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
Monday Ponderings 💕 {Day 93} •cozy corners, Scripture, fuzzy beastie•
Category: Art
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! 🚢 🌊 ⚓️
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 Virginianby 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 Bookshelfby 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! 👇 🥰📚♥️
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! ~
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
Monday Haiku {Day 73}
slivers of the sea
slant of shimmering sunlight
soul green gleaming.
~ A.M.Pine ♥️🌿
Haiku Holiday ✨ {Day 72} ✨
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}
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)
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}
Lovely bits from web…
Kourtney’s lovely writing retreat plan…
Make Room 🏡 {Day 63}
Better is a dry crust eaten in peace than a house filled with feasting-and conflict.
Proverbs 17:1~
Simplicity makes room for relationship. ♥️🌿 Relationships with God, others, and everything real around us. It’s ok to love home, slow routines, and regular boring rhythms. I’ve been thinking about how on an extended social media break I start to slow down, revel in my mundane tasks, realize I don’t have to keep up with anything other than getting meals on the table and washing laundry occasionally. I can have long times with my coffee steaming into the early morn, Bible flipped open, hummingbirds approaching. I can listen and chat and make Rice Krispies treats with my little boys. I can read or not read, wear my favorite comfy flannel from a thrift store with no need for more. I can walk with my music and the wind. It’s so refreshing. It doesn’t need to become more than it is, some-holier-than-thou move, but lets me step out of the stream of a vague unease of missing out, the guilt and fear of not keeping up. ‘They’ want you to feel that way. So that you need them or whatever it is they’re selling. It’s unbelievably freeing to step back and let it swirl by. It makes me want to pray more about how I use social media and maybe stepping away from forms of it that aren’t bringing me joy and enhancing this quieter, contemplative pace.
~ 🌿♥️
