Elizabeth Gaskell is (so far) hands down my favorite 🤩 Victorian author! I know I have her book Ruth somewhere, too. Have you read her books? Who is your favorite Victorian writer? There’s A LOT to explore.😄♥️
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? 🍁♥️
I’m hoping this week to hunker down into a bit of coziness. Nothing like the end of September, early October, easing into gratitude November, to foster a sense of richness and comfort. These are truly some of my favorite months. My family and I had a wonderful time with our annual apple 🍎 orchard visit, as well as our first bonfire 🔥 🪵🍄🟫🍂🍁. Sigh. 😌 So much to be grateful for! So curl up with a hot cup of tea 🫖 or coffee ☕️ and come chat with me.
We were looking 👀 for the Great Pumpkin 🎃 together! 🌞🍂🍁🐿️😁♥️Pumpkins are SO delightful, comfy, and cheerful to me! 🎃🎃🎃Chili with cheese 🧀 ♥️🦔🐾🪶Let Victober reading commence! Victorian literature + October = Victober. Lots of info about this event on Booktube or Instagram. I just informally follow prompts etc. 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
“I am a child of the Earth and heavens. I find myself at once skipping like a schoolgirl full of wonder, and hushed in awe, something like the monks whose vespers follow the unfolding of the holy hours, and the turning of the globe, away from, then toward the sun.
I am humbled by this call to take in the autumnal majesty. To sit beneath the wind-blown boughs, to listen to the acorns plonking on the roof above my head.”
~ Barbara Mahany, from Slowing Time, p.152
I hope you’ll join me in your homes, journals, or own online places enjoying the season’s gifts! 🖤🍂🐿️🍄🟫🍁🖤
Monarchs are “tough and powerful, as butterflies go.” They fly over Lake Superior without resting; in fact, observers there discovered a curious thing, instead of flying directly south, monarchs crossing high over the water take an inexplicable turn towards the east. Then when they reach an invisible point, they all veer south again. Each successive swarm repeats this mysterious dogleg movement, year after year. Entomologists actually think that the butterflies might be “remembering” a long-gone, looming glacier.
Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p.258
{God’s creation astounds me! It inspires and encourages me. Happy Back to School week and Happy September! }📝🖤📚📓🌿🌻🐈
Barn swallows are still here 🥹♥️Healthy meals ♥️🌿Summer read alouds winding down- so many lovely books! ♥️🥹✨Penpal catching up 📝🖊️📚📭💌📨 New homeschooling goodies…a fresh Calendar of Firsts! Keeping track of things we see in nature each day together. 🕸️🕷️🦉🌲Making my own sugar free iced coffee. Froze leftover coffee for my ice cubes so it isn’t watery! ☕️🧊Trying new planner this year. I’ve used a Walmart one for 13? years so this may be too much ‘fire power’ 😅, but needed to shake everything up! Notice Jimin 😜on cover to inspire me to keep going! 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜Sneak peek 👀 of a few of my favorite summer reads! Many of these are rereads and actually I listened to a lot of these on audiobook this summer, but I’m ok with them being all-time-and-forever favorites! 📚♥️Chicory 🥹🌿my late summer friend
How about you? What are some blessings shining out? ✨✨✨
Listening… I’m interested in learning more about communist history and there’s a readathon on Booktube/Bookstagram in September called RedSeptember. I don’t necessarily follow the prompts etc, but I started early listeningto Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang. Fascinating and heart wrenching memoir looking at the cultural revolution in China. I’m hoping to listen to Animal Farm by George Orwell next.
Reading…I’m working hard on Charlotte Mary Yonge’s, Dyvenor Terrace and The Cross by Sigrid Undset. I’d love to finish them by September! The Kristin Lavransdatter saga is so beautifully written, however the story was heavy! I’m going to be processing for awhile.
The Cross
Watching…I recently got The Boy and the Heron from the library and hope to watch it soon. I’m a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki. I’ve heard it’s a bit dark, so want to preview it without children! 😅♥️
Noticing…We saw a ‘V’ of Canada Geese last night! 😭 I noticed a cluster of beautiful brown, amberish colored cones at the tippy tops of our blue spruce trees. Autumn 🍂 is creepy in…🧡🤎🖤
I’m reading this on kindle, but saw this original illustration online! 💕
How about you? What are you listening to, reading, watching, and noticing? 🍂🌿🖤
“Words are one way we leave tracks in our world, Sol. Maybe one day you will write a book, like Olaus, or Molly Thorn. And people will read it, like I’ve been reading to you. And they will know that you were here, and a little about what you were like.”
Sol’s face remained far away. Her cheeks were white and hollow, but her eyes shone a bit, I was fairly sure.
Happiest August everyone! 😄♥️🌿 I realized I’m starting a lot of online buddy reads and continuing a few, too! I absolutely LOVE talking about reading 😉 (if you hadn’t noticed before 🤪) and so I thought I’d check in!
1. Dynevor Terrace by Charlotte Mary Yonge – my Victorian reading friends are huge CMY fans and I so enjoyed reading Pillars of the House with them last year. I’m still not a CMY super fan, but the conversation is lovely.
2. I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger – I’m so excited to read this fourth book of Enger’s as apart of my Leif Along this year. This a brand new book from my favorite modern author who happens to be a Midwesterner, too! ♥️
3. The Peterkin Papers by Lucretia P. Hale – sweet , family-ish tale. Excited to read a lighter story for balancing out Kristin Lavransdatter. 😅
Of course, I’m continuing with The Cross and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
I’m also dipping into a lot of home education books for refreshment and encouragement. 🌿♥️😁📚📚📚📚 How about you? Any books you are really looking forward to this month?
“There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But-and this is the point-who gets excited by a mere penny?”
“It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is simple. What you see is what you get.”
~Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 17, emphasis mine
What pennies are lying around just waiting for us to pick up? ☀️💕🥰☕️🌿🍄
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 