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What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer

by | May 20, 2016 | Empty Nest

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 1

School will be out next week and I am dreaming of the idyllic days of summer. Days when no one needs a school uniform washed at 11:00 at night or a dozen turkey sandwiches made for the track team. I am also excited about our trip to the beach. I am ready to feel the sand between my toes and lay under an umbrella with a good book. Whether on a beach, at the pool or on your couch, I encourage you to take some time this summer to read a good book. Reading is good for the mind and alleviates stress.

I have made a list of my favorite books from the last few years.

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 2

All The Light I Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

The story begins in the early 1930s as Europe becomes embroiled in World War II. A French adolescent who has lost her eyesight flees Paris with her father to her Great Uncle’s home. They carry with them a valuable and cursed diamond from the museum where her father works.

In Germany a prodigy with exceptional mechanical skills is sent to train at an exclusive boys academy. He then goes into the field to locate underground radio operators who are passing information about the Germans and their plans to the enemy.

The French girl and the prodigy are destined to meet, but when?

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 3

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series by Alexander McCall Smith

I have read all 16 books in this series and am anxiously awaiting the 17th. I am charmed and relaxed as I read of the adventures of Precious Ramotswe and her assistant Grace Makutsi and their No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 4

Unbroken by Laura Hilenbrand

An Olympic hero is captured by the Japanese during World War II after surviving over 2 months in a life raft. The movie did not do the book justice.

 

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 5

11/22/63 by Stephen King

What if someone could travel back in time and prevent the Kennedy assassination?

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 6

Crime of Privilege by Walter Walker

A young lawyer makes a connection between a recent murder in Cape Cod and a rape and murder many years ago in Palm Beach, Florida. They have a very powerful and wealthy family in common.

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 7

The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey

Not a beach read (unless you want to spend time at the beach thinking about productivity), but a great read if you want to “accomplish more by managing your time, attention, and energy.” I just finished this book and have bought 3 copies for my children.

What I am Reading Now:

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 8

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 9

The Perfectly Imperfect Home by Deborah Needleman

The Next Books I Plan to Read:

(I have a list a mile long of things I want to read.)

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 10

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens

The description is intriguing. A college student goes to a nursing home to interview a willing subject for a biography assignment. He meets Carl, a decorated Vietnam veteran and convicted murderer.

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 11

Conran on Color by Terence Conran

It’s time to repaint a few rooms at our house and I need all the help I can get choosing colors.

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 12

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

Who doesn't want to believe there is a magic way to clean and organize?!?

What to Read on the Beach (or couch) this Summer 13

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19 Years to a Clutter-Free Home

19 Years to a Clutter-Free Home

by | Nov 20, 2014 | Parenting, Empty Nest

19 Years to a Clutter Free Home

 

It's possible, you know. You CAN de-clutter your home in only 19 short years. I am going to lay out an easy-to-follow plan. Don't get discouraged. You can do this. I have not calculated the exact financial cost or adjusted it for inflation, but it's somewhere around $257,498.42, give or take $52,629.75.  (That's according to the US Government or a retailer that sells plastic containers. I can't remember which.) You may have to adapt the plan for your individual situation, but if you will stick with the basics, you will be pleased with the results and will have at least ONE CLUTTER-FREE  ROOM of which to post a picture. Also remember that sometimes you have to take a few steps backwards to go forwards, but hang in there. It's a good, solid plan with guaranteed results.

19 Years to a Clutter-Free Home 14

 

 

THE PLAN:

YEAR ONE: Start simple. Have a baby.

YEAR TWO: Celebrate the beginning of year two with a birthday party for previously mentioned “baby.” Invite baby's grandparents. Move a baby-sized colorful plastic slide and a baby-sized colorful plastic car into your living room. Have a Christmas celebration. Allow your child to scatter the loot from this celebration, making a trail from his room to any living areas of your home. Recognize that there may be a problem. Make your first trip to a retail business with aisles of plastic containers. Attempt to put the loot in the containers. Repeatedly find child in the containers with the loot still creeping from his room.

YEARS THREE -FIVE: Add more babies. Have more birthday parties and Christmas celebrations. Move all plastic slides, cars, and any other marginally-durable toys outside to make room for the plastic kitchen, plastic dishes, plastic food, princess dresses, Hot Wheel cars, Legos, blocks, train set, and baby dolls.

YEARS SIX-TWELVE: Start kids in school. Add backpacks, lunch boxes, soccer balls, basketballs, footballs, pads, smelly socks, and mountains of papers to be filled-out, signed, and returned to the school. Turn the dining room table into a school project zone. Buy more plastic containers for colored papers, dried-up markers, shoe boxes, used panty-hose, toilet paper rolls, stickers, rocks, leaves and bugs. Designate a plastic container in your freezer for the bugs. Alert the Vatican after you perform your first miracle when you spend a week cleaning out your kids' play areas resolving to match the 5 containers of dislocated toy parts with their mates. Buy 1500 plastic containers – one for each type of toy. Take 65 garbage bags of stuff to the trash. Give up and collect the remaining random items, which precisely fill the original 5 containers of dislocated toy parts.

YEARS THIRTEEN-FIFTEEN: Make some progress cleaning out closets. Give a bunch of stuff away. Take 100s of garbage bags of stuff to the trash. Declare you will never part with the Legos, the train set, the dollhouse…. and pack them away in brand new plastic containers. Realize that Christmas costs twice as much as it used to and the gifts are really, really small.

YEARS SIXTEEN-EIGHTEEN: Repeatedly say things like, “Will you take your athletic bag, backpack, shoes, clothes, homework project, smelly socks to your room? You know, when you go to college, you cannot just drop your stuff in the dorm lobby.” Nag kids to take their clean and folded clothes to their rooms. Witness them using the couch as their dresser when they come to find a particular t-shirt and leave the rest of the pile on the couch. Take their clean clothes to the bottom of the stairs, so that they have to climb over them to get to their rooms. Witness them climb over the clothes, come back downstairs, find a pair of shorts, and leave the rest of the clothes. Threaten to take their phones if they don't take all of the clothes. Clothes magically disappear.

YEARS EIGHTEEN-AND-A-HALF-NINETEEN: Spend the summer buying things for college. Pack it all up. If it is your son, he will insist that he needs none of this stuff. If it is your daughter, rent a trailer for the trip. Drop them off at college. Come home. Change the sheets on the bed. Dust and vacuum their room. Celebrate your 19 Years to a Clutter Free Home. Sigh.

 

Still have kids at home and want to organize and have a clutter-free college search and application season? I have you covered!

The Planning for College Planner

 

 

19 Years to a Clutter-Free Home 15

Join the Community

Join the Almost Empty Nest Community and receive FREE ACCESS to the Almost Empty Nest Printables Library. The Printables Library includes every printable on Almost Empty Nest - A Year of Care Package Printables, Gift Tags, College Preparation Checklists, Additional Care Package Printables (Birthday, March Madness, the Super Bowl, additional Halloween and finals), Bible Verse printables and more.

Join Almost Empty Nest

 

 

If your prefer not to join, you may purchase the printables HERE.

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My Almost Empty Nest

My Almost Empty Nest

by | Nov 12, 2014 | Empty Nest

My Almost Empty Nest 19

My Almost Empty Nest

 

I left my first-born on the sidewalk in front of a Shipley's Donuts in Waco, TX. I did not want to, but it was time. I held him until my husband said, “You have to let go, you know.” The good-bye was not as I pictured it, but most things never are. I didn't even cry. He was 2 weeks away from turning 19 and on the previous day we had moved him into his first “home away from home” – a dorm on the Baylor University Campus. As my husband, our daughter, and I headed out of the parking lot towards I-35 and our home, my nest was suddenly starting to empty.

I am a mom. I will always be a mom. It's one of the things I have always wanted to be for as long as I can remember. My nest has had 3 children: 2 rowdy boys and a precious girl. The first rowdy boy graduated from high school in May and is now a freshman in college. In five years all of my children will have flown off to new adventures. I am calling this blog, “almost empty nest” for two reasons. 1) My nest is not empty yet. I still have five exciting years of full-time bird watching. And 2) I don't think my nest will ever be “completely empty.” The nest I have built with my husband was built with faith and love. As our baby birds take full flight, they will never be completely gone from the heart of our nest. The faith and love will stay in the nest and the nest will always be a welcome place for our children, their friends, and their future families.

My prayers for this blog:

  • I will be able to provide resources for those whose children are anywhere in the college process. The last 2 years were fun as we searched for the perfect fit (and scholarship $$$$) for my oldest. We will begin this process soon with our second son.
  • It will be a place of growth for myself and anyone who wishes to share this experience with me. I invite you to join with me in the process of sending our baby birds off into the world and figuring out what our “almost empty nests” will be become.

I welcome your comments!

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