A rejuvenating morning of just being…by the sea. Too mucky for swimming, but some sandcastles were built, a picnic enjoyed, merry-go-rounds spun, smiles photographed, and books savoured. I adore our family downtime. We’ve been needing this. Just sit…stroll…breathe…
A Soft Breezy Weekend… Love, ~Amor Milagre
In the humid mountain-lake mist, a baby gardener chose pink for our front stone garden. A humorous family-joking drive over to Young’s Greenhouse in South Paris, ME is always a fun outting. The people are so lovely there, and so are their endless rows of fashionably displayed plants. There are floral gowns everywhere! We brought home eight different flowers to adore each morning over breakfast and to tuck us in when the stars shine down clouds of hope to us every evening. This place has good deals, and the healthy junipers we adopted from them in the spring are doing very well. It’s fun to explore all of the greenhouses, and they have family-friendly seasonal events. They were even so generous as to give out kiddie gift baskets at the spring Easter egg hunt. Can’t wait to see what the autumn-winter events are like! We’ll revisit to explore again.
(unsponsored post…just dig it)
The sunset is a foggy gold sepia-glow tonight… Happy Bloom Season! Love, ~Amor Milagre
Later on, I’ll add more flower photos in here after the plants settle into their new bed.
Each pink is gloriously unique!
Our mer-family is on a quest to find an unpolluted swimming spot for the spring through autumn time. Water is a healing way to connect with the soul. In our last town, we enjoyed two private, yet open to the public, waterscapes. It is still an unsavoury thought that where there is pollution in one place that it flows into everything else, including us. We urge everyone to end this pollutive madness and begin to repair our planet. Here, there are many small areas with too many people and boats. At first, this spot seemed alright for painting on cool days when no one else comes, but the boat fuel pollution renders it unsafe for a swim. I also wouldn’t be able to go now due to the road traffic and town renovation sound/vibration pollution. We, of course, will not reveal our findings…but you may still wish us luck! We’ll need it.
In the meantime, care about your footsteps…leave only love behind. Nature is worth preserving. We are a small part of her, and we depend on her. Love Nature, for she loves us.
After finishing a book series, several years in the making, I celebrate this thrilling liberation with some cosy bakes and cooks: a weekly vegetable soup, some demi biscuits, baby tarts, and spiced apples.
I look forward to releasing my most darling novel series soon. Imagine, if we could be outside once again…what inspirations would then flow in…
A happy unpolluted spot of summer to you! Love, ~ Amor Milagre
July has arrived, whether we like it or not, complete with sky-waking fire hazards, biters, and boiling suns. We happily chill and work through the heated months in our newly renovated Rose Cottage. I have much to list! My shop will soon refill with new photography, stationery, artwork, and darling books. In the coolest hours, the last bit of exterior boards swiftly change from dirty old blue to cosy fresh heavy cream. Cabinets assemble in the evenings. Sweet tiny bird families build thyme refuges in the shade. We redo old gardens, spreading anise hyssop seeds all along the pathways. My imagination scribbles away all day, all night. It is such a relief to have a new writing tool, see below, to translate my loving stories into printed books with less strife and pain. There are worlds in the hearth of every soul. Express love and peace. There and then, roses bloom ever so sweetly.
I am so happy to finally have a piece of technology that serves me, at least in the recording stage of my stories. Aptly named, reMarkable reduces my arthritis pain and migraine aura, and it quickens my writing process. I write nearly 24/7 so this little lovely, unlighted, non-screen screen helps me out. (Unsponsored review, as always.)
It’s not yet ideal because I still have to transfer this wonky text and edit it fully on a computer in two separate programs to make the lines into books. This step does help more than the inept vocal recording systems out there or just plain notebook copy-typing myself into a blind state of exhaustion. It is pretty good at getting most of my handwriting into text. I do have a lot of spaces to erase and quotes to redirect, a bug for them to work out for the next version. We do love the note pages and being able to practice our calligraphy without having to borrow back our blotting paper from our Borrowers.
After a week of use, I’m grateful for how it allows me to work more naturally and in my own handwriting. Not having to look back and forth whilst typing makes me less dizzy. I write more neatly again because there is no ink and less pressure on the hand to push onto the page. Also, one really does want to get it right the first time so there is less to decipher/edit. I never had to charge my pen or notebook, but I can buy way less ink refills and bulk sets of notebooks, which are two of my biggest expenses. This item wasn’t inexpensive either, so I hope it will last a very long time. It feels good to be once again in the proofreading stages. I predict that I will be able to publish more books in the next year. Too bad the cost of printing hasn’t gone down, though. In the meantime, I’m thinking about self-printing again to solve this issue. We’ll see. Printers are highly irritating creatures. Please fix those bugs soon, Techies.
This new process gives me less mass to physically store, which is good in a way, but I’m not sure if I like not having the first books. I will still keep printed copies of both the originals and the last proofread drafts to look back on as the archival rough drafts for each story. I feel like I can’t truly count on paper or digital files. They’re too fragile. If only I could store my words and pictures under the bark of a tree. Never in some organized, no-so-private, faux cloud. Even my own mind’s translation is muffled from its original spark. And, with so many new stories coming in, my best bet is to hurry up and get all of the books made. Translating ideas is an odd one. Illustration is even trickier for me. At least with writing, I just record the lines in my head. It’s hard to keep up. Painting depends more on my physical arm, back, tailbone… and how long they will be in the right frame of mind to try. The image is more specific, elusive, and more difficult to capture. It’s fleeting. So are the words, though. A steady home set up with a dependable timed-out routine helps allow both aspects of my storytelling to be themselves. I can listen well in the silence. This isn’t easy to balance with a family, homeschool, or exterior pollution, but I’ve just now been able to set a pretty good schedule. Stories ramble out. They speak to me just as people can stroll down many routes. Images are more strict on me. I let them be free to emerge and show themselves. I don’t feel that being a human makes sense for translating the senses. It’s difficult to find that one moment of alignment where things hurt less and you can breathe it out. Any tool, or made-up process, that I find to help me is a gift to the creative process. I like to keep things going…because ideas never stop…
Author Process Note: All illustrations will still be done by hand. Also, the next ~400 books to release were all hand-written. I’ve written about 4 this week on this tablet. It’s not as organic or free, but the editing stage is less consuming. It feels ever so good to move on and to add more Amor Milagre tales to my bookshop! Revisit my shop soon for all kinds of love stories.
*Update about ReMarkable 9-7-25. I’ve experienced a lot of restarting and dysfunctional non-operating moments with this device. It doesn’t send emails as it says, it doesn’t convert text consistently, it needs too many factory resets to even function or turn on as it stops working and goes to sleep often now. The company is not helpful. They have many bugs to sort out, and after system updates more issues occur. It’s frustrating because this would be helpful to my process if it worked well. Ugh…
Like a writing or painting process, our new rose-clematis trellis is a good structure to hold strong, allowing beauty to sprawl about as naturally as it buds and blooms up to be adored.
New nature photography, books, oil paintings, notecard-wax seal sticker sets,
and artwork will release this season.
A happy, safe summer to you and your Dear Ones! Love, ~Amor Milagre
This morning, we scrolled out our new set of golden vocabulary for the approaching autumnal season. We study these gorgeous words and then write them into imaginative stories and poems. View our summer Poetree. By absorbing these glimmering jewels as we go about our daily rounds, just as we do with the mood boards, we inherit a wealth of expression and connection to nature’s phases.
At the end of the story, the cards go into a special spot in our word box. The next wave of osmosis then begins! I am compiling these beauties into a little illustrated book of seasons to publish soon.
Happy connecting and growing! Love, ~ Amor Milagre
Music of the Moment: The dulcet tones of babies reciting new word meanings…
