♥️ “He is Love itself, you know.” ♥️
~
Quote for reflection 🌿 {Day 30}
Category: L.M. Montgomery
Wednesday Wonders {Day 21}
•listening• ♥️🌲~
The sound of water trickling (we call the above stream the Withywindle), birds, wind, and I’m getting more audiobook time from walking and driving an hour away for a monthly book club. I have Mistress Pat by L. M. Montgomery and The Raphael Affair by Iain Pears going. The Pears book is an art mystery thriller, it’s a bit info-dumpy, but I love the art fraud case and Rome setting. Two police are helping an art historian unravel the mystery. It’s a series so if I end up liking this one enough, I can go on!
•watching• ♥️🌲 ~ I’m so enjoying checking my daffodils and the tree buds etc for any growth and changes. I did really enjoy this LOVELY journaling YouTube video recently. I was inspired to create my May reading pages. They look 👀 nothing like 😆 some of these gals I watch, but I had fun all the same. I used some kitty washi I had and a Pusheen stamp set we had laying around. I also found some more fun cute reading bingo boards on Pinterest. I find it so satisfying to fill them in here and there.
•reading• ♥️🌲~
I mentioned the two audiobooks I’m enjoying 👆, but currently, I have SO many books on the stack. I think I’m most enjoying spy/thriller/mystery archaeology type adventure stories 😆😂 with a healthy dose of classic, comfort reads. Very strange combo, I know, but I’m definitely eclectic! Below are a few ones I’m throughly enjoying.
•noticing• ♥️🌲~ We have a lot of Bloodroot blooming along the field and road edges. The Robins, Killdeers, and Red-winged Blackbirds have been vocal! I’ve had two Eastern Bluebird sightings which of course fills me with happiness. 😆💙🧡🤍 We saw the male American Goldfinches donning their yellow jackets! 💛🥰 We are testing our observations on the Barn Swallows. They usually are back around my daughter’s birthday and it’s this weekend (17!) so it will be fascinating if we see them! I’ll let you know! I loved seeing my youngest get to ride a horse this past week for the first time. He wasn’t sure but then really enjoyed it. 🐴
What have you been listening to, reading, watching, noticing? I’d really love to hear! ♥️🌲🥰
Reading stack today…📚📚📚{Day 16}
If you could chuck your to-do list out the window today, what would you do? 😅😂 I’d find a lovely spot by water, under a tree, or in my cute local coffee shop, grab a latte , and read. I know, surprise, surprise. ☺️😉
Here’s what’s on my stack that I’m currently interested in or really enjoying!
I love keeping house…it’s really a lovely phrase, isn’t it? Keeping it…holding it fast against the world…against all the forces trying to tear it open.
Mistress Pat ♥️🌿
Walking & Words🚶🏽♀️📜 {Day 10}
“Marilla!” Anne sat down on Marilla’s gingham lap, took Marilla’s lined face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla’s eyes. “I’m not a bit changed-not really. I’m only just pruned down and branched out. The real me-back here-is just the same. It won’t make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life.”
~ Anne of Green Gables
😭😭😭 thinking about my Anne getting MARRIED. 😭😭😭 My oldest son is doing a lot and making decisions, too!! Change and them growing up is in my heart. Hard, but beautiful. ♥️🙏🏻
If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin
Into his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.
~ Emily Dickinson
We are enjoying Dickinson again in our co op currently! She is one of my most favorite poets and I think this above poem IS my favorite by her. 🥲♥️ The prayer over my life. Here is a beautiful print of it for your home.
When Marilla had eaten her lunch Anne persuaded her to go to bed. Then Anne went herself to the east gable and sat down by her window in the darkness alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart. How sadly things had changed since she sat there the night after coming home! Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy with promise. Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but before she went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart. She looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend-as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.”
~Anne of Green Gables, emphasis mine
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us-don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
~Emily Dickinson
Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh flowers on Matthew’s grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingered there until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, with its poplars whose rustle was like a low, friendly speech, and its whispering grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike afterlight-“a haunt of ancient peace.” There was a freshness in the air as if a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The west was a glory of soft, mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. The beauty of it thrilled Anne’s heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it.
~Anne of Green Gables
Wednesday Wonders ♥️🌲{Day 8}
Good morning! ☀️ Resurrecting my Wednesday Wonders series…I recently answered these questions here, but they are always changing, so indulge me again?! 😄♥️🌷
•listening to•♥️🌲~ I’m finally getting to the sequel in L.M. Montgomery’s Silver Bush duology, using this audiobook recording of it that is fantastic! I’m LOVING Mistress Pat even more than the first. Patricia is growing up and feeling the growing pains of possibly having to leave Silver Bush and everything changing! I identify with change being hard! 🥲I also want to listen more to this Josh Garrels release!
•reading•♥️🌲~ My mood shifted yesterday 😅 and I started rooting around for things to read. 😂📚 I think I’m leaning towards cozy classics, charming characters, and delicious nature descriptions. Of course, I first picked up, my gal, Maud Montgomery! Hence, Mistress Pat! A memory I have is rereading the whole Anne Series when I was pregnant with my first. Her name is Ann-E 🥹♥️😅 and she getting married later this year! Maybe I’ll reread the series this year in honor!? 😭😍
•watching•♥️🌲~ I’m slowly rereading all the greats with my younger set. The Wind in the Willows is one of the current ones. It’s such a great book for spring! I was craving the claymation? film version and so enjoyed watching it. The peaceful atmosphere (except Toad 🐸😂) was just as I remembered it.
•noticing•♥️🌲~ Our Black Willow trees sustained a lot of damage in a recent ice storm, but I salvaged a few branches with buds for the table. The robins have been so cheery even though it’s been rainy and cold. I’m waiting not so patiently for warmth and usually by the end of April, the Barn Swallows are back! 😍♥️
What about you? ♥️🌲 What are you listening to, reading, watching, and noticing TODAY?! ☀️🌷💜🌿🍃
Consider: Second Chances 🌿
If the old earth could wash herself and begin again so often and so humbly, why could not a man do the same?
- A City of Bells, Elizabeth Goudge
What are motherhood, art, our very life but second chances, beginning again, over and over? ‘Second-chance’ is a term that the book industry labels romances that have the same couple making another attempt at a relationship. This is a very narrow definition. We take second-go-arounds at multiple things DAILY. Our faith walk, being kind, loving on those tough to love, and asking forgiveness over and over again. There are so many wonderful stories and art that when you dig deep, focus on a chance to begin again. I want to focus my attention on a few of these with an expectant heart for what truth the Lord wants to show me. I’m not sure how this will play out as I have so much swirling in my heart. A couple of stories that really jump out to me are Marilla, Matthew, and Anne’s from Anne of Green Gables, Valency from The Blue Castle, Jocelyn from A City of Bells, and Mary from The Scent of Water. All these people have been given a chance to start again or at least begin to truly live. I actually made a huge list of stories from books and films that mean a do-over and fresh mercies to me. I was so surprised by how many of my favorites fall into that category!
2nd ~
my hundredth and one
second chance,
leaves curl into bud
faithfully once again
A.M.Pine 🌲♥️
Happy April Eve! 🌿✨
Hello, Friends! 🌷🌷🌷Happy Spring!
I’m excited to start a new little ‘something something’ here. Just as we celebrate National Poetry Month, Letter Writing Month, (thanks for telling me, Kim!), Easter, and soak in the earth coming alive. A month to celebrate newness, resurrection, and the wheel of seasons turning again. I have a few things I’m simmering, so I hope you are as encouraged and inspired as I am about a freshness blowing through the windows…
How ‘bout you? Anything brewing in your heart? 🌿🌷✨
Advent Diaries ~::🎄❄️♥️Page 8♥️❄️🎄::~ POETRY ~ {Day 54}
What is your jam or ‘poetry of life’ currently? A little something bringing you joy and a pause during this can-be-hectic time of year?
~Magazine dates with myself. I take a little cash and go buy a magazine and usually sit by a nature spot (in my car currently 🥶, of course! ) to peruse it. I love the quiet, the pause, and the new freshness of something to look forward to. It’s a wonderful time of contemplation and prayer! 🙏🏻
~Scriptures/poetry/prayer/journaling…my morning routine is such a lovely time to contemplate and set myself on Jesus for the day. A few words of poetry or devotionals plus Scripture under a cozy blanket, mug of coffee, and fairy lights are crucial as I love on/survive 😅the relationships in my life. I journal my way through it all. My favorite poetry currently is Ted Hughes’ Seasons Songs and my friend, Kim’s poetry, not to mention her photography is pure poetry, too. ❣️I have a few new collections I want for Christmas.
~ Reading is always my jam! 💗 Here is a list of some of my autumn reading favorites (September-October-November) with a little snippet to snap review. These are all perfect for curling up with this winter. Something for everyone. I wasn’t able to film a YouTube recap, so I’m wrapping it up here!
- Witches by Roald Dahl (sweet, grotesquely funny story of little boy and grandmother who battle evil together!)
- Apple Bough by Noel Streatfield (delightful story of the oldest daughter in an extremely artistic family who is finding her place. This was beautiful and deep!)
- Kiki’s Delivery Service by Eiko Kandano (sweet, comforting, cozy coming of age fantasy story.)
- The Language of Spells by Garrit Weyr (deep story following a family and a dragon through both World Wars – so lovely and thoughtful.)
- Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright (gorgeous farm family story with beautiful writing!)
- The Grey Woman by Elizabeth Gaskell (short, atmospheric story. Ending was a bit rushed, but accessible Victorian literature at its best.)
- The Chantry House by Charlotte Mary Yonge (longer Victorian literature with a side of ghost. I really enjoyed this one!)
- The Lost Heiress by Roseann’s M. White (lovely, clean historical romance that had a mysterious twist to it. I really enjoyed this one!)
- An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson (amazingly written, gorgeous atmospheric fantasy story with deep themes of the emptiness of immortality and more. Romance wasn’t for me, but overall, I loved this.)
- Honey for a Women’s Heart by Gladys M. Hunt (a favorite nonfiction reread that was just what I needed to inspire my reading and my home educating!)
- Sylvia’s Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell (gloriously written, heartfelt, heart wrenching story set in an English coastal, whaling village. I’ll read anything Gaskell wrote! She’s my favorite Victorian writer.)
- The Mirror Visitor Series by Christelle Dabos (translated from French – fantasy reread that I love for its beautiful, intriguing setting and main character, Ophelia’s revelations about how we see ourselves. The first two books are my favorites.)
- Conscious Creativity by Philippe Stanton (a gorgeous photographer’s art philosophy, prompts, inspiration, and ramblings. So inspiring!)
- Amish Quilt Shop Series by Isabella Alan (simple and cozy mysteries. When I’m exhausted and need of something light, I enjoy a few cozy, clean mystery authors.)
- Full Disclosure by Dee Henderson (Police Detective fiction. This was unique in that Ann, the main investigator was very introverted. A little unrealistic, but I really identified with a lot of her internal processing.)
- Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery (I’ve read this multiple times, but this reread was with my four younger children and we all had such a lovely time together. Even my 5 yo listened pretty well!)
- Maisie Dobbs Series by Jacqueline Winspear (#4 & #5 in this long series of a female private English investigator in the interwar period. I disliked #3 , so was so glad to enjoy these two! Highly recommend the series!)
- Chalice by Robin McKinley (lovely, elemental magic fantasy that enchanted me. Can’t really explain why. A bit darker fantasy, fyi.)
- Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau (this was an online buddy read and had some convoluted parts and unloveable characters. However, the philosophical parts were intriguing and the nature writing was amazing. The conversations with my friends made it an interesting read!)
~ Walking and nature drives are so wonderful when I take the time. It’s a bit cold for me, but I’m always so rewarded. My hubby is very willing to take back roads and I’m so grateful we live in a beautiful area.
How about you? What makes you ‘sing’
currently? ❣️✨💟💜🌲📚☕️🪶🌝❄️🎄❣️
L.M. Montgomery’s 150th Birthday {Day 46} ♥️🎄❄️
I can’t begin to describe how much Maud Montgomery’s writing has meant to me over my lifetime. Her writing is truly my kindred spirit! ♥️🌲❄️ Have you read her stories? Her journals or poetry? I highly recommend! If you want a stand alone instead of a series, try Jane of Lantern Hill or The Blue Castle.
I’m hoping to participate in an ‘old-school’ Blogmas. Stay tuned. ♥️🌲❄️
What’s Inspiring Me…{Day 44}
Happy American Thanksgiving Eve, Friends!
Thankful for all of you! 🦃🦃🦃
Here’s what I’m inspired by today…I’m thankful for this moment…
My 10 yo and I created a ‘tablescape’ in celebration of two of our very favorite authors here at Hearth Ridge! C.S. Lewis and L.M. Montgomery’s birthdays are this weekend and I’m planning on a bit of a treat and some tea to celebrate. 🙌
I finally braved the cold for a walk and was richly rewarded by the gorgeous blue sky!
Our whole family is so enjoying listening to the Penderwicks series and it’s such a delight to hear the giggles and conversations happening! Mr. Penderwick and his Latin and Batty with her dog, Hound are my favorite characters!
I’m in a Voxer writing mom’s group and honestly, we haven’t done much lately on the group. We are all busy, homeschooling moms after all! Occasionally, though, we post articles or ideas and just wonderful tidbits and it’s so encouraging to get the creative juices flowing. We were talking about different writers processes and I remembered this book on my shelf.
We are wrapping up a few things before our Christmas school begins! I recently found this book and we are all enjoying it.
How about you? What things are inspiring you? There’s so much to be grateful 🥹 for today!
Old favorites…{Day 35}
Do you find yourself returning to old favorites and habits in times of stress and upheaval? Sometimes, for me, this isn’t a good thing, because I have to work very hard to make good choices in a few areas where I’m prone to excess. However, books, music, and nature or domestic detail photography all have their place in a kind of “on-the-spot therapy” for me. I am definitely a rereader especially if a book encapsulates a certain ‘feeling’ I’m after or setting I love.
I recently pulled off my shelf a favorite reread series that’s so interesting that I got immediately sucked in all over again. I was reminded how much I love rereading, because so much more can be caught and different things highlighted. The Mirror Visitor Series isn’t perfect, but it has so many interesting characters and so many ideas to think on, I just love it. I was again reminded that it’s not always good for me to rush reading or be trying to keep up with all the new stuff. One big downside to Bookstagram and Booktube. Poetry, too, is something I absolutely have favorites of, I’m so rewarded and surprised as I cracked open the pages and take a deep drink all over again.
I’m very eclectic in my reading, listening, and watching tastes. I like quirky, kind of off-the-beaten-track things with a side of classic. I’ve noticed a shift lately back to my old Josh Garrels listening, instrumental BTS (my one and ever only K-pop fandom), a craving for films like Sound of Music, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Babette’s Feast. I watched a few episodes of Over the Garden Wall with my kids the other day. It’s a bit toooo creepy for us, but some of it is interesting and has such a gorgeous atmosphere. How about you? What do you gravitate towards when life is feeling weighty?
How ‘bout you? What are some healthy ways you refresh yourself? Do you need something new and different? Or do you return to your comfortable, hole-y sweater of inspiration? It goes without saying, that the Holy Bible is super comforting to me because it shows that there is nothing new under the sun. We are all so flawed. I need deep gulps of Jesus.♥️ I definitely occasionally need a ‘Tookish’ adventure to get me out of a funk, but generally, returning to my old Baggins favorites and home comforts blesses me immensely. What richness we’ve been given! ☺️♥️🕸️🕷️🌿🍂🍁🍄🌾
~I remember the days of old;
I mediate on all you have done;
I reflect on the work of your hands.
I spread out my hands to you;
I am like parched land before you.
Selah
Psalm 143: 5-6 CSB
What’s bringing me joy lately… {Day 24}
I could go on! God’s gifts are never-ending. How about you? Anything bringing you joy recently?
🍂♥️📬🎃📚🌿💌🌅💕🍁🕸️🕷️
