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! ♥️

Monday Ponderings {Day 19}

Merrily Gareth ask’d

‘Have I not earn’d my cake in baking of it?

Let be my name until I make my name!

My deeds will speak: it is but for a day.’

So with a kindly hand on Gareth’s arm

Smiled the great King, and half-unwillingly

Loving his lusty youthhood yielded to him.

Gareth and Lynette, Idylls of the King, Tennyson

‘Damsel,’ Sir Gareth answer’d gently, ‘say

Whate’er ye will, but whatsoe’er ye say,

I leave not till I finish this fair quest,

Or die therefore.’

Gareth and Lynette

I’m slowly getting into my buddy read of Idyll’s of the King and I was struck remembering this lovely picture book version of this part of the poem. The Kitchen Knight retold by Margaret Hodges is lovely, largely due to the illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman!

Happy Monday, friends! Our weekly quest has begun! Go forth boldly and without fear! 🙏🏻♥️😍

Wednesday Wonders •Homeschool History/Geography Edition• 🗺️🧭 {Day 15}

Fun, adventurous story set near the Amazon River!
Favorite history/geography/architecture picture book series by Elizabeth Mann!

listening to and reading♥️🌿~ we are really enjoying our read aloud of Journey to the River Sea. We’ve kind of poked our head into South America, this year while studying Early American history, explorers, etc. We have some Ancient reading going on and early European too. It’s seems to be opening up ideas and interesting discussions and narrations. 😍

A few individual things with different children we are enjoying! Oldies, but goodies. Trying to ‘use my shelves’!
Two Favorites here!

•watching and noticing•♥️🌿

One child mentioned within my hearing how The Divine Comedy 🎭 and the podcast The 100 Days of Dante were coming together with other things. My heart cheered inside. 😅♥️ I’ve noticed that Marvel and the Percy Jackson Series have been being connected to Greek/Norse myths we are always enjoying in our Literature. My older kids enjoy some of the Marvel movies and ALL of my kids have appreciated Percy Jackson’s adventure stories.

Tornado 🌪️/ thunderstorm weather in our area! 😱😬

What have you been listening to, reading, watching, and noticing? I’ve been so interested and pleased with our history adventures this year! Thank You, Lord! ♥️😍📚🥰

Rabbit 🐇 trails ~ {Day 11}

Links 🔗

Interesting short essay about Dante’s use of water in The Divine Comedy ~

Listen to this beautiful piece while reading Dante article!

Hidden track song that I’m thinking about ~

My daughter sent me this beautiful version of a favorite ~

We went to a favorite nature haunt and I finally saw the flower of the skunk cabbage!😍♥️

Little spores puffed off of these red bits when I ran my fingers over them! 😃♥️
Worlds with the world

Our friends said this is Hepatica
Woodpecker evidence!

How was your week? We are just itching for it to warm up a bit more, but overall a good week! We had homeschool co op, my tulips/daffodils are peeking up their heads and looking 👀 around suspiciously, a local play that two children are involved with, and one of my children is being baptized! ♥️😍

Wednesday Wonders ♥️🌲{Day 8}

The Queen 😻🐈

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!

Music practice always going on around here! So thankful we have the ability for lessons!

•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!? 😭😍

Moody stack!

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! 😍♥️

Sunset 🌅
Slow strolls and shadows
Coming to the end of this in our homeschool co op!
Beautiful 🤩 chaos – so thankful for life and color!

What about you? ♥️🌲 What are you listening to, reading, watching, and noticing TODAY?! ☀️🌷💜🌿🍃

Favorite First Quarter Reads: 📚2026📚 {Day 7}

🍃Just remembering here my favorite reads of January, February, and March. I love looking back and also sharing in hopes you might find one you love!🍃

The Road Past Altamont by Gabrielle Roy, translated by Joyce Marshall ~ Canadian writer connects four stories loosely on mother and daughter relationships, growing older, time, and deep longing all cloaked in gorgeous, sparse writing.

The Dawn of Wonder by Jonathan Renshaw ~ a wonderful quest fantasy story surrounding Aedan and his friends. This has amazing friendship, leadership, and character growth.

This is Happiness by Niall Williams ~ A small Irish village on the cusp of change. You grow to love and care for the characters and see yourself in them. This is such a human story and the author understands small village life! This was so beautiful at times it makes you ache.

The Will of Many by James Islington ~ I absolutely loved the main character, Vis, and how much he values the memory and lessons of his father. The battle between doing what’s right and surviving in a system built on greed and corruption. So many wonderful characters and ideas to consider in this epic fantasy.

Through Rushing Water by Catherine Richmond ~ Gorgeous historical fiction about an ex-Russian nobility immigrant who gets sent to the American West as a school teacher to a Native tribe. This will pull at your heart strings. Richmond did a fantastic job of not sugar coating this time period.

The Star That Always Stays by Anna Rose Johnson ~ This had a slow start, but a wonderful blended family story set in Michigan on the cusp of WWII. I loved the literature threads, the conversation about Indigenous mixed-race tensions, and the gentle faith themes woven throughout. Solid middle grade read!

Followed by Frost by Charlie N. Holmberg ~ This feels a bit Disney-Frozen-ish , but don’t let that stop you from this quiet, deceptively deeper story. Slow start and very creepy villain, but what a wonderful story of selflessness and how servanthood ultimately defeats loneliness.

The Secret of Honeycake by Kimberly Newton Fusco ~ This is such a heartfelt story around two sisters dealing with death and chronic illness. This is a slow-as-molasses middle grade story, but I ate up every delicious word. So beautifully written with friendships, growth, domestic details, and LIFE.

Persuasion by Jane Austen ~ I’ve read this so many times but have to mention it here because I was so delighted all over again. The humanity and magnifying glass that Austen does is so perfect. I especially loved Mrs. Smith of Westgate Buildings 😅 this time through.

The Robe by LloydC. Douglas ~ A wonderful historical fiction set around the time of Christ. I posted a bit more about it here! Highly recommend!

The Hotel Balzaar by Kate DiCamillo ~ This was so sweet and lovely! It follows little Marta around the hotel where her mother works as a maid after the disappearance of her father. This is full of the lovely noticing, longing, thoughts on life, memories, parents, and meaning from a child’s perspective. The illustrations made this absolutely shine!

Sophie helping me pick my next read! 😂♥️

📚🌷How about you? Any stand out reads at the beginning of the year? I’d love to hear! 🌷📚

“I am waylaid by Beauty.” {Day 2}

New-to-me favorite poet! ♥️

Assault

I had forgotten how the frogs must sound

After a year of silence, else I think

I should not so have ventured forth alone

At dusk upon this unfrequented road.

I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk

Between me and the crying of the frogs?

Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,

That am a timid woman, on her way

From one house to another!

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay~

Millay’s poetry has been recently touching me deeply. Do you have a current favorite poet? Mine is constantly changing. I’m a lover of words and Beauty of poetry often waylays me! The other morning I stopped with great delight over my steaming coffee and knew that I was hearing the spring peepers on our little pond. It brought me so much joy. I received a Barnes & Noble gift card for Christmas last year and I’m sooo glad I picked this giant tome of her work. ♥️♥️♥️

What beauty touched you recently?

It’s ok to be always beginning… {Day 1}

My daughter and I admiring the rays we just got to pet! 😍♥️

Hello Friends! New fresh month, no mistakes in it yet! I’m hopping on to share that I’m going to attempt to do a bit of a 100 Day Project here! I’m excited to have a little something to challenge myself with and a place to dump all the beautiful ideas I’m gleaning. I have no format for what I will be sharing, it may be little more than a brain dump some days🤪😅, lists, a photo, a quote, and so on. My hope is that it will encourage and inspire you. What am I doing with the little I’ve been given? That is the question I’m asking myself currently. ☺️♥️🌿

Soooo, what prompted this plan? A couple things! My oldest child, my daughter, is engaged to be married later this year! 😳😭😍♥️Nothing like a family wedding to celebrate and work towards in multiple areas. Secondly, my sister kindly gifted me this book and we are going through it together:

I’m already a pretty established journal-er, but wanted to step it up a notch! By journaling HERE, my poor dark, quiet blog friend, 🤣 and using it as a catalyst for little writing creative projects. I see these as offerings of worship. 💜🌿

My goals and poetry writing notebook. Yes, weird combination, but it’s working currently. 😅💜 I found some fun graphics on Pinterest to color in as I go!

I also love my little to do/gratitude daily journal so will be keeping up with that! Another strange combo that works well for me!

My absolute favorite journaling is my reading journal and I have two buddy reads beginning this month! 😍💜

My reading journal spread where I will paste my April read book covers and short review! 💚🌿
New this year has been favorite reads by month! 📚
Buddy Read #1 📚♥️
Buddy Read #2 📚♥️

I will be using the prompts in The Book of Alchemy and also continuing The Body Revelation questions, both with my sister. ☺️♥️Those are most likely private prayers/entries etc that go into my spiritual journal.

How ‘bout you? How do you ‘begin again’? How do you breathe life into creative or life projects? Having some sort of paper/stickers/glue and pens always motivates me! 🤷🏻‍♀️😂♥️ I’ll leave you with a quote that I saw that has me thinking deeply!

“…they fear love because it creates a world they can’t control.”

•George Orwell•

😬😳☠️😍♥️💜 Chew on that, my friends! Bless you all!

Quote to Remember 🩵

I sometimes think the worst thing a young person can feel is when you can find no answer to the question of what you are supposed to do with this life you’ve been given. At moments you’re aware of it balanced on your tongue, but not what comes next. Something like that. I can now say that another version of that happens in old age, when it occurs to you that since you’ve lived this long you must have learned something, so you open your eyes before dawn and think: What is it that I’ve learned, what is it I want to say?

Niall Williams, This Is Happiness, p. 13-14

✏️Heartfelt Home Education 📚|| Check-In September 2025 (among other things) 🧮🦋

Brush Drawing class in our Charlotte Mason co op!

September begins and now already ends…🙃🤪

It’s a strange feeling to be glad for their wings, but sad that my older children’s faces aren’t peering at me as I read aloud. Bittersweet. Three down, four to savor! 🥲

Our year has begun well, kind of on “a wing and a prayer sort of way”, but with a gentle hopefulness.🌾

I think one of our favorite moments so far have been continuing a reread through the Little House Series (we are waiting on the audiobook for These Happy Golden Years), puzzles, and traveling to the site of Little House in the Big Woods for a Laura Ingalls Wilder Festival. A bit touristy, but lovely all the same. Now we’ve been getting into the tv series from the public library and it’s bringing back my childhood nostalgia of rushing home from my little private school for an episode with snack. 🥹♥️

My 4 remaining students…

We’ve also enjoyed jumping into our Charlotte Mason co op with both feet and just soaking in all the riches the other mothers have prepared for us! Shakespeare (King Henry V), folk song/hymn, Composer (John Williams!), Picture Study (Camille Pissarro!), Clay Modeling, Swedish Drill, Microbiology, and my favorite, Nature Study (we are using a lovely book called Sundial on the Seasons by Hal Borland). I’m helping with Highschool Literature (The Divine Comedy! – stretching me, let me tell you!), Poetry (Alfred Lord Tennyson), and the younger students Geography co leading with another mom.

What richness! What a gift!

Our Nature Study mom recommended this book!
Camille and Sophie 🐈
Puzzles and audiobooks!
Swoon. So much beauty all around us! 🤎

My personal goals and projects were going SO well in June & July, but I fell off the habit wagon 😅 in August after SO many family things. I’m struggling to keep up on health, writing, pen pals, crafting goals & stuff. Anyone else? I have some outside obligations that I’m prioritizing (maybe TOO many?) and I’m struggling with very little mojo to keep up my personal things. I end up reading 📖 😅ALOT and watching people talk about reading. 🙃I ❤️‍🔥 Booktube! Any help on how to tackle getting back into these life giving things WHILE homeschooling? 🤪🫣😵‍💫😍

We’ve been doing a lot of nature hikes and they are SO wonderful! We will switch more to library visits when the cold hits. I really want to try more cold weather jaunts this year because I have no little babies anymore. 😆♥️
Interesting economics book I previewed!

What did you love about your toe-dipping into the ‘25-‘26 home educational year? We have sooo many lovely books and things on the docket and I’m struck by the immense blessings at me and my children’s fingertips. Who knows what will be in all the pages, behind the door to the natural world, and in the relationships we will form? ❤️‍🔥🌿I wait prayerfully and with great anticipation. ♥️🌿

~

Coffee & Ink: ~be small, drive slow~

•starting my autumn 🍂 stack of reads•

tucked myself into the smallest corner of Dunkin’

cast, humble, kneel, prostrate

be a dewdrop

drive slow

savor flipping sweaters at Goodwill

thank the lady for noticing my butterfly tote

be a dust mote

drive slow

eyes close, commend my spirit to God

swirl the ice of my latte, sip

be a bubble

drive slow

smile about ridiculous puns written on paper plate to hubby

touch, smile wide, look up, look down, listen deeply

be a crumb

drive slow

keep scribbling with dull, cheap Amazon pencil

quiet and calm yourself

be a salt grain

drive slow

the dipped not drenched sumac

the crumble-y, yeast-y clouds

be a kernel

drive slow

mind your own business and butterflies

hum along with the hummingbirds

be a bean

drive slow

keep wishing on the still-here-swallows

wave goodbye and good luck to the geese

be a seed

drive slow

no place to go

know your God-go, Spirit-stay

be a pebble

drive slow

A.M.Pine 🌲♥️

•continuing this beautifully written, ‘quiet’ story•

Consider: Resurrection 🌼

Do you ever feel stuck? I was recently struck by how stuck I am, this overwhelming sense of not living in the joy and resurrection power of the Lord Jesus. I was actually listening to an audiobook, about the fictional and unflappable Mrs. Pollifax. In the first of this novel series, the widowed, aging Mrs. Pollifax, questions her worth and what she is doing with her life. Her solution is to go and do something she has always been interested in. Join the CIA! 😂 I was struck to the quick about my wallowing, woe-is-me attitudes. Where is the resurrection power being lived out in me? Why am I hiding? Why am I cowering? Worrying? Trying to control my circumstances?

His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

2 Peter 1:3, CSB

These verses in 2 Peter and Wendell Berry’s poem Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, challenges me to live fully and wholly. To live like there is something beyond myself and my woes. 🪴🪴🪴

So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love somebody who does not deserve it.

-Wendell Berry 🌿

I don’t want to be worry-driven, short-fused, and impatient. I want to ‘dwell in possibility’, living simply, patiently with others, myself, and the Lord. I want to rest in my daily ‘round and find my delight again in listening, learning, deeply loving. No need for fretting, guilty-thought trains, or shoulda-woulda-coulda junk. Pay attention. Walk and work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Live with an ‘expectant attention’ (mishmash from Charlotte Mason, Amy Carmichael, and Scripture) and practice living resurrection.

~first time making hot cross buns in honor of Good Friday~

A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.

John 10:10 CSB 🌷

Ask questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

~Wendell Berry ☕️

Laughter is immeasurable.Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

~Wendell Berry 🪺

Take the first step, Oh my soul…♥️🌿

I’m determined in my heart 💜 to choose again (and again and again) Jesus’ joy and resurrection power. Just making conscious choices that I know help me pay attention and relax into the Lord. Prioritizing my quiet time. Going outside. Holding online things very lightly, getting dressed in comfortable clothing I love, doing a little summer mom learning project with a IRL friend, taking good care of myself and my family, finishing little projects I love, and doing small, short trips. Not giving into overconsumption in any area of my life – frantic reading, buying random stuff, food, media, but a soaking in the Life-Giving Abundance of Jesus!

You reveal the path of life to me;
in your presence is abundant joy;
at your right hand are eternal pleasures.

Psalm 16:11 CSB

•heart, resurrect•

not hard, just

a deep death, rise again

chip corroded life-rust

if not now, when?

broken, now bloody birth

owner determines worth

who’s are you?

name, not what you do

down you lie

heart, flat you die

rise soul, into air

barn-swallowed by His care

A.M. Pine 🌲♥️