Lisa R. Howeler's Blog, page 47

Sunday Bookends: A surprise snow day and heavy and light reading mixed

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

This week I’m joining up with  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer , Deb at  Readerbuzz,  and Kathyrn at  The Book Date for this post.

I’ve just sat down to start this post after watching Little Miss and The Husband sled down the hill behind our house after an unexpected snowfall. I’m not sure why I didn’t gather wood today to start a fire since it would have been the perfect day for it, but instead, I sat under a big fluffy blanket and read a book, watched some Lark Rise to Candleford, and watched others out in the snow while I sipped tea. I also cooked some roasted potatoes to go with small steaks The Husband cooked. It was the first time we’d been able to eat roasted potatoes in probably a year since our oven had been broken. It’s been nice to have it fixed.

We added a salad with red peppers to it and it was the perfect dinner.

Later today we plan to have lunch with my parents and then come home to light the fire and have a cozy night before the week starts over again.

What I/we’ve been Reading

Currently Reading:

What book was I reading yesterday? Not really a cozy one, but still very well written – A Walt Longmire Mystery: Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson. I read a couple chapters of it and then moved on to a cozier read in Nellie by Amy Walsh.

Nellie officially released Thursday and is a sweet, cute book about a young woman who pretends to be a cook to get a job to help her family.

Here is a quick description:

Finances are tight for the O’Dwyer family who live on a mountain outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1931. Life gets even harder when their beloved Dadaí must cease work as a coal miner to become a patient at the West Mountain Sanitarium.

Nellie is her preferred name, but family and friends have heard Mam shout “Fenella Aileen O’Dwyer!” all too often with the countless predicaments she got herself into throughout childhood. So, it’s not altogether surprising when Nellie impulsively accepts a job as an assistant cook at the Clarinda House in a case of mistaken identity — though she’s the last person her family would ask to prepare a meal.

Fortunately, along with determination, a talent for acting, and the gift of blarney, Nellie has Mrs. Canfield’s Cookery Book, a treasure she discovered at a Red Cross drought relief sale. As her reluctant admiration for her employer grows, Nellie wishes she could be the truthful woman of faith that Mr. Mason Peale esteems. If she confesses all, will she lose her job along with the friendships she’s formed at Clarinda House?

You can find out more about it HERE    

I should have Nellie finished this week and I will probably start another cozy mystery to offset the darkness of the Longmire book. I forgot that I had planned to start Blessed Is the Busybody by Emilie Richards in early February so I think I will start that this week. I also want to try The Tale of Hill Top Farm by Susan Wittig Albert, but will probably hold off on that one until Spring. It feels more like a spring book.

Recently Finished:

The Cat Who Went Into the Closet by Lilian Jackson Braun

These books can be hit or miss at times but this one, though not heavy-hitting at all, was actually very good.

Up Soon:

Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson

Pocahontas by  Joseph Bruchac (previewing it for Little Miss for school. I also have a choice on the same topic by Jean Fritz.)

The Mystery At Lilac Inn by Carolyn Keene.

The Husband is reading a book by Dean Koontz, or was at least.

The Boy is reading Horus Rising by Dan Abott.

Little Miss and I finished The Borrowers this past week. I hope to start another book with her soon but we haven’t decided on which one. We started listening to Caddie Woodlawn by Carold Ryrie Brink the other day on our way to pick up groceries and she is enjoying it but I don’t think it will replace our bedtime listening of The Great Christmas Pageant Ever or Fortunately the Milk.

Friday night she asked me to read to her before bedtime because we’ve been listening to audiobooks. She asked if I would read her part of my book, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing.

I did but found myself critiquing my writing so it wasn’t as much fun for me. I think tonight I’ll suggest I read her something written by someone else. I’ll even read her The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder again! (If you’re new here, this is a bit of a joke because she wanted me to read her the Little House and Paddington books over and over again last year and the year before.

What We watched/are Watching

This past week I watched the French film Amelie as a buddy watch with Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

I also watched Lark Rise to Candleford but actually read more this week than watched things.
What I’m Writing

I am continuing to work on Cassie, which releases in August of 2024.

If you want a little sneak peek, you can check out my blog on Friday. I think I might have a little tidbit to offer up from it.

On the blog,I shared:

Saturday Afternoon Chat: The fox was going to eat my cat and very unexpected snow Fiction Friday: Reintroducing Gladwynn Grant Weekly Traffic Jam Reboot February 15 February Favorites: movie impression of Amelie Remembering Blockbuster

What I’m Listening to

This week I’ve been listening to Needtobreathe’s Caves.

An audiobook version of In This Mountain by Jan Karon.

A podcast featuring old Jack Benny radio shows.

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.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: The fox was going to eat my cat and very unexpected snow

I woke up this morning with a gasp because in my dream a fox had climbed up a pole and a fence and was preparing to eat my cat.

Only it wasn’t my cat, it was my friend’s cat named Peanut.

A cat my daughter cried over for ten minutes straight last night because she says our friends are giving him away. I have no idea the background for this breakdown or this story about Peanut The Cat. All I know is I am not adopting another cat and I am not eating chocolate before bed again because it produced some really odd dreams. Not only did I dream about the fox stealthy walking across a snowy backyard that wasn’t ours so it could climb a pole and fence and eat our cat that was not really our cat, but I also dreamed about New Kids on the Block lip-syncing in concert, which yes I am sure did, and does still, happen. (Yes, they are still touring. I know. I too hope they are up on their health insurance because they might break a hip.)

I woke up from the dream before the fox ate my cat, by the way, but not before the cat in the dream let out a horrible yowl.

That yowl haunted me so I stayed up for a while scrolling Instagram before drifting off for another 20-minute snooze.

When I woke up for good, I looked outside and discovered the weather forecasters are apparently drinking booze these days because last week they prepared us three days in advance for a storm that never came and yesterday they prepared us thirty minutes in advance for two inches of snow that fell overnight.

Of course I know that storms and weather systems can shift at the last minute, but really? They didn’t see 2-5 inches coming until half an hour before it fell? They weren’t even calling for rain or sleet or anything wet and then – boom! – there it was. Snow all over our driveway and ground and me having to wake up a teenager who stayed up all night and tell him that his dad has to go to pick up things for a fundraiser for a community organization he’s part of so now said groggy teenager needs to wake up and shovel the driveway.

I’ll also have to go out in this snow later to return my dad’s car to him. He switched his car for his truck, which we have been borrowing because The Husband’s truck has been in the shop for two weeks getting a lot of very expensive work done on it. Dad needed his truck to take recycling downtown. Had I known this earlier than five minutes before he headed our way, I could have driven the truck to him and he could have brought me back home after we delivered the recycling. Dad seems to be like the forecasters these days with his last minute announcements.

Our car isn’t in very good shape either after hitting a deer in late October. The front headlight was damaged and the insurance didn’t want to pay for it but finally did and we ordered a replacement headlight assembly but it came broken so we had to ship it back and now we have to order a new one so my dad and son can replace it and hopefully save us another mechanic’s bill. We will see how that goes.

A drying rack is sitting on the landing at the top of my stairs right now because our dryer finally died and our neighbor offered us the drying rack until we get it fixed. Between working two jobs The Husband has been taking the wet laundry to the laundry mat because I’m too much of a wimp to lift a laundry basket full of wet laundry and carry it to and from the car.

I’ve been thinking a lot these past two weeks about that saying, “When it rains it pours” because it has certainly been raining and pouring here lately, which reminds me that last spring our ceiling leaked and we will probably have to have that looked at again in a couple of months.

Now all of these woes may sound depressing to some of you, but for me, it’s just life because mixed in with the woes have been some good too. A surprise and very appreciated gift of money last week helped us pay off our heating bill last week right before we needed another order (which will mean another bill, but it’s much less this time, thankfully).

My mom has been dealing with severe pain from fibromyalgia for a few weeks now but Thursday I found her CBD stick and we rubbed it on and it actually took the edge off. I’m not done with it yet but I have made quite a bit of progress on the book I am releasing in August as part of a series with a group of other authors.

So there has been some good mixed in with the bad.

Going back to our unexpected snow, I am pretty sure we Pennsylvania residents are no longer surprised when we go to bed with no snow and wake up with two, three, four, or even five inches of it all over the trees and ground and our cars. Throwing open the curtains is literally like opening a mystery box because you just never know what you are going to get. I can tell you that life is never dull in a state where the weather might be sunny and warm enough to wear short sleeves one day and cold, snowy, and wet, requiring winter coats, gloves, and hats the next.

Even my cats are anxious these days about going outside. They no longer dart out onto the back porch ready to start their exploring for the day. Instead they timidly stand in the doorway and move their heads back and forth while their eyes scan the outside world to see what elements they might have to deal with that day and whether or not they want to deal with the elements they see.

Some mornings they simply swish a tail and turn themselves right back around to head back into the house. They find a spot on a chair or a bed to curl up in and sleep the day away, hoping when they wake up it will be sunny and pleasant again and they can lay on their backs and let the sun warm their bellies.

Looking at the weather forecast for the next week, I don’t think that is going to be happening for a while so they might as well take their 18th nap of the day.

It’s probably safer inside anyhow.

No foxes to climb up poles and fences and eat them inside.

How was your week? Let me know in the comments.

Fiction Friday: Reintroducing Gladwynn Grant

I’ve had a few new visitors to the blog lately so I thought I would bring back my Fiction Friday feature for this week to reintroduce Gladwynn Grant, the main character of my cozy mystery series.

There are only two books in the series so far, with both of them currently on Kindle Unlimited, which is an ebook subscription service through Amazon for those who aren’t familiar with it. It is also available for sale as an ebook on Amazon and as paperbacks on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Gladwynn Grant is a young woman who has moved in with her eccentric grandmother after being laid off from her job as a research librarian at a community college. Let’s be honest, she also moves to her grandmother’s small town to get away from her ex-boyfriend, Bennet Steele.

She used to visit her grandparents in Brookstone as a child and teenager and always thought the town was fairly quiet. Her image of the place is shattered, though, when she finds out in the first book that someone may have tampered with the brakes on the local bank loan manager’s car and again when someone drops a car on a disagreeable resident in the county.

The first book, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, will be part of a blog tour with Celebrate Lit beginning March 12.

You can learn a bit more about the book, the tour, and the stops for the tour here: https://www.celebratelit.com/gladwynn-grant-gets-her-footing-celebration-tour/

 For the blog tour, I shared a bit about how I came up with Gladwynn’s name and personality so I thought I’d share that here today too.

I can’t say that Gladwynn Grant’s character is based completely on my grandmother, but, in some ways, I did. I named her Gladwynn after my paternal grandmother whom I grew up living over the creek and through the woods from.

Gladwynn was her middle name but I’m not really sure how she spelled it because she never really used it. She usually just wrote G. as the middle initial. When we did a search on Ancestry, we saw that some spellings on her documents were Gladwin and some were Gladwyn. I guess her family wasn’t sure either, but if I remember right (I don’t have the document right in front of me) on her birth certificate it was spelled Gladwin.

I liked the spelling of Gladwynn with a “y” and two “n’s” though so that is how I spelled Gladwynn’s name for the books.

My grandmother was tough and to the point. She wasn’t mean but she didn’t pull punches. She was not super maternal or affectionate. Again, though, she was not mean.

She lived through the Great Depression and raised children during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

Her youngest, my dad, was in the Air Force when Vietnam broke out. He was never sent overseas but he helped build bombs and work on airplanes during that time.

She knew about hardship, trials, and heartbreak. Her husband died of cancer when he was in his 60s and she spent the next 35 years without him. She began to lose her eyesight to macular degeneration in her 80s.

None of what life threw at her stopped her from living her best life.

She still traveled and kept her house and property up. At the age of 86 I caught her on a ladder cleaning out the gutters. Around the same age she marched down the dirt road in front of her house with a walking stick and told the township road workers to make sure the drainage pipe they were putting in didn’t run into her field and flood it.

If she was afraid of things, she didn’t show it very often.

My family lived with her while I was in college and I learned so much about how to preserve and live a happy and fulfilled life despite the tragedies or trials of my life.

When I started thinking about writing a cozy mystery series, I wanted the main character to be a lot like grandma, but also more affectionate and sentimental than my grandmother seemed at times.

I only remember my grandmother telling me she loved me once or twice in my life, but I know she did because she showed it in her actions toward me.

I wrote Gladwynn to be bold and tough, but also to be affectionate and open with her feelings – a lot like my grandmother, but also a little different.

I think my grandmother would love the idea that I am writing a series of books based on her name and partially on her personality.

I will be sharing about the tour again when it comes closer to the actual launch date for it. If you would like to check out the books from the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, you can find them here, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing:    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1KSQJXP         and Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CB74L7TQ

Weekly Traffic Jam Reboot February 15

Welcome to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food & DYI Homemade Household, Sue from Women Living Well After 50, and me.  Look for the link party to go live on Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT. 

What: Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot – a chance for bloggers to link up their posts that are related to fashion, DIY, food, and anything else that is family-friendly.

When: The link goes live Thursday nights at 9:30 PM EST/United States time.

Why: To connect with other bloggers and bring more traffic to your own blog.

I hope all of you who celebrate Valentine’s Day had a lovely day. For all of you who consider it just another day, I hope you are having a good week!

Our kids made dinner for us yesterday at home and then we watched a Fred Astaire movie, which I didn’t enjoy as much as his others because the ending was quite weird. He tricked a woman into marrying him like he could just treat her like something he owned and not a real person. It was so odd.

We watched an episode of Psych as a family after the movie.

Our weather dropped down into below-freezing or just above-freezing temperatures this week so today I am sitting in front of a fire that took a bit for me to make but that is keeping us nice and cozy in our living room while I snack on frozen blueberries as a treat and get ready to watch Lark Rise From Candleford. Have you ever seen the show? It is based on a classic book.

This week we had a three-way tie and they were all from Lynne at Thrifting Wonderland! Lynne always has such interesting posts! Did you see these three this week?

First up is Another Real Estate China Pattern

Next is Happy Dancy Thrift Store

And last was Walk Around the Lake

I enjoyed all three posts myself.

Now for my favorites this week:

Finding Strength in Vulnerability: The Story of a Healing Cry by Grace Filled Moments

A Valentines Day Look for The Sunday Showcase by Chez Mireille Fashion Travel Mom

and Unicorn Tears Raggery Wall Hanging by Shelbee on the Rags

 I hope you had a great week and have a great week ahead.

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.

Also, please take the time to visit the other blogs on the link-up and meet some new bloggers!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enterhttps://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

February Favorites: movie impression of Amelie

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I had planned to write about our favorite movies this month and then she took a blogging break and it was a break that I realized I needed to because I’ve been spreading myself way too thin lately.

Erin has mentioned the movie Amelie a few times in the last year or so as being one of her favorite movies so this past weekend I suggested that I watch it since she was already watching it with her hubby and that we write about it today.

She, of course, readily agreed.

Amelie, for those not familiar, is a French film – so yes, I had to read subtitles because I am not fluent in French. It is about a young waitress who was raised by introverted parents who thought she was sick as a child and kept her inside most of her life. It was released in 2001 and the full name of the movie in France is The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain. Audrey Tautuo plays Amelie. It is directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet.

When she grows up she is very imaginative and begins to work behind the scenes to improve the lives of others. In the process, she might even improve her own. She begins to help others to combat her own loneliness.

This is a very quirky film with quirky camera angles and quirky writing and acting. Quirky is not a bad term in my book, in case you are wondering. I am a fan of quirky.

What is quirky about the film?

The writing, the camera angles, as I mentioned above and in how the narrator talks in present tense for part of the movie and then Amelie breaks the third wall to talk to us about her life in just one scene and then it is back to the narrator. I love when movies break “the rules” so to speak and breaking the third wall is one of those ways. If you don’t know what breaking the third wall means, it is when a character looks directly at the camera and speaks to the audience.

The movie features beautiful, vintage scenery throughout. The backgrounds are picturesque in an urban art style and the entire movie has a slight yellow tone like vintage film to give it a warm feeling. The main colors in the film (green, yellow, and red) are inspired by the paintings of the Brazilian artist Juarez Machado, according to IMDb.

Stories weave in and out of the main narrative of Amelie’s life, starting with her search to find the owner of a small box of mementos she finds in the wall in her bathroom and continuing when she works to return a book of photos from photo booths around the city so she can meet the man who collects the photos.

Each story is a life that Amelie touches and improves and each time she feels more alive and less isolated. Each character she interacts with is also strange and a bit eccentric, and the camera angles exaggerate these facts and the intricacies of Amelie’s imagination. She works to improve the lives of everyone around her, including her father who she encourages to travel the world by sending him photographs of his gnome in different locations around the world.

Eventually, helping others will inspire her to bring happiness to her own life.

There is only one person whose life she sort of messes with as revenge, but he deserves it. Trust me. And harassing him helps to improve the life of another person so it sort of evens out.

According to a couple of sources online, Jeunet said he originally wrote the role of Amélie for the English actress Emily Watson.  Watson didn’t speak strong French, however, and then she started shooting Gosford Park instead. Jeunet then rewrote the screenplay for a French actress. The film was shot in Paris for the most part with some studio shots filmed in Germany.

Tautou was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actress for her role. She was 24 when the film was released.

Trivia on IMbD states that graffiti and trash had to be cleared from shots in Paris to keep the film’s fantastical feeling. This was sometimes a difficult task for staff.

Amelie has a 90 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a good thing if you don’t know. People love it, in other words. The movie was made into a musical on Broadway in 2015 and it was rereleased this year in theaters for Valentine’s Day. I have no idea if the musical was any good or not.

The movie is definitely fantastical – and a bit bizarre in places, to me, but not so bizarre that it’s creepy. More like whimsical bizarre. Not sure if that makes sense to some but it does in my brain.

One review I read of this on Rotten Tomatoes summed up some of my feelings about the movie: “I feel like it’s a beautiful love letter to the introverts out there with wonderfully magical imaginations who find it hard to connect to people in real life.”

This was a unique film that I don’t think I would have watched on my own, or discovered at all if it wasn’t for Erin’s suggestion. I will warn anyone offended by some sex and language, that this is a rated R movie. Neither is extreme but it still resulted in a R rating.

 I know Erin will have a lot more to share about it in her post, which you can find here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2024/02/15/february-favorites-movie-thoughts-amelie/

Have you ever seen Amelie? What was your impression of it?

Remembering Blockbuster

The year was probably 1994 (I don’t know. I’m a bit old. I can’t remember.) when my brother took me to the Mecca of video rental stores – Blockbuster. It was actually amazing we had one near us since we grew up in a very tiny town in Pennsylvania. It was about half an hour from us, but not such a bad drive really. It was located in a strip mall that now has seen better days with most of the stores gone and the parking lot a pothole haven.

(Not me in the photo *wink*)

If I remember right, I wanted to find a romance and he was probably looking for an action movie or maybe a foreign film. He watched a few foreign films and made me watch them at times. They were pretty good but I wasn’t a fan of reading subtitles back then. I’m better with it now.

Back then we would never have imagined we’d one day be able to download or stream our movies right from our TV. I mean, we didn’t even have cable at our house because the cable company refused to come to us since we were “in the middle of nowhere.” We had four channels brought into our TV by an old-fashioned wire hanger-style antenna on the back porch that Dad had to shift sometimes to get a better signal.

Yes, I am that old. Okay, I’m really not, but we were that poor.

Walking into Blockbuster back then was a bit overwhelming for this sheltered country girl but I loved walking up the rows and looking at all the different movies.

I’m not definite about this but I think the first time I watched the Irish movie Into The West was from a Blockbuster rental. Did you ever see that movie? It’s about two Irish boys who travel with a horse across Ireland after their dad, who is grieving their mother, hits rock bottom and tells them they have to get rid of this horse they found. That’s a very short version of what the movie is about, of course, but it is very good.

I also think it might be where my brother rented The Princess Bride for us to watch for the first time.

The movies weren’t the only thing that was tempting at Blockbuster. They had candy, sodas, and stuffed animals. I’m sure I bought some candy but never the stuffed animals because my mom always said I had enough and my brother said I was too old for such things by then. Little did they know that even as an adult I was buying stuffed animals and still cuddle many of them to this day.

Blockbuster sold all its corporate-owned stores in 2014. It no longer grants franchises to anyone but at one time there were 50 privately-owned stores. As of today, there is only one official Blockbuster store left open in the United States and it is in Bend Oregon, and is a popular tourist attraction, selling more merchandise than video rentals.

Do you remember renting videos at Blockbuster back in the day? What movies were you looking for when you visited?

Sunday Bookends: The irony of complaining about books with no plots, nice warm weather (for now), and mystery shows

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

This week I’m joining up with  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer , Deb at  Readerbuzz,  and Kathyrn at  The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

After I wrote my post yesterday about how nice the weather was this past week and how we finally had some sun, the sky opened up yesterday afternoon and it started to rain. Not a ton, but still, it put an end to our sunny streak. That was sad but I was grateful we actually had sun last week. The people in our area are super pale and sad from the lack of sun right now. Some day I am going to write an autobiography and that will be in the running for the title: Super Pale And Sad. Other candidates are Lost in The Corners of My Mind and Always on the Edge of Chaos.

I stole that last one from our local library director who looked at me with empty, glazed over eyes last week when I picked up  my books and asked a question and then said to me, in a very spaced-out tone of voice. “I don’t know. We’re always on the edge of chaos here.”

I really want to make t-shirts up and give them the librarians down there. I wish I was an artist. I’d draw them all hanging in the sky off of a bookcase with the bookcase tipped and books falling all around them and with that quote emblazoned at the top of the shirt.

Right before I finished writing this post I also learned that we are supposed to get a major snow storm on Tuesday so. . . winter is not done with us yet.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I find it ironic that I complained a bit last week about a book I was reading not really having a plot when I read tons of no books without actual plots. Little House books, the books in the Anne of Green Gables series, the Cat Who books (Their plots are often very loose and the mysteries they are supposed to have sometimes aren’t even really mysteries!) Yes, the irony was lost on me but it isn’t now.

Currently Reading:

If I have more than one book listed here, that means I am switching back and forth and reading whichever one fits my mood at the time.

The Cat Who Went Into the Closet by Lilian Jackson Braun

Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson

(I have to be honest that I might not make it through this one. It’s heavy. Very. And I am not that far into it yet. I may need to skip ahead to the next one because The Husband says this is if of the darkest ones in the series)

Nellie by Amy Walsh

The Borrowers by Mary Norton (reading at with Little Miss. We’re almost finished)

Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood by Richard Kim (reading with The Boy off and on)

Do the New You by Steven Furtick (reading this here and there to get ready for a Bible study at the end of the month)

Recently Finished:

The Bungalow Mystery (A Nancy Drew Mystery) by Carolyn Keene

Up Next or Soon:

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

Bats Fly At Dusk by Erle Stanley Gardner

The Thief of Blackfriars Lane by Michelle Griep

The Husband is reading Fields of Fire by Ryan Steck

What We watched/are Watching

This past week we watched a few episodes of Miss Scarlet and The Duke.

The Boy and I watched a few episodes of Psych together and that was nice because we don’t always like the same kind of shows.

I watched the latest episode from Forgotten Way Farms

And

The latest episode from Just A Few Acres Farm

What I’m Writing

I am working on Cassie still. If you’re curious what it is about, here is a rough description:

 It’s 1995 and 32-year-old Cassie Mason is an actress who made it big on a sitcom in the mid-1980s but hasn’t been able to find a job since the show ended five years ago.

After being fired by her talent agency, Cassie takes her sister Bridget up on her offer for Cassie to come back to their hometown for an extended visit to unwind and regroup.

While there Cassie finds out her younger sister – the one with the handsome husband and three kids and running a farm – is going to open a café and farm store in the small town they grew up near. Cassie decides to stay long enough to help with the grand opening of the local community center, though she isn’t sure what she can do since she doesn’t know a thing about cooking like her mom and sister and isn’t great at organizing either.

In fact, Cassie isn’t sure what’s she is good at other than acting. Bridget hasn’t been able to help out at the Berrysville Community Center like she’d like to with all that has to be done to open the business so she asks Cassie to fill in for a couple of volunteer opportunities. That’s when Cassie finds out that her sister’s neighbor, Alec, isn’t only a small farmer – he’s also someone who knows how to cook and showcases those talents in a weekly cooking class at the community center.

During her visit home, Cassie struggles to figure out not only where she fits in and feels most at home but also to figure out if acting is all she is meant to do with her life or if there is another way God wants to use her talents.

And God? There’s someone else she needs to learn more about on this break from the career she thought she’d always have.

It will be released in August of 2024.

I hope to have the rough draft finished by the end of the month, set it aside for a bit, and then start the third book in the Gladwynn Grant series.

Last week on the blog I shared:

Saturday Afternoon Chat: foot injuries, warm and sunny days, friendly cats 10 on 10 for February Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot February 8 Faithfully Thinking: He did it for his own heart, not a pat on the back. Bookish Thinking: Comparing The Black Stallion book with the movie

What I’m Listening To

I’ve been listening to an Audible version of In This Mountain by Jan Karon.

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.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: foot injuries, warm and sunny days, friendly cats

The wood stove is cold today because we have been given the gift of a short warm-up. Today it is going to be up to 55 degrees. We have been enjoying sun and warmth for the most part, but today it will be cloudy with a chance of rain.

Why did I bring you our local weather report? I have no idea. It’s just something I seem to do on our Saturday chats.

Can I make you some tea or coffee? Maybe some juice or water?

I’m drinking my peppermint tea today and loaded it up with local honey. For some reason, I’m often stingy on the honey. I don’t know if that is because I have a scarcity mindset at times, or what, but this morning I loaded that honey up. I have a huge, two-pound jar of it so it will last me a while.

I might as well get the full effect of that lovely sweet flavor.

Last night at 10 at night it was 44 degrees which was so welcome when most nights it is 32 or below at 10 p.m. at night. It was strange not to have the fire roaring in the woodstove or be huddled under blankets. It almost makes me think we might have the early spring that little rodent said we’d have after all. Of course, the temperature is supposed to plummet again on Monday.

Despite it not being super cold even this morning, I am sitting in bed under two fluffy blankets as I write this and I have disturbed our cat Scout who was napping in the middle of the bed before I set up here. I’d feel bad but this cat sleeps undisturbed quite a bit so I’m sure she will simply find another place to lay and fall back asleep again. She and her nemesis, our other cat, Pixel, have been outside almost all day for the last few days to soak up the warmth.

I was thinking the other day how sweet it is when Scout sees me after I haven’t seen her for much of the day and lets out a little excited trill of a meow and then runs toward me. Usually, she’ll do this if she is in the yard and I open the back door to check on her but the other day she even did it when I was in the kitchen and she came down the stairs in a sleepy fog after one of her morning naps.

“There you are!” I said to her and her eyes widened and she let out her trill and then came trotting toward me. It was the cutest thing. I’ve never had a cat who seemed excited to see me. My cats over the years have been fine with being petted and have even sauntered over and rubbed around my legs for attention, but they never ran toward me like they just loved me like Scout does. It’s a nice feeling and I remind myself of her love for me when she wakes me up at 5 a.m. by laying on my chest and rubbing her cheek against mine for attention. I’d prefer she want that attention not when I am asleep and not when I am in the middle of writing.

Both cats have no respect for my writing time and often choose that time to want to lay on my chest. I do appreciate their affection for me, however. They do not often lie on anyone else in the family other than The Boy. Little Miss moves around too much and The Husband only tolerates the cats because he has shut his heart off to all other cats since he lost his cat Smokey several years ago after he (we) had her for 17 years.

While some weeks I do very little other than running a few errands and homeschooling, this week I was somewhat busy as I spent one day in the emergency room with my dad and the next day in the office of an orthopedic surgeon after he injured his foot last week.

My dad is in a boxing class for physical therapy for Parkinsons. It is an amazing class where they work on cognitive skills, reflexes, and strengthening the things that Parkinson’s tries to steal from its victims. (Here is a site to learn more about it if you know anyone who deals with Parkinson’s. Maybe a similar program is available near them. Dad says that most doctors don’t even suggest physical therapy. He says when they tell a patient they have Parkinson’s they say two things, “Do you want meds?” and “See you in six months.”).

On Thursday morning he attended that class and was kicking a kicking bag but didn’t have any pain. Later that night he was stomping on cans to help them fit inside a container for recycling and it was after that that the pain started but he didn’t think much of it.

By Friday he really couldn’t walk well. By Saturday my ever-busy, always on-the-move Dad was sitting in his recliner with his foot iced, reading my book Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage (currently on sale at . . . Just kidding. I shall not slip into a sales pitch).

The discomfort continued through Sunday and by Monday I was on the phone with Dad telling me he thought he should probably go to the emergency room and at least have it x-rayed in case he broke something.

Luckily, he did not break anything.

What he had done was severely bruised the bottom of his foot and caused a condition called plantar fasciitis. It is essentially blood and bruising under the foot muscle. This was confirmed in the ER and then again at an appointment the next day by his orthopedic surgeon, who did his knee surgery several years ago.

I was grateful Dad let me drive him to his appointments because normally my dad pushes through the pain and does things on his own despite it. This time, though, he was concerned about causing more damage to his foot and I was called into action.

At the hospital, while waiting for his x-rays (which they now wheel right into the patient instead of making the patient go to it), there was a man across the hall who had fallen off a ladder and complained that the only reason he was there was that his wife and daughter had made him go to the ER. The man couldn’t even sit on the bed he was in so much pain. It sort of made me giggle because he was fitting the stereotypical opinion that men won’t go to a doctor unless they are dragged there while my dad had decided to go on his own because he was afraid he was going to do more damage.

The ER doctor had suggested still keeping the appointment with the orthopedic doctor, who used to be a surgeon, but now only sees patients for consultations and refers them for surgery or not.

The orthopedic surgeon is a very interesting man and seems to know as much about other medical topics as he does orthopedics. He’s very fascinated with all aspects of medicine and reminded my dad and I to take vitamin C and honey throughout cold and flu season before we left. He has worked in our area for maybe 40 years and used to provide orthopedic services to local athletes as well as support on the sidelines at sports for local school districts.

Dad’s foot woes were not over with the visit with him, however. On Wednesday he noticed blood under the skin on one toe on the injured foot. It was also red. So he called a podiatrist because the orthopedic surgeon was now on vacation and drove himself to that appointment and found out he had an infection in a toe on that foot – possibly unrelated to the injury.

It’s hard for Dad not to be going places and getting things done but he has been resting and taking care of the foot with Epsom salt soaks and his medicine.

Hopefully, he will be up and around later this week.

As for me, I am hoping for a week with a little less running around. Last week I left the house every day except Friday. I know. I know. I have such a tough life. (insert eye roll here). I didn’t end up getting our groceries yesterday like I usually do because Little Miss and The Boy both had friends over and I met the mom of Little Miss’s friend halfway from her house and picked The Boy’s friend up on the way back.

In the afternoon I took all four of them to the tiny playground in our town. The boys ate a couple of subs from the local Subway (yes, this town is tiny but it actually has a Subway in the gas station. And, of course, there is a Dollar General, though it is located about a mile outside town.), chatted, and waited for the little girls to exhaust themselves on the teetertotter and playground equipment.

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching Psych and James May’s show on Amazon.

Today I hope to write a couple other blog posts, work on my novel, and read. Tomorrow we will go visit my parents for lunch.

So that is my week in review –  how about yours?

Do anything exciting or relaxing? Go anywhere interesting? Even if nothing you did was interesting, I’d love to hear about your week in the comments.

(P.S. Scout curled right back up at my feet in a little ball and went back to sleep. Apparently, I didn’t disturb her too much after all.)

10 on 10 for February

Today I am taking part in the 10 on 10 with Marsha In the Middle as host.

Here are the questions we are supposed to answer and the answers are below the graphic:

I looked at this one for a bit and was grossed out with both ideas but then decided that I’d rather have the potato chips dipped in chocolate because, well, it’s chocolate. I could eat almost anything dipped in chocolate except crickets and, well, other gross things one shouldn’t eat, but you get my drift. (Looks like Gertrude Hawk actually makes this product!)

2, I would definitely prefer to recite an original poem to my husband than sing anywhere, let alone in front of a bunch of people. I don’t write poetry but I come from a family of poets so I think I could pull that off. I could not pull of singing or singing in front of a bunch of people. I’d probably giggle while reciting the poem and my husband would probably make funny faces to make me laugh, but it would be a lot better than doing anything in front of a bunch of people.

3. Oh gosh – this one was a little hard. I think both of these singers would be interesting to have dinner with but I guess I would choose Dolly because I want to see how old she really looks close up. I mean, the woman is 78 but has so much makeup and plastic surgery done, she’s got to really look old close up right? I just can’t imagine a human’s skin can stretch that much through plastic surgery and not rip somewhere. I’ve got to see for myself how wrinkled she really is. Plus I think she’s hilarious and I’d crack up at her jokes while she’d probably crack up if I told her I want to see how old she looks close up.

4. This one was easy – I would love to have only one red rose. I love red roses the most and I’m also not a huge flower person. I like them but I can take them or leave them. If my husband came home with one rose and said “We’re going to sit tonight and watch a mystery together tonight” that would be a better gift than a dozen roses and chocolate. I kid you not. I’m very, simple like that. If he threw a book I wanted in the midst of all that I’d be even more over the moon. Not that I’m hinting because he does a fine job with gifts for birthdays, holidays, and Valentine’s Day, etc.

5. I’m going to pick the pink with purple hearts because those are my favorite colors. As long as the hearts aren’t too big and I don’t look like a clown. Hopefully, it can be a comfy cotton dress that I can just lounge around the house in. *wink*

6. Uh, can I have both? I mean, both sound cool. This is “would you rather” though so I will go with the carriage ride in the Scottish Highlands because my ancestors are from Scotland and I absolutely want to visit there one day. On the list is Grant Castle because my family members were Grants (hello…why do you think the main character in my book series is Gladwynn Grant. One, it was my grandmother’s name, but two, to keep the Grant name alive in my family.).

7. This one was easy. The Rock, but not for the reason you think. I don’t agree with him politically and I want to give him a piece of my mind. Ha! That and I think we probably agree on more things than I think and I’d like to ask him some questions about WWE and if he thinks Vince McMahon did all those things he is being accused of.

8. I think Satin sheets are pretty slippery so I’d go with the flannel sheets with Teddy bears on them. This question doesn’t tell us what season we would  have these sheets in, but I think even in the summer I’d rather have the flannel sheets. I’d simply not have a top blanket and put the fan on me so I wouldn’t get too hot. Yes, I thought of this way too long. I may have issues.

9. I will go with the box of chocolates with my least favorite fillings. I have dealt with some pretty bad allergies before and they affected my breathing so I’d rather not like chocolates than not be able to breathe!

10. Oh dear, my husband might read this and I don’t want to offend him but he likes surprise dates and I don’t. I mean, I’ve always enjoyed the surprise places he’s taken me but I like knowing where I’m going and what we’re going to be doing. I have anxiety and if I can plan for contingencies like how I’m going to be able to escape if I feel anxious or if I’m going to get carsick or not because it is a long drive, then I prefer to know ahead of time. If I planned the date then I’d know everything that was going to happen and that would help my control freak tendencies and my highly-prone-to-anxiety brain.

I’m so glad I was able to remember to do the 10 on 10 this month. I usually forget about it until I see Marsha post about it but this time, I remembered the day before. I simply didn’t write about it until after I saw Marsha post about it. *snort*

If you want to read more responses to these questions, visit Marsha’s blog here: https://marshainthemiddle.com/10-on-the-10th-february-3/

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot February 8

Welcome to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food & DYI Homemade Household, Sue from Women Living Well After 50, and me.  Look for the link party to go live on Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT. 

This week has been very busy for me.

I have had to leave the house every day except today. Two of those days I took my dad to doctor appointments for an injured foot. Thankfully the foot was not broken but it has been causing him a great deal of pain.

Luckily the sun came out this week, even though the temperatures were very chilly still. Today the temperatures are in the low 50s and it feels like a heatwave. My daughter and I went outside and played with the dog (nicknamed Zooma The Wonder Dog here on the blog) by throwing her ball across the yard, something she has only done once before all winter. She won’t give up the ball so we throw one ball and to get her to drop it, we throw another one.

She was having a ton of fun because she absolutely loves being outside and being able to run around. I needed to just sit and watch her run around because our trials from last week with broken down this or that have continued into this week. First, my dad broke down (Har. Har.) and now our dryer, which was starting to die before.

Unfortunately, we only have a limited budget to have all of this fixed.

I need new eyeglasses at the end of the month because the “anti-glare covering” on my lenses is peeling, making it hard for me to see through and aggravating the floaters I already have.

It will all get worked out, though. God has always provided for us.

Now, on to our most clicked posts for this week and a list of my favorite posts.

The most clicked:

First February Thrift by Thrifting Wonderland

My top three or three favorites:

Lean Into Grace by A New Lens

I cheated a bit by choosing this one because the book that Pam talks about here is written by the daughter-in-law of a family friend and I was pleasantly surprised to see it up on someone else’s blog. The woman’s husband’s family grew up not far from me in my little corner of Pennsylvania.

8 Ways to Make February Fabulous by Women Living Well After 50

I don’t know if it is proper to pick a post from one of the hosts or not, but I did really enjoy all these ideas for surviving February by Sue from Women Living Well After 50. She called it: ‘It’s February – 8 ways to make it Fabulous’. The ideas on how to make life more relaxing and easier to work through are ideas I’m going to be taking to heart for the rest of February.

Winter at Nelson Crest: Saturday Snippets by Debbie Dabbleblog

I chose this one because – babies. Yep. Beautiful babies. That is all.

I hope you had a great week and have a great week ahead.

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.

Also, please take the time to visit the other blogs on the link-up and meet some new bloggers!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enterhttps://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef