August 30 2018

Reading as Personal Development

As many of you know, I am an avid reader. When I hear about a book I want to read I write it down in my Bullet Journal on the page for recommended books along with who recommended it. I then go to my local library’s website and check to see if it is available as an audiobook. If not audio, then ebook would be my next choice, with paper books coming in as the third choice.

It kind of depends on what sort of book it is, really. If it is one that will have lots of illustrations and charts I will need to flip back and forth to, then obviously, a hard copy of the book would be the logical choice. If it is something that I might enjoy listening to or being able to consume while driving, an audiobook is the best choice. One of the tricks I use for reading more books each year is to listen to them while I do mundane tasks around the house like loading the dishwasher, tidying the kitchen or folding/hanging laundry. I also tend to listen to most audiobooks at 1.4 to 1.8 speed to help keep my mind from wandering as it tends to do at the slower 1.0 normal speed. I choose books where others might choose to watch television or scroll through social media. I choose the library because we simply couldn’t afford to buy all the books I read and we would have long ago run out of room to store them all. I rarely read a book a second time, choosing instead to read something new to me instead. Life is too short and there are so many books waiting for my attention. Continue reading

Category: Learning, Reading | Comments Off on Reading as Personal Development
August 29 2018

Loyal (Five Minute Friday)

The prompt this week is loyal. I had trouble figuring out what to write about it because when I think of loyalty and the human race, I realize the one person I am loyal to above all others is my husband. The kids are a close second, but I have more history with Hubby. My siblings would be next after Hubby and the kids. I kept stumbling with writing even for just five minutes on the word loyal because it seemed like thinking of being loyal to my spouse was just too simple.

To me, loyalty comes only with history and experience. Just as with people, there can also be brand loyalty. When we were growing up, poor by any standards, mom had brand loyalty to a couple of brands and would only buy those brands or none at all. She always bought Jif creamy peanut butter, Crest toothpaste, and Eckrich hotdogs (not sure if this was because it was a brand that started in Indiana) or she didn’t buy those items at all. Oddly enough, because of experience with these brands, I tend to buy them as well, though I am more likely to buy them only when they are on a good sale.

So, what are you loyal to?

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Loyal
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday | Comments Off on Loyal (Five Minute Friday)
August 23 2018

Review: Rage Card Game

Earlier this year we got together with three couples and one single gal while one of the couples was in town for what I like to think of as cousin date night. We are all over fifty, so get those dirty thoughts out of your mind. After eating dinner together in a restaurant, one couple called it a night and the other five of us got together in the common room at a nearby state park inn, where the out-of-towners were staying. Yes, we got the grand tour first and it was a very nice place.

Anyway, back to the common room where we were all seated around a table ready to play games with the fireplace going in the background. The out-of-town cousins travel with games and introduced us to one of their favorites, a game from the 1980s by the makers of UNO, called RAGE. It took a while to get the hang of the game, but they were very patient teachers and we all caught on quick enough. Remember, none of us is twenty anymore! Continue reading

Category: Family, Review | 1 Comment on Review: Rage Card Game
August 23 2018

Loved (Five Minute Friday)

I did something this weekend with Hubby that we absolutely LOVED. We signed up a couple of months ago to attend a 3-day intensive workshop to learn more about investing the way Warren Buffet does. It was serious, it was 3 long days of feeling like we were back in school. We drove 9 hours to get to the Atlanta area. We spent much of the drive listening to episodes of the Invested Podcast that I had saved to my phone. We had read the books written by Phil Town and his daughter, Danielle Town. We already believed in their way of investing but we needed more to actually put it into action. When I was looking for more info on the websites I stumbled onto the link to apply for the scholarship and decided to go for it. I applied to an event a couple of months out and Hubby and I got busy preparing to attend and learn even more. We began turning after dinner hours into Turquoise Table learning time. We would sit and read or researching companies and sharing what we found with each other. I can honestly say we have never been so focused on the same things for so long. During the workshop, we wrote out promises to ourselves and the team collected and laminated them so they would last while we carried them with us into the future. We met so many people. It turned out that there were two gals from the same area we call home sitting just a couple of people away from us at this workshop. We call that a God Wink (affiliate link). The brakes were acting crazy shortly before we got to Atlanta, but we nursed them and they got us home safely. It was a great weekend! One of the best we’ve had in a very long time. We loved learning so much and gaining so much hope for our future and the ability to actually have enough to retire someday. We actually loved spending our weekend this way and both agreed we would love to go back and someday become coaches to others.

If you think you might want to learn more about investing in stocks or options, you should apply for a scholarship to attend one of Phil Town’s Rule #1 Transformational Investing Workshops.

If you want to grab this book, please use the affiliate link provided here.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Loved
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday, Goals, Learning, Travel | 1 Comment on Loved (Five Minute Friday)
August 15 2018

Woman (Five Minute Friday)

As a woman of a certain age, I can’t help but remember these icons of womanhood that were presented to us via the television and radio. Young people today might not have had these examples of what it meant to be a woman to live up to, so instead of writing, I will share this piece of my childhood with all of you here.

Continue reading

Category: Five Minute Friday | Comments Off on Woman (Five Minute Friday)