“Not all children will be musical geniuses like Mozart, or become professional musicians when they grow up.  But they all should be allowed the joy of learning how to love great music.”

In highly readable and inspiring fashion, Raising Musical Kids answers common questions parents ask about music:

• Why should my child study music?
• How can I help my child love music?
• How can I take my child to concerts?
• Is it better to start with vocal or instrumental lessons?
• What are the pros and cons to different instruments?
• How can my child get the most out of music lessons?
• How can I motivate my child to practice?
• What kind of performances and groups should my child join?
• How do I handle it if my child wants to quit?
• Should my child study music in college?

I got so much out of the book, especially the incredibly helpful chapter on practicing (we’ve had some struggles with that this year), the section on how to take kids to musical performances (I had no idea you could just go meet the musicians after a concert! We’re totally doing that next time!), and the information about when and which instruments to encourage different types of kids to study.  I also think the appendices on great music for kids to hear and books about music for kids are good resources.

I can see myself referring back to this book a lot as the kids grow up.  While the parts I read most closely were about cultivating music appreciation in little kids and the beginning stages of learning instruments, the book also has a wealth of information on the challenges and opportunities of music for older kids.  I appreciated how the author, a professional musician married to a professional musician, emphasized the importance of excellence in music but also the importance of making and appreciating music for the glory of God.

Raising Musical Kids makes a strong case for teaching kids how to enjoy great music – whether by listening to it or playing it or both – and I think any parent or teacher would find it inspirational.

What are some of the ways you encourage your kids to be musical?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Related posts:

1. Our Homeschool Preschool – Music, Art, Motor Skills
2. In Which I Take Up A New Skill
3. Preschool Pianists

First, I think the authors have good insight into what family life looks like in the modern West.  Although we have made some countercultural choices in our family (limiting screen time and requiring daily rest time are the ones people usually find weirdest) I have felt increasingly uncomfortable with how much hurrying we do and how the adult stress my husband and I have bleeds over into our kids’ atmosphere.  I appreciated how the book described the ways that the pace of modern life impacts children, and yet didn’t advocate impossible solutions.

As an education consultant and family counselor the main author, Kim John Payne, works with schools and parents who have to be part of the 21st century, and suggests realistic ways that even the most chaotic families can simplify, calm things down, and be more nurturing.  I think it’s easy to assume that if you’re not willing or able to go all Little House on the Prairie, you can’t have a simple life, or to think that if you have two working parents or multiple kids or what have you, that you’re stuck with a frantic life.  Simplicity Parenting does a great job of breaking through those assumptions and offering hope and concrete steps for how to have a calmer, happier, more secure family.

I thought the section on toys and books was illuminating.  I’ve noticed that my kids get stressed out when their stuff is piled everywhere and, as a friend of mine once noted on her blog “it looks like a Melissa and Doug bomb went off” – at that point it’s like pulling teeth to get them to clean up, they get overly possessive of certain toys, or they become careless and break things.  The book points out how having too much stuff out causes kids stress (clutter stresses adults out too, but its effect is more pronounced in children) and what that looks like.  I found it very helpful to read about some common kid behaviors and realize they are caused by stress, and that you can reduce or remove the bad behavior by reducing the stress.  The author suggests rotating out toys so that you only have as many out as your child can clean up, by himself, in five minutes.  This is calming to children, gives them a sense of control, and allows them to play more freely and imaginatively.  But wow, that sounds like a big purge right?  Five minute clean-up???  The author suggests that the average kid should have the visible toys reduced by at least 75%, and possibly more.  You’ll probably also appreciate (or at least find interesting) the list of types of toys that you should keep, and why, from a child development perspective, they are better choices.

I was also greatly helped by the section on how parents’ emotions impact children.  There often isn’t much parents can do about major sources of stress (although the author does make some suggestions, again, of the practical sort, not the quit-your-job-and-live-in-a-yurt sort) but there are things you can do to make your home more peaceful and calm.  Boy, could we ever use more “peaceful and calm” around here!  Many of the suggestions are easy to implement, such as giving children previews of what is coming next, involving them in dinner preparation, and using candlelight at dinner, but surprisingly effective.

I got quite a bit out of Simplicity Parenting and would highly recommend it.  As the author writes, “every stage of a family’s evolution can beneft from a little more space and grace, a little less speed and clutter.”  What are some areas you find most stress-inducing in your family’s day, and where do you feel like you’re most in need of simplicity?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Related posts:

1. Book Review: Parenting in the Pew
2. Gospel-Powered Parenting
3. Getting Ready for Advent

They all deplete your willpower.

According to the authors of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, everyone has a finite amount of willpower, and you use it up on all sorts of tasks you don’t necessarily associate with requiring willpower.  In this fascinating review of science, psychology, and common sense you’ll find out what depletes willpower, what restores it, and what that means for your attempt to set and achieve your goals.

The whole book was interesting, but a couple of points I found most intriguing were the discussions of the importance of habits and the contradiction between the suggestions for kicking addictions versus keeping to a diet.

Habit formation is something I’ve read a lot about in literature about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education, and it’s always instructive to see how the concept of good habits is validated in research.  In the context of willpower, habits help you to make a good choice without depleting your limited reserves.  So, to use a simplistic example, if you make it a habit to eat at a salad place every day for lunch, you spare yourself the daily willpower depletion of debating whether to eat salad or a burger and fries.  The habit/willpower connection extends to more subtle areas of behavior and lifestyle as well.

The authors also (perhaps unwittingly) touched on a fascinating contrast I first saw articulated on Gretchen Rubin’s blog – the question of whether you are an abstainer or a moderator.  The willpower book suggests that the best way to quit a habit like smoking or the like is to make yourself a bright line policy.  That is, to say “I will not ever have another cigarette.”  The bright line policy helps to reduce the amount of time you have to spend dithering over whether this is a good time or a bad time for a smoke, or if you have smoked too much that day, or if you should cut down more, etc.  On the other hand, the authors take more of a moderator approach to diet and suggest that it’s more effective to tell yourself you can have small amounts of everything than to say you’ll never eat sugar again.  For a moderator, that would work well.  For an abstainer, it’s a recipe for disaster (Jen Fox, I put that in just for you!) because you’ll spend so much time and energy and willpower debating about when it’s all right to eat the cookie.  For me, since I’m an abstainer, it’s much, much easier to say “I don’t eat cookies.”  Because once I fall off the wagon, I’m off in a big way.

Whatever you think about the moderator versus abstainer distinction (and I’d love to know what you think of it!) and whether or not you are interested in diet or just all around interested in goal setting and getting things done, I’d really recommend Willpower.

In the book, the authors talk about how being depleted in one area, such as having decision fatigue or not getting enough sleep, can make it harder to have willpower in other areas such as being pleasant to your family or eating healthy foods.  They argue that the state of depletion makes all of your emotions heightened and cravings stronger.  Do you find this is true?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Related posts:

1. Counterfeit Gods

Jasmine and Stars is made up of Keshavarz’s own, more positive, memoir of growing up in Iran, her analysis of Reading Lolita in Tehran, and literary analysis of some of the novelists and poets who were writing actively before, during, and after the Iranian Revolution.  Keshavarz and Azar Nafisi (the author of Reading Lolita) have very different perspectives on Iran, Iranian people, the Revolution, and the role of literature in that country, and they write from quite different religious and political perspectives.

In contrast with Reading Lolita, which gives the impression that Iran was not a society that appreciated literature or where it was normal or accepted to study literature, Jasmine and Stars points out the deep literary history and ongoing vibrant literary culture of the country.  Keshavarz, a comparative literature professor at Washington University in St. Louis, counters fallacies and points out discrepancies in Reading Lolita that are interesting to consider.  In addition to the question of whether or not reading Western literature was or is really dangerous in Iran (Nafisi claims it was, Keshavarz disagrees and cites evidence from book sales statistics, popularity of Western literature in translation within Iran, and her own experience as a literature student in Iran), Keshavarz takes issue with Nafisi’s nearly universal portrayal of Iranian men as bullies (even citing the negative connotations of the names Nafisi assigns the men) and  Iranian women as fragile and incapable of critical thought, and with the value judgements Nafisi makes against some of her characters for their opinions about literary characters or the color of stationery they use for love letters.  Overall, Keshavarz’s perspective is that Nafisi’s narrative portrays Iran as a two-dimensional bugaboo rather than a nuanced, conflicted country full of real people with real feelings.

However, while I think the counterpoint to Reading Lolita is interesting and important, I enjoyed much more Keshavarz’s discussion of Iranian writers and their impact, and the central role that literature has in Iran, irrespective of social class and education.  Keshavarz noted that in Iran even uneducated people quote poetry and are familiar with Iranian literary classics, and described how authors and poets are venerated and discussed even among middle class school children.  Although Iranian writers work within boundaries of topical censorship, Keshavarz cites ways in which authors convey depth of feeling and conflicts over ideas within those restrictions – an interesting topic also covered in Literature From the Axis of Evil, which I reviewed earlier this week.

Another interesting concept in the book is the challenge to avoid the “New Orientalism” Keshavarz finds in Reading Lolita and other similar narratives.  Keshavarz defines New Orientalism as viewing Near and Middle Eastern people and cultures as inherently inferior and backward, and the thinking that Western culture is automatically and thoroughly superior to others.  I think this is a very real challenge for thoughtful readers.  On one hand is the tendency to accept all difference as equally good or valid without using discernment to say “actually some things (human rights, religious freedom, etc) are important, and some things (terrorism, genocide, etc) are unacceptable.”  On the other hand is the tendency to assume that anything different is wrong, backward, or unworthy of respect.  As a Westerner and a Christian, I have to be mindful of noticing how much of my lens of understanding is composed of foundational truths, and how much is really just the product of my culture and era.

I got a lot out of Jasmine and Stars and I think it would be a valuable read for anyone who has read Reading Lolita in Tehran, especially if that book is your main source for understanding what life in Iran is or was like.  It would be really interesting to discuss the two books together – if you’ve read both (or read them in the future) be sure to leave me a comment to let me know what you thought!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Related posts:

1. Literature From the Axis of Evil
2. The Week In Books, No. 37
3. The Week in Books 2010, No. 11

Literature, at its best, should allow us to see the individual rather than the general; to participate in some intimate way in other lives rather than melding them into shapeless abstractions. (from the introduction)

Concerned with the fact that most Western readers are ignorant of the important and transforming effect of literature in enemy nations, and the tendency of Westerners to accept two dimensional characterizations of people from the “Axis of Evil” countries, the editors of Literature from the ‘Axis of Evil’: Writing from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Other Enemy Nations compiled a collection of essays about the literary movements in those countries and previously untranslated short stories, poems, and novel excerpts from the writers living there.

Since I’m very interested in literature as a vehicle for social and political criticism (I just presented a paper on the topic at a conference a few weeks ago, which was fun!) and also in the literature of the Near East and Middle East, I enjoyed this book.  I learned from the essays and, for the most part, enjoyed the translated selections.

I do think it’s important to develop more nuanced and realistic understandings of other cultures, and I think that particularly in the case of cultures that are unfamiliar or quite different from our own, carefully selected fiction is a wonderful vehicle to accomplish that.  I’m reading hard in this vein at present so I’ll have more to say on the topic in future posts.

If you’ve never thought much about writing from countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, the Sudan, or North Korea, I think this book would be a good way to get your feet wet and learn something about each of the countries while reading good excerpts.  The editors do make some political feelings evident in the introduction, and obviously the book was compiled in reaction to George W. Bush’s statement about certain countries being the Axis of Evil, but the overall message and content of the book is worthwhile no matter what your personal thoughts on the title phrase.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Related posts:

1. Pure Pleasure
2. The War of Art
3. Literature for Littles: Fairy Tales, Fables, and Folk Tales

The book has a lot of interesting tips for how to properly prepare and dress a salad, as well as hints for combining fresh and seasonal ingredients (the author got her start at Chez Panisse).  I got some good ideas for ingredients to spice up our normal dinner salads.

Some of the tips struck me as strange.  For example, am I the only person who didn’t know you’re supposed to salt salad greens before applying dressing?  I should email my brother the restauranteur to ask if that is normally how things are done.  Likewise, I don’t usually put salt in the vinaigrettes I make, but the author of this book suggests so doing.

One recipe I am looking forward to trying involves rice and lentils dressed with a cumin yogurt and lemon juice sauce and sprinkled with sumac.  Yum!

Since this is a cookbook post, I’ll toss in a short review of another book I read recently, Don’t Panic – Dinner’s in the Freezer (I reviewed it’s sequel previously).  I didn’t get a lot out of this book, since most of the recipes are of the “open a can of this, dump in a jar of that, underseason, add meat, and freeze” variety, which is just not the way I like to cook.  Now that I’m a grownup I’m just going to admit that I like to eat interesting and exotic things, and cooking those things takes time, so I just make large batches and we have leftovers.  However, if that’s not how you roll (and it’s fine if it’s not, lets all just be ourselves) you might really like the freezer cooking series.

And now back to salad!  I’m curious: Do you salt your lettuce when you make salad?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Related posts:

1. Oh Waiter, There’s A Foot In My Salad…
2. A Good Dinner
3. A Scrumptious Garden Supper

I can’t speak for everyone, but in my experience a lot of activities fit this model: things generally take as much time as you give them.

One area where I see this most acutely is in homeschooling.  When I have to go to a meeting or we have an appointment at 10am, we can get the core of our school work done in a flash, but on days when I’m home from dawn to dusk, we often wind up finishing the last subject right before bedtime.

For the most part, I think that’s OK.  It’s nice to know that when push comes to shove, we can get a rigorous education under our belts in a few hours a day.  And even on days when  we have lots of time, I find that it helps to do school in blocks.

To that end, I separate our school work into three tiers: core work, which, if we don’t do it, means I don’t count it as a school day, priority read-alouds, and other reading and activities.  If we’re in a hurry, I know that core work and priority read-alouds will take about 2-2.5 hours and we can put off the other reading and activities until later in the day.    If we’re really busy, it doesn’t frustrate me if the “other” tier only happens two or three times a week.  Or, we might pick and choose from items in the other category.  For us, for now, this means of balancing structure and flexibility is working out.  In case it helps spark ideas or answer questions, I’m including a more detailed description below.

Core Subjects:

I don’t count a day as a school day unless we do math, reading, and grammar.  While we definitely have days when the kids are lollygagging and being difficult, on days when we have to get done, they rarely act that way.  I think it helps them to have a goal as much as it helps me.  In a pinch, we can get through core subjects in a little over an hour.

Reading: Hannah reads a chapter or two aloud from whatever book she’s working on (15 minutes) and Jack does a lesson from The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading
(15 minutes).

Math: Hannah does a lesson from Saxon Math 2; Jack does a lesson from Saxon Math 1
(20 minutes).

Grammar: Hannah just moved into First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind
which includes grammar, poetry memorization, copy work, and narration (however many lessons we can get through in 15 minutes) and Jack is working through Explode the Code 3(10 minutes).  Hannah also works on her Spelling Plus
list and dictation (15 minutes).

Logistics: I find it’s easiest to enforce diligence by having a set order of events.  I’ve experimented with letting the kids pick which subject to do next and it didn’t work for us, although it might for others.

First, Hannah does her spelling page independently while I work with Jack on math and Sarah works on tracing her name.  Then I read Hannah’s dictation sentences to her as I can while Jack is working on math.

Next, Hannah does her math independently (I explain it to her first, but she’s really quick and generally just reads it herself) while I do Jack’s reading lesson and Sarah colors or plays with pattern blocks or otherwise amuses herself quietly.  If Jack finishes reading before Hannah finishes math, I get him set up with his Explode the Code page, which he works on independently.

Then Hannah reads a chapter or two of her book aloud to me (I think reading aloud is an important skill) while Jack finishes Explode the Code.

Finally, we do a couple of lessons of First Language Lessons together.  This all takes a little over an hour on a good day, assuming no one has a tantrum or an attitude problem.  :)

Priority Read-alouds:

Core read-alouds vary, but currently include Bible, history, science (Apologia Astronomy), poetry, an Aesop fable, a nature study book, a tall tale or nursery tale, a section from a book about orchestras, a review lesson from Prima Latina, and some pages from a Mother Goose book.  Depending on how everyone is doing and how much time we have, we might narrate some or all of these selections, or I might ask questions for them to answer orally (45 minutes).

Other Subjects/More In-Depth

On days when we need to get out the door, we put off the other school work for later in the day.  Sometimes that means we read for an hour before bed, but that works out fine.  In fact, lots of days when we did the other subjects right after the core subjects in the morning, we read for an hour before bed anyway!  If we’re not in a rush, we may take longer on our core subjects, playing math games in addition to lessons, reading longer selections from our core books, and so on.  The time we spend on this category really varies widely from day to day.  Some days lend themselves to hours spent reading on the couch together, and some days the kids want to be outside for hours so we read a bit during lunch and before bed.  This is a flexible section.

History and Geography: In addition to our core read-alouds, we also read other history books, about different countries or cultures, and a chapter out of Our Island Story, which is a great history of England.  The kids listen to a Story of the World CD before bed and during afternoon quiet time and whenever they are just playing around in their rooms.  We sometimes listen to Classical Conversations history songs and do map work including states and capitals, tracing the US map, and so forth.

Science: We read a chapter out of a nature study book like the The Burgess Bird Book
or The Burgess Flower Book.  If I’m feeling really ambitious, we might do a  science project out of one of the myriad experiments for kids books I have around.  We might also read a book from our preschool science favorites.

Latin: We might do a little more with Prima Latina, listen to Song School Latin, or sing John 1 in Latin (our Classical Conversations Latin for this semester).

Literature: We read a page or two of whatever Shakespeare story we’re working on out of a children’s anthology (Lambor Nesbit - both free on Kindle) – right now it’s Two Gentlemen of Verona.  We also read from whatever chapter books we have going, some fairy tales, poetry, and things like that.

Music and Art: We are enjoying Opera 101, which is not a kids book but it’s interesting, and we listen to classical music.  Hannah practices piano every day.  We read books about artists and attempt picture study.  Although I’m not a crafty mom, the kids do a lot of drawing with markers lately and sometimes we get out the paints and whatnot.

Preschool: Sarah is only three and it would be a shame to cut her out of all the great reading we did when Hannah and Jack were little, so I try to read 10 or so preschool books from the great collection we amassed over the years.  These include classics from the Sonlight and Ambleside lists, as well as other classics and interesting books organized by topics.  Sarah is also working on writing her name and has learned the sounds the letters make, so she gets a reading/phonics lesson a couple of days a week to reinforce the letter sounds.

If you homeschool, do you separate work into blocks/categories, or do you do everything at once?  How do you balance structure and flexibility?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.  Also, please know that I do not post things like this to imply that I have things all figured out.  I don’t – and chances are our days will look nothing like this in another couple of weeks because we keep adapting to new circumstances and stages.  I post about homeschooling because I find it helpful to read similar things from other bloggers, and because above all this blog is for my memories and I like to have snapshots of how things are.

Related posts:

1. Juggling Work and Homeschooling
2. Surprising Census Statistics on Working and Homeschooling
3. The Long Lost Point and a Picture

I’ve been making my son sort-of do chores since he was about 18 months old – much to the surprise of some family & friends. But he actually loves “helping” (even when he isn’t really much help), and it’s getting him in the habit. He started with emptying the silverware container in the dishwasher, and bringing the items to me to put into the drawer, and we’ve added small tasks as he’s able.

I’m always wondering if the chores I assign my kids are too much, too little, or age appropriate.  For example, my kids (6,almost 5, 3) dust, set the table, sort laundry, and pick up with varying degrees of success.  Hannah also unloads the dishwasher, with some help from the other two.  And they all use the dust buster as needed and Hannah can vacuum with help.  Are there other normal chores I’m overlooking?

What sorts of chores do your kids do?  How do you decide what is age appropriate and worth the time it takes you?

Sheila, send me your address and I’ll pass it along to the publisher so you can get your copy of the book!

Related posts:

1. Balancing Mastery and Exploration, Plus a Giveaway Winner
2. DIY Laundry Detergent
3. Cute Kids’ Book Giveaway

Do you think you live a life of profligate excess when it comes to food, clothes, possessions, media, spending, waste, and stress?  Probably not.  You’re maybe even on the minimalist side compared to other people, right?

In her excellent and thought-provoking book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, Jen Hatmaker turns that common comfort level upside down.  She and her family took seven month-long fasts in the seven areas I named above, paring each area down to seven items for the month and seeing how God would use the extra time, extra money, extra possessions, and extra mindfulness.  The book contains her writing about what they learned.

The book is not prescriptive in the least – Hatmaker doesn’t think every family should attempt this, or that if you do your areas of concern will be the same.  Chances are you will not agree with all of her conclusions or feel compelled to replicate her family’s choices.  That said, you will not fail to be challenged to think deeply about how you live in the world and how others live.

I was really convicted by the ways the author writes about the poor and marginalized in her community and around the world.  I actually cried at three places in the book (and it’s really rare for me to cry from books) and that itself reminded me how often I am too busy to be heartbroken about the things that break God’s heart.  It was amazing to read how God used the family’s fasting to make them more aware and open to ways they could serve as a family.

Of course we grow accustomed to thinking of our own consumption relative to our society, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have areas of excess and unreasonable focus.  For example, I used to congratulate myself that our house is not cluttered, but then when we thought we would put the house on the market I started digging in to closets and took no fewer than EIGHT van loads (yes, van loads) of stuff to Goodwill.  Did we have excess?  You bet.

Speaking of Goodwill, Hatmaker makes the excellent point that if you can, it’s great to find specific people or groups who need what you have rather than dumping stuff off at Goodwill.  For example, during the month her family purged over 1,000 items from their home (and she says they still had way more they could or should let go of) she found out that a single mom and two kids in her child’s friend group were barely making it with a teeny room rented and not much else.  Within a few days of finding this out, the Hatmakers and some other from their church completely furnished the apartment and brought clothes for the kids and so forth – not broken down junk, but actual nice stuff they took right out of their living rooms.  The little girl turned to her mom and said “Mom, these people are Christians.”

Throughout the book, Hatmaker writes well and with humor and humility, and makes the motivations behind the family project clear.  I found the book challenging – both in my perspective on consumption and on the way I think about other people in my community and around the world.  I think just about anyone in the West could benefit from thinking deeply about these topics, whether or not you decide to go on a similar fast.  For it’s thoughtfulness and unusual perspective, I think I will put this book on my top reads for 2012 list.

If you read 7, let me know what you think.  I’d love to discuss it with someone!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Related posts:

1. “Does this clutter make my butt look fat?”
2. Christmas Read-Aloud
3. The Week in Books 2009, No. 47

Originally written in the 1930s to women affected by the Depression and mostly in New York City, many of the ideas in this book are still applicable in our time and for other locales.  In fact, many of the tips fit quite well with more modern prescriptions for how to think about money and lifestyle, and the suggestions to think hard about what really makes you happy in terms of expenditures, and to cut your housing costs rather than your “latte factor” type expenses sound quite a lot like the good ideas described in All the Money in the World.

Furthermore, the tone of the book is witty and breezy and delightful to read, even when dealing with touchy subjects.  I think we should bring the adjective “hard-boiled” back into current parlance, don’t you?

One of the most helpful points in this book, in my opinion, is the determination that you should be upbeat even if you are economizing and try not to let anyone see you cutting corners and that you should never cut the enjoyment of life out of your budget.  That is easier said than done but well worth it if you can manage it, speaking from personal experience.

I appreciated the book’s perhaps unconventional advice that a budget is not about living in austerity but about making sure that the money you have covers what you actually want, not things you don’t really care about.  We’ve lived on budgets where the amount of income actually only covered necessities, and that was rough, but for the most part people have some wiggle room, especially when they think creatively and are willing to part with societal notions of must-haves (Laura Vanderkam expands well on that idea in her book).

The book also offers quite sound advice about how to build and maintain a fabulous wardrobe no matter what your budget.  Really, everyone can use advice about how to buy classic foundation pieces and use accessories to advantage, and reminders not to continue thinking that what was becoming ten years ago still looks good are always helpful.

Another great section was on entertaining.  I enjoy entertaining and always wish I could do more of it, but am generally put off by a perceived lack of discretionary income.  However, the book gave so many helpful suggestions for how to throw fantastic parties on a shoe-string that I came away quite inspired.  After all, as the author writes, “At the best parties, the chief ingredients are originality (which doesn’t mean whimsy or – heaven forbid – paper favors) and a lot of enthusiasm.”

I really enjoyed Bubbly on Your Budget (thanks for the recommendation, Heather!) and would highly recommend this fun, interesting, and helpful book whether your budget is huge, small, or nonexistent.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Related posts:

1. The Money Saving Mom’s Budget
2. Healthy Eating on a Budget – Yes You Can!
3. Books to Beat Your Dinner Doldrums