Happy Saturday! 🥰♥️😍
Saturday Snaps {Day 91} 📸
Captain Blood 🏴☠️ {Day 90}
Short Description: Peter Blood, an Irish physician and soldier in England in the 1680’s, is wrongly convicted of treason and sentenced to indentured slavery in the Caribbean. He escapes and becomes the most feared pirate captain on the Spanish Main, but all the glory of his adventures cannot help him, for the woman he loves cannot love a thief and pirate. Even when he destroys England’s enemies, even at his most triumphant…but wait! What’s that…
~ Goodreads
Wow! I loved this story of Peter Blood, gentleman pirate! 6 stars ⭐️ from me! If you enjoy historical fiction, adventure stories, or Treasure Island, you will love this Robin Hood- like tale of loyal friendship, ingenuity, and high seas stakes. I bet it would be wonderful as an audiobook! I’ll have to see if I can find one! I definitely will be trying others of Sabatini’s books.
Do you have any good recommendations for high seas or pirate stories with a classic feel?
Happy Friday and Happy Reading! 🚢 🌊 ⚓️
The Simple Woman’s Daybook {Day 89} ☕️
FOR TODAY~
Outside my window…golden and pink sunrise with a haze, promises to be very hot today! Yesterday it was near 100 degrees! 🥵
I am thinking…about last night’s local homeschooling mom’s meeting and how good it was to see the ladies! Need to figure out which book won the vote for our Autumn read!
I am thankful for…my cat Sophie 😂♥️She’s so comforting!
From the kitchen…we’ve been making our chicken or tuna salad a lot! Usually shredded carrots, chopped celery, sometimes chopped apples, s&p, canned chicken or tuna drained and dill weed! Yum! We eat it on lettuce, bread, or with crackers. Sometimes I shred any available veggie like cucumber 🥒 I have to use things up!
I am creating…I just finished my collage and little article for the letter/zine I write for! I really want to write a penpal letter and I’m trying to blog daily here. This autumn I’d love to pick quilting back up and learn to make granny squares!
I am going…possibly to the lake today so the kiddos can cool off swimming and I’ll sit in shade with my water and book!📖
I am wearing…a green tshirt and probably a flowy green, cream, and orange skirt! My pearl earrings and new brown slide sandals.
I am reading…I may take Moby Dick to lake as I love reading it by water! 😍😅 I’m also loving Captain Blood and Jane Austen’s Bookshelf. Among many more. 😉 Here is a wonderful Booktube about some lovely summer reading options!
I am hoping…that my daughter’s bridal shower is ok and not too hot or stormy! It’s outdoors! 😨
I am hearing…ac humming and my 12 yo’s voice (he’s recovering from summer flu 😭). I’m absolutely loving this album! So worshipful and comforting!
Around the house…we’ve have remodeling and wedding messes! 😩🤪🤣 I really need to climb into a storage space to find my daughter’s Christmas ornaments because I’m giving them to her with a new one for her and her soon-to-be husband’s first Christmas! 😭😭😭 I need to check all my boxed books and make sure they aren’t getting damp. 😖 I also need to find our graduation party box to use the platters and twinkle lights for the bridal shower. I also need to make some treats for the bridal shower.
One of my favorite things…early morning with the light pouring through my new sliding glass doors.
A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week…a birthday party/book club with local friends and THE.BRIDAL.SHOWER. 😂😱☠️
Here is a picture thought I am sharing for you…
Non~fiction Mood {Day 88}
Hi friends ~ I’ve been reading a lot of fluff (and enjoying it!) this year, probably due to our life circumstances 🤪, but a nonfiction switch has been flipped in my mood-reader brain, and so I hope to share about my favorites slowly. I’m still reading fiction, of course 😆, but I finally picked up this one which has been on my radar for long time!
The Radium Girls – I decided to read the Young Readers Edition to preview it for our homeschool. So far, it’s been super engaging and disturbing! 😳 Did you know about this part of history?
Another super disturbing and eye-opening book that my friend recommended is this one!
The Opt-Out Family ~ I can’t stop thinking about this one and I’m currently deeply evaluating 🤔 how I live with and my example to my children in using technology, specifically social media and video games. 🙃😱😩😖 Still not sure on everything, but prayerfully considering it all. I keep using Covid as an excuse for the level of media we use and I recently realized that, duh, we are going on that being like 6 1/2 years ago. 😨☠️
Do Something Beautiful for God ~ I’m a Protestant, but I value and appreciate so many of the great Catholic writers. I’ve been so pleasantly surprised by this book of daily quotes from Mother Teresa. I started it in the middle of the year last year and it has blessed and spoken to me time and time again.
How about you? Any nonfiction hitting you hard? What’s on your stack? ♥️✨
Monday Ponderings {Day 87}🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️☠️☠️☠️⚓️⚓️⚓️
A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad,’ said he. ‘Few realize it. That is why there are so many madmen in the world.
~Rafael Sabatini, Captain Blood
I am loving this swashbuckling story! Have you read it? There’s an Errol Flynn film out there, too! 😆😂 Happiest Monday! ♥️🌿✨🥰
This Old World of Ours {Day 86} 🌿♥️
The Holy Spirit has descended on this old world of ours, and there’s a Psalm 29 powwow in Elmo (Montana) every day of the year: a grace-revealing gesture, a fresh snowfall, a friend’s forgiveness, the first migrating yellow warbler, a miracle conversion, a truth-telling poem, a pasqueflower in bloom, the good death of a parent, resurrection – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-all the endless permutations of life. The beauty of holiness. And we have ringside seats. Henry James once said that a writer is a person on whom nothing is ever lost. That sounds like a focused Christian identity to me: the men and women on whom nothing, at least nothing that has to do with life-and virtually everything does-is lost. “Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.”
Amen.
~Eugene H. Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire , note mine in parenthesis
Read My Shelf: 50 x 50 Booklist 📚📚📚 {Day 85}
Hello 👋 Friends ~ a few of you expressed interest in my 50 books off of my owned shelf that I’m trying to read by the time I’m 50! A few stipulations. Two of these are on my Kindle owned shelf, as they hard to find physically. I also reserved the right to use any form to read these as long as I own a physical copy. For example, I own Moby Dick, but if I want to check out the audiobook version from the library, that is fine. I also gave myself two switch outs. If for some reason, I really can’t read a book, I’m allowed to switch it out from my shelves. I started this project in mid-2025?, so I have till June 2030 😅😳 to complete it. The huge nonfiction are the ones I’m mostly concerned about! 😂 I tried to balance a few lighter things, while still challenging myself. I kept most? if not all of these books out of the great book pack-away for our remodeling. ♥️📚🥰
50×50 List ~
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville
- The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
- Dante: Poet, Political Thinker, The Man by Barbara Reynolds
- Biography of A Cathedral by Robert Gordon Anderson
Mistress Patby L.M. Montgomery☑️- Any of my Victor Hugo
A Dark Night’s Workby Elizabeth Gaskell(Kindle) ☑️- Tempest Tost by Robertson Davies
- Letters from Cuba by Ruth Behar
- The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
- Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories by Jenny Uglow
Rob Royby Sir Walter Scott☑️- Dr. Wortle’s School by Anthony Trollope
- Vicar of Bullhampton by Anthony Trollope
- The Shadow Casket by Chris Wooding
- Any of my unread Ray Bradbury
- The Virginian by Owen Wister
- A Pale View of the Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer
- Thoreau and the Language of Trees by Richard Higgins
- Any of my Elie Wiesel
- Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
The Robeby Lloyd C. Douglas☑️- Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
- Revelation by C.J. Sansom
- Jane Austen Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney
- Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
A Gentleman in Moscowby Amor Towles☑️- Van Loon’s Lives by Hendrik Willem van Loon
- A History of the American People by Paul Johnson
- A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond
- Kit’s Wilderness by David Almond
- Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson
- A Chaplet of Pearls by Charlotte Mary Yonge (Kindle)
- Any of my Edgar Allan Poe
- Any of my Nathanial Hawthorne
- Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
- The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
- You are A Tree by Joy Marie Clarkson
- The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults by Cheryl B. Klein
- Any of my unread C.S.Lewis nonfiction
- One of my folklore collections
- The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton
- Poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge
The Divine Comedyby Dante☑️- Any of my unread Russian authors
- A Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield
- Any of my unread L.M. Montgomery short story collections
- Make Believe by Elizabeth Goudge
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
What do you think of my list ? Have you read any of these authors or these specific titles? Do you have a list of books you want to read in the near future? Chat books with me below! 👇 🥰📚♥️
Quote for Refection {Day 84}
I am not going to write this month of the influence others have over us. What I wish to prove is, that if even indifferent people can influence us so much, you must have equal influence over the people you are with. We had better face the fact that we must needs influence other people’s tempers, feelings, opinions, actions. Let us consider how. Let us go through the world in a happy making temper—there is nothing so infectious as a smile, unless it be a frown. Our children are dull and tired, our friends are cross, and our work is trying—don’t let us take these things as grievances, overwork and overworry is the cause. We begin to be sorry instead of cross, and one cordial kindly glance or word dispels the cloud.
“A merry heart goes all the way,
A sad one goes a mile, O.”And the merry heart never goes alone, but carries a cheerful company along with it. May God keep our hearts sweet and merry for others’ sake as much as of our own.
~Emeline Steinthal
‘Influence’ Essay from PNEU ~ I invite you to read this whole essay and discuss here! Do you agree or disagree? ♥️🌾 Thinking and praying a lot about my heart attitude going into this next coming school year. 🙏🏻
Words to All the World {Day 83} 🌿🌿🌿
The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The skies display his craftsmanship.
Day after day they continue to speak;
night after night they make him known.
They speak without a sound or word;
their voice is never heard.
Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world.
Psalm 19:1-4, NLT~
Wednesday Wonders {Day 82} 💦🌊💧
~listening to~ ♥️🌿
I happen to notice that I was listening to ‘Swim’ by BTS while reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Serendipity! 😅💦💧🌊 I picked up this narrative poem for Jane Austen July because I believe Coleridge was a contemporary of Austen’s. I think 🤔 it sounds familiar, I may have read it before! The albatross! 😳😂
~watching~ ♥️🌿I did end up watching the 2020 ‘Emma’ film with my daughter and meh. 🫤 It was ok. I liked parts of it. It struck me as sort of goofy. 😂 A n*ked backside right in the beginning was weirdo, too. Oh, well. I liked the actors that played Mr. Knightly and Miss Bates. I’m allowing myself one Booktube video a day in July and it makes me be very choosy. I really enjoyed Chantel’s yesterday.
~reading~♥️🌿 I have massive piles physically and on my kindle, 😂📚 but I’m mostly finishing up The Opt-Out Family and working on Moby Dick. I also just barely dipped into Jane Austen’s Bookshelf of which I enjoyed the first few pages immensely. I haven’t borrowed anything new from public library (July challenge), just reading from my stacks and Kindle!
~noticing~ ♥️🌿
My hollyhocks are wonderful! 😁 I may have mentioned before that they are biannual and these self-seeded, so I forgot about them! 🥰😻😍What happiness!
What are you listening to, watching, reading, and noticing? ♥️🌿📚 Chat below, friends! ~
Top Ten Books I’d Like to Read (or Reread) with a “Nature” Word in Title {Day 81} 🌿🌿🌿
- Is A River Alive by Robert MacFarlane ~ MacFarlane is a beautiful nature writer and poet. He tells the story of three? major rivers interspersed with stories of a small river that he has a personal connection with!
- Beneath the Haunting Sea by Joanna Ruth Meyer ~ I remember loving this fantasy years ago and want to revisit this water-based world!
- Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery ~ I’m hopeful about a long-time-overdue reread of this series!
- Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery ~ slowly making my way through again! Montgomery is my favorite author, so I’m loving it!
- Sisters of the Earth edited by Lorraine Anderson ~ I’ve been interested in this nonfiction collection from my shelves for awhile! It’s a collection of prose and poetry about nature by various women writers.
- The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge ~ another reread that I’m craving. A older career woman gets a fresh start when an aunt bequeaths her a country cottage.
- Into the Heartless Wood by Joanna Ruth Meyer ~ another beautifully written Meyer reread! I really love her atmospheric fantasy! I remember enjoying the tree spirits etc.
- Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman ~ gorgeous poetry I want to keep plugging away at!
- The Big Fisherman by Lloyd C. Douglas ~ I so enjoyed The Robe earlier this year and want to try this Biblical Historical Fiction about the Apostle Peter by Douglas as well.
- As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Eugene Peterson ~ nonfiction collection of thoughtful and inspiring sermons by Peterson. He was a wonderful writer/speaker.
Have you read any of these? Do you have a favorite nature-themed read? I’d love to hear!
Monday Ponderings 🌿 {Day 80}
When someone is doing something to hurt you, don’t turn inward, turn toward that person. He is hurting himself. Learn to forgive, knowing that we all need forgiveness. If you want to be true to God, learn from Jesus to be meek, humble, and pure. Learn to forgive.
~ Mother Teresa, Do Something Beautiful for God
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 