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. 

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. 

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.  

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? 

Family Reading

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Over the years I have read many books to my children, the children I have cared for, my grandchildren, and even to myself. My husband and myself have read many books together and also shared our own genre of books with each other. I have a long time love of reading books. The love of reading books comes from my father who took the time each night to read to me till 4th grade when my reading level was college level and my father wasn't sure what to do so the Dr. told him to just read anything to me and he started to read medical journals, Life jornalism books, National Geographic, and the old Readers digest books, pretty much anything he could think of. 

We were not rich by any means but I know there were always books for me to read, magazines like Highlights, Ladybug, Cricket, Jack and Jill, Spider, and Humpty Dumpty. Book sets delivered to our home that I devoured some with help, most without. 

Years later when I would have my own children I just expected them to read like I did. At three years old my parent thought I had memorized the books I was reading and the Dr. told them that I knew how to read and wanted to know who taught me. They hadn't, they had just been reading to me and somehow I just picked it up. So when my children struggled with reading I didn't really know how to teach them because it had just come naturally to me, but thankfully my husband had learned to read the good old fashioned way so between us we did OK until the kids went off to school and let them take over. 

Now forward past my first 4 children to my last two girls and I knew something just wasn't clicking for them and thought that the school had it all covered. In steps Covid-19, remote learning and the thrown in my face fact that the school had let me and most of all my chidren down. Not to say my kids haven't had great teachers because they have but the teachers can only do so much with the time they have when the government or state gives them a timeline to adhere to even if the kids are left behind (No child left behind is far from the truth of things). The truth is if the child falls behind they are usually left there to fail with little or no support to help them. 

So our family after my 18 year old and 5th child graduated 12th grade by the skin of her teeth and my now 13 year old were done with school this year, we decided we would homeschool our youngest through High School. We want her to learn to read better, to understand what she is reading, and actually hold on to some of that knowledge before being rushed on to something she doesn't even understand (like algebra when she doesn't know her times tables). 

Back to reading before I get going off to far in the wrong direction. This summer we decided to start family reading, where we all read the same book together at the same time. To make sure our daughter is staying up with us we all take turns reading passages so that we can help her with words she doesn't know while modeling what to do while reading. Such as pausing for commas, showing emphasis,  how words look or sound the same but are very different from each other, and how to find out which to use in a sentence. We just want her to be better prepared for the future then her sister is at this time. We have just lost too much time trusting that the school would do the work for us. 

So here we are on our first book The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe written by C.S. Lewis, which by the way I thought was the first book in the series The Chronicles of Narnia not the second so we will be going back to book one The Magician's Nephew at some time in the future. Learning never ceases even as an adult. If you are interested in The Chronicles of Narnia check it out below. 

Official Money Guide for Couples

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It is never too late to learn how to get your finances in order. We have been married for 30 plus years and we are just beginning to get ours in line. We married young, had a ton of kids, and lived very busy lives. We just never really took the time to learn things. Sure we skated by with a couple of falls and setbacks, but we never really learned to save for ourselves, children, or our retirement. What can I say we lived paycheck to paycheck and when we had extra money we spent it quickly on things we had deprived ourselves from having the rest of the time. So here we are at the age of 49 with hardly any savings. Sure we have no debt but we don't have anything saved or to show other then our family for the 30 years we have been together. 

So like I said it is never to late to learn. Take for instance the book "Official Money Guide for Couples" this is a great book to start with if you are in relationship. There are many more to choose from but this is a good start and will help you make better choices, hopefully earlier then us but even if you are younger then us take the leap and learn more about finances not just for today or tomorrow but for years to come. 

I believe if we had some guidance all of those years before things might have worked out very different for us along the way, but we can't change the past we can only move forward from where we are today. Since the beginning of 2020 many families have felt the sting of not saving earlier. Times are hard on tons of people and even if you can't save right now this book can really put you on the right track to getting your finances in order and changing your life over time for the better. 

In the last year we have saved a little bit of money here and there so we have something in case of emergency. Now we are taking all of our money saving tips we have used over the years and are combining them with what we have learned in this book to do more with what we have. I don't think we are ready for the stock market just yet but hey it is a possibility. 

If you are interested in learning more check out the book below or even visit their site. Links at bottom of post. There are products for kids to adults so that everyone in your family can learn to take care of their money better. Here is to everyone making a change in their lives one step at a time, it's never too late. 

Find out more about MoneySavvy Generation at

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Reading Log 2021 for MarksvilleandMe

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After last year I hope I to be able to fit in more books to read on my own although we are still remote learning we have a more set schedule and things are winding down at least for now for my now 12th grade daughter and my 8th grader is becoming a more proficiant reader on her own. So I posting the books I read below. Check out the books I read in 2020 here. 

#Loveatfirstbook #shespeaks 

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 2020 for MarksvilleandMe

I wanted to keep a running log of everything I read and finish in 2020 this year as well. Mind you I have several books going at a time some for church, myself, and for reading with my children so there will be quite a mix here as well as with my local reading club. With the way things have changed this year my reading time has gone down while my teaching at home has been called forth. Below you will find what I have finished as well as where to find them if you are interested in adding them to your list. You can also check out what I read in 2019 here. I didn't read nearly as much as I wanted to. 2020 was really different for everyone. For me that meant reading many papers, books, and sites with the girls to keep them up with their school work remotely. On a good note we all learned together. We logged in many hours on the computer looking up things that were interesting and learning more indepthly on items we thought the kids should know more about. 

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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.