There's no better time to nap that when it's raining heavily outside. #cairnterriers 🐕‍🦺 #cutedogs 🐶 #sleepingdogs 🐕

A lovely afternoon defined by the colors of summer: Two peacock butterflies on a field of lilac. #gardening #wildgarden #wildlife #summergarden

A little mistake, clicking on the wrong button, prompt by idle curiosity, turned my website into a mess. It took about six hours to undo the damage. It's not the same as it was, but I like it, and I think is easier to navigate than before. franciscastaines.com

I just finished reading When You Reach Me. What a wonderful book! Thinking of it as just a children's book is a disservice to this wonderful story that everyone can enjoy & learn from. "It's crazy the things a person can pretend not to notice." ―Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me #BookSky 💙📚👍 #KidLit

#Kidlit goes harder, achieving awesomeness... "I wonder if everyone who faces death hurts like this. It's as though for the first time I realize how much just being alive makes my body ache. But I don't want that ache to stop." ― Shannon Hale, Book of a Thousand Days. #BookSky 💙📚 #YAFantasy

A new entry from my #illustration learning journey. This time, a portray of our dogs who love to explore the hedge at the end of the garden, even climbing a few branches to get a better view. #kidlitart #digitalart #cutedogs

Fluffy clouds. Love them 🥰

This was a nice spring read, "Truth didn’t mean anything without someone to share it with; you could shout truth into the air forever, and spend your life doing it, if someone didn’t come and listen." ― Naomi Novik, Uprooted #BookSky 💙📚 #Fantasy #Folklore

I keep seeing "all authors use AI, the real issue is they're being forced to be sneaky about it" headlines. Full stop No. This is a lie peddled for normalization. It's schoolyard-level pressure tactics "C'mon, all the cool kids are already doing it. We won't tell. It's fine. We're on your side."

Seedlings and hail, a recipe for running... I was quick enough to bring them inside before the worst of it, but it would be nice if the weather finally understood it's time to get warmer, not colder. #gardening

First read it as a teen. Liked it better this time. "Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now.” ― Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End #BookSky 💙📚

I'm reading some spooky #MG mystery and enjoying it deeply. #Kidlit even spooks harder than it needs 😉 "When you are hiding something, you get the feeling that every other secret is connected to your secret." ―John Bellairs, The House with a Clock in Its Walls #BookSky #MiddleGrade 📚💙📚

Winter-sown seedlings are almost ready to go in the ground. If only it would stop snowing! 🌨️ ❄️🌨️ I may need to repot a few of them so they have enough room to wait for warmer days. #gardening #spring2026 #wintersown

Once in a while, I like to peruse through this one... Lots of interesting things too find, refind, and find again. "If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does." ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland #kidlit #classics #BookSky 📚💙📚

I love looking at this ⬇️ knowing that this ⬇️ is coming... #Spring time wonders! #gardening #spring2026

Dandelions, lawn daisies and other "weeds" are bees only source of food in early spring. We love these weeds and, to help our lovely solitary bees, we don't mow the lawn until other plants have bloomed. Bonus points, the garden gets some early color! #gardening #wildgarden #notaweed

Continuing with #YA that goes hard, this one oozes emotion... "Letting go feels like giving up. But if you don’t let go, you’ll drown. I know the feeling. And it sucks. But Life sucks sometimes." ― Abbie Emmons, 100 Days of Sunlight #KidLit #BookSky 📚💙📚

The colors of spring... What a joy! #spring2026 #gardening #springflowers #tulips #daffodils

#KidLit putting words to feelings in the best possible way "I feel guilty for it sometimes, for any sort of laughter or feeling of freedom on my part, because there is a war going on and we shouldn't be allowed to forget so easily." ― Nita Tyndall, Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken. #YA #BookSky 💙📚

Seriuosly, #kidlit goes so hard... "People try to create order. Discipline. Rules. It gives them peace. A sense of regulation. Of strength. It makes them feel in control. But life is chaos, reader. The sooner you learn this, the better." ― Cory Anderson, What Beauty There Is #BookSky #YA 📚💙📚

Apple blossoms are among my (and the bees) favorite blossoms... #spring2026 #gardening #springgarden

Delightfully dark, a good winter read. "I don’t need you,’ I say, ‘I want you. That should be enough. That should be better because it means I’ve made a choice." ― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones #Horror #BookSky 📚💙📚

Spring is coming, you can feel it... 😀

It always impresses me how #kidlit manages to push harder than it needs, go deeper... to give us devastatingly beautiful books. “It's confusing-how your heart holds your love and your hurt in the same chamber.” ― Justin A. Reynolds, Early Departures #YA #Contemporary #BookSky 📚💙📚 🌎

Nominations are open for the Le Guin prize! #Kidlit of a science fictional and/or fantastical nature should absolutely stand up and be counted. www.ursulakleguin.com/prize26

From the first trailer of "Kindred Spirits", the new animated feature film by Tomm Moore & Cartoon Saloon (Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, Wolfwalkers) + Folivari. Coming in 2028. Full video >> www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQn9...

"How do we tie our shoes, brush our hair, drink coffee, wash the dishes & go to sleep, pretending everything is fine? How do we laugh & feel happiness despite the buried things growing inside? How can we do that day after day?" -Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter #KidLit 💙📚 #YA

"In a war the most dangerous thing is to understand the enemy. To understand is to forgive." ― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch #Fantasy #BookSky #Books #quotes 📚💙📚

"Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced." ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World #favoritebooks #greatquotes #BookSky #Sci-Fi 📚💙📚

Favorite quotes from favorite books, "It was there, and he could come back to it, the silence that gave words meaning, the center that gave the world a shape." ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Beginning Place. 💙📚 #BookSky

A calm moment and a quote to start your day. Wishing you a lovely morning! "Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it." ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner #bookquotes #illustration 💙📚 #booksky

Favorite quotes, "I'll tell you what: If I could do it all over again, I'd spend more time helping others. All I've ever done is dig tunnels. Some of them were real beauties too, but they're all hidden underground, where they're no good to anyone but me." ― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot #BookSky 💙📚

"We must all ask ourselves: is this really the world we want for our children — one where they are afraid to go to school, home, hospitals, neighborhoods, playgrounds, museums, and libraries for fear of immigration detention?" Children don't belong in immigration detention.

We obtained the Dilley detention center’s 911 call logs. Among them are pleas for help for toddlers having trouble breathing, a pregnant woman who passed out and an elementary-school-aged girl having seizures.

The way home. This summer has gifted us with some wonderful sunsets. #summer2025

A beautiful and spooky #MG to get ready for the season... I enjoyed very much. "You don't waste October sunshine. Soon the old autumn sun would bed down in cloud blankets and there would be weeks of gray rain before it finally decided to snow." ― Katherine Arden, Small Spaces #KidLit #MG #Horror

Old, but still readable, "They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don't want the truth; they want their traditions.” ― Isaac Asimov, Pebble in the Sky #BookSky 💙📚 #scifi

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend. May the winds of life take your papalote to new highs! #papalotes #flyingonpaperwings #flyingkites #illustration

A quote that feels fitting of the times, as in, trust their actions, not their words. "If you don't want a man dead, don't bludgeon him over the head repeatedly." ― Naomi Novik, Uprooted #BookSky 💙📚 #fantasy

Favorite quotes from favorite books, "You are like a lantern swathed and covered, hidden away in a dark place. Yet the light shines; they could not put out the light. They could not hide you." ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan 💙📚 #BookSky #YA #Fantasy

I want the days to be longer so I have more hours to read! #kidlit #readmore 💙📚

YA quotes that hit too close... "Life never turns out how you imagine it will when you’re young. Everything is smaller than you think, or too big. It all smells a little funny and fits like somebody else’s shirt." ― Melissa Albert, The Hazel Wood 💙📚 #BookSky #YA #Fantasy

Noem says hundreds more ICE agents are expected to arrive in Minneapolis today and tomorrow. Please be prepared. Set up a network, check on neighbors regularly, know your rights, and have an action plan in place and ready.

The more I visit hospitals the less I like them. Yet, today's visit was a pleasant surprise thanks to the fantastic nurses taking tare of me. 👩‍⚕️ Nurses rule! 👩‍⚕️

The time has come of turning every apple collected in September and still not eaten into juice, compote or jam. Last night results: Five liters of pasteurized apple juice and four jars of unsweetened apple compote. Two crates of apples more to go. #homemade #winter #food

Oldest dog & I have an unrequited relationship. I loved her dearly. She tolerates me, better if it's cold & wants a warm lap to sit on. Yet, today, the inequality of our feelings became unbearable when, after I called her, she looked at me & decided that not even a treat was enough to approach me.

Today, two nurses tried to draw my blood. Long story short, five painful punctures later, I feel like a pincushion and still no blood for the lab. Monday, I'll try again. I've been promised the most experienced nurse (the one who last time had no trouble with my veins), will be there.

Post your favorite "Lord of the Rings" character. Wrong answers only.