Happy Summer! 🌞✨ {Day 66)

Click in to read a little boy’s thoughts on jam! πŸ˜‚β™₯️πŸ₯°πŸ˜

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! ✨

~

Wandering β™₯️🌿 {Day 64}

Birthday post is the best! 🌿β™₯️

Lovely bits from web…

Lisa’s Summer Book Stack…

Kourtney’s lovely writing retreat plan…

Molly’s inspirational post about a mother’s retreat…

Jen’s lovely quilt block of the month…

Make Room 🏑 {Day 63}

I could stare at our skies forever around here.
Getting out some different coffee mugs for summer!
See you next spring!
Eclectic birthday gifts! πŸ₯°β™₯️
Kids were so happy!
Smells heavenly!

Better is a dry crust eaten in peace than a house filled with feasting-and conflict.

Proverbs 17:1~

Simplicity makes room for relationship. β™₯️🌿 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. β€˜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.

~ 🌿β™₯️

Monday Ponderings πŸ“š{Day 61}

I’m starting to plan for our upcoming school year. Teachers {including home educating} are not off in the summer! πŸ˜…β™₯️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! πŸ«ΆπŸ»πŸ’šπŸ“š

Hello, Luna + Quote for reflection πŸ’š {Day 60}

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 currentlyβ€¦βœ¨ {Day 57}

  • A few early birthday gifts have trickled my way 😍β™₯️✨
  • 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 β™₯️✨
  • 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 🌿β™₯️~

Monday Ponderings: Daisies πŸ’›πŸ€πŸ’›πŸ€ {Day 56}

I love daisies.

You told me.

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

~ β€œYou’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?

β€œAnd 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?

β€œSo don’t worry about these things, saying, β€˜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.

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

~Matthew 6:26-34, NLT

~

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

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…

~

Kernel {Day 52}

Jesus replied, β€œNow the time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels-a plentiful harvest of new lives. Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.

John 12:23-25, NLT

Prayer for tonight…Jesus is our True Example. πŸ™πŸ»β™₯️🌿

Wednesday Wonders 🌸🌺🌼 {Day 51}

listening to β™₯️🌿 ~

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! πŸ˜‚ 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 β™₯️🌿~ 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! πŸ˜…β™₯️ I read almost a whole book there and back! πŸ˜‚ Otherwise, I haven’t been watching much? I hope to watch the movie β€˜Summer of Monkeys’ with my kids as we are almost finished with the book. πŸ₯°β™₯️

Reading β™₯️🌿~ I talk nonstop here πŸ˜‚πŸ˜ 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.

Noticing β™₯️🌿~ I’m mostly noticing flowers, trees, and seedlings. 🌱 πŸ₯° It’s a wonderful time of year!

What are you listening to, watching, reading, noticing? β™₯️🌿~

Monday Ponderings ~ Happy June~ πŸŒ²πŸŒΏπŸŒ±πŸƒ {Day 49}

Starting a bit of a June challenge for myself! June is my birthday month so I want to gift myself health, beauty, relationships, and simple routines. I’m putting this here for additional accountability and encouragement! It’s never too late to start again.

β™₯οΈπŸŒ²πŸŒΏπŸŒ±πŸƒβ™₯️