Tag: week in review

Sunday bookends: Missing the familiar, I finally finished a book and observations since moving into our new home

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends13 Comments

It’s weird how I keep waiting for this new house to feel familiar when I know it will take a long time for it to happen. Oddly, it does feel somewhat like “home” already and did as soon as we moved in two weeks ago. I don’t miss the town we left, but I do miss the house and the familiarity of the neighborhood. I miss my tub that was bigger and how cozy our small bathroom used to feel.

I miss looking out my backdoor and seeing my neighbor’s house, knowing she’s in there being awesome, because she is. I miss that I could walk next door with a treat for her (though I wish I had done that more now) and she would tell me some hilarious story about her friends (she called one Divorced Debby), her trips to the local casino and her morning swims at the YMCA 30 minutes away. And I miss that sometimes when we were outside in the yard she would talk to me from her bedroom window and she would assure me that I will survive perimenopause and she’d had a lot of the symptoms I am experiencing when I was her age. Let’s be honest, I just miss her.

I miss being close to larger stores and larger playgrounds, but I don’t miss the cliques that were so prevalent where we used to live. I don’t miss driving by old houses where loved ones once live but no longer do or driving by the part of the local cemetery where so many young people were buried. I’m definitely glad to be closer to my parents and in a more rural area too.

Some things I have observed since moving here:

  1. I have failed as a mother because my son has no idea the difference between a washcloth and a hand towel.

“Oh my gosh! It’s like Grandma with the spoons!” To explain, my son sets the table when we go to my parents for lunch on Sundays and he sets the table with the soup spoons, which are larger, instead of the regular dinner spoons, which are smaller. The fact he still doesn’t know the difference cracks us up and the fact we even care what size the spoons are drives him insane. “They’re spoons! Who cares!”

So when he came back from upstairs with a washcloth for me to put in our tiny bathroom on the towel rack (emphasis on the word towel) I stared at him and thought, “My Lord, I’ve never taught my son what a hand towel is. What kind of a mother am I?” So I explained to him that a hand towel is larger than a washcloth, therefore making it easier to dry your hands on. His response? “Who cares?! You can still dry your hands on it!”

Anyhow, have I mentioned my son is a teenager now?

2. Speaking of our tiny bathroom, this room has started to become one of my favorite places to be.

No, it’s not one of my favorite rooms for any reason related to digestive issues I may or may not have (not, thankfully). It’s a favorite of mine because it’s small, quiet and no one can find me. The hum of the fan built into the light also drowns out the sound of whining children, barking dogs, the yowling cat or the husband asking if I’ve unpacked the rest of the clothes yet. I won’t deny I go in there with my phone, with the plan to sit there for a long while, though that plan often falls through and I end up coming out to the sound of a little voice asking “Mooooom? Where are you?”

3. I’ve have spent almost 18 years of marriage without a breadbox or a butter dish. And that is sad. I got one this week in the mail and just ordered the other. Thank you to my friend Jonica (isn’t that an awesome name?) who told me about this butter dish:

I can’t wait to try it out and officially have a butter dish (even though I don’t use that much butter since I no longer eat bread. I can put it on baked potatoes, though!).


4. I know I am officially old because the most exciting thing that happened to me this week was that I bought a breadbox and a vacuum cleaner. Not only was the vacuum cleaner exciting but I looked forward all day to using it and when it appeared I would have to go to bed before I used it, I made everyone stay up late so I could use it. I know. It’s so sad. I recognize this.

5. All of the windows in this house are crank windows. Every last one, which means it will be very hard to put air conditioners in the windows and we will be very hot most of the summer. Or it means we will call someone to replace some of our windows soon.

I finally finished Falling For You by Becky Wade, which was the second book in The Bradford Sister’s series. Each book of the series focuses on a different sister. The first book focuses on Nora, the second on Willow, and the third on Britt. And, of course, each sister has their own love story. I just started the third book in the series, Sweet on You this weekend. True to You is the first book in the series. Each book includes a romance and a little bit of a mystery. They are clean/Christian fiction and very well written.

I also read a chapter a night of About Your Father by Peggy Rowe. As I told her on her Facebook page, reading one chapter a night is like unwrapping a special gift at the end of a long day.

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712VW7RcmDL._RI_Because I want to start a garden, I’ve been watching a show from Ireland called Grow, Cook, Eat. I’m learning a lot about planting, harvesting and cooking various vegetables, but I’m also developing the weird habit of speaking in an Irish accent. We visited our local greenhouse Saturday and my daughter chose a Begonia, which I proceeded to pronounce the name of in a thick Irish accent. In public. So…yeah..there is a downside for those around me to me binge-watching an Irish show. Unfortunately for them, I’m going to watch it again this week as I try to decide the best way to take care of the flowers and the herbs I bought until I can figure out where I’m going to plant them.

I did learn this week that the garden space we have practically floods during heavy rainfall so I am considering building raised garden beds, which for someone whose thumb is more black than green (I kill plants. Remember?), is pretty ambitious, if not insane. Still, I would like to at least try to build them and plant in them and see what develops.

I also watched a movie called Juliet and Rodeo on Amazon that I thought was going to be totally horrible, but it actually wasn’t that bad. The acting was pretty authentic, less like lines being delivered, and more organically done. It’s about a romance writer who goes back to her father’s ranch to sell it after he dies. She goes back to her past (of course) and brings her daughter who meets a handsome young man and, you know, conflict and love ensues. It was a nice distraction from other things this week.

Getting out of the house Saturday was definitely needed and we enjoyed our trip to a small greenhouse about ten minutes from our house that has been run by a local family for the last 45 years or so. I’ll be writing about that trip in a separate blog post later this week. I picked up a hanging basket for my mom for Mother’s Day because I had a feeling I wouldn’t actually get it done next week. I am surprised at myself but I didn’t even take a photo of the basket before I dropped it off at their house on the way back from the greenhouse.

I did take a few photos at the greenhouse of my daughter dressed up as Elsa (side note: I can not take watching Frozen II one more time! NOT. ONE. MORE. TIME.)

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So what have all you been up to this week? Reading or watching anything good? Let me know in the comments!

Sunday Bookends: Things I’m already sick of, new house, new books.

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends13 Comments

For those who are following along, we moved into our new house this past week and though it’s only been a few days we somehow feel almost at home already. Sure, there are some days everything feels a little weird and surreal, maybe even a bit disorienting because the house and the neighborhood are new to us. For the most part, though, we are settling in well. It probably helps that we are 10 minutes from the house I grew up in and the house where my parents live now (which was actually my grandmother’s house when I was growing up.)

In a lot of ways, this house has features I’ve always wanted in a house, including a tiny bathroom. You know what I mean, right? One of those bathrooms that are so small it’s equally cute and claustrophobic-inducing? Yeah, I have one now. Just one tiny door, one toilet, and a tiny sink and no windows. Cooool. Yeah, I know, I’m weird. I’d take a photo of it for you but .  . . uh, it’s tiny. I did take a photo of the cool wallpaper and decor though. I love how the people who owned this house before decorated.

We also have a gorgeous staircase, which I’ve always wanted, a banister my kids can slide down, large windows with beautiful light in the living and dining rooms, a wide-open kitchen, a front porch we can sit on (complete with a porch swing) and one of the best things is that there is a small space in our backyard for a garden.

Oh, and I now have this fridge that has a digital setting on the outside and on the inside, the light slowly brightens when you open it. Yes. Little things like that excite me. I know. It’s sad.

I’ve had almost no time for reading with unpacking, calling heating oil companies and the propane company and then weeping slightly on Friday when the snow started to fall. Yes! Snow. About three inches of the yucky, cold, white stuff. I was in denial, rocking in a corner when it started. I was also getting yelled at in an email by our mortgage broker because I didn’t give her a positive review in the survey her boss sent me. Yeah. That was fun.

I started About Your Father by Peggy Rowe last week but literally got two pages in before I fell asleep, not because it is boring but because I was so tired that day from all the moving and getting adjusted. I can’t wait to read more of it this upcoming week.

I haven’t been able to work on my books at all with everything going on and just as it started to settle down my computer died. Luckily the stimulus money will help me buy a new one (and luckily my son is letting me use his to write my blog posts until it arrives.) Maybe I will actually get to finish Chapter 3 in Fully Alive next week and hopefully Chapter 4 in The Farmer’s Daughter. Who even knows at this point.

I’ve been posting some on my blog, but I won’t lie: I’m not reading a lot of blogs. Part of the reason for this is there has been no time with the move and all the drama that has gone with it. The other reason is I’m flat out of sick of talking about You Know What and I don’t read many posts where other people are talking about it.

I’m tired of sappy “we’ve got to stay strong” posts (even if I understand and agree) and posts that regurgitate facts that aren’t even facts because the “facts” change every single day. One day it’s “don’t wear masks they don’t help.” Less than a week later: “Wear a mask or you’ll die!” In PA it’s now: “Wear a mask or you’ll go to jail.” So, yeah, that roller coaster has been “fun.”

I’m already sick of the term “social distancing,”, DIY face masks tutorials, Facebook posts lecturing people, blog posts lecturing people, family members lecturing other family members (no, not in my family, don’t worry. This isn’t a veiled comment against my family!) and Americans seeming really, really happy being told what to do and what not to do. I did, however, enjoy this Youtube video that was not your traditional DIY facemask tutorial.

 


I had to run to the Dollar General yesterday when my husband forgot his wallet. The plan was to meet him outside but he wasn’t outside when I got there so I had to grab a face mask and head on in to find him. It was so apocalyptic in there with people all walking around with masks, glaring at each other. There was one couple without masks, violating the signs on the doors that stated the governor has made it mandatory to wear masks in the store, smirking at everyone else. I wasn’t sure if I should be mad at them or not, since, like I said, the recommendations change every few days.

Plus, I’m tired of being offended and outraged about everything like the rest of the world. In other words, I decided to let them do their own thing and be their own people. I know. I’m awful.  How could I let others live their own lives instead of living it the way I think they should?

Yes, I may have a little bit of sarcasm issues today.

I thought I’d share a few photos I took over the last week or so, some at the new house, some at my parents. I had to pull these off my DSLR using the phone so I’m not sure if the quality will be great, but, eh..whatever.

So what have you all been doing, watching, reading,  and how are you handling life with all this craziness? Let me know in the comments and yes, I will read them, even if they do have to do with You Know What. I’m merely taking a break from that topic, when I can, not boycotting it all together (mainly because there is no actual way to do that!)

Sunday Bookends: Free ebooks, moving and some fresh air

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends9 Comments

What a week, huh?

Don’t worry, I’m not going to interject politics, worries, or virus numbers from around the world in this post, so you’re safe.

The only thing I will say about it all is that I have discovered a couple new things from not being able to get the groceries I usually do. One, I had no idea that Bob Evans potatoes came in individual servings. I rarely eat them but picked them up when potatoes were running low in our area. We’ve eaten these at my parents and they aren’t the best, but they also aren’t the worst. Two, a local pizzeria near us makes amazing pizza and I wish we had ordered pizza from them in the past. We know this because we ordered two of their pizza making kits and the ingredients were fresh and resulted in incredibly tasting pizza.  Once the restrictions in our state are lifted, we will be sure to order from them again.

As many of you know, if you’ve been a long time, or even short time reader of this blog, I don’t handle stressful situations well. I especially don’t handle the unknown well. Not knowing what might happen from day to day or if someone I love will come down with this virus and become very ill is very draining on me.

BUT —  and yes, this is a good BUT — only by the literal grace of God,  I have been able to stay calm and surprisingly positive throughout this situation affecting our world.

It isn’t that a couple of nights haven’t been ruined by me laying awake and scrolling through a mental list of “what-ifs” but I’m able to push those thoughts aside a lot faster than I used to be. I’m handing so much more over to God than I did in the past. I am remembering (for once!) the words “the battle belongs to the Lord!” When a reader told me she remembered my post and wrote those words on a piece of paper and hung it up on her house to help her get through all of this craziness, I was not only touched, but it encouraged me to do the same.

I have not been doing as much reading as I would have liked to this past week, even though my brother encouraged me to do a 24in48 readathon. The idea is to read 24 hours out of 48 hours. Um… yeah. Not really going to happen. Probably ever. For me anyhow. (Edited this to add this comment of clarification from my brother: “Just to clarify that is the idea. That is not the rule, especially this time around. I think what’s happening this time is that a lot of people are gathering together and talking about books, even the little that they are able to read. One participant suggested a goal of reading 10 minutes each hour or listening to an audiobook for 20 minutes, which I think is doable. Today, for myself, I am going to post once or twice on Instagram and stay away from Instagram Stories, read Sunday Salon posts like I normally do, and read as I can while avoiding all news altogether.” (You can read the rest of his comment in the comments section and check out his blog for what he’s doing to keep his mind off of things.)

Anyhow, I probably read a total of an hour on Saturday and may read an hour Sunday so two hours total.  I’ve been having trouble focusing on reading (much like my brother) between current events and packing up our house to move, plus homeschooling (which we do all the time, as I mentioned in my post yesterday) playing with my 5-year old (who thinks she needs constant entertainment at this age), writing a short story for my Facebook pageant Instagram author account, and finishing up A New Beginning.

Isn’t it cool how I made myself sound really important and busy in the above paragraph? Looks good on paper/screen, right? In reality, it looks like a Picasso painting that’s been puked on.

While I am thinking or writing about books, in case others are not yet aware of this, Scribd, which I had never heard of before, is offering their subscriptions for free for the next 30 days. That includes almost all of their ebooks, audiobooks and even sheet music. My brother told me about this and it has been nice to have because all of the Romana books by Beverly Cleary are currently available for free there and my daughter loves Romana so I am reading the books to her before bed.

For myself, I am reading the second book in the Mitford series by Jan Karon, A Light in the Window and also Falling for You by Becky Wade (continuing the nice light romances I mentioned last week.)

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We were able to get outside in between blasts of heavy rain on Friday, which was very much needed after a damp, cold week. It was 71 on Friday and dropped to 37 by Saturday. Talk about messing up sinuses. I’ll share a few photos from our day here and then probably do a separate post later in the week when we all need a break (another break) from the bleak news cycle.

We usually visit my parents on Sundays but with everything going on we decided to skip this weekend even though we think we’ve most likely exposed each other already. My dad is 76 and pretty matter-of-fact about things so last week he told us “We’re in our 70s. We could get a cold and die at this point so I’m not really worried.”

My dad is a young 76. He is still very active so keeping him in one place hasn’t been easy.  Earlier this week he said “Well, I guess we should try to not travel much during all this,” and we decided together our family would stay home for this weekend and maybe next, but after that, we are moving and may need to stay a couple nights with them.

We are praying none of us catch this before then so we don’t have to sleep in our van or car until we get the keys to the new house (apparently we have to be moved out prior to signing our closing papers to sell this house and can’t have keys to the new place until the sale of this house is final. Yeah. Fun times.).

We enjoyed a visit with them last week and while the trees are still bare, we did some signs of spring starting to show up.

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DSC_8772DSC_8788So how about all of you? What are you reading, writing, watching or simply doing right now? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: Light romances, what the kids are reading, and unrealistic TV shows

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends10 Comments

Since this weekly feature is called “Sunday Bookends” I decided I would actually start off by talking about what books the children and I are reading. I should mention what my husband is reading but he reads a lot of books and I can’t keep up, plus I would have to put in descriptions of them and what he thinks about them and, well, quite frankly, he can just start his own blog for that. Ha.

So, anyhow, my youngest is 5 and she’s “reading”, or actually having read to her, Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary.

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I read the Ramona books when I was anywhere from 9 to 12 so it’s been years since I’ve read the stories. That’s probably why I forgot that this book would actually be better for my son to read because it’s from the perspective of Beezus, the older sister, who is trying to figure out how to deal with her 4-year old younger sister. Instead of my son reading it, though, I’m reading it to my 5-year old who is getting all kinds of ideas from Ramona’s antics. When I start reading a chapter I issue a warning (or two) to Little Miss.

“We don’t do this in real life, okay?” I tell her. Or, “Don’t you ever invite all of your little friends over for a party without asking me, understand?”

She looks at me with wide eyes and says “Okay,” but I can just see her little wheels turning and I now wonder which mischievous activity of Ramona’s she will choose to emulate. I have been reading the book to her at night before bed, but unlike Paddington, she stays wide awake for Ramona, which has meant some later nights for us both. I’ve decided to start our nightly reading earlier now since my hope of her falling asleep while we are reading has now faded.

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My 13-year old is finally reading the fifth book in the Harry Potter series. I say finally because it took him a year to finish the fourth book. It didn’t take him a year because he struggles to read. It took him a year because he kept getting distracted by video games, Legos, and building amazing creations in Minecraft. He finished the fourth book over the last month because I assigned it to him for his English class and this week he will be assigned a book report on it. He’s done a nice job with his last two reports, so I’m sure he’ll do fine with this one, as well.

As soon as he finished book number four, he went looking for the next book in his dad’s collection and spent two hours in his room, lost in Hogwarts instead of Youtube. It was heavenly for this book-loving mother.

As for me, I finished Take a Chance on Me, a novella by Becky Wade and really enjoyed it. Her first official book in that series, The Misty River Romance, is coming out in May and is called Stay with Me. While I wait for that book, I found True to You, the first in her Bradford Sisters Romance series. I am enjoying it so far. Her romances are, as Amazon says, “clean and wholesome,” but written well and not cheesy like other romances can be. Don’t look at me like that. My romances aren’t cheesy. Well, maybe they are, but hey, cheesy is a nice distraction some times.

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For those who are interested, I’m including the description for True To You from Amazon (It is currently available for free on Kindle Unlimited if you have a membership).

Winner of the 2018 Christy Award Book of the Year

After a devastating heartbreak three years ago, genealogist and historical village owner Nora Bradford has decided that burying her nose in her work and her books is far safer than romance in the here and now.

Unlike Nora, former Navy SEAL and Medal of Honor recipient John Lawson is a modern-day man, usually 100 percent focused on the present. But when he’s diagnosed with an inherited condition, he’s forced to dig into the secrets of his past and his adoption as an infant, enlisting Nora to help him uncover the identity of his birth mother.

The more time they spend together, the more this pair of opposites suspects they just might be a perfect match. However, John’s already dating someone and Nora’s not sure she’s ready to trade her crushes on fictional heroes for the risks of a real relationship. Finding the answers they’re seeking will test the limits of their identity, their faith, and their devotion to one another.

As for what I’m watching, I wasted too much time on Granchester and was turned off by how they tried to shove 2020 sensibilities into a show that takes place in the 1950s. I made it into part of Season 2 before I bailed on it. I would have bailed before, but the lead actor’s masculine jawline and cheekbones had me a bit mesmerized.

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There were only so many scenes of him drinking his sorrows away with a glass of brandy, a cigarette, and some jazz that I could take. Not only that but this vicar is the most un-vicar like vicar I’ve ever seen. He’s completely ruled by his demons, which is realistic, but I like to watch shows where the main characters learn from his mistakes and this dude never does.

I know that I am supposed to recognize these are flawed human beings who are growing and learning but the main character seemed to repeat the same mistakes over and over with little to no revelation on his part. And I also questioned that he was a vicar but practiced very little of the Bible. In fact, he was almost never conducting the duty of a vicar at all, yet he never got fired.

As for what I was doing this past week, we’ve been packing, cleaning out and all-out panicking about our move in less than three weeks. One day at a time, though. We know it will all work out eventually.

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My husband’s car is in the shop and will be there for a long time, based on the price for the repairs, so the kids and I have been pretty much marooned at home. This would drive most people crazy, but as an introvert, I don’t mind having an excuse not to go out into public and deal with – shudder – other people. It has also been made easier by the fact it’s been super rainy and cold this past week. When it warms up and we are stuck without a car to go to the playground, I might start to freak out a little bit. Luckily my husband is home from work early most evenings.

I added three chapters of A New Beginning to blog this week, not wanting to leave my devoted readers on a cliffhanger until next week. I’m also giving copies of the manuscript to friends and family to ask them to proof it and hopefully catch typos so I can publish it on Kindle sometime in April. You can find links to those chapters HERE or at the link at the top of the page under A New Beginning.

So, how are all of you? What have you been reading, watching and doing? Let me know in the comments and if you want to jump onto Sunday Bookends each week, feel free to do so and leave me a link so I can read your weekly review as well.

 

 

Sunday Bookends: The British version

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings7 Comments

This past week there was some good news on the house front, progress on my book writing, and a little bit of reading done. On the house front, we are moving closer and closer to closing on the house on April 3 and we are all starting to get nervous as we think about all we have to do to pack and move ourselves 45 minutes away by then.

Our appraisal of the other house led to a price drop, there are some issues the inspection brought up that we are having addressed, and my husband is in full-on moving mode by packing boxes and stacking them in our dining room. Soon I will have nowhere to sit but on boxes, I have a feeling.

As for what I am watching, the majority of the shows I have watched lately are British, so when Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs mentioned this week that she watches British cozy mysteries it was right up my alley. I feel a bit awkward mentioning Erin again, since I mentioned her last week, as well, and she also mentioned me in her blog this week, but I don’t feel awkward enough not to mention I got the idea for this week’s post from her.

This week I’ve been watching Grantchester (just started), but in the past, I’ve watched some of the same shows Erin has, such as Shakespeare and Hathaway, Death in Paradise, and Rosemary & Thyme. It’s a shame so many people die in these small British towns or in the Caribbean, as in Death in Paradise, but, hey, it’s entertaining for all of us, right? Even if the main characters are harbingers of death.

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We signed up for Britbox last year so I could get more of the British fix I have craved for some 20-years. As a child, my brother and I sometimes watched Doctor Who on PBS (we didn’t have much choice. We only had four channels back then. It was that or soap operas.) and later Are You Being Served? When I was older I found myself caught up in As Time Goes By (with Judi Dench and which I have mentioned here before). BBC America introduced me to many more shows, some of which my brother had watched, such as Fawlty Towers with John Cleese.

My brother also enjoyed Monty Python, which I introduced my son to recently. My son and husband enjoy it while I just wonder what they were smoking when they made those shows. I also wish, in some ways, my child had not discovered Monty Python because he keeps running into the room yelling “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!” This is fine except he’s been doing it while I’m in the bathroom and I have this phobia of having a heart attack on a toilet, since that’s how my great-grandmother died, according to family lore.

With Britbox I have watched Miss Marple, as I have mentioned before, Sherlock Holmes with my husband (he’s a huge Sherlock Holmes fan and we have also watched Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch, of course.), One Foot in the Grave, The Vicar of Dibley (which I watched before Britbox). I’m not sure how I discovered Miranda years ago, but I remember my husband buying me DVDs of the series from the UK and then me trying to figure out how to change the region on my laptop so I could watch them. Of course, Miranda is now on Hulu and Miranda Hart also has books out, including one about her dog that I didn’t finish for some reason. I need to go do that this week.

I liked Father Brown but had to bail after season five because I hated the one actress and the whole show was just going off the rails to me.

Grantchester is interesting, so far, but I hope the main character starts smiling a little more soon. So far he is dealing with PTSD from fighting in World War II, is starting to become an alcoholic and grappling with his love for a friend who is marrying another man. A bit heavy and depressing, in some ways, but the actor makes it all a little better by his gentle demeanor. It’s strange to watch the lead actor (James Norton) because he reminds me of a guy I went to high school with who is now on Broadway. The guy I went to school with, Lucas Steele, was nominated for a Tony a couple of years ago for playing Anatole in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812.

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Looking at a photo of them side by side in these two photos, they really don’t look the same (except maybe around the mouth) but something about James’ mannerisms reminds me of Lucas, who, unfortunately for him, got stuck in a Geometry class with me when I was a senior and he was a junior. He was a really sweet kid with an amazing set of singing pipes, and while I haven’t seen him in 20 some years, I’d have to imagine he’s still a sweet guy. The people in the town where we went to high school pile into a tour bus every time he’s in a show (off or on Broadway) to go see him. Right now he’s in something called Emojiland, off-Broadway.

Anyhow, back to Grantchester. Fitting in with Erin’s comment about British shows having no qualms about switching main actors in the middle of a series, I’ve noticed on Amazon that James Norton is being replaced by another actor for Season 4. I’m not sure I’ll make it through Season 1 let alone to Season 4 of Grantchester, but I’ll probably abandon the show when the new guy shows up like I did for the second Detective Inspector for Death in Paradise. I stuck around for the second detective, despite hating how the first DI was written off, but I have no intention starting to fall for a third DI and having them be written off as well. I just read that the entire cast for the show has slowly been replaced in its nine seasons, to the point there are no longer any original cast members left. I mean, at that point, you might as well just call it a night and cancel the show, don’t you think?

The only British show that can really get away with this drastic main character replacing is Doctor Who because it was written into the plot more than 50 years ago when it was made clear that the Doctor has regeneration power. There have now been 13 actors (and one actress) playing that part. After I met my husband, I rediscovered Doctor Who and got him hooked on it. He’s obsessed with the show but I’m not as interested as I once was.  (Who would be now that David Tennant is gone. Sniff. I know that was four Doctors ago, but I still miss him. Daaavid!!!)

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The show is a bit too weird for me; always was, but for some reason I still watched it. The odd scientific mumbo-jumbo makes my head hurt and I’m not a fan of the current female Doctor Who. She’s a good actress but the writers have done a disservice to her by writing her as an overdramatic female who focuses way too much on social issues and too little on alien-fighting, in my opinion.

Not only am I watching British shows right now, but I seem to be reading British books, again thanks to Erin who suggested the Willow Tree Hall books by Alison Sherlock. I finished the first Willow Tree Hall book, Love Begins at Willow Tree Hall, this week. I liked it but I felt it could have ended a lot earlier than it did. It was a bit repetitive for me in the last several chapters. I liked the fact the book was fairly clean and light-hearted and just … I don’t know . . . simple.

I may start the second book this week, but for now, on tap for me in books is finishing A Light in the Window, which is the love story between Father Tim and Cynthia in the Mitford Series by Jan Karon. I read it probably 20 years ago (oh my gosh! I’m so old!) but I have forgotten a lot of it and it has taken on a different meaning now that I’m older. This simple love story between an older couple is right up my alley in this stage of my life, even if I am 20 years younger than they are in the books.

I’m also planning to read a novella by Becky Wade called Take a Chance on Me, which she released for free on Amazon this weekend. I haven’t read her before, but discovered her on Instagram, when I started my author account, and I believe she’s released this novella to promote a new novel in her Misty River Romance series, which will come out later this spring.

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On the blog this week I shared a couple of chapters from my book ‘A New Beginning’, which will be out on Kindle later this spring.

I also wrote about a child in a neighboring community who is battling brain cancer and the support that came together for her from the community.

So, how about you? What have you been reading, watching or doing this week? Let me know in the comments. (I stopped asking ‘What are you up to this week?’ when my brother kept answering “About 5’6″.” Sigh. Brothers.)

 

Sunday Bookends: house selling drama, Sweet Land and small town libraries

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends24 Comments

The house selling process plods forward and as it does I seem to be having more breakdowns than normal. The roller-coaster of emotions as we worry about something falling through with either the sale of this house or the purchase of the other is getting to me I guess. I find myself sitting down and having a good cry a couple times a week.

After an unexpected removal from the house when the inspector came and wanted to bring the buyers, I cried as we toured our small town, not so much because I will miss the place, but because of all the bad memories made while here.

“That,” I said as I pointed at the hospital, the largest in our region, tears rolling down my face. “is the last place I saw my grandmother alive.”

This was after we drove past the house where some family members live but who no longer speak to us, though they never spoke to us much before either. That situation has broken my heart for a long time and resulted in a lot of confusion and hurt feelings on all sides. In some ways, it’s as if we think if we pack up the house and get out of this place we can leave all the emotional baggage behind, but of course, we really can’t.

We can drive away but we will still carry the scars we’ve gotten here. From the broken family relationships to the loss of my husband’s grandparents to driving by the last place I saw Grandma alive so many times in the last 16 years to the knives in our backs from former places of employment and former friends, living in this town hasn’t always been easy. I know only God can heal those scars so I have to lean on him now more than ever.

In happier news, I watched a movie called Sweet Land this week, which was actually pretty “sweet”, so it lived up to its name. It starred Elizabeth Reaser, Tim Guinee, Alan Cumming, and Alex Kingston.  I kept writing in circles when I tried to explain the plot (that’s how muddled my brain is this week), so I pulled it off Wikipedia:

In the aftermath of World War I, Inge Altenberg (Elizabeth Reaser), an orphan from Snåsa, Norway, arrives in America to a very cold reception. The parents of immigrant farmer Olaf Torvik (Tim Guinee) remain in Norway, where they met her. Dialogue reveals that the four of them have worked out an agreement that allowed her to emigrate to America for the purpose of marrying Olaf. The Minnesota farming village of Audubon, in which her intended husband lives, is horrified to learn that she is a German immigrant with no papers. To make matters worse, she has accidentally obtained membership papers for the American Socialist Party. Scandalized, both the town’s Lutheran minister and the county clerk refuse to marry them.

When events lead them to openly cohabit with each other, they find themselves ostracized by the entire town. They are then forced to harvest their crop completely by hand and alone. This particular harvest season brings not only work, but love as well.

I streamed the movie on Amazon, but I’m sure it is available on other services as well.

On the book front, I am still reading Love Begins at Willow Tree Hill and still enjoying it. I haven’t had as much time for reading with all the “drama” (so to speak) in our life, but this week I hope to escape that drama a bit with reading and working on my two novels. (If you haven’t been following my novel, you can find a link to the chapters at the top of the page or HERE. I post new chapters on Thursdays and Fridays and will post it to Kindle when I’m finished, possibly with changes, but definitely edited and revised.)

I visited what was once my local library and will hopefully be our new local library when we move. My son and I had headed to the new house to pick up a radon test we’d ordered ahead of the inspection. After we left the house we mailed the test and then I asked my son if he wanted to see the little library in town. It was the library my mom and I always went to when I was a kid.

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“You don’t understand,” I told my son. “I didn’t have video games and social media when I was growing up so books were my only way to escape and experience life.”

When I walked into the library, the smell of books overwhelmed me just like it did when I was a kid. That smell was a sign to me that entire worlds were opening up to me and my mom and I would spend probably an hour choosing the books we wanted. We’d drag them home in a big bag and my dad would say “More books?” Sometimes we would bring home books we bought from the book sale and Dad would say, again, “More books? We don’t even have room for the books we have!”

But he let us have them anyhow and Mom and I would delve into them and float away from our small house in the country to worlds far away that were much more exciting than cleaning houses and cooking dinners and washing clothes and doing homework.  And we met new people, learned new ideas, developed new vocabulary, and for me, dreamt dreams of sharing stories as compelling as the ones I was reading.

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Before we left town, I decided to let the little old library ladies sitting at the front desk know how important the library was to me when I was growing up. They appreciated me letting them know, they said, and hope it works out for the library to be our home library by spring.

As for what I’m writing this week:

A flash fiction piece about a “sugar report” (letter to a soldier from a romantic interest);

Did you drink your water?

Faithfully Thinking: God’s Kingdom is in Your Own Backyard

Fiction Thursday, A New Beginning Chapter 22

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 23
I’ve also joined *eyeroll* Wattpad…the place that teens apparently share all their bizarre pubescent sex fantasies. My story, however, is nothing like that so it will not, most likely, get traction on Wattpad. But, why not try? Life is short and we need to go for it, right? If you want to follow The Farmer’s Daughteron there (though this version probably won’t be what I finally publish on Kindle), you can find it HERE.

As for what I’m listening to this week (something new I’m adding):

Oldies to get me in the mood for revisions on A New Beginning (which takes place in the mid 60s):

Marc Martel:

and sermons like this one:

So, how about you? What are you up to this week? Reading? Watching? Learning? Listening to? Share with me in the comments!

Sunday Bookends: big house news, books finished, books to start

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends28 Comments

 

I finished two books this week. One was a middle school-aged book and the other was an adult book (not that kind of adult book!). The adult book was a library book, the first I’ve actually read in probably 10 years, if not more. Normally I borrow books or read them on Kindle.

The middle school book, The Misadventured Summer of Tumbleweed Thompson by Glenn McCarty was one my son and I read together for his homeschool English. It was a fun book, full of adventure and perfect for every age, but especially 5th to 7th-grade boys.

Tumbleweed Thompson

I helped my son write a book report about it and realized it really is not easy to write a book without giving away the entire plot. Of course, I realize this when I mention books on the blog, as well. I decided I’d share part of my son’s book report to let my readers know what it was all about and why he said he felt sad when he realized he had reached the end of it.

The Misadventured Summer of Tumbleweed Thompson (or M.S.T.T.), a book made for kids about the Wild West, was written by Glenn McCarty and is his second book. This book follows Eugene Appleton and the son of a shady businessman Tumbleweed Thompson. They go adventuring, doing kooky stuff like being tricked into looking for a fake treasure to getting kidnapped.

The story starts when Eugene Appleton was walking in Rattlesnake Junction when he saw Tumbleweed and his dad “performing. After a scandal involving a misunderstanding about what was actually in Mr. Thompson’s tonic, they became friends, despite the fact the tonic worked as a laxative. Eugene, Tumbleweed, and Charlotte (the love interest) go on crazy adventures, but it gets serious. While they are looking in a widow’s old house, they found out robbers were living there with plans to rob a train. The rest of the book is them trying to stop the robbers.

Eugene, Charlotte and Tumbleweed are the main characters of this story. Eugene is smart, brave, and trusts people too much. Tumbleweed is dumb, brave and lies a lot. Charlotte is smart, brave, and a love interest of Eugene and Tumbleweed, who sometimes compete for her attention. Together they try to stop a band of robbers named the No Shave Gang. It’s probably important to say everything is told through the eyes of Eugene.

Well, in conclusion, this book has everything a children’s book should have. It has adventure, interesting characters, and slapstick comedy. I love how three dimensional some of the characters are, take for instance Widow Springfield the local widow whose husband got in trouble with a local gang. The plots and the great description of the locations are on point and make you feel like your really there. If you like stories that make you think this is the book for you. Even if you don’t like thinking, there’s a lot of action.

I also finished Falling Home by Karen White.

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The book was well written but was fairly melodramatic and cliche. Since I like books that are melodramatic and cliche, that didn’t make me hate the book but I did find myself rolling my eyes a few times. (Let me clarify that the books I write are also melodramatic and cliche and sometimes I even roll my eyes at my own writing, so this isn’t a negative review ;) ). I ended up skimming through some of the chapters toward the end because the subject dealt with a very real fear of mine and I couldn’t handle reading about it. White did such a good job of bringing out the emotion of the situation I could immediately see myself in a similar situation. She’s a wonderful writer, but during those chapters, I almost wish she hadn’t been and I could have had an excuse to abandon the novel. I read all the way to the end, even though I had figured out both plot twists well toward the beginning of the novel and I was squirming reading the one plot twist because of the aforementioned personal trigger.

Up on the reading block this week is a book recommended by Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs: Love Begins at Willow Tree Hall by Alison Sherlock. I’ve started it and so far I’m really enjoying it. It’s a nice light read, which I need right now. The description, according to Goodreads:

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A feel-good love story in a gorgeous country village, perfect for fans of Milly Johnson and Heidi Swain.
Previously published as A House To Mend a Broken Heart.

Willow Tree Hall has been the proud ancestral home of the Cranley family for centuries. But now the house is falling apart, and the elderly Earl is growing too frail to manage it himself.

Annie Rogers is looking for a job that will allow her to disappear. The role of live-in housekeeper to Arthur, Earl of Cranley, and his reluctant heir, Sam Harris, is just perfect. How hard can it be to run a household? But with no qualifications, and Sam criticising her at every turn, Annie suddenly finds herself completely out of her depth.

But it turns out that Sam and Annie have more in common than they think. Both of them are running from their past. And both of them have fallen under the spell of Sam’s beautiful, once-grand home. Maybe, just maybe, together they can save Willow Tree Hall … and bring each other back to life at the same time.

As for what I watched recently, not a lot. I’ve been reading and writing more than watching. I did watch a movie by myself on the recommendation of my brother: About Time, starring Domnhall Gleeson (what a name) and Rachel McAdams. If you don’t recognize Domnhall’s name you might recognize him from the newer Star Wars movies as General Hux:

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And if you have children, you might recognize him as Thomas McGregor from the latest adaption of Peter Rabbit:

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Or from the Harry Potter as Ron Weasley’s brother Bill (which I added here after my brother reminded me.):

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After I saw him in Peter Rabbit, I recognized him in Star Wars I said “Hey! It’s that guy!” Since I don’t know how to pronounce the man’s name, I will most likely say “Hey! It’s that guy!” And honestly, I’ve been saying that a lot lately since he’s been in a lot of movies we have watched recently. When my brother mentioned About Time, I looked it up and said “Hey! It’s that guy!”

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Anyhow, the movie was very good (rated R for language, just an FYI if you sit down to watch with the family). The R rating surprised me in some ways because the movie really was pretty clean. I think a couple uses of the f-word were what gave it the R rating. The basic premise is that the main character learns that the male members of his family can go back in time to certain points in their lives to change what happened without changing the timeline drastically, as long as they don’t go back before a child or person is born, which can pretty much mess everything up.

The theme was love in all forms – between couples and family, but especially love between a son and father. Yes, I cried. I cried a lot. I think I damaged a muscle in my cheek from crying toward the end because for the rest of the day a muscle along my cheek and temple jumped.

I will probably be burying myself in books the next few weeks while we deal with the stress of selling and buying a house and moving. Last week someone made an offer on the house and we accepted and hope to have it sold by the beginning of April. We also hope to be able to move into our new house around the same time, if all goes as planned.

Last week on the blog, I shared photos from our winter; wrote about my need to trust in God even when I don’t feel he’s near; and I shared Chapter 20 and Chapter 21of my novel in progress, A New Beginning.

Up on the blog this week will be a post sharing some of my favorite blog posts from the last month and two more chapters of A New Beginning and a post about nightmares in children and adults.

How about you? What are you reading or watching or simply doing this week? Feel free to share in the comments.

This post is part of Readerbuzz’s Sunday Salon and Caffeinated Reviewer’s Sunday Post. 

Sunday Bookends: Books finished and started; the never-ending house showings; and Ancestry.com’s rabbit holes

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, recap of the week, Sunday Bookends, week in focus8 Comments

This past week was fairly tame, for the most part, with things speeding up toward the end of it while we prepared for yet another house showing. I think we are on number 14, if you count the one buyer who came to look at the house three times but still didn’t buy it. We are all suffering from a bit of battle fatigue with this house selling thing, as I’ve mentioned several times before (have I whined about this enough yet? Yes, I think so too.). However, we recognize many houses are on the market for months of years before they sell so it could be much worse.

What’s difficult about house showings, as anyone who has sold a house while still living in it knows, is trying to keep the house clean and then leaving it for an hour or so to allow perfect strangers to walk through it and judge you. I’m sure most people truly aren’t judging, but as the homeowner, it can feel that way and that’s the man stress-inducing part of it all.

I actually welcome the requests for the showings, even if we have had a lot in only a couple months, hoping someone makes an offer and buys it, allowing us to move closer to my husband’s job and my parents. I do like our neighbors but we don’t have friends or family up here, making it a rather lonely existence.

I distracted myself from all the weird news this week by going down several rabbit holes on Ancestry.com. I seem to discover something new about my family every time I go on and this past week I found out even more about the people I loosely (very loosely) based ‘A Story to Tell’ and ‘A New Beginning‘ on.

I’ll ramble about that in a blog post later this week when I tell a little bit more about the real story of Blanche and “Hank” (whose actual name was Howard.). What I will say is that Howard, my biological great-grandfather, isn’t looking too good at the moment, but, hey, it was all almost a century ago and I wasn’t there so who knows what really happened. He did seem to be a bit of a cad, however.

The problem with me and Ancestry.com is once I get on there, I can’t stop looking up information, I guess because I’m a storyteller and I want to know the stories of my ancestors. I get way too wrapped up in the digging and I’m sure at some point I’ll get myself in trouble with asking questions like “What was this person or that person really like?” from anyone who might still be alive and knew one of my relatives.  It might be better to simply read about them on Ancestry instead.

On the book front: I finally finished a book this week! Okay, so I’ve finished books before but lately, I’ve been reading very slow. This past week I finished the book I talked about last week,  Borders of the Heart by Chris Fabry and started a new one by him, Under a Cloudless Sky.

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For anyone interested in Borders of the Heart, here is the description on Goodreads:

Desperate to escape haunting memories, J. D. Jessup travels from Nashville to Tucson and volunteers on an organic farm. The hardened landowner has one prevailing rule: If J. D. sees an “illegal,” call the border patrol. But when an early morning ride along the fence line leads him to a beautiful young woman named Maria, near death in the desert, his heart pulls him in another direction. Longing to atone for the choices that drove him to Tucson, J. D. hides her and unleashes a chain of deadly events he could never have imagined. Soon they are running from a killer and fighting for their lives. As secrets of their pasts emerge, J. D. realizes that saving Maria may be the only way to save himself.

The book was definitely fast-paced. I thought a couple of the last chapters were unnecessary in some ways, but it still added to the suspense and I was on the edge of my seat for most of the book.

The description for Under a Cloudless Sky:

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A charming and engrossing novel for fans of Southern fiction and the recent hit memoir Hillbilly Elegy about a lush and storied coal-mining town–and the good people who live there–in danger of being destroyed for the sake of profit. Will the truth about the town’s past be its final undoing or its saving grace?

1933. In the mining town of Beulah Mountain, West Virginia, two young girls form an unbreakable bond against the lush Appalachian landscape, coal dust and old hymns filling their lungs and hearts. Despite the polarizing forces of their fathers–one a mine owner, one a disgruntled miner –Ruby and Bean thrive under the tender care of Bean’s mama, blissfully unaware of the rising conflict in town and the coming tragedy that will tear them apart forever.

2004. Hollis Beasley is taking his last stand. Neighbors up and down the hollow have sold their land to Coleman Coal and Energy, but Hollis is determined to hold on to his family legacy on Beulah Mountain. Standing in his way is Buddy Coleman, an upstart mining executive who hopes to revitalize the dying town by increasing coal production and opening the Company Store Museum. He’ll pay homage to the past–even the massacre of 1933–while positioning the company for growth at all costs.

What surprises them all is how their stories will intersect with a feisty octogenarian living hundreds of miles away. When Ruby Handley Freeman’s grown children threaten her independence, she takes a stand of her own and disappears, propelling her on a journey to face a decades-old secret that will change everything for her and those she meets.

I’m not sure if some of my blog readers are familiar with the movie War Room, or not, but if you are, Fabry also wrote the book version of that movie. The screenplay was originally written by the Kendrick Brothers, of course. If you haven’t seen the movie, and you’re a Bible-believing Christian, I highly recommend the movie and the book and I also recommend Fervent: A Woman’s Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer, by Priscilla Shirer, who is also in the movie.

I’m also reading (and hoping to finish this week) The Misadventured Summer of Tumbleweed Thompson by Glenn McCarty, a middle school level book my son read for English, and starting In the Field of Grace by Tessa Afshar.

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My son finished Tumbleweed this week and said: “My life feels so empty now that it’s done.” I love to hear that because it means it was a good book and he was completely engrossed in it. I plan to write a separate post about the book later in the week.

My daughter and I are switching between the first Paddington Bear book (rereading it) and

The Cat Who Went Up the Creek because she found out The Cat Who books are about . . . cats. I think she quickly realized most of the books are about the newspaper reporter Jim Qwellerin after the first night because the next night she asked for Paddington again. She’s five and there are more accents I have to do in Paddington, plus Paddington is about a cute bear and his crazy adventures. If I was five, I’d choose Paddington too.

So how about all of you? What have you been doing this past week and what is on your reading list? Let me know in the comments.

 

 

Sunday bookends: A trinity of movies, winter depression, and ready to burn the house down

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, What I'm Reading25 Comments

Desperate to stave off the deep depression that normally besets me during winter, I’ve been burying myself in movies and books and writing this past week or so.

I watched two movies and a mini-series this past week (in between waiting on children and letting a dog in and out the back door, cooking, suffering with a cold, petting the cat, and pondering our earthly existence) and continued reading The Cat Who Lived High, slowly since I couldn’t see through the watery eyes from the cold earlier this week.

51tIxEH0QoLWith my eyes a little better I’m back to reading a little more and have added The Misadventured Summer of Tumbleweed Thompson by Glen McCarthy, an independently published book for middle school-aged children, to my reading list (again). It is so creatively written and I tried reading it to my daughter since I’m much better at Southern accents than British ones, but she rejected it and asked for Paddington again for her nighttime reading.  In case you are interested in finding out a little bit more about the book, here is the blurb on Amazon: For Eugene Appleton, the summer of 1876 in Rattlesnake Junction, Colorado promises to be just as sleepy as the ones before, his only excitement provided by the pulse-pounding Dead-Eye Dan adventure novels he devours. But Eugene’s life takes an unexpected turn with the arrival of Tumbleweed Thompson, a gangly, red-haired boy who spins yarns about whaling voyages in the Atlantic and hidden stashes of gunpowder. Drawn into Tumbleweed’s orbit, Eugene soon finds himself chasing smugglers, firing rifles, and competing for the attention of the lovely Charlotte Scoggins.”

I also rambled in some blog posts about a bunch of things because this blog is called Boondock Ramblings. I’ll link to those at the bottom of the page.

MV5BYjBkOTZlNmYtN2NjOS00YWM2LTk0MzMtOTEwMmIyNWIwMDA5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjg3MDMxNzU@._V1_After seeing a preview for Wild Rose at one of the only movies I saw in the theater this year (Brittany Runs a Marathon, which was pretty good, but not my favorite.), I was interested to see it when it popped up on Amazon. The movie is about a young Scottish woman who wants to become a country singer in Nashville but lets her temper and her propensity for alcohol to get in her way. Her other issue is that she is a young, single mother with two children. The movie opens with her being released from jail and returning home where her mother has been raising her children for the last year.

Without spoiling anything, the movie does not take the darker paths I thought it would and it does not end the way I thought it would either. It was rated R and with that rating, I thought dark scenes would abound, but thankfully, they didn’t.  I don’t watch too many rated R movies and in case you are curious, this one is rated R because the main character, Rose-Lynn Haran likes to use the “F” word a lot. In other words, I watched this one on my laptop with the earphones in so my children couldn’t hear it. I also watched it with close captioning because I’m not Scottish and their accents were very thick.

(Incidentally, my husband has been watching old Siskel and Ebert episodes on YouTube and because of that when I share my thoughts about a movie lately I hear Roger Ebert in my head. Is that weird? Yeah. I knew it was.)

Next up on my list Jane Eyre, for some reason, I have no idea why. I guess I was looking for something different to watch while I blew my nose all day long Tuesday and got caught up in it. Like many movies based on either Charlotte Bronte or Jane Austin books, there are about 1,000 movie versions of this story, but this series was from the BBC in 2006. It starred some British guy and some British girl I’d never heard of. (Okay, I looked it up instead of being lazy… it was Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens). I have never read the book (I know. I’m sad) but for some reason, the story was very familiar to me when I got to the end.

It’s possible I had seen a movie version of it before or heard the story somehow I suppose. As far as plot, Jane Eyre is a bit bizarre, but the actors in it won me over and I had to keep watching to see how it all turned out.

On the recommendation of my brother, I watched Stranger Than Fiction (on my phone, in case of bad language or scenes) and then made the rest of the family watch it a couple of days later. Starring Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, Molly Gyllenhaal, and Emma Thompson, it came out in 2006, but I’d never heard of it, probably because in 2006 I was busy with a newborn and working full-time at the newspaper. The movie is about an IRS agent who begins to realize someone is narrating his life and he needs to find a way to stop the narrator when she announces she plans to kill him.

I could relate to the author in the movie as she struggles to complete the book she is working on, her first fiction novel in ten years. She was part of my inspiration for an upcoming blog post about the mental torture writing fiction can be.

In the midst of contracting my son’s cold (which is no surprise since he came over to talk to me one day and had an uncontrollable coughing fit  . . . in my face.), winter came back with a vengeance – frigid temperatures, snow and all.  So, here I sit on Saturday, writing this post while snow swirls around the house and wind slams it against our windows. I’m writing this in-between cleaning the house for yet another house showing tomorrow. This is our tenth and I’m pretty much ready to burn the house down at this point to get rid of it. Of course, I am absolutely not serious, but there are days the thought has crossed my mind.

As for blogging this week:

I shared a flash fiction entitled “Carrying Out His Wife.”;

Shared a guest blog post by Lisa at The Manitoba Mom Blog;

Shared aRound-up of Blog Posts from around the blogosphere;

Chapter 13 of A New Beginning;

Chapter 14 of A New Beginning;

Remembering Truett, in honor of TobyMac’s son, who passed away suddenly at 21 a couple of months ago.

This post is part of Readerbuzz’s Sunday Salon.

So, how about you? What have you been up to this past week? Let me know in the comments!