Well, once again I didn’t post an update on Monday as promised. So shoot me! We are moving along, though, and the electrician will make his second appearance for the week today, at which time the kitchen will have its lighting. So I’ll post a picture of that. Our dear family is being v-e-r-y tolerant of the mess. We’re in a trough right now where we can’t go ahead and finish unloading the furniture for the main living space because of the aforementioned carpet problem. Friday is the deadline for getting everything out of the pods; otherwise we’ll have to pay for an extra month.
money
Lessons from a Wise Young Man
The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute by Zac Bissonnette. Visit his author page on Amazon at Zac Bissonnette.
I’ve posted about the work of Zac Bissonnette before when I wrote a review of his book Debt-Free U, about the utter foolishness of piling up thousands of dollars in debt in order to go to a prestigious university. Cuh-rae-zee! While I can’t claim any particular plan of ours in this regard, it is so great for us to know that our son Gideon has his degree from a good school and has no debt. And now he’s headed for grad school and they’ll pay him. We are thrilled!
It Ain’t About the Money, Honey!
A number of years ago I read an article in the Washington Post Magazine (attempts to track it down online have been unsuccessful) about expensive weddings. The highlight of the story was the description of a couple who spent $100,000 on their special day—and this happened at least a decade ago, when a $100,000 wedding was really a $100,000 wedding.
A Simple Book on Simplicity
Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World by Richard J. Foster, originally published in 1981; now available in several formats through Amazon, Google Books, and Barnes & Noble, to name the biggies. Foster is or has been a theologian, teacher, pastor and writer, and (I just found out) lives near Denver.
We’ve had the 1989 paperback version of this book on our shelves for many years; I think Jim brought it into the marriage. For some reason I just recently decided to read it and have been challenged and rebuked by many of its ideas. Foster is well known for an earlier book, Celebration of Discipline, with this book being somewhat of a followup.
Life Lessons from a 21-Year-Old
Debt-Free U: How I Paid for an Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships, or Mooching Off My Parents by Zac Bissonnette, Portfolio/Penguin 2010.
Even if you have no kids going to college, or you’re not a kid planning to go to college, you should read this book. (But you should also read it if you do fit into one of those categories.)
A couple of posts ago I wrote about Dinner: the Playbook, and I said that book wasn’t valuable so much for the recipes or the specific information about planning meals as it was in promoting a general outlook that says: “What can I do right now?” A proactive approach. Well, this is the same type of book, in that it contains principles that go far beyond making sound economic choices when it comes to college.
Behind the Scenes at the Stock Exchanges
Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis, published by W. W. Norton, 2014. I got interested in this book because of an NPR story. (This type of thing happens frequently.) It’s fascinating to find out what’s really going on with something, especially an entity as supposedly public as public stock markets. Michael Lewis is known for writing about the story behind the story. Most people probably know about him from The Blind Side, which you really should read even if you’re not interested in football. He’s also written about baseball (Moneyball) and other aspects of the financial markets (Liar’s Poker and The Big Short). I’ve read all these other books except for Moneyball (but I saw the movie). |