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! ♥️😍
From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed.
Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuge, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me.
Let me live forever in your sanctuary, safe beneath the shelter of your wings!
Psalm 61: 2-4, NLT
What’s been inspiring me? ♥️🌿
•listening to•♥️🌿
BTS’ new ‘Arirang’ album. 💿 A bit different than what I expected but it’s growing on me. I don’t love lots of language or overly sexual themes, but there’s enough deeper lines/ideas that got me thinking. Hope to write a few of my own poems based on some of the lyrics.
💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
I’ve also started the audiobook of Quarter Labyrinth by Victoria McCombs on the recommendation of a friend! It’s included free with Audible currently! I really hope our weather will warm up a bit so I can get outside walking and listening. 📚🎧
•reading•♥️🌿
I always have a healthy stack 😏🤪 of things I’m dipping into! I’ve started my two buddy reads and I’m currently really enjoying slowly rereading my favorite Victorian novel of all time, Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell. It’s almost an annual reread for me. My 14 yo is listening to it for the first time and enjoying it! I’ve also been craving a reread of The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge. It’s been awhile and it’s a perfect spring read.
If only I had this gorgeous vintage copy! 😍♥️🌿
I’ve also been enjoying the Alex Rider Series by Anthony Horowitz about a 14 yo spy with M16. The fifth? one made me definitely warm up more to Alex who seemed a bit cold/distant at first. They are so adventurous and thrilling. Definitely super violent, but compelling. I also just dove back into Donna Leon’s Commasario Brunetti’s police series. She writes Venice and Brunetti’s family life SO well, that I’ve just fallen in love with Guido as a police detective. The crimes are gritty and disturbing, so if you don’t like police procedural type detective novels, these may not be for you. I feel so immersed in Venice and his friendships and his family that I’ve come to love them! They are a fast, great Kindle read that I get through the library!
This one ☝️ was 5 star 🌟 for me!
•watching•♥️🌿
I really haven’t watched much recently as I took a Booktube break for the Lenten season. I did put on hold at the library the first Season of Dr.Quinn Medicine Woman 🤪🤣 to see if I can get my hubby to watch with me during the chilly, spring nights.
•noticing• ♥️🌿
How cute my little guys hands are! He has bad dry skin in the winter and we’ve been rubbing Aloe Vera into them each night. He’s such a blessing. 🥹♥️🌿
I’ve really been noticing and remembering little tidbits from this lovely collection of quotes!
“God has not called me to be successful, He has called me to be faithful. When we stand before God, results are not important. Faithfulness is what matters.”
•Mother Teresa•
Happy Easter, my friends! 🩵💜🩵
How ‘bout you? What are you listening to, reading, watching, noticing? ♥️🌿📚 I’d love to hear! ~
“The face of the enigmatic Jew seemed weighted with an almost insupportable burden of anxiety. The eyes, narrowed as if in resigned acceptance of some inevitable catastrophe, stared straight ahead toward Jerusalem. Perhaps the man, intent upon larger responsibilities far removed from this pitiable little coronation farce, wasn’t really hearing the racket at all.
So deeply absorbed had Demetrius become, in his wide-eyed study of the young Jew’s face, that he too was beginning to be unmindful of the general clamor and confusion. He moved along with inching steps, slanting his body against the weight of the pressing crowd, so close now to the preoccupied rider that with one stride he could have touched him.
Now there was a temporary blocking of the way, and the noisy procession came to a complete stop. The man on the white donkey straightened, as if roused from a reverie, drew a deep sigh, and slowly turned his head. Demetrius watched, with parted lips and a pounding heat.
The meditative eyes, drifting about over the excited multitude, seemed to carry a sort of wistful compassion for these helpless victims of an aggression for which they thought he had a remedy. Everyone was shouting, shouting-all but the Corinthian slave, whose throat was so dry he couldn’t have shouted, who had no inclination to shout, who wished they would all be quiet, quiet! It wasn’t the time or place for shouting. Quiet! This man wasn’t the sort of person one shouted at, or shouted for. Quiet! That was what this moment called for-Quiet!
Gradually the brooding eyes moved over the crowd until they came to rest on the strained, bewildered face of Demetrius. Perhaps, he wondered, the man’s gaze halted there because he alone-in all this welter of hysteria-refrained from shouting. His silence singled him out. The eyes calmly appraised Demetrius. They neither widened or smiled; but, in some indefinable manner, they held Demetrius’s a grip so firm it was almost a physical compulsion. The message they communicated was something other than sympathy, something more vital than friendly concern; a sort of stabilizing power that swept away all such negations as slavery, poverty, or any other afflicting circumstance. Demetrius was suffused with the glow of this curious kinship. Blind with sudden tears, he elbows through the throng and reached the roadside.”
The Robe, by Lloyd C. Douglas, p. 73-74
Happy Good Friday, my friends. A horrible, yet beautiful day I remember as a Christ-follower. I recently was privileged to read with three friends a stirring historical fiction centered around Marcellus, a Roman soldier and his slave, Demetrius. We follow Marcellus as he crucifies Jesus and wins his homespun robe in a gambling match. Douglas seeps us in the rich, historical setting of first century Rome and ultimately, we walk away with a profound sense of wonder. We who touch the presence of Jesus are never the same.
I was deeply moved by this novel and it made me rethink how I live day to day. How would my life look if I actively acknowledged His real presence right in and around me? I highly recommend this book! ♥️
A beautiful hymn we are singing in our homeschool co op has been hanging around in my heart as I think of what my Lord’s death and Resurrection mean to me. I used to love Christmas the most, but slowly as I’ve lived more life, the hope, spring-freshness, and LIFE to Easter have become a most meaningful time for me.
Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die…”
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
It’s a cold, ill, rainy wind that blows no good today. Soooo, of course, that makes me think of books. Ha. Who am I kidding. EVERYTHING makes me think of books. 🙃🤓😌😏😂♥️
I wanted to give you a heads up on a GORGEOUS nonfiction writer I’ve found this past year. Her writing is poetry to me. I’ve almost finished up Slowing Time by her as it’s set up seasonally so I am waiting for the winter section. She is of a different faith tradition than myself, but ties her practice to nature and the seasons so beautifully that I find I can pull out things that speak to me as a Christian.
I think she has only four books, so I hope to collect the last of hers which I’m waiting to find called The Book of Nature.
Have you discovered a new-to-you writer/artist/singer this year?
Love 💕 occasionally reading quickly through the Gospels in KJV…
I jumped on the shovel edge in my daughter’s pastel rainbow crocs. I found myself falling backwards, feet up and over, crocs, scattering. I burst out laughing, after mentally checking my ache-y, forty-something self for injury. I sure hope nobody I know saw me in the front yard of my parent’s home. 🤪😏👀 I planted the bulbs with my five year old as he stared at me with wonder. “Ok, ok, kid,” I thought, “it’s pretty unusual to see your mother shoveling and sweating, not to mention falling over.” Ha. 😂
We just finished this as a read aloud. We all adored it! 🕯️🪔🕯️
I’ve been thinking about Jesus’ parable of the sower {Matthew 13:1-9} in relation to being a mother. Could it be that the enrichment of their soul earth is our primary, creative work? Our magnum opus? It’s sweaty, unseen, thankless soul-shoveling work. We add manure, pull out weeds, we prepare the soil with truth, beauty, and rich, good things. Why? By faith, slowly, we trust that eventually it will be ready to receive the seed of God’s Word.
My daughter made bread and I used up leftover rice for chicken, veggie, rice soup… 🥣 ♥️
Weaving in and out of this preparation, we grow in our gardening skills ourselves. We limp around on our bruised backsides 😏, callused palms smarting, and keep strewing bits of life and light. We stretch and use all the God has given us. RM’s song “Wildflower” stuck with me deeply after it was first released. He is speaking on his creativity journey, but the idea of growing a lasting, perennial ‘flowerwork’ instead of an instantaneously burnt out flaming firework. The bright and flashy is gone in a second. Long, lasting work takes a kind of death and humilty. Once the seed is tucked into the earth, it’s a work of long trust and patience. Motherhood and our creative work both need this mustard-seed faith and fallow season.
“Flower field, that’s where I’m at
Open land that’s where I’m at
No name, that’s what I have
No shame, I’m on my grave.”
~RM, English translation, Genius.com
The character Isobel in the YA fantasy, An Enchantment of Ravens, found out through her painting, the stark emptiness and abject horror of immortality. It’s not glamorous to work, live, grow old, and die while serving, creating, and loving, but it’s human. The created of a Creator creates. That makes it enough. It’s prayer and worship. Thankfulness by fullness of being. So much around us is so empty and vacuous. Without true meaning. A life of meaning means toil, back breaking, long-haul work with faith.
“I ask where you could be right now
Where you go, where’s your soul
Yo, where’s your dream?”
~ RM
Four years of reading journals! Blue sparrow one is my new one… ♥️♥️♥️I left Goodreads and have loved this tactile way of creatively engaging with my reading.
So, where do our dreams go? They are still right here. Transformed into something human AND Spirit-powered. They may change form, a weaving in and out all that we are doing. Seasons of our servanthood with the gifts we’ve been given promise new morning mercies. Just as I can surely count on the perennial return of my mom’s tulips and daffodils, I can trust this slow, quiet blooming process is working in my children and in me, too. Thanks be to God.
Sweet, dirty little feet…💕💕💕
How about you? How do you view relationships and creativity? How are you cultivating a culture of creative work while maintaining closeness and connections to your faith, family, and friends? I’d love to hear any thoughts! I’m still trying to flesh out what this all means…
Hello, my old friends, I’ve {finally} come to talk with you all again! 😄🖤
These last few weeks have been a mash up of glorious warm, leaf crunching, rattle-and-rolling weather with a side of gorgeous rain. November is definitely here in all her glory. The clouds and sky have been spectacular!
I’ve been hunkered down a bit with family, homeschool, and church responsibilities, so my online fun 😅 has had to be kept to a minimum. I’ve still been reading, and it’s been a lovely respite to our full and busy days. A few of our outside responsibilities are lighter during the last part of November and December so that will be nice to catch my breath.
Half a moon! 😌
I’ve been struggling a bit to get the jumble up here *taps brain* to down here *taps blank page* and all I’ve got is my ‘word salads’ as I call them. I’ve been dumping impressions, ideas, words, what’s going on in the moment, etc etc etc into my ‘dump/empty’ brain journal. It’s kinda all I got currently. I see a few phrases in these riots of ramblings that I might want to use/explore later so it’s a start, right?! Ray Bradbury loved his lists and worked on stories from them YEARS later. I’m counting on this Bradbury Magic to transfer to me. 😂 Of course, Mr. Bradbury wrote a 1,000 + words everyday no matter what. ☺️😍🥰
I’ve been thinking a lot about mirrors after revisiting The Mirror Visitor Series, how Ophelia can only travel through them when she sees her true self in the mirror, no disguises or wishing for something different. It’s been tying into the opening chapters of my reread of A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle. She’s speaking on creativity/writing here:
If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I’d never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me, ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn’t what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die. ~ L’Engle, p. 28, A Circle of Quiet
Commonplace journal. 📓 A beautiful, new-to-me, song! Sophie 🥰🥰🥰
How ‘bout you? How are you doing? Any creative threads to follow lately? I’ll leave with a few more photos and a wish and prayer that your week is full of true Joy no matter our circumstances. ♥️🖤♥️
Highly recommend! Beautiful 🤩 “Exit, pursued by a bear.” 😂A favorite spot for prayer and contemplation. 🖤😌🙏🏻 So many friends and family in heavy circumstances. We make our own fun here. 😂I want to read this whole book! A friend is reading bits at our Charlotte Mason co op and it’s gorgeous.
Happy Monday, my friends. A new week, with no mistakes in it yet. ♥️
“And straightway the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
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.
Poetry that I return to again and again!Wild, windy days and whipping yellow
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 don’t own a PB copy of the last book, The Stormof Echoes yet, can’t wait to collect it for the gorgeous cover alone. My favorites are the first two, by far, but they are all so immersive. Josh Garrels oldie, but goodie
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?
Two reread favorites 🥹♥️Tree gazing and listening to…what are they whispering? Hello light, my old friend.
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! ☺️♥️🕸️🕷️🌿🍂🍁🍄🌾
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~
We’ve been enjoying Josh Garrels ‘Rise’ and Andrew Peterson’s ‘Sowers Song’ together as a family. Our homeschool hymn and folk song are current favorites, too!
Reading…
I’m deep into my Victorian selections which I’ve been talking about a lot, 🤣 but I have plenty of light things to try/reread in between my tomes! Have you read any of this stack? 🤓🤓🤓
Watching…
I’m so enjoying Chantel’s beautiful lifestyle vlogs, especially her reflections on life and nature footage. I’m also so excited to continue watching this channel and I got via Kindle her debut novel!
Noticing…
I absolutely love driving down the road with leaves falling on my van and then glancing into the rear view mirror for the swirl up and around of the leaves as we drive through them. Sigh. 😌 🍁🍂🍃 We have gone on a few nature rambles and plan on a couple of more soon with friends.
How about you? What are you listening to, reading, watching, and noticing? 🖤🍂🍁🍃💀👀♥️🍄🌕
Is there anything more cozy then journaling and journals? 😄♥️ It’s no secret that I’m a journal fanatic! We are trying something different this year in our home learning of combining our multiple journals into one. I’ve had the opportunity to journal alongside my children and it has been such an enriching experience. I don’t often share my children’s work, as that’s their own, but don’t mind sharing what I’ve been recording myself. 😆 So much richness! 😍I’m learning every day right along with my children. I have music lyrics, quotes, drawings, etc in here already! I treasure it. Do you journal?
What you learning or diving deep into? Isn’t life grand? 😄♥️🙌🌿🍄🌻
Listening…Great Pumpkin and Harry Potter Ambient Music. I’m also enjoying Nicholas Nickleby audiobook while I follow along in the book.
Reading…I’ve begun a lot of my Victorian TBR, Dickens, Gaskell, and Yonge. but I’ve been enjoying light, cozy stories inbetween. Kiki’s Delivery Service, Thimble Summer, and The Language of Spells.
Watching…I’m back to watching YouTube/or going on Instagram only on Saturdays. It really helps my focus and sanity during the week. A new favorite YouTuber that I can’t wait to watch more of is CleoPatrick.
Noticing…the main thing I’ve noticed lately is that our Barn Swallows are gone. 🥲♥️ We’ve been seeing a few butterflies still and our temperatures are fluctuating a lot. My son saw a “V” of geese on Sunday. We’ve been trying to get outdoors more because we know the cold, snowy is coming.
How about you? What have you been reading, listening to, watching, or noticing? 🍁♥️
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 