Peek into my Public Library Stack (Part 1) 📚 + Victober Reading Beginning Impressions 🍁

Leftovers from Sci-Fi September

Good morning, friends! I’m snuggling into my sweatshirt as we woke to a chilly, but gorgeously sunny morning here! What a gift! ☺️☀️✨

I have a massive pile of library checkouts that I may or may not get to due to my Victorian reading focus this month. I thought it would be fun to share what’s in my PL basket.

Mainly, I have a lot of Sci-Fi choices leftover from Sci-Fi September. I still don’t feel totally sick of Sci-Fi, so may try to see if any of these in photo above catch my fancy! I’m most interested in Green City Wars and Scion, but my 19 yo read Scion and said it was a bit brutal and had language. I’m surprised because I’ve loved James Islington so much and hadn’t run into language before. Have you read any of these? How are they?

Cozy mysteries ✨

My second pile is cozy mysteries! I know, I know, not high literature, 😂 but just the right light reading for me, when I need a break from heavy reading or the chaos around me. 😂Think Hallmark with a side of murder. 🤣📚✨I’m most interested in Autumn at Cat Cafe! 🥰🐈‍⬛🎃☕️

My friend created a Victober bingo, so I made her grid with washi and stickers! So fun! 🤩
Crafting!

I bought a pack of these charming bookmarks (penpals I hope to send one your way!) and I decorated my first one for Victober on front, other reading possibilities on back. I need to add 2026, so I can keep them as a memory! Maybe I should make ones for the past Victober’s that I participated in!!! I think this is my 4th or 5th official year of participation?! It’s the 11th year this wonderful Booktube readathon has been happening! 📚🎃🐈‍⬛✨🍁

To-Dos! ✨Rock paper weight 😂✨

My Moleskine Daily Pocket to-do is almost filled! My 2027 version is on its way! The one quibble I have is the Monday start, otherwise I loooove these. The paper is buttery and I love how they fit in my hand and the monthly and daily set up! The spines have held up to my heavy abuse.

How’s my beginning Victorian reading going? Good! I had listened to The Importance of Being Earnest a couple of days before October and that was a perfect, lighthearted choice to get me even more excited. I found this free audiobook of The Pickwick Papers and so I’ve started tandem reading and listening and it’s just as ridiculous and full of wordsmithing wonder as I remember. Yes, I had read half years ago! 🙃😂

It would definitely fulfill the prompt for Travel and Adventure. Dickens and I are fickle friends, so we’ll see if I can stick it out! I may have to just listen 🎧 while cooking etc.

I’m absolutely loving Poems of the Past and the Present by Thomas Hardy on my Kindle. Some obtuse literature/history/places mentioned, but I’m finding it very readable! This would fulfill birthday month author as we are both June born! I thought I would enjoy his poetry due to his lush writing in the novels I have read of his. I’m hoping to attempt The Woodlanders, too. A friend gave me a gorgeous old copy of it years ago, but it’s a bit fragile so may read it on my kindle.

I also picked up at 39%? with Uncle Silas as I had started this years ago. Honestly, the first part of this book draggggggged for me. But I have it on good authority, that the next part is better and gets the sinister, atmospheric plot going! So far, the main character Maud? is traveling to live with an estranged uncle to fulfill her father’s will conditions. 😳😬

I’m 5 chapters into my local friend’s bookclub read of Dr.Wortle’s School! It’s very easy to read and I like the story. Haven’t fallen in love with any characters yet, though. You could definitely use this for a Character who Has a Secret 🤐 prompt! It’s a nice, short Victorian novel, too, which can be a relief. 😅

Reading Autumn 🍂 ~

whole worlds

leaf by –

my eyes,

heart cries

tumbling in,

passing my kin‘s

by-gone sighs

rustling, flitting

let my soul sink in.

~A.M. Pine♥️🌲

Damp treasures 🥰♥️✨

How’s your reading currently? Creating anything? What’s new with you?

Happy Friday! ♥️🥰

Oh, happy day! Victober is here! 🍁🍂🧡🤎🖤 + October Collage/Writing Challenge

Book mail!

My friends! My favorite reading month of the year is here! Victorian literature has blessed me in so many ways. It’s beautiful writing, it’s gorgeous atmospheres, it’s delicious characters, and it’s over-the-top dramatics! 🎃

I’m hoping to be posting here a bit more this month (daily?!🤞🏻) in celebration of a beautiful month here in the Midwest USA and Victober.

I love putting bits and pieces of the ephemera of life together. Whether that be in the form of a poem, collage, quilting (hope to get back to it someday), pictures, quotes, making soup, lists, journals, or sending moments through the post. I invite you to join me in whatever way you can. 🤎 Post here in my comments, write in your own journal, post something yourself in your online home, or just meditate in your heart. Let’s rejoice together about a ‘new month with no mistakes in it…yet.’ 😁

My first little verse and collage in honor of this momentous month! 🍁

Which spooky or Victorian book should I start this very afternoon? The possibilities are endless! 🍁

May your coffee be hot and your book long and wonderful!

Happy October beginnings! 🧡🤎🖤🍁🍂🌾🎃

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

  • 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 🌿♥️~

Monday Ponderings: Daisies 💛🤍💛🤍 {Day 56}

I love daisies.

You told me.

They’re so friendly. Don’t you think daisies are the friendliest flower?

~ “You’ve Got Mail”, Joe and Kathleen

I went on a daisy walk…

Maybe this will become a June birthday month tradition…

It was SO hot, but I absolutely loved it. My body doesn’t love cold anymore, and the sky, clouds, fragrance of the air was sublime.

Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

“And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

~Matthew 6:26-34, NLT

~

Deck Delights {Day 46} 🌼🌸🌺

Idlewild season {the name of my deck garden😅} is officially started! I read my Bible with my coffee out there this morning. 😍 Bliss! Have some seeds planted in those big tubs, too! ❣️ We also have four tomato plants and a fern.

I was hoping to plant a huge patch of sunflowers, zinnias, and cosmos, but it may not happen with wedding planning and remodeling. It’s so lovely to have this bit of cheer to enjoy. Grateful. ☺️

Are you planting or growing anything? 😍🌻

Moments {Day 44} ✨

•Barnes & Noble meandering• grottos with gorgeous color • THREE delicious coffees in 2 days• baby robin on my hubby’s knee•flowers everywhere•warm sunshine•turquoise earrings, red bandanna, and jean jacket•succulents in crevices•deep purple everywhere• flat and rolling fields, endless sky•

Paper Pile Peek {Day 43} 📜📝📓🔖

✨•what are you working on?•✨ Eeek, books and journals, pens and stickers, lists and scribbles, total bliss! ✨😁🥰

…at the close of the day… {Day 42} 🌅

…gratitudes…

•thankful for the laundry blowing on the line •the killdeers and geese•the smell of pine in the sun•delicious chicken and veggie kebobs•talking with Ricci and many others at graduation parties•for a hot shower •new gratitude journal•for a hubby who works hard•for remodeling •for gorgeous storm clouds•

Day in the life of…🌲{Day 26}🌲

Today…

Made coffee.

Talked with 18 yo.

Read a few chapters in Luke.

Tried to pray.

Got more coffee.

Snuggled with 6 yo old.

Wrote out homeschool list.

Plugged in dying phone and kindle.

Made my hubby’s breakfast.

Listened to 17 yo’s narrations.

Talked schedule with hubby.

Looked at dinner pool list to decide what I have in cupboard for dinner. Nothing needs thawing.

Made my yogurt bowl for breakfast. Got kids finishing breakfast (fend for themselves) and starting math and piano practice.

Unpacked a few things from car that we left after arriving home late last night.

Texted with daughter at college. She got my card. ♥️Sent her video she wanted.

Collected cold coffee and yogurt bowl, grocery list, random journals, and pens and took upstairs.

Ran downstairs, washed out and filled water bottle.

Forwarded email someone wanted me to pass on to mom’s group.

Sent recommendations to my daughter’s soon to be MIL.

Ran back upstairs.

Listened to Marco Polo group messages while eating and settling up my journals.

Caught up on some journaling.

Ran downstairs. Printed off book covers for reading journal.

Sat down with four kiddos for our morning time.

Listened to narrations and popped popcorn for snack.

Did reading lessons with little boys. Read them a couple chapters of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Buzzed boy’s hair, helped them with showers, and finger nails.

6 yo and I spread the hair clippings to birds outside .

Texted my best friend, my sister!

Listened to 17 yo narrate again.

Helped 21 yo son with his college paper for 10 minutes.

Got out leftovers for lunch, heated up ham veggie soup for my husband and I! Washed spoons.

Cleaned up while kids outside.

Got out big block of cheese, gallon bags to split and freeze. Can’t find serrated knife?

Went back upstairs and journaled a bit more, started grocery list/menu plan.

Tried to go on walk, super windy and cold. Listened to audiobook. Grabbed my son’s laundry that was on clothesline because it looked like rain. Admired the violets!

17 yo left for extended music lessons.

Call three younger in, work on each child’s history, science, and copy work. Work on some reading with my current dyslexic.

Make more popcorn and cheese and cracker snack.

Send them out to play.

Set up nature outing with friends via Voxer.

My 6 yo and I thoroughly enjoyed this together. ♥️

I found missing serrated knife. 🤪 Finished cheese project and I froze some of the cheese.

Sat down and started listening to The Raphael Affair, almost finished.

Watched one Booktube video.

Got kids ready for going with dad and picking up cousins for church. Found socks, shoes, sweatshirts.

Now blogging 😅 and thinking of dinner prep (egg sausage casserole), and which book to read.

Need to finish grocery list/menu plan.

Need to finish unpacking car.

Maybe start packaging up books for an east coast friend or write a pen pal letter?

I could sweep kitchen floor and scrub table too. 🤔

Fun 🤩 favorites reads from April!

I love these sort of post as I don’t often realize all that I’m doing while in the midst of it! Also it’s a record and a memory of a wonderful life! I’m so blessed to be a home keeper and home schooling mama. A favorite quote I heard again this past weekend was about “a long obedience in the same direction”. May that be so of my faith journey and my relationships. 🙏🏻♥️

What did you do today? I bet you’d be surprised if you jotted down the minute details as closely as possible. Happy Wednesday! ♥️

What I’ve Been Up To… {Day 61} •journals and books•♥️❄️☕️

Hello, Friends! ☕️♥️

I’ve really been leaning into my phrase ‘expectant attention’ during this beginning space of the year. How are you doing? I’ve been soooo enjoying trying new reads, mainly from the library, on my Kindle especially, and pulling a few things off my shelves. I have finished a few Winter ❄️ list items, but I’m not stressing it. The reality of the online book world is that it’s easy to rush or feel F.O.M.O. and it’s so refreshing to buck all trends, lists, etc UNLESS these things are bringing me joy. The truth is *whispers* that most of this isn’t that important in the grand scheme of life. I can let it go at any time and pick it up again.

My new spiritual journal. It was a bit pricey, (Take a Note Brand) BUT I’m excited to change up the way I process my prayer/Bible/spiritual journey. This journal is much more structured than what I’ve used in the past! I LOVE the horizontal, two-page, one week lay out.

I got my journal a bit later in January, so my opening pages are a bit empty, but it was so fun to put in a few things the Lord has been showing me through all the inspiration I’ve been seeing and trying to deeply pay attention to!

I also began my 2025 Daily Pocket Moleskine! Sigh. It brings me so much joy. ♥️❄️☕️🥰 Not pictured is my reading journal which I adore scribbling and glueing in! Books stacks everywhere are getting a bit of a pruning today, but I’m so grateful for my stuffed home library and my public library. I’ve been freely quitting books that aren’t for me, EXCEPT my poetry selections and spiritual devotions. I definitely put more effort into those. Here are a few snaps of bookish loveliness. 🥰♥️

Trying these out…
These are formulaic and predictable. 😆 But I love the domestic coziness. The female characters are sweet and helpless. The love interests are a bit insufferable 😬😂, but I enjoy them occasionally. They are squeaky ‘clean’, too. Do you have any reads like this?
More try-a-chapter stacks…

That’s all, folks. 😅♥️ I’ve been just plugging along at all our homeschool responsibilities and trying to keep ahead of dishes and keep enough food on the table for these giant kids (read: mainly the 19 & 17 yo boys 🤣)!! I have some writing due soon and poems for my February poem postcard challenge. It’s freakishly cold 🥶 here and yet, I’m doing ok. God is faithful to send us little flashes of beauty and wonder in the midst of the mundanity. ♥️🥰

Light reflected✨

How are you? Reading or creating anything? Anything specific bringing you joy? 🥰 Bless each and every one of you. Happy Saturday! ♥️☕️📬💌📚✒️📝♥️❄️✨

Monday Ponderings…{Day 60} •broken pieces•

…broken pieces glued back together again…

Happy First Monday in January, friends! 🌲❄️ A bit of a ‘what’s-on-my-heart-currently-collage”…

…There is a Tenant here.

Come home, roamer of earth, to this room and find

a timeless Heart under your own heart beating,

a Bird of beauty singing under your mind.

~excerpt from ‘The Kingdom of God’ by Jessica Powers~

I’ve been thinking a lot about the character Kel in the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce. I really like how fiercely tenacious, loyal, and single-minded she is! It made me think of this clip of my favorite K-pop star. It is insane how hard he throws himself into this dance. How am I living out my life and my faith? Am I fierce, tenacious, loyal, insanely hard-working towards all the Lord Jesus is whispering to me? I realize that these art forms are fictional and unrealistic, but they inspire me deeply! And that makes them real to me. How ‘bout you? What’s jumping out to you?

A beautiful, rich song from Josh Garrel’s album Home for you as you start a new week and for those of you back-to-{home}-school moms out there! This is why we sow and invest!

Words I loved in 1 Chronicles ~ sing, proclaim, declare, thank, testify, boast, remember, ascribe, save, gather, rescue, humble, strong, courageous, willingly, undivided, keep, carry out ~

I’m slowly starting to work on poems for my annual joining of the Peace Poem Project. (There’s still time to sign up! worldpeacepoets@gmail.com ~ you mail out a poem on a postcard throughout February) I’ve started So Big Edna Ferber with 3 buddy reading friends! It’s beautiful so far! I’m also 3/4ths my way through The Goblin Emperor. It’s a very interesting fantasy so far, so slow and full of cozy details. I’m going to be limiting social media, in the hopes for beautiful boredom and a quiet mind to settle down over me, mantle-like.

When you pay attention to boredom it gets unbelievably interesting. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

Feeding my body as well as my heart & soul…☀️

I’ll leave you with this quote of gorgeousness and a poem…

I have been finding new comfort in the two words, which are used by each of the four evangelists in telling the end of the story of the feeding of the Five Thousand. They speak of “broken pieces”, and the same words are used by two in telling of the later miracle. There was nothing over but broken pieces, and yet of those fragments our Lord said, Gather them up that nothing be lost. Even so, our dear Lord cares for the broken pieces of our lives, the fragments of all we meant to do, the little that we have to gather up and offer, and He will use even these fragments. He will not let even the least of our little broken things be lost.

Amy Carmichael, p. 177, Edges of His Ways, emphasis mine

•thrashed•

a trapped animal

thrashing

wildly

hurts

itself

more

than

the

trap

but

there’s

some

scratches

and

dents

on

that

‘ole

metal

heart

teeth

dulled

but

who

wins

the

hard

unmoveable

or

the

wounded

flesh?

❄️🌲A.M. Pine🌲 ❄️

…joy in the morning… {Day 33}

Hello 👋 ~ it’s been awhile! Life got a bit life-y and I had to step away. I’m back, though, and excited by all the bits of loveliness and joy around me, if I really take the time to see.

Gratitude list..

~reading about the prophet Elijah the Tishbite, in 1 & 2 Kings~

~Irish Spring soap 🧼 smell, packaging saved for bookmarks~

~Elizabeth Foss book lists~

~ October loveliness over at Elizabeth’s Inkberry Hill Cottage ~

~fat, jolly pumpkins and gourds~

~twinkle lights, flick & flare of my alpine forest candle lit first thing~

~older kids watercolor class~

~ reading Sam Campbell’s nature memoir together, a new-to-us author that we are loving~

~ nature ramblings with local friends~

~ library hauls, especially picture books~

~cardigan, sweatshirt weather, hooded little people, stocking-capped big kids~

~ 5 yo’s new habit of putting hands in pockets, so cute~

~ trying to resurrect a writing practice, lost my way in media jungle, Neil Gaimen’s Instructions intrigues me and is inspiring~

~using my older son’s Bluetooth speaker~

~my Kindle, trying A Portrait of the Malefactress as a Young Women by Karilyn M. Van Brugge, currently~

~ Victorian literature, especially Sylvia’s Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell, just so cozy and rich in character~

~photography eyes, peeking around corners~

~shaking pumpkin spice into my ground coffee before brewing~

~kids and I journaling to Vivaldi, a child told me it helps them concentrate 🥹♥️~

~Christmas gift secrets beginning around the house~

~long talks with 17 yo on commute to church~

~watching a Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes episode on YouTube with that same son~

~dipping into Susan Branch’s Autumn 🍂 book~

~ ‘try a 100 pages’ rule working well to weed out reads that aren’t for me~

~1/2 hour of reading/quiet while waiting for violin lesson to finish~

~first frost on pumpkins~

~Tombow Fudenosuke pens, swoon~

~podcast episode with my favorite musician~

~bringing all my geraniums indoors~

~feeling of pizza dough as I knead it~

~YouTube/Instagram breaks~

~Michael Hague deep dive with younger kids~

How about you? What is reaching out to you? 🍁♥️