Lisa R. Howeler's Blog, page 54

Comfy, Cozy Christmas Link Up Highlights

Thank you to all of you who posted on my and Erin’s Comfy, Cozy Christmas Link Up.

I wanted to highlight a few of my favorites that were posted as a thank you for taking the time to post.

I loved this list of ideas of winter activities.

Peaceful Winter Days: 15 Activities for Winter by Crazy Little Love Birds

Then there was this tour of a beautiful Christmas light display from Marsha at Marsha in the Middle

This post by Deb at Reader Buzz had me sniffling for sure. It was so touching.

I love Mary Berry so I loved this post from Joy’s Book Blog about the Ultimate Mary Berry Christmas

I also enjoyed Steph Creates Things, Decorate Your Home with DIY Winter Wooden Snowflake and Bead Garland.

If I didn’t highlight your link, please know that Erin and I still appreciate you linking up and taking part and helping us make Christmas 2023 comfy and cozy. I hope you will participate in our other link-ups throughout the year.

I hope we make this an annual tradition. Focusing on comfy and cozy books, movies, and events really creates a magical and calming atmosphere for the Christmas season and I really needed that this year.

Sunday Bookends: Romances and mysteries in reading, mysteries in watching, and a snowstorm

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

Yesterday we were hit by a snowstorm that wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be but still brought about five inches of snow and cold. It was our first bigger snowstorm. Little Miss had a wonderful time sledding down the hill behind the house even after it got dark. We are grateful for a very bright light in our backyard.

We are also grateful for a bright streetlight because the kids decided to slide down our driveway and across our street around 10 at night. They had a blast.

It was too dark for photos but Zooma the Wonder Dog also had a blast. As I have mentioned before on my blog, she loves to jump up and catch snowballs that are thrown for her.

The snowstorm is set to continue today so we are hunkering down. I don’t know if we will get much more snow but the roads are supposed to be fairly messy and it is very, very cold out there right now.

Little Miss enjoyed playing in the snow much of yesterday and again today with her dad before he has to go to a second, part-time, job he recently started.

What I’ve Been Reading

This past week I finished two books – a Christian romance, Southern Snow by B.R. Goodwin, and a non-Christian mystery called  How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin.

If you like squeaky-clean books with a Christian message and romance you will like Southern Snow.

If you don’t mind some language and a very good mystery (like could not put the book down good) then you want How To Solve Your Own Murder but that one doesn’t come out until March 26 so go pre-order it.

You could also be like me and like both of them. Southern Snow is out now and on Kindle Unlimited if you have a membership to that.

This week I will be continuing Little Women, Dysfunction Junction by Robin W. Pearson, and listening to A Tall of Two Cities on Audible.

Dysfunction Junction will be out on February 6. Here is a description:

When three women receive an unexpected phone call that leaves them reeling, they have no other choice but to reckon with a lifetime of memories they’ve long tried to bury. Only in facing the past will they find their path forward.

Frances Mae Livingston’s firm grip of her family’s destructive history makes her hold her husband and four children even closer. But she’s losing bits of herself while proving to everybody and her mama that she’s enough. There’s no way she’ll repeat her mama’s mistakes, even if it kills her.

Annabelle McMillan didn’t have trouble kicking the Eastern North Carolina dust off her feet. The tough part was replanting herself in familiar soil. Now she’s blending her old life with her new husband, stepson, and unborn child. And battling old memories of abandonment and new fears of rejection.

Dr. Charlotte Winters has built a career around helping others sort through their emotional baggage. She’s also spent a lifetime refusing to unpack her own. So what if Charlotte doesn’t recall all that her mama did to her and what her daddy didn’t do for her? Her only mission is to help others help themselves…until the women from her past and the man in her future undo her well-sewn life.

At the junction of healed and hurting, broken and whole, and past and present, three women wrestle with their inability to forgive and forget in this riveting Southern family drama about sisterhood from award-winning author Robin W. Pearson.

I am also putting together a list of books I want to read this winter – including a collection of stories by Agatha Christie that I planned to read last winter but never got to. I hope to share that tomorrow or another day on the blog. It won’t be a big list because I am a slow reader. The Husband is reading John Connolly books.

The Boy and I have set A Tale of Two Cities aside for right now as we start a non-fiction book for history called Lost Names by Richard Kim, which I have started and have been swept up in. I also decided I wanted to read/listen to A Tale of Two Cities first so I can guide him when he reads it.

What We watched/are Watching

This past week I watched a lot of cozy mysteries – Poirot (with David Suchet) and Miss Scarlet and The Duke (which I am pretty much binge watching now).

What I’m Writing

If you’re new here you might not know that I write fiction books. Yes, I am an indie author and some readers do not read indie authors. That doesn’t offend me. I get it. I don’t even read a lot of indie authors.

There are a lot of not very good indie authors out there and a handful of good ones. That’s my honest opinion, even though I am an indie author.

Am I a good indie author? I’m a decent one, maybe, but recently questioned it when I put out a book that I had somehow switched two chapters on and then published the stinking book.

Oh my word I was so humiliated when I discovered it two weeks later. How did I do it? Well, it has to do with my new formatting software and how it’s very easy to move things around. So easy that two chapters were transposed without me even realizing I did it. I did not second check things before I uploaded it to Amazon because I had uploaded it before and it was fine. This time I had only made a minor change with a typo I somehow missed correcting after my editors gave it back so I didn’t think I needed to check it. Well, I learned my lesson the hard way.

Anyhow, this week I am working on a new book called Cassie that will be part of a multi-author project. It doesn’t come out until August so I have plenty of time but writing this one has been a struggle. I will admit that I now wish I had not joined a project that had so many rules with it that were provided by someone else and not myself. I will not be doing another project like this ever, but I feel this one is pushing me creatively and that’s a good thing.

I hope to have Cassie complete by the end of February, the beginning of March. After that, I hope to start a new Gladwynn Mysteries book and I think this time around I will share it here on the blog more than I did with the last book. I plan to move my books out of Kindle Unlimited so I can share and sell them anywhere I want. I will be doing that in the spring.

If you want to learn more about my books and what they are about, you can click HERE.

What I’m Listening To

Right now I am listening to A Tale of Two Cities on Audible.

Photos from Last Week

Here are some photos from our snowstorm:

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 Evening Chat: Looking back at the blog in 2023 and a thank you to readers

The fire is crackling in the woodstove and vegetable soup is cooking in the Instapot.

Outside snowflakes are falling softly at a fairly fast clip and the forecasters say we will have up to nine inches by the time this Nor’easter is done.

I started this blog post a bit ago but kept getting interrupted by lighting the fire, cutting up the potatoes for the soup while listening to a couple of lovely Christmas stories by L.M. Montgomery on Audible (no, this is not a paid ad), and chatting with my parents, brother, and a couple of friends. It was almost like life got in the way of my blog. Like – what?

(If you’re new here I’m typically sarcastic and snarky.)

Today I wanted to take the time to thank anyone who stopped by my blog in 2023 and left me comments or encouragement. It is very much appreciated.

I write a lot about – well, nothing.

Ha!

But people seem to need to focus on a bit of nothing these days so I am okay with writing mainly about nothing.

I wrote a lot about movies in 2023. I wrote about books and family outings and a bit about family history.

I wrote about my fiction books that I am working on and shared some of them. (They are currently on sale and links are at the top and side of the page. Commercial over.).

I wrote less about my Christian walk, not because I’m not still doing it, but because I was struggling with life part of the time and didn’t feel like I should be writing about it while I was trying to figure it all out. That’s pretty silly, I know. As Christians we should be talking about our journey no matter where we are because we never know who we will help along the way. I hope to fix that a bit in 2024.

I enjoyed meeting a ton of new bloggers this past year, which was the best thing about blogging in 2023.

I hope to “meet” even more in 2024. The only thing about meeting new bloggers is I have a hard time keeping up with everyone’s blogs and leaving comments. Sometimes I will read posts but run out of time to comment or fall asleep in the middle of commenting and thing I already did. Maybe I should meet less bloggers this year then. Ha.

As I write I am looking out at my neighbor’s front lawn and it’s weird how sad it looks now that the husband took all the Christmas decorations he had up down. I know it was time and I’m sure their electric bill will appreciate them not being up any more, but his wife and I both said how much we miss them. She managed to get him to leave up some of the sparkling rainbow lights at least so there is a nice sparkle for right now over there.

What can I say? Our house always looks pretty depressing in the winter without all the green on the trees and the flowers out so I am sure it isn’t fun for them to look at our house either.

Our Christmas decorations are now down too and I told The Husband I need to figure out ways to decorate the house for all seasons like people I follow on here and YouTube.

Yesterday we went to pick up groceries and also some pizza and wings for my dad, whose 80th birthday was yesterday.

We ate some lunch with him and my mom and then came home to put up our groceries and get ready for the storm.

Today I’ve been goofing off, as I mentioned above, but after I post this, I think I will watch some more Miss Scarlet and The Duke and read another chapter of Little Women. With a blanket, of course.

We usually visit my parents on Sundays but it looks like we might be stuck inside tomorrow as well since getting out of my driveway in icy or snowy weather is not easy at all.

That means more reading and writing time for me.

Oh and while I am thinking of it – I’ve actually purchased a tea other than peppermint to try and it’s not too bad – it is a ginger, turmeric, and orange tea. Ginger is great for digestion and turmeric can be great for inflammation and aches and pains.

How was your week last week?

Do anything exciting?

Try any new teas?

Let me know in the comments.

I’ll be back tomorrow with Sunday Bookends.

Weekly Traffic Jam Reboot

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 up to go live on Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT. 

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year’s!

This week has been fairly laid back for us.

I missed the deadline to put this post up because I got caught up in a book I’ve been reading. It is an ARC by Kristen Perrin called How to Solve Your Own Murder. It comes out March 26 and you’re going to want to get a copy. I usually schedule the post but earlier in the day I was either reading or thinking a lot about what to do for my dad’s 80th birthday tomorrow and completely forgot I hadn’t scheduled it. Oh well. I can’t always be on top of everything, I suppose (she said this sarcastically, knowing full well she’s barely ever on top of anything.)

The most clicked for last week was:

Styling Black Leggings for Gals over 50 by Karin’s Kottage

Here are my favorites for the week:

Simple But Put Together Outfit by Chez Mireille Fashion Travel Mom

Words on Wednesday Christmas Feasting and Other Things by Thistles and Kiwis

Freezing Temperature Tablescape with Sled Dogs and Bears, Oh My! by Life Is Better Lakeside

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 from years ago even.

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

Jane Austen January: Persuasion

I’ve already mentioned here that I have not read any Jane Austen books but I have watched Jane Austen movie adaptations.

This month I will be watching three of those adaptations with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs but this week I watched Persuasion by myself to kick off Jane Austen January. If you want to get in on the movie-watching action or share posts about Jane in any capacity, you can add links at the link up, which you can find at the top of the page.

Today, I thought I’d offer you a little bit of a blow-by-blow of my thoughts as I watched the 2007 version of Persuasion but without spoilers. In other words, I will not share the ending of the film, even though it should be obvious how it ends because it is based on a Jane Austen book.

As the movie starts I can tell there are going to be a lot of close-ups on the actress who plays the main character – Anne Elliot (Sally Hawkins) and she will provide us many drawn-out contemplative and heartbroken expressions.

I also realize she’s the mom from the live-action Paddington movies. I realize this because she reminds me very much of the wife of a former pastor of mine and because my daughter loves the Paddington books and movies and we just watched Paddington 2 two weeks ago.

I already like the main character, though I do wish she had some more lines and less lackluster expressions. (Luckily – this changes later.)

Oh my, her father and sister are — how shall I put this? Horrid.

They are horrid.

Wait. Isn’t that the guy who was in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which I only watched a couple of times) and Jonathan Creek and a bunch of other stuff I probably saw him in but can’t remember.

I don’t stop to look his name up but later my husband tells me his name is Anthony Head. I promptly forget what he told me and two hours later I look it up again.

Here are some exclamations I made each time the man opened his mouth as Sir Walter Elliot: “Wow.” “Okay then.” “Well, he’s certainly a jerk.” “Good. Leave her behind because who would want to be with you anyhow?” “Yikes. Pompous much?”

The sister, Elizabeth, deserves a lot of the same exclamations and she receives those and a couple of “yikes.”

Now the father and sister are leaving and their house will be rented out by someone who is not a nobleman but a mere commoner, as Sir Walter Stucky Up Face says. That makes him very sour indeed.

Our main character is being left behind – not of her own will, of course – to stay with her hypochondriac sister Mary Musgrove. Lord have mercy, this woman is a piece of work.

We’ve already heard before Anne stayed behind that the house that Anne grew up in but will not be able to stay in because her father has leased it out to commoners will be visited by a Captain Frederick Wentworth (Rupert Penry-Jones – what a very British name, eh?)

Cue yet another long, shocked yet subdued expression by Anne. Alas, she has met him before we learn as she talks to her godmother. It isn’t a spoiler to say that the captain wanted to marry dear Anne but her father and godmother forbade it.

Oh, Anne’s mother is dead, by the way. Just figured that out.

Is this sister for real? She’s sick? Now come on. Really?

Oh. I see. She’s only sick when she feels like it and not when fancy-dancy people come to visit and want her to go see other fancy-dancy people.

Listen, lady, your kid just fell out of a tree. Don’t you think that is more important than some fancy dinner?

Anne doesn’t think the dinner is more important. She’s staying home with your kid and cares more about your kid than you do.

Oh, so we learn that he sisters didn’t know of the proposal once long ago from the captain but of course, this hypochondriac one wouldn’t have known since she only thinks of herself.

The captain is dreamy by the way.

I can see why Anne wanted to marry him.

Everyone has got to be clueless to miss the swoony looks they keep giving each other and how sad the captain looks as he looks at Anne.

Oh. They are clueless because they are so incredibly self-centered.

Seriously, 20 minutes in and all I can think is how awful and selfish all these people are.

All except Anne, of course.

Here is where I will cut off my internal dialogue and leave a screenshot of what I told Erin about my thoughts as the movie neared the end:

The novel Persuasion was originally written in 1817. There are at least four movie adaptations of the novel with the latest being last year. I have not heard good things about the latest. I’ve heard the best things about this adaptation.

The movie was part of three movies released in 2007 by ITV. The other movies were Mansfield Park and Northanger Abby. According to Wikipedia, Hawkins wasn’t sure about playing in the movie when asked but after re-reading some of Jane’s books, including Persuasion, she fell in love with her again after last having read her in high school. She even went as far as reading about Jane herself to learn more about the woman behind the book.

She told The Independent, “Jane was an incredible woman. She was only in her early forties when she died. I became convinced that Persuasion was about her own love life; Anne Elliot took the wrong advice and left the man who turned out to be the love of her life. She is the type of woman you’d like to be: reserved, refined, funny. I totally fell in love with her.”

This was Penry-Jones’ first period drama. In an interview, he said, “In modern drama, everything is so overt. In period drama it’s all held in. You have to find ways to show the feelings straining beneath the surface.”

(An aside by me: he did a remarkable job with this.)

I found it interesting when I read on Wikipedia that the costumes made for the movie, along with those used in Miss Austen Regrets (which Erin and I will watch at the end of the month) were eventually sold by the Jane Austen Centre at an auction. The costume designer, Andrea Galer allowed the items to be sold but said it was a hard thing to do because she had loved designing those costumes so much. The costumes were already on display at the Jane Austen Centre, which is located in Bath, England and focuses on Jane’s time in Bath and how it influenced her novels, including Persuasion. Galer sold them to encourage others to get in touch with the materials that used to make clothes since she used a lot of those to design the costumes.

I have to be honest that it felt a little weird to read that they were sold on Ebay of all places. I’m not sure who the proceeds benefited but I would guess the center.

Have you seen this version of Persuasion or the others? Which was your favorite? Have you read the book and what did you think of it?

Next week Erin and I will be watching Sense and Sensibility and will write about it on Thursday.

Here is our complete list:

Movies and the dates we will be writing about them:

Sense and Sensibility – 1995 (January 11th)

Pride and Prejudice -2005 (January 18th)

Emma – 1996 (January 25th)

Miss Austen Regrets (February 1)

Sunday Bookends: wrapping up Christmas — but not right away, family outings, mystery books, and

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

Welcome to my last Sunday Bookends for 2023. Crazy, isn’t it? Tomorrow it will be 2024.

2023 flew by for us in some ways and dragged in others.

This past week we ended the year with a lot of family time.

It was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my parents and two family days and a lot of relaxing together and watching movies.

Today and tomorrow will be more relaxing and then it will be back to school for the kids and I on Tuesday.

I wrote a bit about our last week in my post yesterday if you would like to catch up.

I was watching a video by Darling Desi on YouTube yesterday and she talked about how many years ago in our country we used to celebrate the Christmas season until January 6 and that we should give ourselves permission to do that if we want to. So this week I’m giving myself permission to continue celebrating Christmas with Christmas movies and books that I didn’t get to in the month of December.

I started watching It’s A Wonderful Life last night so I can watch some of my favorite scenes and before bed I read from a vintage Christmas book.

What I’m/We’re Reading

I didn’t read a ton on my break but I did read some. I finished Christmas in Abasorka County by Craig Johnson and made progress on Southern Snow by B.R. Goodwin.

The one by Craig Johnson is a small collection of short stories featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire from his Longmire Mysteries series.

 I should have Southern Snow finished this week. I am not taking so long to read it because it is bad. I just stopped reading it to read some other Christmassy-themed books like the collection of vintage Christmas stories, the Johnson one, and a few chapters of Little Women, which I am making my way through slowly. Southern Snow does feature Christmas but I believe it can be read any time of the year.

Early last week I started an ARC by Kristen Perrin called How To Solve Your Own Murder and I was hooked and am blazing through it.

 For those who like clean reads – this is clean so far but I’m only on chapter 10. There has been one swear word and it could get worse as things get intense, but I’m not sure. In other words, if you usually read Christian or clean fiction like me – just be warned that this is not listed in those categories.

I’ve also started Dysfunction Junction by Robin W. Pearson, which is another ARC read. The book releases February 6.

In January I’m focusing on cozy like I did in December so I hope to read some more cozy mysteries, including The Cat Who Went Into The Closet which my husband ordered for me and a couple of Nancy Drew books.

I’m also reading A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens with The Boy for English.

Little Miss and I have been listening to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever but I’m trying to get her to let me read her The Borrowers at night before bed.

We will be back to reading a history-related book for school on Tuesday, but I’m not sure which one yet.

The Husband is reading John Connolly books because Connolly has just put up his entire catalog on Kindle Unlimited. If that isn’t a sign of things to come in the publishing industry I don’t know what is. That means his ebooks are exclusively only on Amazon and he’s a NY Times Best Seller. They cannot be purchased anywhere else for 90 days. Interesting.

Also interesting is that the book we downloaded, The Furries: A Charlie Park Book begins in the town my husband and I lived in for 20 years for me and more than 20 for him. It is the town he now drives through to go to his second job because the towns up there all run together. The Furries is actually two books in one and the first one that mentions the town is The Sisters Strange.

 It’s so bizarre to see the town in the book because it is truly a tiny little area essentially in the middle of nowhere. There are about 3,200 people in the town he’s talking about and maybe 13,000 altogether in the three towns that run together. I may be off on that number – I didn’t check the census but it is definitely under 30,000 these days.

I’m very curious now to know how Connolly knew about it or his connection to the area. He even writes about the flood we went through there in 2011. Thankfully it did not hit our home since we were at a higher elevation but it did flood the historic and business district of the town. I was working for the newspaper at the time and took photographs of the destruction but almost forgot to take them because I was just standing on the hill looking down into the rest of the flooded town in shock.

I’d also love to know if any of his characters are based on any real-life residents. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if they were. I don’t know that Connolly’s books are my cup of tea but after reading the first chapter I am hooked and if he goes back to Athens in this book, I know I will be trying to see which characters might be based on people I know from there.

In an interview with a Maine television station, Connolly said he wrote this mainly in lockdown during the pandemic so he was mainly in Ireland at the time (which is where he is originally from). This makes the book partly taking place in Athens that much more interesting to me. He also released the book in chapters like I have done on my blog. Maybe Mr. Connolly saw my blog and copied me. *wink* Ha. Ha.

What We watched/are Watching

I watched a ton of Christmas-themed shows and movies since I last posted a Sunday Bookends.

A Christmas Carol from 1938

White Christmas

Elf (for the second time)

Trading Christmas

A Biltmore Christmas

A Christmas Story

A half of The Man Invented Christmas (need to get back to it)

Half of Blithe Spirit (need to finish it when The Husband is home from work)

The Christmas special from last year of All Creatures Great and Small

The Little House on the Prairie Christmas special

A Christmas episode from M.A.S.H.

We also watched a couple other episodes of M.A.S.H., a couple episodes of Miss Scarlet and The Duke, the first episode of C.B. Strike (based on the books by Robert Gailbraith. I read the first one and enjoyed it even though it was dark and full of obscenities – just a warning for anyone who might try it), a lot of Newhart, Forgotten Way Farms, Darling Desi, Doctor Quinn Medicine Women, and The Pioneer Woman.

I probably watched some other things as well but it has been two weeks so I’m not sure.

What I’m Writing

I’m working on my book Cassie and blathered on about a bunch of movies and other stuff here on the blog.

Next week I will be writing about the movie Persuasion to kick off Jane Austen January. Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be starting buddy watches of movie adaptations of Jane movies January 11. We have started a link up that you can access through the menu at the top of my page.

If you want to read more about the feature you can see my post here: https://lisahoweler.com/2023/12/28/getting-ready-for-jane-austen-january/

The movies we will be watching include:

Sense and Sensibility – 1995 (January 11th)

Pride and Prejudice -2005 (January 18th)

Emma – 1996 (January 25th)

Miss Austen Regrets (February 1)

On the blog recently I shared:

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Christmas, Christmas light displays, and special Christmas gifts Weekly Traffic Jam Reboot December 28 Getting Ready for Jane Austen January Saturday Evening Chat: Baking cookies, relaxing by the fire, and getting ready for Christmas Faithfully Thinking: Making Pockets of Jesus’ Peace this Christmas season Weekend Traffic Reboot for December 21 Three light-hearted or sweet Christmas movie suggestions for you to watch this weekend 11 Christmas Movie Suggestions and Reviews For You

What I’m Listening To

I listened to Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon before and during Christmas week.

I have also been listening to a collection of audio productions of Jane Austen’s books on Audible and plan to start Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry on audible at some point, but probably not until February because I’ll be listening to the Jane Austen for Jane Austen January.

Photos from this week

Christmas:

Local light display:

Fun outing:

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: Christmas, Christmas light displays, and special Christmas gifts

Good afternoon!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas or holiday and are ready to celebrate the New Year.

We had a really fun, but relaxing Christmas Eve and Christmas.

We spent both days with my parents.

Christmas Eve we bought pizza and wings and watched the movie Elf with them and on Christmas Day we went there for a gift exchange and dinner. We watched White Christmas after all the gifts were open.

Every year before we open gifts we read the Christmas story from Luke. Either Dad or Mom or my brother usually reads it but my brother couldn’t be there this year so Little Miss and The Husband volunteered to read. It was very nice to have them read it.

There were a couple of very nice surprise gifts for me, including a new Kindle from my husband. I always joke how he rarely buys me books for Christmas, even though that’s what I want most of the time (he really just wants me to choose what I want on my own so he isn’t being a jerk) so this year he put me in my place and bought me a device where I can read hundreds of books.

It was a total shock.

I like the Kindle Paperwhite I have and it was working okay but earlier in the year I thought the battery wasn’t holding a charge as well. It turns out my case wasn’t closing right and failing to put it into sleep mode.

Regardless, The Husband got it in his head that I needed a new Kindle so he kindly used a portion of his bonus to buy one of the newest generations. He wanted me to have one that I could adjust the warmth setting on so I can use it more at night before bed without it messing with my melatonin. It also features a larger screen.

I certainly appreciated the thought and while I first thought it was a bit clunky compared to my older and lighter paperwhite, after a couple of days of using it (it came on Wednesday), I love it. I even hug it when I close the cover. I know. I’m weird. I also hug books after I smell them. Ahem. I’ve heard of weirder habits by people so I’m not worried about my mental status. At least for that reason.

Another surprise for me was a six-month membership to Ancestry.com so I could finish researching our family.

I already had an entire family tree put together but had to take a break because of expenses. Now I have to start a new account and redo some of my research but I can hopefully draw from my old account and quickly add some of it. After I am done, I will make sure to print it all out and save all the documents I want to save in a place I can find it this time.

Among my favorite gifts was a huge three-pound jar of local honey. The Husband joked it should last me a week and after looking at how much I’ve used already he might be right – though it will probably be at least a month.

Little Miss was surprised with two music boxes from my parents among some other gifts. The Husband was given a clock that used to belong to my paternal grandmother.

I bought my son a sword for Christmas. Yes, a real sword. Okay, not really that real but a little real.

It’s fairly solid and it’s something he has wanted, though he later told me it was a bit of a joke. Joke or not, he now has a sword to go with his helmet.

He also received two hammers from his grandfather and I’m not sure if he knew what to think of them but he did say they would be nice to have for personal projects or for his building and construction class. When he was little he used to hand his superhero figures to me and ask me to put them in my purse but on Monday he asked me to put his hammers in my purse. In the end, they were too heavy to be put in there and had to be carried out to go home in a box.

My dad received a gift from his neighbor of a piece of ash wood that had the pattern from the ash bore in its bark and was carved by his neighbor into the shape of a tree.

We have been using this wood in our woodstove and I thought the patterns in the bark were from the wood laying in the dirt and worms making the patterns.

(Speaking of our woodstove – we haven’t had to use it all week but will have to light it tonight as the temperatures drop back down into the 30s.)

My dad always does a beautiful job at wrapping the presents and this year was no exception.

As an aside, Dad will be 80 this Friday. He still likes to try to trick us at Christmas and wrap our gifts in a way we can’t really tell what it is until we open it. This year he wrapped each of us special gifts (like my Ancestry membership) around a can of sardines. We all guessed that was what it was but weren’t sure if they were real sardines or just the cans.

It turned out they were real sardines but money or notes about items that were ordered for us were wrapped around them. Both Little Miss and the Boy tried the sardines. The Boy liked his since they had a Louisiana hot sauce on them. He was disappointed he left them at their house when we left that evening.

Gifting The Boy underwear became a theme for a few years so one year my dad wrapped his underwear in a box of nails which made The Boy think he was receiving a Lego set.

The day after Christmas we all headed to a festival of lights – or Christmas light display about 45 minutes south of us.

Usually we attend this site the day after Thanksgiving, or at least before Christmas, and there aren’t as many people but this year there was a huge line of cars traveling through the lights with us. The lights are set up on a golf course and each display is very impressive, especially for our small area.

This year they enlarged the display and also added a tribute to the victims of 9-11, which was very impressive to us all.

On the way to the display we picked up two friends of Little Miss’s and they regaled us with Christmas carols as we rode because The Husband still hasn’t figured out how to operate the radio in his new-to-him truck so he didn’t know how to turn to the radio station they tell you to play while going through the display.

I tried to play Michael Buble’s Christmas album for everyone but they weren’t that interested.

The rest of the week was spent relaxing for most of us (The Boy has enjoyed staying up late and sleeping in on his break) and some work for The Husband but luckily not all week.

Today The Husband is taking us somewhere for dinner and shopping. Tomorrow we will either relax at home or my parents for New Year’s Eve while The Boy has a friend over for a sleepover. I hope to make Aunt Dianne’s famous sausage balls for either Sunday or Monday.

How was your Christmas or holidays?

Did you receive any special gifts or just have some special family time?

I’d love to know.

I’ll be back tomorrow for Sunday Bookends to discuss what I’ve been reading and watching.

Weekly Traffic Jam Reboot December 28

Welcome to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food For Hungry People and me.

This is a post where we open up a link to bloggers of all kinds to share a blog post they wrote recently or even a long time ago. All we ask is that the posts be family-friendly.

Hello again! Welcome back to the Weekly Traffic Jam Reboot! I hope you all had an amazing Christmas or holiday celebration. I’d love to hear how it went if you would like to leave a comment about it.

If you wrote some Christmas/holiday-related posts, feel free to add the link to the Comfy, Cozy Christmas link, which is open until January 2. You can find the page for it in the menu section or by clicking here:

My Christmas was really nice and calming this year.

My immediate family and I spent time together, chatted with my brother and his wife during the weekend and Christmas Day, and the day after Christmas we went to see a beautiful light display about 45 minutes from us.

Here are a few photos I took there:

They definitely had enlarged it this year. We usually go the day after Thanksgiving so it was a surprise when we arrived and the cars were backed out down the road from the golf course where they hold it.

I’ll ramble about all that more on Saturday in my Saturday Afternoon Chat post.

For now, let’s get on to our most clicked post and my favorites for the week.

Here is the most clicked:

Favorite Photos Memories and Moments of 2023 by My Slices of Life

And now my favorite posts:

In The Kitchen, December Edition by Thistles and Kiwis

A Christmas Carol: Which Movie/TV Version is Best? By Reader Buzz

Christmas on the Farm by Penny Treasures

Now it is your turn to leave a link to a recent or favorite blog post. The post can be from the past week or so or an older one you want to bring attention to. It can be on any topic (lifestyle, books, fashion, DIY, etc.). All we ask is that the post be “family friendly.” Please visit some of the other blogs that have linked up and find some new blogs to follow or just offer some support to your fellow bloggers.

For most of us blogging is a way to reach out to others or to escape so let us support each other in our blogging journeys.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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

Getting Ready for Jane Austen January

Hey, can you come here for a minute? Yeah, lean in close. I have a secret to tell you that might shock you.

I’ve never – whoo-boy. Can’t believe I’m about to say this.

I’ve never read a Jane Austen book all the way through.

Wince.

I know! It’s a big-time reader sin – especially when you are a female.

I have the books on my shelves and intended to read Pride and Prejudice last year but never got there. Now I’m in the middle of A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens and Little Women by Alcott and I have two ARCs to read before February so I probably will not read a Jane Austen book in January.

I will, however, be watching movies based on Jane Austen books with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs during the month of January. If you want to join in, we are inviting you to do so and to add any blog posts you write about Jane or the movies to our linky. The link up will be at the top of my page starting next week.

(As an aside, our Comfy, Cozy Christmas link up is still live if you want to add any Christmas-themed or related posts there.)

Here is the list of movies we are watching for the month and I do want to note that for Pride and Prejudice both of us prefer the 1995 BBC mini-series but it is much longer than a movie so we opted for the 2005 movie with Kiera Knightly and what’s-his-face. Sorry, but I don’t acknowledge anyone other than Colin Firth as Mr. Mark Darcy. Even from the short bit I’ve read of the book, I know that he simply IS Mark Darcy.

Movies and the dates we will be writing about them:

Sense and Sensibility – 1995 (January 11th)

Pride and Prejudice -2005 (January 18th)

Emma – 1996 (January 25th)

Miss Austen Regrets (February 1)

For fun and to kick off the month I will be watching Persuasion on my own and rambling about it on January 4.

Note: You do NOT have to write about the movies on the same days we do. If you watch a movie and write about it on any day you can still post in the link up. Any post about Jane Austen, not just these movies, is also allowed. So, posts about the books are absolutely allowed too!

Have fun with it. Ramble about your love or even your disdain for Jane. Okay, maybe don’t express too much vitriol about Jane. Ha! Ha! We’re trying to keep this fairly positive and fun!

Saturday Evening Chat: Baking cookies, relaxing by the fire, and getting ready for Christmas

I am so glad you came for a visit. Come sit. Don’t mind the cat sitting on the top of my bookcase. She’s weird.

Here we are, two days before Christmas.

Would you like a cup of cocoa, tea, or coffee? How about some homemade chocolate chip cookies?

My parents, daughter, and son made them the other day.

Last we spoke I was dealing with Covid but then I suddenly wasn’t.

It was a short bout, thank God (literally). I couldn’t help worrying that it would be worse, though, since I’d had such a bad case in 2021.

None of us had very serious lingering issues from it, just a bit of congestion for a few days afterward. It was honestly such a quick illness it felt more like allergies. If it hadn’t been for the insane burning in my nose and eyes and the fever darted up so high and then down again, I would have suspected it was just allergies.

The rest of the week was spent doing schoolwork, baking cookies with my parents, watching Christmas movies, and procrastinating on housework.

The cookie baking was funny because there was a lot of debate among my parents and Little Miss on how to make the cookies.

“That’s too much sugar.”

“That’s what the recipe calls for.”

“But the flour into the egg mixture not the egg mixture into the flour.”

“Is that too much butter?”

“No, just use the spoon and put the dollops on. Don’t roll them into balls.”

In the end, they came out fine but were very small and very, very sweet. They were so sweet, I made myself sick after only three.

Today I need to finish some dishes and vacuum the floors in my living room, kitchen (don’t ask why it has carpet in there), and Little Miss’s room. Yes, I am procrastinating again, why do you ask?

Tomorrow we are going to visit my parents for Christmas Eve. We plan to have pizza and wings and watch a couple of movies (White Christmas and Elf).

We will be back there again on Monday for Christmas Day.

I plan to take a break from things like Instagram and Facebook this upcoming week and maybe even longer. It’s very much grating on my nerves. Threads, for example, is horribly annoying even though I deleted the app and do my best to ignore it. I really want Instagram to stop putting it in my feed to try to capture me with the drama everyone vomits on there.

I do very well ignoring it but once in a while a sentence catches my attention and I go over and look, but it’s almost always someone writing something extremely controversial and then writing afterward: “but I don’t want to debate this.”

You don’t want to debate this.

Ah. Okay. Then what was your point of putting it out there in public? You just wanted everyone to pat you on the back and praise you? You expected all love and no pushback on a site becoming known for its intolerance and vitriol?

I couldn’t even share one drop about anything about my faith without getting at least one or two nasty comments when I was on it very briefly. I left as fast as I could when I saw all the biting sarcasm, snarkiness, and just out and out rudeness.

I just don’t have time for all that hatred balled up in one place.

Lately being on social media has felt like a kid that’s had too much candy to me. You eat just enough to satisfy your desire to connect with people and then you eat a little more but as you continue to eat you feel sick and then sicker and then you’re throwing up and that’s finally when you decide you’ve had enough and you need some real food.

And by “you” I mean “me”, of course, because most of my readers have been smarter than me and have stayed clear of social media altogether. God bless you.

So today I am doing my best to spend as much time as I can off social media. T least a little.

I am posting here or there but not scrolling much and for most of today I’ll be watching old movies, a Christmas movie or two, and reading a book. I would be off social media completely if I didn’t need to promote my books a little.

The Husband is working today so I’m sad he’s not here to watch movies with us but he will be at my parents tomorrow and with us on Monday and most of the rest of the week.

We will not be having a white Christmas this year since all we have had is rain and gloom for the last several days and are set to have the same for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Our last semi-significant snow was on December 11 and Little Miss had a blast playing in it with Zooma The Wonder Dog.

Tonight as I finish this post, I am sitting by the fire and looking out at my neighbor’s beautiful Christmas lights.

I’m watching While You Were Sleeping and I was contemplating what to make for dinner but the kids have all decided they want something different and are going to make it themselves so I am on my own for dinner and that’s fine with me. As an aside – what is with While You Were Sleeping? It’s such a weird movie. Why have I now watched it three times? The woman should have told them the truth from the start. It’s just so weird and then they’re all fine with it at the end of the movie. Gah. It’s weird, people! Weird!

Anyhow, the lights are on the Christmas tree and I’m enjoying it while I can because The Husband starts taking it down the day after Christmas. I’m going to try to drag it out until at least January 1 this year. I’ll jump on his back and yell “Noooo! Leave it alone, you big bully!”

I don’t think I’ll really do that. I’ll just ask him to leave it up and  he’ll say, “Okay.”

I won’t be back for a Sunday Bookends post tomorrow so I will chat with you all again sometime next week. Bring your tea or I’ll make you whatever I have here.
How was your week last week?

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.