Just Me

  Every month brings new books to read for research. Whether it’s research for a book I’m writing or an article, these books can be either fiction or nonfiction, meant for adults or meant for children, or they can be books published years ago or fairly recently.   My plan was to write a certain article this month and I wanted to get the books I would need to read for it. I’d gotten the idea for this article to see if there were books similar to a book I had written. There were indeed; nine books, actually! Fortunately, they were not the same as the book I had written, but they were similar.   Because of this, I wanted to read those books to get a feel for a common writing style used in them, as well as the type of writing and vocabulary level used in them. The problem was that I could not afford to purchase all of those books, so I decided to hit the library to see what I could find there.   Meanwhile, my search made me notice something: A common theme ...

  Image credit: Alexandra_Koch via Pixabay   Today may be a day for giving thanks, but I’m one of those people who practices gratitude every day. They say that the more often you give thanks for what you have, the more you will receive to be thankful for. I have found this to be true. I believe that a lot of the good things that have happened in my life, and especially this year, has a lot to do with the practice of being grateful for what I have and expressing that gratitude. I begin every day by saying “thank you” and feeling that wave of gratitude flood through me as I mentally echo my thanks.   Yes, there has been some bad things that have happened this year. I lost my brother and I was devastated by this loss, but I am extremely thankful that he was in my life, that he was my brother, and that he was a good brother at that. And, yes, my son lost his dog, and this loss was a huge blow to all of us because we loved him so very much, but we are thankful that he wa...

As someone who reviews books, I often find I am reading nothing except books that I am writing a review for. However, I try to squeeze in other books that have other purposes, such as books for research, books I hope to learn something new from, as well as books to read for pleasure.   But it seemed that lately, I wasn’t making time to read any books for pleasure. Just the other stuff.   I do enjoy reviewing books, as well as reading books for research and educational purposes. But sometimes, I just like to read books simply for the act of enjoying the book. These are the kinds of books I don’t want to have to analyze, take notes from, or put to use from studying.   So when I noticed that I was falling behind on reading for pleasure, I decided to do something about it!   My solution? Get up earlier in the morning so that I have that precious time to read just for the enjoyment.   While most people may see getting up earlier just to have time ...