A.M. Pine – Hearth Ridge Reflections – Ramblings of Heart & Home

Happy Autumn! 🍂 Victober 2026 Heap of Hopefuls and other October Reading Chat~ 🖤🎃🤎🎃💛🎃🧡🎃🖤

September 22, 2026 amyofhearthridge1 Comment

Here’s a look at my upcoming (October + Victorian Literature = Victober) Reading Possibilities! I also added a few more hopefuls. I usually don’t have such a specific pile of books to read because I’m a mood reader. Only Victober is special enough to warrant a special TBR plan! 😍🥰♥️There are specific prompts/challenges and I’ll try to hit those, but mostly attempt what I’m excited about!

Dark brown Box headings are the prompts for this year which I believe is the 11th Victober!

I’ve already begun Dr.Wortle’s School with my local friend’s bookclub. I’m very interested in Daniel Deronda, too!

I really want to get to this one sooner than later!

If I can get an audiobook in from library, I’d love to finally get to this play!

My Kindle is FULL of Victober goodness and I’d love to tackle a couple of these! I have even MORE hiding in there. 😍😫😂👀

I’m not going to add any buddy reads other than my local friends and maybe attempting to finish the group read! {I started Uncle Silas a few years ago, so hope to finish it!} I’m pretty full with outside commitments, so need to keep reading open.

I’d loooove to read this! It’s on my 50×50 list and Gaskell is legitimately an interest to me. She is my favorite Victorian author. In fact, many of these books are on my 50×50 list!

Hawthorne isn’t technically a Victorian, but he was writing in America during Queen V’s reign.

Many more lovely things to choose from on the stacks!

Other reads I’m very interested in for October! I have an ‘unread’ Ray Bradbury on my 50×50 list and I think The October Country would be a great listen. I bet an audiobook would add even deeper enjoyment to these creepy short stories.

I also have an ‘unread’ LM Montgomery collection from my shelf on my list. I think this one would be perfect! 🤩

A friend recommendation specifically for October!

Another friend or two? let me know that the newly translated Book 2 is now available at public libraries! I can’t wait! I’m a huge Kiki’s Delivery Service fan! Book and film!

I’m hoping to bake a special meal/treat for the family today and put out a few autumn decorations! We can’t do too much with remodeling, but it will be fun to a little charm. Maybe we could watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which is one of my fall favorites! Or one of the less creepy episodes of Over the Garden Wall. 🤣

Happiest Autumn, friends. 🎃🍂♥️🥰 we have a play and an apple orchard/pumpkin patch visit on the schedule. What are you excited to read, watch, do in autumn? 🍂

Monday Ponderings 🧡💛🤎

September 21, 2026 amyofhearthridgeLeave a comment

*•loving* the deep character studies in *The Virginian•*

Hold on to the pattern of wholesome teaching you learned from me – a pattern shaped by the faith and love that you have in Christ Jesus. Through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us, carefully guard the precious truth that has been entrusted to you.

2 Timothy 1:13-14 🤎💛🧡

Wednesday Wonders 🌾🌻🧡🍂💛🤎🐌🦗🕷️🕸️

September 16, 2026 amyofhearthridge3 Comments

Listening 🍂 ~ I have many things I want to listen to, especially from the Living Education Retreat. I’m looking forward to finding an uninterrupted moment so I can take notes! Looks like a wealth of knowledge here! I also want to try a recommendation from a friend, The Story Girl Podcast. I’m loving the audiobook of Firebird by Kathy Tyers. It reminds me of Star Wars, I’m liking the characters. We’ve been listening to this as a “call” to our morning time and we all agree it’s so invigorating and beautiful! 🤩

We own the Winter and Autumn collections in this series and really love them!

Watching 🍂 ~ I’m trying to limit Booktube to the weekends. My children recently watched The Sheep Detectives and said it was really good! I hope to try it this weekend?! Honestly, my brain space/power is SO low with all the outside things started!

Reading 🍂 ~ I just finished Murder on Bamboo Lane by Naomi Hirahara and it was a compelling police procedural mystery. A little grittier content wise, but I loved the writing. I liked the characters a lot even if a bit more overtly morally gray than I like. I’m slowly plugging away at The Virginian with my buddy reader and am loving it! Very well written and funny! I’m reading a couple chapters each morning of The Brothers Karamazov, and wow. 🤯 I’m also enjoying the second in a sci-fi series, Arabella and the Battle of Venus. We finished The Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden in my other group. Wow. 😮 It was dark, gritty food for thought. Not a favorite!

Noticing 🍂 ~ September is lovely, still summer-ish, yet shifting to autumn. The younger four kiddos and I went on a wonderful nature walk this week. 🤎💛🧡 It was so fun seeing old ‘friends’ again and noticing new treasure.

What are you listening to, watching, reading, noticing this week? 🥰 ~

Monday Ponderings 🧡🌻…an ancient-memory book… 📖

September 14, 2026 amyofhearthridge2 Comments

The cellar hole that had once held a home had been abandoned for many years. None but a dweller of the forest could have found it, for its road was lost, its stones were overgrown with wild brier and sumac, and the old gray birches that had sprouted around it were now tall and arched by the winds into a roof. But the cellar hole could remember. There, on one side, a brick fireplace had once stood with the bean pot snugly simmering in its oven, the andirons holding four-foot logs, and a mother rocking a cradle and knitting on the wide hearth. The cellar hole remembered spinning wheels and sleigh bells, sizzling doughnuts and molasses cookies, fishing tackle, guns, singing school and Bible readings, hardships and laughter, snow drifts and white lilacs. Now it was nothing but an ancient memory-book of things past. The thicket of black alder, pine and hemlock that led to it kept its pages closed to all except those who love the country.

~Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, Miss Hickory, p.54-55

The Simple Woman’s Daybook ✨🍂

September 9, 2026 amyofhearthridge7 Comments

New puzzle and The Silver Chair audiobook! 😍♥️

FOR TODAY~

Outside my window… ✨sunny and cool! Gorgeous! I wish I could mow/weed-whack but already have a lot going on. It’s been raining a lot and so I’m behind on yard work.

I am thinking…✨of my tween/teen girls class I’m teaching at church tonight! Our Charlotte Mason co op beginning tomorrow! Cleaning projects! Books to be read! 😅

I am thankful for…✨my new refrigerator! Even if it cut into remodeling budget. 🙃♥️👀

From the kitchen…✨I’m making sweet 🌽 corn for lunch and need to get sloppy joes in crockpot as we have church. I attempted a cake for my hubby and I’s anniversary this week. It was WAY more difficult (and too sweet) than I anticipated and was a bit of a flop. The kids ate it all, anyway! 😂♥️👀

I am creating…✨reading journal 📓 spreads and filling in September pages ~

Working on these, too! Back to Hogwarts!

My favorite readathon is COMING. I’m starting now! 🍂✨*Dr.Wortle’s School* is my first pick with my IRL bookclub! 😍

I’m never going to read those all, but fun to dream! 😂

I am going…✨ nowhere until church, working on homeschool lessons, church lessons, cooking etc.

I am wearing…✨heather gray knockoff 😅 Arirang World Tour Tshirt and green cargo pants, sandals and pearl earrings. Probably will change into something different for church!

I am reading…✨many things, but mainly excited about The Brothers Karamazov and starting Victorian things!

Here’s where I’m at in Bros K! 😎🤣👀 I’m loving it!

I am hoping…✨ to get ahead on some outside responsibilities stuff, revive my lagging health goals, and work on helping with the next step in our remodeling. 🫣😅🥵

I am hearing…✨my hubby shuffling papers in his home office. 😅

Around the house…✨messes and mayhem! 😅♥️Two children just came back from taking garbage to our dump. We have dishes etc to catch up on and the refrigerator switch out. We have more school to tackle and a little church prep, still.

One of my favorite things… ✨the golden, blues, browns, and greens of September! 🌾🍂🍃🌻

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week…✨ Homeschool co op! A movie night with my 7 yo! “Relaxation” this weekend. 😅♥️

Here is a picture thought I am sharing for you…

Hope your week is going well! ✨♥️🌻

Mondays Ponderings 🍃🍂

September 7, 2026 amyofhearthridgeLeave a comment

Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he can’t distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill-he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness.

The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky, p.48-49

Youch. 🥲♥️ 🙏🏻 Slowly reading a chapter or two of this amazing book after my morning prayer time! Happy Monday!

August Ends, September Begins 💜

September 1, 2026 amyofhearthridge7 Comments

Happy September 1st! We are prayerfully and slowly getting into the groove this week with our autumn homeschooling schedule which kicks into high gear next week. I’m still holding onto late summer though. September has the potential to be a favorite month, EXCEPT if we get extremely humid weather. 🥵 Like yesterday. 😂

My last read for the Keep Me in Suspense Bingo Board. It’s actually turning out to be deeper and more introspective. The mystery is a bit slow and lackluster but the interpersonal relationship dynamics between the older father and his daughter, a 40 yo nun, is fascinating!

Very sweet new-to-me series! Husband and wife in small town! The wife is a wee-bit manipulative, but I loved the first for the most part.

From Instagram! August was a great month! 🥹🥰😍♥️ I’m amyofhearthridge on there, too, if you use IG!

Hubby and I went to Chicago for a quick 1 1/2 day trip! He surprised me with a ticket to see BTS. 💜

Korean pop band! It was an fantastic show!

So proud of myself for making a half eggplant and half noodle lasagna! 😅💜 Next time I need to figure out a better way to prep the eggplant. It was a bit salty.

Hope your week is starting on a high note. I’m still holding onto all the inspiration and beauty from this past weekend. I’m hoping still to make a vision/inspiration board for our new school year! ♥️

Book Questions ♥️{Part 5} ~ Finale!

August 28, 2026August 28, 2026 amyofhearthridge8 Comments

{I saw some book questions on an Instagram account called PensandPoison (I like SOME of her stuff, she’s a bit too clickbait-y for me) recently and have been having a lot of fun thinking about my answers. I think she answered them using all fiction, but I’m using everything to answer! I adapted these questions for me. It is a lot of questions and as usual, I can’t have just one answer 🤣, so I’ll be breaking this up into parts! I’d love to hear your answers and I hope you may find a new favorite if you try any of these!}

LFL finds! We actually found quite a few in this series. We like the illustrations more than the stories. 😄😉🙃

♥️book that surprised me ~ Vanity Fair really surprised me, because I’m generally a character reader and there weren’t many characters to love. The writing won me over.

♥️book that disappointed me most ~ this is a hard one, as I don’t read a lot of anticipated/new releases. I think I was surprised by how different I Cheerfully Refuse was than what I thought. Leif Enger is a bit more thoughtful and darker writer, but it was surprising how sad it was. I got to go to a book signing and loved his talk.

♥️books I recommend most often ~ possibly Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell. Jane of Lantern Hill and The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery? Maybe The Hobbit?

♥️Books I wish more people knew about ~ anything by Ray Bradbury!

♥️book I wish I could read again for the first time ~ Bleak House by Charles Dickens or A City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge.

♥️book that made me fall in love with reading ~ The Boxcar Children #1! 🥹😍

♥️book that deserves to be taught in every school ~ David Copperfield or Jane Eyre, unabridged, of course!

♥️the greatest novel ever written ~ jury is out on this for me, it’s probably a Victorian novel? or something from my favorite authors. I just don’t know if I’ve read enough to make a serious decision. Ha. 😅

♥️the most beautiful sentence ever read ~ another so difficult to answer. “Once upon a time “ 😂?!

♥️one final book recommendation that hasn’t been mentioned ~ Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace is such a gentle and thoughtful deep dive into servanthood.

How about you? What’s your answers to these questions? ♥️✨

Paper Love 💌📬📓📝🖋️

August 27, 2026 amyofhearthridge2 Comments

Decorating pages to write a little review on these two books for myself. A penpal sent me that lovely Regency-era printed paper!

Recent letters I’ve received! Just sent out a few responses! I had a big stack to catch up on. Still more to go! ♥️

Trying very hard to use a lot of the stickers and washi I have! I had those random 1920’s stickers and I thought they were perfect for *Brideshead Revisited! Glass Roses* featured letters and a rose garden! So I found some stickers for that, too!

A reread set on an island. Random sea coast type bird stickers I had.

I used up the last? I think of my Totoro cards! Need to dig deeper in my stash and see. Hopefully, soon I can get more cards.

Ephemera and paper piles make me happy. 😊

Happy Thursday! 📬🦉💌♥️🖋️📝📓✨

•leave it all•

August 26, 2026 amyofhearthridge3 Comments

I replied, “But my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose. Yet I leave it all in the LORD’s hand; I will trust God for my reward.”

Isaiah 49:4, NLT

Book Questions ☕️ {Part 4}

August 25, 2026 amyofhearthridge5 Comments

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Lovely collection of nature poems and essays by a wide range of women!

♥️favorite poem~ I have SO many favorites, but Wendell Berry’s collection ‘Peace of Wild Things’ is an absolute favorite. Robert MacFarlane’s The Lost Spells is a family favorite. Currently, Emily Dickinson’s ‘If I Could Stop One Heart’ poem is probably my favorite.

♥️favorite first chapter ~ probably The Hobbit. 🥹😍🥰♥️

♥️favorite closing chapter ~ The Book of Revelations from The Holy Bible. Wowsers!

♥️favorite literary friendships ~ this is unbelievably hard. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib, Anne and Diana, Molly and Mr. Gibson, I could go on for an hour! 😅♥️

♥️favorite literary romance ~ (spoilers 😅) Anne Eliot and Captain Wentworth, Anne and Gilbert, Darcy and Elizabeth, Laura and Almanzo, Molly and Roger, I could go on and on… there are so many! These are the first that come to mind.

♥️most unforgettable scene ~ the Persuasion letter by Captain Wentworth.

♥️best narrator ~ I’m enjoying Ishmael’s POV of the whaling world in Moby Dick currently. Otherwise, I’ve loved Richard Armitage’s audiobook narration of various classics.

♥️book I wished had a sequel ~ a 5th book in The Mirror Visitor Series would be nice to tie up the ending more.

♥️book that has intimidated me the most ~ anything by George Eliot, Don Quixote, The Divine Comedy, anything Russian 😅, The Odyssey and Iliad. Lonesome Dove!

♥️hardest book I’ve ever finished ~ The Divine Comedy– woohoo! 🎉

I highly recommend this epistolary story between two cousins that has Cinderella and Beauty & the Beast vibes! Very well-written, slow paced. 🥰♥️

How about you? What are your answers to these 10 questions above? What are you currently loving reading? Any good magazines lately? I may get a subscription for Christmas and don’t know what to pick! 😅♥️🥰Happy Reading!

The Simple Woman’s Daybook ☕️🌻

August 19, 2026August 19, 2026 amyofhearthridge7 Comments

FOR TODAY~

Outside my window…it looks sparkly and sunny after a wild, gorgeous thunderstorm later yesterday!

I am thinking… of getting some laundry going so I can hang it on the line! Also about the books I found in a Little Free Library yesterday! I need to take some back to it. Do you ‘owe’ certain LFL’s books? 😂. I do this all the time.

I am thankful for…all the beautiful stories I have access to and for my little Delft mug my daughter bought me for my birthday! She found it at a garage sale.

From the kitchen… I am hoping to throw ham, rosemary, and potato soup into crockpot as we have church tonight!

I am creating… new reading journal pages! Last month, I decided to change the way I was doing my monthly spreads. Instead of printing off every book cover, I’m just making a monthly header page, a read list/readthon/buddy reads page, and then I want to do review pages for my favorites! I’d like to decorate each favorite’s review and then write out more thoughts etc, rather than just the small, teeny area around the book covers. I get a lot of inspiration from these two amazing reading journal artists: Manda Made and Michala’s Cozy Life ~

This little space dessert postcard a penpal sent to me is perfect so I made it into a “tip-in” for Sci-Fi September’s prompts. Zoom in if you want to see the darling illustrations on it!

Here’s how I set up the monthly page now. I’m trying to use all the stickers and washi I have currently before buying too much more!

Going to be printing off the Back to Hogwarts Readathon Game Board and placing it here! I may print of this Autumn Bingo Board too! My reading will go significantly down as school begins.

I am going… to my in-person bookclub this week! We are finally finished with Brideshead Revisited and I think it’s my turn to pick our next read! Now to narrow it down! I might make my friends read a Victorian novel 😈 with me since we are so close Victober! Or I could be nice and choose something lighter as we are all homeschooling moms. 🤔

I am wearing… probably my black pants and a Tshirt for the morning. It all depends if I end up lawn mowing today. The grass is super wet.

I am reading… a MILLION things. 🤭🫣 I always try to read too much right before school begins! 🙃 I really am trying to finish a few mysteries that I’m reading for the Keep Me in Suspense readthon. I’m super interested in finishing Moby Dick. You can’t read it fast, but over all I am loving it. The wordsmithing is top notch. I’m SO excited to be starting The Brothers Karamazov with my daughter. I’ve heard amazing things about it. An online friend (hi, Elizabeth! 👋) recommended A Snicker of Magic and I just started this morning after reading my Bible and ADORED the writing of the first chapter. I’m also loving my reread of The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. The little granddaughter Sophia is sorta mean to my favorite character (the grandmother) 😖🥲 and that’s bothering more this time through. It’s so, soooo beautiful though! 😌🥹🥰

I am hoping… to continue my clothing purging project! I was so proud of myself for going through my socks & underwear. Ha. Now to my two younger boys! 😬🫣 My 12 yo grew significantly this year, so I want to make a list of needs to check for at thrift stores!

I am hearing… kids getting popsicles from dad for breakfast?! 🤭🫣😂🙃

Around the house… piles, piles, piles. 😒

One of my favorite things… my deck garden, Idlewild!

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week… Bookclub, continuing all my class prep for various autumn teaching responsibilities. Our own homeschool, homeschool Charlotte Mason co op, local mom’s homeschool group, and church teen girl’s group! Asking the Lord for peace and wisdom for all these things.

Here is a picture thought I am sharing for you…