Sunday Bookends: Love for Miss Julia, more reading and less watching, and a New Zealand theme this week

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




What’s Been Occurring

Last Sunday we visited my parents, and my dad actually watched a movie with us, after he took the kids to their frozen pond to do some ice skating. Dad doesn’t usually sit in one place for a movie but he really enjoyed The Finest Hours with Chris Pine and Casey Affleck, which I mentioned I had watched last week. He barely moved from the spot on the couch. I had a feeling he might like this one based on his service in the Air Force, and while this movie didn’t deal with men in the Air Force, it did focus on men working together in a sort of branch of the military (the Coast Guard).

We will not be visiting my parents today because Little Miss and I caught a cold late last week. Friday and Saturday was spent blowing noses, drinking tea and her crying because her throat hurt so bad. I cried because I had a horrendous burning in my nose that results in my eye and nose pouring liquid. Lots of fun.

Before anyone asks, no, I don’t believe we have been re-infected with the dreaded virus. This definitely feels more cold-like and less bioweapon-like.

I figure we picked it up when I took Little Miss to her first gymnastics class on Monday. We had not left the house much before that, other than her weekly Awana class. Part of the reason we didn’t leave was the continuing weird Pennsylvania weather. It’s been cold and snowy and then rainy and warm. I’m waiting for it all to settle a little bit before we plan any major outings.

During the week we did schoolwork and I finished editing on Beauty From Ashes, then realized that I had not finished the final chapter. Sigh. So, while battling a burning nose that felt like it might explode, I worked on that on Saturday, so I can send the book out to my critique group and to a couple of editors this week to get it ready for the April 26 release date.

If you are interested in serving on the launch team for the Beauty From Ashes team, you can apply HERE. There isn’t a lot of commitment to this, other than agreeing to share about the book on your social media sites. Anyone on the launch team will receive an advanced copy of the book in digital form (via Bookfunnel).

In addition to writing and blowing my nose, I also watched what was unfolding in Ukraine with deep sadness. Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, wrote a beautiful post that sums up what I am sure many of us are feeling about this conflict.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I finished Miss Julia Renews Her Vows by Ann B. Ross yesterday. I will be reading more of the Miss Julia series. I really enjoyed the book. It was a type of cozy mystery.

Here is a description:


Everyone loves the irrepressible Miss Julia. Her latest triumph is getting Hazel Marie and J. D. Pickens to the altar before it becomes too obvious that they’re expecting twins! But why has Sam agreed that he and Julia will attend the odious Dr. Fowler’s marital enrichment sessions? Could Sam feel their flames need fanning? Meanwhile, this lady of a certain age must spring Etta Mae from jail when she’s wrongly accused of attacking Francie Pitts. With a fragrant felon to be caught- plus a wedding, babies, and a heaping dose of mischief-it’s fortunate for all that Miss Julia’s on the case.

This is the eleventh book in the series, so I plan to go find the first book in the series so I can start reading them in order.

My husband picked this and three others in the series up for me at a local library book sale.

I am in the middle of Every Star in the Sky by Sara Davison, which releases this week. Here is a description for that book:

She is willing to testify against her trafficker.
If she can stay alive that long.

“You’re safe here, Starr.”
How many times has Detective Cole Blacksky said that to her since helping her escape the life she’d been forced into eight years earlier?
Starr desperately wants to believe him, but she knows Brady Erickson, her former captor, too well. Although Cole has promised her protective custody on his family’s remote ranch, no place on earth is safe enough. Brady will stop at nothing to permanently silence her before she ever reaches the witness stand.
And he is powerful enough to do it.
If Starr wants to help the other women, she has no choice but to put herself in God’s hands. And Cole’s. But the longer she and Cole stay hidden, the more her life is at risk.
And her heart.


I finished His Road to Redemption by Lisa Jordan last night and hope to finish Sara’s book this week.

Once I finish her book, I will be delving further into Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz, which I opened to see if I would like it. I definitely like it and am anxious to get into it more.

Here is the description, but I am sure any Sherlock Holmes fans have an idea what it might be about:

Internationally bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s nail-biting new novel plunges us back into the dark and complex world of detective Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty—dubbed the Napoleon of crime” by Holmes—in the aftermath of their fateful struggle at the Reichenbach Falls.

Days after the encounter at the Swiss waterfall, Pinkerton detective agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York. Moriarty’s death has left an immediate, poisonous vacuum in the criminal underworld, and there is no shortage of candidates to take his place—including one particularly fiendish criminal mastermind.

Chase and Scotland Yard Inspector Athelney Jones, a devoted student of Holmes’s methods of investigation and deduction originally introduced by Conan Doyle in “The Sign of Four”, must forge a path through the darkest corners of England’s capital—from the elegant squares of Mayfair to the shadowy wharfs and alleyways of the London Docks—in pursuit of this sinister figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, who is determined to stake his claim as Moriarty’s successor.

A riveting, deeply atmospheric tale of murder and menace from one of the only writers to earn the seal of approval from Conan Doyle’s estate, Moriarty breathes life into Holmes’s dark and fascinating world.

The Boy started Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson this week and Little Miss and I are reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder (again).

What We watched/are Watching

I watched another episode of Brokenwood and really enjoyed it. It is a crime/mystery show set in New Zealand. The episodes are all about 90 minutes long, so it takes an investment each time we watch one.

I don’t really remember watching much else this past week. I tried to focus on reading and finishing the book instead. However, this next week I hope to lose myself in some stories, including The Sister Boniface Mysteries, which is a spin-off The Father Brown Mysteries on Britbox.

We did watch one episode of the latest season of Death in Paradise and it was okay, but that show has lost some of its appeal for me since they are on their fourth DI (detective inspector) and this is a tiny island but has one of the highest crime records I have ever seen.

What I’m Writing

As I mentioned above, I am finishing up all the edits for Beauty From Ashes.

After I send the book out to the critique group and editors, I will be taking a break and then I will start plotting book four and another novella I have an idea for.

I did not write any other posts on the blog this week because of working on the book and because of the cold.

I do have some ideas for blog posts this week and I hope to tackle them and actually getting them written. I should have more time for blog posts with the book finally finished.

What I’m Listening To

This week the husband turned me on to a new-to-me worship artist, Brooke, Ligertwood, who released her new album this past week. I have been listening to her and also to Mel Parsons from New Zealand who I found while watching Brokenwood. Watching the show and listening to her helpe me continue the New Zealand theme.



Now it’s your turn

So that is my week in review. How about you? What are you reading, writing, doing, listening to, yadda, yadda? Let me know in the comments and leave a link if you already do a post similar to this one.

Sunday Bookends: Pennsylvania may be menopausal, light reads, and Chris Pine’s bushy eyebrows

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

This week I read a book for a writer friend that she is releasing later this year. It is a second-chance romance and I enjoyed it. I’ll be sure to mention it again when it officially releases. The author is Milla Holt.

I’ve also been reading Miss Julia Renews Her Vows by Ann B. Goss and I am enjoying the light (very light) mystery and humor.

At night on the Kindle, I am reading His Road to Redemption by Lisa Jordan, who I am in a writing group with. She publishes through Harlequin’s Love Inspired books.

I might finish those books this week (doubt it) and if I do, I will be starting a romance by another author I’m in a writing group with and finishing a book for a book tour. That’s the plan anyhow, but like I told some writer/reader people this week, I have book ADD sometimes. I pick up a book to see if I like the first couple of paragraphs, get hooked, and forget about the other books I was reading.

Off and on, for a while anyhow, I will also be reading from The Mitford Bedside Companion by Jan Karon, which was a gift from the husband for Valentine’s Day.

The Hubby is reading Wolf Pack by CJ Box as I write this but will probably be done with it by the time it goes on the blog. Oh and he is done before I even finish the post so he is currently in between books.

The Boy finished A Long Walk to Water last week and will start Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson this week for literature.

Little Miss and I are reading Little House on the Prairie again. Sigh. Hopefully, she will let me move on to another book soon.

What’s Been Occurring

Pennsylvania went all Whatever Happened to Baby Jane on us this week by throwing in warm weather, arctic weather, rain, snow squalls, high winds, flooding, ice jams, and a small amount of sun. The fun will continue this week as the rumor is that we are going to be hit with another ice storm at the end of the week.

The snow that had been on the ground for the past two months or so melted all in one day, rushing to the rivers and creeks, but those rivers and creeks were full of ice, which broke up and jammed along the banks.

This photo was taken by my husband who texted it to me along with this photo:

with the caption, “the things I do for my job.”

Apparently, he walked across the ice jam to get this photo, which is just great and something I’m glad I didn’t know until after the fact or I would have been freaking out.

Little Miss and I spent Monday night at my parents, at the request of Little Miss, who wanted to spend the night but didn’t want to stay alone. We ate dinner, played a game called aggravation, and then Little Miss and her grandpa made pancakes together the next morning. It was a nice start to the week.

The view from my parents.

Saturday stuck the area in a holding pattern as snow squalls decided to slide in and out of the area, bringing spontaneous periods of white-out conditions for anyone out on the roads that would quickly be replaced with blue skies and bright sunshine.

The rest of the week after that was sort of all over the place due to the weather but also taking our dog to a vet appointment for her vaccinations and an unexpected dentist appointment for Little Miss that got moved up from March because they had an opening. I kept waiting for a day where I didn’t feel like my brain was being pulled several different directions but that didn’t seem to happen, especially after Tuesday when I learned a friend I had not had contact with in a while (for the reason that sometimes people drift apart and just don’t make contact as often as they used to) died in a house fire.

The friend would have been 80 this year. His wife died in 2018 and I thought he had moved to live closer to his daughter and grandson. Apparently, he had moved back to our area, and I didn’t even realize it. How awful is that? Not that he had ever contacted me either, but I still feel guilty. Seeing an old photo of him along with what remained of his home on the front of my husband’s paper was hard to see Thursday and I ended up falling into a deep depression for the rest of the week. I’m still there if I am going to be honest. It’s been a hard couple of months with losing friends and dealing with other hard things. Most of the time I was able to shove the sadness down, but Thursday I couldn’t seem to anymore and spent much of the evening breaking into sobbing fits for no reason.

Yesterday (or today as I am writing this) my husband and I planned to go out to dinner at a café near us and then visit the local library, which has a bookstore in the back, but my husband realized he’s been driving non-stop for work all week and was simply too mentally spent to go. Instead, we ordered food from one of the only restaurants in town, stayed home, and watched movies while the wind raged outside. We are hoping to take our trip out of town when spring comes.

A little update on the parosmia (this is when a person’s smell and taste is distorted from a virus, such as the nasty one we’ve been dealing with in the world the last two years, sometimes making food smell and taste rotten or like sewage) issue I asked for prayer for last week, or the week before: The smell remains for me on many days, but not all. Some foods are still off limit for me, including garlic, onion, (and any seasoning with those in it), and peanut butter (dear, Lord, the smell and taste of that for me is absolutely repulsive and it is the same for The Boy!). I can’t use my favorite Italian salad dressing on my salads because it has the same indescribable taste and smell and sometimes even meat has the taste and smell, though much milder than it did about two weeks ago. Last week was fairly good but today (or yesterday as you read this) was a bad day as a lot of the food I ate had that nasty flavor.

Thank you for the prayers and please pray for others also dealing with this, many of them with worse issues, to the point they can’t eat without throwing up from the stench and taste. This condition can also be caused by any virus, chemotherapy, and polyps, just for a little extra information (that you probably didn’t care about but may need to know in the future, though I hope not).

What We watched/Are Watching

It often takes me a couple of days to finish a movie if I am watching it on my own because I keep getting interrupted, which was the case with The Finest Hours, which I watched Thursday AND Friday of this past week. I watched it at the suggestion of Susan May Warren, an author who teaches for Novel Academy or My Book Therapy, a writing site I am a part of. If any of you read Christian fiction, especially Christian romance, then you have heard of Susie, as everyone who knows her calls her. I don’t know her that well so I just call her Susan. *wink*

Anyhow, I thought The Finest Hours was pretty good. It wasn’t the best but also wasn’t the worst. For the record, I enjoyed watching Casey Afleck more than I did Chris Pine. Never been a fan of Chris Pine’s bushy eyebrows. I know. So shallow of me. Seriously, though, Chris Pine really did well in this movie.

I watch most of my shows with my husband and he was very busy this week so we didn’t have time to sit and watch much of anything. We did watch an episode of the old show The Saint, with Roger Moore, and that was interesting since I had never seen the show before.

What I’m Writing

Thanks to the aforementioned Novel Academy, I finished the rough draft of Beauty From Ashes and am now working on edits. I say thanks to Novel Academy because the women from the group are now holding writing sprints each weekday morning and that encourages me to get moving and keep moving, on my writing projects.

Last week I also wrote a devotional for the group that is scheduled for February 28.

I didn’t write a lot here on the blog because I was working so much on editing the book and also tried to read more.

I did share a Faithfully Thinking and a Randomly Thinking post and two chapters from Beauty From Ashes (which is still called A New Chapter for the sake of the blog).

What I’m Listening To

This past week I didn’t listen to a lot of music, but I did listen to some Matthew West, who incidentally has a new song out.


Now it’s your turn

So that’s my week in review. How about you? What have you been watching, reading, doing, or listening to? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: I finished another book (it’s a miracle), cabin fever, rough draft finished


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 another book last week. It’s a miracle. I know.

It was The Cat Who Saw Stars and it was not one of Braun’s best at all.

I was very disappointed with the book because it meandered around, which she always does, but this book never got to the point of Qwill actually investigating anything. It was merely him visiting other people and judging contests and having odd things happen to him. The end of the book was one of the worst endings I have seen in a book as well. I’m guess this was one of her later books. She wrote 29, I believe, before she passed away and she must have been running out of ideas.

To cleanse my pallet this week, I am reading a Love Inspired romance by new-to-me author Lisa Jordan called The Road to Redemption. Love Inspired books are part of Harlequin’s inspirational romance line.

I also started a book by Sara Davison called Every Star in the Sky. It is a Christian Fiction book that deals with the topic of sex trafficking so I have a feeling I will need to take a break from this one a few times. I’m on the fifth chapter and it is very well written, but also a tough read. It is for a book tour so I have a deadline, but luckily it is a fairly long one.

After these two, there are a few books I hope to get to in March and April (but I’ll probably read only one because you know how slow I read), including:

Miss Julia Renews Her Vows by Ann B. Ross

The Reckoning Trees (which I have started) by Alicia Gilliam

Relative Silence by Carrie Stuart Parks

Until I Met You by Tari Farris

Cape Refuge by Terri Blackstock

But I also have books I am reading for book tours and author friends.

I will have to take some breaks from



What’s Been Occurring

This week the temperatures were terribly cold again in the beginning of the week, while we tried to chip our way out of the ice that fell the week before. Our driveway was a mess and I wasn’t able to go anywhere the whole week.

By the end of the week, the weather warmed up and things finally began to defrost some, clearing the driveway at least, but today the temps have dropped again, and we are once again in subzero temperatures. We are supposed to have a couple more days of this and then a slow warm up. My sinuses are just going to love the up and down temps. Ha. Ha.

This is what happens when your children have cabin fever. They stand in window frames and look like a scene from a horror movie.

My children are definitely having some cabin fever and sadly the only time they got out this week was to a memorial service for a good friend of our family’s. Ginger was 89 and quite a character. She and her husband Ernie were pianists who played beautiful music together. Ernie passed away in 2020 and she passed in January. She was originally from New York City and told some of the funniest stories. She was also very blunt, which created some hilarious situations. Honestly, she warrants an entire blog post so I should probably consider doing that for this week.

This week they will have another “exciting” outing when I have to drive 45 minutes north to take our dog to the vet for her annual vaccines. It will be in the town where we used to live, so my son will be excited to visit his old stomping grounds.

What We watched/are Watching

We started watching a new British comedy (new to us) called Ghosts and are hooked.  It is about a group of ghosts stuck in an old house who can’t leave, which is a real problem for the new owner, who inherited the house from a step-great-aunt.

It’s the main thing we’ve been watching, and I can’t actually think of anything else I watched this week because I was working so much on finishing my next book. Which brings me to . . .

What I’m Writing

I’ve been working all week on A New Chapter, which I have renamed Beauty From Ashes.

I’ve been writing for 2-3 hours a day during the week as part of writing sprints with the Novel Academy ladies, but, of course, with two children and a dog, I’m not able to actually write the full time. I’m usually interrupted every ten minutes or so to let a dog outside or feed a child. Why do children think they have to eat every day? Sheesh. It does get tiresome after a bit. Anyhoo  . . . despite all the interruptions, I was able to finish the rough draft and will start editing and fleshing out this week.

I also shared posts on the blog last week, including:

The many adventures we do and do not have in very cold weather.

You Are My Sunshine is not necessarily a ‘happy song’

Fiction Thursday: A New Chapter Chapter 21 Part 1

Fiction Friday: A New Chapter Chapter 21 Part 2

How to improve dialogue and capture your readers’ attention

Book Review: Freedom Crossing

What I’m Listening To

This week I listened to Matthew West, Johnny Cash, and a bit of Jack White to get through the week.

Now it’s your turn

So that is my week in review. How about you? What have you been reading, watching, listening to or doing? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: Ice, ice baby, finally finished that Longmire book, and earworms


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



What’s Been Occurring

Cold. Cold. Cold. That’s what it has been in our neck of the woods for over a month now with this past week still being cold and then having an ice storm thrown into the mix.

Little Miss and I managed to make it 12 miles to get our hair cut before the ice storm set in on Thursday evening into Friday.

We woke up Friday morning with our trees, driveway, and many other things encased in ice. Unlike other ice storms where the ice melted during the day when the sun came out, there was no sun after this ice storm and the temps dropped even more over Friday night into Saturday, leaving us still encased in ice, with no sign of warmer temperatures for a couple of days. Saturday’s high was 16. Yikes.

The ice did make for some fun photographs, most of which I took with my iphone because my regular camera wasn’t happy with trying to capture close up photos. Mainly because I don’t own a micro lens and my nifty fifty was struggling to focus on the frozen drips of water.

The Boy was quite thrilled that he could run across the surface of the snow from our back porch and up the hill toward our garden shed late Friday evening when the temps had dropped around 14. Yesterday morning the temperature started at about 3 degrees and rose slightly while my husband chipped his car out of its parking space since none of us thought about the snow and ice freezing around the tires after he parked. He traveled to pick us up a grocery order about 45 minutes away, because that’s how far away we are from anywhere that offers grocery pick-up.

Before he did that, he started the fire in the woodstove and while he was out in the cold forging for food, I was in the warm house reading books and occasionally breaking up arguments about who would have the privilege of holding the Elsa doll and playing her for the “movie” Little Miss and her friends were creating during an impromptu playdate. They didn’t have a camera, so it wasn’t really a movie. It was more like a play.

Either way, I let them know that none of them should want to be Elsa because she was the real bad guy in the first movie anyhow. I mean, think about it, the woman froze an entire village in, causing a near economic collapse of the region. The village, serving as a commerce port, most likely supplied fish and fresh food to many other villages in a 50-mile radius so when Elsa had her little hissy fit, she threatened not only the livelihoods of the people in the village but also the lives of the people who relied on the village for their food.

“It wasn’t her fault!” little voices cried, horrified that I would suggest Elsa was the bad guy in it all. “She couldn’t control her powers.”

I swiftly mocked them. “It wasn’t her fault. Wawawa! It was. Get over it. She was evil.”

They eventually decided I was picking on them (I was not) and moved on to my suggestion that they all pretend to be in a Barbie girl band so they all could sing together at the same time.

(If you are new to my blog, please realize I use sarcasm a lot. I didn’t actually mock young children. I just joked with them. *wink*

Today promises more freezing temperatures and while I would prefer not to venture out, we will most likely go have lunch with my parents and maybe watch a movie before we come home like we did last week when we watched Song of the Thin Man, the last of the Thin Man movies with Myrna Lloyd and William Powell.

 After that, I have no plans to leave the house, but I am sure that at some point I will have to.

I know many of you who read my blog pray so I would ask that you say an extra prayer for me and The Boy. We lost our sense of taste and smell with Covid and while most of it came back from me, it has been much slower for The Boy. Now he and I both seem to be developing parosmia. This is where smell and taste is distorted and many things begin to smell and taste rotten. Please pray that this does not progress for us as it has for other Covid-19 survivors.

Right now peanut butter and garlic smell like a chemical to me and peanut butter tastes like one. My son is having the same issue with peanut butter, oddly. I’m trying to stay calm about it all and I do have some natural options we can try, so I ask that you pray for them to work. I’m especially worried about my son as he has already had stomach issues off and on over the years. From what I understand, this condition gets worse over time, not better for a while anyhow.

What I/We Are Reading

I did it. I finally finished The Dark Horse, the fifth book in the Longmire Mysteries series.  The series is great, and I love Craig Johnson’s writing, so the quality of the book wasn’t why it took me so long to finish it. I took so long because of being sick with Covid and then not being interested in dark stories while I was recovering for the month of December.

Up this week I hope to finish The Cat Who Saw Stars by Lilian Jackson Braun and continue The Reckoning Trees by Alicia Gilliam. I also started Miss Julia Renews Her Vows by Ann B. Ross to see what it is like and I’m hooked, so The Reckoning Trees might get bumped down. I’m not sure yet. I usually read a hard copy of one book during the day and the Kindle at night after I am in bed so I may read Miss Julia and The Reckoning Trees at the same time, after I finish The Cat Who book. Not that any of you care so I have no idea why I am sharing all that! Ha!

Little Miss and I have already read The Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder but we are set to read it again since it is part of our history/literature curriculum this week. I told her we didn’t need to read it again but she said she wanted to. It also reminded her how much she liked the Little House series so now she has asked me to read the second book in the series to her again. I’d prefer to keep reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle but if she likes Little House on the Prairie, we will read it again.

The Boy will probably finish A Long Walk to Water this week.

What We’ve Been Watching/Watched

I read more than I watched this week but I did watch, for some unknown reason, Runaway Bride, which I think is both sweet and awful at the same time. Richard Gere sort of irritates me. In every movie he just plays Richard Gere. Arrogant and cocky with a pout. But that’s just my opinion.

The Boy and I watched a couple of episodes of Longmire. Yes, I realize it’s like we have a theme going on in our house this week.

The husband and I watched the pilot episode of Fringe. I don’t know if I will watch more of that one. Science Fiction isn’t really my thing as much as it is for my husband


What I’m Writing

I have been working on getting to the end of A New Chapter’s first draft and hope to have it done by the end of this week. Every morning last week I wrote for 2-3 hours with a group of writers from Novel Academy. We participated in writing sprints that last about fifty minutes each.

I have not been writing as much on the blog, but hope to remedy that as soon as this first draft is finished. I will have to work on the second draft and editing, but that won’t be as time consuming as writing the first draft is.

What I’m Listening To

Ah man. This week I got an ear worm stuck in my head and couldn’t get it out.

Here it is for you, so you can also get it stuck in your head:

Then you can also listen to this other earworm by them:

The rest of the week I listened to a lot of Mumford and Sons and The Dead South while I worked on my book.

I sort of liked The Dead South’s version of You Are My Sunshine, a song my aunt used to sing to me and my son. If you actually listen to the song, it’s not a very happy one, so the happy version of the song is a little bit of a juxtapose I suppose you might say. A family member told me the band murdered the song with this version, but I thought the interpretation was creative.

 I also listened to quite a bit of Brandon Lake, especially this song:

Then I introduced my son to Vanilla Ice and he was horrified.


Now it’s your turn

So that is my week in review. How about you? What have you been doing, reading, watching, writing, or listening to? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: Sliding in the snow, rocking out, husband says to stop reading more than one book at a time? Wha-?

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


What I’m Reading

This week I finished The Rhise of Hope by Max Sternberg (a Christian fantasy book) and Still the One by Susan May Warren and Rachel D. Russell (a romance).

Next up is to finish the fifth book in the Longmire Series, The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson.

I’ve also started The Reckoning Trees: A Seth Browne Novel, Book One by Alicia Gilliam and will finish it after I finish The Dark House because my husband told me last week after he read my blog, “One book at a time, honey! One book at a time.” Sigh. He reads one book at a time and then another and another and another until he’s read like 100 in a year. I’m a much slower reader who often gets distracted by other books.

Little Miss and I finished Freedom Crossing this week for her history/literature and I will be sharing a review of it here on the blog later this week. We also finished Emily’s Runaway Imagination by Beverly Cleary and started The Mouse and the Motorcycle also by Beverly Cleary.

The Boy is still reading A Long Walk to Water.



What’s Been Occurring

This past week provided even more cold weather. I can’t remember a winter this cold in a long time. I didn’t want to leave the house at all but on Friday Little Miss and I had a hair appointment. I woke up to surprise snow, which annoyed me to no end. I hoped it was only a dusting and the plow trucks would come through before I had to leave in the afternoon but apparently they were just as surprised because the roads were not clear when I prepared to leave.

I often have to rely on others to get me places, either because I’m nervous about driving or have some weird health thing going on. I was determined, though, to do this on my own so I backed our van down our very steep driveway, onto the snow-covered street, and hoped the road I was going to be driving on to would be better.

It was not.

Not at all.

It was covered in snow and a thin layer of what looked like sleet. I carried on, hoping the road would get better.

It did not.

My dad had offered to take me and Little Miss in his truck, but he’d already had a busy morning and, like I said above, I wanted to do this on my own and not bother others. There comes a point though when trying to be brave becomes succeeding in being stupid and that point came when I hit the county line and saw the road was even worse the further I went. I finally pulled off and found enough cell service to call the salon and apologize because I knew the roads where they weren’t as bad.

You see, where I live is like a whole different world than the next county over. You can drive three miles south and the roads are only wet, while the roads in my town are covered in a couple inches of snow. You can be at my parents’ house and they have a dusting of snow and drive to my house and we have a foot. Okay, no, it’s not usually that extreme, but still — it’s a little weird.  

The woman who answered my call at the salon said she lived near me, so she totally understood the circumstances. One minute the road can be clear, the next covered in snow or ice.

So, I turned around and headed back home. We drove the half-mile and then it was time for me to go up our street so I could pull our van up the driveway. I usually go around to the other end of our street so I can pull the car in at a straight angle.

I forgot, however, how steep that end is so as I headed up, my van decided it would stop at the top of the hill of it and then slide back down. I shifted the van into low gear and hit the accelerator before it could slide very far and inched the car up to the flat part of the street.

That took about thirty seconds and when we hit that flat spot, I knew we were fine to make it the rest of the way down the street. The next task was the driveway, and I floored it but didn’t make it.

For reference, here is our driveway looking down, pictured last winter:

It’s a challenge even without snow

The car started sliding backward toward the street. Little Miss decided she didn’t want to be in the van when I tried it again so she requested (demanded) to be released so she could walk up the driveway to the house.

After two more tries and lot of accelerator pushing, (during which I hoped I didn’t destroy my engine), I managed to pull the van back into the garage, where it will sit until the driveway is free of snow and ice.

So, I didn’t accomplish getting to the hairdresser on my own, but I did accomplish getting the van back into the driveway despite the snow and ice. It was a small victory, but I took it.

What I’m Watching

My husband and I watched the last episodes of Lovejoy and to say I was disappointed in the last episode is an understatement. I can’t remember my exact words when it ended but it was something like, “Are you serious?! That’s it! Six seasons and that’s how they end it?”

Suffice it to say, I was not impressed and felt like the ending was a total cop-out. My husband reminded me that we can always go back and rewatch the beginning but somehow it doesn’t feel the same knowing that ended in such a depressing way. I would still recommend the series since it was very entertaining, but it did not end the way I hoped it would.

What I’m Writing

I have been participating in writing sprints with the writers at Novel Academy (a writing school of sorts) for the last two weeks. We meet in a “room” on Facebook, chat for ten minutes, share what we are going to work on and then go and write for 50 minutes. We return at the end and report how we did and then we do it again, up to four times if the host is able to and if we want to continue our writing for the day.

Thanks to these sprints I have marched on toward the end of A New Chapter’s first draft and I hope to finish it by the end of this week, or next at the latest. After that I will go back and edit and fix plot holes or errors or maybe even rewrite entire scenes or chapters. We will see.

At this point, my release date has been set for April 26. I’m excited for my readers to read the story in its entirety with all the changes or additions made (and there are going to be at least two new scenes that were not shared in the chapters I shared here). I have also narrowed the choices down for the book cover and think I will go with this one:

Last week on the blog:

 I shared a review of the book Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour;

Shared my random thoughts;

And shared a new chapter of A New Chapter (ha!)

What I’m Listening to

This week I enjoyed relaxing and writing while listening to a Jack White concert:

and then his new song:

Then I slipped into some White Stripes,

Mumford and Sons,

And then The Lumineers:


I know. Quite different for me. Don’t worry, I still love my Christian artists and worship music, and, of course, Needtobreathe.

Mac Powell, the lead singer from Third Day has a new album coming out so I’ll probably be listening to that this week.


Now it’s your turn

So that’s my week in review. How was yours? What are you reading, watching, doing, listening to, writing and all that jazz? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: Subzero temps, crazy night driving, scattered reading, and pushing deadlines

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

What’s Been Occurring

I did very little again this week thanks to the ridiculously cold temperatures. On Saturday morning our weather app said the temperature was negative 15 at 5 a.m. By 8 a.m. it had warmed all the way up to negative nine. Similar cold temperatures are expected this week as well. I don’t have plans to run around anywhere because we missed two days of school last week. One day we drove to get my son’s hair cut (finally!!! After a year of him refusing to get his hair cut) and another day my daughter spent a day with her friends. Those were the two days I left the house. The second coldest day of the week was when I took my daughter to meet her friends. The roads I travel to get there are very narrow for most of the drive.

The main road I take doesn’t have yellow lines and has me gripping the steering wheel and tensing my buttock cheeks almost the entire way. Driving it during the day is stressful, but at night it is even worse because the lights from the oncoming cars are blinding and there is no room to move over to give the other car space and get away from those lights. After the trip in the dark where I worried I was going to have a head-on collision, I told my husband he can do the night pick-ups from now on. He’s used to the road because he drives it every day, twice a day, for work.

To top it off, when I hit the bottom of a hill and parked at my old high school to meet my friend to pick up my daughter, the heat stopped working in our van. The thermometer read 12 degrees and we had no heat for the drive home. That’s what I thought anyhow but with a little fiddling, the heat came back on, thank God. We made it home and I promptly announced I was not leaving the house until March.

Of course, that won’t hold, I’ll have to visit my parents, but beyond that — I am not leaving my house until March. *wink*.

What I’m Reading

I’m enjoying Still The One by Susan May Warren and Rachel D. Russell and might finish it this week. I plan to finish The Rhise of Hope, this week and share a review at the end of the week.

I had put The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson on hold to finish Max’s book, but I’d love to get back to that book before the end of the week. I love Johnson’s writing style.

I also hope to start Cape Refuge by Terri Blackstock next week, but first I have a Carrie Stuart Parks book I really want to finish, that I just remembered this week I had put aside because of some heavy subject matter. I wasn’t feeling heavy that particular week.

Little Miss and I are reading Emily’s Runaway Imagination by Beverly Cleary before bed and Freedom Crossing a few times during the week for school.

The Boy is reading A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park for school.

The husband is reading Dark Matter by Blake Crouch.

What I’m Watching

This week we watched reruns of The Jeffersons and Night Court.  We watched another episode of Lovejoy and are three episodes away from the end.

I reluctantly watched Spaceballs with my son and hate to even admit that.

I’d never seen it before and now I’m wishing I could still say that.

I also watched a couple of episodes of The Cleaner, a BBC show about a crime scene cleaner. It’s a mix of funny, sad, and touching with a bit of gore tossed in once in a while.

What I’m Writing

I’m in serious first draft mode for A New Chapter and hope to finish it by early or mid-February so I can start the second draft and then send it out to my critique group. I always say “second draft” but really I edit as I go in my books at times, so it’s probably more like a third or fourth draft. I have not gone back and reworked this book as much as past books and that’s because I lost a month from being sick and because I’m determined to get the draft done and then start gutting it. I tentatively have set up April 26th as the release date for the book.

I didn’t share much on the blog last week because I didn’t have any ideas. I have a couple of ideas for this week, so I’ll probably share a little more.

I did share another chapter of A New Chapter for Fiction Friday. If you’re waiting until the entire book is done to read it, that’s totally fine. I mainly post the chapters for the couple of readers who are following around, with the caveat that the story could change by the time I publish it.

What I’m Listening To

This week I listened a lot to the soundtrack of The Greatest Showman, especially at the end of the week when I had to do a lot of driving. On the way home from dropping Little Miss off at her friends I became a Broadway singer – even attempting to act out the scenes, but finally decided that was a bad idea considering the twists and turns of the road I was on.

Now It’s Your Turn

So that’s my week in review, how about you? What have you been reading, listening to, watching, or doing lately? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to know. Definitely share any good books you are reading.


Sunday Bookends: Cold weather, saying goodbye to a kitty friend, and a little too much TV

Welcome to my Sunday Bookends where I look back at the previous week and share what I’ve been reading, watching, writing, and listening to.

What’s Been Occurring

It has been very, very cold here in Pennsylvania so we did not leave our house much at all this past week.

In other words, I have very little to report and nothing exciting to write about as far as what’s been going on.

The cold weather will continue this week with a snowstorm tonight into tomorrow. We’ve heard every amount from four to 18 inches so I don’t know what we will get in the end.

One thing that did happen this week isn’t something I really want to write about. My brother and sister-in-law said goodbye to their 15-year-old cat Seamus because his health had deteriorated to the point he was suffering. It placed a cloud of sadness over the whole family because Seamus really was a part of our family.

We will miss him very much. He was such a character. He snuggled with my sister-in-law every morning and also climbed up for naps with both of them. He could be a little stinker when he wanted his treats, smacking at my brother’s ankles or feet, or knocking things over to get attention, but most of the time he was a sweetheart (plus I found it funny that he harassed my brother).

What I’m Reading

I am setting Anne of Avonlea aside for a bit, but will probably read a couple of chapters a day. It’s a very simple, everyday story and I just like to escape inside its pages as a little bit of a respite.

I’m still reading the fifth book in the Longmire series and finished a novella by Jenn Knipfer called Holly’s Homecoming.

Upcoming are a couple of romance books as I try to figure out if I should write a couple of romances for Kindle Vella to try to earn some extra money.

I wish I had more time to read, honestly. My mom keeps borrowing really good books from Kindle Unlimited (which by the way, you can now borrow 20 books at a time) but she breezes through them before I even finish one.


What We’re Watching

Because of the cold weather, we’ve been watching a lot more TV.

My husband and I have been watching The Café, a sweet, quirky British show on BritBox (Amazon) in the last couple of weeks. It’s about a woman who owns a café, her daughter who is trying to make it as a writer and all the quirky characters that surround them.

It has been a nice escape.

We also started Brokenwood Mysteries, which we really liked.



We tried one episode of The Cleaner, which was super weird but somehow endearing. It’s about a man who cleans up crime scenes. I’m hoping we can watch more but we also have to finish up Lovejoy, which we are on the last (sixth) season of.

I also watched a couple episodes of Know Your Roots on the PBS Living Channel on Amazon. It’s a show where they follow the roots of famous people because, you know, we need to know even more about famous people. I watched an episode with Rosanne Cash and Clint Black and another one with George R.R. Martin and Andy Samberg. They were both very interesting.

I think this was the most TV I’ve watched in a long time. It’s supposed to be cold again all this week, but I hopefully will be reading and writing more than watching TV.

What I’m Writing

I’ve been writing blog posts and working on A New Chapter, which I hope to release in late April/early May.

On the blog I shared:

Faithfully Thinking: The need for us all to show more grace and less judgment

Randomly Thinking: Honest homeschoolers, friendly only in winter, overused book tropes

God Is My Hiding Place. Book review and giveaway with JustRead Book Tours

Fiction Friday: A New Chapter Chapter 16

Educationally Speaking

So that’s my week in review. What have all of you been up to, reading or watching? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: sleepovers, no word of the year, and starting back school this week

Welcome to my weekly post where I share what I’ve been doing, reading, watching, listening to and writing.

What’s Been Occurring

I looked back at my posts from last year in search of my “one word” for 2021, but apparently, I had no interest in a “word of the year” last year. Instead, I said I planned to “just survive.” I’d say that fit perfectly for my 2021 and that became even more clear in November when I caught COVID and ended up in the hospital. My year ended with a bang I guess you would say.

I haven’t picked a word for 2022 either and I think I might leave it that way and just see what happens. As I wrote last year:

Here we are in a new year and — yeah.

That’s all I got. No big goals for me this year.

No big plans.

My goal is simply to survive, while also having some fun.

If that sounds like I’m depressed, don’t worry. I’m not. I’m simply going to take it day by day this year, which is something positive that 2020 taught me.

And something that 2021 taught me too. I think I’ll do the same thing for 2022. Just take it day by day.

We had a very laid back, boring week last week in some ways.

My husband and I went out to dinner, which was my first outing since having Covid. It was a very nice time at a local restaurant we had never been to before. We had planned to travel about an hour from our house to visit a local bar and grill, but thick fog turned us around. We were glad to have found a little treasure of a bar and grill half an hour from us instead.

Earlier in the week, we ended up having an impromptu sleepover with three teenage boys when The Boy had a couple of friends over Tuesday and then we ended up with an ice storm and couldn’t drive the boys home.

That was an interesting experience which mainly involved them sitting on the couch with their phones, sharing bizarre memes, and punching each other. I’ve known all the boys since they were very young so it is a little surreal to see how much they’ve grown with the oldest now being 16.

On New Year’s Eve, we had another impromptu sleepover with one of Little Miss’s friends. It was the first sleepover for both of them, which may be why Little Miss’s friend woke up at 3 a.m. crying for mommy and would take no one else. My friend ended up driving over to meet my husband at 3:15 a.m. at our local high school so the little girl could go home.

 I wish I could have thought of an idea to help her work through her fear so she could stay until morning but it’s been eight years since my son had sleepovers (besides the teenage ones where the boys don’t normally cry for mom) so I’m rusty on all the tricks to help make little ones feel comfortable.

Tomorrow we start school again, which I am sure neither child is looking forward to. I’m somewhat looking forward to it, though, because it means we will be getting back into a routine.

What I’m Reading

I am currently reading Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery, part of the Anne of Green Gables series. I guess that will be my first book of the new year. I could read the book on my Kindle, but somehow I feel these books need to be read as an actual book I can hold.

At night in my Kindle, I am reading the fifth book in the Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson, The Dark Horse.

Little Miss and I are reading the last book in the Little House on the Prairie series at night before she falls asleep.

The Boy is reading a Terry Pratchett book.

What I’m Watching

This past week I watched a lot of Would I Lie To You, a hilarious game show in the UK, where the contestants read a statement and the other team has to guess if the statement is a lie or not. It has been a fun distraction.

I also watched some of The Durrells in Corfu and my husband and I watched a lot of Lovejoy. We are now on the last season of Lovejoy. *sniff*

What I’m writing

I actually haven’t been writing but I hope to write more this week. I have so many issues with this latest book and pretty much want to toss it but I am trying to push through and at least finish the first draft.

What I’m Listening To

I haven’t been just sitting and listening to anything but I hope to this week because my husband bought me an awesome record player that is also a CD player, radio, cassette player, and has Bluetooth. He also brought all of our CDs down from the attic and we were shocked to see how many we had when they filled an entire bookcase.

So that’s my week in review, how about you? What are you reading, watching, or doing? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: preparing books for 2022, movies about singing fishermen, and slow progress but it’s progress!

Welcome to my week in review blog post where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, watching, writing, doing and sometimes what I’ve been listening to.

 

What I’ve Been Reading

 

My goal this week is to read a lot more but this week I read Saving Mrs. Roosevelt and started The Mistletoe Countess by Pepper Basham.

 

I have a Cat Who mystery I started the day I went into the hospital with Covid but I couldn’t get my brain to settle for obvious reasons so I never continued it. I’d like to make some progress on that these next couple of weeks the kids and I are on holiday break.

 

Other books I am looking forward to reading in the new year include:

 

The Rhise of Hope by Max Sternberg

 

A couple of Hercules Poirot books

 

Maggie’s Strength by Pegg Thomas

 

Relative Silence by Carrie Parks

 

Crooked House by Agatha Christie

 

Thunder and Rain by Charles Martin

 

The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson (more of the Longmire Mysteries. I have about 12 more books to read in the series)

 And many more I haven’t even listed.

 

 

I am also not one of those people who talks about how many books I read in a year. It is hard for me to keep track because my mom and I share a kindle account and she reads some 200 books a year. I have to go through and figure mine out compared to hers and it is very time consuming.

 

 

What I’ve Been Watching

 

Last week I watched a movie called Fisherman Friends, which I found on Amazon. It was exactly what I needed right now. It is the story of a group of fishermen in England who sang what are called sea shanties in their small town and were overheard by a music executive who decided he wanted to sign them to a deal.

 

The movie is based on a true story and follows the journeys of the men and the beginning of their careers.

Other than that I have been watching mainly comedians and my husband and I watched a couple of episodes of Lovejoy.

 

What I’ve Been Writing

 

Last week I shared two chapters of A New Chapter and shared a blog post about my roommate in the Covid wing  at the hospital and her positive outcome.

 

What I’ve been listening to

 

I have gotten a bit hooked on Matthew West of late so I have been listening to him at night or other times. He is a Christian musician and he also has a podcast.

 

 

What’s Been Occurring

I am slowly recovering from Covid and was encouraged this week to find many others dealing with the internal vibrating as a left over side effect. Some of these people have had this happen with other viruses like I did and we are wondering if this could be autoimmune or neurological or reactivating past infections. It has been a relief to read that while anxiety can make it worse it isn’t only anxiety or in our heads. Even those who do not have a history of anxiety are dealing with it.

Either way we are all sharing things (supplements, medicine, exercise, etc.) that are helping, even if only to take the edge off a little bit. For me CBD oil helps immensely so I am anxiously waiting for a delivery of some high quality oil this week.

I still have not ventured from the house on my own since my doctor appointment at the beginning of the month, mainly because the vibrating often gets worse the more I move and I don’t want to have a spell of them when I am out with the kids or even when alone.

I truly do believe things will even out soon with the odd symptoms and I will be able to do things on my own. I am discouraged but not desolate or hopeless, which reminds me of 2 Corinthians 4:8-12: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”

We are all excited for Christmas next weekend. The kids have a couple days of homeschool and then a week and a half off. We will spend Christmas Day with my parents and maybe see other family (my brother and his wife) in the beginning of January depending on work schedules.

 So that is my week in review. How about you? How did last week go for you? What are you reading and watching etc? Let me know in the comments.