Reading Log 2024 for MarksvilleandMe

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A new year, a new list of books to read. In case you are just tuning in, I am working on one of my bucket list items which would be to read the whole original Nancy Drew Series. I read quite a few when I was younger but I wanted to read them all in order. I was lucky to find a great deal and add them to my new collection of books. To be honest most of my books are now digital but I still love an actual book where I can feel the page being turned and see the progress of how far I am in by looking at the binding and where my bookmark is. I would love to hear what you are reading right now. 

 

 

90 days to a sharper mind

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 Zeitgeist sent me this Logic Puzzles Book for Brain Fitness: 90-Day Challenge to Sharpen the Mind and Strengthen Cognitive Skills with Enlarged Print to review. As we age we need to keep our minds healthy. One easy way to do that is through puzzles like these which can help improve your logical thinking skills by stimulating your brain, testing your knowledge, and developing your reasoning and creativity.

This book has 90 days worth of puzzles in 6 different formats from easy to hard and teaches you how to to solve the puzzles if you have never done them before. If you are like me you pick up assorted puzzle books and do your favorites but leave the puzzles you don't know how to do empty. The large print is great for those who need it.

Puzzles like this Logic Grid Puzzle on the left I would always try but never finish, not sure why but I never got the hang of them but the informational pages that taught me how to do these puzzles I am doing them on my own now and getting the answers right. I am 52 and I strive to learn new things each day and this was a win for me. Logic Grid puzzles sharpen your logic and reasoning, develops perseverance, and encourages you to see the world from different perspectives.

Sudoku puzzles like the puzzle in the top left-hand corner comes quite easily to me and even though this has easy to hard I still love doing them and usually just breeze right through them. It is nice to have both easy and hard puzzles to do to keep your mind sharp. Think back to all of the years you had to learn your multiplication tables, the practice of reciting them over and over again is why some of us can still recall them with little effort. Sudoku improves memory, deepens concentration, and increases your capacity to analyze how individual parts relate to a whole. 

Calcudoku is at the bottom of the left page. I have seen these but they are one of the puzzles I would skip over and now I am learning how to do them. Calcudoku helps improve number sense, develops problem-solving skills, and prevents memory loss.

Battleship is on the top right page and is one of my favorite games to play but solving it this way is quite different and took me a bit but I am now doing well with this puzzles as well. Battleship improves creativity, increases spatial reasoning, and helps develope logical deduction and reasoning.

Kakuro on the bottom right and though I have seen and skipped these I am looking forward to learning how to do these soon. Kakuro helps lengthen your attention span, helps develop highly methodical thinking patterns, and increases your ability to use resources efficiently.

Masyu, which I am sure I have seen but only a few times and will learn how to solve once I get to that spot in the book. Masyu enhances visual intelligence, boosts your pattern-recognition skills, and increases adaptive thinking.

Most of us want to look and feel young but that includes taking care of our minds too. Here is to stronger better minds for years to come.

Find Logic Puzzles Book for Brain Fitness: 90-Day Challenge to Sharpen the Mind and Strengthen Cognitive Skills with Enlarged Print at

One Question a Day for couples.

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 Our lives from the beginning were all about our children but now we are officially empty nesters. Even after almost 35 years together we still learn something new about each other almost daily. The journal, One Question a Day to Stay Close & Curious, A Couple's Journal for a Lifetime of Love by Gina Senarighi is a great book for new couples at any time during their relationship. Actually, this would be nice to do at the beginning of a marriage and then updated throughout the marriage to see how the responses might differ over time.

Our marriage has always been pretty strong but it took work. We have had our lows, highs, and tons of twists and turns over the years. We only had a short time of being a couple before children started coming along and even though we took time for date nights regularly we always found ourselves talking about our children. Not much has changed but not every living minute is about our children now.

Now we are filling in all of the little details and learning more about each other. For instance, when Easter came around I knew my husband always liked his big solid chocolate Easter Bunny which was always in his basket growing up and I know he loves pretty much anything Reese's but other than that he always got what our children got. I didn't really know his favorite candies. These are conversations we have now.

Yes, most of our lives are still taken up with our children and grandchildren but we are discovering new things about each other every day. This journal takes us to places where we might not have taken the time to talk or write about but now we have a space for them. There are many we have spoken to each other about but have never taken the time to actually write down in words that we could come back and read at a later time or leave for our children to read when we are gone.

 

For me being diagnosed with 3rd Stage Colon Cancer was a big eye-opener. My whole life had revolved around my family which is not a bad thing, but I really never took time for myself other than a bath while reading, and that was OK, but now that I have time there are things I want to still do in my lifetime and that includes staying close to my husband and leaving something behind for our children. Money, we don't have but knowledge that I can do.

If you are interested in this book check it out below. 

Reading Log 2023 for MarksvilleandMe

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Finally getting back into my reading mode and have gotten a few read already with a few I am working on right now. In case you are just tuning in, I am working on one of my bucket list items which would be to read the whole original Nancy Drew Series. I read quite a few when I was younger but I wanted to read them all in order. I was lucky to find a great deal and add them to my new collection of books. To be honest most of my books are now digital but I still love an actual book where I can feel the page being turned and see the progress of how far I am in by looking at the binding and where my bookmark is. I would love to hear what you are reading right now. 

Summer reads you won't want to miss

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I Love Strawberries is an awesome book to read and learn how to grow strawberries, or even before going to your local farm stand. Reading this one is both fun and educational. I even picked up a few hints about growing strawberries in our garden. Perfect for the start of Summer.

Side note for anyone interested the very first job that I was paid to do was to pick strawberries on a farm when I was about 12. It was hard hot work but gave me a new understanding of the work it takes to grow food.

Farm Boots is a book for anyone who has ever enjoyed spending time on a farm or has fond memories of working alongside a grandparent. It is also a book for anyone who wants to celebrate the special bond between generations, the importance of family, and the simple pleasures of life.

 For me, this book brought back memories of helping my dad on the farm with the cattle or in our backyard where we kept pigs, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and for a short time a goat.

Both of these books can be found at most bookstores or retailers online.

Disclosure:  MarksvilleandMe received one or more of the products mentioned above as part of a promotion. Regardless, MarksvilleandMe only recommends products or services we use personally and believe will be good for our readers. Some of the links in the article may be “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive compensation.  If you would like MarksvilleandMe to review or promote a product or service please contact us at marksvilleandme@gmail.com.

Reading Log 2022 for MarksvilleandMe

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This year was really hard on our family. Where I thought I would have all the time in the world to read I found myself instead fighting for my life. Stage 3 Colon Cancer really gave me a hard time. We did get in a few books though and I will share them below. One of my bucket list items is reading the whole set of Nancy Drew books. I have read many over the years some more then once but wanted to do them in order.  

Glocusent 16 LED Rechargeable Book Light review

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I was recently able to try out the Glocusent 16 LED Rechargeable Book Light which was sent to me for my honest opinion. Honestly, I love it. It is rechargeable, you can change the light setting with a click, and it will last 80+ hours although I can't vouch for the 80 hours yet as I haven't read that many non-digital books to know if it lasts that long yet. 

This is great for both children and adults. You won't bother your partner while reading, it is great for camping or even for the kids who love to read when they are supposed to be sleeping. I was one of those kids for sure. I love that it helps me read without having to ask someone to help turn the light on at night as I am currently battling colon cancer and this gives me some independence on my down days so that I can do something for myself without having to depend on other so much during the night. 

What I think would make this better is a timer that blinks the light when it will turn off for those parents who don't want their kids staying up all night, as a reminder, it's time for bed you can read more tomorrow. 

If you are interested check it out at Glocusent 16 LED Rechargeable Book Light. 

Narnia Night

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Some of you might remember that we started family reading. Kind of like a book club for our family so we could read the same book at the same time.  We usually have discussions on it and when there is a movie we would also celebrate the ending of the book with the movie and then critique it to see which parts we liked best. Spoiler for our family it is usually the book that wins. 

Our first book was "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" written by C.S. Lewis. You can read all about why we started family reading here. We just finished reading it this last week and set Friday as our movie night to enjoy the book we read in movie form. We chose the 2005 version. We also ordered Turkish delight to have as a treat during the movie as a surprise for my daughter. 

We bought both the fruit and nut versions of Turkish Delight because we couldn't decide. 

My daughter called earlier asking us to watch my grand daughter for the weekend we call her Beaner. Of course we said yes. We enjoy almost all of the time we have with our grand daughter. My hsuabnd and I had decided earlier in the week as we were nearing the end of the book that we would make it a themed night so we served buttered toast with Sardines, cut up boiled eggs, and tea as well,  before we pulled out the Turkish Delight just as Edmund was about to bite into his piece. 

My grand daughter really was excited about everything and wished she had read with us over the summer. We told her she could still read the next book we pick out with us. We now have really neat gadgets and apps like facebook messenger, zoom, etc to be able to do everything in real time together. This whole thing really got my daughter excited about reading more books as well. 

We are going to go back and read book one in the series since for some reason I didn't know that this wasn't the first book. That is OK though, sometimes that is just how you find a new author to read, and then go back and read all or most of their books. I can't count how many authors and book series I started in the wrong order and have gone back and read them in order, and then picked up other series they have written and read those as well. 

Was Family Reading worth it? For us it really was and I hope to enjoy many more books with my family in the years to come. Here is to a new family tradition. Are there any new tradtions you have added over the last year?