What I’m Reading

Sunday Bookends: Slogging through a couple of books, warmer weather, and old TV shows

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 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, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What I/we’ve Been Reading

I’m reading a book called Expired Hope for a book tour. In my head, I call it Expired Drama. There is a lot of drama. Like too much drama. It’s a romantic suspense book listed in the Christian Fiction genre. I am probably not going to read another one by this author (Lisa Phillips) even though she is a good writer. The crisis scenarios that keep happening in every chapter are simply too much for me. It’s a bit overdone for my taste, but I’m sure others enjoy that type of escapism. I think I need it to make a little more sense for me to enjoy it.

I am also still reading Fellowship of the Ring. I feel bad I keep saying that I’m still reading it. It’s a good book. I just keep getting interrupted by either the children or phone calls or life in general when I try to read it. Then I get distracted with other books or writing because fantasy, or at least older fantasy, is not always my thing. I do, however, really enjoy Tolkien’s style of writing and when I sit down and focus on it, I do find myself getting carried away into the world of the Hobbits. I do sometimes wish that Tolkien would get to the point. I didn’t think anyone could write that many times about their characters being lost in the forest and drag that fact out for ten pages of talking about rows and rows of trees, but somehow he managed it.

I will be finishing Anne’s House of Dreams by the end of April. That is my goal. I stopped that one because it was a bit more depressing than the previous books I have read in the series.

I started a Walt Longmire Mystery and oh wow – after reading mainly light and fluffy books for the last few months, it was simply too dark and gritty for me. I had to put it aside for now, even though I love Craig Johnson’s writing.

I’m reading a chapter or two of The Lord God Made Them All by James Herriot before bed.

Little Miss and I are reading On the Other Side of the Hill by Roger Lea MacBride. It is part of the fiction series based on the childhood of Rose Wilder, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

In the evenings we are also reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle: A Treasury, which is the story of an eccentric woman who helps teach children to have fun when they have to do work around the home or other things they don’t want to do. It was written in the 50s so there are, at times, some old-fashioned ideas – like 8-year-olds having to do all the housework instead of the parents. Of course, the book also exaggerates some of the situations for the sake of the silliness of the stories.

We also signed out a pile of picture books from the library last week that we will be reading this week and I’ll be sharing about them in a Little Miss’ Reading Corner post.

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote about what’s been occurring in my post yesterday if you want to check it out.

My only update is that the temperatures did drop after our rain yesterday and I was glad to have it cooler so I can cover myself with a blanket while I write this and later while I read.

Also, after the rain, the blooms on the tree next to our house opened even more, so that was pretty cool.

I think the forsythia bush bloomed even more too.

Later today we will head to my parents for some lunch.

Tomorrow, we have gymnastics for Little Miss and a guitar lesson for The Boy and Tuesday it is an eye doctor appointment for them both. After that, the week isn’t too busy for us other than The Boy working at his part-time job.

It isn’t too busy for me at least. Ha.

What We Watched/are Watching

Last night we watched the first episode of season nine of Brokenwood Mysteries. We had missed watching the show and had finished up season eight a couple of months ago, so we are glad it is back for a new season.

Little Miss and I watched a lot of Mary Berry this week. Most of the episodes we had already seen a couple of times before but we still really enjoyed them.

Earlier in the week I watched The Awful Truth with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne and this week I am watching My Favorite Wife with the same actors. This is part of The Spring of Cary that I am doing with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

We also watched some Newhart last week (all of the seasons are now on Amazon), Hogans Heroes, and I watched a couple episodes of Madame Leblanc Mysteries until it started toward preachy themes about the lifestyles of people.

We also finished an episode of McDonald and Dodds and watched a couple episodes of a British sitcom called My Family.


What I’m Writing

I am working hard on Gladwynn’s first book and hope to have it done by the end of the month, if not before, and out to beta readers. This reminds me: I’m taking applications for both beta readers and launch team members.

If you want to sign up to beta read the book and give me your feedback on the characters and the story, etc., then you can do so here: https://forms.gle/WzSJe2pP71MBWbfn9



If you want to be on the launch team that is just where you get an ebook copy of the book and then help me promote it by letting people on your social media, blog, etc. know about the book, you can sign-up here: https://forms.gle/rfqE8oWqfQzhnrhQ7

On the blog last week I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I did not listen to a ton of music this past week, but I did listen to Fellowship of the Ring on Audible.

Now it’s your turn

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

Sunday Bookends: He Has Risen! And other less important stuff

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 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, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.

First: Happy Easter! He has risen! He has risen indeed!

Now on to the less important stuff.


What I/we’ve Been Reading

This past week I finished Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie and would definitely recommend it. I loved the witty comments from Miss Marple and the humor woven in throughout the book. I don’t know if the ending was my favorite, but it was definitely an interesting way to be led to the guilty party.

The rest of the week I read a few chapters of The Lord God Made Them All by James Herriot and tried to decide what other books I might want to read from my TBR. I think I’ll start Little Women this week.

Other choices I have for later in the month and May:

Hell is Empty: A Walt Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson (I did start this one so might continue reading it)

Midwinter Murder by Agatha Christie (I was supposed to read this during the winter. Oops)

Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz

Death by the Seaside by T.E. Kinsley

All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese

I tried to read a little of Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery, which I started months ago, but the old way of writing is a little annoying to me right now, especially when it is used to tell horribly sad stories about the characters in the book. The one girl’s father committed suicide and she found him. Her brother also died being run over by a wagon and she saw that too.

It was like Montgomery just wanted to throw in as much sadness, depression, and drama in there as possible and it is just a bit much. I may skip ahead and read other parts of the book but I guess I don’t like this book as much as I hoped. There is too much about the other characters in the little town Anne and Gilbert moved to and not enough about Anne herself so far. I will probably still try to finish the book, however.

I am still reading The Fellowship of the Ring and I feel like I will never finish it because it is so dense,   and I keep getting interrupted when I try to read it.

 Little Miss and I will be finishing Land of the Big Red Apple this week because it is due back at the library and we’ve had it out long enough and simply because we’ve been working on it so long.

The Husband is reading a collection of novellas called Standing by the Wall by Nick Harrington.


What’s Been Occurring

I didn’t have time to finish my Saturday Afternoon Chat post yesterday because I attended a memorial service about 45 minutes from our house for a family friend. The day before I went grocery shopping and then worked on Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, forgetting that I had a blog post to finish. So, I will include what I was going to share in that post in this section of this post this week.

This past week we finally had warmer weather. Sure, we had two days of rain, but at least we had some sun before that.

I thought Tuesday would be a more relaxed day than my Monday, but it actually turned out to be a busier day. On Monday, Little Miss had a gymnastics make up class and The Boy had a guitar lesson 45 minutes north. My dad took The Boy to his guitar lesson, and I took Little Miss to hers since they were one right after another.

On Tuesday I was ready to work on my book, read, do homeschool lessons and just hang out but the day became busy when Little Miss asked for glue to make slime and we headed to the dollar store. Then from there we came home, and I did a little writing and prepared homeschool but then my neighbor called and told us to come down and see her daughter’s new boxer puppy. Little Miss was very excited to do this, so we headed out the door into the sunshine and warmth.

After that visit we returned home to do our homeschool lessons and then it was time for me to cook dinner. Little Miss wanted to go back outside again so we went into the side yard and I burned our trash. The other neighbors walked by with their little Shih tzu dogs, so we visited with them a few minutes. My bacon got a little overcooked, but not burned while we were doing that. After that, we had some dinner, listened to the Family Hour on our local radio station (Adventures in Odyssey and Lamplighter Theater, The Pond, and other such programs), and I folded one load of laundry from the four loads I needed to fold.

The Boy also headed downtown for his job that afternoon.

And I already mentioned that on Friday we went grocery shopping.

The funeral service was sad and difficult since it was a younger woman (in her 50s) who had been a nursing home for many years because of Lyme that attacked her brain.

What We Watched/are Watching

This past week I watched Houseboat to write about on the blog.

The Husband and I watched the last episode of season one of Miss Scarlet & The Duke.

Then we watched a couple episodes of a British sitcom called My Family. This is the show that Kris Marshall from Death in Paradise and Beyond Paradise got his start on.

We also watched an episode of Yes, Minister.

On my own, I watched episodes of Forgotten Way Farms on YouTube.

What I’m Writing

This week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening to

Little Miss and I have been listening to a lot of Matthew West lately and I just heard this song and loved it:

And today I’ll be listening to this at least once:

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

Fuel for the Race, Our Millstones

Mama’s Empty Nest, What’s So Good About Good Friday

Now it’s your turn

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

Sunday Bookends: Enjoying Spring weather, Magpie Murders, and new book series

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 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, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.


What’s Been Occurring

I sat out on the back porch today. Literally sat on it — my plump rump right on the porch, the soles of my feet together as I did a type of Yoga pose and tried my best to breathe in slowly through my nose (which is a big clogged thanks to allergies). The sun was very warm, and the breeze cool but not too cool. On the side of the house, crocuses are blooming and the buds are up for the tulips that will soon bloom.

As I sat with my eyes closed, I heard birds – which I guess might be robins since I’ve seen at least four this month, two in the last week since the first day of Spring – chirping off to my left. I heard the wind blowing across the trees on the hill above the house.

Little Miss is recovering from a weather-change illness she gets every year this time of year and she shifted herself to sit between my legs, leaning back against me. Zooma the Wonder Dog joined her and there we sat, grateful for the sun and still recovering from the ups and downs of winter – weather, emotionally, and physically.

About ten minutes before we’d walked around the yard, and tossed the ball, a toy, and a stick for the dog. I had bent my toes into the grass and enjoyed the coolness and slowly expanding softness of it as green works to replace brown.

Little Miss walked a little, even tried to run, then realized she still hasn’t recovered from feeling unwell Friday and Saturday so she sat on the edge of the porch, looking – I hate to say it – miserable and not herself. I sat next to her and we talked about how we wanted a garden this summer. She asked first if we could plant a flower garden instead of a regular one, but I suggested we do both and just plant a few things in the vegetable garden. She agreed and we are going to make a list this week of what we want.

The sun helped her feel a little better and I am hoping by Monday or Tuesday she will be well on her way to full recovery.

She hasn’t seen her grandmother in two weeks for various reasons and would like to go visit her but we decided to wait a couple more days in case she is still contagious.

This week we don’t have a ton on tap, other than getting her to her makeup gymnastics class she missed yesterday if she feels better and Awana on Wednesday.

I rambled about our trip to our old stomping grounds in yesterday’s post.

What I/we’ve been Reading

The weather is so nice today that I may go back outside after I post this and read a little bit.

I finished The Burning Issue of the Day last night and am working on Meant to Bee by Storm Shultz for a book tour while also reading A Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie and listening to The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.

I want to read some books with a spring feel after next week so I hope to go back to Anne’s House of Dreams.

The Husband is reading All Kinds of Eden by James Lee Burke.

Little Miss and I are still reading the Land of the Big Read Apple by Roger Lea MacBride in the evening and during the day we were reading Soft Rain, the story of a Cherokee girl who is forced out of her home during the Trail of Tears. I know it is important for Little Miss to know this history but the book is pretty heavy and I’d love for her to hold on to her innocence a little longer. We may set it aside and pick it back up in a couple of years.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week The Husband and I finished up the Magpie Murders mini-series on PBS Masterpiece. It’s based on the book of the same title (Magpie Murders NOT THE MAGPIE MURDERS! Watch the series or read the book to know why that is important) by Anthony Horowitz.

It was very well put together and not a lot of gore, sex, or language. There was one “f-bomb” in the entire six-part series, if I remember correctly.

Saturday I kicked off my Spring of Cary classic movie series with A Awful Truth. It wasn’t too bad but toward the end I realized I had seen the movie before, but years ago – like probably over a decade ago. It was funny and quirky but not really one of my favorites of his.

I’ll have a post later this week sharing what other movies of his I plan to watch throughout April and May.

I started watching a new mystery show that I had hoped would be a bit funny but was a bit more on the depressing side instead: The Madame Blanc Mysteries. It follows the story of a British woman whose husband dies while in France. She moves to France to investigate what happened to him and stumbles into other mysteries along the way.

The first two episodes were very good and I’m interested to see if the first season wraps up the storyline with her husband or not.

What I’m Writing

As I mentioned on Friday, I am working on the first book in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, which is tentatively being released on June 20 of this year.

I am also working on a few other projects and you can read more about them in this post:

This week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening to

I like to listen to jazz when I work on Gladwynn’s story and last week I was reminded of an album by Harry Connick Jr. that I listened to in my teens when I first discovered Harry – Red Light, Blue Light. I have been listening to that a lot this past week.

Now it’s your turn

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

Sunday Bookends: Reading mysteries, watching mysteries, and little girls running wild

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments




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


What I/we’ve been Reading
 

I finished Confessions To A Stranger by Danielle Grandinetti last week and hope to finish The Burning Issue of the Day (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery) By T.E. Kinsey today or tomorrow.

I’ve already started Murder at the Vicarage which is a Miss Marple Mystery by Agatha Christie. I had started watching this episode on BritBox until The Husband let me know it was based on this book he picked up for me a few weeks ago. I decided to try to read the book instead.

I’m also still reading/listening to The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien with The Boy.

Little Miss and I are reading Land of the Big Red Apple by Roger Lea MacBride. This is a book loosely based on the childhood of Rose Wilder, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo Wilder. Roger was adopted by Rose when she couldn’t have children and later became the sole trustee of the Ingalls-Wilder estate. He also wrote a series of children’s books based on Rose and the women in her family. We found this book at our local library.

The Husband was taking his Sunday afternoon when I was writing this so I don’t know what he is reading this week.

The Boy is reading The Fellowship of the Ring with me, along with text from the various school subjects he has.


What’s Been Occurring

I rambled a bit about what’s been occurring in my post yesterday. In that post I gave an update on Little Miss’s recovery since her dental surgery.

I’ll share that again here for those who are like me and just can’t read every single blog post a blogger writes.

Little Miss recovered well this week after her dental surgery last week. I was really a mess for a few days while we tried to figure out what she could eat without some of her important molars.

I kept offering her different foods to eat but some days she didn’t want anything. She would say she wasn’t hungry. I was worried she was in pain, but she told me she wasn’t. Still, she was very down and not bouncing around like she normally does, which I did expect but still didn’t like to see.

Over the weekend I made homemade potato and cheese, sweet potato, and cream of chicken soups. Not only did they give her something with some protein and nutrients in it but it reminded me how easy soups can be to make and that I need to make them more.

I cut up meat really tiny on Monday and offered it to her along with some French fries, which she found she could eat fairly easily.

She looked up at me and said, “Mom. Stop. Let me go at my own pace.”

So I stopped and let her ask for what food she wanted. By Tuesday she was back to eating sandwiches and pretty much the food she’d been able to eat before. On Wednesday she was able to eat potato chips and she was so excited.

Yesterday Little Miss had two of her friends over for the first time in a few months and they had a blast playing together both inside and out.

They didn’t stay outside too long because it was very cold, especially the wind. It is even colder today. I’m guessing we won’t see real spring weather until April, or at least I hope we will see some in April.

Our cat Pixel is not a big fan of noise or a lot of people being in the house so at one point I watched her crawl across the floor, low to the ground, her ears laid back and clearly traumatized by all the craziness going on around her. I let her out the back door and she spent the afternoon curled up somewhere by our garden shed. She was forced to return to the house before the girls left because the temperature dropped very fast and the girls were picked up late, but she hid somewhere in the house, coming out only when all was quiet again.

Little Miss had had a full day with gymnastics early in the day and playing hard all day with her friends. I thought she’d fall asleep early but she fought it and wanted to stay up late with me and her brother. Her dad had already collapsed after having a busy day himself.

I said yesterday that we don’t have anything we have to do this week other than Kids’ Club, but I forgot that on Tuesday we have to drive about 45 minutes north to get Zooma the Wonder Dog a much-needed grooming and nail trimming. After that our week is fairly clear.

Today I am making corned beef, cabbage and pre-made mashed potatoes for our belated St. Patrick’s Day. We were going to share this with my parents but they had a busy week and are resting up.

What We watched/are Watching

The Husband and I have been watching Magpie Murders, a mystery mini-series on PBS Masterpiece. It is based on a book by Anthony Horowitz that The Husband has read, but I have not yet.

We also watched an episode of Miss Scarlet & The Duke and I hope we can finish season one this week.

On Friday I watched The Quiet Man for St. Patrick’s Day. This movie has become my favorite movie over the last several years, replacing Singing in the Rain, which is now second.

I’ve also found a new vlogger to watch:


What I’m Writing

In the last 17 days I have written 17,000 words on Gladwynn Gets Her Footing. I don’t know if I’m going to keep all those words and may decide I have to rewrite half of it, but it’s been fun to dive into a different world for a bit. This one will be a cozy mystery, which I’ve read a lot of, but never written one of. We will see if it is an utter failure or not.

I will share more about expected release dates and a cover for the book later this week.

Last week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

The Husband found a jazz duo – Rachael and Vilray on Apple Music last week so I’ve been listening to them a lot when I write. Their music is calming and I found several videos on YouTube so I can just plug my headphones in on the laptop and write away while they sing away.

If you’d like to see them live, you can watch this YouTube video. It’s similar to listening to their recorded albums:

https://www.youtube.com/live/lQ0S1l8jHa4?feature=share



Now it’s your Turn

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

Sunday Bookends: Dentists, snow, comedies, and other stuff

/ Lisa R. Howeler / Leave a comment

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


What I/We’ve Been Reading

I am finishing up a book by Danielle Grandinetti this week. It’s called Confessions To A Stranger and it will be out on Tuesday. I will have a review up for it on Thursday on my Instagram and probably here. It’s quite good.

I am also still reading The Burning Issue of The Day by T.E. Kinsey and The Fellowship of the Ring, but I didn’t get any of The Fellowship of the Ring read last week. I hope to get more done this week as it would be nice if The Boy and I finished it by the end of the school year at this point. Sigh.

This week I’d love to finish the books I’ve started and then go back to Anne’s House of Dreams and start another Walt Longmire book.

I did have a family friend as me how I read more than one book at once and in case you’ve ever wondered – I switch between books and sometimes I’ll end up reading one more than the other ones, which is why you’ll read on here that I am STILL reading certain books. Ha! There are also times I am reading a chapter here and there of a book, especially the L.M. Montgomery books which are more like little stories in each chapter rather than a book that flows from plot point to plot point.

Little Miss and I are reading Emily’s Imagination by Beverly Cleary again at night and also listened to Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman (and narrated by him) several times this week, including on the way home from her procedure.

During the day for school, we are reading Spirit of the West.

The Husband is reading Upgrade by Blake Crouch


What’s Been Occurring

Friday and yesterday we received some more snow. Earlier in the week we were supposed to receive up to seven inches of snow in a surprise storm but we only ended up with two. Now, watch — tomorrow night we are supposed to get two to four but we will probably get much more because the area 30 miles above us in Upstate New York is supposed to get up to a foot of snow. If the storm slides down just a bit, we could get that amount too. We will just have to wait and see. You’ll have to read yesterday’s post if you want to know my children’s theory on why we are getting nailed by snow.

Also in yesterday’s post, I wrote about Little Miss’s dental procedure. That was our big ordeal of last week. It happened Friday but cast a cloud over our entire week in some ways. It went well, for the most part, but the aftermath of her not being able to eat well has not been fun. I did make her some potato soup with lots of milk and some cheese last night and that was a big hit. I think that’s something I’ll be making for myself from now on too.

I also made sweet potato soup the same way this morning.

I don’t know if I mentioned it yesterday or not, but she has developed a lisp after this and I’m upset by it. No, I don’t love her any less and yes, I am very ecstatic that she is still my same fun-loving kid (though a little more subdued and down with being unable to chew right now), but I was never told this could happen. In fact, I wasn’t told a lot of what would be happening and the fallout.

See that tiny speck of dust on the windowsill over there? (Oops…shouldn’t have mentioned it. The Husband has jumped up to take care of it). That tiny speck of dust is how much I trust dentists at this point in my life. To me they are scammers, liars, cheats, and backstabbing money-grubbing creeps. I’m pretty much over them and how they take advantage of people.

I feel like all some of them are about is money, money, and more money and how to cheat systems so they can get bigger payouts. That’s how I feel about them right now and it’s going to take a lot to change my mind. Sorry for any of you who have family members as dentists. I’m sure they are the exception to my personal rule and feelings about their profession.

People say they don’t know why dentists have the highest rates of suicide. I say it’s because they scam people and they know it and the guilt finally catches up to them.

Pray for me and my disgust with the profession and the people in it! It’s a real hang up for me. I’m serious. Pray for me about it. I know they aren’t all horrible people but we’ve had some really bad experiences of late and it’s left a bad taste in my mouth – in more ways than one.

What We Watched/Are Watching

This week I watched more Miss Scarlet & The Duke. I try to wait and watch certain shows with my husband, but he had a lot going on this week, so I did go ahead a bit with the show and now I’m dying to watch the next episode. I can’t promise I’ll wait for The Husband on this one. We are in season one.

Little Miss and I watched a lot of Bluey this week. A lot. A lot. A ….. loooot.

Hopefully we will take a break this week as I practically have the episodes of all two and a half seasons memorized.

Last night we watched a lot of Studio C, which is a comedy group out of Brigham Young University. We watched the original cast because we haven’t really liked the show since they left.

Friday night we watched the new Puss and Boots movie which is currently free with a subscription to Peacock. It was actually quite good, but I could have done without the bleeping of characters who were obviously saying very nasty swear words, something “kids” cartoons have started to do to try to entertain the parents who are watching with their kids.  Before long they’ll simply be saying the words. Mark my words. It will happen.

What I’m Writing

I wrote some 5,000 words on Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing this past week to try to keep my mind off all the stuff in my life. It was a lot of fun and I hope to do the same this week. I am doing a challenge with a group of other writers and I think I set a goal of 20,000 words for the month. Or maybe it was 15,000. I need to look at the sheet again. All I know is I wrote 10,000 words on the book in two weeks so I think I might make my goal. I’d love to have the book out by the summer.

On the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

This week Little Miss and I were comforted by listening to Matthew West a lot. We really needed his music.



Now it’s your turn

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

Sunday Bookends

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

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


What I/we’ve been Reading

I started a new cozy mystery book in a familiar-to-me series last week. I’ve read four of The Lady Hardcastle Mysteries and last week I started the fifth book, The Burning Issue of The Day.

These books take place in the early 1900s in England and are a lot of fun because of the two main characters, Lady Emily Hardcastle and her lady-in-waiting, Florence or Flo.

The books are written from the perspective of Flo and have a huge helping of humor but also complex and intriguing mystery.

I’m switching between the Lady Hardcastle book and a book by Danielle Grandinetti called Confessions To A Stranger that comes out March 14.

And as if I didn’t have enough to read, I am also reading The Fellowship of the Ring with The Boy. I’m enjoying it very much and will most likely start reading it exclusively soon. I have listened to parts of the chapters on Audible. Once in a while I read a chapter from Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery but I didn’t this week because I misplaced the book. Again. Ha!

At night, Little Miss and I are reading Imagination Station books. We finished a book about Vikings last week and this week we are reading one about Mongolians. These are short chapter books and Little Miss really enjoys reading them to me and then me reading them to her as she drifts off to sleep.

The Husband is reading  something but I’ll have to add this later as he has gone to lay down with a sore back.

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote a bit about what’s been occurring yesterday in my Saturday Afternoon Tea post. You can find that by clicking HERE.

 In that post, I mentioned Little Miss had oral surgery on Friday morning and that I’d love some prayers because she will be going under general anesthesia for the first time to remove several problem teeth. To say I am nervous about all of this is an understatement. My mind has swung back and forth between absolute, illogical terror to slightly more logical contemplation but for the most part, the pendulum has rested right on the terror line.

Little Miss and I spent yesterday afternoon watching Anne of Green Gables The Sequel with my mom and dad. Last night I spent two and a half hours working on my latest book during a writing sprint with a group of Christian mommy writers. It was a lot of fun, but it showed me I need a lot more direction for this book before I can start adding to the word count.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week The Husband and I watched the first episode of Beyond Paradise which is a spin-off of Death in Paradise. It features Detective Humphrey Goodman, who was a favorite DI on Death in Paradise that left a couple of years ago. It was okay, but I wasn’t bowled over by it. I think we will probably return to Grantchester and Foyle’s War this upcoming week, but we also need to return to Magpie Murders, a mini-series based on a book by Anthony Horowitz.

I started to watch a show called Kirstie’s Vintage Homes on Britbox. It is a British home renovation show where they use vintage items to bring new life to modern homes. I got interrupted but will probably watch more of that this week as I try to relax and keep my mind from spinning.

Little Miss and I also watched some Mary Berry because there are days we just need some Mary Berry.



What I’m Writing

As I mentioned above, I am working on Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, which is the first book in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries. I shared a little bit about the series on Friday in an update on my writing projects. You’ll notice Gladwynn has one “n” in Friday’s post and two here. That’s because I’ve been going back and forth on whether I wanted her name to be with two or one n and last night I decided it will be two because one of the ladies in the writer’s group said she liked the look of two “n’s”, and I agreed. I don’t know. What do you think? One n or two?

Anyhooo… I worked on that book most of this week and also worked a little bit on Cassie, the book I am writing as part of a multi-author project. That book doesn’t come out until August of 2024.

This week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I’ve been listening to the new Matthew West album and really enjoying it. My husband also shared an artist named Marcus King with me.

Now it’s your turn

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



Sunday Bookends: Books with no plots, working on new books, and a lot of British shows

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

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


What I/we’ve been Reading

This week I finished The Cat Who Dropped A Bombshell by Lilian Jackson Braun and even though it was a later book in the series, it wasn’t too bad. Some of the later books were not the best, which is fine. The woman did write 29 of them and was in her 90s when she died. They couldn’t all be winners.

I wouldn’t really call the book a mystery, but it was light and fluffy and a nice distraction from life.

It didn’t have a plot exactly either…which was fine with me at this point in my life.

This week I am going to be reading The Fellowship of the Ring by Tolkien and Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery.

I also hope to continue Some Through the Fire by Jennifer Q. Hunt, as well, but I am taking my time with it because it is about war and I’ve been going through a lot of depression so I don’t really want to read about war right now. It’s very well written, though, so I do want to continue it so I can find out what happens to the characters.

And I’d love to disappear into at least one short story in Midwinter Murder, a collection of Agatha Christie stories.

Little Miss and I have been reading Imagination Station books by Paul McCusker and we are currently reading one about Vikings in the evening before bed (she’s actually reading the book to me which has been fun) and one about the Plymouth settlement during the day.

The Boy is reading The Fellowship of the Ring, his medieval history book, and a biology book.

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote about what has been going on with us yesterday in my Saturday Afternoon Chat and Something Warm. You can head over there for an update, but I will mention, as I did there, that my aunt, on my dad’s side, passed away last Sunday and so it’s been a tough week.

What We watched/are Watching

Last night the kids and I watched Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Earlier in the day I watched an episode of All Creatures Great and Small. It was a bit sad but also sweet and left me crying a lot.

We also watched a Grantchester episode and a Foyle’s War episode and then we watched – I am ashamed to say it – an episode of the 1970s Hardy Boys. Eek. We didn’t even finish it but may finish it later today. The Husband really wants to see the old Nancy Drew show, though, because of some actress he had a crush on as a kid.

Oh and yes…we watch a lot of British shows.

What I’m Writing

I have been working on a cozy mystery book and wrote a few thousand words on it last week. I’ll share more about it when I know a little bit more about my main character and her motivations.

I am also working on a book that will be part of a multi-author project and will share a bit more about that as I get into that book as well. I wrote about 500-800 words on that last week too.

Last week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I did not listen a lot last week but this week I plan to listen to Matthew West’s new album and some new songs dropped by We The Messengers.

Now It’s Your Turn

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

Sunday Bookends: Bookish outings, typos in books, Anne of . . . books, and lots of figure skating

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

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


What I/we’ve been Reading

I was determined to finish Anne of Windy Poplars this week because I started it, not necessarily because I am enjoying it. I don’t like to not finish books I’ve started. I won’t lie. I skimmed the last few chapters. I’d heard from some other readers who have read Anne that this one wasn’t their favorite and I can see why. It isn’t a horrible book but there were parts that just dragged on. I mean, the Anne books sort of drag on anyhow. They are written some 100 years ago now and are in the classic style of “head-hopping” and over explaining, but this one was a bit over the top.

With that book behind me I’m planning to read Anne’s House of Dreams but only a chapter or two at a time.

I’m really itching for a cozy mystery so I wanted to delve into The Cat Who Smelled A Rat by Lilian Jackson Braun, even though it is one of her later books and they aren’t as good. I had purchased a mass-market paperback for my birthday this past year. When I opened it last night, all excited to read, though, I realized that there are tons of bizarre typos in it. Like spaces in the middle of words typos. Like I don’t know how this made it off-the-press typos.

I’m so irritated by these typos (I could deal with some missing commas, etc.) that I don’t know if I’ll keep reading this one. I do have four others in the series in hardcover that I haven’t read yet so I may grab one of them.

I picked up a book called A Case of Bad Taste by Lori Copeland at a library sale I mention below, so I am starting that today instead.

I’m also reading an ARC for an indie author, which I am also done with. It is called A New Day Dawning by Sara Whitely.

It releases on Tuesday.

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote a little about last week in the post I shared yesterday.

The Husband and I went to lunch in a town 30 minutes away yesterday and then visited a merchant center, which is sort of like a flea market. There they had a selection of old books, which distracted me for quite a while, mixed in with other items, such as cast iron pans, handmade products, dishes, DVDs, toys, clothes, etc.

For me, looking through old books is so exciting because I just never know what treasure I’m going to find there. I found a book by two “old time” Christian Fiction authors, Bodie and Brock Thoene, that I hadn’t ready before (though I haven’t read a lot of theirs) and one by an author named Sean Dietrich who I found on Instagram. He writes short little tidbits about life, which reminds me of my blog, or at least the early years of my blog.

After we left the flea market, we headed to a library book sale in a small town we pass through on our way home. Okay, wait, we actually stopped by Aldi first for a couple of items, and then we went on to the book sale. I had looked on social media to see if there were any book sales going on because – yes – I am addicted to buying books, just as The Husband said. I say he can’t say much since he stopped by a library to buy a used book on Friday too. Ha!

The sale was upstairs in a conference room of the library (which is in an old high school) and many of the books appeared brand new. A notice on the chalkboard said that the sale was $5 for one bag full and $3 for a second bag full. I could have probably filled three bags with the books we found, even though the selection didn’t look that large on arrival.

In the end, we came home with 22 books for $8 and many of them were hardcovers that looked brand-new. I picked up three books from the Mitford series that were library-bound and spotless. They looked like they’d never been checked out, which is sad because that means a bunch of readers really missed out. I was also happy because I added them to my collection since I’ve been trying to gather together all 14 of the books in physical form for my bookshelf.

I also picked up a couple books by Lynn Austin (Fire by Night and Candle in the Darkness), one by Francine Rivers (Her Mother’s Hope), two books by Lori Copeland (A Case of Bad Taste and A Case of Crooked Letters) and together The Husband and I picked out seven of the first nine books in the Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson. We own those books already on Kindle, but I always say we never know when Amazon is going to stop their service or something weird will happen and we will lose all those books. I prefer to have the books I really like in physical form.

For Little Miss, I picked up a couple of Native American fiction books because she loved Children of the Longhouse so much and is now fascinated by Native American culture – at least when it comes to books. Those books included Walk by Two Moons by Sharon Creech, Sing Down the Moon by Scott O’Dell, and Zia by Scott O’Dell.

I also picked her up a few picture books.

I didn’t find any books The Boy might like this time around.

Do you do what I do when you see a book by a new-to-you author and read the first few lines to see if you will like the book? If the first few lines catch me then I snatch up the book, thereby adopting it and taking it home.

I didn’t do that with each of the books I looked at yesterday, but I did with a couple, including the Copleand book.

After we came home, Little Miss’s little friend came over to play for a couple of hours. Little Miss stayed with the little friend and her grandmother while we were gone too, so she had a full day of playing, which was nice because it’s hard to get her together with her friends, who all live a half an hour from us.

The day was extremely relaxing and exactly what we needed after the last month of craziness our family has had.

Today we will visit my parents for some lunch and afternoon watching of The Chosen.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week we watched the last two episodes of season three of The Chosen. You can watch them at www.angelstudios.com or on The Chosen app.

They were pretty incredible but I’m going to need to watch them again to take everything in that was touched on. I’m already looking forward to season four.

During the week I watched an episode of All Creatures Great and Small from the most recent version of the show and sniffled through most of it. It’s a very touching show.

The Husband and I watched an episode of Foyles War and really enjoyed it.

I also watched a documentary on Orchard House, which is the house that Louisa May Alcott lived in and wrote Little Women.

Last night I watched video after video on YouTube of ice skaters I used to watch back in the 90s – Scott Hamilton, Kurt Browning, Elvis Stojko, etc.

Browning just had the most amazing footwork. He has always been quirky and fun on the ice too. He has a style that I’d never seen in skating before and haven’t since.

I love watching him.

Elvis was such a powerful skater and Hamilton? Well, we was the inspiration for them all. What a showman.

As I was falling down the YouTube spiral, I saw a video of Browning from last year and – oh my – he still is in amazing shape and skating well at the age of 56.

I spent 2 hours just watching the various performances and it was so relaxing. I need to take YouTube spirals like that more often.

Here are a few of the performances I watched:

What I’m Writing

Earlier today I had a breakthrough with ideas for a cozy mystery I want to write. I hope to start working on it this week.

I’m also going to be working on my Biblical fiction story.

I didn’t share much on the blog this week for various reasons, part of which I wrote about yesterday.

Your turn!

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

Sunday Bookends: Need some lighter books, some classic movies, and getting to write Biblical fiction

/ Lisa R. Howeler / Leave a comment

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


What I/we’ve been Reading

This week I finished Love and The Silver Lining by Tammy Gray. It was very different than most Christian Fiction books. The characters were very real and raw with a lot of flaws and many of those flaws were not fixed by the end of the book. This is part of a three-book series.

I found some of the romance scenes longer than they needed to be, but still enjoyed the book. I ended up skimming those scenes. They were very clean but also overly dramatic. I think the point could have been explained in only one page versus five or six in those instances, but that is merely a personal preference.

The book was a bit heavy at times so now I feel like I need a bit of a lighter book to give my brain a bit of a break.

Unfortunately, I promised to read another book for an author’s launch and this one looks a bit heavy too. I’ll let you know when I finish it and when it is officially out for purchase.  

To give myself a little break from the heavy parts of Love and The Silver Lining, I read Anne from Windy Poplars. I managed not to lose the book again this time.

I can’t seem to get away from books with some sadness or heaviness in it.

I’ve started one by Jennifer Q. Hunt called Some Through The Fire, which takes place during World War I. I do want to take a break from heaviness but I need to find out what happens to the characters so I will probably pick that up this week at some point. It’s very good if you are a fan of historical fiction.

I really do want to delve into Midwinter Winter, a series of short stories by Agatha Christie, but I really am having a craving for a The Cat Who book so the one I picked up for my birthday could end up in my hands this week.

Remember at the beginning of the year how I had planned out books I would read each month? Ha. Yeah, so far that has not worked very well, but that is okay because reading shouldn’t be structured. It should be fun.

Little Miss and I are reading Paddington at night again and Children of the Longhouse or The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz during the day for school.

The Boy is not reading a book right now as I look for another one for us to read for English.

The Husband is reading True Believer by Jack Carr.

What’s Been Occurring

I shared what’s been occurring on yesterday’s Saturday Afternoon Chat so you can catch up there.

What We watched/are Watching

This week we didn’t watch a ton because I was busy writing and trying to figure out my next stories and I made myself read instead of watch.

We did watch The Big Sleep with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart last night. It had a very complex story and I kept getting distracted for some reason. It was very good but my brain wandered, my son came to talk to me about a show he’s watching, the animals were a bit wild, and I was working on this blog post.

We also started The Top Hat with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We had to pause it an head to bed. I followed that one better because I set things aside and worked on focusing. Focus is my word of the year (which I will eventually write a blog post about) because I’ve been very bad at it recently.

Earlier in the week we watched an episode of Midsomer Murders. I watched an episode of Finding Your Roots with Julia Roberts and Ed Norton as the guest stars and I guess it was interesting, but I don’t know that I care about the ancestors of celebrities that much.

Tonight, when I get home from my parents we will be watching episode seven of season three of The Chosen and I am very excited since we weren’t able to make it to a theater for the final two episodes. We will watch episode eight Tuesday night. Or maybe we should just wait until Tuesday and watch them back to back but The Husband has a meeting that night so it probably won’t work out.


What I’m Writing

I am working on three different story ideas, but I think one is going to get dropped this week for another idea (a cozy mystery). The one is a story that doesn’t come out until August 2024 and is part of a multi-author project.

The other is Fully Alive, which I’ve shared a little bit of on here. It is a Biblical fiction story and I’m a little nervous about it. I don’t feel I know enough Biblically, but I’m praying about it and we will see where it goes.

This 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.