Inklings // November 2025

Happy November and Happy Thanksgiving!

So between trying to wrangle out some doctrinal points, figure out how not to start my novel, iron out some massive garden plans, dig into my review for the '95 P&P, and Thanksgiving prep and celebration, my brain's been spinning just a tad. *face palm* But! Definitely wanted to keep our Inklings streak going.

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and, as always, feel free to join any time here until the next prompt goes up! 💜 

Rules:

1. At any time during the month, on your own blog post a scene from a book or film that matches the prompt, including a link back here in your post.

2. Make sure to come back and leave a link to your entry in the box on this post. That's it!

~

November's prompt is:

A scene with a feast in book or film

Know I'm posting this on Thanksgiving itself, but hoping you'll all still be rejoicing and being thankful with your nearest and dearest through the weeks ahead. :)

My entry is Almanzo's fond memories of two typical dinners at his home. As my dad likes pointing out, it was a great feast for the Ingalls when Pa caught a rabbit and this was Almanzo's childhood experience... 😅

I do always wonder if these were actually nostalgic mental compilations, but Mr. Wilder was a well-to-do farmer and farm families did have to be heartily fed... Either way it makes for mouthwatering reading.

From one of the opening chapters:

"Almanzo ate the sweet, mellow baked beans. He ate the bit of salt pork that melted like cream in his mouth. He ate mealy boiled potatoes, with brown ham-gravy. He ate the ham. He bit deep into velvety bread spread with sleek butter, and he ate the crisp golden crust. He demolished a tall heap of pale mashed turnips, and a hill of stewed yellow pumpkin. Then he sighed, and tucked his napkin deeper into the neckband of his red waist. And he ate plum preserves and strawberry jam, and grape jelly, and spiced watermelon-rind pickles. He felt very comfortable inside. Slowly he ate a large piece of pumpkin pie."

And from the ending chapter:

 "Almanzo went on eating. He was listening, but he was tasting the good taste of roast pork and apple sauce in every corner of his mouth. He took a long, cold drink of milk, and then he sighed and tucked his napkin farther in, and he reached for his pumpkin pie.

"He cut off the quivering point of golden-brown pumpkin, dark with spices and sugar. It melted on his tongue, and all his mouth and nose were spicy." 

I just always find those sections so evocative... Farmer Boy is definitely a favorite around here. 😊 

~

P.S. Now coming off Thanksgiving, I'm also seriously picturing Errol Flynn waving that turkey leg(?) round as Robin Hood... xD 

You can pop your links below:

🌿 Have fun and I can't wait to see what you all come up with! 🌿

Inklings // October 2025

Happy October everyone! I hope you've all been having a most lovely autumn.   

I'm so enjoying the colors here. And I've had lightbulbs going off for my next novel this week... it feels so amazing to have the ideas flowing again.

(Sidenote: on a slight downer, am also experiencing an oncoming cold at the moment so have to admit my general outlook on life has gotten rather fuzzy as of this afternoon, but I'm sure things will brighten presently. 😅 Ah, the ups and downs of a single day... ;D)

As always, feel free to join any time here until the next prompt goes up! 💜 

Rules:

1. At any time during the month, on your own blog post a scene from a book or film that matches the prompt, including a link back here in your post.

2. Make sure to come back and leave a link to your entry in the box on this post. That's it!

~

October's prompt is:

A scene with a fountain in book or film

We rewatched the 1993 Much Ado About Nothing this month with my mom and sister. (Full warning: it does have some nudity near the beginning and at least one other suggestive scene.) 

That important disclaimer out of the way, Much Ado is my favorite Shakespeare play and I'd forgotten how brilliant certain scenes are. In the '93 version, the fountain plays a grounding role in numerous scenes, but this particular one -- just after Benedick and Beatrice discover their love for each other is still alive and well -- is just riveting (especially combined with the cuts to Beatrice on the swing, which swing may have to have an honorable mention some future month xD). The music is just thrilling. Definitely well done and one of my all around favorite scenes! :)

You can watch the whole scene here

The Shakespeare... the Mediterranean sunshine... ah...! Seriously epic.

And you can pop your links below:

🌿 Have fun and can't wait to see what you all come up with! 🌿

Inklings // September 2025

We had an action packed but lovely month here. Then just in the last few days a nip has arrived in the air. And I'm so excited! It can vary here and it's so nice to feel like we'll actually have a chilly fall season. (Now just to lean into some further autumn comfiness... I'm thinking of pulling out throw blankets, some apple pie baking, and wrapping my hands round a warm mug of chai tea.) Do you have anything you're looking to forward to in this coming season? :)

As always, feel free to join any time here until the next prompt goes up! 💜 

Rules:

1. At any time during the month, on your own blog post a scene from a book or film that matches the prompt, including a link back here in your post.

2. Make sure to come back and leave a link to your entry in the box on this post. That's it!

~

September's prompt is:

A forest scene in book or film

I decided it's high time to highlight one of my all time top favorites (and which I may or may not have speed read most of last Saturday for the umpteenth time), L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle. IMHO, one of her wittiest and most absolutely lyrical works. (The emotion and banter are on another level entirely.) Anyway, it had been a fair amount of time since my last read though and I was literally squealing that all the thrill and excitement are still absolutely there. (And yes, I'm a grown woman, but I don't know any other word to adequately express what happened other than to say that I squealed. You can ask my husband. Hem! Ok, moving on. xD)

The decision to highlight it this month was obvious, but it's so packed with delicious descriptions, picking out what to highlight (and also not share any actual spoilers) proved tricky. But (playing it very safe xD) here goes:

'They didn't spend all their days on the island. They spent more than half of them wandering at will through the enchanted Muskoka country. Barney knew the woods as a book and he taught their lore and craft to Valancy. He could always find trail and haunt of the shy wood people. Valancy learned the different fairy-likenesses of the mosses--the charm and exquisiteness of woodland blossoms. She learned to know every bird at sight and mimic its call--though never so perfectly as Barney. She made friends with every kind of tree. She learned to paddle a canoe as well as Barney himself. She liked to be out in the rain and she never caught cold.

Sometimes they took a lunch with them and went berrying--strawberries and blueberries. How pretty blueberries were--the dainty green of the unripe berries, the glossy pinks and scarlets of the half ripes, the misty blue of the fully matured! And Valancy learned the real flavour of the strawberry in its highest perfection. There was a certain sunlit dell on the banks of Mistawis along which white birches grew on one side and on the other still, changeless ranks of young spruces. There were long grasses at the roots of the birches, combed down by the winds and wet with morning dew late into the afternoons. Here they found berries that might have graced the banquets of Lucullus, great ambrosial sweetnesses hanging like rubies to long, rosy stalks... When Valancy carried any of these berries home that elusive essence escaped and they became nothing more than the common berries of the market-place--very kitchenly good indeed, but not as they would have been, eaten in their birch dell until her fingers were stained as pink as Aurora's eyelids.

Or they went after water-lilies. Barney knew where to find them in the creeks and bays of Mistawis. Then the Blue Castle was glorious with them, every receptacle that Valancy could contrive filled with the exquisite things. If not water lilies then cardinal flowers, fresh and vivid from the swamps of Mistawis, where they burned like ribbons of flame.

...Holmes speaks of grief "staining backward" through the pages of life; but Valancy found her happiness had stained backward likewise and flooded with rose-colour her whole previous drab existence. She found it hard to believe that she had ever been lonely and unhappy and afraid.

"When death comes, I shall have lived," thought Valancy.' 

I hope you enjoyed and I highly recommend adding to the top of your TBR pile and /or would love to hear if you've already read it! 💜 (Also, I realized it's a little tricky to figure out the context, but it's very much set in the everyday world of the 1920's.)  

You can pop your links below:

🌿 Have fun and can't wait to see what y'all come up with! 🌿