Sunday Bookends: Giving up on Mansfield Park and James Herriot is in my dreams

On June 8, 2025June 8, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends22 Comments

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

Happy early birthday to my brother from Transmissions From The Northern Outpost who will be 65 tomorrow. Okay, I’m kidding. He won’t be 65, but his birthday is tomorrow. If you know him, wish him a happy one.

I talked about our week yesterday in my Saturday Afternoon Chat, if you would like to check it out.

I talked mainly about VBS with Little Miss and our final homeschool evaluation for The Boy.

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are still holding Drop-In Crafternoons once or twice a month.

We will be holding another one Saturday, June 21 at 1 p.m.

The crafternoons are events where we gather on Zoom and craft at our respective homes and chat while we work on various projects. There is one woman who creates with beads, another who colors, I sometimes draw or color, and Erin has been embroidering lately. We are calling them drop-in crafternoons because you can drop in and out during the time we are on. No need to stay the whole time if you can’t. Come late if you want or leave early.

If you want to join in, email Erin at crackcrumblife@gmail.com and she will add you to the mailing list.

I gave up on Mansfield Park. At least for now. I just can’t get into it – don’t really care about these people and their visits to each others houses where they sit and talk about each other and don’t do much else. Plus, I know the direction the romance is going, and it makes me queasy. Just – yeah – no. The British and their weird ideas back then about who was okay to marry and who wasn’t … and yet they have the gall to make comments about our rednecks. (This is all said in jest so I hope I don’t offend my British or redneck readers. *wink*).

***SPOILER ALERT***

I sent this to my friend Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs this morning:

I can’t invest myself in a book where she hooks up with her first cousin. (I know where this is going.)

Plus – it’s sooooo boring

These people literally had no lives — they just kept going to each others houses and talked down to each other and connived and that’s like their whole lives.

I think I may just have to admit that I am not a Jane Austen fan, other than the movies. I have, of course, heard that Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are easier to read so I will probably try them later this summer. Like I think I might swap out Mansfield Park for Sense and Sensibility on my 15 Books for Summer challenge.

I am still reading All Things Wise and Wonderful.

I cannot believe how long this James Herriot book is. I feel like I might never finish it! The book is made up of individual stories in each chapter, with the underlying theme being James’s time in the RAF. I am really enjoying the stories, but I feel like I’ve been reading this book forever. I’ve taken a lot of breaks to read other books in between so I have actually been reading it a long time. Maybe I’ll have it done this week, maybe not.

I know one thing — I need to finish it soon because I am literally having dreams about James Herriot now. Of course, he looks like Nicholas Ralph from the new series in my dreams. And no..it was not a romantic dream. Just a weird one. Ha!

I’m also reading A Midnight Dance by Julia Davidson Politano. This is my first by her and I am enjoying it but it is quite a serious book so I will have to read something less serious when I am done with it. The writing is great so don’t take the words “serious book” as any kind of complaint.

I just started The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie to cleanse my pallet from the dullness of Mansfield Park and the drama of A Midnight Dance, but then I got so swept up in A Midnight Dance, I put The Pale Horse aside for now.

Up next to read after I finish A Midnight Dance will be Summer of Yes by Courtney Walsh. That will be my happy read, from what I understand about Courtney’s books. It should be a lighter read anyhow.

I added a couple of new books to my TBR over the last couple of weeks, including a Nancy Drew Mystery called The Clue of The Velvet Mask and a Louis L’Amour short story collection With These Hands. A few weeks ago I added a number of Mildred Wirt books from Project Gutenberg. She was the first “Carolyn Keene” and wrote around 28 of the first 30 Nancy Drew books. These are “juvenile” fiction but the plots and dialogue is better than some adult fiction.

I just started Travels with Agatha Christie & Sir David Suchet on Britbox. David traveled to South Africa for the first episode. The show made me love David even more. Oh gosh..he’s such a sweet man. I wanted to reach into the screen and give him a big hug at one point.

This past week I watched a couple Murder She Wrote episodes, a Brokenwood Mysteries episode, a couple episodes of the Father Dowling Mysteries, and Just A Few Acres Farm (Youtube Channel).

On the blog this week I shared:

Some fun from the gram this week:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Lisa R. Howeler | cozy mystery author (@lisarhoweler)

From YouTube this week:

Random Saturday: It’s a Small World by Cat’s Wire.

I always have fun with Cat’s blog posts. She has so much interesting stuff.

The Building Our Hive blog chose my book to recommend for their summer reading list!!!!! I found this by accident and I was so giddy and almost cried!!

New Booklist by Building Our Hive

When People Say Thoughtless Things from Stray Thoughts had me thinking about how we sometimes upset people when we mean well, but also how I can give people grace when they say things that upset me.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Saturday Afternoon Chat Link Up: VBS, pretty churches, and the end of homeschooling for one child

On June 7, 2025June 8, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Saturday Afternoon Tea13 Comments

Good afternoon! Welcome to another Saturday Afternoon Chat.

What are you drinking today?

Tea? Coffee? Lemonade? Water?

Let me know what I can get for you.

Yesterday we met with our homeschool evaluator and school is now officially over for this year.

We drive 45 minutes one way to meet with her each year.

This week it was a long drive after a week of driving to VBS 20 minutes one way and spending two hours there each night for a few nights. We missed Tuesday night because of a flat tire on our car and Thursday night The Husband drove her. This was VBS at a church we don’t belong to.

I appreciated that because I’ve been having pain in my neck and driving around the windy roads and curves and hills we live on flared it up quite a bit.

I enjoyed taking her on the days, though, because we were able to chat about different things and watch for animals together while we were driving to and from VBS.

Little Miss is fairly independent and usually attends most events without us but lately she’s been a little clingy. She wanted me to stay with her during VBS since she didn’t know anyone, but she got involved easily and most of the time didn’t mind if I was there or not. I didn’t follow her around. Instead, I simply sat in the back of the sanctuary on very pretty, but uncomfortable pews.

She would run up to me off and on and get a hug, almost like a reassurance. The next day I told her I would probably sit in the car and read that night instead of sitting in the church, but she said she wanted me to be in the church.

“You don’t need me,” I told her. “You were having fun without me.”

“Yes, but it’s just nice knowing you’re there,” she told me.

That definitely got me in the heart and left me feeling emotional. I didn’t mind sitting in the church as much after that and enjoyed the hugs she gave me when she ran back to me. Plus, the church has beautiful stained glass windows and it was nice to look at them and watch the sun pour through them.

Two of the days of VBS were very hot but the rest of the week the weather was pretty much perfect. The hot temperatures are gone again for now, but it is not as cold as it was in May. I prefer the cooler temps, though. Not freezing, but cooler. The heat and humidity really takes a toll on me. Much worse than simply feeling too hot.

Yesterday our drive to the homeschool evaluator was uneventful. It was a little emotional for me because it is the last time The Boy will be evaluated now that he has graduated. This marks the end of our six-year homeschooling journey together, and he’s thrilled, but I’m going to miss it.

I loved picking out a curriculum for him and learning it with him. The last two years were pretty hard because he was pretty much over school, but we made it, and he’s ready for his next steps..

Little Miss and I will be continuing homeschooling for this next year and I’m planning to use a curriculum but also be open to more deviations from strict curriculum, as long as it is still educational.

I’m looking forward to our school year and to using art and literature even more than I did last year. I also have my eye on a really interesting music curriculum. Looking for different curriculum is a highlight of my summers, so I do feel a sense of loss not looking for curriculum or books for The Boy this year.

There is another VBS at another church this upcoming week, but we haven’t decided if we are attending it or not. There are two or three other VBS events this summer we hope to attend as well. And there are also 4-H events coming up. So we might have a busy summer, but maybe also a relaxed one at times.

So what have you been up to this past week? Any vacations yet? Family gatherings? Shopping. I’d love to know. Let me know in the comments.

P.S. I am offering a link-up here on Saturdays now, but I’m also part of a great link-up on Thursday — The Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot — so please come join us and link up your favorite, new, or older posts there as well. Just search “Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot” in the search bar to the right and you’ll find the latest link-up! We are also looking for additional hosts so don’t be afraid to throw your hat in the ring for that.

Also, feel free to grab graphics with a right click save (if it works). I have no idea how to offer a code so you can just pluck it down on your sidebar.

A few guidelines throughout the week.

Leave an unlimited number of posts throughout the week. They can be new or older posts. Please link to a blog post, though.
Family-friendly posts only please. Those posts can be related to any topic as long as they are family-friendly.
Please visit and comment on at least two other posts in the link (don’t just drop a link and run)
Have fun!

Come back tomorrow for Sunday Bookends, where I chat about what I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, doing and share some favorite photos and links from around the blog community.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Join us for our weekly link-up: The Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot on Fridays (it goes live Thursday night at 9:30 p.m.). Come join us and link up your favorite, new, or older posts.

Sunday Bookend: Our pain-in-the-butt cat uses up another life and enjoying a variety of books

On June 1, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends32 Comments

Our cat Scout was missing yesterday so I was not in a very perky the entire day.

We hadn’t seen her since Friday morning. We do let our cats outside but they usually come back several times throughout the day, and in the case of our oldest cat at least, don’t go very far.

I hadn’t been able to mentally function much since Friday night when it was pouring rain and she still hadn’t come back. I was sure she’d been hit or kidnapped. She could have been locked in one of the neighbor’s sheds too. They were all mowing their lawns before the rain came. I held out hope that she’d be home Saturday morning when one of them opened a shed or barn door.

Saturday morning came and still no sign of her.

I spent all day Saturday crying, but I knew it wasn’t just over the cat – it was over all the stuff that’s been going on with my parents and my health all combined. It was mainly the cat because I pictured her dead over the banks, I suppose, but the built-up tension from trying to figure out some weird symptoms I’ve been having and the challenge to get into a doctor and the challenge to fake it to everyone around me has been overwhelming me lately.

I just kept shoving it all inside and trying to pretend everything was fine and it just came to a head yesterday because I thought the cat was dead.

Saturday night I headed to bed around 11:30, resolved to the fact our cat — the biggest pain in the butt cat I’ve ever had in my life — was gone. I don’t know why I even did it, but I walked to our blanket closet in the hallway, as if giving it one last look, even though I was sure my husband and son had already thought to do so over the last couple of days, and I opened it.

There was a soft trill, and then a cat jumped out at me.

I was in total shock. I just started yelling, “Oh my gosh! She’s alive!”

The kids came running while the cat, probably startled as much as I was, took off for the food downstairs.

During the day I had been thinking about how much I would miss her. I would miss her touching her nose to mine when she came into my room at 5 or 6 a.m. for cuddles (I don’t actually enjoy being woke up that early, but I would now miss it, I had decided). I would miss her touching her nose to mine when she jumped up on the counter and waited for me to give her a snack of turkey deli meat when she came in from exploring outside at the end of the day.

Touching her nose to mine is something Scout has done since she was a tiny kitten, and she’d sleep on my chest.

After she grabbed some food and water, she ran back up the stairs, overwhelmed by everyone screaming over her and the dog excitedly sniffing and chasing her (I’m sure our older cat Pixel was simply glaring at her as she’d probably hoped she’d died somewhere so she could have all the attention again). I went up to finish getting ready for bed and she was standing on the window sill at the top of the stairs. She trilled at me and then she stretched her neck out toward me. When we were face-to-face she touched her nose to mine and I cried again and did something I almost never do to a cat — I kissed her forehead.

Then I wiped the fur away. Yuck. That’s why I don’t do that.

This cat definitely has nine lives. She’s the same cat that climbed and then fell out of a tree when we first got her. She lay on her side at the bottom of the tree panting and we thought she’d broken her spine and was dying. Thirty-seconds later she jumped up and took off running..

A few months later she climbed a larger tree in front of our house and was trapped there a day and a night and finally the town’s lovely fire department came and rescued her in dramatic fashion with their ladder truck. Just like in the movies.

In addition to having nine lives, the cat is also notorious for embarrassing me. That time it was the fire company rescuing her and yesterday our son went up and down the street asking all the neighbors to watch for her. Now we have to tell all of them she was in our linen closet the entire time and that we are sort of morons for not checking it and she’s sort of a moron for going into in the first place.

Last night I finished The Wishing Well by Mildred Wirt. It is a Penny Parker Mystery. I actually enjoyed it more than some of the Nancy Drew Mysteries because Mildred’s wit and humor comes through so clearly and Harriet Adams took a lot of that out when she wrote the Nancy Drew books that Mildred had written.

I might have to agree with Mildren when she once said that Penny was more Nancy Drew than Nancy was.

She is a lot more mouthy and pushy, but in a well-meaning way, than Nancy was even.

I am still reading Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, one chapter a day, but I didn’t read it much this week because I lost my paperback of it and then found it late last night. I did download an ebook copy to my Kindle too in case this happens again (which it will. I’m always laying my books down somewhere and losing them).

I am also continuing All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriott and will most likely finish that this week.

I plan to start The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Woodhouse this week and soon I will start Summer of Yes by Courtney Walsh (a fun summer romance) and ‘Tis Herself by Maureen O’Hara.

This week I watched a couple of older movies with two of the original Dames.

I watched The Assassination Bureau with a young Diana Riggs. That was — um, interesting. Quite goofy with a lot of sexual tension between her and Oliver Reed.

Then I watched The Honey Pot with a young Maggie Smith and Rex Harrison. This was another interesting one with an odd plot. A rich man pretends to be dying and invites his three former mistresses to his home to see which one of them is worthy of his inheritance.

Maggie portrays a nurse of one of the mistresses.

Rex is in his usual, witty form in this one.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of the film when I started it and when it got serious, Maggie really stepped up her acting game. That was enjoyable.

I also watched Ludwig, a mystery with David Mitchell, on Britbox. I really enjoyed the first episode.

Of course, I watched Just A Few Acres Farm on YouTube and will watch it again because I was interrupted during it. He was restoring a Farmall tractor. Who knew one day I’d be fascinated with watching a man restore an old farm tractor…

I’ve decided that I am going to have a Summer of Angela and watch Angela Lansbury movies. I’m going to sort of do it on my own but if anyone wants to join me, they/you are welcome.

Last week on the blog I shared

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Visiting a cute bookstore and enjoying Memorial Day

On May 31, 2025June 5, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Saturday Afternoon Tea8 Comments

Saturday Afternoon Chat is what it sounds like — a post to chat about what’s been going on or, well, anything I and you want to chat about. You can also feel free to leave links to similar posts or to a post you want to get some extra eyes on at the bottom of this post.

Welcome to our Saturday Afternoon Chat. So glad you are here to chat with me because during the week I mostly chat to my pets and my 10-year-old daughter and sometimes neither of them respond to me. Huh.

Well, anyhow, it’s nice to have some adults to chat with.

Last Sunday The Husband, Little Miss, and I traveled to a small tourist town year us after we found out there was a small, used bookstore there.

The store ended up being bigger than I thought and it was extremely cozy and inviting.

I can’t believe we have lived here for five years and I had no idea the store was there!

The town it is located in starts to get active in the spring and summer because most of the residents have summer homes there along the lake.

Our county is made up mainly of state game land that is full of cabins and hiking trails. This town was built probably 100 years ago as a getaway for residents of the city. Yes, many of those residents are fairly wealthy, so there is definitely a different feel to this town than others in our county.

There is a beach along the lake in the town, but it is only accessible to members or those who stay at the local inns in town, so, yes, it is an exclusive beach.

The bookstore was not exclusive to members, though, so we were free to visit it, look through the books, and even buy some.

What drew us to the store this past weekend was the beginning of summer sale where the owner places select books out front and in a room in the back and marks them at either $1.50 or $3.

There were plenty of books to choose from in those sections but there were also very many reasonably priced books throughout the three rooms of the store.

Of course, the section that most excited me was the children’s section because this is where she had a nice, small selection of Nancy Drew books. I only owned one or two of them and wanted all 17 of them, but we (okay The Husband) had established a budget for all of our purchases so I ended up only grabbing one. The newer editions, and even some of the older ones, were about $5 each, with the larger reprints of the original text priced at $8.50.

Little Miss chose the one I purchased, The Clue of the Velvet Mask.

It looks like the blob is coming up behind Nancy.

I really hope to be able to head back there soon and snatch up a few more.

She also had some vintage books, lovely collector’s editions, new books, history books, art books, mysteries, and so much more.

I could have spent the entire afternoon in there simply exploring.

After we left the bookstore, The Husband and Little Miss grabbed an ice cream cone at the Sweet Shop, a small restaurant and ice cream stand in town. From there we headed to the boat launch of the lake and took a few photos.

We drove by the beach area of the lake, but, again, since we were not members, we were not allowed to visit it.

On the way out of town, we stopped at the reserve, which features a walking trail and a 18th-century log cabin. During other times, the cabin is open and features a mini-museum and local historical information.

The rest of last weekend was spent with family, including a friend of The Boy’s, to celebrate The Boy graduating from technical school.

On Monday, we spent the day at my parents, reading books on their porch/deck, eating chicken spiedies, and the kids took a golf cart ride over the hill with my dad.

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful and not worth writing about. Yesterday we drove to pick up groceries. Ooh…so very exciting. Ha!

Tomorrow Little Miss will start attending a VBS about 20 minutes from our house. It’s going to be going on each evening for five nights.

How was your week last week? Do anything exciting? Go anywhere fun? Let me know in the comments.

Come back tomorrow for Sunday Bookends, where I chat about what I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, doing and share some favorite photos and links from around the blog community.

Sunday Bookends: Dancing in the rain and Vera Wong (not Wang)

On May 18, 2025May 25, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends25 Comments

I never got sick after everyone else in the family did the week before last, but this past week I did get some major sinus issues that have left me with blocked nose, a cough, and a full ear that clicks when I talk.

I never had a fever and didn’t feel so great on Friday, but I was better by later in the day when Little Miss and I had an impromptu dance party on the back porch during a rainstorm. Okay, we didn’t so much dance as jump up and down in puddles on the porch and splash each other with the water in the puddles. We also dumped water on each other from the water bottles we’d had at supper, and I convinced The Husband to pretend we were in a Hallmark movie and kiss me in the rain.

It wasn’t as romantic as I hoped since he kept laughing and looking at me like I was crazy, but at least we tried.

Little Miss thought she was funny by filling her water bottle with very cold water and mine with very warm water, so she was doused with warm water, and I was doused with freezing cold water. It backfired the second time she tried it because I poured the warm water over me instead.

Yesterday Little Miss and I headed 30 minutes away for a grocery pick up. We were about two miles outside of town when a little spider decided to do a little crawl in front of me at the top of the windshield and I did my best to stay calm as I pulled the car over to the side of the road. I really thought in this type of situation — with a small spider trotting across the windshield, right in front of my face, that I would drive the car into a field or body of water and I had that opportunity since we were right next to a pond.

Instead, I tried to squish the spider with a chocolate wrapper but then he dropped in front of me and all bets were off. I swatted at his web with a wrapped slim jim (don’t wask), yelled, and then jumped out of the car and swatted some more.

I really wanted to burn the car and call The Husband to pick us up, but I needed to be an adult (something I have to whisper to myself several times a day, “I’m an adult, I can do this.”) so I took a deep breath and continued on, feeling like there was a spider in my shirt the rest of the way.

I’m really praying it is not a dangerous spider because I have to get in the car again today and I don’t want to be friends with a spider. At least we don’t live in Australia where the spiders are bigger than a human head. I really would have driven the car into the pond if I had seen one of those.

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are still holding Drop-In Crafternoons once or twice a month.

We will be holding another one this Saturday, May 24 at 1 p.m.

If you want to join in, email Erin at crackcrumblife@gmail.com and she will add you to the mailing list.

I was so excited that the new library I’ve been borrowing books from actually responded to a request I had for a book and uploaded Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping on A Deadman by Jesse Q. Sutanto to Libby this past week. It’s the sequel to Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice For Murderers.

The previous library we went to never responded to requests to add books and told me they had no control over it and didn’t know who to ask to add books. I didn’t worry too much about it but was totally shocked when this library added this book. It could have been a coincidence, of course, but either way it was great timing.

I didn’t have as much time to read as I wanted to this past week, but I’ll have the book finished this week. It’s hilarious and engaging. For those who read cleaner books, this one does have bad language, but not as bad so far as the previous book. There is no sex or violence in the books, though.

I am also continuing All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot as a leisurely read though. I read a chapter or two here or there.

Little Miss and I are still reading Magical Melons or Caddie Woodlawn’s Family by Carol Ryrie Brink. We didn’t read it a lot last week since we were at my parents a few days helping there but we will be reading it this week and next as we finish out our school year.

The Husband is reading The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man by Jonas Jonasson to avoid reading a book I suggested he read (Vera Wong’s first book).

I have no idea what The Boy is reading because he is a teenager and hasn’t shared with me lately what he is reading. He is simply trying to get to graduation this week.

Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis, The Clue in the Diary by Carolyn Keene, The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham, and The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared by Jonas Johassen.

The entire family watched Paddington in Peru last night together and I have to be honest that I was so thrown off by them replacing Sally Hawkins as Mrs. Brown that I couldn’t get into the movie. *joking around alert after this point: If you can’t get the actors back, don’t make the movie! That’s what I say. My husband said he didn’t even notice the actress was different and I guess movie goers didn’t care either because it has a very high rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

I’m a creature of habit. I don’t like changes. Even in my movies, if they are a series.

And Sally Hawkins reason for not coming back was definitely a nice way of saying she feels she’s way too talented for a movie that probably should have gone straight to video.

In all seriousness, the movie was a good children’s movie but nowhere near Paddington 2, which was very well done.

This movie had a different director as well so that might be one reason it wasn’t as good.

It was okay, but just not as good as the first two, in my humble opinion. The special effects were very good in this installment. So there was that at least.

I also watched Miss Austen last week and am looking forward to the third installment tonight.

I watched Just A Few Acres Farm on YouTube this morning like I do every Sunday after church.

Last week on the blog I shared (not much):

I did make progress on the fourth book in the Gladwynn series, however. I hope to be able to release it in the fall, but we will see how that goes.

Also, Cassie, the book I wrote as part of a set of novellas by several different authors, is on sale this week for 99 cents and you can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1VW9TVK

Some videos from the YouTube channel this week:

I hope to start sharing longform videos on the channel soon, but I haven’t yet decided how I want to do that so I’ll keep you posted.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Sunday Bookends: The family gets a cold…except me?! And a fun cozy mystery series.

On May 11, 2025May 11, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends17 Comments

This week was way more relaxed than I thought it was going to be but only because the whole house, except me somehow, came down with some kind of cold virus. I’m usually the one who gets sick when no one else does so that was very unusual. Maybe I had a minor version of it since I had a slight sore throat and headache on Monday.

I could, of course, still develop it, I suppose, but so far only Little Miss and The Boy and maybe The Husband have had it. It was fairly minor but a total nuisance.

The Boy was hit the worst with running nose and leaking/burning eyes and a major headache and sore throat. Little Miss had a sore throat but then the dreaded postnasal drip set in and Little Miss refuses all help for that particular symptom, so she slept very little the one night due to a dry, repeated cough.

Not being able to go anywhere was tough on me because I wanted to be at my parents helping them but none of us wanted my mom to get sick since she is still dealing with some health issues.

I didn’t develop symptoms by yesterday so I went to their house and took Mom some fresh fruit and visited for a while.

It was chilly and raining almost all week and I am not going to lie, I really enjoyed that. I am not a fan of warm weather so curling up under a blanket and being able to sleep comfortably at night (other than the nights Little Miss hacked all over me all night) was very welcome this week.

I spent most days with a blanket around me while I worked on blog posts, my book, and read. Okay, so the real bitter cold wasn’t as welcome this past week, but I can warm up easier than I can cool down. Humidity makes me very sick and cold makes me achy …. I’m a mess. I need it to be just right. I’d take about 67 to 72 all year around if I could.

This week I should be able to help my parents again and next week The Boy is graduating. Two weeks after that we will be meeting with our homeschool evaluator and official school for the 2024-2025 year will be complete. We still do a lot of educational stuff over the summer and after July 1 that can all be counted toward our hours for the next school year. So any field trips, 4-H groups, museum visits, books we read, or art projects we undertake for July and August counts as “school”. I love that about homeschooling.

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are still holding Drop-In Crafternoons once or twice a month.

We will be holding another one on May 24 at 1 p.m.

If you want to join in, email Erin at crackcrumblife@gmail.com and she will add you to the mailing list.

The Hardy Boys: A Twisted Claw by Franklin W. Dixon.

This week I started Peg and Rose Solve A Murder by Laurien Berenson and finished it last night.

It is a cozy mystery and it took until chapter 11 (!!!) for a mystery to unfold but I still enjoyed the book and learning about the two women, who are sister-in-law’s who haven’t gotten along for years.

I guessed the guilty party before the end of the book but I was entertained enough with the characters and backstory that I didn’t mind. I hope to read more in the series, but they aren’t free on Libby and I can’t bring myself to spend $10 for a kindle book so it might be a bit before I get to the rest.

I am still reading, slowly, All Creatures Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot. I hope to continue Grave Pursuits by Elle E. Kay this upcoming week. I had taken a break from it because it dealt with the topic of a serial killer, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that with all the stress we had going on in our family. Still, I would like to know what happened so I am going to pick it back up again

Last night I started Miss Austen on Amazon, which is about Cassandra Austen, Jane’s sister, and her decision to burn all of her letters between her and Jane to keep their lives private. She also burned letters between Jane and other family members. I was really getting into it and looking forward to part two and then discovered part two doesn’t drop until tonight. Siiigh.

For some reason I’ve always been fascinated with Jane and Cassandra and how fiercely Cassandra protected Jane’s privacy. We would have known a lot more about Jane and how she thought and spoke in her real life if it wasn’t for Cassandra, but, at the same time, I can totally understand her protecting her sister from being scrutinized after her untimely death.

This week we also watched Everybody Loves Raymond, Blue Bloods, Murder She Wrote, Charade, and my “farmer guy” on Just A Few Acres on YouTube.

This past week I worked more on the fourth Gladwynn Grant book (by the way, the first book is free on Kindle right now) but I am still quite behind on finishing it.

On the blog I shared:

Sunday Bookends: Cool bookstores and I finally finished The Two Towers

On May 4, 2025May 4, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends32 Comments

This past week was a long, rough week with some medical challenges for my elderly parents. I’m pretty wiped out but not as wiped out as my mom who is facing an exhausting situation. If you are a person who prays, we could all use some prayers, but especially her.

Yesterday, The Husband, the kids, and I headed an hour south to picturesque Lewisburg, Pa. for a small break and to visit a comic store for free comic book day. We also visited a couple of bookstores, one independent and another a Barnes and Noble built inside of a three-story former hardware store.

The Barnes and Noble is three stories and features an escalator to reach the second level. It is also a merchandise store for Bucknell University, which is a university that is considered Ivy League, but which I learned yesterday is not officially “Ivy League.”

According to various sites, including College Advisor, Bucknell is considered a “hidden ivy” because of its strong academic reputation and its high rankings in various educational programs.

Regardless, it is a well-known college and, from what we’ve witnessed a few times, quite the party college. There was a noisy frat party going on as we visited a playground after visiting the bookstores and having some lunch. Plenty of young women in sun dresses. There were more girls than boys around, so maybe it was a sorority party instead. Hmmm….

Well, anyhow…we enjoyed our visits to the comic book shop and bookstore. The bookstore, called Mondragon, featured a variety of used books and records.

I didn’t find anything I really wanted but I enjoyed looking at the wide variety. I did find one book of recipes by artist Georgia O’Keefe, and Little Miss found a fiction book about horses.

We didn’t buy any books at Barnes & Noble because I wasn’t super impressed with their selection and rarely buy new. It is, however, a very pretty store.

I finally did it this past week! I finally finished The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien. It took me forever, thanks to life events, and reading a couple of other books.

I enjoyed it despite the wordiness, but I will be taking a bit of a break before I start in on The Return of the King, the final installment of the trilogy.

I’ve been reading Grave Pursuits by Elle E. Kay but it deals with a serial killer and that’s been a bit of a heavy topic with all that’s been going on in my life so I’m setting it aside temporarily. I am really enjoying it, and the writing style, though.

Instead, I am continuing All Things Wise And Wonderful by James Herriot, reading a chapter or two at night before bed.

I also started Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder by Valerie Burns. I like it so far.

And I plan to finish The Hardy Boys: The Twisted Claw by Franklin W. Dixon this week.

The Husband is reading Snow by John Banville.

Little Miss and I are reading Magical Melons by Carol Ryrie Brink.

The Boy is listening to a Warhammer book. I don’t remember which one.

This week I have been watching Murder She Wrote and The Dick Van Dyke Show. Comfort watches.

This week on the blog I shared:

Nancy Drew is 95! History, creation, lasting influence, controversy, and more.

This past week I enjoyed a episode on the True Drew podcast about the 95^th anniversary of Nancy Drew.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Sunday Bookends: My 10-year-old’s opinion of the 1982 Annie, some dirt road traveling, and drop in crafternoons continue

On April 27, 2025April 27, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Sunday Bookends12 Comments

The kids helped some friends of the family clean up their yard last week and while they helped, I took a tour on the dirt roads around the property. It was fun to look at the cows grazing on the hillsides, even though they aren’t fully green yet (the hills, not the cows), watch two young does walk in front of me slowly, admire the amazing sky and clouds that day.

I rambled a little bit more about last week in my post yesterday, if you would like to read it.

On Friday, we drove to pick up groceries. In other words, we didn’t do very much last week.

Yesterday, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I held our monthly Drop In Crafternoon with a couple of other bloggers. We will be holding another one tentatively on May 10 at 1 p.m. and definitely on May 24 at 1 p.m.

Our conversations are usually about light things, including books, but somehow I got us on racism, or maybe Liz did, but usually the conversations aren’t super heavy. You will probably meet our cats, children, husbands, and dogs during the drop in so be warned.

If you want to just drop in and say hello If you would like to join us shoot Erin an email at crackercrumblife@gmail.com and she’ll add you to our mailing list.

Uh…nothing

I keep saying I am going to finish The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien the next week, but I am sure I will actually finish it this week.

I have enjoyed it but, oh my, is it long and wordy. I like the wordy at times too, don’t get me wrong, but I just felt like I might never make it to the end. I am only about three chapters away from the end and I do know that it will end on a cliffhanger since each “book” in the series is actually two books of one huge saga of six books altogether so in many ways I still won’t be done. But I will at least be done with this installment.

I am not sure when I will read Return of the King but probably not until fall or winter.

I’ll need a little break from fantasy books for a while I think. I need a few good mysteries and a romance up next, I think.

I didn’t read any of the James Herriot book (All Things Wise and Wonderful) this past week, except for last night, but I will be diving into it again this week.

I also started Grave Pursuits (Pennsylvania Parks Book 1) by Elle E. Kay as something quick to read and I am enjoying it so far. Elle is a writer who lives about 90 minutes from me, and she writes about state parks and towns near me. I am looking forward to one she wrote that takes place in the town I live in. I’m curious to see what she writes about our tiny town. I’ll be digging into that one next.

I’m also reading The Hardy Boys The Twisted Claw.

Little Miss and I are reading Magical Melons (also called Caddie Woodlawn’s Family) by Carol Ryrie Brink, a collection of short stories about Caddie Woodlawn.

Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder by Valerie Burns

Peg and Rose Solve a Murder by Laurien Berenson

I watched a Hardy Boys from the 1977 show last week and will be writing about it later. I also watched a few episodes of Murder She Wrote from the last season and missed Cabot Cove. She was living in New York City in these episodes.

Little Miss decided she wanted to watch the 1982 version of Annie last night (not sure what inspired this, but maybe a meme she saw making fun of it or something). I told The Husband we were watching it while he was at a work event, and he asked if it was because it was Carol Burnett’s birthday. I said I didn’t know it was her birthday, but it was perfect timing.

When we started it, I realized I must have seen the movie as a kid more than I remembered, because I had it practically memorized. I also realized how old I am because a movie about an orphan hits different now that I am older and think about all those children out there who just want a place to call home.

Another realization was how manipulative that little Annie was. Daddy Warbucks is going to send her back to the orphanage? She adopts a sad look and says, “It’s okay. I’ve already had enough fun just in the short time I’ve been here.” Daddy Warbucks isn’t going to go to the movies with them? “Oh. It’s okay. I don’t need to go to a movie. I’ll just practice my backhand. That girl at the orphanage who said she’d been to a movie once is a liar anyhow.”

Of course, I know that’s not really how they were trying to play her. I’m just having a little fun. In all honesty, I was surprised how nostalgic I was watching the movie.

I couldn’t wait to show Little Miss classic songs like “It’s A Hard Knock Life For Us” and “Little Girls.”

Here were some of her quotes during the movie:

“Why are they dancing? She told them to clean. Hey! You’re supposed to be cleaning! Not practicing your flips!”

“Oh. The little orphan’s got hands!”

“No! Don’t fall for that man! He looks like Professor Quirrell but squared up!”

“No! You can’t marry him! It’s like marrying Jeff Bezos! He pretty much is Jeff Bezos!”

That and when Grace comes out in her yellow dress “oh that dress is beautiful! Slay, girl!”

Watching it and all the great songs (Easy Street with Carol, Tim Curry, and Bernadette Peters for one) was a ton of fun and Little Miss didn’t even make too much fun of it so that was a win!

At the end I asked her what she thought.

“It was kind of a strange movie. We went from, ‘oh these children are sort of being abused, but I guess we’re okay with that.’ To ‘Oh my gosh that guy is chasing her and she’s hanging off this bridge and going to die’ to ‘oh, she has a family now. That’s – uh – cool”

I am making some progress on book four in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series. You can find the other three here.

I don’t have a release date yet but I’m having fun pulling ideas together for the story.

Last week on the blog I shared:

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: A drive in the country and adding a blog roll to my blog

On April 26, 2025April 26, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Saturday Afternoon Tea12 Comments

Good afternoon!

Welcome to the blog for a Saturday Afternoon Chat, where I look back at my week that was.

Most of the time my weeks are not very exciting so don’t expect too much.

Would you care for a beverage while we chat?

I have a variety of tea – peppermint, chamomile, raspberry, and an orange turmeric (has a bit of a bite to it). I also have some milk, grape juice, and just plain water. But no ice cubes. Yes, I need to get ice cub trays because our ice maker doesn’t work.

This past week was fairly routine for us. We did homeschool lessons for most of the week, and then on Thursday I took the kids to the house of a family friend, and they cleaned up sticks and leaves from their yard and The Boy built a garden fence for the woman.

While they worked, I took a scenic tour on the dirt roads around their house. I’ve lived in this area my entire life, but don’t remember being on these roads. The roads had very Irish names like McKeany and Murphy, so I recorded a couple of videos saying the name of the roads in one of the worst Irish accents you’ve ever heard and sent them to Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. She and Wyatt had a good laugh over my horrible accent, and that’s what I was going for, so it worked.

I enjoyed looking at the cows and saw a couple of deer. I tried to film them but I apparently didn’t hit the record button on my phone correctly. Sigh. I did get a quick video but it wasn’t terribly exciting. The sky was amazing that day.

I’d like to say I enjoyed looking at the rolling green hills, but they aren’t very green just yet. The trees are just starting to bloom, and the grass is just starting to grow here. Today we have rain, so I have a feeling that by next week the hillsides will be much brighter and healthier in appearance.

Yesterday, Little Miss and I drove the 30 minutes one way to get our groceries from the Aldi pickup. We went back to my parents for a bit and then came home to unload while The Boy stayed to help my dad with fixing up a couple of lawn mowers to get ready for mowing season.

Today Little Miss and I will spend much of our day alone together while it rains outside. The Husband has assignments to attend and cover for the newspaper and The Boy is going to a friends for the rest of the weekend.

I am going to get on Zoom for our drop-in Crafternoon. You can find more information about it on Erin’s page here until I get my own information page up on it, but the bottom line is it is a chance for people to connect via Zoom and do crafts while we chat. They can be any crafts — knitting, sketching, coloring, watercolors, painting, scrapbooking, needlework. Whatever you craft, you are welcome. Unless it is sketching naked people. Maybe don’t do that on our Zoom. Har. Har. You don’t even have to craft. You can just come on and chat.

We have a tentative one scheduled for May 10 and a definite one scheduled for May 24. All you need to do is send an email to Erin at crackercrumblife@gmail.com or me at lisahoweler@gmail.com, and we will make sure you get on our list to email you the Zoom link.

On other blog matters, I discovered this week how to add a blog roll to my sidebar since WordPress removed the ability to do that a couple of years ago. You can still add a blog roll, but only if the blog is on WordPress. I follow blogs that are on a variety of host sites so I wanted the option to add them as well. After a quick search online, I found directions on how to do that:

Create a Navigation (Link) Menu for Your Blogroll:

Navigate to Appearance > Menus: in your WordPress dashboard.
Create a New Menu: Click “Create a new menu” and name it something like “Blogroll”.
Add Menu Items: Use the “Custom Links” section to add links to other websites.
- Enter the URL of the website and a descriptive label for the link.
- Click “Add to Menu” to include the link.
Save the Menu: Click “Save Menu” to save your changes.

It was pretty simple, and it is sad it took me this long after they took away the official blog roll feature for me to figure it out. Now I just have to add more of my favorite blogs.

I don’t understand why WordPress is always changing things. I feel like if it isn’t broke there is not need to fix it while they seem to think, “it’s not broke but we can improve it” and then it’s like they wander off in the middle of improving it to improve something else and the thing they said they were going to improve just sits there now broken.

So, to me, WordPress is like a person who says he’s — I mean they — are going to fix something in a house but he — I mean they — wanders off in the middle of one project to start another project and eventually there are like ten projects in the house and around the property that are in various degrees of progress/finish status.

Maybe one day WordPress will actually finish a project and stop messing around with it.

So how was your week?

Do anything interesting or exciting?

Let me know in the comments or leave a link to your weekly round-up post. Tomorrow I will be sharing what I’ve been reading and watching, etc. in my Sunday Bookends post.