happy at home

BEACH BOOKSI am thrilled, elated, over-the-top-excited to be heading to Fripp Island, SC for an extended week-end with some friends and family. Would you believe that we live less than hour from the beach, yet my children have never even seen the ocean? Sad, no? We have rented a 5 bedroom beach house, divvied up the cooking (guys cook on Mother's Day!), and have big plans to soak up the sun, drink margaritas, play golf, swim, build sand castles, and read. I am taking several books that I hope to dive into while children nap. Some are books that I reread every summer, such as Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. In my humble opinion, this is one of the best books of all time and should be required reading for every woman on the planet.

I have definitely seen a shift in what I am interested in reading right now, as well as in my thinking. With my first year of homeschooling coming up, as well as continued efforts to simplify many areas of my life, and the possibility of expanding our family through adoption (and/or biologically)...I have been reading more and more on homeschooling, creating a home environment that is conducive to learning and creativity, setting a tone for the home, etc. (As an aside, I am LOVING this new blog, High Desert Home, which I found via The Flourishing Mother. She is doing a 10-part homeschooling series, which I am eating up. Check it out.) A lot of my summer reading will be focusing on these themes. My amazon wish list is updated all the time, as many of my friends and readers of this blog have made suggestions that sound wonderful (and can I just say again, how much I have appreciated everyone's generosity in sharing their books with me?! I have a stack 20 deep that I am reading/about to read and it is such a source of happiness for me. So thank you again!)!

And in a strange and exciting twist of happy providence (is that reformed, or what?! haha), not only are we spending a long week-end at Fripp Island this week-end, but several of my girlfriends (who's hubbies work with mine) and I are taking the kids and two babysitters back to Fripp for another week in June! And, I just found out that my hubby is on target to win a trip through work (and probably the same girlfriends and their hubbies will be going too!) to Jamaica in August! We haven't been to the beach at all in five years, and now I will have three weeks this summer to soak up the sun and sand. How very thrilling!

In my beach bag...
Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Mitten Strings for God by Katrina Kennison (another yearly must-read)

What is a Family by Edith Schaeffer (thank you, Melissa!)

A Circle of Quiet by Madeline L'Engle

Simple Foods for the Good Life by Helen Nearing (thank you, Teresa!)



*Image from Michaeljohn on flickr.com