cry at one point.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week The Boy and I watched Clue as part of a feature Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, and I are doing called Spooky Season Cinema. I talked more about that in this post. This week we are watching The Addams Family.

The Husband and I watched a Brokenwood Mysteries episode, some specials about Queen Elizabeth, and an episode of a hilarious old British sitcom called Yes, Prime Minister.

Sunday morning, I watched the coffin of the queen being driven from Balmoral Castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, Scotland, and will admit I felt weepy over it. I believe this queen was a very “grand lady” who had a great deal of dignity, unlike a few members of her family (*cough* Andrew. *cough* Harry lately.). With her gone, I’m not sure what the family will devolve into, though they had devolved into a pretty big mess in the 1990s with the divorces of Charles and Diana and Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.

As I mentioned on a post on Instagram last week, the world is not only mourning a person, who seemed very kind and compassionate, but an era of respect, dignity, and grandeur that is slowly being eroded away. I didn’t finish The Crown when we had Netflix, but I enjoyed watching it and later doing my own research on what parts of the show were accurate and which parts weren’t. I feel, somehow, as I am sure the people of Great Britain feel even more, that after watching and reading so much about her that I knew her personally.

Of course, I didn’t know her personally, her family did and I do feel for them as they mourn her. Some might say “Well, she was old, so it was to be expected,” but that doesn’t take away from the pain of losing someone who was more than a queen to her family. She was a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother to her family and not having her around to interact with anymore, to not having her wisdom to rely on, will be extremely difficult.

In addition to all the queen news, I watched The Young Philadelphians as part of my “Fall of Paul” yesterday since I didn’t finish a couple of movies I wanted to watch with Paul Newman during my Summer of Paul movie-watching experience. I hope to watch Mr. and Mrs. Bridge with Paul and Joan (his wife) later this week.

I’ve also started a documentary on Mae West last week that I hope to finish this week.

What I’m Writing

I am working on The Shores of Mercy, but honestly, I am discouraged in my writing. I started writing fiction to have fun but for some reason I’ve been focusing too much on how poorly my books are doing in rankings, etc.

Sadly, I feel like I often start things and enjoy them for a bit and then feel depressed when I watch others get the “success” I worked for but could never reach. But at the same time, I feel like success for me is connecting with other people and by that measurement, I have had success and it’s all I really need. It’s a weird dichotomy of wanting to be popular with my writing yet loving that I am not popular and can write whatever I want.

I think one issue is that I have been writing books I think certain readers want instead of stories I want to tell, even though I have enjoyed getting to know the characters of my Spencer Valley books. I also appreciate, more than anyone knows, my blog readers who have faithfully supported me in my writing journey, especially Bettie who offers prayers for me and my fictional characters. I often feel like even if I am only writing for Bettie and my mom, it is worth it.

This week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

This week I listened to Toby Mac’s new album again and I don’t love every song, but I really like most of them. I plan to listen to some sermons this week and maybe an audiobook since I’ve decided to check out Chirp, where you can buy audiobooks a you go, versus having a membership.

So far, this one is my favorite:



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.

Sunday Bookends: Smelly books, broken laptop keyboards, and summer is fading

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends3 Comments

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to.


What I/we’ve been Reading

You might recall that last week I had a list of books from which to choose from for my reading pleasure but hadn’t decided on which one.

After I posted that post, I chose The Boomerang Clue by Agatha Christie, which I had picked up at a book sale at the local library. It was an old copy, maybe from the 70s and after reading it for a bit I realized it smelled like an old book and that wasn’t a good thing. I started getting a weird headache and coughing so I had to place the book aside. I looked online to see if I could download an ebook copy of it, but lo and behold, much like some of Christie’s other books, this book had been renamed. I’m not sure what was offensive about this one’s name and why it was changed, but I do know why And Then There Was None was changed from its original name. You can look that up if you are curious.

The book was the basis for a mini-series on Britbox which we recently watched so I decided I’d see if the book had been renamed to that and, indeed, it had been renamed at some point in the past, even before the series. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? was the new name for the book but it was $9.99 on kindle and I’m pretty cheap (aka broke) so I decided I’d see if I could get it at the local library instead since I was already invested and wanted to see if the book was different than the mini-series. I mentioned all this to my husband who said, “Well, good thing I bought that book on a super great Kindle deal a couple of months ago then…”

Needless to say, I am reading the book on the Kindle instead of breathing in all the spores and who knows what else in that old book. I should be done with it today or tomorrow.

I am continuing to read the 80s Rom-Com Club, which is a series of novellas in the evenings, and also hope to start a book by Sean Dietrich who writes Southern stories, both fiction and non-fiction this week.


What’s Been Occurring

Last week I got way too wrapped up in trying to figure out Instagram and how to promote myself not because I want to be rich and famous but because even an extra $50 bucks a month would be such a help right now. In the end, none of it mattered because one day I had 5,000 views on a video and the following day I had three and when I Googled it said my drop in views was probably because I had somehow pissed off the Instagram lords and they were hiding my account.

I don’t have time for those games. School starts in a couple of week, I have a house to try to keep up and clean (though my husband moves faster and does a better job so I am always behind), photos to edit for stock, and just reality to live in. Social media is a putrid toilet right now and I don’t want to be caught up in the downward spiral, especially if it means I have to sell my soul to the Devil just to get a few new followers and maybe a few sales.

Little Miss and I visited my parents Thursday and tried to go swimming but the water was simply too cold, a sign that fall will be upon us too soon. As if the changing leaves weren’t enough to let us know that. Luckily, we were able to get a swim in yesterday instead since the temperature was warmer then and might get one in today.

On Thursday the kids also helped my dad pick some of the collard greens in his garden and we cooked some of them down for freezing and I brought some home to do the same.

On Friday the kids and I drove 45 minutes one way to the town where we used to live to get Zooma The Wonder Dog’s nails trimmed at the vets and also made a stop at a small market across the NY State border for some meats. It is a market we shopped at often when we lived there. We did drive by our old house and it’s always weird to see it and know we don’t live there anymore.

I am having a horrible time with the keys on my laptop. I took them off to clean them because the keys were sticking and now they won’t go back on and I sort of want to cry. This is how my life seems to go lately – something is always failing or falling apart. Because of the broken keys it took me a little longer to write this, but I can at least still hit the keys. Replacing them is apparently not possible and replacing the laptop is definitely not an option, since we can’t even pay our heating oil bill.

This week I will be getting ready for school as well, by cleaning out and straightening my homeschool closet, as well as double checking what we do and don’t have for the upcoming year. I originally wanted to start back on August 31, but we may end up waiting until after Labor Day. We aren’t sure yet.

What We watched/are Watching

I finished Cool Hand Luke yesterday. Man, that is a terribly depressing movie. I have a couple more Paul movies to watch in August as part of my Summer of Paul and hope to find a couple of happier ones before the summer is complete.

The Husband and I watched Torn Curtain last night with Paul and Julie Andrews. It is an Alfred Hitchcock film about a professor who infiltrates East Germany looking for information for a defense weapon which won’t require the use of nuclear weapons. His plans are almost foiled thanks to his poor communication skills, which results in his fiancé (Andrews) following him. This leaves both of them in great danger. I’ll write more about it in a separate post later this week, but it wasn’t one of Hitchcock’s best, probably because he was not happy with Paul and Julie being in the film and hated the script. I don’t blame him for hating the script. The movie was pretty awful really.

We hope to cleanse our pallets with The Sting later in the week. I also plan to watch The Prize, which is supposed to be a comedy.

Earlier in the week, we watched Brokenwood Mysteries.

What I’m Writing

Last week on the blog I shared:

I am also working on Mercy’s Shore and hope to continue this week if my keyboard will continue to work.

What I’m Listening To

This week I plan to listen to TobyMac’s latest album Life After Death which just came out.



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.

Sunday Bookends: Trying to choose what to read next, outhouse races, and a trip to the lake

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends5 Comments

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing, and listening to.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I finished Dead Sea Conspiracy by Jerry B. Jenkins Friday and enjoyed it a lot more as I got into it. I’m still not a fan of dual timeline books but I like how this one tied the two timelines together.

I do recommend it, especially if you like speculative fiction.

I also finished the first novella in a set of novellas called The 80s Rom Com Club by a few different authors. The novellas are all light and fluffy romances about a group of women who have a club that watches old 80s movies together.  I’ll probably stretch them out and read one or two a week and read them in the evenings because they are light.

I want to start a mystery or suspense book this week so for my choices I have:

  •  What’s The Worst That Can Happen? by Donald Westlake,
  • The Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz,
  • the next book in the Joe Pickett series that I don’t know the name of and am too lazy to look up,
  • or The Boomerang Clue by Agatha Christie, which I picked up at a book sale at the library in town.

Of course, by the time I post this, I could change my mind on all of my choices and choose something completely different. I’m really not sure at this point.

The Husband just finished The Identical by Scott Turrow and is reading The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie, which I found at the aforementioned book sale the morning Rushdie was stabbed. I saw the books by him, commented to the librarian about the stabbing (she then in turn asked me if I knew David McCullough had died) and then The Husband texted and asked if I found any books by him there. Weird timing.

Little Miss and I are reading Ramona, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary.

The Boy is reading War of the Worlds whenever he isn’t playing video games so he should finish that book by 2025 at this point.

What’s Been Occurring

On Monday I was prepared for a relaxed day where I would do some housework, but otherwise hide inside from what promised to be a humid, muggy day.

Then a friend sent a message and asked if the kids and I would like to go with her family to the local lake and state park we had visited at the end of June. I wanted to say ‘no’, in some ways, because the Weather Service had issued a heat advisory, but I knew it would be good for us all to get out, so I agreed.

In the end, the weather turned out not to be very hot and the predicted afternoon storms never came, even though the clouds kept threatening it.’

The kids had a blast.

My anti-social teenager even jumped into the lake with all his clothes on right before we left.

On Wednesday, Little Miss developed a sore throat and later in the day a fever. By Friday it was almost gone and on Saturday it was all the way gone. I’m not really sure what that was about. Every three or four months she seems to get a couple of days where she gets a brief sore throat, a low-grade fever and the sniffles for about three days and then moves on. Usually, it happens with weather changes so spring and fall are the worst times for it. The weather did get cooler this week, but not until after her brief illness.

The weather got so cool this week, I started thinking about fall, which I thought I was looking forward to until I thought about the lovely green leaves all falling off and it getting cold and dreary. I do like weather where I can curl up under a blanket but I also like temperatures that are just right so we can do outside activities without sweating through our clothes.

While I was outside thinking about fall I also thought about how our backyard could be a filming sight for National Geographic. Not only do we have a big woodchuck living under our shed, but she’s apparently had babies because I saw a mini-version of her run across our yard the other day. Now, in addition to trapping her, we have to trap her babies. Fun times.

The boy found a half-eaten rabbit in our yard last weekend – as in something bit it in a half and left the head. Our dog loves to chase those rabbits but she only gets as far as her lead and never catches one. She hadn’t been out there long enough to do that kind of damage so we knew it wasn’t her.

Long story short, I asked our neighbors if they had had their game camera up this year and if they had seen what was in our yard that could do that. From a quick search on the ole’ interwebs, I learned that fox, coyote, and racoon will all rip a rabbit in half and sometimes not eat all of it. It’s possible we interrupted their supper when I let the dog out that night. The neighbor had not had their camera out but they put it out this week and it appears our culprit is a fox, which doesn’t surprise us since we heard one screaming outside our house in the spring.

Luckily this summer we have not seen the skunks we saw last year. The deer have been out some, but not as much, and I finally saw a couple squirrels, which is weird because we were commenting one day recently how we don’t see squirrels here in the more rural setting when we saw them all the time when we lived in a bigger town. So far we have not heard of the bear returning since it visited our neighbor at the end of the street. Yes, we consider the houses up and down the street our neighbors. *wink*

Last night (Saturday) was the annual Outhouse Races, which we attended as a family.

I wrote about the outhouse races last year.

They are held as a charity event for the local Lions Club.

What We watched/are Watching

Continuing the Summer of Paul this week I watched half of Cool Hand Luke yesterday. I hope to finish it later today or tomorrow.

I didn’t take the time to watch any of his other movies during the week since Little Miss was so clingy and in between her clinging I had to cook dinner and work some on my book and try to figure out reels on Instagram, which I finally gave up on.

I’ll have more thoughts about Cool Hand Luke and Rachel Rachel later in the week, but I will say that I didn’t like to see John Walton being treated so poorly in Cool Hand Luke. One of the men was portrayed by the same actor who played John Walton, the patriarch on The Waltons.

Wayne Rogers, who played McIntyre on Mash, was also in the movie, but of course I was watching it to see Mr. Blue Eyes himself.

The Boy and I watched Raising Arizona with Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunt Friday night. I had seen it years ago, but he had never seen it and really enjoyed it. Here is a trailer for those of you who haven’t seen it.

The Husband and I also watched another episode of Harry Wild with Jane Seymour. I didn’t enjoy that on as much as the first episode. Then we watched another Brokenwood Mysteries.

What I’m Writing

I have been adding quite a bit to Mercy’s Shore as more ideas for it are starting to flow.

This week on the blog I shared:


What I’m Listening To

I wish I could say I am listening to a lot of music, but I really haven’t been, other than Matthew West. I also listened to Matthew’s podcast last 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.