Quotes
I love quotes. In my writing classes, I give students a quote of the day from authors and I ask them to come up with their own musings regarding what it means to write. I like quotes about life and writing and art and parenting and prayers and tattered linen and chaotic loveliness.
Here are just a few gems-

On writing...

Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head.
~From the movie Finding Forester

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.
~Somerset Maugham

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.
~Herman Melville

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
~Sylvia Plath

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.
~Emily Dickinson

On motherhood...

Motherhood: All love begins and end there.
~Robert Browning

On life...

Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm... in the real world all rests on perseverance.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.
~C. S. Lewis

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty.
~Rainer Maria Rilke

On love...

For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
~Rainer Maria Rilke

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a Stranger and you Welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me.
~Jesus Christ

Books: include fiction as well as non-fiction
I enjoy a wide variety of books, both classic and contemporary. We have book shelves in every room. My husband teases me about how many books I buy and still need to read. So many books, so little time. Here are just a few, both fiction and non-fiction, and this list probably changes weekly.

Blackbird: A Childhood Lost And Found - Jennifer Lauck
Blue like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality - Donald Miller
Drawn to the Ryhthm: A Passionate Life reclaimed - Sara Hall
Good News About Injustice: A Witness of Courage in a Hurting - Gary A. Haugen
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory - Patricia Hampl
Credo: Essays on Grace, Altar Boys, Bees, Kneeling, Saints,
           the Mass, Priests, Strong Women, Epiphanies, a Wake and the
           Haunting Thin Energetic Dusty figure – Brian Doyle
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place – Terry Tempest Williams
This Beautiful Mess: Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom of God – Rick McKinley
In The Name Of Jesus: Reflections On Christian Leadership – Henri J.M. Nouwen
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words - Mother Teresa
Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-life Parenting - Ed. Camille Peri and Kate Moses
Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's
           Soul - John Eldredge and Stasi Eldredge
Intimate Faith: A Woman’s Guide to the Spiritual Disciplines – Jan Weinbrenner
Motherless Mothers: The Legacy of Loss – Hope Edelman
Confessions of St. Augustine

Movies
I am a movie buff. I like old movies, new movies, cultural movies, funny movies, adventure movies, romantic movies. Movies that make you think. Here are just a few that stand out in my mind.

Finding Forrester
Walk the Line
Little Women
Princess Bride
Shadowlands
A River Runs Through It
Sabrina
The Fugitive
Witness
Jerry Maguire
Erin Brockovich
Chariots of Fire

Things To Do As A Family
Go on adventure drives in the country and take photographs of barns.
Go for walks and bike rides in the neighborhood, to neighborhood parks.
Take the bikes out on a journey with a picnic lunch.
Drive to the lake and swim with the cousins.
Play board games.
Have family movie nights.
Cook and bake together.
Read snuggled in bed.
Eat candle light dinners together after going around the table and praying and laughing at the table.
Be in church service together singing and reading our Bible.

Music
Jennifer Knapp
Third Day
Carolyn Arends
Rich Mullins
Amy Grant
Enya
Norah Jones
Bach / Beethoven/Hayden will always rock
Classic hymns with an edge
Alanis Morissette
Over The Rhine

Poems
My mother read German poetry to us while growing up - R.M. Rilke, J.W.Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Schiller -- which instilled in me a love for the lyric of words. As I worked on my Masters of Arts in German, I deepened my appreciation for a wide variety of German literature, especially poetry. Today, I enjoy all kinds of poetry, listening to The Writer's Almanac on NPR for a poem for today.
Here are two choice ones - one about hope (a subject I love) and one that speaks to where I am in my life right now.

Hope is the thing with feathers – Emily Dickinson

Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

The Journey by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as your strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.