Home – A.M. Pine – Hearth Ridge Reflections

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

June 25, 2026June 25, 2026 amyofhearthridge4 Comments

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.

Wednesday Wonders ✨ {Day 69}

June 24, 2026 amyofhearthridge8 Comments

~listening to~ 🌿♥️

I’ve taken these last few days of June to catch up on listening to Booktube for a birthday month finale! Still eking out as much celebrating as possible! 😂 I hope to start listening to this audiobook on walks soon! A classic P.I. mystery that I’ve never tried, The Maltese Falcon. If I enjoy it, I hope to watch the Humphrey Bogart film.

~watching~🌿♥️ Booktube, mainly, and I hope to try the 2020 Emma film adaptation to kick off the Jane Austen July readathon! I’m very hesitant about newer Austen adaptations, because I love the old ones so much. Have you seen this one? Is it any good? 😅

~reading~🌿♥️ I’m mostly loving my L.M. Montgomery rereads and diving into Moby Dick. I have a lot of slower nonfiction going, too! I have many kindle books that I got via a gift card from my dad for my birthday! 😍♥️

~Noticing~🌿♥️ The world is blooming and so fluffy and feathery! Sigh. I saw a Belted Kingfisher on a bridge the other day, which made me so happy!

How about you? What are you listening to, watching, reading, and noticing? ~ 🌿♥️

Happy Summer! 🌞✨ {Day 66)

June 21, 2026June 21, 2026 amyofhearthridge2 Comments

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! ✨

Saturday Snaps 📸✨♥️{Day 65}

June 20, 2026 amyofhearthridge2 Comments

✨Gratitude for the great and small…✨

Make Room 🏡 {Day 63}

June 19, 2026 amyofhearthridge9 Comments

I could stare at our skies forever around here.

Getting out some different coffee mugs for summer!

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.

~ 🌿♥️

Monday Ponderings 📚{Day 61}

June 15, 2026 amyofhearthridge3 Comments

I’m starting to plan for our upcoming school year. Teachers {including home educating} are not off in the summer! 😅♥️Our poetry class is changing a bit this autumn and I’m excited to try something new!

I’m also considering books and ideas for Highschool Literature, Elementary Nature Study, and something we call the Nature Moment also for our Charlotte Mason co op!

My students here at home are 17, 14, 12, and 7…our main history timeline this year is Early America and the Revolutionary War era. We also have other history/regions to look at like Ancient etc. I’m praying about what the Lord sees for each child. I think I pulled a lot of the books in these areas off my shelves and put them into separate bins for ease to look at. A bulk of my planning will be after my oldest daughter’s wedding.

How about you? Are you prepping or studying anything this summer? I’d love to hear! 🫶🏻💚📚

Hello, Luna + Quote for reflection 💚 {Day 60}

June 14, 2026 amyofhearthridge1 Comment

Is it possible to live forgiven and not carry great loads of guilt, to participate in the salvation of the world? Is it possible to love and grow into a relationship with another person in which we are enriched and enhanced and built up? Is it possible to bless and be blessed? To give others the best that is in us and not the worst? To receive from others their best and not their worst? Yes. It is. As everyday realities, these births are wonders, whether as a new baby in the world or as a new creature in Christ. We are launched by acts of love and promise into ways of seeing and being. Our first birth thrusts us kicking and squalling into the light of day. Our second birth places us laughing and worshiping in the light of God. Like Issac. Laughter. Amen.

Eugene H. Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire, p. 27 ~

These are a few of my favorite things currently…✨ {Day 57}

June 11, 2026 amyofhearthridge3 Comments

A few early birthday gifts have trickled my way 😍♥️✨
My new 5 year journal- still establishing writing a list of things I’m thankful for right before bed!

My Kindle, my eyes and hands thank your adjustable font size and your lightness, Kind Sir ♥️✨
Stacks of books in my room, thanks to the public library and a few of my own rescued from the great pack up for remodeling

Journals, pens, markers, stickers, they bring me so much joy!
Daisies, shining out and waving from roadsides
My morning yogurt bowl
New devotional read by Eugene Peterson

New view from living room, slowly but surely
BTS Oreos from kids
Deck garden, everything shooting up!
Read alouds with kids
Sky, green, clouds

So many good little gifts…thank you, Lord 🌿♥️~

Refuge ♥️🌿 {Day 55}

June 7, 2026June 7, 2026 amyofhearthridgeLeave a comment

Then I pray to you, O LORD.

I say, “You are my place of refuge.

You are all I really want in life.

~Psalm 142:5, NLT ♥️🌿

Six in Six 🌸📚☕️ {Day 54}

June 6, 2026 amyofhearthridge5 Comments

Beauty in the midst of construction zone! 😅🥰

I’ve enjoyed Jessica’s blog for awhile now and I saw she was joining in a bookish blog hop about our 2026 reading! I used to blog hop a lot and really enjoyed linking up with others over a common topic. 😍 I’m joining her at Words & Peace for this reading meme reflecting about your first six months of reading.

Instructions from Emma at Words & Peace:

In 2021, Jo at The Book Jotter started hosting the meme Six in Six.
She stopped blogging in 2025, so I have decided to host it myself.

What is 6 in 6?

The idea is to look back at the books you have read so far in the six months of this year.
Now, I love plays with numbers, so I’m extending this meme:
you can post any time in July, or as early as 6/6, June 6^th.

What do you post?

Choose 6 books in 6 categories.
You can come up with your own category, or choose among the following examples (copied from Jo’s blog):

Six new authors to me

Six authors I have read before

Six authors I am looking forward to reading more of

Six books I have enjoyed the most

Six books I was disappointed with

Six series of books read or started

Six authors I read last year – but not so far this year

Six books that took me on extraordinary journeys

Six books that took me by the hand and led me into the past

Six books from the past that drew me back there

Six books from authors I know will never let me down

Six books I must mention that don’t fit nicely into any category

Six books I started in the first six months of the year and was still caught up with in July

Six trips to Europe

Six blogging events I enjoyed

Six bookish things I’m looking forward to

Six Espionage or Historical Novels I enjoyed

Six Cool Classics

Six Non-US/Non-British Authors

Six From the Non-Fiction Shelf

Six books that didn’t live up to expectations

Six books that I had one or two problems with but am still glad I tried

Six books that are related to The Great War or Second World War

Six bookshops I have visited

Six books I’ve read in an English translation

Six books which are better than the film

Six books which are worse than the film

Six books that have sport as their major theme

Six favourite places to read

Six books read on kindle and then went and bought an actual copy

Six books I abandoned

Six classics I have read

Six books I have read on my Kindle

Six physical books I have read

Six book covers I love

Six book covers that bear no resemblance to the story contained within

Six books to read to avoid politics

Six books I have read but not reviewed

Six books I have read in lockdown

Six classic mysteries

Six books about Royalty

Six pretty book covers

Six books set in a country other than my own

Six books that feature a Pandemic

Six books that are great when self-isolating

Six books recently added to my wish list

Six mysteries, thrillers or crime novels NOT by Agatha Christie

Six books with titles connected to rivers, seas and storms

Six nature related books

Six books about Librarians and Libraries

Six books I really want to buy in the next six months

Six books that feature a building in the title

My categories I’ve chosen to share about are:

Six favorite genres so far
Six favorite reads so far in 2026
Six favorite Booktube Readathons
Six New-to-Me Authors
Six Mysteries I loved
Six Books I Read from My Shelf

My Six Favorite Genres: (many are a mixture of these below! I’m such an eclectic reader!)

Fairytale/Classic Retellings
Fantasy
Historical Fiction
Mystery
Young Adult
Middle Grade

My Six Favorite Reads so far 2026 (so hard to choose!)

The Secret of Honeycake by Kimberly Newton Fusco (beautiful, heartwarming Middle Grade)
The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas (gorgeous, Biblical Historical Fiction)
The Will of Many by James Islington (wonderful epic Historical Fantasy)
Through Rushing Waters by Catherine Richmond (Heartbreaking Historical Fiction)
Mistress Pat by L.M. Montgomery (beautifully written classic)
Dawn of Wonder by Jonathan Renshaw (classic fantasy story of an underdog!)

My Six Favorite Booktube Readathons So Far this Year: (You can still join these! I don’t follow the monthly prompts, I just fill them in as I go!)

Six New-to-Me Authors

Carrie Cotten, Christian Fantasy, The Huntress
Derin R. Hicks, Middle Grade, Shakespeare Mystery Duo-logy
Kate Stradling, Cozy Fantasy, Deathmark
Sheri Cobb South, Regency Romance, The Weaver Takes a Wife
Lloyd C. Douglas, Biblical Historical Fiction, The Robe
Michael Perry, Memoir, Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time

Want to try this one from Douglas soon! About Apostle Peter!

Six Mysteries I have enjoyed :

Death in a Strange Country (and Quietly In Their Sleep) by Donna Leon (Commisario Brunetti Series)
For Whom the Book Tolls by Laura Gail Black (cozy mystery)
Breach of Trust by DiAnn Mills (Romantic Suspense Mystery Thriller)
Alex Rider: Scorpio (and Snakehead) by Anthony Horowitz (mystery/spy thriller series)
Dead in the Water by Denise Swanson (small town mystery)
Secrets of Shakespeare’s Grave (and sequel Tower of Five Orders) by Deron R. Hicks (Middle Grade)

My library is currently all dismantled for remodeling! 🥲📚♥️

Six Books I actually Read from My Own Shelf (Physical/Kindle Shelf):

Caddie Woodlawn (reread) by Carol Ryrie Brink (Middle Grade Historical Fiction)
Fatal Fudge Swirl by Meri Allen (Cozy Mystery)
This is Happiness by Niall Williams (hauntingly beautiful Historical Fiction)
The Road Past Altamont by Gabrielle Roy (beautiful book in translation about Mother/Daughter relationships)
Followed by Frost by Charlie N. Holmberg (charming reimagining of Disney’s Frozen, YA Fantasy)
Persuasion (reread) by Jane Austen (Regency)

How has your reading year been so far? 📚📖

Wonderful words from web for wandering through … {Day 53}

June 5, 2026June 5, 2026 amyofhearthridgeLeave a comment

Sarah shares beautiful reflections on motherhood and our bodies…

Read about gorgeous trees that I love…

Intriguing thoughts on storytelling…

Kim shares her summer plans…

Wednesday Wonders 🌸🌺🌼 {Day 51}

June 3, 2026 amyofhearthridge5 Comments

listening to ♥️🌿 ~

I’m taking a Booktube watching break/Instagram break and a few days in, it’s already been nice. I’ve mostly been listening to the birds on my deck early in the morning. Starlings are loud and strange sounding birds. 🤣 Recently, I got to hear two owls (Barred?) chattering because I went out there at 4:00 am. I did get in the Agatha Christie audiobook of Dumb Witness, Poirot and Hastings make me laugh! 😂 I also got the audiobook Ruby Holler in, but we’ll see if I get to it. I decided to soft quit Calculated, my last audiobook, because I have to be in the right mood for revenge stories. I do like the main female character, though, and setting, so I will probably finish it.

Watching ♥️🌿~ my hubby, three younger kids, and I traveled to see the biggest steam train recently. It was used during WWII to haul big loads over Utah mountains?! We had a fun Tookish adventure together! 😅♥️ I read almost a whole book there and back! 😂 Otherwise, I haven’t been watching much? I hope to watch the movie ‘Summer of Monkeys’ with my kids as we are almost finished with the book. 🥰♥️

Reading ♥️🌿~ I talk nonstop here 😂😏 about my reading, but I’m currently most enjoying The Mysterious Magic of Lighthouse Lane, What you are looking for is in the library, and The Bride of Fallen Stars is intriguing me on my Kindle.