If you’re anything like me, then you love to read books and listen to audiobooks but hate spending a lot of money on them. Now, I’m not saying the authors don’t deserve to be paid – of course they do. But it’s hard to spend $30 on one book when you don’t even know if you will like the book. And if you’re trying to read more than one book per month, the cost can really add up. Don’t even talk to me about the cost of audiobooks! So far, I’ve successfully been able to read and listen to many books without breaking the bank, so I’m going to try to help you learn how to read a lot of books on a budget.

I’ve already had some people ask me how they can read more or where to get audiobooks, so I thought I’d share in a blog post!

When Travis and I spent a couple days in Venice, Italy this summer, I learned some things about the city. Usually, you only hear and read about the amazing things this city has to offer and nothing else. I’m going to tell you ten things about Venice that I learned that are not the typical sightseeing and restaurant recommendations. Keep in mind that this is from 2018. Venice was very different just ten years ago and it may be very different if you read this years from now.

I have been totally against subscription boxes in the past. I thought, “I don’t need that pointless stuff.” Or “I would rather buy specific things I actually want.” Things like that. And then I tried one box and another and another and another…. Okay, I didn’t subscribe to all of these all at once. I had my limits. But I did try some and then once I got tired of them, I would cancel them, and sometimes I would find other interesting boxes to try out.

For the past couple of years, I have been really into audiobooks. It all started with the book Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. I loved that book, even on audio! Sometimes I don’t like an audiobook but I don’t think that I don’t like the actual book itself. It may be that I don’t like the narrator’s voice or he or she may be a boring reader (in my opinion) and that ruins the whole story. A bad narration doesn’t allow you to get into the book and I usually don’t finish those audiobooks.

This summer, I started reading more printed books and e-books because I was disappointed in a few audiobooks. I am going to share what I read or listened to and will give my book reviews. If you want to see a complete list of what I have read, listened to, and what is on my to-read list, you can see all of that on my GoodReads account.

You’re sitting at your desk at work and you realize 45 minutes has gone by and you haven’t actually worked during that time. Maybe you were shopping online or reading news articles, whatever it was, it wasn’t productive work. The bad thing is that you didn’t even realize a whole 45 minutes had passed! Whoops! How can you focus and stop the procrastination? The answer is the Pomodoro Technique. It will help you focus and stop procrastinating in as little as 25 minutes.

Ever since coming back from Italy, I’ve been trying to find the best crescent in Indiana. Usually, I run into bakeries with doughnuts more than anything else. I do not like doughnuts, so that doesn’t help me. Anyway, “On My Radar” is a new post type where I will share things I am currently interested in, new things I’m trying, things that could turn into full blog posts in the future, and more things like that. It is a less formal post, not that my blog posts are formal in any way, but I think it will be fun to share.

After our cruise to the Greek islands, we weren’t ready to go home. So, we flew to Italy instead! Of course, our summer escape to Italy was planned ahead of time. It was really fun for one part of our big trip to end and the next part to begin.

I love cookies. Especially the gooey, soft, almost underbaked cookies. I recently tried a new cookie recipe and they were SO good. They are maple cookies with walnuts.