Grandma, Felix, and Mustapha Biscuit by Victor Ambrus ~ I love this, I hope this is me someday! 😄♥️🌿💗
Homemaking Inspiration from Emily of Deep Valley ~
After pumping a pail of fresh water, she went into get into dinner. She put potatoes to boil, fried pork chops and opened a jar of tomatoes she had canned the summer before. She laid a cloth on the dining room table and put on jelly, bread and butter, a pot of tea. They sat down and her grandfather said grace. Through the bow window in which his easy chair stood, they could see small crooked willows and the slough, still wet from the spring rains. Some Syrian boys had a homemade boat in the pond. ♥️🌿
From the southeast came a steady summer wind that whispered sleepily around the house and on across the island. She could hear the weather report on the radio inside the house. A corner of sunshine edged across the windowsill.
Tove Jansson, The Summerbook, p.27
~Tove~
weird and wacky, yes
brightly thoughtful, I am seen
sun, moomins, and me
~ 🌲A. M. Pine🌲
What about you? Who’s art do you feel “seen” by? Tove’s combination of beautiful writing, bright painting, and whimsical illustration is a feast for me. ♥️💕🌿
The Golden Circle by Hal Borland, paintings by Anne Ophelia Dowden
There is wonder all around us…
Listening…my friend recently sang this song and sent me the music video. I’ve had it on loop. Thinking about my lasting influence. What truly will matter when I’m gone?
Noticing… little bits here there of life. Forget-Me-Nots ♥️♥️♥️ Little Free Libraries ♥️♥️♥️ Bare Feet on Warm Rocks ♥️♥️♥️ Little Bridges ♥️♥️♥️ Boys Sleeping in Sun-Soaked Hammocks ♥️♥️♥️ Tasha Tudor, Moomims, & New Thrifted Cookie Cutters ♥️♥️♥️
What are you listening to, reading, watching, & noticing? ♥️🥰🌿
Watching… has anyone watched this web series based on Jane Austen’s Emma? I’m very curious!
Noticing… my clothesline and beauty even during a drought!
My BTS love is unexplainable 😂, and someone told me it is my tame midlife crisis. 🤣🤓 I think finding them during covid places them in a special place in my heart. Weirder things happened during covid than me getting into one K-pop band. 😵💫🤷🏻♀️😉💜💜💜💜💜💜💜Coffee with a beloved sister ♥️
What are some wonders you’ve noticed lately? I’d love to hear in comments! I’m so grateful for LIFE more abundant!💜♥️💜🌿🌿🌿
I’ve been holding my stale breath for what seems an age. I release the musty, dusty, time-worn puff in one lingering whiff. The old, bent figure of a woman startles for a moment, but then shuffles deeper into my innards. Something about the way she moves reminds me of yesteryear. The wind shifts outside, my half open door creaks, branches brush my windows, the keys tinkling in her bent hands. “So, you’re still standing, eh, Maggie. Your bones aren’t a wee bit broken,” she mutters…a memory flashes through my hall, down the twisty staircase, a bit of ashes stirring on the forgotten stone hearth. I shift a little, creaking and groaning. That name rings a bell… “Maggie”, memory whistles up the chimney and into the gloaming. These old rafters and cobwebbed corners aren’t what they used to be, but they remember. Time-stamped. She shakes out her rough dress, along with the gloom and pats the shrouded furniture. “Such promise, such love, wee lass, you were filled to the over brimming.” Birdsong bursts forth out of doors and I’m flashing back to a young servant lovingly scrubbing my wooden floor to a golden-hued gleam. “I dub you Margaret,” she had whispered to me, “after my sweet departed mother.” She lifted her small pale face, dark curls pulled back in a very similar kerchief that she wears even now, old wise eyes caressing me down to the last rusty, hand-hewn nail. She had come to us, myself and the family, through tragedy. A motherless waif that brought joy to the widower and his young son. Her cheerful songs, bubbling, snapping eager quickness brought all out of the gloom of our missing mistress. Memories stirred as she pulls off sheets, fingers dusty frames, and creeps quietly about, reverently. But then things turned, I remember now, shivering deep. The youngster and herself were swept away by a rush of water, he never to be found. Master blamed the sweet lass, but it were a freak thing. I sigh again, a bit of dust shaking down from loft. So much loss. She looks up, green eyes still sharp, “ Well, Maggie ‘ole girl. It seems I’ve been forgiven, heavens be praised, “ she mumbles a bit grimly. “In yet another death, there’s yet a bit more life worth living,” that small smile I now well remember sneaking out. She rustles in her gray striped apron pocket, a creased letter pulled out. I shift and squint to get a good look. It’s a letter about a will, Master has passed, leaving me to her! I rustle a bit in contentment. The warmth, delicious smells, and care she gave flashes in again. The will goes on to say that he knew how much his son loved her and how much I meant to both of them. “Well, let’s see if we can love ye a wee back into health, old friend.” She grabs the old wooden bucket and heads out to the stream, I’m for sure certain. Love has come home again.
A.M. Pine
🖼️♥️I’ve been loving the newsletter of Austin Kleon and he recently quoted Amy Krouse Rosenthal and it really struck me! She said, “Pay attention to what you pay attention to” or something along those lines. It really got me inspired, so my online writing group and I, Kim, Christi, and Sam are working on pieces that are inspired by the things we’re “paying attention to”! I’m really excited about this project and hope to continue it here at my blog even after our group completes the initial challenge. What about you? What’s inspiring you? Have you ever specifically created your own creative piece off someone else’s work? 😄♥️🖼️
There is no personage of history whom we have the means of knowing so completely as we may know our Lord; and the object in our gospel reading should be, less to find words of comfort and admonition for ourselves, than to perceive with our minds and receive upon our hearts the impress of Christ. ♥️🌿 To know Him is life, and is the whole of life; and every thought of Him, walking in the cornfields, sitting weary by the well, moving among crowds or in solitary places, raising his eyes upon the multitude, taking by the hand the little maid, – every such living conception we get of Christ is life to us. ♥️🌿Just as, from the apparently casual touches of the painter, the living likeness grows, so, by laying upon the canvas of our hearts every apparently causal and insignificant detail about our Master, we shall by degrees gather a living vision of the Son of Man; ♥️🌿and dearer to us than any beauty on the earth or in the heavens will become the thought –
Hope this finds you well. I’m pulling the old “my brain is so full I’m going to try and empty it by dumping on my blog” trick. 🤪😂♥️ Thanks for listening with your eyes and I’m sure, heart. 😌♥️ Our homeschool year is s-l-o-w-l-y winding down, we still have a field trip and a couple loose threads to tie up. Three GLORIOUS summer months stretch out in front of me full of “GREENING POWER” as Macrina Wiederkehr writes. More on her later!
I’ve been reading a lot, maybe a bit TOO much 🙃🤓📚, excessive amounts of reading escapism and excessive food have been my obsessions when feeling stressed, pressed, and down right exhausted. I’m declaring yet again popcorn abstinence 😅, more water & walk therapy, and staying far, faraway from sugar/ flour. I feel so much better when I do so. As for reading choices, I do feel I’m balancing light & fluffy (Dean Street Press books are my current favorites) with some learning (as a human, woman, Christian, homeschooler, writer, I need to always be learning!) and some hard for just challenging perspective and understanding. I recently finished the heart wrenching Grapes 🍇 of Wrath by John Steinbeck and wow, going to be thinking on that one for awhile. I’m so fascinated by the Great Depression era and the Dust Bowl currently.
The eyes of the whole family shifted back to Ma. She was the power. She had taken control. “The money we’d make wouldn’t do no good,” she said. “All we got is the family unbroken. Like a bunch of cows, when the lobos are ranging, stick all together. I ain’t scared while we’re all here, all that’s alive, but I ain’t gonna see us bust up.
John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath
Bittersweet Nightshade 💜🖤💛💜🖤💛
I find myself returning to favorites when stressed so I’ve been listening to Wives & Daughters with the amazing reader Prunella Scales. It’s included with my Audible account. This is my 3rd time through and there is something just SO comforting about Mrs. Gaskell’s writing. I’ve also watch bits of my current favorite movie 🎥 and I adore it. I believe “Totoro” by Studio Ghibli will calm even a hardened criminal down. 😅
I’ve also been thinking about my summer reading plans. BookTube {niche YouTube category 🤓📚}has really helped me be a bit more purposeful about my choices, but I have to be very careful to balance that with margin for mood reading. I’m currently very interested in Native American/Indigenous stories, especially historical fiction/biographies/poetry. I asked for a poetry anthology for my birthday (June is my birth month!) , so hopefully 🤞🏻 I’ll be digging into that this summer.? I’m also super interested in archaeology , geography/geopolitics from a relational or conversational or “living” side. So in other words, not dry. 🤪😅 Do you have any recommendations? Someone mentioned Eric Cline, so I may try his archaeology book.
I’m also interested in Asian history, creativity memoirs (I’ve read ALOT of these, so I’m only interested in ones that will blow my mind 😂) , historical fiction on “side wars” not the World Wars, a bit burned out on those. I’m also on a search for authors similar to Maud Hart Lovelace and L.M. Montgomery. I realize the two Mauds are a tough acts to follow, but I’m looking for sweet family-centric, “life softening” type stories. So far, I’ve enjoyed some D.E. Stevenson, Susan Scarlett, and Molly Clavering. How’s your reading been going? Any books you are excited about this summer?
In other cheerful news 😅, I’ve been thinking about these lyrics and how so much of our world and culture is fake & dead ☠️😂. There’s a part in the MV, where the artists are with sand, water, wind, fire…and it just touches me deeply about the finiteness of this all. It’s floating and blowing away. The artist Suga smiles at the flames and as a Christian woman, I want to smile at the hard things of this world, not in denial or despair, but in a realization that it’s the spiritual that really matters. All else is going to be gone. As a pilgrim just passing through this place, I find joy in knowing that the suffering that so many are going through is finite. Catholic poetic and mystic, Macrina Wiederkehr’s book of poetry and short devotions called, “Seasons of Your Heart: Prayers & Reflections” has been so lovely, hopeful, and inspiring, touching on some of these very themes. A Christmas gift from my friend. I’m hoping to get more of her writings soon.
I’m the slowest soul to try new apps etc 🙃, but I finally got the Libby app and have been so happy checking out audiobooks and kindle things from the library! Yes, you do have to wait longer, but it’s so convenient and inexpensive. I’m trying this above manga series via Kindle and the library. How cool is that? Guess what? The manga pages turn the opposite way in Kindle, too! 🤯🤣My 4 yo son and I planted some moonflowers after I bought him a book for his birthday about them. I really hope they grow and we can watch them bloom in the evenings! 😍😌♥️Speaking of birthdays, our birthday “season” is done here at the end of July and *whispering*, I always sigh in relief. 😂♥️
Do you have ‘heart homes’? I’ve been thinking about the places that have really meant something to me over my life. Of course, there’s big amazing places, like Prince Edward Island and The Lake District, Cumbria 😏, but smaller, intimate places that I’ve visited that spoke soul-speak straight deep down. I have a few and had a chance to travel to them recently. I also often realize that the place God’s given me to curl up in currently is a stunning place. Right at my fingertips, right out my door.
Otherwise, here’s a list that swirling in the gray matter 🧠 , my love and desire to know more of tamaracks/larches and birches, Julie Cameron’s Walking in This World”, my favorite from her, my penpals, Hetty Feather series I want to check more into, loving the first audiobook, wanting to learn more about watercolors, pen & ink illustrations, thinking and loving Moon Jumpers by Janice May Udry and all the magazines to catch up on. Also, how in the world can I resurrect a floundering writing practice? By writing, of course, Amy. 🤯🤪😅🤓 I’ll leave you with more reading and nature photos, thanks for being here. Please chat with me below! What’s on your mind? 😍♥️ Till next time, grace and peace through beautiful Jesus to you!
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
We say of some people, that they are perfectly transparent, a good and beautiful thing. We say, everything is clear as day about them. We call them sincere, that is, clear (as honey free from wax). We all value these people, “open as the day.” They are shining as a clear, clean lamp, letting forth light. Do we ask ourselves- Have we this single eye? The answer is to be found, not in anxious enquiries into our motives and feelings, but in out-shining of the light in simple, humble, pleasant doing of that duty which comes next.
Charlotte Mason, “Simplicity” essay, Scale How Meditations
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 