Category: Art

Top Ten Books That Live in My Head Rent Free {Classic Edition} 📚✨~ {Day 94}

amyofhearthridge15 Comments
Joining here for TTT!
  1. The Holy Bible ~ this is not always an easy book to read and I don’t understand a lot of it, but my spirit connects with it. It’s foundational to my life and faith. My favorite books are Psalms and John.♥️🙏🏻🌿
  2. The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry ~ this collection of Berry’s poetry speaks to me deeply. It makes me consider time and future generations in a huge way. It makes me think of now. It makes me consider life outside of self. Our lives have meaning for a greater purpose!
  3. Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery ~ my handle online is Amy of Hearth Ridge directly inspired by this book. There’s something to be said for hoping to be useful and a blessing to someone else in your life. How living a selfless life actually is fulfilling. Beautiful story of a daughter and father’s restored relationship bringing healing to those around them.That home keeping can be art.
  4. Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell ~ I can’t begin to tell you how much I love the characters and journeys they go through! The father-daughter, mother-daughter, father-son, and marriage relationship studies in this Victorian novel are fantastic. This is a beautiful story!
  5. Persuasion by Jane Austen ~ a lovely story of redemption and finally being able to have a voice. How one can live kindly and generously in the wake of S.S. Selfish People. 🚢
  6. Home Education by Charlotte Mason ~ late 1800’s to early 1900’s British revolutionary educational philosophy. This is so very Christ-centric and focused on the personhood of children and mothers. A beautiful life-giving read.
  7. Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher ~ a lovely story of how a child can blossom under loving and listening caregivers.
  8. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury ~ a father and son meeting evil together face on! Underlying themes of temptation, fear, and growing older! I’m due for a reread!
  9. Christy by Catherine Marshall ~ beautiful story of a young teacher’s growth and learning in a rural Appalachian school. Gorgeous lessons for her as the very people she came to ‘help’ grow her so much in return. Wonderful female friendships embodied!
  10. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder ~ the sheer bravery and strength of the early pioneers is astounding, convicting, and so inspiring! I often reevaluate my complaints after rereading this one. 😨♥️

I could have put Elizabeth Goudge on this list, Gladys Taber, Susan Branch, and many more poets! How about you? Which books do you think of over and over? ♥️✨🌿📚

Monday Ponderings 💕 {Day 93} •cozy corners, Scripture, fuzzy beastie•

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See, God has come to save me,

I will trust in him and not be afraid,

The LORD GOD is my strength and my song;

he has given me victory.

~Isaiah 12:2, NLT

Captain Blood 🏴‍☠️ {Day 90}

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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! 🚢 🌊 ⚓️

This Old World of Ours {Day 86} 🌿♥️

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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}

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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 ~

  1. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
  2. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
  3. Dante: Poet, Political Thinker, The Man by Barbara Reynolds
  4. Biography of A Cathedral by Robert Gordon Anderson
  5. Mistress Pat by L.M. Montgomery ☑️
  6. Any of my Victor Hugo
  7. A Dark Night’s Work by Elizabeth Gaskell (Kindle) ☑️
  8. Tempest Tost by Robertson Davies
  9. Letters from Cuba by Ruth Behar
  10. The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
  11. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories by Jenny Uglow
  12. Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott ☑️
  13. Dr. Wortle’s School by Anthony Trollope
  14. Vicar of Bullhampton by Anthony Trollope
  15. The Shadow Casket by Chris Wooding
  16. Any of my unread Ray Bradbury
  17. The Virginian by Owen Wister
  18. A Pale View of the Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
  19. Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer
  20. Thoreau and the Language of Trees by Richard Higgins
  21. Any of my Elie Wiesel
  22. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
  23. The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas ☑️
  24. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
  25. Revelation by C.J. Sansom
  26. Jane Austen Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney
  27. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
  28. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles ☑️
  29. Van Loon’s Lives by Hendrik Willem van Loon
  30. A History of the American People by Paul Johnson
  31. A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond
  32. Kit’s Wilderness by David Almond
  33. Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson
  34. A Chaplet of Pearls by Charlotte Mary Yonge (Kindle)
  35. Any of my Edgar Allan Poe
  36. Any of my Nathanial Hawthorne
  37. Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
  38. The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
  39. You are A Tree by Joy Marie Clarkson
  40. The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults by Cheryl B. Klein
  41. Any of my unread C.S.Lewis nonfiction
  42. One of my folklore collections
  43. The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton
  44. Poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge
  45. The Divine Comedy by Dante ☑️
  46. Any of my unread Russian authors
  47. A Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield
  48. Any of my unread L.M. Montgomery short story collections
  49. Make Believe by Elizabeth Goudge
  50. 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! 👇 🥰📚♥️

Wednesday Wonders {Day 82} 💦🌊💧

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My daughter sent me this! 😻😻😻

~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! ~

Monday Ponderings 🌿 {Day 80}

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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

Haiku Holiday ✨ {Day 72} ✨

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What says the USA’s 250th birthday holiday week more than Haiku? 😂😅♥️😍🌿✨ Look for photos and haiku this week! I wanted to try something different. I am also planning a no public library borrowing for the month of July. This doesn’t include what I have already on my pile or on hold. 😂😅 Just no new. I’m planning on reading what I have! ♥️🥰🌿✨📚 Any exciting July plans or goals? Creatively? Personally?

I’d love to hear!

June/July Journals ~ Wrap Up & Set Up 📓🖊️📝 {Day 70}

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Sunset reflected ✨

I’m loosely participating in five? July specific Booktube Readathons! I really enjoy just marking off prompts! 📚✅

I decorated some of my July pages ahead in my to-do pocket Moleskine because there’s some travel and family stuff going on. I usually decorate this one the day of use because it’s so small, but I don’t pack all my journaling supplies when going on trips! I especially love the Jane Austen stickers I saved for the start of Jane Austen July! 😍♥️🌸

Deck-a-TBR-a-Thon! Summerween! Private Eye July! Jane Austen July! Zoom in for Prompts, if interested! 😅📚📚📚

These are some summer long prompts! I made a great dent in them in June!

Two June Read-a-Thons that I had a lot of fun with! I just read what I’m in the mood for and make them fit mostly, but I do tailor a few of my choices depending on topic. Read a couple American Revolution type books with my kids etc.

June Reading Journal pages almost full!

I purchased coffee stickers and cute yellow bakery type washi so my July theme is Yellow Coffee & Flower Shop! 🤪😅😍💛🤎💛🤎💛

VERY ambitious health/mental/spiritual/relational goals for July! 🙃😱😂

What are you creating lately? I so enjoy working in my journals.

~

Happy Summer! 🌞✨ {Day 66)

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Click in to read a little boy’s thoughts on jam! 😂♥️🥰😍

Happiest First Day of Summer and Father’s Day! I’m over here at Hearth Ridge enjoying family, sunshine, flowers, and an Anne of Avonlea reread. Church and feasting, too! God is good! ✨

~

Wandering ♥️🌿 {Day 64}

amyofhearthridge3 Comments
Birthday post is the best! 🌿♥️

Lovely bits from web…

Lisa’s Summer Book Stack…

Kourtney’s lovely writing retreat plan…

Molly’s inspirational post about a mother’s retreat…

Jen’s lovely quilt block of the month…