Lisa R. Howeler's Blog, page 59

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Changing leaves, birthday celebrations, and library sales

Tuesday night Little Miss and I were huddled under two blankets, reading Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright, with the small lamp on her bedside table casting a cozy orange glow.

We finished a chapter in the book and Pixel, my all-black, sometimes annoying black cat, climbed up on my chest, laid down and let us pet her for ten minutes. Pixel is a fickle cat. One minute she likes to be petted and the next minute she is biting the person petting her. She likes to walk onto my chest, knead for a few minutes, lay down for a few more minutes, and then walk off again. She doesn’t like the slightest bit of movement when she’s trying to get comfortable and I move too much for her.

Tuesday night, though, she didn’t mind when I shifted or straightened. She simply dug her claws into my skin and held on and resettled with him, then let me pet her nose and started to fall asleep.

I wanted to fall asleep with her like that on my chest since Little Miss was almost in La-la Land at that point, but I couldn’t relax because Scout, our second kitty, had decided earlier in the night to ignore my pleas to come inside and was outside gallivanting around our backyard, killing a mouse or a cricket or something that she enjoyed hopping on and chasing in the backyard.

As much as I kept saying, “Fine. That’s fine. If she wants to stay out all night she can. I’m not going to wait up for her. I’m going to bed.” I knew I couldn’t really relax until all of our creatures were in the house for the night. My cats are outside almost all day. They are savvy cats who know how to fight off the neighborhood strays or other animals but the idea of them being trapped outside all night, locked out of a cozy place to lay their furry heads just makes me anxious (I mean what doesn’t make me anxious these days, but still . . .)

I did fall asleep with her still outside because when I went back to get her right before bed, she had disappeared from where she’d been chasing down whatever creature she’d found to torture and was nowhere to be seen. At 2 a.m., though, I was up to use the bathroom and begrudgingly dragged myself down the cold stairs, through out kitchen, to the backdoor, where Scout was waiting. She darted inside so fast I almost didn’t see her.

She has a habit of darting past me, either into the house or out of it without me ever seeing her. More than one night I have called for her, she hasn’t come, I have been worried about her, shut the door and turned around only to see her sitting in the kitchen floor cleaning herself and wondering why I wasn’t petting her to welcome her back inside.

As I write this, she is yawning at me from our daughter’s warm bed, curled up in a fluffy pile of the comforter, behind Little Miss’s knees, one of her favorite spots to lay.

Curling up with Little Miss and I is a common occurrence for her, especially at night. I often find her curled up on Little Miss’s pillow in the morning. Some mornings she darts out of the room as soon as The Husband is up and getting ready for work so she can dart out the back door and go explore the neighborhood, but on mornings like this she lounges in bed, stretching out her large paws with the extra toes, yawning, and then getting more comfortable so she can sleep another hour or so. Once Little Miss is awake, though, Scout is up as well and more often than not she heads for the back door, ready to be let out into the world.

I would guess that both cats won’t want to go out as quickly in the mornings soon since the temperatures are getting cooler as bright colors spread across our hillsides with the changing leaves on the trees.

Before we know it, snow will be falling and I’ll be grumbling about having to start a fire in the woodstove but then enjoying it once it is lit.

I’ll have to remind myself how to light the fire, how to keep it burning longer, and to bring the wood in at night so I have it in the morning to keep the house warm throughout the day. Still, it will save us money on our heating oil and that will make me, and the rest of the family, happy.

Monday is Little Miss’s birthday and the only thing she asked for her birthday is that we could all go as a family to a restaurant. So yesterday we all headed down to a favorite restaurant of ours about 45 minutes away and we also visited the local library’s annual book sale and met a couple friends of Little Miss’s at a local park. It was the one friend’s 8th birthday so we shared some cupcakes and let the kids play on the playground.

Before her friends came, we visited the creek and were bit up by a bunch of bugs and I was almost hit a couple of times by falling black walnuts.’

The leaves had changed some there but not a ton. I have a feeling the peek will be later than some are saying it will be there year, even though we already have gorgeous red trees spreading across our hills.

Our neighbors’ one maple tree is bright red right now and we were admiring it Thursday as we were jumping on the neighbors’ trampoline.

Back to the library sale from yesterday – I wish I had slowed down and spent a little more time looking at things but we chose to go before we ate and Little Miss was hungry so she didn’t want to spend too much time. In a way, not having a lot of time to look over the books was a good thing because then I would have picked out books I didn’t need. We have so many books right now and I have so many to read. Plus I have books I picked up that I now know I will never read and need to find a way to get rid of them since the local libraries keep saying they have enough and don’t want any more books donated. We were, once again, near a little library yesterday and I, once again, forgot to take those books with me to put in there.

The little library at the park we went to was so sad too. There were hardly any books in there and the books I did move aside to make a video about how every little library I go to has a James Patterson book were sticky. Ew.

The park itself was a bit sad.

First there were the insane amount of bugs, then there were the porta-potties that had not been empty in I don’t know how long. It was sick how full they were. In addition to all of that is their website. The site is connected to the township page but instead of having any information about the park (such as if you can bring pets or not, which is what I was looking for) it has a list of suggested information of what information should be placed there. Like it’s the default starter page for their site.  

Despite the sad state of the park, the kids had a lot of fun and that’s what mattered.

Today I plan to go visit my mom and watch a movie with her and just enjoy the gorgeous fall colors on the drive there. Tomorrow we will have a family celebration for Little Miss at my parents.

What are your plans for this weekend? Anything exciting or just some nice relaxing?

Comfy Cozy Cinema: Arsenic and Old Lace

For the next two months, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching cozy, mysterious, or comfy movies. Erin made these awesome graphics detailing what we are doing and what movies we will be watching.

This week we watched Arsenic and Old Lace which was based on a 1941 play by Joseph Kesselring. The play, in fact, was still on Broadway when the movie was filmed in 1942. The play’s producers stipulated in the contract for the rights to the play that the movie would not be released until after the play finished its Broadway run. The play was so popular, though, that it ran for three years so the film didn’t hit theaters until 1944.

The movie was directed by Frank Capra.

This movie is completely crazy and off the wall in the start and then gets a bit dark and creepy in the middle and then it goes back to goofy again.

I prefer the goofy and eccentric portions of the movie to the creepy parts because the one actor in the creepy parts – Raymond Massey — well, he’s good at his job, that’s all I’ll say about that.

I am a huge Cary Grant fan, which you might know if you’ve been following this blog for very long. Erin and I even did a Spring of Cary feature this past spring.

My husband commented while we were watching this movie that he thinks he likes Cary in comedies more than his dramas and I have to agree. Cary makes the best faces when he’s acting in a comedy and pulls off the comedic element so flawlessly that I’m often left laughing so hard during his comedies that my sides hurt.

There are several hilarious parts of this movie but one of the most hilarious aspects is how everyone acts like death and murder and attempted murder are everyday things. Everyone except Cary’s character, except when it comes to the attempted murder of his new wife, which he seems to shrug off because he has a one-track mind and wants to get his uncle committed to an insane asylum and protect his murderous aunts from being arrested.

Let me back up a bit here to explain some things.

Cary’s aunts are brutal killers but they are also sweet and wholesome and no one would know they are murderers until Cary (who portrays Mortimer Brewster in this movie) finds a dead man in their window seat.

Cary’s uncle thinks he’s President Theodore Roosevelt, which has worked well for the aunts who are having him pretend he’s digging the Panama Canal in their basement.

While Mortimer is trying to figure out what to do with his murderous aunts and his crazy uncle, his new wife – who he just married at the beginning of the movie — keeps trying to get his attention so they can run off together for their honeymoon to Niagara Falls.

Mortimer is way too distracted with shock and horror over his new discovery about his aunts to pay attention to his wife, who, by the way, is the daughter of the pastor who lives across the street. Then, as if things couldn’t get any crazier, Mortimer’s brother Jonathan returns home from his travels around the world where he’s been killing people. He returns with his partner in crime, a doctor played by Peter Lorre, who has botched Jonathan’s facelift, making him look like Boris Karloff, which is ironic because Karloff played Jonathan Brewster on Broadway. Karloff stayed on as the character in the play to appease the producers because they were concerned that losing all of the main actors for the movie would kill ticket sales.

According to Wikipedia: “Josephine Hull and Jean Adair portray the Brewster sisters, Abby and Martha, respectively. Hull and Adair, as well as John Alexander (who played Teddy Brewster), reprised their roles from the 1941 stage production.[4]Hull and Adair both received an eight-week leave of absence from the stage production, which was still running, but Karloff did not, as he was an investor in the stage production and its main draw. The entire film was shot within those eight weeks. The film cost just over $1.2 million of a $2 million budget to produce.”

The movie is absolutely hilarious and eccentric and I’m glad I stuck it out this time because the first time I watched it, my husband and I bailed in the middle when the creepy brother came back. The entire tone of the film switched from goofy to dark and creepy, but now that I’ve watched it all the way through, I understand the reason for the creepiness. It is to lay the groundwork for the silliness and off the wall behavior to return. At one point the brother is terribly creepy and then a bit later his reactions to discovering secrets about his aunts are so funny because he’s supposed to be the tough, scary guy.

You just have to see the film to understand.

Incidentally, Raymond Massey was nominated for an Oscar in 1940 for playing Abraham Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln in Illinois.

Massey played Lincoln several times in film, television and on stage. Someone, though articles online don’t say who, once said that Massey would keep perfecting his role as Abraham Lincoln until someone assassinated him too.

One thing I want to make sure I mention about this film is the cinematography. There are some really amazingly lit and positioned scenes from the film, including one where Jonathan’s shadow is towering over the doctor who is sitting on the stairs.

As I was preparing this blog post and sharing about the movie on Instagram this week, a very interesting story popped up about how the play was possibly based on a true story about a woman in Connecticut who ran a nursing home and was charged in 1917 with the murder of five people between the years of 1907 to 1917.

Amy Duggan “Sister” Archer-Gilligan poisoned five people, including her second husband Michael Gilligan. The others were residents in the nursing home. Some reports say up to 60 people died in the nursing home that was called The Archer Home for the Elderly and Infirm but Gilligan was only charged in five deaths. She may have killed her first husband, John Archer, in 1910 but the official cause of death was listed as Bright’s disease. Oddly, though, Gilligan had taken an insurance policy out on her husband a few weeks before his death. The payment from it allowed her to keep the home open.

She married Michael Gillian in 1913 and he mysteriously died of “indigestion” three months later. He was a wealthy man and despite the short length of their marriage, Michael had left his estate to her, not his four adult sons. It was later determined that Amy had forged Michael’s signature and that the will was a fake.

To make a long story short, the family member of a deceased resident tried to get the district attorney in the county to investigate Gilligan but he blew her off. Finally, the woman contacted a journalist who ran a story about the home and from there everything unraveled. The bodies of five people were exhumed and all had been poisoned with either arsenic or strychnine.

Kesselring never said if Gilligan’s story inspired the play, but it is interesting to note the similarities.

In one article I read that Capra had considered both Jack Benny and Bob Hope for the role of Mortimer. No offense to either of those men (I love listening to old Jack Benny radio shows as I fall asleep at night), but I can’t see the film with anyone other than Cary.

One site – Movies! Reel Variety – said that Cary doubted his performance later. He felt he overplayed the character and that Jimmy Stewart would have played the part better.

This was the only film he made with Capra, whom he called “a dear man.”

Criterion.com (https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7952-arsenic-and-old-lace-madness-in-the-family) states that while Capra worried that delaying the film would cause it to miss out on the box office war boom or make the subject, or actors stale, but instead Cary was just coming into his own and was one of the hottest actors in Hollywood by 1944.

Cary said he wanted to do the film because he “just wanted to have fun” after being in so many films in the 1930s that were social commentaries.

After playing the part, though, he complained about it, but, according to the Criterion article, he complained about many of his performances and worried over them even when the audience loved them.

Arsenic and Old Lace is one of these films.

I enjoyed this paragraph in the Criterion article: “In his book on Grant, Richard Schickel defends Grant’s and Capra’s bold choices, asking, “What’s a man supposed to do when he finds bodies buried all over his maiden aunts’ house? Arch an ironic eyebrow?” The playing is entirely appropriate to a character in such circumstances in a farce, even if, as Schickel concedes, it is “not Grant’s most urbane performance.”

Shooting of the film was finished five days after Pearl Harbor was bombed. Frank Capra joined the Signal Corps, but luckily was given some time to first finish what proved to be his only black comedy, or the world might have had to wait even longer to see it.

To read Erin’s impressions of the film, you can visit her blog here: https://crackercrumblife.com/

Next week we are taking a break from watching movies to give time for any of you to catch up on the films yourself and write about them, if you want to.

If you’ve watched any of the movies and would like to take part in our Comfy, Cozy Cinema, you can sign up on the link below.

When we return to the feature on Oct. 13 we will be writing about The Lady Vanishes.

After that, we will be watching the following movies:

Strangers on a Train (Oct. 19)

Rebecca (Oct. 26)

Little Women (November 2)

Tea with The Dames (November 9)

A break for Thanksgiving

And

Sense and Sensibility (November 30th)

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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

September Newsletter: Cooler weather, writing book two of the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, and a giveaway!

One week during the winter of 1993 snow covered everything until the world was a white wonderland, but also a dangerous situation. Snow hung heavy on tree limbs and electric lines, both ready to break under the weight of it. An icy sheen of snow hid the highway that traveled in front, and slightly above our house. Electricity was on in most of our tiny village, split into two different electric companies by the creek behind our house.

My grandmother’s electricity was off so Dad started the truck, warmed it up, and headed out through three feet of snow – over the river (creek) and through the woods to Grandmother’s house he went.

He brought back my 84-year-old grandmother so she could wait until the power came back on. I don’t remember much about her visit other than her wearing a warm coat and looking out the window with us at all the insane amount of snow. I think that might have also been the year the neighbor’s teenage son was hit with a snowplow. He wasn’t killed, thankfully, but it was a nerve-wracking moment.

Here we are 20 years later and outside the air is brisk and we are piling wood up behind our garage to prepare for the cold weather we are sure to get this year. I am hearing that this could be quite a nasty winter when it comes to snowfall.

So far the trees haven’t changed color much but are just starting to and we know before long the hillsides will be ablaze with brilliant reds, orange, and yellows.

I am looking forward to the beauty, to the chilly weather, to the chance to sit under a blanket and read a book without the urgency that seems to come with summer – an urgency to soak up all the warm weather and sunshine, I suppose.

While I wait for autumn to hit us in full force, I am writing Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage, which is set to release in late November or early December. My original release date was November 21 but I may need to push it off a couple of weeks to make sure the story flows the way I want it to.

I’ve considered no longer offering pre-orders simply because they can be so stressful, but there will be a pre-order for Cassie, the book I am writing as part of the Apron Strings Book Series because that is part of our agreement in being part of the project. Cassie will be released in mid-August of 2024. I’m very excited to be part of this project, which books will start releasing in January.

If you’d like to learn more about this series and the authors who are writing the books (there will be a book focused on each decade from 1920 to 2020), you can join us in our Facebook group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/511319271100448

We share memories, talk about the decades our books are in, share silly and fun posts, and offer sneak peeks of the books. We’d love to have you join in the fun.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the reception of my latest book, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, and have really been excited to see reviews coming in from people I have never met or interacted with in my life. This happened with my other books as well, but reviews for those books sometimes came from people I had at least “met” somewhere online (and sometimes from people I never met). This time around I have people coming out of the woodwork who have read the book and reviewed it.

There is a large group of readers who think reviews on an indie author’s books come from family and friends. This isn’t the case with mine because most of my family doesn’t read my book and if they do, they aren’t really the rating or reviewing kind.

I don’t know of many real-life friends who have read my books – at least not close friends – and they certainly aren’t leaving ratings or reviews if they have.

This past week I received a review on Bookbub that I didn’t expect at all.

“This is a fun cozy mystery about a woman named Gladwynn Grant. Gladwynn moves in with her granny who isn’t the knitting parlor, baking cookies type of sweet old granny. She’s got spice. Gladwynn takes a job at the town newspaper thinking her new home in Brookstone will be a quiet life. She’s dead wrong. Her granny is also trying to set her up with the pastor in town, Luke. It had some fast moments but is easy going and the characters were fun. Very entertaining.”

I don’t know who you are Ryan, but thank you!

If you haven’t had a chance to read Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing yet, you can pick up a paperback copy on Amazon (soon to be available on Barnes and Noble too), read the ebook through Kindle Unlimited or buy it on Amazon, or you can order a paperback copy from my personal stash.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1KSQJXP

My Books page: https://lisahoweler.com/order-my-books/

The Spencer Valley Chronicles – all four books and a novella – are back up on Kindle Unlimited, which, if you don’t know, is a subscription book service offered by Amazon. The one drawback to having my books on KU is that I can’t share them digitally anywhere while they are enrolled in KU. Amazon likes its exclusivity.

I can, however, sell paperback versions of the book in other places so this coming year I will be offering the Spencer Valley Chronicles in paperback at Barnes and Noble as well. And, as I mentioned above, you can order autographed copies of the book at the link above.

I have had people ask before if I make more money with my books in KU or with people buying them.

The answer is that I make more money when a person outright buys the book since Amazon pays less than four cents a page read now (as of this autumn) and also determines what is and isn’t a page. For example, I sell my Spencer Valley Chronicles ebooks for $2.99 and if someone buys it I receive about $2.05. If someone reads it in KU, I receive maybe $1.50.

Why stay in KU then? One, Kindle Unlimited helps my books to be seen by people they might not have been seen by because Amazon will sometimes recommend them when a person reads a book in KU that is similar to mine. Two, many readers don’t want to buy a book by an author they don’t know so KU is a way they can try an author by essentially borrowing a book, deciding if they like the author, and then returning the book without filling up their Kindle with books by authors they don’t really know or maybe even like.

I’m not a well-known author so most people wouldn’t even try my book if it wasn’t for the convenience of KU. In other words, I wouldn’t make any money at all, most likely, if it wasn’t for KU because one, no one would see my books, and two, very few would want to take a chance on my book if they had to buy it outright, even if my prices are low.

I understand number two because that’s how I am as well. I don’t want to spend money on a book by an author I don’t know until I’ve tested that author out.

Someday I would love to have enough clout in the book-writing world to release my books on any platform and know they will sell, but I’m not there yet. Hopefully a few years down the road.

That closes my writing update for now.
If you would like to read about other updates you can catch up on my Sunday Bookends post from this week or simply follow my blog by subscribing below:

Subscribe

You can also sign up for a paid subscription where you will be able to get exclusive content, such as sneak peeks of my next book, giveaways, author interviews, etc. Paid subscriptions are $3 a month.

SubscribeLog in

I post 2 to 5 times a week depending on the week and what I have going on and occasionally I’ll even post seven days a week, but this is a rarity. In other words, I hopefully won’t fill your inbox up too much with blog post notifications.

My friend Erin and I are watching comfy and cozy (and sometimes a little creepy) movies for the months of October and November and then blogging about them if you want to participate in that feature in any way. She and I often do movie-watching features, which you can find by going to my search bar at the right and typing in Classic Movie Impressions, the Spring of Cary, or Comfy Cozy Cinema.

This week she and I are writing about Arsenic and Old Lace. We will be offering a link-up opportunity this week for anyone who might want to join in and write about their impressions of the movies as well.

I snuck this September “newsletter” or writing update right in under the wire, didn’t I?

Hopefully, I will get better about offering my newsletter updates earlier in the month from now on.

Photos and blog posts of the month:

I thought I would share some photos taken in September and also a link to some of my more popular blog posts from August and September for anyone who is interested:

Celebrating 60 years

Comfy Cozy Cinema: The African Queen

Saturday Afternoon Chat

Why Do You Blog?

She Was Ready for Heaven

Book Giveaway:

In my Sunday Bookends posts, I share what I am reading and right now I am reading a book called A New Leash on Life by Kathleen Y’Barbo. For this month’s giveaway, I am offering one reader of my blog and newsletter a chance to win an ebook of this book, which releases October 1. I can only gift this to someone who reads on a Kindle so let me know in the comments if you are interested.

I hope you will also let me know in the comments how you have been doing, what you’ve been up to, and, of course, what you’ve been reading lately.

Celebrating 60 years

My dad tells the story this way:

One night in 1961 or so my dad’s roommate in the Air Force came into the room and said, “there’s someone I want you to meet…Hey, I’m going on a date but my date has a niece with her so we’re going to go on a double date.”

The niece was a year younger than the aunt, incidentally, so she was about 17.

“Hurry up,” the roommate said. “Iron your pants and let’s go.”

This was in North Carolina. Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.

So my dad headed out with them and met my mom (the 17-year-old) in the backseat of a 1948 Ford coup (not meant to be as suggestive as it sounds..)

“Pontiac engine and three deuces,” he told me when I double-checked the make and year of the car.

Mom and Dad were the best man and maid of honor when the roommate (Johnny) and the aunt (Peggy) were married. Two years later, Johnny and Peggy would have been their best man and matron of honor but Peggy was eight months pregnant and living in Mississippi at the time. My parents were married in the home of a minister someone or other knew and had a small celebration at her parents in Kinston, N.C. afterward.

Six years later my brother was born and three years later my sister was born early and passed away only two days later. I came along eight years after my brother.

(As an aside to this story, my son and daughter are also eight years apart and I had a miscarriage in between. Mine was very early.)

Two weeks ago we celebrated my parents and their 60 years of marriage.

We held a small celebration at a renovated drug store (circa early 1900s building) down the street from our house.

Friends and family came out to congratulate them on a long marriage, which is often unheard of these days.

Our local state representative came and honored them with a proclamation from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and then she also recognized my dad for his service in the United States Air Force.

“What’s the key to a long marriage?” Rep. Tina Pickett asked my parents.

My dad said it helps to have a sweet wife. My mom said that having God in their marriage had been incredibly important and necessary and helped them through the tough times.

And there were tough times – maybe not with the marriage itself but in our family with finances and loss and times of emotional hurt that we all worked through like any family.

I never had what I would call trauma in my childhood and for that I’m thankful.

I’ve always looked at my parents’ marriage as a perfect example of what marriage should really be. There was give and take, communication, and a lot of affection – sometimes more affection than I cared to see as a teenager and young adult.

Now, don’t get me wrong, my parents were never crude in front of us but they didn’t shy away from a kiss, a hug, or a mildly suggestive comment about their romantic life.

No marriage is perfect but my parents’ marriage has been close.

There were times they snapped at each other.

Times they both may have held a grudge.

Times they were both stubborn (though Dad is more stubborn than Mom).

My mom cared for the home for most of their marriage while Dad worked 40 years for a local block and cement delivery company.

Mom was always there when I needed her but Dad was there for me and my brother, Bryan, as well when he was home from work.

Through my parents showing each other love, Bryan and I learned how to treat our spouses.  

Several years ago Dad planted a rose bush in the backyard for Mom. He gives her cards and special meaningful gifts on her birthday and their anniversary, and even for no reason at all. Now that they are older and she has a hard time getting around he cares for her by pushing her in the wheelchair or helping to make the meals.

About five years ago he helped her track her calories so she could lose over 100 pounds.

It’s been hard to watch them grow older in some ways. Watching them both struggle to do what they used to be able to do makes my heart ache. There are days I would give anything for them to not have to go through the trials and pains of growing older. I’m sure they would do the same for me and my brother.

Watching them hold hands and exchange sweet looks with each other during their anniversary party and during other times throughout the years though helps dull that ache.

I don’t know what the future holds but in the present, there is love that has grown and blossomed. That love has broken through darkness. It has spread light not only because of my parents love for each other but also because of their love for Christ.

My parents have shown what it is to be a Christian and they are a hundred times better than me at following the example of Jesus.

In the days before it was dangerous to pick up hitchhikers (or as dangerous) Dad would bring home someone he picked up off the streets to give them a warm meal and a place to sleep.

There were many trips somewhere that were delayed because he and Mom saw a car along the road and wanted to stop and make sure the person was okay. Just last week Dad and I were on our way back from his physical therapy when we saw a vehicle pulled off in a very strange and dangerous spot in the road. I felt that urge to check on the person because it was how I was raised. I said, “That’s a weird place to park.”

Dad said, “They didn’t even have their flashers on.”

We both knew I was going to find a place to turn around. When we went back the car was gone and we were late getting home but we did what Jesus would have wanted us to do  – check on another person and make sure they aren’t hurting somehow.

My parents have become friends over the years with several people who struggle with mental illness. While I often feel frustrated with these individuals, my parents see them through the eyes of Jesus. They want to help them, save them, offer them some respite from their emotional struggles.

This has left my parents open to being taken advantage of and maybe even opened them up to dangerous situations. I have asked them to stop reaching out to and befriending so many who struggle with mental illness, but their response is always, “There is that verse in the Bible  ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:40)

Not too long ago someone asked Dad, “Where do you find all these broken people you seem to know?”

Dad responded, “All you have to do is look around. They’re all around you.”

He’s right. Our world is full of broken and lost people. This is not a fact that was lost on Jesus and it also hasn’t been lost on my parents.

They’ve reached out when I turned away.

They’ve comforted when I have condemned.

They’ve given when I would have withheld

They’ve loved like Jesus loves.

They have instilled in me the potential to love as unconditionally as they do.

Through their dedication to each other, to the broken and the lost, they have shown me, my brother, my husband, their grandchildren, and countless other people the heart of Jesus.

No one is perfect and they have not been perfect throughout their lives (though they have been fairly close at times).

Whatever faults they have had, however, have been overshadowed by their love for each other, for their family, friends, the lost, the brokenhearted, the downtrodden, the bruised, the mentally disturbed, the physically frail, the outcasts, the rejected, the people the world pushes asides and shuns, and anyone else who Jesus told us to love.

God knew what he was doing when he brought these two together.

He knew that through their marriage hundreds, if not thousands, would be touched, would be changed and in many cases would be saved.

Their lives, joined together in marriage, have had a ripple effect that we have not seen the end of.

For every couple they encouraged there is a family who is thankful their family is still intact.

For every child they encouraged there is an adult who has found fulfilment in life and has gone on to have families of their own.

For every dollar they spent to support a Christian message, there are souls thirsting after God and ready to be in heaven one day.

More importantly, their marriage has created a legacy for their children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews – something to strive for and a goal to reach.

May we all be able to love our spouses like they have loved each other, but even more importantly may we all endeavor to emulate Christ the way they have for the past 60 years.

Sunday Bookends: Fall arrives officially, fall book list, and watch Arsenic and Old Lace with Us

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  and Kathyrn at  The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

Welcome to autumn. Yes, it’s officially autumn now and our Pennsylvania weather cooperated and is chilly outside which means we are cozy inside under blankets.

This past week we focused mainly on schoolwork instead of other activities. I also tried to focus on taking breaks for reading, but didn’t do as well at that as I would have liked to so I hope to make up for that this week.

My birthday was on Tuesday but we celebrated on Sunday so Tuesday was mainly a regular day for me. I grilled some chicken and we hung out and watched a little Anne of Green Gables.

Wednesday night was Kid’s Club at our former church and Thursday Little Miss and I rode with my dad to his physical therapy 45 minutes away. That night Little Miss had gymnastics. Friday was errand day, yesterday I hid in the house all day and today it was lunch at my parents with our former pastor, his wife and children.

What I/we’ve been Reading

This week I am reading A New Leash on Life by Kathleen Y’Barbo and The Cat Who Blew The Whistle by Lilian Jackson Braun.

The Cat Who book is a cozy mystery and I thought A New Leash on Life was as well but so far it’s a romance and a slow one at that. Hopefully it picks up because it is well written otherwise.

I put together a list of books I plan to read this autumn and shared it on my Instagram yesterday.

I always struggle a bit with a planned reading list – mainly because I am a mood reader. I might be in the mood for one book when I make my list and totally not in the mood for it during the time frame I said I’d read it in. Still, I like the idea of having a list of planned reads, even if the plan changes.

I moved some of my books I had posted about last week or the week before to a winter list but for now my “planned” autumn reading list is a mix of adult books and kid books since I will be reading a couple with my daughter or just for myself. I most likely will not get to all these books.

Reading right now:

The Cat Who Blew The Whistle by Lilian Jackson Braun

New Leash on Life by Kathleen Y’Barbo

“Planned” Reading for October and November:

Bake Until Golden by Linda Evans Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson

The Ghost and Mrs. Mewer by Krista Davis

Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other by Bethany Turner

The Cat Who Talked Turkey by Lilian Jackson Braun

The Hidden Staircase (Nancy Drew book two) by Carolyn Keene

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr (part way through this but the library book smelled like mildew so I found a used copy on Thriftbooks and it’s on its way. I hope it doesn’t smell!)

Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright (reading this already with Little Miss)

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley

The Wind in The Willows by Kenneth Graham

Do you make planned reading lists for the different seasons? If so, did you make one this year for autumn?

Little Miss and I will hopefully finish Gone Away Lake next week or the week after. We are enjoying it and I’m already planning to buy it’s sequel, Return to Gone Away Lake.

The Boy and I are listening to Red Badge of Courage for our unit on English lit and American History.

The Husband is reading The Deserter by Nelson DeMille.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week I watched The Dick VanDyke Show and Newhart. I also watched The African Queen as part of the Comfy, Cozy Cinema feature with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

This week we are watching Arsenic and Old Lace. If you are interested in watching the movie with us and blogging about it we will be posting our impressions of the movie on Thursday and will have a link on our posts where you can sign up.

Last night Little Miss and I had a girl’s night and watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. We didn’t like it as much as the original My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but it was okay.

What I’m Writing

I am furiously working on Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage and while I’ve hit some snags, I’m still having fun writing it.

After it’s finished and edited and revisions are made, I’ll be working more on Cassie, which will come out in August of 2024 as part of a multi author book series.

What I’m Listening To

This week I enjoyed listening to Matthew West, Brooke Ligertwood, Brandon Lake, and TobyMac. I was also excited to find a Klove radio station in the town where my dad’s physical therapy is. I was able to listen to wonderful Christian music almost all the way home from his appointment and it was such a comfort because I tend to think a lot and worry about him on the way home from those appointments.

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.

Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage Chapter 6

You're currently a free subscriber. Upgrade your subscription to get access to the rest of this post and other paid-subscriber only content.

Upgrade subscription

Protected: Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage Chapter 6

This post is password protected. You must visit the website and enter the password to continue reading.

Comfy, Cozy Cinema: The African Queen

For the next three months, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching cozy, mysterious, or comfy movies. Erin made these awesome graphics detailing what we are doing and what movies we will be watching.

This week we watched The African Queen, which I am not sure was really a comfy, cozy movie but I forgot some of the details when I suggested it. I’m not sure why I picked it for this feature, but it’s still a good movie and we did find some cozy(ish) moments in it as a romance began to blossom in the middle of a very stressful situation.

The movie, released in 1951, stars Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. It was directed by John Huston.

It is both an adventure movie and a romance.

Katherine plays Rose Sayer, a missionary in Africa, and Humphrey portrays Charlie Allnut (which Katherine pronounces as Ulna throughout the movie).

Rose had stationed been in African villages with her brother for a decade and meets Charlie when he travels up the river in his small, rickety steamboat to deliver mail and other supplies. The steamboat was dubbed The African Queen by Charlie.

On one visit Charlie tells Rose and her brother Sam that he probably won’t be there for two months because war has broken out. The movie starts in 1914 so this is the beginning of World War I.

He leaves and within a matter of hours or days, or I’m not sure which, the Germans march through with an army made up of Africans and begin to burn down the village. This leaves Rose’s brother in a state of shock and also affects his physical health and he passes away a couple months or so later.

Rose is now alone in the village but luckily not for long as Charlie finds her and she asks him to take her with him up the river.

Rose and Charlie are very different. She is very prim and proper and British and he is very “uncouth” one might say. My husband said that the movie is based on a 1935 novel and that the main characters in the novel are both British. Charlie has a cockney accent.  Humphrey refused to try to pull that accent off so he was made Canadian for the sake of this movie.

The chemistry between the two is great with them bouncing quips off each other throughout the film.

When Rose finds out they are upriver from a German ship that will be used to launch an offensive against the British, and that Charlie has potential weapons on The African Queen, she decides they will travel this very dangerous river with rapids, crocodiles, and a German fort, and blow up the German ship.

Charlie, for his part, thinks she’s nuts but agrees to help her – that is until things get more and more dangerous and he’s certain they are going to die in the rapids.

When he tells her in the beginning that it isn’t possible to take the steamboat down the river she says, “How would you know? You’ve never tried.”
He scoffs. “I’ve never tried shooting myself in the head either.”

In another scene, Charlie gets drunk on the gin that’s on the boat and Rose is not happy about it.

“Oh come on,” Charlie says. “It was just human nature.”

Rose raises her chin and says, “Human nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put on this world to rise above.”

There are several comments or lines like that throughout the film which turns romantic somewhat by accident when Charlie celebrates one of their accomplishments and kisses Rose on impulse.

Kissing and being romantic was most likely a huge challenge for Katherine because she, like most of the cast and staff, caught dysentery and malaria and was very sick for the time in Africa.

Huston wanted the film to be as realistic as possible so he shot on location in Uganda and the Congo for part of the film with the rest being shot in London, outside and on a sound stage. Scenes where the actors were in the water were deemed to be too dangerous in Africa.

It was so realistic that Katherine and others got sick, as I mentioned, and during one scene when she’s playing the piano, she actually had a puke bucket off-scene just in case and I guess there were a few “cases.” Poor woman.

Boggie later joked that he and Huston didn’t get sick because they drank whiskey instead of the local water.

As a bit of trivia, the only Oscar Boggie ever won was for this film. Katherine was nominated for best actress but did not win. Huston was also nominated for best director but didn’t win.

Katherine won four Oscars and was nominated 12 times over the years. She also won an Emmy and two Tony Awards.

This comment came from my husband who always has a cheery note about when or how one of the actors died as we watch a movie: “To think he (Boggie) would only have five more years after this.”

At one point, when Charlie apologizes for getting drunk Rose says that is not upset about that.

“You think it was your nasty drunkenness I minded? You promised me you’d go down the river.”

“Well, I’m taking my promise back,” Charlie says.

Little Miss looked at me and said, “Fun fact. You can’t take back a promise.”

So there you go. Some wisdom for your day.

When this movie came out, both Boggie and Hepburn were older and some critics said moviegoers wouldn’t want to see two old actors fall in love.

According to movie critic Roger Ebert, though, that wasn’t true. Many people wanted to see the movie and loved it despite it being released at the same time as A Streetcar Named Desire with Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh.

The novel was much darker but Huston credited Boggie and Hepburn with making the movie have some humor in it.

“They were just naturally funny when they worked together.” Miss Hepburn, on the other hand, gives the credit to Huston. “The humor didn’t just grow, it was planted. The picture wasn’t going well until Huston came up with the inspiration that Rosie, my role, should be played as Eleanor Roosevelt.”

Ebert said of Bogart’s role: “Whatever the case, the many scenes Bogie and Kate play together are superb. Bogart, as the gin-swilling proprietor of a banged-up riverboat, created a strange little laugh for his role. He was shy, amused and intimidated by this Bible-reading missionary lady who washed out her unmentionables each and every night. And the laugh, meant to conceal his unease, also serves to display the thoughts of a taciturn man. He does not often laugh at the things Rosie finds funny.”

There was one scene with leeches and I wanted to know if they were really on Boggie. A quick search online brought me to a site full of trivia which let me know that: “While filming the scene where Charlie finds his body covered with leeches, Humphrey Bogart insisted on using rubber leeches. John Huston refused, and brought a leech-breeder to the London studio with a tank full of them. It made Bogart queasy and nervous, qualities Huston wanted for his close-ups. Ultimately, rubber leeches were placed on Bogart, and a close-up of a real leech was shot on the breeder’s chest.”

It is an interesting site and I was going to leave a link here to it but it says the site is not secure so I won’t do that – just in case.

The bottom line was that I did like this film but it wasn’t necessarily comfy, cozy or creepy. I guess it was a mix of comfy and adventure.

To read about Erin’s take on the movie, hop on over to her blog: https://crackercrumblife.com/

If you would like to join in on our Comfy, Cozy Cinema you can print out our watch/post schedule here:

Arsenic and Old Lace (Sept. 28)

Oct. 5 (break for us or you to catch up!)

The Lady Vanishes (October 13)

Strangers on a Train (Oct. 19)

Rebecca (Oct. 26)

Little Women (November 2)

Tea with The Dames (November 9)

Sunday Bookends: Mystery books, a planned autumn reading list, and still writing book two in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series

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  and Kathyrn at  The Book Date.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I finished All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese Friday. Finally. No, the book is not bad. It is very good, in fact. I just kept putting it aside so I could finish books for other authors or library books.

I’m going to try to not add any more library books to my TBR list right now . . . other than the one I just added: A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales. Ahem.

I started it last night and we will see if I like it. So far I do. The last Regency cozy mystery I picked up from Libby I did NOT enjoy. Hopefully, this one will be better the whole way through this time.

I’ve also started another cozy mystery for a book tour: A New Leash on Life by Kathleen Y’Barbo. It comes out on October 1. I was going to read it slowly since I don’t have to review it until October 30th but I was hooked right away and have been enjoying it. I read another of her books in this series and I did enjoy it but I did not enjoy the ending. It sort of fell apart so I am hoping this one doesn’t. This book is different because it is somewhat like a romance with it being from two points of view – one from the woman and the other from the man – but it is also a mystery.

I am not a huge fan of those types of switches in books when it is first person but it’s not so bad in this book. After writing two or more POVs in all of my books in the Spencer Valley Chronicles, I have now decided I am not a huge fan of more than two of POVs and I really don’t like the back-and-forth POVs in romances as much anymore. I don’t know if I will ever write two POVs again or not, but I definitely don’t plan to write more than two POVs in one book.

Anyhow, back to the books I’m planning to read after the two I just mentioned.

For fall I have a stack of books I’d love to get through:

Trouble Shooter by Louise L’Amour The Cat Who Blew The Whistle by Lilian Jackson Braun
The Cat Who Talked Turkey by Lilian Jackson Braun
A Case of Bad Taste by Lori Copeland
Sydney Chambers and the Perils of the Night by Jamie Runcie
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

I’d also like to add a Longmire book to that list because I don’t think I’ve read any Longmire this year so far.

The Boy and I are reading Red Badge of Courage for school so I’ll have to add that to my planned reading list too.

Little Miss and I are reading Gone Away Lake for school and sometimes we are reading it at night too. We are really enjoying it and I’m so glad that Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs sent it to us!

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote a bit about what’s been going on in my post yesterday. You can catch up there but the bottom line is: fleas, sick animals recovering, fall weather, and homeschool. There. You’re caught up. *wink*

Photos from Last Week

I didn’t take a ton of photos last week but here are a few and a few from my parents’ anniversary party last week.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week I watched two movies with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema: Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Secret World of Arrietty.

The Husband and I watched Song of the Thin Man yesterday after he cooked me dinner for my birthday. My birthday isn’t until Tuesday but he has to attend a meeting that night. It was the last movie in the Thin Man series with William Powell and Myrna Loy.

We also watched a few episodes of Newhart this week.

 By myself I watched part of a documentary about what the Victorian royals wore.

My brother also sent these hilarious videos of real letters being read by celebrities. I was warned that some of them are crude so to be careful.

What I’m Writing

I am working on Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage for a November release and, in case you don’t know, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, the first book, is out already on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. It will leave Kindle Unlimited on October 8 as I hope to be able to offer it on additional sites for sale. This a cozy mystery series and I really am having fun writing it, even though this week I was almost in tears trying to decide who my murderer is because I didn’t like who I had originally decided it to be.

Yes, I am writing other blog posts but, no, I haven’t finished them because I keep getting distracted by life. Sigh.

What I’m Listening To

This past week we took some time to turn off the TV (where cartoons are mainly played) and listen to some music, including Frank Sinatra and Tim McGraw. I know. What a mix right?!

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 Evening Chat: Autumn weather arrives, recovery time, and recovering pets

As I write this, I am sitting in bed under covers because the temps have hit autumn temps and I am chilly.

I spent most of this past week trying to recover from the week before when our family was sick and then we had my parents’ 60th-anniversary party. That’s something I still hope to blog about on here soon. I was so tired this past week and it didn’t help that I was still dealing with the cough from the previous week’s cold a little.

Yesterday Little Miss made a type of cozy fort at the bottom of our stairs and into our foyer. She made it last week as well but this week it worked out well because of the autumn weather. She filled the set up with pillows and blankets and an electric candle and stacked some of her books on the windowsill. It became a little reading corner for us while I read a book about Johnny Appleseed to her and she read a book called Saving Winslow on her own.

I also finished a book I’ve been reading for a few months (while getting interrupted by other books I agreed to read for authors, etc.). It was a very nice cozy day, made even cozier by Little Miss making us cups of hot cocoa sweetened with maple syrup throughout the day.

At the end of the day all three of our pets made themselves comfortable on a pillow or comforter, curled up, and fell asleep. The cat I call “fat cat” (real name Pixel), stole my seat after I got up to charge my phone and while I was a bit annoyed, it was nice to see her able to rest after she had been suffering with fleas most of the week thanks to an inferior flea medicine we picked up last month.

We applied the better medicine on Monday but it took a few days for all the fleas to get off the animals. I was still finding fleas on Zooma the Wonder Dog who not only had flea treatment, but also a flea bath, yesterday. We picked up a flea spray to spray in the house and hopefully we can kill them off before it gets too bad in the house.

Zooma the Wonder Dog took an emergency trip to the vet 45 minutes away last Sunday because of severe stomach issues. Her breathing was very fast and we found out that she was in severe pain due to a return of the colitis she had in April. She was also (TMI alert) constipated.

We are discovering that there are certain foods that set off her condition and I fed her a tiny bit of one of those foods and I guess, but am not sure, that’s what triggered things. She also gets into our trash from time to time so we now sit heavy things on top of it or will be putting the trash can in a place she can’t reach it.

We have food that is supposed to be for digestive issues and that’s all she will be eating from now on. She’s been on an antibiotic and a steroid all week to help bring the inflammation down and heal her colon. It looks like this will be a reoccurring issue for her and us from now on, unfortunately.

Our previous dog had colitis a lot as well. He was 14 when he passed away in 2017 and I am surprised he lived that long with all the weird things he ate – including aluminum foil and ear plugs. We seem to have the luck of having dogs that have sensitive stomachs and I don’t know if that is bad or good luck but right now it seems like bad luck.

Last week there was a lot of staying at home and doing homeschool work and keeping an eye on the dog.

Yesterday Dad and The Boy cut up wood from trees that Dad had to have cut down behind his house. They loaded it into the back of Dad’s truck and brought it to our house to fill up the woodpile behind the garage. We are hoping that this will be enough wood to get us through the winter and keep our heating oil costs down.

Heating oil is so expensive right now that we are filling our tank with off-road diesel fuel to push us closer to the winter months to reduce how often we have to get a delivery of actual heating oil during the coldest months. We do this because we can never afford to pay off the full delivery because of how high the cost is. We always make payments and we can’t receive another delivery until the first bill is paid off.

A lot of people I know are struggling financially right now. It’s very frustrating for me to watch politicians debate if inflation is bad enough to say we are in a recession or not. It’s even more frustrating when they go on news shows and say that Americans aren’t struggling to pay their bills or put food on their tables and that “the other side” is making it all up.

My family are among those struggling. We’ve asked for help and have been denied or given $19 a month to help. Meanwhile we have people who cross the border illegally and they are receiving the help they need in many (though not all) cases and it’s very aggravating. I am, however, glad that people can come here legally and find a better life so it’s a very conflicting issue for me.

There are days I feel like my husband working and us living in this country our whole lives means we are second class citizens. It feels like you have to have a sob story or an angle of some kind to get ahead of even get help. We’re drowning under bills and grocery prices and every week I feel like we are just fighting to keep our heads above water. Then to turn on a news show or visit a site and see an economist say it isn’t as bad as we think it is and we just need to go back to college and get a better degree then we’d be able to get a higher paying job and be fine. It makes me want to scream and throw things most days.

God has always provided for us even at the hardest moments so I do my best to remember that when things get very tough.

This upcoming week there will be more homeschool lessons, gymnastics, a church kid’s club, and maybe a visit to the library.

The Boy will go to the career center and probably work with his grandfather and I will work on finishing the second book in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series.

I also hope to read a lot more because I am somewhat depressed with my book count for the year so far. I am not a fast reader but I could be reading a little more than I have been.

How about you? How was your week last week? Did you do anything exciting or read anything good? Let me know in the comments.