Category: Learn

Top Ten Books That Live in My Head Rent Free {Classic Edition} 📚✨~ {Day 94}

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Joining here for TTT!
  1. The Holy Bible ~ this is not always an easy book to read and I don’t understand a lot of it, but my spirit connects with it. It’s foundational to my life and faith. My favorite books are Psalms and John.♥️🙏🏻🌿
  2. The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry ~ this collection of Berry’s poetry speaks to me deeply. It makes me consider time and future generations in a huge way. It makes me think of now. It makes me consider life outside of self. Our lives have meaning for a greater purpose!
  3. Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery ~ my handle online is Amy of Hearth Ridge directly inspired by this book. There’s something to be said for hoping to be useful and a blessing to someone else in your life. How living a selfless life actually is fulfilling. Beautiful story of a daughter and father’s restored relationship bringing healing to those around them.That home keeping can be art.
  4. Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell ~ I can’t begin to tell you how much I love the characters and journeys they go through! The father-daughter, mother-daughter, father-son, and marriage relationship studies in this Victorian novel are fantastic. This is a beautiful story!
  5. Persuasion by Jane Austen ~ a lovely story of redemption and finally being able to have a voice. How one can live kindly and generously in the wake of S.S. Selfish People. 🚢
  6. Home Education by Charlotte Mason ~ late 1800’s to early 1900’s British revolutionary educational philosophy. This is so very Christ-centric and focused on the personhood of children and mothers. A beautiful life-giving read.
  7. Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher ~ a lovely story of how a child can blossom under loving and listening caregivers.
  8. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury ~ a father and son meeting evil together face on! Underlying themes of temptation, fear, and growing older! I’m due for a reread!
  9. Christy by Catherine Marshall ~ beautiful story of a young teacher’s growth and learning in a rural Appalachian school. Gorgeous lessons for her as the very people she came to ‘help’ grow her so much in return. Wonderful female friendships embodied!
  10. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder ~ the sheer bravery and strength of the early pioneers is astounding, convicting, and so inspiring! I often reevaluate my complaints after rereading this one. 😨♥️

I could have put Elizabeth Goudge on this list, Gladys Taber, Susan Branch, and many more poets! How about you? Which books do you think of over and over? ♥️✨🌿📚

Public Library Stack 📚{Day 92}

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Ummmm…. 🤣😂😆 I didn’t realize that I had so many books checked out from library! Some are for me to preview for our upcoming school year. What should I try first? I’ve started a few. I’m liking the Yellow Rose Bride and very intrigued by Turn Right at Machu Pichu. If it’s good, I may have my 17 yo read it this coming school year. I have an Elizabeth Mann picture book about Machu Pichu, too! 😍

What are you reading today? 📚✨

Non~fiction Mood {Day 88}

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Hi friends ~ I’ve been reading a lot of fluff (and enjoying it!) this year, probably due to our life circumstances 🤪, but a nonfiction switch has been flipped in my mood-reader brain, and so I hope to share about my favorites slowly. I’m still reading fiction, of course 😆, but I finally picked up this one which has been on my radar for long time!

The Radium Girls – I decided to read the Young Readers Edition to preview it for our homeschool. So far, it’s been super engaging and disturbing! 😳 Did you know about this part of history?

Another super disturbing and eye-opening book that my friend recommended is this one!

The Opt-Out Family ~ I can’t stop thinking about this one and I’m currently deeply evaluating 🤔 how I live with and my example to my children in using technology, specifically social media and video games. 🙃😱😩😖 Still not sure on everything, but prayerfully considering it all. I keep using Covid as an excuse for the level of media we use and I recently realized that, duh, we are going on that being like 6 1/2 years ago. 😨☠️

Do Something Beautiful for God ~ I’m a Protestant, but I value and appreciate so many of the great Catholic writers. I’ve been so pleasantly surprised by this book of daily quotes from Mother Teresa. I started it in the middle of the year last year and it has blessed and spoken to me time and time again.

How about you? Any nonfiction hitting you hard? What’s on your stack? ♥️✨

This Old World of Ours {Day 86} 🌿♥️

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The Holy Spirit has descended on this old world of ours, and there’s a Psalm 29 powwow in Elmo (Montana) every day of the year: a grace-revealing gesture, a fresh snowfall, a friend’s forgiveness, the first migrating yellow warbler, a miracle conversion, a truth-telling poem, a pasqueflower in bloom, the good death of a parent, resurrection – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-all the endless permutations of life. The beauty of holiness. And we have ringside seats. Henry James once said that a writer is a person on whom nothing is ever lost. That sounds like a focused Christian identity to me: the men and women on whom nothing, at least nothing that has to do with life-and virtually everything does-is lost. “Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.”

Amen.

~Eugene H. Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire , note mine in parenthesis

Quote for Refection {Day 84}

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I am not going to write this month of the influence others have over us. What I wish to prove is, that if even indifferent people can influence us so much, you must have equal influence over the people you are with. We had better face the fact that we must needs influence other people’s tempers, feelings, opinions, actions. Let us consider how. Let us go through the world in a happy making temper—there is nothing so infectious as a smile, unless it be a frown. Our children are dull and tired, our friends are cross, and our work is trying—don’t let us take these things as grievances, overwork and overworry is the cause. We begin to be sorry instead of cross, and one cordial kindly glance or word dispels the cloud.

“A merry heart goes all the way,
A sad one goes a mile, O.”

And the merry heart never goes alone, but carries a cheerful company along with it. May God keep our hearts sweet and merry for others’ sake as much as of our own.

~Emeline Steinthal

‘Influence’ Essay from PNEU ~ I invite you to read this whole essay and discuss here! Do you agree or disagree? ♥️🌾 Thinking and praying a lot about my heart attitude going into this next coming school year. 🙏🏻

Top Ten Books I’d Like to Read (or Reread) with a “Nature” Word in Title {Day 81} 🌿🌿🌿

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Joining That Artsy Reader Girl
  1. Is A River Alive by Robert MacFarlane ~ MacFarlane is a beautiful nature writer and poet. He tells the story of three? major rivers interspersed with stories of a small river that he has a personal connection with!
  2. Beneath the Haunting Sea by Joanna Ruth Meyer ~ I remember loving this fantasy years ago and want to revisit this water-based world!
  3. Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery ~ I’m hopeful about a long-time-overdue reread of this series!
  4. Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery ~ slowly making my way through again! Montgomery is my favorite author, so I’m loving it!
  5. Sisters of the Earth edited by Lorraine Anderson ~ I’ve been interested in this nonfiction collection from my shelves for awhile! It’s a collection of prose and poetry about nature by various women writers.
  6. The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge ~ another reread that I’m craving. A older career woman gets a fresh start when an aunt bequeaths her a country cottage.
  7. Into the Heartless Wood by Joanna Ruth Meyer ~ another beautifully written Meyer reread! I really love her atmospheric fantasy! I remember enjoying the tree spirits etc.
  8. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman ~ gorgeous poetry I want to keep plugging away at!
  9. The Big Fisherman by Lloyd C. Douglas ~ I so enjoyed The Robe earlier this year and want to try this Biblical Historical Fiction about the Apostle Peter by Douglas as well.
  10. As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Eugene Peterson ~ nonfiction collection of thoughtful and inspiring sermons by Peterson. He was a wonderful writer/speaker.

Have you read any of these? Do you have a favorite nature-themed read? I’d love to hear!

Tuesday Haiku ✨{ Day 74}✨

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Follow the light ✨✨✨

“she laughs without fear”
proverbs and Melville school day
praise-pain humid tears.

~

A.M. Pine 🌲♥️

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

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Sunset reflected ✨

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.

~

Monday Ponderings ✨ {Day 67}

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Wisconsin River✨

And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick ~

Monday Ponderings 📚{Day 61}

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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}

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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 ~