Tag Archives: book recommendations

Day 3232 – The Books That Have Changed My Life Completely

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I’ve read so many books but there are a few that have completely changed my life. I wanted to share those with you today! All of these links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a small percentage of your purchase, if you choose to buy something.

The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content. by Timothy Ferriss. This book is THE ultimate reason I stopped photographing weddings. I think it has also impacted how I think about travel. If you want any kind of shift in your life, this is the place to start.

Dream Big, Think Small: Living an Extraordinary Life One Day at a Time by Jeff Manion. I randomly found this book at the library. I’m not even sure why I grabbed it off the shelf. But it completely changed how I think about my goals and dreams. By accepting that even teeny tiny itty bitty baby steps are still moving towards my goals, it helped me to keep working on things every single day.

You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth by Jen Sincero. I only just recently read this one and it has had a profound change in me already. It helped me to actually go for something I’ve been dreaming about for a long time. It forced me to take action during a time when it didn’t seem “wise” to take action. What’s crazy is that I can already SEE my success in this new project. I finished reading this on April 23rd, and I’m already reading it again.

There are dozens of books that have helped me to change my mindset and my life in many ways, but these three books made the biggest shifts in my life.

What book (or books) have majorly changed your life?

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Day 3208 – World Book Night – With Some Of My Top Book Recommendations

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Y’all know I love to read. I HAVE to read. I will get legitimately down if I don’t read. I have made time for reading in my life. Since today is World Book Night, I wanted to share some of my top recommended books.

All of these links are Amazon Affiliate links. That means if you purchase the book or something else on Amazon after you click on the link, I will get a small percentage. If you’ve been here a while, you know I only ever share links to products, books, etc. that I have personally read, used, and believe in.

Books on Marriage

When Sinners Say “I Do”gave us some amazing advice and really helped prepare us for the journey ahead. The biggest thing that stood out to me is admitting to your spouse “I’m a big fat sinner.” Nearly nine years later and we still say this to each other, especially after a big argument. It basically means realizing that you are not a perfect person, you never will be and come into the marriage totally messed up.

Books on Life

Keep Moving: And Other Tips and Truths about Aging by Dick Van Dyke was a really fun book. It is read by the author, and in my opinion, the only way to experience this book. I laughed, I cried, and I appreciated my life so much more. He shares great stories about life, marriage, family, and his show business career. He sets a great example of how to live – no matter how old you are. This is a great listen for a road trip!

Books on Work

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World completely changed my life. It helped me to cut the hold of social media on my life. It helped me realize areas I needed to change and have more focus. This is a bit of a heavy read, but worth every minute.

Unmistakable by Srinivas Rao. I stumbled on this book while browsing in the library. It talks about how if we can be Unmistakable, we won’t have to worry about being the best, who can compete with us? It was a great reminder that who I am is unique, and worth being. As soon as I started reading it, I knew it would make an impact, and it did.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less totally changed my life. Even though we were already pretty simplified and minimalists, this book helped me to dig even deeper into simplicity. It helps me to say no to things that need to be said no to.

Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day was a great reminder that work isn’t just about your 9-5 but “any value we create that requires us to spend our time, focus and energy is work, humans, it seems are wired to find satisfaction by adding value through toil.”

Getting There: A Book of Mentors What I loved about this book was the varied fields and methods of work shared. It felt like I sat down with each of these successful people and learned some of their secret tips.

Children’s books

Brontorina by James Howe – A brontosaurus doing ballet is reason enough to read a book, and part of the reason I grabbed this one. But what I found was a story that encouraged chasing your dream, encouraging others to chase their dream, and not putting anyone in a box.

Bad Day at Riverbend by Chris Van Allsburg – As a kid, I loved Two Bad Ants, also written by Chris. I sought out his other books and found this one. It was such a different story line than any other kid’s book I’d read before. This was a really fun read.

Mother Bruce by Ryan Higgins – I love the books that turn what you expect an animal to do and be into something completely different. I especially loved that Bruce ate organic. I am now a super big fan of this series and read each new book when it comes out.

Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin – This was so delightfully fun. I laughed very very hard reading this one. I mean, how can you not enjoy a book about dragons who love tacos?

Great, Now We’ve Got Barbarians! by Jason Carter Eaton – I picked up this book for the title alone. What I found was a very comical result of a messy room. This is a great book if your kids are having trouble cleaning up.

Blue Sky White Stars by Sarvinder Naberhaus – I am very patriotic about my US of A. This book was such a great reflection of this great country and I loved all of the elements that came together. There were a few books in my stack of children’s recommends that moved me to tears, this was one of them.

Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty – When I first picked up this book, I read the title as Reverse Engineer. Since I’m all about systems, it sounded perfect. Upon reading, I realized my mistake, but I found something better. This book was a great reminder about creating things, failure, and the drive to continue on. This is great for little inventors.

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Did you like what you read? Here’s some ways you can support us and this blog!
Join our Facebook group, Planning an Epic Road Trip on Any Budget
Join the Journey With The G’s email list (bonus – you get my Epic Road Trip Budget spreadsheet)
Buy my book, Planning an Epic Road Trip on any Budget.
Buy my book, Trusting God With 2 Cents: 22 Days To Becoming A Successful Christian Business Owner.
Shop on Amazon (no additional cost to you, this gives us a percentage of what you order).
Check out our resources page.
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Day 3187 – Children’s Book Day – or – The Best Children’s Books I’ve Read

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Last year, I read 300 books. 200 of those books were Children’s Picture books. I’ve had some people say those didn’t really count. But I have to say, I was moved to joy, laughter, and deep thinking after many of those “books that didn’t count.” Today is Children’s Book Day, so I wanted to share some of the best children’s books I’ve read recently.

All of these links are Amazon Affiliate links. That means if you purchase the book or something else on Amazon after you click on the link, I will get a small percentage. If you’ve been here a while, you know I only ever share links to products, books, etc. that I have personally read, used, and believe in.

Brontorina by James Howe – A brontosaurus doing ballet is reason enough to read a book, and part of the reason I grabbed this one. But what I found was a story that encouraged chasing your dream, encouraging others to chase their dream, and not putting anyone in a box.

Bad Day at Riverbend by Chris Van Allsburg – As a kid, I loved Two Bad Ants, also written by Chris. I sought out his other books and found this one. It was such a different story line than any other kid’s book I’d read before. This was a really fun read.

Mother Bruce by Ryan Higgins – I love the books that turn what you expect an animal to do and be into something completely different. I especially loved that Bruce ate organic. I am now a super big fan of this series and read each new book when it comes out.

Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin – This was so delightfully fun. I laughed very very hard reading this one. I mean, how can you not enjoy a book about dragons who love tacos?

Great, Now We’ve Got Barbarians! by Jason Carter Eaton – I picked up this book for the title alone. What I found was a very comical result of a messy room. This is a great book if your kids are having trouble cleaning up.

Blue Sky White Stars by Sarvinder Naberhaus – I am very patriotic about my US of A. This book was such a great reflection of this great country and I loved all of the elements that came together. There were a few books in my stack of children’s recommends that moved me to tears, this was one of them.

Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty – When I first picked up this book, I read the title as Reverse Engineer. Since I’m all about systems, it sounded perfect. Upon reading, I realized my mistake, but I found something better. This book was a great reminder about creating things, failure, and the drive to continue on. This is great for little inventors.

What Children’s Book do you recommend?

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Did you like what you read? Here’s some ways you can support us and this blog!
Join our Facebook group, Planning an Epic Road Trip on Any Budget
Join the Journey With The G’s email list (bonus – you get my Epic Road Trip Budget spreadsheet)
Buy my book, Planning an Epic Road Trip on any Budget.
Buy my book, Trusting God With 2 Cents: 22 Days To Becoming A Successful Christian Business Owner.
Shop on Amazon (no additional cost to you, this gives us a percentage of what you order).
Check out our resources page.
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Day 2980 – Buy A Book Day!

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I want to start off by saying I did a very poor job of following my own advice yesterday about fighting procrastination! I spent a ton of time on Facebook (not doing as well as I was with checking twice a day), I played games on my phone, I watched videos. To give you a snapshot of how bad it was, on Tuesday I did 6.13 hours of work (either for my clients, for Bret, writing, or building my business), and only 1.03 hours of games/social media. Yesterday, I did 3.67 hours of work, 1.8 hours of games/social, took 1.5 hr nap, and spent 1.22 hours relaxing. When I say relaxing, I’m typically just laying in bed and playing games. Oy. Ha ha, so the lesson is, take your own advice! Thought y’all get a chuckle out of the irony. 😀

So today is buy a book day. I love to buy books, but I very rarely buy them now. I am absolutely obsessed with the library (as you know). Since we have minimized a lot in our lives, I think differently about buying books. I want to buy books that will be a good resource, that I will go back to again and again, and will enjoy reading multiple times (I’m looking at your Harry Potter in a Trunk*). I went from two large bookshelves, to less than 1 small shelf….and even those I could probably get rid of more. I think a big shift for me is that I am honest with myself about if I will actually read or re-read a book. But there’s another side to owning books, I rarely read my own books. If I don’t have a library due date hanging over my head, there’s no pressure to actually read the book. This is also true for books I borrow from people.

Even the last book I bought hasn’t been read that much. Though, reading Dream Big, Think Small: Living an Extraordinary Life One Day at a Time* really has had a big impact on how I think about things. What I love about Tools Of The Titans is how it’s split into bite size chapters, and the system I created for reading it (highlighting in different colors), helps me keep track of what I have and haven’t read. I am hopeful that if I can add reading a chapter or two into my routine will help me to finally finish this massive (707 pages thank you very much) book.

What was the last book you bought? Do you buy lots of books or just use the library? If you want a book to buy, and it’s something you’re interested in, check out one or both of my books below.

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* Amazon affiliate link
Did you like what you read? Here’s some ways you can support us and this blog!
Join our Facebook group, Planning an Epic Road Trip on Any Budget
Join the Journey With The G’s email list (bonus – you get my Epic Road Trip Budget spreadsheet)
Buy my book, Planning an Epic Road Trip on any Budget
Buy my book, Trusting God With 2 Cents: 22 Days To Becoming A Successful Christian Business Owner.
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Check out our resources page.
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Day 2941 – Paperback Book Day – or – 2017 Paperback Book Recommendations

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Ah fun days, I love you. 🙂 Especially when those fun days are about things I love like reading.

While I prefer paperback books over hardback books, most of my current reads are hardback. This is mostly due to the fact that a lot of the books I read are new, kid’s books or it seems most business books are only hardback.

Jennilyn’s 2017 Softcover Recommendations


Planning an Epic Road Trip on any Budget* – well, of course I had to include one of my books. 😉 I have to say, I really like the quality of the softcover books from Amazon. Have you ordered a softcover book from Amazon? What did you think about the quality?


The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper* This was a fun book about a widower who goes on all kinds of adventures learning about his recently deceased wife. It was an interesting example of how you can never fully know someone.


A Fall of Marigolds* This was a fascinating book set mostly in 1911. It followed a nurse on Ellis Island in New York. I don’t read much historical fiction, but this story was right up my alley. I love stories that combine lots of random things (9/11, a fabric store, nursing) into a story that makes sense.


What Alice Forgot* I mentioned this book back in March and related it to my drinking experiences. It was an interesting idea – what would it be like if you forgot 10 years of your life? It was a page turner that I read pretty quickly.

As I’m looking back through my list of books read, I’m realizing I really don’t read that many softcover books! Do you read many softcover books? Is your to be read pile filled with hardcover books? Or are you all about the digital books? Let me know in the comments below.

* Amazon affiliate link – no additional cost to you, this gives us a percentage of what you order
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Did you like what you read? Here’s some ways you can support us and this blog!
Join our Facebook group, Planning an Epic Road Trip on Any Budget
Join the Journey With The G’s email list (bonus – you get my Epic Road Trip Budget spreadsheet)
Buy my book, Planning an Epic Road Trip on any Budget
Buy my book, Trusting God With 2 Cents: 22 Days To Becoming A Successful Christian Business Owner.
Shop on Amazon (no additional cost to you, this gives us a percentage of what you order).
Check out our resources page.
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel