Category: Beauty

Saturday Examen {Day 5}

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The smell coming out of our public library was intoxicating! 😍♥️

I really enjoy this app and that they make Saturday a time of spiritual reflection over the past week. ♥️🙏🏻 I highly recommend listening (you can listen on their website, too!)

I jotted down their questions this week and found it so refreshing and challenging to honestly pray through them. It’s sobering to deeply examine oneself in the light of our Lord!

Does the LORD take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD?

Look: to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better than the fat of rams.

from 1 Samuel 15:22-23 CSB

How was your week? 🌲♥️🌲

what has inspired me recently 🌿🌻🌞 {Day 4}

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Planning for autumn, deck flowers, and black coffee in my Betsy, Tacy, & Tib mug…
Pulling out my owl vase , a few black-eyed beauties from my weedy flower bed…
Good bye, summer mugs…have a good rest in the cupboard…love all the green 🌿🌱🪴🌲🌳
Welcome, Autumn mugs…you feel new & fresh 🍁🍂🍄🍄‍🟫
Butterflies and moths everywhere…🦋🦋🦋
Mysterious and swoony 💗paths…where does it lead?
Restored steam tractors and my hubby’s sheer delight in this 150 Case…spark show was lovely! I really loved the quiet tinkling noise this tractor makes. It’s so peaceful compared to the truck pulls! 😅 Interesting and inspiring story about the restoration/reproduction of this road locomotive.
Peaches and new library reads… 💕
Sky & clouds…such gifts 🩵🤍🩵🤍🩵
This photo. What a brave dad! 😂😍🥹♥️

How about you? What has been inspiring you? ♥️🦋

Wednesday Wonders {Day 3}

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Listening… I’ve been loving these playlists! So peaceful and calming.

Reading…This essay from Joy Marie Clarkson and this essay from Carol Hudson! Both have excellent food for thought.

Watching… I love the peaceful atmosphere of Cath’s vlogs. If you love cozy stationary, journaling, or slow reading reflections, her channel is for you. We don’t perfectly line up in reading tastes, but I enjoy her videos so much.

Noticing…the grasshoppers fleeing the edge of the road as I crunch past on my walk. The golden edge to the weeds and fields.

What are you listening to, reading, watching, or noticing? 🥰♥️

•sweetness• {Day 2}

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Lord, you do not withhold your compassion from me. Your constant love and truth will always guard me.

~Ps. 40:11

The Lord will send his faithful love by day; his song will be with me in the night – a prayer to the God of my life.

~Ps. 42:8

What secrets fly out of the earth

when I push the shovel-edge,

when I heave the dirt open?

And if there are no secrets

what is that smell that sweetness rising?

~ Mary Oliver

Monday Ponderings {Day 1}

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The times are so unfriendly. Play me something, would you, Rainy?

Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

{starting my 180 Days Project! More about it as the days come and go! How are you all? Blessings over your week. Don’t forget to ‘play a little music’ against these unfriendly times! 😌♥️}

•plans•

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One of the greatest things in human life is the ability to make plans. Even if they never come true – the joy of anticipation is irrevocably yours. That way one can live many more than just one life.

Maria Trapp

I found this in an old journal from 2016 surrounded by lots of those very same types of bygone plans. It made me smile. 🌿♥️

August Buddy Reads 🌞🌻🌿

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Happiest August everyone! 😄♥️🌿 I realized I’m starting a lot of online buddy reads and continuing a few, too! I absolutely LOVE talking about reading 😉 (if you hadn’t noticed before 🤪) and so I thought I’d check in!

1. Dynevor Terrace by Charlotte Mary Yonge – my Victorian reading friends are huge CMY fans and I so enjoyed reading Pillars of the House with them last year. I’m still not a CMY super fan, but the conversation is lovely.

2. I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger – I’m so excited to read this fourth book of Enger’s as apart of my Leif Along this year. This a brand new book from my favorite modern author who happens to be a Midwesterner, too! ♥️

3. The Peterkin Papers by Lucretia P. Hale – sweet , family-ish tale. Excited to read a lighter story for balancing out Kristin Lavransdatter. 😅

Of course, I’m continuing with The Cross and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

I’m also dipping into a lot of home education books for refreshment and encouragement. 🌿♥️😁📚📚📚📚 How about you? Any books you are really looking forward to this month?

Wednesday Wonders 🌿💜🌿

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Listening… I’m rereading (listening) to Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury in anticipation of facilitating discussions in our co op High School Literature class. I’m excited to see what the kids think of this one! 😄♥️🌿

Reading…some Voxer friends and I are beginning the third book in Kristin Lavransdatter tale, an epic Norwegian fictional story following one woman’s life during medieval times. Fascinating, beautifully written, but a torturous story in some respects. It will definitely be a favorite of the year for all the religious and moral questions it raises, the immersive setting, and gorgeous nature passages. The story itself is heartbreaking. 💔 I’m so enjoying reading it with a few other ladies and discussing. I’m also continuing on with my Pilgrim at Tinker Creek reread.

Watching… I’m on a bit of a YouTube detox, but I hope to watch some Booktube soon. I’m especially looking forward to this one! Jenna dives deep into what she reads. FYI: haven’t watched yet so can’t vouch for content! 😂😉

Noticing… the way that light glints off things. Little pockets of beauty everywhere.

What are you listening to, reading, watching, or noticing? 🌿♥️🌿💜🌿♥️🌿

•inexhaustible•

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My husband’s cousins gorgeous garden. 😍

What do I make of all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been set down? The texture of the world, it’s filigree and scrollwork, means that there is the possibility for beauty here, a beauty inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek.

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 140-141

Wednesday Wonders

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Listening… I really enjoyed Episode S6E85 Morning Time for Moms, Part 4, with Christina Baehr, here. I couldn’t figure out how to directly link. Christina is a cozy fantasy author and homeschooling mom who chatted with Cindy Rollins. Thanks to my friend, Kate, for telling me about it!

Reading… Know & Tell by Karen Glass. I was desperately in need of a refresher on all things Charlotte Mason as I plan our upcoming homeschool year. I’m entering my 15th year of homeschooling. I’m so thankful to God for His faithfulness. 😭♥️🌿

Watching… This YouTube channel about Charlotte Mason homeschooling.

Noticing… raindrops on hollyhock buds, endless blue skies, and the way the barn swallows swoop around me when I’m on the mower. Not to mention the smell of freshly cut grass! 🥰🥰🥰

How ‘bout you? What are you listening to, reading, watching, and noticing? ♥️🌿📚😍