For the kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power.
I Corinthians 4:20, NLT
~ Happy Sunday and the last week of July. 😨😭🤓♥️✨🌿
Sunday ✨♥️🌞 {Day 99}
Category: Prayer
First ‘26-‘27 Homeschool Year Purchase {Day 97} ✏️✨♥️
I’m getting very excited as I begin homeschool planning! 😍 The past couple of years, I’ve purchased a School Nest planner/record keeper, but I just never use all the features, even in the Minimalist version. I love the options and beautiful covers, but I just decided to go back to my $10 Walmart Pen & Gear brand! I love the calendar at a glance and the big daily slots. That’s really all I need. These are my ‘brain’ and my record book.
I’m rereading this oldie, but goodie and it’s making me excited and refreshed as I pray about our learning!
I’m also going back through this little gem!
Are you getting excited about autumn 🍂 or are you still in summer mode? What do you do to prepare? Honestly, we are still in summer mode, but I love homeschooling and stationery and books, so it doesn’t take much for me to fall into this rabbit hole around August! 😅I felt a bit sad because I saw the Purple Lead Plant coming up and Sumac turning colors 😨 and it made me think of summer ending. I just love the seasonal shifts! ♥️✨Happy Friday!
Moment {Day 96}
Just took a moment to sit by local lake recently. ✨It was just what I needed. My four younger kiddos were playing on the playground and under the giant trees, so I just gazed at the clouds and lake. Don’t you just love the reflection? Prayed a little and took a deep breath! Read a little more in this library find. Not sure about the ostrich farm and dressmaker premise? 😅, but fun to try. Happy Thursday, friends.
~
Top Ten Books That Live in My Head Rent Free {Classic Edition} 📚✨~ {Day 94}
- 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.♥️🙏🏻🌿
- 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!
- 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.
- 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!
- 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. 🚢
- 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.
- Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher ~ a lovely story of how a child can blossom under loving and listening caregivers.
- 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!
- 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!
- 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? ♥️✨🌿📚
Monday Ponderings 💕 {Day 93} •cozy corners, Scripture, fuzzy beastie•
See, God has come to save me,
I will trust in him and not be afraid,
The LORD GOD is my strength and my song;
he has given me victory.
~Isaiah 12:2, NLT
Public Library Stack 📚{Day 92}
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? 📚✨
The Simple Woman’s Daybook {Day 89} ☕️
FOR TODAY~
Outside my window…golden and pink sunrise with a haze, promises to be very hot today! Yesterday it was near 100 degrees! 🥵
I am thinking…about last night’s local homeschooling mom’s meeting and how good it was to see the ladies! Need to figure out which book won the vote for our Autumn read!
I am thankful for…my cat Sophie 😂♥️She’s so comforting!
From the kitchen…we’ve been making our chicken or tuna salad a lot! Usually shredded carrots, chopped celery, sometimes chopped apples, s&p, canned chicken or tuna drained and dill weed! Yum! We eat it on lettuce, bread, or with crackers. Sometimes I shred any available veggie like cucumber 🥒 I have to use things up!
I am creating…I just finished my collage and little article for the letter/zine I write for! I really want to write a penpal letter and I’m trying to blog daily here. This autumn I’d love to pick quilting back up and learn to make granny squares!
I am going…possibly to the lake today so the kiddos can cool off swimming and I’ll sit in shade with my water and book!📖
I am wearing…a green tshirt and probably a flowy green, cream, and orange skirt! My pearl earrings and new brown slide sandals.
I am reading…I may take Moby Dick to lake as I love reading it by water! 😍😅 I’m also loving Captain Blood and Jane Austen’s Bookshelf. Among many more. 😉 Here is a wonderful Booktube about some lovely summer reading options!
I am hoping…that my daughter’s bridal shower is ok and not too hot or stormy! It’s outdoors! 😨
I am hearing…ac humming and my 12 yo’s voice (he’s recovering from summer flu 😭). I’m absolutely loving this album! So worshipful and comforting!
Around the house…we’ve have remodeling and wedding messes! 😩🤪🤣 I really need to climb into a storage space to find my daughter’s Christmas ornaments because I’m giving them to her with a new one for her and her soon-to-be husband’s first Christmas! 😭😭😭 I need to check all my boxed books and make sure they aren’t getting damp. 😖 I also need to find our graduation party box to use the platters and twinkle lights for the bridal shower. I also need to make some treats for the bridal shower.
One of my favorite things…early morning with the light pouring through my new sliding glass doors.
A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week…a birthday party/book club with local friends and THE.BRIDAL.SHOWER. 😂😱☠️
Here is a picture thought I am sharing for you…
This Old World of Ours {Day 86} 🌿♥️
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}
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. 🙏🏻
Words to All the World {Day 83} 🌿🌿🌿
The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The skies display his craftsmanship.
Day after day they continue to speak;
night after night they make him known.
They speak without a sound or word;
their voice is never heard.
Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world.
Psalm 19:1-4, NLT~
Wednesday Wonders {Day 82} 💦🌊💧
~listening to~ ♥️🌿
I happen to notice that I was listening to ‘Swim’ by BTS while reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Serendipity! 😅💦💧🌊 I picked up this narrative poem for Jane Austen July because I believe Coleridge was a contemporary of Austen’s. I think 🤔 it sounds familiar, I may have read it before! The albatross! 😳😂
~watching~ ♥️🌿I did end up watching the 2020 ‘Emma’ film with my daughter and meh. 🫤 It was ok. I liked parts of it. It struck me as sort of goofy. 😂 A n*ked backside right in the beginning was weirdo, too. Oh, well. I liked the actors that played Mr. Knightly and Miss Bates. I’m allowing myself one Booktube video a day in July and it makes me be very choosy. I really enjoyed Chantel’s yesterday.
~reading~♥️🌿 I have massive piles physically and on my kindle, 😂📚 but I’m mostly finishing up The Opt-Out Family and working on Moby Dick. I also just barely dipped into Jane Austen’s Bookshelf of which I enjoyed the first few pages immensely. I haven’t borrowed anything new from public library (July challenge), just reading from my stacks and Kindle!
~noticing~ ♥️🌿
My hollyhocks are wonderful! 😁 I may have mentioned before that they are biannual and these self-seeded, so I forgot about them! 🥰😻😍What happiness!
What are you listening to, watching, reading, and noticing? ♥️🌿📚 Chat below, friends! ~
Friday Haiku ✨{Day 77}✨
flicker of birch leaf
flap of heron wings
they are going – gone.
A.M.Pine 🌲♥️
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 