Sunday Bookends: One book at a time, sunny days, and writing a new type of book

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

What’s Been Occurring

There is still a lot going on in our family with – well, everything.

There are new diagnoses, surgeries planned, family members very ill, deaths of family friends. To say this year has been a beast for us so far is an understatement. I’d list all that has been going on here, but I don’t want to depress everyone more than I have to. So instead I will point you to yesterday’s post where I talked about some fun things we did this past week and where I shared some photos of my youngest running in the yard with her best friend, Zooma the Wonderdog.

I’ll even share a couple photos here:

Sometimes you have to choose joy and look for it a little harder than other times.

What I/we’ve been Reading

Most of this week I’ve been reading The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell by Lilian Jackson Braun.

That’s it. It’s just been relaxing and I haven’t had time to juggle two books. With all the family stuff going on, homeschooling, working on a new book and just being unable to really think much or too fast.

Later in the week, though, I started listening to The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien on Audible. The Boy and I are reading that together for English.

This week I hope to finish The Cat Who book and continue a Longmire book I started.

At night Little Miss and I are reading Paddington books again. Early in the week, she read a few pages of one to me.

During the week we are reading fiction books based on The Imagination Station from Adventures in Odyssey, which is a Focus on the Family creation.

The Boy is reading The Fellowship of the Ring.

The Husband is reading …oops. Forgot to ask him before he went to bed and he’s going to be gone today so I’ll catch up with what he is reading later in the week or next week.

What We watched/are Watching

This week we watched a couple episodes of Grantchester and an episode of Foyle’s War. I started to rewatch Death Comes to Pemberly, which is a story that extends the story of Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. It is a reimagining, I guess you would say. There is a murder on the Darcy estate involving the dastardly Mr. Wickham. It is a four-part mini-series.

I also half-watched an episode of All Creatures Great and Small that was a bit emotional and too much for me. I will probably rewatch it and the next episode later this week.

What I’m Writing

I’ve been working on a cozy mystery that I’ll share a bit about later. I was able to write a couple thousand words on it this week, which was a nice distraction from life right now.

This week on the blog I shared:

Saturday Afternoon Chat and a Cup of Something WarmBookish Thinking: Library sale book haulA wake-up call about my writing

What I’m Listening To

I need to listen to more music because it helps to calm my nerves.

Matthew West has a new album out and this is one of the new songs:

I also need to listen to this song a lot this week:

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