I’m so glad you are here and participating in our weekly link-up of family-friendly, fun, educational, interesting, crafty, fashionable, and whatever else posts. I hope you’ll tell your followers about our post (feel free to copy and paste the graphic) and visit the blogs in the link-up.
Now it is your turn to link up your favorite posts. They can be fashion, lifestyle, DIY, food, etc. All we ask is that they be family friendly. You can link up posts from last week or even from years ago. You can share up to three links each week.
We are always looking for additional hosts so let us know if you want to help out and we are also looking for more links from fashion bloggers so let your fashion bloggers know!
Do you ever look back at the previous month and can’t remember what you did during it or if any of it was worth mentioning?
That’s me pretty much every month. Ha! But last month really was not terribly exciting for us and I think that is just fine.
We did celebrate Little Miss’s birthday at the beginning of the month. We took her roller skating with a friend and she also had a sleepover.
The Husband and I both remembered our grandmothers in October since they both had October birthdays.
Little Miss and I started taking art classes at the beginning of the month that will last another week and that has been fun. There will be a reception the week after next for the art the children produced in their class and then they will be on display at the library in town (which is also the county library because it is the only library in this tiny county).
I attended one of the adult art classes and will try to attend the last two. The instructor doesn’t really instruct, though, and I find drawing bottles absolutely dull, but I guess it gives me a bit of time to decompress and relax, away from responsibilities at home.
The Boy has also been getting back into art again. He drew these characters from various video games on the white board in his classroom at the technical school:
Our leaves changed rather slowly this year and did offer us some brilliant yellows and deep oranges. We still have a few on the trees, but for the most part the autumn winds have knocked them down. Little Miss and The Boy had one leaf-jumping day and then it became too cold. When it did warm up, we didn’t think about going back in the leaves again.
We had a mix of cold and warm weather in October, which sent our sinuses on a rough ride part of the time, especially last week when Little Miss and The Boy ended up with very short colds.
The Boy felt awful the day we took Little Miss trick-or-treating in a town about 30 minutes away so she could go with her friend and The Husband could take photos for the paper he works for.
Little Miss’s friend photobombing The Husband’s photo of the paper was one of my favorite moments of October.
The Boy and I sat in the car and listened to an audiobook he’s been enjoying while The Husband walked around town with her and her little friend, something he loves to do (don’t worry, I didn’t make him! Ha!).
By Sunday Little Miss was hit hard with the cold and on Monday she was absolutely miserable with a sore throat and pouring nose. On Tuesday she was better and was totally over it by Wednesday.
I thought I was going to get it as well but in the end, it somehow skipped me, other than a headache and minor sinus stuff on Monday.
As an example of the weird weather this week, yesterday it was 67 degrees and today it is 50. The day before yesterday it was 75. Today it is 50. I wish Pennsylvania didn’t have the yo-yoing weather it has. Pick one, Pennsylvania! Seriously, though, the nice and warm days were welcome, even if they felt a little odd to be having.
I’m looking forward to cooler temps in November that will leave me with an excuse to stay home, cuddled under a blanket. We will have to wait and see what happens and will make the best of it no matter what.
We have two birthdays to celebrate in November – The Boy’s first and then The Husband’s.
The Husband’s is on the same day as my brother and sister-in-law’s anniversary.
As for the rest of November, we don’t have a ton planned.
I will be finishing up the last draft of Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree and passing that on to editors and beta readers to read. I will be glad to have the project finished and plan to take a month-long break from novel writing and just enjoy some reading and movie-watching time in preparation for the Christmas season.
How did you October go? I hope it went well. Do you have anything exciting planned for November?
This is a blog link-up where we not only allow you to share your past posts but we encourage it. So share away!
This week our temps were beautiful where I live in the beginning of the week. Last night they dropped 20 degrees, reminding us yet again we are in autumn. So I am under a blanket as I putting the finishing touches on my blog post.
This is a hard post to read but it is a very important read to understand what really happened in N.C. and why that area was hit so fast and that it is even worse than what the news has shown (which honestly is very little in my opinion). Keep this family in your prayers.
I’m so glad you are here and participating in our weekly link-up of family-friendly, fun, educational, interesting, crafty, fashionable, and whatever else posts. I hope you’ll tell your followers about our post (feel free to copy and paste the graphic) and visit the blogs in the link-up.
Now it is your turn to link up your favorite posts. They can be fashion, lifestyle, DIY, food, etc. All we ask is that they be family friendly. You can link up posts from last week or even from years ago. You can share up to three links each week.
We are always looking for additional hosts so let us know if you want to help out and we are also looking for more links from fashion bloggers so let your fashion bloggers know!
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
Yesterday Dad, Little Miss, and I took my mom leaf peeping before all our leaves are gone. We didn’t have a very pretty year because of the warmer, dry temps we had in August and part of September but we did see some pretty trees on our drive.
We drove on some back roads (a.k.a. dirt roads) near my parents and eventually ended up at a house and former farm where some of my dad’s distant family used to live.
Throughout my whole life anytime we decided to go for a drive around the area or anywhere else, what normally would have been a routine or sightseeing trip became a weird adventure. My parents are 80 now so I thought our days of adventure were over but once again a simple leaf peeping trip became a little weird. First we passed a field of modern art sculptures all lined up in a field – sort of weird.
And when we stopped at the distant relative’s house things also got very weird.
We didn’t know who still lived at the house Dad used to visit as a kid, so Dad climbed out of the car and disappeared over a hill between the house and garage for a bit while he looked for the homeowner. While waiting for him, Little Miss, Mom and I watched another car rip into the long driveway, continue between two trees and stopped near our car. I rolled my window down and apologized for being in the way but the woman frowned and just said, “That’s fine.”
She went into the house without even asking why we were in her drive. I decided it was time to look for Dad in case she was really ticked off at us for being there, so I climbed out after telling my mom that the woman looked very familiar. I thought she looked like the manager of our local Dollar General.
A few minutes later, my dad and another man were walking from the back of the house, up the hill, and the woman, who had left the house to put the dog on a lead, marched toward my dad with her finger pointing at him and said, “You get your car out of my driveway!”
I panicked. Our trip was taking a very dark turn and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get my dad away from the crazy woman. But Dad was smiling and so was the man. I couldn’t see the woman but then she was patting my dad on the shoulder and I realized she was messing with my dad – probably how he picks on her when he stops in at the Dollar General.
In the end, we all had a good conversation and Dad shared some memories of visiting the former farm years before – like when he was 12 or 13.
After that, we took the long way home, and Little Miss and I spent the afternoon having dinner with my parents before heading home.
Today I have to pick up The Boy from a friend’s house and we will stop for lunch at my parents on the way back. Hopefully, we don’t have another weird adventure.
What I/we’ve been Reading
The Case of the Innocent Husband (A Mac and Sam Mystery Book 1), Murder Handcrafted by Isabella Alan, and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.
The Secret of Red Gate Farm by Carolyn Keene (A Nancy Drew Mystery)
The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun
The Marlow Murder Clubby Robert Thorogood
Little Miss is reading the first Harry Potter book at night. I love that she’s reading but she starts too late at night and then I have to tell her that it’s time for bed and she tries to make me feel guilty by saying things like, “But I only have 15 minutes of the chapter left to go!”
Stupid Kindles and their ability to tell you how many minutes of a chapter you have to go.
We are also reading The Four-Story Mistakeby Elizabeth Enright on some nights. For school/during the day we are reading Johnny Tremain.
The Husband just finished The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christies and is getting ready to read book 99. He is going to read The Satanic Verses by Salaman Rushdie for book 100.
What We watched/are Watching
Last week I watched a lot of Lovejoyand Murder She Wrote, Blithe Spirit with Erin for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema, and Reading Rainbow for old time’s sake.
What I’m Writing
I am still writing Gladwynn Grant Shakes The Family Tree and announced on Instagram that I will be pushing off the release date to 2025 so I can take some more time on it. I was pushing myself too hard to get it done before the end of October and now I realize that I am stressing myself out about a book that I am not under a publishing contract for and that I am writing more for fun than anything else.
I was listening to Ever After by Karen Barnett but I am not a big fan of the narrator so not sure I’ll finish it.
Photos From Last Week
Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
This was a week of highs and lows. Thursday was my birthday and it was a nice and very relaxing day. We received some news early in the day, however, and even struggled with what kind of news it was since it was the passing of a family member we haven’t had contact with in years. It’s hard to know how to handle the death of someone who wasn’t very pleasant to know, was abusive to your husband, and then stopped communicating (which actually came as a blessing).
The weather was beautiful that day, though. I didn’t go anywhere. I read a book and wrote a little bit on the third Gladwynn book, and watched an old movie.
Yesterday we went out as a family for my birthday and it was another relaxing day with beautiful weather.
We went to lunch at a nice restaurant, visited a garden center, a library with a used bookstore, and then a playground and creek.
The garden center is decorated for fall with pumpkins and gourds lined up all over and flowers blooming in their garden.
Little Miss wanted a white pumpkin so she can paint it later so we picked up one of those for her and a natural soda for me.
We stumbled on to a shoe sale that we thought was next week, which was very exciting for us because it was an amazing sale and let us stock up on shoes for us and the kids. It derailed our trip to a Barnes and Noble, which is about two hours from our house (any Barnes and Noble stores are two hours from our house – in one direction or the other.)
I haven’t visited a Barnes and Noble for probably 15 years and my husband was going to take me to one as a surprise. I decided it would be better to save gas money (it was another 45-minute drive) and buy the shoes instead. I didn’t know where The Husband was actually taking me but I had guessed maybe he’d found a Barnes and Noble near us so I told him I was okay if we didn’t visit it this time around.
The thing is, I wouldn’t have bought a lot of books anyhow because I rarely buy new books. I prefer to buy them used or on clearance. I’d rather get a few books for $10 than one for $15. It would have been nice to walk around the store, but now that I know there is one not super far away, we can find another time to go. Plus, we needed the shoes and there is a used bookstore in the library of the town we were already in so we went there and we brought home 15 books for less than $20.
Most of my books were cozy mysteries and Little Miss chose quite a few of them. I’ll share more about the books I picked out on my Sunday Bookends tomorrow since that’s where I usually talk books I’ve been reading or have added to my collection.
After we visited the bookstore and library, Little Miss wanted to try out her new water shoes at the creek so we spent about 45 minutes at a small park that also has access to a creek.
Earlier in the week Little Miss and I picked up her new glasses and the next day I took her to Kid’s Club, which is a program at a church near us, where she met her friend that she’d invited.
Little Miss loves her new glasses with multiple colors on the earpieces and pink along the rest of the frame.
We both enjoyed looking at the trees that had changed in the town where the optometrist is and I had to laugh because one of the trees is changing into a beautiful orange color that is matching the color of the car parked at the house it is next to.
Wednesday night Little Miss and her friend had fun at the church program while my friend (Little Miss’s friend’s mom) and I chatted together in the parking lot.
This weekend we are continuing to relax since The Husband doesn’t have to work for the first time in – I don’t know how long actually.
We plan to hang out and watch movies and one of us should probably wash some dishes since we played hooky from housework the last couple of days.
These days off came at a good time since the death in our family was my estranged mother-in-law. My husband wrote a bit about his relationship with her on his personal Facebook page but I have decided not to share that here.
The bottom line is that my mother-in-law was abusive mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically. She picked favorites out of her two children and you can take my word for it that my husband was not that child. She has not spoken to us in more than five years and lives several states away. In other words, this “loss” doesn’t feel much different than when she was alive.
It’s a complicated situation when a person loses a family member who wasn’t very kind. There is grief there but it’s different than the grief other people have. It’s partially a grief of what could/should have been and also grief of there being no closure or apologies for past hurts. In this situation that apology would most likely never have come thanks to mental illness on the part of my mother-in-law.
I wasn’t even sure how to feel and spent part of my birthday a bit numb and dazed. Should I grieve the woman who tried to manipulate me the way she did everyone else? Two days later, I still don’t how to answer that. I feel sadness for a woman who chose to have no relationship with her son or beautiful grandchildren – even when we lived less than a mile from her for many years before she moved, but I can’t honestly say I feel a sense of loss or grief. I feel guilty for that and I also feel odd admitting that, but it’s where I am right now.
I should be crying, shouldn’t I? I should be thinking back on fond memories or saying things like, “Sure she wasn’t nice at times but…”
Yet I have none of that to offer in this situation and it’s a surreal place for me to be.
It’s only happened one other time and in that case I could at least think of one or two really nice and genuine things the person did – while also wondering if any of it was real since so much lying was revealed at the end of that person’s life.
So moving on to my plans for the rest of the weekend as I navigate this weird headspace I am in.
I’m looking forward to working more on my book this weekend and on some reading.
Next week we don’t have any appointments scheduled so it will be mainly school and maybe a playdate at a local creek with a couple of friends.
The temperature is supposed to drop next week and I am looking forward to the fall-like weather. Yesterday’s 83-degree temps were not very welcome by me, even though it was a very beautiful day.
How was your week last week? I hope you found some time to relax and unwind. Let me know in the comments.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
Today my dad suggested we go into the pool since it is hot and humid out still – in the middle of September. Yuck.
I had decided we’d already had our last swim in the beginning of September, though, and I’m actually dreading it because the last time we went in the pool there were some 100 mosquitoes I had to clean out before we could swim. This has been a very bad mosquito year apparently.
Plus there is drying off but not getting all dry so when you try to get your pants on you can’t because your skin is still just damp enough to not let the pants slide on easily. That is so annoying to me.
Yes, I know, I am being dramatic about nothing. Ha! But it’s just a little whine and I do actually have fun once we get in the pool. I have a feeling it will not be a warm trip, though, because our nights have been very cool.
I do miss the pool and being able to hop in on a hot day so maybe one last dip will be good for me. I just sort of had packed that part of the year away already and am ready for sweaters, hot cocoa, and falling leaves.
What I/we’ve been Reading
I am still readingAn Assassination on the Agenda by T.E. Kinsey and have also started A Simple Deduction by Kristi Holl.
I am not bowled over by either of them but they are an okay escape. I was liking An Assassination on the Agenda better than a Simple Deduction where I couldn’t connect with the characters at all, but as I started to get into the book I liked it more. I still can’t connect with the main character at all, though. There is no personality written into her in this book, which was written by a different author than the other books (actually each of the books in the series seems to be written by a different author, but with the same main character and setting). In this one she’s just very flat. We don’t learn anything about her personality or her likes or dislikes until halfway through the book. It’s just a straight mystery – which is okay too since that’s how Agatha wrote all her books. We never really got to the know the characters too well – just the mystery, ma’am. I mean we did learn about their quirks and personalities as the series went on – especially Poirot.
I finished Trouble Shooter by Louis L’Amour this past week. It wasn’t my regular read and I wasn’t totally in love with it, but I would try another one of his books. It was a good story and a really crazy ending.
This was a Hopalong Cassidy novel that he apparently wrote in the style of the original author but was re-released in the 1990s under L’Amour’s name. I’d like to read a book by him that’s about one of his own characters.
The Secret of Red Gate Farmby Carolyn Keene (A Nancy Drew Mystery)
Murder Handcraftedby Isabella Alan (An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery)
The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun
What We watched/are Watching
This past week I watched Lovejoy and the movie Out of The Blue that I watched last week again but with my husband. I also watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel as part of the Comfy Cozy Feature I am doing with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumb.
Yesterday I watched an old movie called A Woman of Distinction with Rosalind Russell and Ray Milland. There was a cameo with Lucille Ball in the beginning and it was so funny. She was only on screen five minutes and still cracked me up. The entire movie was full of hilarious moments and the ending wasn’t as bad and cliché as I thought it was going to be.
The movie was about the female dean of a college who has sworn off love, instead choosing her career. When a lecturer from Great Britain comes to the states to present some lectures, the public relations woman promoting his lectures decides she needs an angle to drum up some interest and makes up a story that he has come to the states looking for the dean. Craziness ensued after that and I realized that there are a lot of movies from the 1940s and 1950s that really hold up today.
I also started a movie called Merrily We Live and that one also cracked me up within the first ten minutes. I can’t wait to finish it later today.
I’ve been watching these old movies for free via our Roku and the Tubi app.
What I’m Writing
Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree is what I’ve been writing. I hope to finish it by the end of September. I’ll be announcing a release date later on my newsletter Substack, which is where I share most of my writing news (https://lisarhoweler.substack.com/)
I have been alternating between reading An Assassination on the Agenda and listening to it while I do dishes or other chores during the week because I really like the narrator.
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.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
We had a threat of flash flooding Friday thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Debby but in the end the pattern moved to our west and Westfield, Pa., which is a couple hours from us, was hit extremely hard. Some areas around us had some issues but nothing like Westfield.
Temperatures have cooled way down and now that we are moving toward Autumn (which I wanted) I am feeling somewhat melancholy, knowing that our days of swimming are coming to an end. Little Miss and I haven’t been swimming in two weeks due to either algae in the pool that had to be treated, a leak that was found and fixed, or chlorine that was too high. We are going to try again today but with temps only supposed to get in the low 70s I have a feeling we won’t be in long.
The days are already getting shorter – I’ve noticed that it is dark by 8:30 now. The cats are looking for more snuggles than before and we are now preparing for the start of the school year.
I have almost all the curriculum we need for the year but I do need a couple of things still for The Boy, who is a senior this year and will be attending a local trade school again this year.
What I/we’ve been Reading
Trouble Shooter by Louis L’Amour
Renee by Sandra Ardoin
Clueless At the Coffee Station by Bee Littlefield
Tracking Tilly by Janice Thompson
The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes by Carolyn Keene
A Simple Deduction by Kristi Holl
The Gardner’s Plot by Deborah Benoit
The Author’s Guide to Murder by Karen White, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig
An Assassination On the Agenda by T.E. Kinsey
Little Miss and I are listening to The Best Halloween Ever by Barbara Robinson
The Boy is listening to The Witcher, book one.
The Husband is reading The Donut Legion by Joe R. Lansdale
What We watched/are Watching
Since I last posted a Sunday Bookends I have watched a lot but I didn’t write it all down so I might not remember everything.
I know I watched a couple of summer movies – Mr. Hobbs Takes A Vacation and Summertime.
I have started Somewhere in Time but I haven’t finished it yet.
I watched Ladies in Lavender and a couple marathons of Murder She Wrote as well as an episode of Yes, Minister with my mom.
What I’m Writing
I am writing the third book in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series: Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree.
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.
Did you know that I am having a huge discount on the paid subscriptions for my Substack and that when you are a paid subscriber you will receive sneak peeks to upcoming books (like Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree, which will come out this autumn), behind the scenes looks, discounts, author interviews, giveaways, and many other perks?
No?
Well, now you know. You can find my substack, which is updated a few times a month, at www.lisarhowler.substack.com
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
This week was fairly lowkey. Little Miss and I went swimming twice – once earlier in the week and once yesterday with her friend who I’ll name Crazy Child for the sake of the blog.
She had a sleepover last night and it’s the last one of the summer, so I’m excited about that even if she isn’t. I know. I’m awful, but sleepovers can be so exhausting.
She and her friend had a ton of fun, though, so I am glad.
The temps dropped so much the last couple of days that I think my animals thought it was fall already. They were curled up on me or against me Friday and Saturday. Our youngest cat wanted to be on me no matter what Saturday night – even laying on my chest while I was trying to sleep!
Temps are going to warm up again because we aren’t done with summer yet.
What I/we’ve been Reading
Our daughter let me know this week that she is done watching movies based on books. They ruin her images of what she sees in her mind. I just thought that was funny and accurate because so many of us readers feel that way.
I am currently reading
Trouble Shooter by Louis L’Amour (just taking my time on this one since it is not my normal genre)
The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes (A Nancy Drew Mystery) by Carolyn Keene
Tracking Tilly by Janice Jackson
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery (loved this one. I’ll have a review later this week.)
The Key Collector’s Promise by Donna Stone (this book will be out in September)
Renee by Sandra Ardoin
An Assassination on the Agenda by T.E. Kinsey
The Boy is in between books.
Little Miss and I are listening to Little Women on Audible at night before bed.
The Husband headed off to work before I could ask him what he’s reading right now.
What We watched/are Watching
This week I watched Miss Willoughby and the Haunted Bookshopwith Kelsey Grammer and a British actress I’d never heard of. It was pretty good but was a pretty simple mystery. I read that it was meant to be the first movie in a series but You Know What happened and then Kelsey started filming the new Frasier.
I also watched When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit(a German film based on the book by Judith Kerr, which I enjoyed).
I started a movie called From Time to Time but haven’t finished it yet. It is a bit weird and involves a young boy going back in time. I’m not sure how they got Maggie Smith for it. It isn’t horrible but it doesn’t seem to be at the same caliber as her other work.
What I’m Writing
I am still working on Gladwynn Grant Shakes The Family Tree and having fun.
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.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
Yesterday my husband and I celebrated 22 years of marriage. We went to dinner at a nearby restaurant and watched a movie together after shipping off the kids and dog to the grandparents.
It was a nice, quiet, relaxing day and very welcome.
I rambled about our trip to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon in my post yesterday if you want to read about that.
What I/we’ve been Reading
The Dandelion Cottage by Carol Watson Rankin
Version 1.0.0
Return to Gone Away by Elizabeth Enright (a read aloud with Little Miss).
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
When You Returned by Havelah Mclat
Live and Let Chai by Bree Baker (I wanted to like this much more than I did. Not the worst but pretty much like a previous book I read by the author under her real name).
Reneeby Sandra Ardoin
Clueless at the Coffee Stationby Bee Littlefield
Little Menby Louisa Mae Alcott
The husband is reading the latest installment in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series by Anthony Horowitz.
Also, for those who wanted to know, he did enjoy the Patrick Stewart biography.
The boy is in between books because he finished his last read which was an audio version of a Warhammer book.
What We watched/are Watching
Just a Few Acres Farm
There is something so relaxing about just watching Farmer Pete work on his farm or dig holes in his field or feed the cows. When my brain is spinning or I just feel off-kilter, I turn on Pete and just remember the simple things of life.
Last night the kids and I watched Monty Python’s Search for The Holy Grail because we needed a laugh.
The husband and I watched Breakheart Pass with Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland (Bronson’s wife) after our anniversary dinner. I didn’t think it was very romantic but then I got wrapped up in it and needed to know what happened. I’m going to make him watch a romantic comedy with me later in the week.
During the week I watched this YouTube channel because it is also relaxing: Under A Tin Roof.
What I’m Writing
We had a busy week so I did not write as much as I wanted to but I did work on Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree a little bit.
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.
