Mandi Ehman's Blog, page 107

Homeschool Booklist for the 2013-2014 School Year

source: Mandi Ehman

Whew. I’ve been working on this post for months now!

A ton of people asked about the books we purchased when I placed my (ahem, first) book order for the upcoming year, and as I was working to organize that list, I decided to fill in the gaps for the upcoming year at the same time, so here is an almost complete list of the books we’ll be using for the 2013-2014 school year.

A few notes:

We do buy most of our books because 1) our library doesn’t have a ton of choices, is far away and only lets me put in 5 requests at a time; 2) with (soon-to-be) 5 kids, I expect they’ll all get plenty of use to justify the cost, especially since I tend to be pretty frugal in other curriculum purchases; and 3) I love children’s books and hope to continue to grow our collection for our grandchildren to use in the future (maybe that promise will keep our girls close!). I mostly buy used books on Amazon, which can be tedious but is worth the savings so that I can buy more!


Although we are not participating in our local CC campus this year, we’re still basing our curriculum around the Classical Conversations program, so the weeks and topics listed are all found in the Classical Conversations Foundations Guide.


For some of the weightier history topics — fall of communism, Gulf War and the end of apartheid — there aren’t a lot of age-appropriate books for the younger crowd. My hope is to still fill in those weeks with biographies of the historical figures involved, but I haven’t had a ton of luck finding biographies I really love about Margaret Thatcher, President G. W. Bush, etc., so I hope to keep researching those and fill in those spaces later.


This list is by no means exhaustive and in no way mine alone. I’ve pulled book recommendations from a variety of friends and resources, including Heidi at Mt. Hope Academy and Brandy at Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood. In many cases, Brandy’s unofficial Cycle 2 booklist includes many more book recommendations than mine does, since ours is specific to our family.


That said, our family loves science books, so our science list is more detailed than most other lists I’ve seen. Pretty much I want to buy all the children’s science books on Amazon!


For family read-alouds, we use the Sonlight core recommendations as our guide. My goal this year is to include our favorite read-alouds from the earlier cores for our younger girls as well as more chapter books for the big girls.

Click here for the booklist. {You’ll find a web version as well as a downloadable PDF.}

What books are on your list for the upcoming school year?

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy on the way, and together, they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. She loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

Homeschool Booklist for the 2013-2014 School Year

© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

7 iPhone Apps for Your Next Road Trip

Admittedly, we didn’t download any special apps before our 16-hour road trip a couple of months ago, but the beauty of the app store is, of course, you can download new apps anytime you realize a need for them!

As we drove, we began searching for apps to help us make better decisions about when and where to stop, and after trying out bunches, here’s the list of apps I’d recommend for your next road trip:

MapQuest

I’ve shared my love of the MapQuest app before, and we rarely go anywhere new without pulling up directions and voice navigation to guide us along the way. We’ve had a few funny incidents (like when it took us the back way into Marlins Park in Miami), but for the most part it’s very accurate!

AccuWeather

Although many people recommend the Weather.com app, I actually much prefer the AccuWeather app, which gives you a ton of information on the homescreen and seems to be a little more accurate and detailed than the Weather.com information.

USA Rest Stops

One of the first apps we downloaded on our trip was the USA Rest Stops app. With four kids and a dog, knowing where the next rest stops are is an important part of deciding when to stop and when we can keep going just a little bit longer, and I love that this app shows you exactly how many miles you have until the next rest stop as well as what amenities you’ll find there!

RoadNinja

And then a not-so-funny-at-the-time thing happened. I was hoping for a coffee to keep me going on the last leg of our trip, and so we pulled up the native iPhone map and found the closest Starbucks. As we headed off the highway down the road, we slowly realized that the Starbucks we were heading toward was actually in the small airport, not exactly convenient for a road trip. I settled for an iced coffee from the Shell station (holy smokes do they make those things sweet!), and ranted a bit on Facebook, and a few friends suggested their favorite road trip apps.

We tested a few and settled on RoadNinja, which is free but packed full of good information to help you discover restaurants, gas stations, hotels and more along your route!

GasBuddy

Although you can find gas prices using the RoadNinja app, a dedicated app like GasBuddy makes it much easier to check prices with just one tap on your screen. While we don’t often head off our route to get cheap gas, it is good to know what’s around so we can make the best choice!

Our goal was to get to our destination as quickly as possible, but for longer road trips where you plan to stop and enjoy the sights along the way, be sure to download these as well:

Wi-Fi Finder

Thankfully, more and more chains are offering free wi-fi at all of their locations, but for those times when you’re hunting for a free wi-fi connection, this app is your best friend! You can even download offline lists so that you can search without an internet or cell phone connection.

Roadside America

I just discovered this little gem, which searches for and lists local attractions to help you make the most of every locale. With well known and offbeat attractions listed, you’ll discover tons of new places along your route, and I’m looking forward to using this here at home as well!

What travel apps would you add to this list? Does your family prefer to drive straight through or to stop and enjoy the sights along the way on a road trip?

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy on the way, and together, they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. She loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

7 iPhone Apps for Your Next Road Trip

© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

It’s Not Okay to Yell at Your Kids

source: Mandi Ehman

Yep, I said it: It’s not okay to yell at your kids.

I know, I know. Who am I to judge you or your parenting style or your circumstances?!

The good news? I’m not.

I’m really, truly not.

I yell — more often than I’d like — and I’m not condemning other parents who yell.

But what I’m realizing this year is that sometimes I need a little less camaraderie, a little less, “Ugh, I just lost it with my kids too,” and a little more of someone standing up and saying, “Yes, it happens to the best of us. Yes, there’s forgiveness and grace. But no, it’s not okay.”

Because you know what? It’s really not.

Are there times when yelling is okay? Sure, and I’m not here to quibble over when it’s okay and when it’s not. If my kid is about to walk into the road and I can’t reach them, you can bet I’m gonna yell, and my goal is going to be to scare them into freezing right where they are. And frankly, we’re a loud family, and there are plenty of times that the yelling in our house has nothing to do with anger or frustration.

But sometimes? Sometimes these little people I’ve been entrusted with just push me over the edge, and the only way I feel like I can get anybody to listen is to yell. Or sometimes I’m simply living inside my head, wanting to finish a stream of thought without interruption, and that final interruption is enough to make me want to scream and shout.

Sometimes I’m just tired. Sometimes I can’t think of any other way to get their attention. Sometimes they are really just not listening or obeying.

And so I yell.

But I still don’t think it’s okay. And I really don’t want to get to the point where I justify it.

The quote above was floating around Facebook a while back: “The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.” I don’t want my kids’ inner voice to be that of me yelling or ranting or belittling them.

Does this mean I don’t believe that kids should be disciplined or made to obey? No, absolutely not. I’m just not sure yelling is even all that effective in the grand scheme of things (I’ve watched my kids tune me out and I’ve watched them put up walls between us when I yell), and I think there are better ways to get their attention and make my point.

I also know how yelling makes me feel, and it’s not good. I never walk away after yelling at my kids and want to give myself a pat on the back for stellar parenting. Instead, I walk away with my blood boiling, my heart pounding…and a pit in my stomach.

Earlier this year I came across The Orange Rhino, a blogger who committed to not yelling for a year straight and documented her progress along the way. She’s raw, funny and unapologetic about her commitment not to yell at her kids, and it was the wake-up call I needed to take a look at yelling in my own life and say, “This is not okay.” I haven’t made it a week without yelling, let alone a year, and sometimes it feels like an impossible challenge, but I want it to hurt me every time I give in and yell, and I don’t want to stop trying and accept yelling as inevitable.

I think my kids deserve better than that, and I think I do too.

Whether you’re a yeller, a former yeller or someone who has never yelled at your kids, I’d love to hear from you. What other strategies do you use when yelling feels like the only way to get your kids attention? How do you push back against your tendency to yell?

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy on the way, and together, they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. She loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

It’s Not Okay to Yell at Your Kids

© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

The Secret to Habits That Stick

source: Mandi Ehman

With very few exceptions, forming a new habit is hard. If it wasn’t, we’d all be living perfect lives with perfectly clean homes, never worrying about productivity or becoming a better person. We’d simply think of some change we wanted to make — a new routine, exercising more, eating better or waking up earlier — and, voila, it would be so!

But life doesn’t work like that, and new habits take practice and, unfortunately, time. They take consistency and determination and perseverance. Basically, creating new habits is a lot of work!

However, I have discovered a little secret that’s made a difference in the way I approach new habits.

This secret isn’t really revolutionary or new. It doesn’t cost any money or require you to have a certain app on a certain mobile device. And, unfortunately, it doesn’t make any of the work easier.

You see, forming a new habit isn’t about doing it perfectly or always remembering that thing you’re trying to do. That would be impossible, and whether it’s flossing your teeth before bed or drinking a glass of water before you eat breakfast each morning, chances are you’ll have times you forget along the way to actually making it a habit.

The key, then, is not perfection; it’s simply doing it whenever you think about it.

Sounds oversimplified, I know, but bear with me for a second.

With uncanny certainty, I can predict whether a habit in my life is going to stick or not based on my reaction the first time I remember the action I’m supposed to be taking and don’t want to take it.

Forming a habit takes a series of those “I don’t really feel like it” moments, and when you choose to floss your teeth or drink your water or do your jumping jacks anyway, you move a little bit closer to making the habit stick.

But when one of those moments comes up and I think to myself, “I don’t really feel like it…so I’m not going to this time,” it is almost always the beginning of the end. The permission I give myself not to take action that one time becomes permission time and time again until I’m not even trying or remembering the action at all.

This was an important realization for me because it’s often the motivation I need to overcome my reluctance. When I wake up in the morning and don’t feel like folding the laundry that’s waiting for me, I remind myself that choosing not to could undo my months of hard work in laying that habit. When it’s time to floss my teeth before bed and I feel like skipping it “just this once”, I remember how that’s worked out for me in the past and spend the 3 minutes to floss them anyway.

That’s not to say there are never times that I leave the load of laundry or skip the teeth flossing, because there are. But there’s a difference between a morning when we’re trying to get out of the house by 7 a.m. and there truly isn’t time to fold the laundry and the morning when I have a lot on my plate and I just don’t feel like doing that one.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a hard-and-fast rule to follow in those circumstances; all I can say is I firmly believe we all know the difference in our heart if we take the time to think about it, and it’s better to choose the habit if you’re unsure.

What’s your secret for forming a new habit? Have you seen this lesson play out in your own life?

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy on the way, and together, they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. She loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

The Secret to Habits That Stick

© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

Summer Games: Water Balloon Learning

The following post is from Kristina of Toddler Approved:

source: Kristina Buskirk

As a parent, there really isn’t a start or end to when we can create learning time with our kids. We can find ways to help our kids learn new skills (or review old ones) through the simplest tasks or activities. I love to find ways to embed learning into our daily play time and outdoor activities.

Recently I posted 10 ways to learn and play with water over at Toddler Approved and since it has been hot where we live, we keep finding new ways to practice simple academic skills using water during our outdoor playtime.

Today I am sharing a simple summer activity that uses word cards and water balloons. This activity could be used to help with learning new vocabulary, memorizing sight words, practicing math facts, etc.

This activity started as water balloon playtime where the kids just threw balloons at the fence. To focus it on reviewing an academic skill, all we did was grab Sharpies, tape, and notecards.

Supplies:

sharpies
water balloons
water
notecards
painters tape

source: Kristina Buskirk

Directions:

The first thing we did was fill up the water balloons. I like to do this when my kids are sleeping or otherwise occupied.

Next, I wrote a simple sight word on each balloon, and I wrote the same word on a notecard. Once I had written ten word cards and each had a matching word balloon, we went outside!

Before we played, we secured the word cards to the fence using painters tape. Then my son grabbed a sight word water balloon, read the word, looked for the matching word on the fence, and then threw the balloon at the fence to try and soak his word card.

This simple activity could be adapted for younger or less coordinated kids by changing the water balloons to a spray bottle. Using a spray bottle requires less hand-eye coordination but is still really motivating and fun.

source: Kristina Buskirk

Preschooler Version: Call out colors and have them spray or throw a water balloon at the correct colored paper or write the ABCs/123′s on the cards and balloons and have the child toss the ABC balloons at the ABC cards.

Elementary Age Version: Grab some hula hoops and make number sentences for water balloon math like No Time for Flashcards or write basic multiplication facts on water balloons and answers on the notecards…. and start throwing!

You can find 50 ways to play with water balloons at Fantastic Fun and Learning and you can even find ways to create and paint with water balloons at Growing a Jeweled Rose and Housing a Forest.

Have you used water balloons for learning or creating? How?

Kristina is a mom of 2 and a former Special Ed teacher for children with communication disabilities. She blogs at Toddler Approved as she looks for ways to make life a little more fun and creative with her kids while embedding learning into everything that she does. Kristina tweets as @ToddlerApproved and can be found on FB and Pinterest.

Summer Games: Water Balloon Learning

© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

Planning Tips to Help You Make the Most of Your Summer

source: Mandi Ehman

Summer is underway at an almost frantic pace for most of the families I know, including ours, and now is a good time to step back, reevaluate and invest a little bit of time in planning so that you can make the most of your summer while it lasts!

We’ve got a lot of great tips and resources in the archives, so I’ve pulled them all into one place for you today to help you get started.

These are my best tips, but I’d love to hear yours as well, so be sure to chime in in the comments with your favorite summer tips!

Planning & Tips

Pack a To-Go Bag for Easy Outings


Tips for Getting Out of the House with Small Children


Five Ways to Keep Your Car Organized During the Summer Months


Strategies to Avoid Pre-Vacation Stress


Things to Do in Your Kitchen Before You Leave for Vacation


More Summer Menu Planning Tips


Preparing for a Road Trip

Activities

FREE Summer Fun eBook {Recipes, Crafts, Activites & More!}


The {Relaxing} Summer Bucket List


101 Ways to Embrace Summer


101 MORE Ways to Embrace Summer


101 Ways to Embrace Summer {The 2013 List}

For Your Medicine Cabinet

The No-Pain Method for Removing Splinters


DIY Tick & Mosquito Spray


Homemade Baking Soda & Coconut Oil Deodorant


EWG’s 2013 Guide to Safer Sunscreens and Sun Safety


Bentonite Clay in Your First Aid Kit

Summer Food

FREE Backyard Barbecue Recipes eBook


Easy Oven-Broiled S’mores + 104 S’more Variations


37 Eat Well, Spend Less Potluck Dishes for Summer


46 Ways to Serve Fruits & Veggies at Snacktime

How do you make the most of summer? What’s your best tip or advice?

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy on the way, and together, they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. She loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

Planning Tips to Help You Make the Most of Your Summer

© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

Sorry, You Can’t Have a Chemical Free Life

The following post is from Katie of Kitchen Stewardship:

source: Kitchen Stewardship

“I don’t eat vegetables with chemicals.”

“I choose to use personal products without chemicals.”

“I don’t like putting chemicals in my body.”

WRONG!

Do you drink water?

H2O.

Even the purest filtered water or crystalline, unpolluted water from the highest mountaintop.

Do you use salt?

NaCl.

Even unrefined salt directly from the sea or ancient mines.

Do you breathe air?

Even oxygen is a chemical.

What is a chemical?

“A chemical is an element, in that it has a specific molecular composition. An element is a chemical substance made of specific kinds of atoms that cannot be broken down any further; in short, elements are the purest forms of chemicals known to man.” (source)

Elements are chemicals.

In other words, not just oxygen, but hydrogen, carbon, copper, phosphorus, magnesium and silver are chemicals.

You’ve heard of carbon – the building block of all life? And copper, phosphorus, and magnesium are on the nutrition facts on the sides of your cereal boxes (if you eat cereal, I know, I know) – they’re necessary nutrients for human health.

Any combination of those elemental chemicals is also a chemical: table salt (sodium chloride), water, hydrogen peroxide and more.

Just about everything we touch, eat, drink, or breathe is a chemical or combinations of chemicals.

So how did the word “chemical” get such a bad reputation?

Nobody wants chemicals in their food or personal products, because they think that chemicals by their nature will harm them.

We say we don’t even want to use chemicals to get rid of wasp nests or kill ants in our kitchens…I have said those things. But I was wrong.

Chemical Free?

What we really mean when we say, “Chemical free” is, I would venture, “Toxin free,” or “Without toxic chemicals.”

We don’t want things that will harm us or make us sick coming into our homes and our bodies.

Saying we avoid chemicals when we mean we avoid only the bad ones is kind of like saying we don’t like weather, when what we really mean is bad weather.

We could just go with the positive spin on things and say we want “all natural” products.

You know, natural. Like lead. Radium. Mercury.

Things that are just basic. Simple. Elements in their natural form.

We can’t wait to get these things in our water, our medicines, and our vaccines.

Oh. Wait.

That stuff is “all natural?”

We seem to be having a vocabulary problem today.

Lots of things are all natural.

Is it any wonder that labeling is confusing and it’s tough to figure out what to buy, since we call everything bad a “chemical” and everything good “natural,” yet everything we touch is a chemical and all sorts of nasty stuff is natural?

Sure, humans have fabricated plenty of chemicals that didn’t used to exist a century ago. Many of them cause cancer and other diseases, and many of them help treat those same diseases. (Some probably do both.) A whole bunch of them are formulated from elements in their natural form.

I doubt we’ll be able to change the momentum of society and rebrand toxins as “manmade chemicals” or just “toxic chemicals” or “toxins”, but we can be a little smarter in our own conversations.

And remember that the marketing teams at most businesses are smart with semantics, too: Don’t buy it just because it’s “all natural.”

You might end up with a natural toxic chemical.

How do words and labels trip you up in your quest for the natural life? Or is it a “green” life? Or, you know, being crunchy? Sigh…

Katie Kimball is a mom of three who spends a ton of time in the kitchen making real food with whole ingredients and then blogs about her successes and failures at Kitchen Stewardship. She believes everything in life is a gift from God and should be taken care of wisely.

Sorry, You Can’t Have a Chemical Free Life

© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

What’s Your Best Morning Time Saver Tip?

As a fairly uncoordinated person, I’m in awe of the actress in the new Vaseline Spray & Go Moisturizer commercial!

You’d think her acrobatic morning routine might involve some sort of camera trick or special effects, but in reality, the actress is Emma, a dancer from London who trained as an acrobat as a child then switched to modern dance. (Okay, and the buttons were backed with magnets, but watch the commercial and you’ll see that’s really a tiny detail!).

She worked with a choreographer for a week before the shoot, mastering 19 different “tricks” to get completely dressed in a single take every time on the day of the shoot.

While I won’t be dancing or flipping into my outfits in this lifetime, I love the idea of finding ways to get ready faster, especially since my “fast” routine still takes me about 30 minutes from start to finish (although I usually spend 15-20 minutes in the shower, so my getting ready time is pretty short already!).

What’s your best tip for cutting your morning routine? Visit MaxtheMornings.com for more tips from Nia Vardalos (for My Big Fat Greek Wedding) for maximizing your time in the mornings!

Vaseline® Spray & Go Moisturizer is a quick, continuous 360° spray lotion that moisturizes deeply and absorbs in seconds, so you can put your clothes right on and get on with your day! Available in three formulas – Total Moisture®, Aloe Fresh, and Cocoa Radiant™ – this fast to apply, quick to absorb line of lotions leaves skin instantly soft – not sticky or greasy. Find out more at www.maxthemorning.com!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Vaseline. The opinions and text are all mine.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Vaseline. The opinions and text are all mine.

What’s Your Best Morning Time Saver Tip?

© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

Weekly Reads + Budgeting for Books {6/17/13}

I’m feeling like my current reading rut might be permanent! As I focus on work and homeschooling, I’m just not prioritizing time to read in my daily schedule, and I think part of the problem is that it’s been a long time since I read a fiction book I really loved, the kind that leads to late nights and stolen moments with the Kindle.I’d really love to find a new dystopian/fantasy series to read, except there’s the whole part about not buying any books right now (more on that down below!), so I just feel kind of stuck and uninspired.

Head here to see Katie’s post for this week. We also want to know what you’re reading! Add your blog post to the linky below or leave a comment with your favorite reads from this week.

This Week’s Reads

Choking on a Camel by Michal Ann McArthur


I was intrigued by the Amazon description of this book and picked it up a few weeks ago when it was free: “Meet Alex Ferguson: Compulsive skeptic. Devout believer. At odds with the group-think at her fundamentalist university. Preached at and taken advantage of. Agonizing over the recent death of her brother. Hurting for the larger world she lives in. Wrestling with the God she wants to love but maybe hates and definitely doesn’t understand.”

Unfortunately, I’m not far enough into it to have really formed an opinion. I got off to a slow start because it’s kind of a depressing book (at least in the beginning), and I think I’d prefer a lighter read right now, but I’m enjoying it so far as Alex wrestles with her many questions about faith and God.

With The Girls

While my own track record hasn’t been so good these past few weeks, the girls are flying through books, which makes me so incredibly happy, especially given my concerns about our oldest’s reading skills last summer!

The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes (Super Special #1): The Best is Yet to Come by Anne Mazer


Amanda and I talked about this briefly in the comments on another post, and I’m always torn when the girls pick a non-classic to read. On one hand, I love that they’re reading, and I think it’s okay to enjoy some fluff from time to time; on the other hand, I think an appreciation for the classics comes most often from simple exposure, and I want to be sure they develop that as well.

That said, I pulled a box of hand-me-down books out of the attic the other day, and the big girls jumped right in and began reading. Peyton (8) read this one in just a couple days, and while there are a couple others from the series she’s planning to read, she moved right on to other books from our home library, including the two below, so I think we’re finding a good balance for now!

Five True Dog Stories by Margaret Davidson


This book and then next one are both from the Sonlight Core A read-aloud collection, and Peyton was excited to pick up a small chapter book and read through the whole thing in one day. With fun, true stories about five famous pups, this book was fun for her because she made connections between various places and historical events as she read!

A Grain of Rice by Helena Clare Pittman


Our girls have a bit of an obsession with China, and Pey thoroughly enjoyed this folktale, which is a short, easy read about the power of persistence and thinking outside the box!

Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary


We’re huge fans of Beverly Cleary around here, and the girls have all listened to these audiobooks dozens of times, so I wasn’t surprised that Ramona Quimby was the first chapter book that Dylan (7) has actually read from front to back (it helps when you already know what it says!).

Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo: Who’s Afraid of Fourth Grade? by Nancy E. Krulik


Her “fluff” this week also came from our box in the attic, and she’s bringing me daily (sometimes hourly) updates about Katie Kazoo Switcheroo, which is just a silly, fun story about a little girl who switches places with several of her friends as she’s trying to deal with the pressure of starting the fourth grade.

A Question for You

This summer I’ve come across dozens of books that I’ve added to my wishlist, but I’m trying hard to read through some of the books on my Kindle before I buy anymore. I typically only buy $7-11 books if I’m going to read them right away, but sometimes I come across an ebook on sale that I’ll buy “for later” and then later never seems to come, so I want to read those plus a bunch of the classics that I’ve downloaded recently before I spend money on anything else.

I could probably find some of the books on my wishlist at the library (although our library doesn’t have the greatest selection), but I often have a hard time finishing a paper book these days since I do a lot of my reading at night and don’t enjoy reading with a book light!

How about you? How much money do you spend on books per month? Do you have a set budget? Do you use your library to offset the cost of your reading habit? Do set limits for yourself on the books you can buy and having to finish your t0-be-read pile first?

Share Your Reading List

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© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved