Lisa R. Howeler's Blog, page 69

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Is it spring or summer? My son’s life-saving walk around town and a library trip.

I didn’t drink a cup of tea all week and I missed it.

This morning I poured myself a cup of peppermint tea (I’m a creature of habit) and sat down to write this post.

Maybe it was the chill in the air that made me crave the tea since the rest of the week the mornings have been warmer than normal for this time of year. It was like we went from a hint of spring and right into summer. Thankfully spring returns for a bit this next week as temperatures decrease.

I can’t believe I am admitting this, but I am going to miss colder weather. I know. What?! Me, the person who always rambles about hating winter is actually going to miss winter?! Well, yes, I am because I loved cuddling under a blanket in the mornings with a good book or my laptop to work on my books or blog posts.

I am less interested in sweating on my couch while I try to think about how to write the next chapter in my book.

We took advantage of the nice weather this week by having two Easter egg hunts on Sunday afternoon (one at our house and one at my parents), doing homeschool lessons on the porch later in the week, playing in the backyard some (but not much because Little Miss had allergy issues all week and fought me on taking her medicine), and visiting the library.

On Monday we headed to The Boy’s guitar lesson but unfortunately, he got sick from something he ate when we were almost there so we had to turn around.

He was better later that night, thankfully.

He has a job now so Thursday night he went to work. He’s a dishwasher for a few hours a couple a times a week at a local restaurant.

Thursday Little Miss and I headed to the library. She enjoyed playing with the Legos in the children’s room while I chose books for her and I to read together.

At one point it felt nice to sit on the carpet with all the little train tracks and crack open a book that caught my attention, but that I had never heard of – Mrs. Piggle Wiggles Treasury – while Little Miss played with Legos and a little kitchen set.

While I was there the library director showed me the library website and a link to a resource of online children’s books. I’m glad to know about that for days I want Little Miss something to read something for English. Like I told the librarian, though, I prefer to be able to hold real books as often as I can. I think Little Miss does as well. She wanted to pick out a couple of books on her own. This time we didn’t sign out our limit of books like the last time, but we did bring home a pretty good haul. I didn’t get any books for myself because I have enough to read already.

They had a poetry display up and a place where people could make their own poems with words that stuck to the board with magnets.

This was the poem that was there when we got there:

Then Little Miss wanted to make her own poem so while the librarian shared with me his interest in history, such as the history of Mark Twain, and history books he had read, she made this poem:

On Friday, The Boy had a doctor’s appointment. He had a tetanus shot so I wanted him to hang around me the rest of the afternoon in case his arm got sore or he got tired. An hour after the shot, though, he wanted to go for a walk so I let him, even though I was worried because, well, I’m a worrier. I talked to my neighbor for close to an hour and he still hadn’t returned, which made me a little nervous, so I called his cell phone. He was just going to walk around town and maybe visit the dollar store so I didn’t think it would take as long as it was taking. He called me back half an hour later and told me that while walking he’d found an elderly woman laying in her side yard, unable to get back up.

The sideyard was on a slope so he’d been trying to help her back up the hill to her house but her legs didn’t work well and she kept rolling back down. He tried to talk her into letting him call me, but she didn’t want to be a bother. He mentioned 911 but she didn’t want them to be called either. Finally, he convinced her to let him get her phone and call her children, but she really wasn’t happy about that either because she said they would come and “lecture her again.”

She tried to convince him to leave before they came but he said she kept sliding on the hill even while sitting so he stayed with her until they got there. While they were chatting he found out she was 88 and had been laying there all afternoon. She’d gone out to clean out her flower beds and hadn’t been able to get back up and then had sort of rolled down the hill.

When her family got there, they told The Boy that this isn’t the first time she’s done this and that they don’t mind if she goes in her backyard, which if flat, but the side yard is off limits because of the slope.

They thanked him and tried to pay him for his help but he wouldn’t take it.

When he told me how she’d just wanted to go clean out her flowerbeds because she wanted to be able to do what she’d used to be able to, I got choked up. I was already emotional thinking about how sweet my son had been to sit and wait with her and thinking about how he wouldn’t have found her if I had let my fear rule and made him stay home. It was also interesting that he was walking where he was because that isn’t a street he normally walks on. It’s on the other side of town, on a hill that overlooks our side of town.

He said she said to him while they were sitting there, “You pretty much saved my life, you know.”

I feel that he did save her life. It was 85 degrees out yesterday. If she had been in that sun much longer she may have been severely dehydrated or had a heart attack or something else awful might have happened to her.

He doesn’t remember her name but the daughter works at the tiny supermarket in town (the only supermarket in town). He said he wants to wander by her house on the way to work today to make sure she is okay and hasn’t gone in her side yard again.

Little Miss and The Husband are gone today on a mini-jaunt to pick up Chick-Fil-A. There is a small one at a college about 90 minutes from us. For a long time, it was the only one anywhere near us but recently they put a full-sized one in about 2 hours from us, in an area we don’t often visit. We wanted to treat Little Miss to waffle fries from there after her dental surgery but she was too miserable to enjoy it so we didn’t stop.

He has a week off work next week, so he picked today to take her to kick off his vacation,

The rest of the day I hope to work on my book, read some, and hopefully watch the first episode of season nine of Brokenwood Mysteries with The Husband.

Next week we have a fairly busy week in the beginning of the week. On Monday, the Boy has guitar lessons, Little Miss has gymnastics that night, and Tuesday we have an eye doctor appointment for both of them. After that, I think we are clear of planned events, other than The Boys’ job.

We are winding down with homeschooling and Spring Fever is in full force, but I’m trying to remind the kids there is still a month and a half left of school for them. I’m trying to make school more relaxed and interactive these last couple of months so it doesn’t feel too suffocating for them while it’s nice outside.

We meet with our evaluator (which is the person who has to sign off that I did what I was supposed to do this school year) on June 9.

As I am finishing up this post a rain storm has moved in to bring cooler temperatures in.

So how was your week this past week? I hope you had a good one?

What kind of tea or beverage are you drinking as you read this? Or maybe you aren’t while you are reading, but maybe you had a special one while relaxing one day.

I still like warm tea in the summer but don’t drink it as often as I do in the colder months. How about you? Do you still reach for a warm beverage even as the temperatures warm up?

Fiction Friday: Guest post with author Chelsea Michelle – a free chapter of Hours We Regret

This week I don’t have anything to share for Fiction Friday so I invited some authors to help me out and A.M. Heath is one of them!

This week Anita is sharing a chapter of Hours We Regret by Chelsea Michelle, her pen name with fellow author Amanda Tero. This novella, which you can get for free (see the link after the excerpt) is a Watson Twins Mystery and is listed in Christian Fiction as a cozy mystery.

And just a heads up for those of you who know about my next book, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing – I’ve pushed back the release date by a month so I will have time to send the book out to beta readers and editors and give them more time to help me polish up the book before I release it all to you.

You can pre-order it here:

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

Now, without further ado, a description of Hours We Regret.

Hours We Regret Description: 

A serial killer. A dangerous road. And a cell phone going straight to voicemail…

A string of murders happening just across the state line makes residents of idyllic Maple Springs nervous. While Michelle Watson is obsessed with finding the killer’s pattern, her twin Chelsea disagrees with her involvement.

Reading the victims’ stories makes Michelle face the decisions she’s been trying to ignore. Determined to live her life to the fullest, she makes an innocent choice that takes a life-threatening turn.

When Michelle stops answering her phone, Chelsea can’t ignore the feeling that something is wrong. Very wrong. With friends and family, Chelsea sets out to find her sister, all while questioning if her faith is strong enough to weather the trial. 

Time is running out and the last thing Chelsea wants to do is file a missing person’s report for her twin.

An excerpt

Chapter 1

Michelle: 

“He’s getting closer,” I muttered, staring down at the new dot on the map. 

“Who is?” my sister asked, walking into the kitchen from behind me. 

I froze. 

Chelsea poured a glass of chocolate milk. “Michelle?” 

With a deep breath, I shoved the newspaper into her line of vision. 

“Not another one.” 

I tried to swallow past the lump in my throat. “Yep.” Lord be with her family. My heart yearned to say so much, but it too was clogged. 

Over my shoulder, Chelsea groaned. 

I closed my eyes and waited for her rebuke. 

“A map? You made a map of this man’s killings?” 

“I wanted to see if there was a pattern.” I turned to face her, staring back into a face identical to my own. 

She was getting ready for work, so she wore the cute striped blouse I ached to get my hands on and an understated knee-length pencil skirt. 

“What kind of pattern were you expecting to find?” 

I shrugged, staring back at the map. “I don’t know. It was just a hunch I wanted to trace out. There was an episode of Diagnosis Murder where the bomber was spelling his name across the town.” 

“That’s sick.” She took a long drink. 

“So far they have that much in common.” My eyes bounced from dot to dot, but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for where the serial killer struck. 

His victims were all women he had run off the road, but I couldn’t dwell on the other known factors of what they had in common. 

“We need to put trackers on our phones,” I muttered under my breath. 

“What?”

I angled away, reaching for a bagel to toast. “Yeah, and buy some mace.” I snapped my fingers, spinning around to Chelsea. “And code words. We need code words.” 

She stared at me blankly. “Michelle, we are not getting code words.” 

“Why not?” I split my bagel and dropped it into the toaster before leaning against the counter and crossing my arms. “They could come in handy someday. You never know.” 

She rolled her eyes. “One: Because I refuse to live in fear. Two: I refuse to entertain you as you live in fear. And three: I would know if something was off. Few people are as in sync as we are.” 

She had to bring up the innate twin connection as her argument. I chewed the inside of my lip as the toaster popped. “We can at least start with the trackers and the mace, and discuss the code words later.” 

Chelsea stared at me. I knew what was coming even as she opened her mouth and said, “Psalm 37 says, ‘Do not fret because of evildoers.’”

I wracked my mind for the rest of the passage. “It also says, ‘Trust in the Lord and do good.’” I made sure to emphasize the last part. 

Chelsea raised an eyebrow. “It also says ‘Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way… who brings wicked schemes to pass.’”

My mind scrambled. I was not going to let Chelsea win this argument. It wasn’t right to just turn a blind eye to wickedness. I grinned and paraphrased James 4:17, “To know to do good and not do it is sin.”

Chelsea opened, then closed her mouth.

I grinned in triumph.

“Look,” Chelsea said with a sigh. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t help to work against evil. I just don’t think we need to insert ourselves when it isn’t in our path—when in reality the only thing we’re doing is worrying, not actively helping.”

I waved toward the counter. “I have a map. I am actively helping.”

Chelsea picked up her purse and keys and gave me an incredulous look. “Do you even realize how that sounds?”

“Ummm … Like I’m brilliantly inserting myself.”

She rolled her eyes. 

“And before you tell me that it’s not my job, let me remind you that it’s the job of every citizen to help find him. They said, and I quote, ’If you know anything or see anything suspicious please call.’” I pointed again to the counter. “I’m looking for suspicious patterns … and trying to keep us from being victims in the process.”

She let out a sigh. “You know that’s not how it works. I’m gonna be late for work. Bye.” She started for the door. 

“You can’t be serious, Sea. You’re really going to leave without giving me a goodbye hug? This could be the last time you see me, you know.” 

That earned me another famous glare, the I’m-older-than-you, please-be-sensible type of glare that I was always getting from her. “I refuse to live in fear with you, Michelle.” She opened the door.

I yelled back, “I refuse to live in denial with you, Chelsea!” 

“Ha.” She shut the door. 

I scurried across the room and flung the door open, yelling for all the neighborhood to hear, “I love you!”

She turned around, her face a pretty shade of red and silent laughter bubbling out. 

I waved over my head at Ms. Rhonda, our neighbor, who paused her weeding to wave a dirty garden-gloved hand back at us both. “Morning girls.” 

“Morning, Ms. Rhonda,” we said together. 

“Your roses are still looking great,” I said. 

Chelsea walked closer to her car. 

I kept an eye on her as I smiled back at Ms. Rhonda. 

“Did you not hear me, Chelsea?” 

“I heard you,” she said. “I’m going to be late for work.” 

“Not until you say it back.” 

She pinched her lips together. 

I angled my chin in equal stubbornness. 

But time was on my side because Chelsea hated to be late. After only a moment’s stare off she caved. “I love you too.” 

“What? I can’t hear you.” 

“I love you too,” she said a little louder. 

“See? Was that so hard?” 

“Some days it is.” 

I stuck my tongue out at her. 

She laughed and got in her car. 

I went back inside, the trail of the serial killer mocking me from the kitchen counter. 

After spreading cream cheese on my bagel, I scooped up the paper and brought it with me to the table. 

The new victim was twenty-four, which remained in the twenty to thirty-five range he seemed to favor. 

A chill ran down my spine. We were twenty-six and well within that range. 

The article spelled out how beloved she had been to her community. She was saving up for a trip to France but never got the chance to take it. 

Tears burned behind my eyes. So much life was left for her to live, but he selfishly stole it from her. 

Too sick to finish my breakfast, I threw it away and took a shower. 

Author Bio and a Link to the novella:

Christian authors, Amanda Tero and A.M. Heath bring you faith-based, cozy mysteries under Chelsea Michelle. 

Amanda Tero grew up attending a one-room school with her eleven siblings—and loved it! She also fell in love with reading to the point her mom withheld her books to get her to do her chores. That love of reading turned into a love of writing YA fiction. Amanda is a music teacher by day and a literary guide by night, creating stories that whisk readers off to new eras and introduce them to heroic but flawed characters that live out their faith in astonishing ways.

Visit Amanda Tero at amandatero.com 

A.M. Heath is the author of the 2022 Selah Finalist, Painted Memories. She enjoys writing stories that entertain while feeding the soul in contemporary and historical settings. 

When away from her desk, she’s a faithful member of her local church where she teaches a ladies’ Sunday School class. She is happily married and raising four kids while embracing the small-town lifestyle and tightly woven family bonds. 

Visit A.M. Heath at christianauthoramheath.net

Read Hours We Regret for FREE!
https://subscribepage.io/hours-we-regret

Follow Chelsea Michelle on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@chelseamichelle

Or chat mysteries with them in their Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/chelseamichelle

Classic Movie Impressions. Spring of Cary: The Awful Truth

“What wives don’t know won’t hurt them.” That’s what Cary Grant as Jerry Warriner says in the beginning of The Awful Truth, the second movie that Erin of Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are watching for our Spring of Cary.

Now, last week I was a bit of a downer when I shared some of Cary’s personal life and the tension while filming Houseboat because of his affair with Sofia Loren. I will do my best this week to not be a downer! Ha!

This is a fun, silly movie so I will be able to keep things pretty light in this post. Lucky for all of you. *wink*

So, back to the storyline of the movie, which was released in 1937.

Here is a description on IMBd: Before their divorce becomes final, Jerry and Lucy Warriner both do their best to ruin each other’s plans for remarriage, Jerry to haughty socialite Barbara Vance, she to oil-rich bumpkin Daniel Leeson. Among their strategies: Jerry’s court-decreed visitation rights with Mr. Smith, their pet fox terrier, and Lucy doing her most flamboyant Dixie Belle Lee impersonation as Jerry’s brassy “sister” before his prospective bride’s scandalized family.

We start the movie out with Jerry trying to find a way to look tan so Lucy believes he was really in Florida. Not sure where he was for two weeks, but it apparently was not in Florida. We never really find the truth about that particular story.

Jerry goes home to his wife and finds out she isn’t home either. So, where has she been?

Jerry’s wife, portrayed by Irene Dunn, has secrets of her own, though they may not be quite as nefarious as Jerry’s – or are they? It’s never completely clear who is sneaking around on who in the beginning of the movie.

Eventually, it is clear that both of them are somewhat running around on their spouses, though maybe not full-blown affairs. They are, however, hanging around the opposite sex who are not their spouse.

In fact, both spouses are trying to pull the wool over each other’s eyes.

They’ve grown apart in a way and maybe have grown bored with each other so they are both living their own lives in a way and just when they decide they should officially live their lives apart by filing for divorce, they find there is still something between them they’re not ready to let go of just yet.

All it takes is a bit of jealousy to be stirred up when Lucy starts seeing another man, even before the divorce is final (gasp). From there the misunderstandings, mix-ups, and silliness kicks off and never slows down.

There are so many laugh-out-loud moments. One that stands out for me is Lucy’s call with her lawyer who is trying to talk to her about the beauty of marriage while his wife nags him in the background and he says to her, “Please shut your mouth” and then progresses to, “You shut your mouth! I’ll eat dinner when I want to!”

Irene and Cary are great together – tossing barbs back and forth fast and furious like the ball in a tennis match at Wimbleton.

They made three movies together: this one, Penny Serenade, and My Favorite Wife.

I have My Favorite Wife on our list to watch next week.

According to articles online, there were many parts of the movie that were adlibbed, which added even more to the charm of the movie for me.

The film was directed by Leo McCarey and you can read more about him HERE

According to an article on Criterion.com: (McCarey’s) claims to greatness, reaching far back into silent film, include Laurel and Hardy two-reelers; the Marx Brothers comedy Duck Soup (1933); a beloved melodrama that, astonishingly, he wrote and directed twice—as Love Affair in 1939 and, in 1957, as An Affair to Remember; and two surprise blockbusters, Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), gentle Catholic comedies starring Bing Crosby that reflect McCarey’s own devout Catholicism and feeling for the workings of divine providence.”

I have An Affair to Remember on our list for April 27th and I just added The Bells of St. Mary’s to my personal list to watch.

According to Wikipedia, the movie is based on a play of the same name written by Arthur Richman. It was also made into a radio theater program with Lux Radio Theater with Cary and Claudette Colbert in 1939. I’ve listened to the Lux Radio productions before and really enjoyed them. There was one of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House with Cary and Myrna Lloyd, who were the leads in the movie version as well and that one was superb.

The same article details that the actors at first struggled immensely with McCarey’s freestyle method of directing. They were not provided with a script or much direction, which infuriated Cary who was used to having set scripts and assembly-line type movies with Paramount. He tried to get out of the movie several times, which irked McCarey and he allegedly held a grudge against the actor for decades over that move.

Despite the rocky start, though, the actors eventually determined that McCarey was a comic genius and looked back on the experience fondly, remembering how hard they laughed each day.

The whole article, which details the process of filming and the improvisation on the set is very interesting. If you want to read more of it, you can do so here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awful_Truth

To read Erin’s impressions of The Awful Truth, well…she doesn’t have one this week so check out her blog next week. *ahahaaaaha* She told me she didn’t have one after I put mine up.

Our remaining schedule for the Spring of Cary:

My Favorite Wife (April 20th)

An Affair To Remember (April 27)

Holiday (May 4)

Operation Petticoat (May 11)

Suspicion (May 18)

Notorious (May 25)

Living our dreams for the people whose dreams were cut short

Once again this week I found myself thinking about how I am living out dreams that many others I knew or knew of couldn’t do.

No, I’m not a famous author or photographer or a famous anything. I don’t have throngs of fans or tons of money. I’m a simple homeschooling mom who writes some stories and self-publishes them (and sometimes feels a bit silly doing it.).

But I’ve started to try to look at it as I have been given the opportunity to write and blog, take photos of my family, and teach my kids at home. I “get” to do all this. I don’t “have” to write or teach my kids – I’ve been given the gift of being able to do so.

I’ve been given a gift that many others never had the opportunity to have.

Saturday afternoon I was at a memorial service for a woman who spent a large part of her adult life in a nursing home – not because she was old but because Lyme Disease stole her life from her.

She wasn’t there of her own free will.

In fact, someone essentially incarcerated her there because he didn’t want to take care of her.

She spent the next 20 years deteriorating physically and mentally. Her mother tried to get doctors to care for her, to find out what was going on and why this was happening and eventually, doctors did feel they found the cause. The only problem was they had no idea how to stop it.

What was happening to this young woman also happened to her brother. Both of them suffered from damage to the brain from Lyme Disease, but doctors couldn’t figure out why they were the only family members it had affected this way.

Genetic testing was even done and not many answers came from that.

The brother, Gary, passed away a few years ago. He was in his 40s. Mechelle passed away a month ago in her early 50s. She caught an infection that her body couldn’t fight off.

She spent most of her life in a bed, watching her children grow up and have children of their own and then eventually she didn’t see much of at least one of those children who refused to see her before she died or come to her memorial service. Any dreams she might have had for her life were gone even before her life was physically gone.

It was heartbreaking to hear about it because I never visited Mechelle in that home. I feel awful but she was older than me, I didn’t know her well, and there was a lot of family drama that left me unsure of what I should be involved with and what I shouldn’t.

Mechelle and Gary had their lives cut short. They couldn’t live the way others could.

Their stories make me think of my great aunt who had mental issues and was placed in a mental home in the 1940s and never allowed to come home.

I’m not sure what my grandmother’s sister actually had but some said it was schizophrenia. She wrote letters begging to come back home but the family didn’t know how to care for her. They were also afraid she’d hurt my dad, who was a baby at the time. Not that she would hurt him on purpose, but when she had her breaks, I would guess, she didn’t think clearly and may have accidentally hurt him.

I believe having their daughter committed was very hard on my great-grandparents and maybe it was a guilt they lived with for their entire lives.

My grandmother’s sister died in state care sometime in the 1990s. I can’t even imagine it. Over 50 years living in a mental hospital, then a care home when the state shut down the mental hospitals – not with family or those you were familiar with and definitely no chance to live a somewhat normal life.

My grandmother and the rest of the family did visit Onieta and my aunt was there when she died, holding her hand, but my heart breaks when I think of the life she didn’t get to live – either because of actual mental illness or because doctors simply didn’t know how to help  her back then.

When I get down about my life and think things along the line of how boring or plain it is, I try to remind myself of Onieta, Mechelle and Gary, and even my aunt Dianne who suffered from heartbreak, rejection and health issues for her entire life.

I think how I’m lucky and how I’m able to explore and pursue my dreams, despite some health and financial limitations.

I may never be famous (gosh, I hope I’m not. I like my quiet life.), rich, or popular, but I’m blessed and lucky and I have the freedom to pursue what I love to do in life.

I have to stop squandering that opportunity – the gift God has given me.

No, not the gift of writing or creativity, or being a parent, but the gift of freedom that others either didn’t have or didn’t have for very long.

Sunday Bookends: He Has Risen! And other less important stuff

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, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.

First: Happy Easter! He has risen! He has risen indeed!

Now on to the less important stuff.

What I/we’ve Been Reading

This past week I finished Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie and would definitely recommend it. I loved the witty comments from Miss Marple and the humor woven in throughout the book. I don’t know if the ending was my favorite, but it was definitely an interesting way to be led to the guilty party.

The rest of the week I read a few chapters of The Lord God Made Them All by James Herriot and tried to decide what other books I might want to read from my TBR. I think I’ll start Little Women this week.

Other choices I have for later in the month and May:

Hell is Empty: A Walt Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson (I did start this one so might continue reading it)

Midwinter Murder by Agatha Christie (I was supposed to read this during the winter. Oops)

Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz

Death by the Seaside by T.E. Kinsley

All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese

I tried to read a little of Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery, which I started months ago, but the old way of writing is a little annoying to me right now, especially when it is used to tell horribly sad stories about the characters in the book. The one girl’s father committed suicide and she found him. Her brother also died being run over by a wagon and she saw that too.

It was like Montgomery just wanted to throw in as much sadness, depression, and drama in there as possible and it is just a bit much. I may skip ahead and read other parts of the book but I guess I don’t like this book as much as I hoped. There is too much about the other characters in the little town Anne and Gilbert moved to and not enough about Anne herself so far. I will probably still try to finish the book, however.

I am still reading The Fellowship of the Ring and I feel like I will never finish it because it is so dense,   and I keep getting interrupted when I try to read it.

 Little Miss and I will be finishing Land of the Big Red Apple this week because it is due back at the library and we’ve had it out long enough and simply because we’ve been working on it so long.

The Husband is reading a collection of novellas called Standing by the Wall by Nick Harrington.

What’s Been Occurring

I didn’t have time to finish my Saturday Afternoon Chat post yesterday because I attended a memorial service about 45 minutes from our house for a family friend. The day before I went grocery shopping and then worked on Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, forgetting that I had a blog post to finish. So, I will include what I was going to share in that post in this section of this post this week.

This past week we finally had warmer weather. Sure, we had two days of rain, but at least we had some sun before that.

I thought Tuesday would be a more relaxed day than my Monday, but it actually turned out to be a busier day. On Monday, Little Miss had a gymnastics make up class and The Boy had a guitar lesson 45 minutes north. My dad took The Boy to his guitar lesson, and I took Little Miss to hers since they were one right after another.

On Tuesday I was ready to work on my book, read, do homeschool lessons and just hang out but the day became busy when Little Miss asked for glue to make slime and we headed to the dollar store. Then from there we came home, and I did a little writing and prepared homeschool but then my neighbor called and told us to come down and see her daughter’s new boxer puppy. Little Miss was very excited to do this, so we headed out the door into the sunshine and warmth.

After that visit we returned home to do our homeschool lessons and then it was time for me to cook dinner. Little Miss wanted to go back outside again so we went into the side yard and I burned our trash. The other neighbors walked by with their little Shih tzu dogs, so we visited with them a few minutes. My bacon got a little overcooked, but not burned while we were doing that. After that, we had some dinner, listened to the Family Hour on our local radio station (Adventures in Odyssey and Lamplighter Theater, The Pond, and other such programs), and I folded one load of laundry from the four loads I needed to fold.

The Boy also headed downtown for his job that afternoon.

And I already mentioned that on Friday we went grocery shopping.

The funeral service was sad and difficult since it was a younger woman (in her 50s) who had been a nursing home for many years because of Lyme that attacked her brain.

What We Watched/are Watching

This past week I watched Houseboat to write about on the blog.

The Husband and I watched the last episode of season one of Miss Scarlet & The Duke.

Then we watched a couple episodes of a British sitcom called My Family. This is the show that Kris Marshall from Death in Paradise and Beyond Paradise got his start on.

We also watched an episode of Yes, Minister.

On my own, I watched episodes of Forgotten Way Farms on YouTube.

What I’m Writing

This week on the blog I shared:

Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing ExcerptThe Spring of Cary: Houseboat (1958)

What I’m Listening to

Little Miss and I have been listening to a lot of Matthew West lately and I just heard this song and loved it:

And today I’ll be listening to this at least once:

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

Fuel for the Race, Our Millstones

Mama’s Empty Nest, What’s So Good About Good Friday

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 Gets Her Footing Excerpt

Okay, guy, seriously, I actually thought I was going to only show paid subscribers to my newsletter chapters of my new book — like I was famous or something.

Please, have a good laugh with me.

What was I thinking?

I’m just a mom writing books mainly for fun and tossing them up on Kindle and Amazon. I am not someone people are going to pay a monthly subscription to read and that is totally okay. I am not there yet and may never be. All good.

It doesn’t bother me. All that being said, though, if you want regular updates on my writing (like twice a month updates), you can sign up for my Substack newsletter and you might want to do it now to enter a giveaway I am running. The giveaway is for a book called Meant to Bee by Storm Shultz.

You don’t have to be a paid subscriber to enter the giveaway. Honestly? I don’t think I’m going to offer paid subscriptions right now. What do I have to offer that someone would pay regularly for? Nothing — yet anyhow. *wink*

You can sign up for my Substack account and find out about the newsletter here:

https://lisarhoweler.substack.com/p/april-newsletter-a-giveaway-book

And now, if you’d like a sneak peek of Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, you can find it here today in this post. Without further ado – the first chapter of my next book. Will I share more? I don’t know yet. We shall see. *wink*

Chapter 1

“Hey new girl. Grab a notebook and let’s go. We’ve got a one vehicle MVA on Darby Hill.”

Gladwynn Grant heard the voice but when she looked over her shoulder her new boss had already disappeared back into the hallway.

MVA?

Wait. What did MVA stand for again?

Gladwynn Grant racked her brain, trying to remember the meaning of the acronym.

The M wasn’t murder, was it?

Mayhem?

She fumbled through her top desk drawer for a reporter’s notebook and pen, wincing when the edge of a paper sliced into the skin of her index finger.

“New girl, come on.”

She looked, but, once again, he disappeared.

“Be right there.”

Messy? No. That wasn’t it.

She stood, slammed her knee off the metal drawer of the desk and bit her lower lip to keep from crying out. Outside the window to her right, snow flurries swirled against a dark gray sky.

It came to her as she reached for her winter coat on the back of her chair.

M was for motor.

MVA. Motor Vehicle Accident. That was it.

“Chop. Chop. This will be good training for you.”

Right. Good training for the job she hadn’t even wanted but needed since she’d been laid off from her last job.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” her mother always said, a line she hated hearing growing up and hated even more as an adult.

Training for her new job in the middle of a snowstorm on a rural highway at dusk wasn’t exactly what she’d expected when she’d accepted the job as a reporter at the Brookville Beacon. She thought she’d be shown the ropes slowly, overtime – maybe handed a few lightweight stories to write first. Instead, it was clear she was to be thrown into the fire right off the bat.

She quickly yanked on her coat, a red vintage-style one she’d found at a thrift shop a couple of years ago, flipped up the hood, and shoved the pen and notebook in the large inside pocket. Snatching a pair of red leather gloves off the top of the bare desk, she rushed to follow editor Liam Finley down the dimly lit hallway toward the back door. A gust of frigid wind smacked her in the face as it opened.

She hoped rushing outside in raging snowstorms wouldn’t be something she’d have to do often.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she stepped out into the cold.

She took two steps at a time to keep up with the long strides of the man in front of her.

He looked over his shoulder as snow whipped around them. “We’ll take my car. Did you grab a camera?”

“Oh. No. I’ll —”

“Go back and grab one. I’ll meet you up front.”

Darting back through the snow she pulled the hood tight in front of her face, icy flakes still managing to bite at her skin. She was out of breath when she rushed back into the office, weaving through the cubicles to retrieve the camera she’d been given the day before. She didn’t make eye contact with her co-workers as she rushed back out the back door.

“Good luck, newbie,” a man’s voice called after her.

She was even more out of breath by the time she reached the parking lot, the camera clutched against her chest. Snow fell in sheets around her. Opening the passenger door of the tan BMW she flopped into the front seat, breathing hard as melting snow dripped from her hair into her eyes. The windshield was a blur of white.

Liam shifted the car into gear and yanked it out onto the empty street. “I hope it’s a fatal. We need a centerpiece.”

Wiping snow from her face she looked at her new boss with wide eyes. His unshaven appearance made him look older than he probably was. Dark hair hung long across his forehead, just above dark brown eyes framed by dark, and remarkably long, eyelashes. Small lines creased the skin next to his eyes.

He glanced at her and lifted a shoulder. “What? We don’t have any art for page one.”

“Art?”

He shifted the car into a lower gear as snow piled up on the road. “A photo or graphic for the centerpiece.”

“Centerpiece?”

He sighed. “The main story on the front page. What are they teaching in colleges these days? I thought you’d have learned this stuff at the college newspaper.”

He seemed to have forgotten she hadn’t worked at a college newspaper for almost seven years at this point.

Liam was driving at what she felt was an unsafe speed considering the conditions and the fact they were on their way to an accident caused by those same conditions. He reached over and tapped a couple buttons on the dashboard. Warmth rushed up under her and she let out a small gasp, then realized the seats were heated. She hadn’t picked that feature when she’d purchased her car two years ago.

“You okay over there?”

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. “Yep. Totally fine.”

Liam flicked the high beams on. Even though the sun hadn’t set yet, the snow was making it seem darker out. “When we get there, you take the photos and I’ll do the talking. Watch what I do so you’ll know what to do next time.”

She nodded.

Next time.

On her own.

That should be interesting.

She didn’t know what she’d been thinking taking this job. It was nothing like she’d expected.

She’d applied for it after the college had laid her off from her job at the library. She’d needed the money to pay off her college loans.

Well, that and the cute red Miata she’d bought when she thought the library job was going to be long term. Good thing she hadn’t opted for the heated seats.

The ad on the job site had caught her eye, not really because of the job itself, but because of where it was located.

Brookville, Pennsylvania – where her grandmother lived alone in a massive Victorian house. Two hundred miles away from where she’d grown up with her parents and, more importantly, 200 miles away from Bennett Steele.

“You’re a quiet one, Grant.” Liam’s voice broke through her thoughts. “What’d you do before you came here again?”

Clearly, he had not read her resume at all. She had a feeling all he’d wanted was a warm body to fill the vacancy.

She rubbed her gloved hands together and blew into them. “Library assistant for Brock College. They laid me off a couple months ago.”

“From librarian to a reporter. This must be cultural shock to you.”

She glanced at him then back at the steadily whiter road in front of them. “Yeah, a little. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

She doubted her own words.

In the last week every idea she’d had of what a reporter actually did had been shattered beyond recognition. Sure, she knew she’d be expected to attend municipal meetings and community gatherings and write a story about them, but now she knew she was also expected to take the photographs, proof her co-workers stories, and sometimes answer the phones at the front desk if the receptionist needed to leave for lunch or to pick up her kids from school. Smalltown newspapers were nothing like the larger ones portrayed in movies and books.

She hadn’t interacted much with Liam yet, other than her brief interview and a brief staff meeting the day before, but she’d already pegged him as someone who lived mainly for his job and wasn’t afraid to push the envelope when it came to succeeding at it.

Flashing red and blue lights cut through the fog and snow up ahead. Emergency vehicles were parked in the middle of the road and off to the side near the guardrails.

Liam smoothly pulled his car behind a black truck with a blue flashing light on top. Through a space between a fire truck and an ambulance she could see a bright red car on its roof and behind it a blue SUV dented in the front and part way off the road.

A state trooper turned as they approached the scene, hands at his waist. “You need to stay back.”

His voice was deep and made Gladwynn, who had never considered herself timid, want to say “yes, sir” and dash back to Liam’s car.

Liam, however, didn’t seem bothered. He tipped his head in a curt nod. “Of course. My reporter here just needs some photos. She can stand back here to get them. Can you provide a few details on the accident? I heard entrapment on the scanner. Can you confirm that?”

The trooper merely held up his hand. “You’ll need to step back there, sir. Only emergency responders past this point.”

Liam ignored the trooper and raised his hand to greet one of the firemen walking toward them. “Justin! Hey! How you doing? Bad night out here, huh?”

The firefighter nodded solemnly, and Gladwynn noticed the word chief emblazoned on the yellow helmet on his head. “It is. I can’t talk now but call me later and I can give you some details. One injury so far.”

“And I’m sure I can call the barracks later for a report?” Liam smiled at the trooper as he walked around him toward the ambulance.

The trooper’s eyes narrowed, jaw tightening, but he didn’t move to stop Liam. “Sure.”

Liam raised an imaginary camera to his eye. Glawynn nodded and began taking photographs, glad she’d kept up her photography hobby over the years. When her foot slipped after a few shots, she thought she was going down but a hand under her elbow steadied her. She looked up at a firefighter with bright blue eyes and a broad, friendly smile.

He let go of her elbow and looked at her feet. “Not the best shoes for this weather.”

His accent was thick. Clearly Irish. What was an Irishmen doing in Brookville?

She glanced at her high-heeled boots. Her grandmother had said the same thing. “Yeah, I need to start carrying winter boots with me.”

The firefighter winked as he turned to walk away. “It’d be a good idea.”

Liam stood next to the ambulance talking to another firefighter. Radio chatter and the purr of engines served as background noise to the voices of the responders and eventually a call for a backboard. Gladwynn stepped back, lifting the Cannon to snap a few shots as the firemen kneeled next to the car.

A dark green glove blocked her view. “No photos of victims.”

A different, less friendly, and less attractive, firefighter stood before her with a scowl.

She swallowed hard. “Yeah. Sure. No problem.”

He turned his back toward her, standing more squarely in front of her as if to get his point across. Lowering the camera, she stepped to her right and looked over his shoulder in time to see Liam walking toward her, hands shoved in his coat pockets.

He nodded his head toward his car and walked past her. She assumed that meant he wanted her to follow her. At this point she’d rather be at home curled up under a blanket with a book and a cup of blueberry tea sweetened with a healthy helping of honey.

“No fatality but still good art with that car on its hood,” he said as she fell in step with him. “Did you get some good shots?”

“Um, yeah, I think so.”

“Bart tried to stop you, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, but I —”

“Big buffoon thinks he can tell us how to do our jobs. Those state police don’t help matters either. They cover all the little towns and townships without a police force, which is most of the county these days, and act like they are the gatekeepers of all information at an emergency scene.”

He slid into the driver side and slammed the door closed.

She pulled the passenger side door closed gently and blew into her hands again. The gloves were stylish, but definitely not warm. “Does Brookville still have a police department?”

He nodded. “A small one, yes. A chief and two officers. They handle mainly small crimes like break ins or jaywalking right in town. The staties get called in for everything else.” He leaned over and ran his fingers over the heater buttons again. This time Gladwynn was ready. “First, lesson, Grant. We work for our readers. It’s our job to get the story, even if you have to push a little to do it. If we have to go through a couple arrogant volunteer fire fighters or cops to do our jobs, then so be it.” He looked at her. “Got it?”

She nodded slowly, wishing she felt the confidence he obviously had.

He took the camera from her and flipped through the photos on the screen. “Not bad. We’ve got at least four good shots.”

Handing the camera back, he backed the car up until he could turn it around and head back toward the office. He held his phone to his ear as he drove, but didn’t slow down, despite the fact even more snow had fallen since they’d arrived on scene.

“Ed, hey. We’ve got a centerpiece shot for the front. Horizontal, four columns.”

He slid his finger over the end button and tossed the phone into the center console. “We should be able to craft a story together when we get back. I’ll have you contact the state police in about half an hour and see if they have some information for us. You can send me what you find out and I’ll add it to the story.”

He moved the car into the opposite lane, shifted the car into a higher gear and passed a car moving slowly along the snow-covered highway. Gladwynn gripped the door handle and pressed herself back into the seat.  In that moment, wondering if she’d be the next person being pulled from an upside down vehicle, she desperately missed her previous job where she’d spent most days inside a building, searching the online catalogue for books for college students.

Her legs threatened to give out from under her when she stepped out of the BMW and made her way to the office.

Pulling her gloves off she flopped into the black padded office chair sitting in front of a computer on a gray counter acting as a desk within the restricting confines of a cubicle with light-red walls.

Hushed voices hummed on the other side of cubicle, an occasional laugh filtering through.

“Do you think she wears her hair like that all the time?”

“You mean the 1940s quaff? What year does she think it is anyhow?”

“Quaff? Where did you even get that word?”

“I have no idea. I probably read it in a book somewhere.”

“You read books?”

“Stuff it, Dibble.”

“What? I thought all you had time for was walking the old ball and chain’s dogs.”

“Rick isn’t my ball and chain. He’s –”

“Just a friend. I know. That’s what you say anyhow.”

The ring of a phone interrupted the banter. Gladwynn touched a hand to her hair.

Quaff? First off, that word didn’t mean what that woman thought it meant. The word the woman had been looking for was coif. Second, Gladwynn had been wearing her hair this way for years. She thought it was unique, something that harkened back to the 40s or 50s, two decades she could imagine herself living in. It was a style that was actually coming back in in the college town she’d been living in.

A ding notified her she had a text message and a look at the lock screen made her forget about how she’d been being talked about behind her back.

“Glad, love: Won’t be home for din. Have a date. There’s a casserole in the fridge. Love, Gram.”

A date?

Gladwynn couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.

She really shouldn’t be surprised that Lucinda Florence Grant had a date at the age of 70. The woman had always been full of spunk.

While Gladwynn ’s grandfather had been the love of Lucinda’s life, the chance for Lucinda to find new love, of a different kind, was one even he would have welcomed.

Gladwynn looked at the small clock on the wall above her cubicle. Two more hours and her shift would be over. She couldn’t wait. A small pain had started pulsating behind her right eye on the drive back and hadn’t let up yet. Her feet were also begging for a break from her impractical boots.

“Hey, new girl. Where’s the card for your camera? I need that photo.”

A man with dark-rimmed glasses, dark hair and eyes and a round face appeared around the edge her cubicle.

Liam had introduced him the day before as Tom Fitzgerald, the photography expert, layout person and all around tech guy. She jumped slightly at the unexpected sound of his voice.

“Sheesh. You’re a little jumpy aren’t you?”

She opened the compartment for the camera card with shaky hands and handed it to him. “Yeah, I guess. Sorry about that.”

He grinned as he took the card. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to the craziness around here pretty quick.”

He disappeared again and she was left in silence, other than the click of fingers on keyboards drifting from the other cubicles in the office.

Above her, a fluorescent light blared white-blue light onto her and made her wish she had a pair of sunglasses. In front of her, a phone that looked like it belonged in a museum made her question if she’d walked into a time warp by moving to this town.

She dialed the number Liam had given her for the state police barracks, summoning up the confidence she’d possessed in her job at the library.

“State Police Brookville, Corporal Baxter speaking.”

The woman’s voice was stern and void of any friendliness.

“Yes, hello. I’m looking for a –” Gladwynn shuffled hurriedly through her notes for the name of the officer at the scene of the accident. “Officer Kinney to ask about an accident on Route 88 tonight.”

“Trooper.”

“Excuse me?”

“This is the state police. Their titles are troopers not officer.” Corporal Baxter put strong emphasis on the words “not” and “officer”.

Gladwynn took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. “Excuse me. Is Trooper Kinney in?”

“He is not.”

“Will he be in later so I can ask him a few questions about the – “

“His shift ended ten minutes ago. He’ll be back tomorrow around 2.”

“Oh. Okay, well, is there anyone else I could ask about the accident?”

“We’ll send a brief out when the investigation is complete.”

“Oh. Well, th—”

The click was loud in Gladwynn ’s ear and she held the phone back from her head with a wince.

“New girl. What’s the verdict? You have some info from the staties for me?”

Was it normal for everyone in this office to simply appear out of nowhere around the wall of her cubicle? And did any of them know her real name?

She turned in her chair to face Liam. “No. They said the trooper had left for the day and would be back tomorrow.”

Liam rolled his eyes. “Typical.” He handed her a slip of paper. “I figured that would happen so here’s the fire chief’s number. His name is Justin. Give him a call and see what details he can give you, then come in my office and will hammer this out together.”

He disappeared again.

The fire chief wasn’t home, according to a woman who Gladwynn guessed to be his wife. Gladwynn gave the woman the number taped to the ancient telephone and turned her attention to the police briefs Liam had assigned her to work on earlier in the day. Most of them seemed routine – a couple drinking and driving arrests, a few minor car accidents, but then there was one that made her snort a quick laugh.

Subject arrested driving a John Deere lawn mower along Drew Avenue. When pulled over, the officer noticed a strong odor of alcohol emanating from the subject. Subject was asked to step off the lawn mower and subsequently failed a sobriety test. Subject stated his license had been suspended for DUI two months earlier. Subject relayed he was on his way to the Iron Horse for what he called a nightcap.

Time of arrest: 10 a.m.

She’d visited her grandparents in Brookville many times over the years, even spending a couple summers with them. She’d met characters during those visits who very well could have been the individual involved in this particular incident.

Nestled in mountains which were actually hills by the official definition, Brookville was tiny, with a population of maybe 6,000. Scattered around it were small villages of populations of anywhere from 50 to 100 people, spreading out until farmland ran into a bigger town 30 miles away with a population of 10,000. The Brookville Beacon was named after the town, but its coverage area encompassed the entire county.

The town she’d grown up in in New York had been four times the size of Brookville, but still had some small town elements as well. Nothing like Brookville, though, where it wasn’t uncommon to see a farmer driving a tractor down Main Street on his way to a fellow relative’s farm.

Half an hour later the phone rang and the man on the other end introduced himself as Justin Dreward, the Brookville Fire Chief.

“So, you’re the new girl?”

At this point she should just legally change her name to New Girl.

“Gladwynn Grant, yes.”

“Gwendolyn? What a nice name. You related to Granny Grant?”

Gladwynn laughed. “If you mean Lucinda Grant, then, yes, I am. She’s my grandmother. But my name is actually Gladwynn.”

“Oh. Sorry about that. Your grandmother was my sixth grade teacher. Everyone thought she was mean, but she was the best teacher I ever had. Helped me with my reading when no one else did. I never held it against her that she put me in the corner that one day. I deserved it.”

“I deserved it when she did it to me too.”

It was Justin’s turn to laugh. “Okay, so details on the accident, right?”

“Yep, if there are any you can give me.”

“I can give you a few, but the main report will come from the state police. They are the main investigators on scene. I can tell you that it happened around 5:30. It was one vehicle going at a high rate of speed in slushy conditions. It went off the road, hit an embankment and flipped onto its roof. One occupant, the driver. She had to be cut out of the car. I don’t have any details on her condition, and I’m not allowed to give out names.”

“That’s fine. That will give me a little to go on at least. More than the state police.”

Justin snorted. “Yeah. That’s true most of the time. They’re pretty hard to get any information from. A lot of good guys but they do live up to that nickname of Gray Gods sometimes.”

“Okay, well thank you Mr. – “

Justin laughed. “Don’t call me mister anything. I’m just Justin. About the accident, though — I don’t know if it was just the weather. Ellory said something as they were loading her into the ambulance about her brakes not working.”

“Ellory?”

“Ellory Banks. She’s the manager of Citizens Bank downtown and on every board and in every organization you can imagine. Hey, wait. Don’t put her name in there unless you get it from the staties.  Identification of victims can’t come from emergency responders. State and federal laws and all that. You know what? You’d better keep that whole brake thing off the record too. She hit her head pretty hard and her brother is a local mechanic. He might take offense to that since he probably does all the work on her car.”

Gladwynn wrote Ellory’s name down, circled it and wrote “off the record” next to it.

She thanked Justin again, hung up, and took her notepad with her to Liam’s office for a crash course on how to write a news story.

The Spring of Cary: Houseboat (1958)

Today Erin of Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, and I are starting a spring feature called Spring of Cary Grant. We will be watching one Cary Grant movie a week and sharing our impressions of it on Thursdays.

I gathered this list of movies together not because they are his best movies, but because I either hadn’t seen them yet or had not seen them in years.

This week we are writing about Houseboat. Next week we will be writing about The Awful Truth.

Houseboat was released in 1958 and stars Cary and Sophia Loren.

Cary plays Tom Winters, a man whose estranged wife has passed away.

Sophia portrays Cinzia Zaccardi, the daughter of a famous Italian composer who is in the United States while he is touring and wants to experience life in the United States before she has to go back. She’s supposed to be 22 and I thought she looked older but she was actually 24 when the movie was made.

Cary was 54. I’ll just leave that where it is.

The opening of the movie was pretty heartbreaking and it doesn’t give too much away to say that the mother of Tom’s children has passed away and their father, who they rarely see, has returned from Europe. He was preparing to divorce their mother and they had been separated for four years so he didn’t know the children very well.

There is a definite undercurrent of sadness in the movie, but thankfully there is plenty of comedy.

As we get into the movie we realize Cary’s character truly is clueless about how to be a father.

He’s also a bit of a jerk. Then again the other men in the movie are sort of jerks too. Most of them needed slapping. A few of the women did as well.

Luckily,  he learns how to be a better father and a better person as the movie goes on.

There are some downright ridiculous moments in this movie, but I need a bit of ridiculous this week.

There were also a lot of heartbreaking moments of children really acting out in grief and their lives being turned upside down.

The child actors were excellent in this. I think they might have actually had more range than Cary in this one.

There was something awkward about this movie for me and I thought it was only because of the age gap, but when I read about the movie and how it came about, the awkwardness continued.

According to IMBD: “The original screenplay was written by , ‘s wife at the time. Grant originally wanted it to star her, but his extramarital affair with  complicated the project. Grant decided to have Loren replace Drake. Adding insult to injury, it was drastically rewritten to accommodate Loren by two other writers, Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson (who also directed), bearing little resemblance to her original script, she received no writing credit, and the reworked script was Oscar®-nominated for Best Original Story and Screenplay.”

Ouch. I can’t even imagine that heartache. But here is some more complication – Sophia apparently wasn’t as in love with Cary as he was with her because before filming started she married another man, which is why I think the chemistry between them really wasn’t there for me. Cary, who was reportedly heartbroken, tried to back out of the movie but couldn’t because of his contract and so the director helped make it go smoothly – how, I have no idea.

I guess Cary got over it eventually since he was married five times (two times after that) Ha!

I guess this wasn’t a great kick off for The Spring of Cary Grant – learning about his personal life, but I still enjoy his movies. I hope that he apologized to his previous wife for that one before they both passed away. Eek! I did read that they actually remained friends until his death, so I think they did make amends.

Also, Cary had a lot of issues from his childhood that he carried into adulthood and that affected his relationships with women, unfortunately. It’s not an excuse but it does help me understand his issues in that area a little bit better.

And, again, it doesn’t take away from his acting ability or his movies.

I’m looking forward to writing about The Awful Truth next week, which I already watched when I planned on doing this feature myself. I’m so glad Erin decided to jump in with me. You can find her impressions of Houseboat on her blog.

The movies of Cary’s that we will be watching next include:

The Awful Truth

My Favorite Wife

An Affair To Remember

Holiday

Operation Petticoat

Suspicion

Notorious

Sunday Bookends: Finding a YouTuber I thought I lost, finishing books (someday), still working on the book I’m writing

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, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.

What I/we’ve been reading

I am still reading Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie because I worked on my book a lot last week instead of reading it. I hope to finish the book this week.

I am also reading Meant to Bee by Storm Shultz, a short romance novel. I plan to have that finished today.

The Boy and I are reading Fellowship of the Ring and we are not reading it as quickly as I think we should so this week I am telling him we need to set aside an hour a day for each of us just to finish it. Not an hour straight but maybe half an hour here and half an hour there. I hope to finish this book before the end of the school year, which will be June 3 for us.

Little Miss and I have been slow readers lately but I really would like to finish The Place of the Big Read Apples by Roger Lea MacBride this week and move on to something else.

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote about what we did last week in yesterday’s post. I mentioned that our temperature was close to 70 yesterday and was going to drop into the 30s overnight and it did, sadly. Yesterday we went outside without coats and today I woke up to snow on the ground. This week is supposed to warm up some, but not yet too close to 70.

This coming week the kids have classes – gymnastics for Little Miss and bass lessons for The Boy.

Little Miss usually has gymnastics on Saturdays but this past week she had an Easter egg hunt instead so we are making up her class tomorrow.

The bass lesson will be The Boy’s first and it’s about a 45-minute drive north so I am enlisting the help of my dad to take either Little Miss to her class or The Boy to his.

What’s planned for your week this week?

What We watched/are Watching

I was so excited this week when my friend Erin from Still Life, With Cookie Crumbs, told me she was watching a Youtuber I like. I was excited because I had lost this YouTuber in my list of subscriptions and it was driving me crazy! Little Miss sometimes watches kids’ shows on YouTube and she will subscribe to anything she watches so I had hundreds of subscriptions, many of which I did not want, and I could not find Forgotten Way Farms or remember it’s name! When Erin reminded me of the name I was so happy. Why was I happy? Well, because my life is a little sad and sometimes I enjoy an escape in videos that are fairly light, mundane, and calming.

This vlogger records her everyday life and cooks and has a very soothing voice, so I enjoy watching her. I am fairly certain I shared her on the blog before but when I went back to find the video I had shared to remind me of her channel name, I couldn’t find it.

Now that I found it again, I have the notifications set that it will tell me every time she posts.

This week I also watched Darling Desi who has now moved from Utah to Connecticut but still vlogs about cottage core-type stuff and fluffy books she reads.

The Husband and I didn’t have as much time to watch things this week but we did watch the final episode of the first season of Miss Scarlet and The Duke. We are behind because there are three seasons of the show.

We also watched Yes, Minister which is a British sitcom from the 1970s and is very witty and funny. Sometimes it is too witty because I don’t even get it. It’s sort of an elite comedy with references to politics that go right over my head at times.

The man who stars in Yes, Minister played the vicar in a Miss Marple episode I watched once and started to rewatch recently. Luckily, I didn’t watch the end of it because it is now the book I am reading and I’m not sure if the show will keep to the book or not. The issue is that now when I think of the vicar, who is the narrator of the book, I picture and hear the actor from Yes, Minister.

This week I’ll be watching Houseboat with Cary Grant for my Spring of Cary feature and will write about it on Thursday. Go ahead and jump in if you want to.

What I’m Writing

I’ve been mentioning that I have been working on Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, which I hope to release June 20th. This will be the first book in a new cozy mystery series.

I worked on the book a lot this past week, which gave me less time to write blog posts.

I have started to offer paid subscriptions to my newsletter and I will be offering the chapters for this book as I write them to paid subscribers on Substack.

However, I will be setting up subscriptions for longtime readers of my blogs that allows them access to this feature for free. If you are someone who has been following me for a long time and would like a sneak peek of this first book, send me your email through my contact form and I will add you to that exclusive subscriber group. I’ll start offering the chapters later this week.

I only wrote two blog posts this past week on the blog:

Saturday Afternoon Tea: Book sales, good food, and impatiently waiting for spring

The Spring of Cary Grant

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

I Smell Like a Shamrock by Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian

Tuesday Tour Oh Henry by Mama’s Empty Nest

Seeing and Believing by Welcome to My Hearts Cry

Books That Feel Like Spring by Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs

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.

Sunday Bookends: Finding a YouTuber I thought I lost,

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, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.

What I/we’ve been reading

I am still reading Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie because I worked on my book a lot last week instead of reading it. I hope to finish the book this week.

I am also reading Meant to Bee by Storm Shultz, a short romance novel. I plan to have that finished today.

The Boy and I are reading Fellowship of the Ring and we are not reading it as quickly as I think we should so this week I am telling him we need to set aside an hour a day for each of us just to finish it. Not an hour straight but maybe half an hour here and half an hour there. I hope to finish this book before the end of the school year, which will be June 3 for us.

Little Miss and I have been slow readers lately but I really would like to finish The Place of the Big Read Apples by Roger Lea MacBride this week and move on to something else.

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote about what we did last week in yesterday’s post. I mentioned that our temperature was close to 70 yesterday and was going to drop into the 30s overnight and it did, sadly. Yesterday we went outside without coats and today I woke up to snow on the ground. This week is supposed to warm up some, but not yet too close to 70.

This coming week the kids have classes – gymnastics for Little Miss and bass lessons for The Boy.

Little Miss usually has gymnastics on Saturdays but this past week she had an Easter egg hunt instead so we are making up her class tomorrow.

The bass lesson will be The Boy’s first and it’s about a 45-minute drive north so I am enlisting the help of my dad to take either Little Miss to her class or The Boy to his.

What’s planned for your week this week?

What We watched/are Watching

I was so excited this week when my friend Erin from Still Life, With Cookie Crumbs, told me she was watching a Youtuber I like. I was excited because I had lost this YouTuber in my list of subscriptions and it was driving me crazy! Little Miss sometimes watches kids’ shows on YouTube and she will subscribe to anything she watches so I had hundreds of subscriptions, many of which I did not want, and I could not find Forgotten Way Farms or remember it’s name! When Erin reminded me of the name I was so happy. Why was I happy? Well, because my life is a little sad and sometimes I enjoy an escape in videos that are fairly light, mundane, and calming.

This vlogger records her everyday life and cooks and has a very soothing voice, so I enjoy watching her. I am fairly certain I shared her on the blog before but when I went back to find the video I had shared to remind me of her channel name, I couldn’t find it.

Now that I found it again, I have the notifications set that it will tell me every time she posts.

This week I also watched Darling Desi who has now moved from Utah to Connecticut but still vlogs about cottage core-type stuff and fluffy books she reads.

The Husband and I didn’t have as much time to watch things this week but we did watch the final episode of the first season of Miss Scarlet and The Duke. We are behind because there are three seasons of the show.

We also watched Yes, Minister which is a British sitcom from the 1970s and is very witty and funny. Sometimes it is too witty because I don’t even get it. It’s sort of an elite comedy with references to politics that go right over my head at times.

The man who stars in Yes, Minister played the vicar in a Miss Marple episode I watched once and started to rewatch recently. Luckily, I didn’t watch the end of it because it is now the book I am reading and I’m not sure if the show will keep to the book or not. The issue is that now when I think of the vicar, who is the narrator of the book, I picture and hear the actor from Yes, Minister.

This week I’ll be watching Houseboat with Cary Grant for my Spring of Cary feature and will write about it on Thursday. Go ahead and jump in if you want to.

What I’m Writing

I’ve been mentioning that I have been working on Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, which I hope to release June 20th. This will be the first book in a new cozy mystery series.

I worked on the book a lot this past week, which gave me less time to write blog posts.

I have started to offer paid subscriptions to my newsletter and I will be offering the chapters for this book as I write them to paid subscribers on Substack.

However, I will be setting up subscriptions for longtime readers of my blogs that allows them access to this feature for free. If you are someone who has been following me for a long time and would like a sneak peek of this first book, send me your email through my contact form and I will add you to that exclusive subscriber group. I’ll start offering the chapters later this week.

I only wrote two blog posts this past week on the blog:

Saturday Afternoon Tea: Book sales, good food, and impatiently waiting for spring

The Spring of Cary Grant

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

I Smell Like a Shamrock by Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian

Tuesday Tour Oh Henry by Mama’s Empty Nest

Seeing and Believing by Welcome to My Hearts Cry

Books That Feel Like Spring by Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs

Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Saturday Afternoon Tea: Book sales, good food, and impatiently waiting for spring

Good afternoon!

I’ve pulled out the mugs and the electric kettle and the new jar of honey for you! I also have a couple different teas to choose from – peppermint, cinnamon, elderberry, peach, and a lemon chamomile mix. I also have a sleepy-time tea but it’s the afternoon so I would hold off on that until this evening.

Which tea can I get you?

And can I offer you one of the cupcakes Little Miss made with her grandparents yesterday? They’re unicorn colored so lots of pink and light blue and some purple inside.

What kind of snacks do you like on a Saturday afternoon while you are reading or relaxing (if you’re able to do that)?

I like to munch on dried cherries from Aldi and sometimes I pour milk over frozen blueberries. The milk crystalizes around the blueberries making a cold, sweet treat. This snack isn’t the best thing to have when it is cold out, but I still eat it when it is cold.

So, how was your week? Ours wasn’t super busy until Friday, thankfully. Part of that was because Little Miss was recovering from her sinuses trying to adjust to the weather change. We thought it was a cold last Saturday but based on the fact none of us got it (and I get everything she gets) and she has this reaction to the weather change at least once every year, if not twice (since Pennsylvania likes to toy with us and have it be warm for a couple days, then cold, then warm, then cold and … you get the idea), we are now pretty certain it was because of the weather.

On Friday, The Husband and I had a date afternoon. We visited a library near us that was having a huge book sale, attended a groundbreaking The Husband had to take a photo for his job as a small town newspaper reporter, and then had lunch at a cute little restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

I didn’t find as many books as I hoped I would at the sale, but I did find a few classics I had been wanting to read.

I was most excited to find Little Women because I have been determined to actually read it this year. I also picked up A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park by Jane, and A Red Badge of Courage. For the non-classics, I picked up the Mark of the Lion series by Francine Rivers and a Hamish Macbeth Mystery.

The restaurant was very small and cozy featuring rustic décor.

I kept taking photographs of the walls and set up. The food was delicious and delivered on simple paper plates, which I’m sure saves them a lot of money.

After we left there The Husband showed me the outside of the little village’s tiny library but didn’t let me go in. I think he figured we have enough books right now. Next to the library are the cutest little houses that were built for seniors. I don’t know what has happened to me but when I saw the library I said, “Oh! It’s so cute!” And then when I saw the little houses I said “Oh! They are so cute!”

I looked at The Husband and said, “Good grief! What has happened to me? Why do I keep saying things are so cute?”

But, well, they were cute. So there.

No April Fool’s jokes here. Spring is indeed taking its time to get to Pennsylvania and I am a bit impatient. We haven’t had much more snow but the other night we had snow squalls and freezing temps, it rained all day yesterday, and today it is supposed to get up to 68 and then drop fast to 27 after thunderstorms! It’s nuts but this is Pennsylvania weather, I guess.

I am writing this with our windows open to soak up the warmth and sun before it all goes to Hades in a handbasket around the time my son goes downtown for his job, which is only a couple of days a week for three hours a day right now. He was so excited to get the job, though. He went around town a few months ago putting in applications but not receiving any calls back.

He received a call last week from the owner of a local deli/diner/restaurant, asking if he would like to work part-time as a dishwasher.

Our town is super, super small if I haven’t told you before. The census says there are 600 people in our town, but I question if it is even that many. I guess there could be since we have a large apartment building in town. That small size means there are only about nine businesses in town and part of them do not hire anyone under the age of 18.  

The Boy doesn’t have his license yet, but he is studying for his permit.

The Husband took Little Miss to an Easter egg hunt today. It was funny because the weather forecast said it would be very rainy and windy today as storms move into the area. About two hours before the egg hunt was supposed to start, though, the sky opened up and it became a beautiful sunny day with hardly any clouds at all. It looks like the sun is going to stay out until after the hunt is all over, which is good for the little community that holds it because The Husband says they go all out and put a huge effort into the hunt, even offering other activities afterward.

Little Miss’s friends live near the little town it is being held in so she will be able to see them. (As I write this I have received a text from The Husband and apparently one of the friends is coming home with her. I’m guessing The Husband caved into that request because he had a bad night of sleep last night and is delirious.)

 As we look ahead to spring maybe, someday, possibly coming to Pennsylvania, Little Miss and I have already decided we want to try our hand at a garden again this year. Wish us luck because she and I both often get excited about such things in the beginning and then lose interest as the months go on.

As I wind down here, I thought I’d mention how I’ve been feeling a little guilty lately about that rant I had on here about dentists a few weeks back. I know dentists can be good people – but then why aren’t they? *cymbal clang* I’m kidding, of course. That last part just popped into my head, and I had to write it down even though I really know there are good dentists. I’ve just had some bad experiences and that’s tainted my view more than a bit.

Tomorrow in my Sunday Bookends I will share what I’ve been reading and about some ideas I have for my newsletter (there will be a new feature I’m going to offer, but am a bit afraid to do so), and also about some Youtube channels I am watching and what else I watched during the week.

Let me know what snacks you are enjoying this fine Saturday and what tea you are drinking – or whatever other beverage. I’m sure we will all be drinking cooler beverages as the weather warms up soon. I mean, if that little rodent in Punxsy ever stops holding spring hostage!