Saturday Afternoon Chat: Spring is struggling to start and the skunk-sprayed cat saga continues

The neighbor’s forsythia bush bloomed this week, and our son and I worried that the frost that came the next day might kill it. At first, it looked like it had, but today more buds came out on not only it but the lilac bush in the backyard and many other trees around our house.

Yes, frost in early April. I am among those who are depressed about it being so cold in spring, but I remember the year we moved here, there was snow on the ground in May.

Talk about a depressing sight! I’ll take the up and down temperatures for now over snow, but my sinuses, specifically my inner ear, are not pleased with the roller coaster weather changes that have been happening for more than a month now.

We’ve gone from 30-degree temps to temps in the 70s from one day to the next some weeks. It’s also been very gloomy, with the sun often hiding behind clouds.

Today, however, we do have some sun, and it will be getting up into the 50s. In addition to the forsythia, there are daffodils growing up at my neighbors’ too.

Their bushes and flowers are so far away from their house due to their absolutely huge front yard that they really can’t see or enjoy the flowers or bush that pop up in the spring anyhow so we enjoy them for them.

With spring weather comes skunk mating season, of course, and with skunk mating season comes more skunks in our yard which is probably why our youngest cat, Cass, was sprayed last Friday, as I mentioned in my post last week. We didn’t realize until a couple days later that the skunk probably got him in the eye and we only realized this when his right eye started gooping up with infection.  

The vet was nice enough to mail us medicine so we wouldn’t have to make the 45-minutes drive north but my Thursday Cass’s second eye was infected and by Friday the medicine had not arrived, so we headed to the vet to pick up an extra tube.

Between his nightly crying that started before the skunk incident, and now this, Cass is a bit of a handful, but he loves the kids and enjoys curling up with them and they love him as well. At first his adoration was for Little Miss but earlier today he saw The Boy in the kitchen window and came running to try to get to him, just at the sight of him.

He’s not a big fan of me anymore because I am the one who has to wipe his eye or put the medicine in.

Last weekend we went to my parents for Easter Sunday and The Husband hid some eggs for Little Miss to find.

I’m not sure how much longer that tradition will last since she will be 12 this year, but I am enjoying it while I can.

This upcoming week won’t be super busy, that I know of. I will be sitting with Mom one day since Dad has a doctor’s appointment and will take Little Miss to her art class on Friday. That’s another 45-minute drive because as I have mentioned more than once on this blog, it seems just about everything is a 45-minute drive from where we live.

I didn’t do as well this week with staying off social media. I wasn’t on Instagram a ton, but I was on it more than I wanted to be.  I barely go on Facebook anymore because of how awful it has become. I no longer see updates from my friends. Instead, they are always pushing pages at me that I have no interest in. Many of the stories on there are also AI generated and full of inaccuracies and sometimes out and out lies.

I’ve had a stuffed right ear for about a week or more so some mornings it was easier to sit for a while and scroll. However, there were a couple of mornings where I broke myself out of that habit and sat and read a book or devotional instead. Those mornings were much more relaxed, so I hope to do more of that this week.

I hope to do more “analogue” thinks like journaling, sketching, and reading in general this week. The most relaxed I feel is when I am drawing, coloring, or messing around with my junk journal while watching an old movie.

How was your week last week? Have anything exciting on tap for next week? Let me know in the comments!

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot April 10

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it. Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

This week has been a bit crazy. Last Friday the youngest cat was sprayed with a skunk. It was an ordeal to get him bathed and then there is this whole thing with him crying in the middle of the night, waking The Husband, who has a hard time going back to sleep and is tired for work the next day.

On Monday his eye became goopy. On Tuesday we called the vet who said they could give us some ointment without us driving 45-minutes for him to be seen. They agreed to mail it but that didn’t happen until Wednesday.

Today the second eye became infected, so it looks like we have to drive to the vet tomorrow to get the ointment instead of waiting for the one they mailed to arrive. There are pros to living in a rural area but there are also a lot of cons.

Anyhow, without further ado….let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity.  Oh, who are we kidding?  Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!  

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household  – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting! 

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more. 

Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!

Rena from Fine, Whatever writes about style, midlife, and the “fine whatever” moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she’s been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.

We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting: Family Caregivers



Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

Soma has a tutorial on making notepads and journals

Gail is loving her purple pants

The Cannary Family repaired the attic door and spruced it up

Cat is sharing about her March reads!

Nicole is talking about changes in her writing life

God’s Growing Graden is Sharing 15 Favorite Posts!

Important things to know about the link-up:

This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted. 

Please link only blog posts you created yourself. 

Please link directly to the URL of your post and not the main address of your blog.

Please do not add links to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos or Shorts, Instagram or Facebook Reels, TikTok videos, or any other “social media” based content.

But do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment.

Notice: By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that content and photos are your own property. And you give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.

We welcome unlimited, family friendly content! This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more! Thank you for joining us! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/


My March Reading and Watching Wrap-up and April Hopefuls

March was a pretty good reading and watching month.

In March, I read or finished seven books:

The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

Whispering Walls by Mildred Wirt

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

Crooked House by Agatha Christie

The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy.

Movies I watched:

Saving Grace

The Crystal Ball

It’s Tough to Be Famous

Libeled Lady

Eternally Yours

Another Thin Man

Her Cardboard Lover

Shows I watched:

The Puzzle Lady

All Creates Great and Small

The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Murder, She Wrote

Two’s Company

In April I plan to/hope to read:

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

The Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse

Murder, She Wrote: Aloha Betrayed by Donald Bain

Nancy Drew: Nancy’s Mysterious Letter by Carolyn Keene

I hope to watch:

Bette Davis movies for my Spring of Bette, including Now Voyager and Jezebel.

I’ve already watched It’s Love I’m After, The Working Man, and Another Man’s Poison for the feature.

How was your March, and what do you hope to read or watch in April?


If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

 Book Recommendation: Crooked House by Agatha Christie

That won’t make sense until you read the book, so here is a little background on this one, which does not feature one of Christie’s famous detectives.

This book is a standalone novel that starts with the main character Charles Hayward planning to marry Sophia Leonides who he met in Egypt toward the end of the war. They hang out while in Eqypt and correspond some afterward, but drift apart until he returns to England two years later. It’s after his return that he reads in the paper that Sophia’s grandfather has died. He knows it is her grandfather because she once told him all about her family.

“’We live in a crooked little house . . .’”

“I must have looked startled, for she seemed amused, and explained by elaborating the quotation. ‘And they all lived together in a little crooked house,’ That’s us. Not really such a little house either. But definitely crooked — running to gables and halftimbering!”

In this case the crooked little house quote is a play on the nursery rhyme “There Was a Crooked Little Man,” but I am not familiar with that nursery rhyme.

Due to the blitz, Sophia’s extended family was all living in the house with the patriarch, Aristide Leonides, a short Greek man who commanded a lot of presence. Her family includes her younger brother and sister, her parents, her uncle and an aunt by marriage, her grandfather, a great aunt, and a step-grandmother.”

Charles reaches out to her by telegram, and she asks to meet that night at a local restaurant. The connection they had two years ago is still strong, and he still wants to marry her, but she says she can’t marry him now, and maybe never. She believes her grandfather has been murdered, and she doesn’t want to ruin Charles’ reputation as a member of the Diplomatic Service because she feels certain the murder was committed by someone in her family.

The main suspect is her step-grandmother, Brenda, with the tutor for Sophia’s siblings a close second because the family believes the two were having an affair.

In the first part of the book, we get to know the entire family, and it isn’t very pretty. Many of them are selfish and bitter people looking out for themselves, and the ones who don’t seem that way may be putting on an act. Maybe even Sophia is putting on an act. Figuring out who committed the crime will baffle Charles and Scotland Yard, and when you get to the ending — oof. It’s definitely a plot twist, one I saw coming, but still had to find out how and why.

I would definitely recommend this one if you’ve never read Agatha before or even if you have. I think it’s one of her best, and I read today that she called it one of her favorites to write. It is definitely a book that will stick with you over the years, making you think (and shudder a bit) long after you’ve put it down.

Some quotes from it I enjoyed:

“Curious thing, rooms. Tell you quite a lot about the people who live in them.”

***

“I think people more often kill those they love than those they hate. Possibly because only the people you love can really make life unendurable to you.”

***

“I’ve never met a murderer who wasn’t vain… It’s their vanity that leads to their undoing, nine times out of ten. They may be frightened of being caught, but they can’t help strutting and boasting and usually they’re sure they’ve been far too clever to be caught.”

***

“Murder, you see, is an amateur crime… One feels, very often, as though these nice ordinary chaps, had been overtaken, as it were, by murder, almost accidentally. They’ve been in a tight place, or they’ve wanted something very badly, money or a woman – and they’ve killed to get it. The brake that operates with most of us doesn’t operate with them… They continue to be aware that murder is wrong, but they do not feel it. I don’t think, in my experience, that any murderer has really felt remorse… Murderers are set apart, they are ‘different’ – murder is wrong – but not for them – for them it is necessary – the victim has ‘asked for it,’ it was ‘the only way.”

Sunday Bookends:Losing cell service at the Marie Antoinette, skunky cat, and Happy Easter!

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 watchingand what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

First things first – He is risen! He is risen indeed! Happy Resurrection Sunday!

What a week last week was — or at least part of it.

I wrote about it on the blog yesterday for my Saturday Afternoon Chat but the gist of it was my husband had a wisdom tooth pulled under sedation at a dentist about 90-minutes away from where we live (it went very well), our youngest cat was sprayed with a skunk early Friday morning (he still stinks so bad after two baths), and Little Miss had nausea all week from possible food poisoning.

But then, to make the week a little better, Little Miss won a local Easter coloring contest from the small weekly newspaper in our county and received an absolutely huge Easter basket full of goodies yesterday.

We couldn’t even believe how big the basket was or how much stuff was in there. It was very kind of the newspaper to hold the contest and then provide such amazing gifts to the winners.

The owner/publisher of the paper is our neighbor but “an independent board of residents” judges the contest, he said, so he and his wife (who also works at the paper) were pleasantly surprised to see Little Miss win the first prize.

While picking up the gift basket, I apologized to him for stinking up the neighborhood since it was our cat that got sprayed, but he said he didn’t smell it luckily. He asked which cat it was and when I told him it was the youngest he said he feels bad for Cass (the youngest) because he keeps trying to get in fights with their old cat Oscar and Oscar has like 20 pounds on him.

“He keeps beating Cass up,” my neighbor said.

I told our neighbor that Cass is young and has to learn his place and stay in his own territory, so I guess he will have to learn not to push Oscar’s buttons. Then Oscar won’t have to beat him up. Ha.

We both did say we hope Oscar doesn’t hurt him too bad, though and I’ll be keeping more of an eye on him so he doesn’t go up there. Our properties run right together, though, so it might be hard to do. So far, Cass hasn’t looked beat up so I don’t think Oscar’s aim is to hurt him, but to tell him to head back home.

Yesterday The Husband was driving from the town where he works to the town where our closest Aldi is to pick our groceries when he called me.

As he usually does on this drive, he said to be about 10 minutes in, “Okay, I have to let you go. I’m getting to the Marie Antoinette, and I’m going to lose you.”

Non-locals would probably be confused by this. He’s almost to Marie Antoinette? What does that even mean? Wasn’t she the French queen who was guillotined? Yes, she was, and she’s also the French queen whose servants and fellow noblemen took a ship to the United States when the revolution started heating up to set up a community for her in what is now Pennsylvania. Many of those servants stayed in our area even after she was killed, while some returned to France.

Because there was a connection to her, though, there are sites in our area named after her — including an overlook called the Marie Antoinette overlook and an inn called the Marie Antoinette Inn.

My husband’s cell service disappears at the Marie Antoinette Overlook and then comes back about ten minutes later, but remains spotty until he reaches the town where the Aldi is. That’s why he announces he is at the Marie Antoinette, and he has to go.

Why did I explain all this? I have no idea. I just found it an interesting way to tie in our local history.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy

In Progress

Right now, I am reading Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse (so much fun) and Heidi by Johanna Spyri.

I’m reading Heidi with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

I am also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and Still Meadows by Gladys Tabor, which is a book with chapters for each month so I am probably going to read a chapter a month throughout the year.

Up Soon

Up next, I am reading A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie as part of the Christie Challenge for 2026.

I am also looking forward to a Murder She Wrote book, Aloha Betrayal, sometime in April.

What The Family is Reading

The Husband just finished Hamnet. He loved it.

Little Miss and I are going to start Heidi this week as she said that sounded more interesting than the other book I was going to read to her for school.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched Shadow of the Thin Man and a lot of Murder, She Wrote.

I also watched the season finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms with The Boy.

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week on the blog I shared:

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I am listening to The Best of Jeeves and Wooster on Audible. I don’t do well with audiobooks, though, so we will see how it goes.

This for Easter:

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?


This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Sunday Bookends with Boondock Ramblings and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.


Saturday Afternoon Chat: A dentist appointment and a frustrating little kitten sprayed by a skunk.

It’s been an interesting week.

Thursday morning, as I mentioned in my Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot post (don’t forget to link your posts there, fellow bloggers!), The Husband had a tooth extracted with IV sedation and we thought it was going to be a lot worse than it was. The tooth was close to the sinus and broken so it was set up with an oral surgeon about 90 minutes from us.

I don’t drive as much as I once did because of my autoimmune conditions (vertigo, weakness, fatigue, aches and pains. All the good stuff.) but there was no one else to take him, so I had to suck it up and do it.

Long story short, the procedure went well and he was only a bit loopy on the way back, and the drive went well as well. That’s a lot of wells, but, well….that’s how I do it on here. Repeating myself and overusing words.

But I digress …. The Husband actually drove us to the dentist so I would know the route and then I drove home.

I thought he was tracking fairly well, but on the way home, he told me three times in the 90-minute drive that they couldn’t find his vein at first and he told me twice that they asked if he wanted a shot to numb him or the IV sedation. They’d told him when he first called that he’d have to do IV sedation so that’s what he got.

He also asked me twice if I had his prescriptions so we could drop it off at the pharmacy on the way into town. I told him both times that I did.

In the early evening, he came downstairs after a long nap to get some food I’d made him (soft food of course) and said he didn’t even remember saying those things, let alone more than once.

Luckily, that was about the extent of his loopiness. He did ask about 15 minutes into our drive home if he thought I was really that loopy or if I was messing with him so maybe he was actually repeating his stories on purpose. I don’t think so, though, because yesterday he insisted he didn’t remember those conversations at all.

I appreciated the prayers of friends and family because I certainly felt them.

Now, I would not have let my husband drive to his appointment had I known he’d barely had any sleep at all due to nerves and our kitten waking him up at 1 a.m. by yowling. This is a new thing that the kitten that was dropped off at our house in October has been doing for a week or more.

We have no  idea why he is so loud and cries so much late at night and in the middle of the night. Actually, thinking back, it all started the week of Daylight Savings Time. First, he was crying at 6 because The Husband usually gets up at 7. Then he started yowling at 5:30.

Eventually, it was 4 and then 1.

He’s an inside/outside cat so the  night before The Husband’s dentist appointment, The Boy put the cat outside via his upstairs window. The kitten, Cass, frequently climbs up the trellis, on to the roof, and walks to The Boy’s window and meows (loudly) to be let in and we know he can easily climb back down again. I actually watched his descent the other day and was very impressed since there really isn’t enough room for a cat to walk on top of the trellis. Cats really are amazing.

But they can also be annoying and Cass has been annoying.

So Thursday night, everyone was exhausted from a long day and Cass started again. The Husband was exhausted, still sore, and dealing with the aftereffects of the sedation so he took him downstairs and put him outside about 1:30.

About 8 a.m. I wake up to yowling from Cass and notice the bathroom door is closed. I figure he got locked in by someone who wanted him to shut up so I got to the door. I can hear water running and The Boy telling Cass to calm down.

I open the door and find out that little monster climbed on to the roof, to my son’s window, and yowled to be let in. When The Boy opened the window he was hit with the overwhelming odor of skunk.

The kitten, who is usually inside at night, had finally had his run in with a skunk and probably hadn’t been smart enough yet to leave it alone. So The Boy was trying to wash him. He still smelled horrible so he was put in the garage until later in the day when I let him out to explore outside.

The kids washed him again with a suggested mixture we found online but he still smelled horrid so he spent another night in the garage last night.

We all worried he might get himself hurt but the garage is safer than being out with the other wild creatures all night. Our basement isn’t finished and is full of dirt that The Boy is allergic to our we would have put him there.

I don’t know if some of my longtime blog readers will remember, but our cat Scout used to be the crazy one. Climbing a tree and falling out of it and almost dying and then climbing a tree and getting stuck in the tree so the neighbor (who is on the borough/town council) called the fire department for us. They came out with a huge ladder truck and rescued her.

Cass is taking the cake, though, and making us all exhausted and stressed in the process.

Little Miss was sick with a stomach thing this week too so we’ve had quite a crazy week. We think she and I had food poisoning from some fried chicken we picked up at a supermarket in the town where she has her art classes. Mine was more mild and I thought it was due to something else, but her nausea lasted all week and she threw up once. She only started to feel much better yesterday.

Tomorrow we are going to my parents for Easter, Monday we are going to pick up Little Miss’s new glasses and look for a new dresser she’s been asking for.

She says she needs at least three drawers so she can separate her sweaters, shirts, and pants.

She’s become quite fashion conscience lately and has also started sorting her clothes by colors in her drawers — not sure what that is about but we’ll go with it. I’ve heard of people doing weirder things.

So that was my week — not very relaxing or fun, but that’s life.

How was your week?

Do anything interesting? Or have an interesting week coming up?

Let me know in the comments.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot April 3

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it. Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

This morning The Husband had a tooth extracted with IV sedation and we thought it was going to be a lot worse than it was. The tooth was close to the sinus and broken so it was set with an oral surgeon about 90 minutes from us.

I don’t drive as much as I once did because of my autoimmune conditions (vertigo, weakness, fatigue, aches and pains. All the good stuff.) but there was no one else to take him, so I had to suck it up and do it.

Long story short, the procedure went well and he was only a bit loopy on the way back.

He actually drove us there so I would know the route and then I drove home.

He did tell me three times in the 90-minute drive that they couldn’t find his vein and twice he told me they asked if he wanted a shot to numb him or the IV sedation. They’d told him when he first called that he’d have to do IV sedation so that’s what he got.

He also asked me twice if I had his prescriptions so we could drop it off at the pharmacy on the way into town. I told him both times that I did.

In the early evening, he came downstairs after a long nap to get some food I’d made him (soft foods of course) and said he didn’t even remember saying those things more than once.

Luckily that was about the extent of his loopiness. He did ask about 15 minutes into our drive home if he thought I was really that loopy or if I was messing with him so maybe he was actually repeating his stories on purpose to mess with me.

I don’t think he was, though.

I appreciated the prayers of friends and family because I certainly felt them.

Little Miss has been sick with a stomach thing this week too so I’ve been up with her a few nights which means bedtime can’t come early enough today!

Anyhow, on to our hosts introductions!

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity.  Oh, who are we kidding?  Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!  

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household  – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting! 

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more. 

Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!

Rena from Fine, Whatever writes about style, midlife, and the “fine whatever” moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she’s been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.

We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting: Ann at Our New Vista



A little about Ann:

Hi – I am a retired School Librarian who loves to read, cook, decorate, travel, and enjoy the good life with my amazing husband of over 40 years! Hope to share my journey of downsizing and enjoying life!

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

Shelbee can’t believe her son is 13!

Honey Bears and Sydney Beans is offering up some amazing Easter-inspired recipes in this one!

Style Yourself Confident is sharing a Seasonal Color Analysis

Amy is sharing some very cute Easter cards!

Millie is sharing about a trip to the Colorado Rockies Stadium

Important things to know about the link-up:

This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted. 

Please link only blog posts you created yourself. 

Please link directly to the URL of your post and not the main address of your blog.

Please do not add links to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos or Shorts, Instagram or Facebook Reels, TikTok videos, or any other “social media” based content.

But do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment.

Notice: By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that content and photos are your own property. And you give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.

We welcome unlimited, family friendly content! This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more! Thank you for joining us! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/


A Good Book and A Cup of Tea April Link Up and some Highlights from March

Wow! March seemed to fly by and here we are in April already, preparing for another A Good Book & A Cup of Tea link party.

This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!).

I’ll get to all the details/rules of the party but first I want to highlight a few posts from March:

|| A Curated Reading List To Savor in 2026 from Between The Bookends ||

|| This Week by The Intrepid Reader ||

|| Forever Borrowed by Cat’s Wire ||

|| My Latest Fave Reads/What’s On Your Bookshelf by Deb’s World ||

Thank you to everyone who participated last month! Be sure to tell your followers about the link-up so we can all get more recommendations for our bookshelves.

Now some tips and guidelines about the link party:

Each link party will be open for a month.

My co-host for this event is Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs! You can link up with either of us!

1. For Bloggers, you can link unlimited posts related to books and reading. They can be older posts or newer posts. These can be posts about what you’re reading, book reviews, books you’ve added to your shelf, reading habits, what you’ve been reading, about trips to the bookstore, etc. You get the drift.

2. Link to a specific blog post (URL of a specific post, not just your website). Feel free to link up any older posts that may need some love and attention, too.

3. Please visit at least two other bloggers on this list and comment on their posts. Have fun! Interact! Get some book recommendations.

4. Readers can click the blue button below to visit blog posts.

5. If you add a link you are giving me permission to share and link back to your post(s).

Have fun everyone and I hope you find some wonderful book recs by visiting the links throughout the month!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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

Five phrases that make me run away from a book and five that make me pick it up.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt is:  Buzzwords or Phrases That Make Me Want to Read (or Avoid) a Book (These words or phrases can be in the title, synopsis, marketing materials, reviews, author blurbs, etc. and immediately pique your interest or immediately make you say “NOPE”. Examples include: fae, forbidden romance, morally grey characters, unreliable narrator, found family, magical worlds, love triangle, marriage of convenience, dark academia, stranded, dragons, dual points of view, starting over, etc.)

Five that make me say nope (for now anyhow) and five that make me say yep!

First, five phrases/words that make me say “nope” and I want to clarify that just because these phrases make me say ‘nope’, I do not look down or judge those it says ‘yep’ too. These are personal preferences driven by my personal likes/dislikes and personality. There is a reason behind each of them and at least one of them is because of my background in newspaper reporting and some of the things I had to cover over that 14 years. Not all pleasant, let’s just say.

Also, don’t take my little, one-sentence response to the “nope” ones too seriously. I’m being dramatic as a joke….or am I? *wink* There are a couple I really hate, so I’m being a bit serious in my response.

  1. “Marriage of convenience”

I got some people royally mad at me recently for saying this on Instagram, but I was not polite about my absolute hatred for this trope, and I regret that. I could have said it in a much nicer way.

I very rarely willingly read a book with marriage of convenience in it. However, I will say that I have read a couple over the years who have pulled it off nicely. I didn’t know there was a marriage of convenience in them when I started but I pushed through because they were just nicely and tactfully handled.

2. “Forbidden romance”

Code words for “age gap”, inappropriate romances, or just a very cliché story. I will probably be gagging at all the side-glances, warm rushes, and “could he really be looking at me?” moments within the first few pages

3. The words ‘gory’, ‘horrific’, or ‘spine-chilling’.

This probably indicates a horror-type book and … nope! Not going to read it. Not my thing. Will be up all night with nightmares.

4. Phrases like “steam up the page…” “will have you fanning yourself…” “will leave you breathless with desire.”

Gag. No thank you. Sounds way too much like erotica, also known as Completely Unrealistic Expectation of Romance and Love Central.

5. “Politically significant” or “culturally significant”

Fiction or non-fiction I probably won’t touch this book. I can not stomach anything political and what is culturally significant to some is not usually earth shattering to me.

Now Five phrases that make me say ‘yep’!

  1. “Fun cozy mystery”

Sign me up. Fun and a cozy mystery? Yes. This is the escape I need a lot of the time.

“2. Loveable characters in a small town.”

Yes, please. As many books with this written on it as possible, please.

3. “Heartwarming” or “Gentle.”

I love anything with heartwarming or gentle feelings/vibes. My shelves are stocked with these type of books.

4. “Queen of Mystery.”

This probably means it is an Agatha Christie book and, yes, despite some mysteries having “unsavory” topics in them, I do like mysteries — even ones that aren’t cozy.

5. “Amateur Sleuth.”

I love a good Amateur-Sleuth-As-The-Main-Character book. I know they aren’t going to be an expert at solving the crime and might even make some fun blunders along the way.

A bonus to the nope list: Anything that says ‘BookTok’ or suggests a book was popular on ‘BookTok’. It’s an immediate pass for me. And anything that says “hot vampires”. No. Just no.

How about you? What phrases or words make you pick up a book or what phrases make you run away?


If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.