What I’m Reading

Sunday Bookends: Visiting Old Stomping Grounds, preparing the garden, and very different book genres on my list

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

 

If I usually comment on your blog and I haven’t lately, please don’t feel slighted. I am having a horrible time keeping up with blog commenting lately. I’ve been having a few busy days with homeschool winding down, attending a writer’s conference, trying to stick to a self-set deadline for Harvesting Hope (the book formerly called The Farmers’ Sons), planning a garden again this year, running various errands, and reading books I told people I would read for them.

I was recently telling a blogging friend how my errands take a little longer than some people’s because if I want to go to a bigger store, like a Walmart or Aldi’s, for groceries, I have to drive 45 minutes to an hour either north or south or west. Friday we drove north because I had planned to pick up my new eyeglasses. Sadly, the optometrist’s office has new hours I wasn’t aware of and is now closed on Fridays. I still had to pick up a Walmart order 20 minutes further so we kept driving, back to the town we moved from last year. Because we were going to the town my son spent most of his childhood in, he asked to take his bike so he could ride around town while I picked up the order and made an Aldi’s run. 

He likes to walk or ride around town and reminisce about the good days of living in the town. I vaguely miss the place, but mainly the idea of what could have been in regards to failed family and business relationships, and friendships are at the forefront of my mind when I return.

It was nice to see the house our family lived in for about 15 years. The new owners have remodeled some and I’m glad to see it. What they’ve done to the front of the house – transforming the odd red paneling on the front of the house to blue — is what I always wanted to do when we lived there.

My children commented several times Friday that the town had been a good town to live in and that they miss the house. Sometimes I do miss the house, but I don’t miss the town much at all, especially now that the place is being infiltrated even more by drug dealers and addicts. My husband said he has been writing up a lot of police briefs for the newspaper he works at related to drug incidents in that area recently.

Last weekend I helped my dad and family rototill and prepare the space for my garden in between sessions of an online writer’s conference I was able to attend via zoom. The two main speakers for the event were James Rubart and Rachel Hauck, well-known Christian fiction writers. I plan to write a blog post about the event later this week. The conference was so much fun I am saving up money for another virtual conference being held in Philadelphia in August.

As for the garden, I hope to pick up the seeds and plants this week, but I can’t plant anything until we install the fencing around it. Otherwise the deer will eat my plants. For now my cat and probably all the neighborhood cats are using my raised garden beds as their litter boxes. Little Miss and I have decided to plant potatoes, summer squash, carrots, beets, cucumbers and maybe green beans. We probably don’t have the space for all that, but we’ll see.

What I’m Reading

I finished The Sowing Season by Katie Powner last week and really enjoyed it. It is the story of an unlikely friendship between a 15-year old girl and a 63-year old retired farmer. The book takes the farmer, Gerrit, through the emotions following him selling the farm he worked on his whole life, as well as various family issues that resulted from his past workaholic nature. The young girl, Rae, is dealing with her own issues stemming from her parents urging her to do well in school so she can become a lawyer like her father. Throw in a teenage crush or two and you have the makings of an engaging story that kept me reading late at night.

I started a new book this week that is similarly engaging. Love Happens at Sweetheart Farm by Dalyn Weller. 

From the back of the book: What if your pursuit of happiness robs someone you love of theirs?

 Lexi is the frazzled owner of Sweetheart Farm and B&B. Ian is a burnt-out fund manager desperate for a way out of his soulless job and an engagement he never wanted with a woman he doesn’t even like.

 And when Ian shows up at the B&B, needing space and quiet to rethink his life, there’s certainly no way this pampered rich city boy could ever be a suitable match for Lexi. But her wise and hilarious grandmother keeps sprinkling that blasted sweetheart herb everywhere and praying for lonely hearts to find love. And God listens.

I’m also still reading Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson (A Longmire Mystery book) and Rooms by James Rubart. The Craig Johnson books are not “clean” and not my usual type of book but I am in love with the characters. Just be warned if you ever pick one up that there is swearing and some other not-so clean subject matter.

Little Miss and I finished On The Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder this week as well.

What I’m Watching

I started watching Jonathan Creek this week. I’ve heard a lot about the show over the years. I’ve only watched the first two episodes, but so far I like it. I’m watching it through AcornTV through Amazon.

Tonight I’ll be watching episode five of The Chosen, which is a crowd-funded TV series about the life of Jesus. They show the episodes on Youtube and they are available for 24 hours and then you have to download the app to watch the rest. The first three episodes are still on Youtube currently. 

I know I’ve mentioned the show here before. If you have seen other shows or movies about Jesus and didn’t like them, then you definitely have to watch this one. It’s nothing like any other show you’ve ever seen about the Bible. Here is a preview for Season Two.

What I’m Listening To

I have been listening to podcasts about fiction books or how to market books. It’s starting to make me feel very inferior in this whole book writing venture, but then I try to remind myself to just have fun, which has been my motto since I started sharing my fiction here on the blog.

I’ve also been listening to Cory Asbury’s live album.

What I’m Writing

Last week I shared two chapters of The Farmer’s Sons (Harvesting Hope), one on Friday and one on Saturday.

On Thursday I shared a Randomly Thinking post.

So there’s my week in review. How about yours? What are you reading, watching, listening to, writing, or doing? Let me know in the comments. 

Sunday Bookends: To Kill A Mockingbird, awful disaster movies, royals, and slow spring days

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’m reading, watching, listening to, writing, or doing.

***

Happy Mother’s Day for those who are mothers, had a mother they cared about, or who are spending a mother’s day remembering their lovely mothers.

What We’re Reading

The Boy and I have been reading To Kill A Mockingbird. He’s halfway through and I finished it this weekend. To make sure he finishes it by the time we finish school in three weeks, I purchased an audible membership so he could listen to it as well as read it. It’s narrated by Sissy Spacek.

Anyone who says To Kill A Mockingbird is a racist book has obviously never read it. Using the “n” word does not make a book racist. I’m guessing too many people got to the first “n” word, but it down and never got to the parts where it is clear Atticus and many others in Maycomb, Alabama are not racist. Using the word and many other references to black people made the book painfully real, painfully raw. Without it, it wouldn’t have been clear how the people of this county in Alabama looked at black people as less than human, which is why they were so willing to put a black man on trial for a crime he didn’t commit.

Have you ever read To Kill A Mockingbird? If so, what did you think? Let me know in the comments. If you haven’t, I highly encourage you to do so. It is considered a classic for a reason. Reading it again as an adult had an even bigger impact on me than it did when I read it in 7th grade (on my own, I might add.) I cried as a teenager over the injustice of it all, but I practically bawled as an adult.

I may write a book review on this next week, if I can stop crying.

Besides reading that this weekend, I also started The Sowing Season by Katie Powner

and I’m still reading Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson (A Longmire Mystery). I’m not reading the Longmire book slowly because it is bad. Quite the opposite. It is very, very good.

I wanted to finish To Kill A Mockingbird first, because it is a very good book and I needed to for my son’s English, and I’ve been writing Harvesting Hope (new name for The Farmers’ Sons) so Walt Longmire has been pushed aside a little.

I’m also reading Rooms by James Rubart this week because at the end of the week I am going to be “attending” a author workshop with him as the main speaker. It is all on Zoom. I’m sure I’ll update my blog readers about that next week.

I hope to get to The Number of Love by Roseanna White this week as well, but I had to move Rooms up so I would at least now wat James is talking about during his keynote speech.

What We’re Watching

This week we tried something different by watching Prince Charles Inside the Duchy of Cornwall on Acorn TV (through Amazon).  If you don’t know what a Duchy is, (because I didn’t either), it is an area of land run by a Duke or Duchess. On that land are towns, small businesses, and various small farms.

The description of the show from the AcornTV website:

Prince Charles provides exclusive access to the royal lands that have belonged to successive Prince of Wales for 700 years I this moving, candid, and humorous observational documentary. Established in 1337, the Duchy of Cornwall is today a vast, varied estate of rolling farmland, visionary housing development, and even parts of inner-city London that embody the prince’s sustainable philosophy.

The two-part documentary gave my husband and I a completely different look at Prince Charles, also known as the Duke of Cornwall. I don’t know about some of you, but when I was growing up Charles was often painted as the bad guy while Princess Diana was considered sweet, demure, and innocent. Charles cheated on Diana with his first love Camilla (now his wife), but listening to him talk during this documentary I couldn’t imagine him as evil or emotionally abusive. It gave me a more complex view of him and the entire situation, actually.

Charles’ estate in Cornwall helps pay for the royal family’s expenses, as well as various charities.

In addition to learning more about Charles and his work, we also got the impression from the show that the royals do have to work for their money. I think most Americans believe royals are born with a silver spoon in their mouth and never have to work for the lavish lifestyles they have. It’s clear from this special, and others I’ve seen, they do work and are under extreme pressure at times.

Last night we were looking for a film to watch as a family. When my husband came to the preview of The Towering Inferno and I saw that Paul Newman (my favorite actor. Swoon! ) and Steve McQueen (more swooning!) were in it together, I said, “Yes! This is the film for us!”  

My son said, “Mom. Eww. And how old are these guys now?”

“They’re dead,” I responded.

“Oh mom. That’s disturbing.”

My husband was like, “Watch all the people who are in this. You’ll be surprised by one.”

And then there was his name: O.J. Simpson and after him, Robert Wagner.

“Wow,” I said. “It’s a movie with all the wife killers.”

If you’ve never seen the movie, you haven’t missed much. I wouldn’t rush to watch it unless you need to have a good laugh and cringe more times than people at a Justin Beiber concert.

At one point The Boy said, “why do all the blond women at this party have the same hairdo? They look like a bunch of Lego women.”

A man stumbles out of an elevator on fire, into a party scene, at one point and I quipped, “Wow. This party is lit.”

A building 135 stories high with bad wiring and no safety protocols? What could go wrong? This is NOT a movie to watch if you, or anyone you know, were near the World Trade Center in 2001, however. There are a couple of very triggering scenes that brought memories of that day even to my mind. We almost turned it off, but there were too many illogical and giggling-inducing bad acting moments to make the movie too upsetting.

Apparently, there are a series of these disaster films, so I told my family I think we should watch all of them over the next few Saturday nights. We need a good laugh and to question again how these high-quality actors ended up in such horrible films.

I have also been re-watching the first three episodes of The Chosen with my son (for his Bible lessons) and my mom and then Dallas Jenkins announced that episode four is debuting Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET. I’m very excited for episode 4 because I believe it’s about the man at the pool who Jesus heals and tells to pick up his mat and go be well.

What I’m Writing

Last week I wrote about taking more breaks from news (and I did really well this week, by the way. I hardly looked at news at all and it was so nice.). I also challenged all of you to do the same if you don’t already.

On Tuesday I shared photos from April.

I shared a book review for Avoiding Marriage by Karin Beery and In Sheep’s Clothing by Pegg Thomas for the rest of the week.

On Friday, I shared another chapter from The Farmers’ Sons which I have now renamed Harvesting Hope and announced that the book version of it will be out this summer (most likely the end of July).


What I’m Listening To

I am listening to the live album by Needtobreathe and a new album by Elevation Worship. Here are a couple of samples of those. They are both available whereever music is streaming.

What’s Been Occurring

We have not been doing anything very exciting lately. We’re such boring people that going to a doctor’s appointment is the highlight of our week. I’m not even 70 yet. A couple of weeks ago we traveled 45 minutes to pick up my son’s new glasses and made it a family trip. This past week we traveled 30 minutes for an eye doctor appointment for me and for the first time in 30 years, my prescription wasn’t increased. I also avoided bifocals, but just barely, and after I got back to the house and tried to type on my computer, I thought about how I might should have asked for the bifocals after all.

Last week my kids enjoyed playing outside at my parents, rolling in the grass after I told them I didn’t want them in the grass because I was worried about deer ticks. Oh well, at least they had fun and when we did a tick search that night we didn’t find any, thankfully. It’s weird to have to worry about ticks now because when I was a kid, we were never told not to roll in the grass because of ticks. We were never told not to roll in the grass period, unless we were wearing a nice Sunday dress.

So, that’s my week in review. How about yours? What have you been reading, watching, listening to, or doing? Let me know in the comments or link to a blog post where you shared your week.

Sunday Bookends: Reading novellas and Watching Spring Bloom

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 1 Comment

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’m reading, watching, listening to, writing, or doing.

***

What I’ve Been Reading

I finished a couple of novellas in the last couple of weeks that I’m not sure I mentioned or not previously. One was Avoiding Marriage by Karin Beery. The other was In Sheep’s Clothing by Pegg Thomas.

The description of Avoiding Marriage is:

Two years ago, Jessica Miller made a mess of her already confusing life. Now, she’s back in Boyne Heights, and she’s determined to fix her reputation. She can’t seem to avoid the past that haunts her, but that’s the joy of small-town life—word spreads and people remember. Intent on her mission, however, she faces her past head-on, taking a job with her ex-boyfriend while avoiding her grandmother’s attempts to find her a new one.

The description of In Sheep’s Clothing is:

Yarrow Fenn, the talented spinster sister, was passed over when her intended walked out on her years before. She’s content with her life – for the most part – until Peter Maltby arrives in town. A journeyman fuller, Peter comes to Milford, Connecticut, not to woo the young women, but to rise to the rank of master fuller and return to Boston for some unfinished business. When their lives intersect over an orphan lamb, sparks are kindled. But their budding romance will have to survive revealed secrets when someone else shows up in Milford.

`

I will offer reviews of both of them later in the week.

I am currently reading Kindness Goes Unpunished (A Longmire Mystery) by Craig Johnson,

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and I’m going to start The Number of Love by Roseanna M. White as part of a Goodreads book club.

Little Miss and I finished Little House on the Prairie and are now reading On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The Boy is still reading To Kill A Mockingbird.

What’s Been Occurring

The weather was nice most of last week, except for Thursday when it rained and stormed, with high winds, bringing with it colder air. Despite the nicer weather, we really didn’t do much other than schoolwork and playing outside and at the little playground down the road from our house.

We also explored our back and side yards to see which flowers are blooming this week. By yesterday the leaves were starting to come out in full force on the trees around our house and I’m guessing they will all be out by the end of this week.

I hope to start planning our garden this week, including figuring out where to get the topsoil. We will see if I can get myself motivated enough to actually do it.

What I’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched The Secret: Dare to Dream with Katie Holmes and Josh Lucas. It was a very sweet, clean movie and is currently on Amazon prime. It was fairly predictable plot wise, but it was okay.

I also watched a few episodes of the old All Creatures Great and Small show and a British comedy game show called Would I Lie To You?

What I’ve Been Listening To

I listened to a lot of the Unashamed podcast with the Robertson family from Duck Dynasty fame this past week and also a live album from Needtobreathe.

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week I shared a post asking if Laura Ingalls Wilder was racist and a new chapter of The Farmers’ Sons in two parts (one Friday and one Saturday).

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

Sunday Bookends: Awesome weather, little houses, sheep, and Brits out of place

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

What’s Been Occurring

The weather was cold here at the beginning of last week but warmed up in perfect timing for our 45-minute drive south to pick up my son’s new glasses. It was perfect timing because after finding a Weis store, which was my excitement for the week, sadly, we found an amazing playground for the kids to play on. For almost two hours my kids played with other kids and not one of them was wearing a mask. Only one parent was wearing a mask and it looked like a spring day from 2019. It was amazing and the best day I’ve had in a very long time.

The kids also had a blast. Our car was full of fresh fruit from Weis, the sun was shining, we had an awesome playground (with a zipline!) to play on, and my son could finally see again.

About the supermarket trip, listen, we live in the middle of nowhere without large supermarkets so this was exciting to me. This was more exciting than finding a Target or Trader Joe’s. Well, not more exciting than a Trader Joe’s. There are no Trader Joes anywhere near us – like even 100 miles near us.

So, don’t judge my sad little life.

The store is like a small version of Wegman’s if you have one of those or Whole Foods. Or if you are in the South, maybe it’s a small version of Food Lion. I don’t know. But they have fresh fruits and produce we can’t get near us.

What I’ve/We’ve Been Reading

I am reading the third book in the Longmire series, Kindness Goes Unpunished, by Craig Johnson right now while also enjoying a lighter book called In Sheep’s Clothing by Pegg Thomas. I’m also reading a few chapters of Anne of Green Gables a week in a hardcover copy I bought many, many years ago. I’m old enough now that I can write things like “many, many years ago” and still be referring to my own life. I’m not sure I’m very happy about that.

Little Miss and I are still reading Little House on the Prairie before bedtime and encountered some harsh language about Native Americans last week that I had to address. I will be posting a blog post about this development later in the week. I’ve already started writing it and asking the question, “Was Laura Ingalls Wilder a racist?”

I’m very sick of the “r” word being thrown around so easily because it takes away from people who actually are, so here is a little spoiler for the upcoming blog post: no, I don’t feel she was and I’m not the only one. I will expound on it more either tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on when I get time to sit down and write it.

The Boy and I are continuing to read To Kill A Mockingbird, a few chapters a week for me, two for him, but I’ve told him he needs to pick up the pace so we can finish it before our school year is over.

What I’m Watching

This past week I watched a movie called Main Street, starring Colin Firth and Orlando Bloom. I did not enjoy the movie for a variety of reasons but the biggest reason being that the movie featured two Brits speaking in Southern accents. I mean, come on. The director seriously couldn’t find any actors from the South to play the parts? Hmmm. Okay. It isn’t that Colin and Orlando couldn’t pull off their accents. They certainly could, but hearing anything but a charming British accent come out of Colin Firth was unnerving. Orlando was so natural in the role, I really didn’t mind hearing him speaking in an American accent. Plus, I’ve never been a huge Orlando Bloom fan. He’s okay, but he’s no Colin, in other words.

My other issue with the movie is that I simply didn’t understand the plot. It was boring beyond belief and none of the stories really resolved themselves in the end. It was fairly clean, however.

The last couple of weeks have been somewhat stressful here for a variety of reasons so I watched a lot of comfort TV the rest of the week, including The Andy Griffith Show and Lovejoy.

What I’m Listening To

I am listening to a few podcasts these days including one by Chip Ingraham and another called Unashamed by the men from Duck Dynasty.

I have been staying away from the political podcasts and politics or news in general, with only brief looks at news sites during the week. My nerves are shot. I can’t take it anymore.

I’ve also been listening to this song because it’s been stuck in my head. I like this The Voice UK contestant’s version because I’ve never heard the original. Steve McCrorie won in 2015 and he is back to his original career as a firefighter now, but I’d rather listen to him than most artists who are out on the radio today. He does release some independent music that you can find on Apple Music. He’s a Scottish lad so maybe that’s why I like him so much. I have a thing for Scottish men, probably because my family’s ancestory is Scottish.



So there was my week last week, how about you? What are you doing, watching, reading, and listening to? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: Reading classics, my son’s various costumes, and spring may stay around for a bit

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about What I’m Reading, watching, writing, listening to and doing.

What I’m Reading

Little Miss and I have finished quite a few Marguerite Henry books now including Misty of Chincoteague, Stormy: Misty’s Foal, Sea Star, King of the Wind, and this week we will finish Black Gold.

We abandoned the White Stallion of Lipizza because it was fairly slow. We may go back to it later, but this week I hope to start reading either Little House on the Prairie or Anne of Green Gables. I am actually reading a hard copy of Anne of Green Gables that I picked up years ago from Barnes and Noble. The old-fashioned looking cover and style of the book attracted me, but I put it on a bookshelf for probably 15 years before I ever actually opened it last week. I always loved the movie with Megan Fallows but I don’t think I ever actually finished the book, so I plan to read a few chapters a week and savor it.

The Boy and I are reading To Kill A Mockingbird during the week and unlike the other books we read this year, this one hasn’t felt like I’m being forced to read it. I’m actually enjoying this book and look forward to reading it after my daughter goes to sleep each night. I enjoyed the other books we read, but sometimes I had to force myself to sit down and get through the assigned chapters. Actually, once I got into Silas Marner, I looked forward to finding out what happened. For Lord of the Flies, I knew nothing good was going to happen, so I actually dreaded continuing on.

Lord of the Flies was not part of any of the set curriculum we had this year. I chose it on my own because I felt it was an important book for him to read and he might enjoy a book about young boys who go wild on a deserted island. Instead, we both ended up somewhat depressed after reading it and longed for something slightly less depressing. Which is why I chose To Kill A Mockingbird. Why, yes, that is sarcasm. Why do you ask? Really, though, To Kill A Mockingbird, even with its eventual tough subject is a little more cheerful at times than Lord of the Flies.

I know many people say To Kill A Mockingbird should be banned because it is “racist” since it uses the “n-word” more than once, but I am smart enough to recognize that Lee is telling this story from the point of a child who was taught to use the n-word by the culture she was in. Lee isn’t saying the word should be used, or that it is right. We are using the book as a learning opportunity and others should do the same.

This week I might delve into a couple lighter Christian fiction book as well. I just finished a Christian novella for an author. I enjoyed it but it ended much too soon. Now I know why my novella is my least popular book. Well, it could be the least popular because it isn’t good, but I also wonder if it is because it is so short. For the book I was reading, I was just getting into the characters and the book and then it ended rather abruptly. My first book did the same, however, so I can’t say much.

In between all the fiction I am also reading Beyond Order 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson.

What I’m Watching

We have been watching a lot of Everybody Loves Raymond on Peacock. We’ve had some bad news in or around our family lately, or simply in the news, so I have needed comedy.

I watched an independent film this week on Amazon called The Ultimate Life. There is another movie called The Ultimate Legacy and they both have similar themes. The Ultimate Life is about a billionaire who learns he needs to rearrange his priorities in life after he reads his grandfather’s journal. The Ultimate Legacy stars the same actor, Logan Bartholomew, but he is a rich young man who can’t get his inheritance until he completes several steps she sets up in her will. Both movies are by the same studio and are listed under faith and spirituality. They are clean. They are also both fairly well written and acted.

I also watched a Miss Marple episode from the 2005 series and did not enjoy it. I’m too much of a fan of Joan Hickson from the 1980s series. The lady in this series was way too creepy. She looked like she was zoning out or something. And some of what she said made her sound like a serial killer herself.

What I’m Listening To

When I do have time to listen to music, I have been listening to a lot of worship music lately.

I also listened to Jeannie Robertson when going to bed a couple times this past week, but I’ve been falling asleep fairly fast so I don’t catch a lot of it. If you aren’t familiar with Jeannie, she’s a hilarious older lady from North Carolina who talks about a variety of subjects. I will leave a YouTube clip here for you so you can have a sample of her style of comedy (which is light, laid back, and is drawn from her everyday life.

What I’m Writing

I did not write other blog posts this past week, mainly because I felt depressed about the state of the world and had no real ideas on how to share anything without sounding depressed. I have drafted a Randomly Thinking post for this week and I’m sure I will come up with other topics to blog on this upcoming week as the weather is set to be as warm and nice as last week.

I have been working on The Farmers’ Sons and shared a chapter from that on Friday. I am not sure I will stick with that title for the final book. If any of my readers have an idea for a book title, let me know. I will be sure to mention you in my acknowledgements. *wink*

What’s Been Occurring

My son picked up a medieval helmet last week. He was absolutely thrilled when it arrived and walked downtown with his friend to pick up a pizza. Other people enjoyed seeing at as well, including a man who slowed his car down, pointed at my son and yelled, “Awesome mask!”

My husband said he thinks people just need to be cheered up these days and see something funny and light because he witnessed similar responses from people on Saturday when he and my son went to see a movie (their first in over a year) at a small theater near us and my son wore the helmet inside. My son said a little boy watched him either in horror or awe as he shoved the straw of his drink through one of the holes in the helmet to drink while he waited for the movie to start.

One man stopped him in the Aldi’s parking lot and asked to take a photo with him.

The Boy has always loved dressing up and going out in public. I’m surprised he still enjoys it, since he’s become a bit of a recluse as a teenager. At the start of all this virus craziness, he purchased a Plague Doctor Mask and went into stores wearing it instead of a regular face mask.

As a little boy, he loved to dress up as Ninjas or superheroes and go with me to dentist appointments or the store. When he was about 3-years-old, I took him to the local supermarket dressed as Ironman. He got away from me at one point, racing down an aisle. I grabbed what I needed to off a shelf and turned the corner, expecting him to be in the next aisle. He wasn’t. I started to panic and began looking up and down the aisles. I was in the bread section when a voice came over the loudspeaker.

“We have a young Ironman at the front of the store if anyone is missing him.”

Oh boy.

I headed up to the front and was informed they had tried to get him to tell them his name, but he’d only yelled out “repulser blast!” held his hand out and pretended to blast them with the toy blasters on his hands.

The staff seemed mainly amused by the interaction. One seemed a little annoyed, but he apparently had no sense of humor.

We finally tried to curb his costume wearing when he started wearing a Deadpool mask, without really understanding who Deadpool was, other than he was “cool” (Deadpool was way too rated R for him then and still is now, both in the comics and the movies), and yelling at people who thought he was Spiderman.

“I’m not Spiderman! I’m Deadpool!” he screamed at an elderly lady one time.

Yikes.

The Boy cringes now that he was ever so rude, but he was about 6-years-old. We had a good talk about it and he never did it more than a couple of times.

Little Miss isn’t as thrilled with dressing up in public.

She and I were able to get to the playground a couple of times this past week thanks to the warmer temperatures.

I would like to take her to a larger playground, but she is quite happy with the very tiny one in our little town, so we drive down the hill and push her on the tire swing and swings for a while and come home. Works for me.

Thanks to the nice weather we were also able to have Easter at our house with my parents (steaks on the grill instead of a our traditonal Easter ham) and held an Easter egg hunt for the kids in the backyard.

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

Sunday Bookends: Spiritual Suspense Thrillers, All Agatha Raisened out, and ‘guy films’

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

Welcome to my weekly post where I recap my week by writing about what I’ve been reading, watching, writing, doing, and sometimes what I’ve been listening to.

This week was even less eventful than last week, and I’m fine with that. The weather was nice most of the week, but we are supposed to have cooler weather again next week, which we are not looking forward to.

I am planning a small spring break for the kids starting on Good Friday until the Tuesday after Easter. I could have made it longer, but it’s going to be cold next week and the fewer breaks we have, the quicker we can finish our school year. In Pennsylvania we have to teach 180 days, the same amount of days children in public schools attend.

What I’m Reading

I finished Dark of Night by Carrie Cotton this weekend and really enjoyed it. I posted a review of it last night. It is a fast-paced Christian fantasy/suspense novel with a powerful message. Check out the review for a description and my thoughts on it. It took me a while to finish it because I had reading assignments to finish with The Boy.

I am continuing to read To Kill A Mockingbird, which my son and I are reading for his English class. I am thoroughly enjoying it and breezing through it. I read it in eighth grade and have always listed it as my favorite book but, honestly, there is so much about it I forgot. Scout is awesome and reminds me so much of my daughter it’s scary.

Little Miss and I are reading White Stallion of Lipizza at night before bed.

What I’m Watching

I’m giving up on Agatha Raisin because, well, the storylines and characters have gone a bit stale for me. Plus, they kept removing characters and not explaining where they went, and I found that annoying. It didn’t help that I tried to read one of the books and was very disappointed.

For Saturday’s family movie night we watched something a little different for us, Fast and Furious Presents Hobbs and Shaw. It was . . . well, fairly good, but more of a “guy film” in some ways. I was going to write that at least I got to see Dwayne Johnson with his shirt off, but honestly he’s too muscular for me. Yes, there is such a thing as “too muscular.”

I haven’t really picked anything else to watch at this point. Maybe this week when we are stuck inside in the cold weather again.

What I’m Writing

I’ve been working on The Farmers’ Sons this week. I shared Chapter 2 on Friday.

I also shared some Random Thoughts on Thursday.

I also re-edited and re-released A Story To Tell on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited this past week.

It was nice of Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs to post a review for The Farmer’s Daughter on her blog this week. I also received a couple of nice reviews on Amazon.

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

Sunday Bookends: ‘Is that you spring?’ The ever growing To Be Read pile and Maverick

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

Welcome to my weekly post where I recap my week by writing about what I’ve been reading, watching, writing, doing, and sometimes what I’ve been listening to.

This post is going up late today (Sunday) because I completely forgot yesterday was Saturday. I don’t know how to explain that really. My family and I went on a small outing Friday and then again yesterday and in between I became obsessed with rewriting A Story To Tell, my first book, to republish it with a new cover on Amazon. I became so obsessed I totally lost track of time. I don’t plan to spend a lot of time “rewriting” it because I have set up an actual deadline to finish The Farmers’ Sons and I want to stick to that.

Our outings this week weren’t super exciting by most standards but at least we left the house. Friday we took Zooma the Wonder Dog to be groomed and while she was being groomed we visited Books-A-Million again, like we did a few weeks ago. They were having an outside used book sale so I snatched up a few Christian fiction authors I’ve been wanting to read. Christian fiction with a little more edge than an Amish romance (good grief, there are way too many of those out there).

I also found Agatha Raisin Mysteries book by M.C. Beaton in the bargain bin. After getting a few pages in, I think I know why it was in the bargain bin. Not only is it not the best written book, but there was at least one, maybe two typos in the first chapter. The typos made me feel a little better about my own typos since the book was published by a well-known New York Publishing House and still had typos!

I will probably still finish the book, but it wasn’t what I expected. More on this book and the other books I found in the next section.

Zooma looked beautiful after her grooming session, but apparently she did not like the heavy duty blow dryer and bit at the air. When I first came in the woman made it sound like she’d bit her, but thankfully she only bit at the air. Zooma is not a fan of hot hair being blown at her, I guess, but I don’t know a lot of dogs (or people) who are.

They put a complimentary bandana on her which I knew I had to get a couple photos of her in as soon as I could because she wouldn’t want to keep it on. I was able to grab a few photographs of her looking regal before, I’m sure, she found some deer poo to roll in. There is so much deer poo in our backyard left over from the winter and she loves to roll all in it. Apparently, there wasn’t enough space in the woods for the deer to do their business so they used our backyard as their toilet.

Yesterday we drove an hour to find a Chick-fil-A in the dining hall of a local campus. That is literally the only Chick-fil-A near us, with the other ones being about three hours south. My son has wanted to go to a Chick-fi-A for years so a couple of months ago my husband took him to one, but yesterday he took the whole family. I can’t eat any of the food there because of my various food issues, but they had a salad place next door, inside the student dining hall, so I grabbed a salad for myself.

Then, because our day just couldn’t get any more exciting, we stopped at Wal-Mart and Aldis for groceries. I know. We are some crazy, crazy partiers. But at least we did it all on the first official day of spring and it acted like the first day of spring, for the most part, with sunny, yet chilly, weather.

What I’m Reading

I am still a bit behind on my reading. Last week I finished Death Without Company by Craig Johnson and continued reading Dark of Night by Indie author Carrie Cotton.

I also continued reading You Belong with Me by Tari Farris, but it’s not really holding my interest as much. It’s a pretty standard romance at this point.

I also continued King of the Wind with Little Miss and we will probably finish that this week. This book has been a little more depressing than the other Marquerite Henry books, but it is still good.

At Books-A-Million I snatched up a couple of Colleen Coble books because I’ve been wanting to read her but her books are pretty expensive in paperback and on Kindle. I also grabbed a Francine Rivers book I haven’t read yet.

I grabbed the first book of a Ted Dekker series that I already had the second book of. Both were bought at two different places, both on clearance.

All the books, except two, were hardcovers.

A run down of the books I grabbed:

  • The 49th Mystic by Ted Dekker (to join Rise of the Mystics)
  • Strands of Truth by Colleen Coble
  • One Little Lie by Colleen Coble
  • And the Shofar Blew by Francine Rivers
  • The Ezekiel Option by Joel Rosenberg
  • The Dead Ringer by M.C. Beaton

I’m not sure when I will get to all of those books, but I’m sure I’ll be passing them on to my mom first because she reads faster than me.

As for The Dead Ringer by M.C. Beaton (as mentioned above), this is the 28th book in the series, written right before she died in her mid-80s, so it is possible that this book wasn’t even written by her. It would probably be a better idea for me to read a couple of the earlier books in the series, when she was in her prime. Right now the book reads more like a how-to narrative. I don’t know how else to explain it. I’m pretty certain I will still read it, though.

On our way to the groomer Friday, the local library called and left a voicemail on my cellphone to let me know the library is open again. I thought it was funny they said they were calling their most loyal patrons and I’ve actually only been to the library twice in a year.

I’m sure I will wander down there soon but for now I have to finish a couple of books I promised two indie authors I would finish.

What I’m Watching

I’m still working my way through the Agatha Raisin movies, and still making fun of them, but still enjoying them.

This week we also watched an episode of the old Maverick show with James Gardner and then, since I had never seen it all the way through (that I can remember), we watched Maverick with Gardner and Mel Gibson. We watched it with our son and had to explain to him that when we were teenagers Mel Gibson was the hottest actor around.

We did fill him in on Mel’s fall from grace as well and I pointed out it happened after Passion of the Christ, which he himself had predicted it would. Mel told Jim Cavaziel when they started filming Passion of the Christ that forces would come against them and he was right.

What I’m Listening To

I’m still listening to Needtobreathe and since Zach Williams dropped a new single, I’ve been listening to him as well.

What I’m Writing

Last week I rambled about my insomnia battle, which I thought I’d let you know cleared up after I stopped taking the magnesium glycinate at night. I have no idea why I can’t take magnesium glycinate at night, but I can’t. It did, however, make me feel very good the next day, even when I didn’t have a lot of sleep. I tried taking it during the day this week but found, ironically, it made me sleepy during the day. Or, I could have simply been tired during the day because I was actually getting sleep and my body was completely confused.

I also shared some random thoughts, as one does here on my blog.

On Friday, I shared a short section of Lily, a novella or novel (haven’t decided which yet) that I will be working on sometime in the future.

I hope to share more from The Farmers’ Sons this Friday.

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

Sunday Bookends: Melting snow, I am a super slow reader, and starting over with The Farmers’ Sons

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

Welcome to my weekly post where I recap my week by writing about what I’ve been reading, watching, writing, doing, and sometimes what I’ve been listening to.


What’s Been Occurring

The snow has finally melted after two-and-a-half months of it covering the ground. There are still traces of it here and there, mixed among the squishy, yellow and ugly grass, but we expect it will be gone by next week. With the snow gone we could see the damage left by the heavy snow and the damage by the deer eating the bushes down to stubs because they couldn’t find enough to eat during this winter.

We took advantage of the warmer weather by exploring outside one day at my parents’ while The Boy helped my dad load some wood from a tree that fell during high winds last month. We plan to use the wood for our woodstove on the chilly days we know will still come because Pennsylvania always brings warm days mixed with cold well into April. While they loaded wood, my daughter, who doesn’t always like messes, squished her hand in mud and jumped up and down in the water in the ditch by the road.

Zooma the Wonder Dog chased sticks and tried to jump for the ones The Boy was breaking up sticks for the kindling pile.

Our neighbor even journeyed out with their new little Shitsu puppy. It was like people had been sleeping all winter and woke up this week. Of course, we’d seen our neighbors in the winter too – outside, shoveling and shoveling and shoveling and shoveling.

The warmer weather has been nicer for me this week because with it has come sun and I’ve needed that to counteract the effects of hormonal insomnia that has settled on me.

What I’m Reading

I am reading the same books I’ve been reading for the last couple of weeks because I am a super slow reader. I pushed aside the more political non-fiction simply because I need a break from political everything and anything, not because I don’t enjoy the writers.

For fiction I am reading a supernatural suspense book called Dark of Night by independent author Carrie Cotton, which will be released March 25.

It’s a very good and edge-on-your seat novel. I will post more information on it when I finish it later this week, but for now, here is the description:

A new life, a new love, and even a new name. For former secret agent Andromeda Stone – now Joanna Carter – a normal, boring life with her handsome husband was the happy ending. But an old enemy resurfaces, determined to leave nothing unfinished, and Andy must step back into the nightmares once again. Andy and Will each face their own worst fears in their search for answers. Will this new mission cost Andy more than she’s willing to pay?
When the journey takes her to deeper and darker places than she’s ever been before, Andy discovers it’s more than just answers she’s looking for.

I also hope to finish up the second book in the Longmire series, Death Without Company by Craig Johnson this week.

For a lighter romance, I am reading Tari Farris’ You Belong To Me on days when I can’t handle anything too stressful or heavy (which is actually almost any day lately).

Little Miss and I finished Sea Star this week and are back to reading King of the Wind also by Marguerite Henry. This is one of the first full books, if not the first that I read by myself. I still remember picking it out at the library. It was the photo of the stallion on the front that caught my eye because I loved horses and always wanted one even though my dad always told the story of how his horse bit him when he was a kid and how much work horses are.

The book was hardcover, large, like 8 inch by 11 inch, but thin so it did perfectly under my arm when I carried it home from the school library. I loved that book but now that I’m reading it again with Little Miss, I am surprised that some of it didn’t scare me back then. The talk about sultans cutting off heads and killing people in villages to test muskets was graphic and I skipped over it for Little Miss. I was probably in sixth grade when I read it and she’s only six so she can wait a few more years and read it on her own.

What I’m Watching

I’m continuing on with Agatha Raisin. I’m on to the second season which is actually three 90-minute movies. The first season was eight 44 minute episodes. I believe the third season is also three 90-minute movies.

My husband and I finished the mini-series version of And Then There Were None, based on the novel by Agatha Christie. The BBC produced it and it left me feeling very creeped out, even more so than the book did. I wouldn’t say I recommend it, unless you enjoy horror films and psychological thrillers. The actors were excellent, which is probably why it creeped me out so much. I did not like how they changed some parts of the book, especially the ending (although the change wasn’t that drastic since the outcome was still the same). The movie was a lot more graphic than the book and added some extra details to make it more visually exciting, I guess you would say.

I needed some lighter fare after all the murder movies and shows we watched this week, so we watched a couple of episodes of Lovejoy (a British show about an antique dealer who seems to always get himself in trouble or ends up tricking some bad guys out of money) and I also watched a show about farmers on Acorn TV. In other words, we watched a lot of British television again this week.

I also enjoyed this clip from comedian Tim Hawkins and I think many of my readers will too (you just all seem like those type of cool people, you know?)

What I’m Listening To

I had Needtobreathe’s latest album on loop this week and love it. I find it inspiring for when I want to write a little more “artsy”.

My husband has been listening to Cory Asbury’s live album, and I am going to download that because I really enjoyed what I heard on the live feed I found on YouTube.

Last night my son and his friend and I listened to some classic Johnny Cash. It was weird to hear a 14 and 15-year old singing Cash, but always cool. Some

What I’m Writing

I completely dismantled the original chapters of The Farmers’ Sons this week after a bout of depression about my writing and insomnia Sunday night into morning. One good thing about the insomnia is that I get a few hours, then wake up, so during that wakeful period I brainstorm for the book or future books and sometimes I even get up and write it down. It’s nice to have that quiet time with no interruptions to write.

I knew I could make my fiction writing better, so I started trying to do so this week, focusing more on how I used to write when I was a youngin’, though hopefully less dramatic than I was then. I like what I came up with better than what I shared before. I shared the first chapter, rewritten, on Friday.

I’ll be working on more chapters this week, and I am also working on a piece of flash fiction for the summer issue of Spark Flash Fiction magazine. I wrote some flash fiction in the past and enjoyed it. Those pieces could only be 300 words and this one can be up to 1,000.

I also shared an update on how homeschooling went for us in February and what we are doing now for the kids’ lessons.

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

Sunday Bookends: Her last Name Is Really Raisin? And Let’s See How Reading Non-Fiction Goes

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

Welcome to my weekly post where I recap my week by writing about what I’ve been reading, watching, writing, doing, and sometimes what I’ve been listening to.

What I’m Reading

Non-fiction has been the theme this week, to a point. I can only take small doses of non-fiction anymore and if I get too much by my two to three minutes of news viewing a day, then I don’t open the non-fiction books I have on my Kindle or in my hands. Speaking of Kindle, I’ll be buying a lot more of my non-fiction books as hardcopies in case Amazon decides they want to delete my books from my Kindle or cloud. A monopoly book company isn’t going to tell me what I can and can not read, thank you very much.

So, anyhow, in non-fiction, I started Jordan Peterson’s new book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life this week. It was released Tuesday.

I wouldn’t call myself a Peterson follower, but his intellect and ideas intrigue me. He’s not a Christian writer, though he references the Bible often, so I wouldn’t base my life strictly on all that he says. Still, he has some good points.

This book presents some challenges for the intellectual giant who faced some serious health issues with his wife and himself in 2019 and almost all of 2020. During a time when his daughter needed surgery outside of his country of Canada and his wife faced cancer, Peterson was already starting to suffer from the effects of an autoimmune issue he developed in 2017 from food and benzodiazepine his doctor prescribed to help with anxiety from the autoimmune condition. He’d also continued the benzodiazepine to help with the stress he was under from becoming a public figure when he stood up against a Canadian law aiming to force people to call people by the pronoun they said they wanted to be called by. Peterson felt personal freedoms were being stripped from people by laws being passed to say they had to refer to people by whatever pronoun they wanted. Students and others tried to get him fired and bam — his notoriety was off and running.

The side effects of the drugs, coupled with the rest of the stress Peterson was under caused his body, essentially, to fall apart and also threatened a mind that even his critics have called brilliant. Only in the last few months has Peterson been able to get back to writing, speaking, and presenting his ideas (which are not all political and not as extreme as some of his critics would like you to believe), mainly through finishing this book (the sequel to 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos) and starting a podcast. He has been unable to return to teaching or to treating patients. He was a clinical psychologist before all his health issues hit and while being a professor at the University of Toronto.

The second non-fiction book I am reading is by Ben Shapiro, a conservative commentator who I sometimes enjoy and who sometimes grates on me, depending on what topic he is rambling about.

Ben’s book, How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps, was written last year and focuses on the idea that the ability to hold civil disagreements, especially when it comes to politics, is disintegrating and that many want that disintegration to happen so that we never have actual discussions about what we disagree with, we simply pick sides, stand on our sides, and scream at each other. While we are screaming at each other we also try to “cancel” each other and tell anyone who doesn’t follow politics what they can and can not read, see, listen to, watch, or talk about. In other words, the world is out of control and Ben doesn’t like that and believes the rest of us shouldn’t either.

The book’s main point is that many of us have preconceived notions about each other based on politics and that’s not a good thing.

I’ll be reading more of the book this week to see what all Ben has to say.

I also hope to start a book by Steven Furtick that I’ve had in my Kindle for a while and didn’t realize it: Seven Mile Miracle.

I will, however, need to break up my non-fiction reading with some fiction so I am continuing Death Without Company by Craig Johnson and also started a light romance by Tari Farris called You Belong With Me.

Little Miss and I finished Stormy: Misty’s Foal this past week and started Sea Star by the same author (Marguerite Henry).

I also finished Lord of the Flies, which I was reading with The Boy for his English. He will probably finish it next week. His progress is broken up by me asking him to do various questions and chapter quizzes in the middle of his reading assignments.

I rambled about my feelings about the book and how different it was for me to read it as an adult than a 10th grader, last week on the blog.

 What I’m Watching

I was unnecessarily excited when I saw The Mallorca Files Season 2 pop up on Britbox last week. The excitement I felt either shows how sad my life is or how necessary it is for me to have something to drown out my depression. Actually, it demonstrates both. Either way, it turns out my husband must also have a sad life and the need to drown out depression because he was also excited and we watched two episodes of the six-episode series in one night. They usually offer more episodes, but filming was cut short because of You Know What.

I also continued to watch Agatha Raisin, a series about a woman in public relations who becomes an amateur detective in the small town she lives in. There was a movie before the series, which I discovered this week and now helps me understand why the first episode of the series simply seemed to start in the middle and not explain what other cases Agatha had helped the town and their bumbling police department with.

The show is okay but mainly features an annoying, pushy woman with no filter, wearing an annoying hair cut that resembles what some historians say Cleopatra wore, nosing around town, pushing her way into people’s business, and accusing everyone in the town of murder until she accidentally stumbles on the actual criminal.

My son and I joked that when new people move into town and Agatha accuses them of murder the rest of the people in town laugh. Then they assure the newcomer, “Oh, that’s Agatha. Don’t worry. You’re not a part of the town until she accuses you of murder.”

Despite our making fun of the show, I will most likely continue to watch it to give my brain a break from actually having to think too much. I finally paid attention to the beginning credits of the show and saw right before I published this that the show is based on a series of books with the same character, and in some instances by the same name of the episodes, by M.C. Beaton. I glanced at the beginning of one on Amazon and plan to buy one in the future.

On Sunday of last week, I took a DVD of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, a movie from 1948 with Cary Grant and Myrna Lloyd. Even The Boy laughed at it. It is a very funny movie for anyone who is looking for a laugh these days. It ages well because what Mr. and Mrs. Blandings go through to build a new house is spot on with what still happens today. The social commentary from the oldest daughter about the world is also hilarious because, again, it sounds so much like conversations many of us are having today.

I was surprised by the daughters talking back to their parents and jokingly asked my parents, who would have been 4 when this movie came out if they ever talked to their parents that way. I knew, the answer already, of course, but my mom’s wide eyes and head tilt, as if to say, “Are you serious right now?” was totally hilarious. Less hilarious was the fact my grandfather was abusive, which I was reminded of when my mom said, “Am I alive right now?” That obviously meant that if she had ever spoken to her father the way those children did, he would have whipped her into Sunday.

My dad never answered, but I am pretty sure his father would have smacked him pretty good if he had spoken back to him, based on the stories I heard about him. He was not, however, abusive like my other grandfather. A quick clarification: my maternal grandfather was abusive, but he later knew admitted he was wrong and did offer an apology to my grandmother, mother, and aunts before he passed from cancer in the late 1980s.

What I’m Listening To

This week I have been listening to a lot of Christian worship or Christian contemporary, including Cory Asbury and Danny Gokey. I also listened to some Brandon Lake, Needtobreathe and threw in some The Dead South just be eclectic and weird.

What’s Been Occurring

I love the weekly post idea that Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, stole from Bella at Over the Tea Cups.

 Erin writes about her week as if we are all sitting around having a cup of tea (I’ll take herbal, please, Erin. I have a caffeine allergy, sadly. Don’t be afraid to slide a cookie over to me too.). 

I may adopt this idea as well and post it on Saturdays, but for now, I’ll keep my ramblings about my week to one post. I mean, how many posts about my boring life do you need to read a week? Well, a couple I suppose since I only write about my boring life on my blog. Ha!

Anyhow, on the subject of boring, our week was boring. We did school work, I went to the store once, we picked up some Subway, and I messed around with figuring out book promotion and reading up on improving my writing skills for fiction (and everything else). I publish my books for fun but if it brought in a little money on the side to support our family, that would be helpful. My husband says I will get better with each book I write. I hope he is correct on that front.

What I’ve Been Writing

Writing about book promotion is a good way to move into what I have been writing lately. I’ve already mentioned a couple of times on the blog that I published The Farmer’s Daughter last week. I don’t like to keep mentioning it because this blog isn’t about advertising or marketing. I do know some of you followed it, however, so I will mention that the final version of it is on sale on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Apple iBooks, Scribd, and Kobo.

If you have read the book and liked it, please feel free to leave a review on whatever source you read it from. Reviews help indie authors immensely.

I have been posting excerpts of The Farmers’ Sons on Fridays and this week I posted on Friday and another excerpt on Saturday.

Earlier in the week I:

 reviewed Sweeter by Jere Steele;

wrote about how God can fill in the gaps between our creativity and how it can benefit others;

wrote a parallel between how our world has gone mad and Lord of the Flies. 

So that is my week in review. How about you? Reading any good books? Watching anything good? Do anything exciting? Let me know in the comments.