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.

Last week was a miserable week healthwise and in other ways, and I’m glad it is behind me.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I didn’t finish any books this past week.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

I put The Rose and The Yew Tree by Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie’s pseudonym for her romantic suspense books) aside for now because, I will be very frank, the book was not very interesting and was pretty depressing. I know the murder mysteries that she usually wrote aren’t always happy, but the people in this book are just not likable and are miserable all  of the time.

I do sort of want  to know what happens so I will probably pick it back up this week.

I had some stress this week so I didn’t get as much reading as I wanted done but I am still enjoying Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. This is the only book I’ve read by Steinbeck other than Of Mice and Men. It was a much-needed distraction from all the weather issues, my health issues, and some older parent-related stress.

I started Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie to get my Agatha read in for July for the Christie Reading Challenge and am enjoying it much more than the Westmacott.

Up Soon

I am in the mood for a Nancy Drew book so I will be finding one to read soon. I also have an original Hardy Boys book I want to read.

What The Family is Reading

The Husband is reading Valor by Amanda Yanul.

Little Miss and I did not really read together at all this week. We were just hot, miserable, and had cabin fever/

New arrivals to my bookshelf

No new arrivals this week.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched a few episodes of As Time Goes By, an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, a few episodes of Murder, She Wrote, and an old movie called The Reluctant Debutante with Rex Harrison, some other lady, and Angela Lansbury (it was weird).

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week on the blog I shared:

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot July 17th!

Ten books I want to read by New To Me Authors

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I am listening to The Maine Mutiny by Donald Baine on Audible when I drive somewhere, which means I haven’t listened to it a ton lately. I am hoping to listen more this week when I do housework.

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) 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?

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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 and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

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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 would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

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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.

Do you ever get over stimulated when you are on social media? It isn’t that something or anything is negative, but it is just … too much?

I was there this past week, and I had to shut it down.

There are some fun posts and some cool things that I was seeing, but it was just too much. It was like mental overload. Some of it was definitely negative. I find that social media is an outlet for people to complain and run others down.

But even when I was on positive accounts or was scrolling through people talking about their favorite books or movies, I just felt like my brain was overloaded. This happens to me from time to time, but seems to be happening more and more lately. What I had to do was mute social media for a few days or at least part of the day and watch some movies, do some junk journaling, anything that didn’t require a lot of noise, a lot of images, and any kind of scrolling, which tends to make me have vertigo anyhow.

Tomorrow is my husband’s and my 24^th wedding anniversary. I’m hoping to make it without getting injured again. Right now, I have a bruise on my arm from the cat when she dug her claw into my arm while I was trying to give her her medicine, a scratch on the back of my foot from when I dropped a knife last night, and my chronic neck issues. The Husband isn’t feeling too great either. Maybe we can just sit in the house with ice and heated rice packs on our shoulders, knees, and everything in between and have some dinner and watch a movie. Ha!

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

Last week I finished Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson and really enjoyed it. I shared a review of it here.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

I am also currently reading The Rose and the Yew Tree by Mary Westcott (Agatha Christie) for the Christie Reading Challenge and Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

Up Soon

Books I have lined up for the remainder of the summer include: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Murder, She Wrote: Slaying in Savannah, By the Pricking of My Thumbs, and Mystery Mile.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I have been goofing off and not reading from Heidi but I think we will finish it this week.

The Husband is reading The Land of Lost Things by John Connelly.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

My new arrival this week was Travels with Charley, which I bought new because I had an old copy that smelled funny and the new copy was on sale. It smelled amazing, by the way.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

I watched two episodes of Sons of Liberty from the History Channel that ran in 2015. Interesting but not where you go for historical accuracy.

A hot, young Assassin’s Creed look-alike Samuel Adams about the same as John Hancock instead of ten years his senior like in reality? Hmmm…. Okay…Dr. Joseph Warren having some sexy time with General Gage’s wife? Good Lord. Who wrote this? The staff writers at TMZ??

Yeah … it was a nice reimagining (lie) and sensationalized poppycock as General Gage might have said.

I also watched The Apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacClain, Mr. Blandings Builds a Dream House, and Andy Hardy Meets A Debutante.

What I’ve Been Writing

This week I worked on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School.

On the blog I shared:

• Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot July 10
• Book recommendation: Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson
• Top Ten Books with the word secret in the title
• Book review/recommendation: The Ivory Dagger by Patricia Wentworth
• Sunday Bookends: Happy Fourth weekend, heatwave finally broke, and yay for “interesting” old movies

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

250 Years of Independence!

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) 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?

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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 and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

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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 would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

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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.

Happy 250^th, America! Whoo-hoo! What an exciting weekend for our country. The heat wave we’ve had this past week has not been welcome, keeping me locked inside so I don’t trigger any of my weird health issues, but I’ve made the best of it by reading books, watching movies and shows, and working a bit on book four in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries.

I did escape yesterday to go to my parents and it was nice to get out of the house. While we were there a huge storm came in, I watched a huge bolt of lightening slam into the hillside across the valley, and the  heatwave finally broke.

The weather canceled most of the fireworks in the area but we could hear some going off in the neighborhood.  

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished The Unsolicited Journals of Emma Lion Vol. 1 by Beth Brower this past week. It was more of a novella. It was okay but I was not bowled over by it.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

I’m still reading Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson and enjoying it. I’ll have it finished today.

Up Soon

I’ll be starting The Rose and The Yew Tree by Mary Westcot (Agatha Christie) for the Christie Reading Challenge this week.

What The Family is Reading

The husband is reading The Land of Lost Things by John Connelly.

Little Miss and I are still reading…. Yes, you guessed it. Heidi. We have no been consistently reading it but will be this week. When we are done with that we will be reading Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

No new arrivals this week.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched Enchanted with David Niven, Teresa Wright, Evelyn Keyes, and Farley Granger. It was …. Interesting. Not the best, not the worst. A film with a little lesson on love and life at the end, but a lot of holes and storylines that just…fizzled.

I also watched a short comedy movie from the 1940s called Niagara Falls. It was a ridiculous comedy about a man and a woman who have a bad interaction on the their way to Niagara Falls and everyone assumes they are a married couple just  having a spat so they keep trying to get them back together.  It was just over the top humor.

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) 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 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.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

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