This is such a fun product! It’s an electric eraser, battery operated. You just push the button and the little eraser rotates so you don’t have to rub as hard on the paper as you normally do when erasing. It just takes a light touch to put the spinning eraser on the paper to clean away your mistakes. Here’s a video to demonstrate.
I recently got one of these for my 16-year-old son for erasing his math mistakes, just to make his math time a little more fun, one for my pencil sketch artist 19 year-old daughter, and one for me. We each got one of the different colors in the image above so I love that we won’t get them mixed up. I’ve been learning how to draw using this book over here, and shown below. This tiny little eraser is perfect for fitting in between lines to erase a line in the middle when it’s time for a do-over. I just love it!
In my picture above, see how the eraser tip on the Daiso eraser is so much smaller than the big eraser on the end of my pencil? For tiny areas, this electric eraser is perfect. If you have bigger areas to erase then a bigger eraser will do the job easier of course.
It’s only $2.25 at your local Daiso store, or you can find a different brand in amazon. You can also get refillable erasers once the original eraser runs out. (If you want to know more about what a Daiso store is, find out here. You’ll want to go, so many fun stuff awaits for you!)
I didn’t get up a #thriftingthursdaypost yesterday. That’s OK, we’ll just pretend it’s Thursday. This is part 2 in a series of how to thrift for books without going to the thrift store.
In my Part 1, I talked about going to addall.com to find the best price on used books. So it does involve money to use this method, but you don’t have to leave the house. If you want to know all about that, go read Part 1 here. You will be entering a whole new universe of used book shopping!
Now suppose you want to go thrifting for books, but you don’t have any money to spend on books, but you do have some gas in your car or some energy in your legs to go walking. I’ve got you covered!
This time my suggested method involves no money, but it does involve travel. Depending on where you live, you might even be able to walk to these locations to get used books. They aren’t free, rather, you exchange a used book of yours for each book you take from The Little Free Library. Here’s a sample one above and below. Every one is unique! Each library is typically at a private residence, so be respectful.
Type in the location of where you want to go looking for books in the search space on the world map page of the site. Whatever time slot you have for this outing, and however close or far the little libraries are to each other will determine how many little free libraries you can visit.
3. Make your plan for where you are going. You might want to walk to all of them, you might want to drive and then park at a central location and then walk to all the little libraries, or bike, or you may just want to drive to each one.
3. Go through your home and find some books you want to exchange. However many books you want to get, that’s how many books to bring.
4. Walk or drive to the Little Free Libraries you’ve mapped out.
5. Peruse through the books available and put a book in the library for however many you take out.
That’s it!!! Enjoy your new-to-you books that you didn’t have to shell out any money for.
Here’s a huge hint: have your smart phone handy so you can quickly do a search for any books to see if they are a good fit for your tastes and standards. Check the synopses, ratings, and reviews, on amazon and goodreads.com.
Here are some of the books I’ve found from some of my Little Free Library jaunts lately. Quite the variety, right? Ooops, I didn’t mean to include the Ben Franklin book twice.
In the top photo, the Ben Franklin book is covering up this book below. My copy has no pictures on the cover but an amazon copy looks like this. I’m excited to read it! It’s by the wife of famous music composer Irving Berlin, Ellin Duher Mackay Berlin.
Here’s the synopsis from goodreads.com:
“THE CAMERON GIRLS… …there were four of them. They grew up in New York’s fabled world of wealth and prestige… in the golden, bittersweet era that marked the end of one century and touched the beginning of another. There was Julia, who married almost too well; Maud, who defied convention and lived to en-joy it; Nell, the youngest, perhaps the most sentimental, certainly the happiest; and Esther, whose love brought her little happiness and a life-long scandal.”
Sounds fascinating right?!
I’m looking forward to going on Little Free Library jaunts this fall with my married daughter, and maybe my mom and/or girlfriends. We could spend all morning going to as many we can fit in between 9-12 noon, and then go to the park, and read for a few hours while snacking and sharing what we learn. If these had been around when my children were little I would have loved doing this as a monthly trip! Happy exploring and reading!
On this day in 1787, the Constitution of the United States was ratified. It’s not just a piece of paper. The Lord Jesus Christ said in a revelation to Joseph Smith:
“And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.” Doctrine and Covenants 101:80
It’s a set of laws that Jesus has not only endorsed but allowed to come forth by “the hands of wise men” who He brought up for establishing it. Why did He want the Constitution established as the law for the U.S.A.?
For “the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles…” See Doctrine and Covenants 101:77.
If you are an American citizen, it’s important to know it, to live it, to teach it, and to hold your representatives in Congress accountable to it. If they don’t vote according to it, then vote in people who do, so that the Constitution is maintained for the “rights and protection of all flesh.”
Here’s how you can celebrate it today and every day!
Read the above picture book by Jean Fritz to get the history of the Constitutional Convention.
Read the book below to dive into what every paragraph means.
3. Watch these videos about the Constitution by Robert Brown. The first one is below and the playlist of all the videos is here.
4. Read this article here by Ezra Taft Benson called “Our Divine Constitution”
5. Play the board game below.
6. Watch A More Perfect Union, below.
7. Take this quiz about the U.S. Constitution here.
8. Watch the Schoolhouse Rock video of the preamble to the Constitution.
9. Take a quiz about the Bill of Rights, the first Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, here.
10. Read this book below.
11. Go to this voting record, the Freedom Index, here, and look up your Congressional representatives to see how Constitutional they are voting. Then send them a note thanking them or asking them to improve. One of mine had 100% for this past session. Amazing!
12. Counteract the movement to eradicate the Constitution with a call for a convention for a new constitution. Go here to learn more and let your Congress people know that you want them to vote no on a new constitutional convention.
13. Lastly, play another board game related to the Constitution. My review of it is here.
Since the 2025-26 school year is in full swing, I’ll be blogging about a few picture books involving learning and/or school over the next few weeks. I love this time of year with the spirit of new classes and discovery in the air!
Today’s book is shown above. It’s all about the back story of Esperanto, a language that was entirely made up by one person, instead of evolving organically amongst a group of people over lots of time.
Who is the guy behind Esperanto? His name is Leyzer Zamenhof. The book shows young Leyzer Zamenhoff, a Jewish boy growing up in a small village under Russian rule (it never says where but an Internet search tells me it is in what is now Poland). He felt frustrated that the villagers spoke different languages instead of everyone speaking the same language. People talked sharply to each other and got into arguments. Leyzer wondered if this was because they didn’t know and speak the same words. The languages represented in the book spoken in his village are Russian, German, Polish, and Hebrew. Each speaker naturally thought his or her own language was the best. Leyzer studied Latin, Greek and Hebrew in school but discovered these were hard to learn, so the implication is that he gave up learning to speak them.
So he decided to make up his own language. At first he made words from scratch. Then, in what sounds like an attempt to make a Lego language of duplicatable, predictable, buildable parts, even though Legos weren’t invented yet, he made up words borrowing pieces from many different languages and made them fit together into a beautiful thing, like a Lego castle.
So for example, as a double-page in the book shows:
-a fish is “fiso”
-a little fish is “fiseto”
-a big fish is “fisego”
-more than one fish is “fisaro”
-a fish container is “fisujo”
Then we have the following for another object:
-a flower is “floro” in Esperanto
-a little flower is “floreto”
-a big flower is “florego”
-more than one flower if “floraro”
-a flower container is “florugo”
Do you see the common building blocks to represent the different aspects of an object? Big, little, plural, singular, etc. The different words have different roots but then the same ending to represent the same aspect. It’s a Lego language!
Young Leyzer didn’t have the support of his father to publicize his Lego language. His father told him to go to medical school and leave his Lego language behind. On a break, Leyzer came home to discover his father had burned all his papers about his constructed language. But it was all still in his mind! He wrote everything down again and refined it to be even better, simpler and more beautiful. With his friend Clara’s help, he published his invention of a language into a book and called himself, the author, “Doctor Esperanto.” In his language, “esperanto” means “one who hopes.” He hoped for peace from a universal language.
People read the book and wrote him letters and eventually invited him to a conference about Esperanto in Paris. He attended and met his fans. He realized his dream had come true, that people from all over the world could meet together and talk in one language, Esperanto!
I highly recommend this book. The illustrations are beautifully clean and crisp, the story never lags, and it’s about a real person following a hero’s journey, a call. My favorite kind of picture book! So go find it at your public library and read it!
I have a funny story to share about Esperanto. Years ago, when my husband and I were the parents of three little children, we attended our first homeschooling conference together. It was a Charlotte Mason philosophy conference presented by author and veteran homeschooling mom Catherine Levison. We went with two other couples who are dear friends and enjoyed sitting by them. Maybe it was the fact that my husband had some chummy people with him that egged him on to be in a humorous mood. Catherine was up there, going through each subject for a typical homeschool family and talking about who Charlotte Mason recommends each subject should be taught. So for the foreign language topic she said that Charlotte Mason recommended teaching a foreign language by getting a fluent, native speaker to talk to the child regularly. My husband, ever the clown, raised his hand and asked “Now how does that work with Esperanto?” My friends and I all laughed. He got the desired reaction from us, and to Catherine’s credit, she didn’t let the fun-inducing question derail her and she moved on.
Anyway, if you want to learn something new this fall, go learn Esperanto! A website for it is here, and you can find it in Duo Lingo.
Guess what? I just learned that I guess because Esperanto has been around for over 100 years, the world now has about 2000 native speakers of Esperanto, according to YouTube. Fascinating! Here’s one of them below. Dear husband is skeptical, maybe because it ruins his joke, LOL.
This past week was so interesting, heart-breaking, and also peace-giving. I had a painful experience last Sunday night where I desperately reached out to God in prayer, seeking for help. I was led by the Spirit as to how to find sleep and comfort, despite the pain. I’m so grateful I was able to sleep soundly. Then the very next morning I received the answer I asked for. I know God doesn’t always reply so quickly, nor does He always give me what I ask for. I don’t always ask for what is best so I don’t always get what I ask for. God always knows what is best and He answers with what is best for me. In this case God answered me right away with what I asked for and I feel extremely gratified. Regardless of the answer or the timing of the answer, it is my job to always find peace in God by following Him. Just that day, earlier Sunday, in church I had heard one of my congregation members tell the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. He quoted them as saying, to King Nebuchadnezzar, “If it be so, our God whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” -Daniel 3:17-18 KJV
I remembered that when I said my prayer Sunday night. It game me comfort to face not getting my prayer answered the way I wanted.
I have been learning to sing this song, below, by Sally DeFord, with my choir at church. We got to sing it today, for the general church congregation meeting for everyone (sacrament meeting). It’s so beautiful! I feel so blessed to know it. It captures my thoughts perfectly. It’s in the new collection of hymns over here, as #1030.
Then later in the week we had the Charlie Kirk shooting. I listened to this podcast above in YouTube format two days after Charlie Kirk’s assassination and it gave me a lot of comfort. It wasn’t a response to the assassination, as it was recorded before. It is for the Come Follow Christ scripture reading for last week of Doctrine and Covenants 98-101. It’s just so positively Providential that the scripture reading for this past week involved the basic question of “What should our response be as Christians when bad things happen to us?” It’s all about when the Saints were living in Missouri and were persecuted and then exterminated. Not a fun time.
C.C.A. Christensen (1831–1912), Saints Driven from Jackson County Missouri, c. 1878, tempera on muslin, 77 ¼ x 113 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, gift of the grandchildren of C.C.A. Christensen, 1970.
Like I wrote, this recording was filmed before the shooting and it’s about D&C 98-101 but it had answers about what to do when violence disrupts peace. She elaborates on the principles outlined in Sections 98-101, about forgiveness, and when to fight back when being attacked.
I thought it was interesting that Sister Anderson mentioned the books above and below. When she first started her therapy practice she was asked what she thought about these books. I have read both of them. The book below I bought years ago and read as a young mom of 3-4 kiddos. It’s about healing relationships by noticing collusions with others and stopping them. I read the one above, later, after I had 6 children. I enjoyed both of them. They are great books.
Sister Anderson said that both books are great, but they only work for terrestrial relationships. Those are relationships between people who aren’t perfect but aren’t intentionally doing evil. Meaning, they work for people who are generally choosing to live by the Ten Commandments. So these books don’t apply to being a victim in a telestial relationships, that is, being abused by someone who is not living on the level of generally following the Ten Commandments. She said that when you are a victim by someone telestial who is choosing not to live at the general Ten Commandments level it’s important to establish boundaries so that the abuser-victim cycle doesn’t keep happening. She calls this being a non-victim Christian and said God wants to be this way. When we are victims we have to spend time healing and aren’t in a place to be leaders and build Zion. So he wants us to be non-victim Christians. If you are a victim you need to establish walls between victim and abuser. She said she’s working on a book about boundaries to teach all about this. Let’s all pray that she will finish it soon! I so look forward to reading it!
I am so sad beyond words about the death of Charlie Kirk today here in my beloved home state of Utah. He died in a senseless act of violence, the victim of a shooter, while at Utah Valley University (UVU), while sitting on a stage to participate in one of his Turning Point USA events. Ever since I learned about him, I have admired that he is so bold in standing for truth as a defender of the sanctity of life, the traditional family, and what is right. He wasn’t afraid to have civil discourse with opposing viewpoints, and stand for truth, and yet be diplomatic. He was so articulate and quick to think on his feet. He was about to turn 32, next month, so he is the same age as my oldest child. He was definitely a true hero of the Hero Generation. We have lost a great man today. My favorite quote I remember from him was something to effect of: “If you want to have the greatest adventure, and do the boldest most amazing thing of your life, get married and have children.”
This is my friend Karianne conducting the vigil service. Image Credit: KSL News YouTube Channel
Here is a wonderful video below showing a vigil at the Utah Capitol that was held tonight. As my sister-in-law said, Charlie would want us to pray for his enemies, including his assassin. Lord, please help us to forgive and remember Charlie and follow him in standing for truth and righteousness. Please bless his dear wife Erika and two little children to feel Thy peace and comfort to ease the pain of this horrific loss. Please protect them as they move forward. May we heal from this traumatic event, Lord and please save our republic.
I agree with my homeschooling mama friend Karianne Lisonbee’s speech in the video below. She conducts the service, and then her sentiments are at the 15:44 mark. Another one of my homeschool mama friends has a daughter, Christy, in the video below, who says that Charlie was a missionary for what is right. So true! May his legacy live on. May God bless America as we all recover.
I attended the sweetest funeral yesterday, for my dear Aunt Chris. She’s the wife of my dad’s brother. She passed away peacefully on my grandma’s birthday a week ago. I love going to funerals because I feel the Holy Spirit confirm to me that because of Jesus Christ’s atoning blood and resurrection, I will see these dearly departed people again. I also love funerals because they are mini-family reunions, and a little taste of what heaven will feel like because family and friends are together. Some may think that odd, when a funeral is a time of mourning. Yes, a funeral is a time of mourning because of death and temporary loss, so I do feel sadness, and I cry. It’s also a time of rejoicing in the gifts of the deceased person, a reminder of what we have to look forward to when we are with that person in heaven and their gifts again. I just love hearing the stories family members and friends share about the deceased loved ones when they speak at funerals, talking about the traits and gifts of the person.
The sister of Aunt Chris, Suzie, told the cutest story about Aunt Chris. Aunt Chris had progressive pulmonary fibrosis which made it hard to breathe. She and her family knew that she would be passing to the other side of the veil soon. Aunt Chris and Suzie were not only sisters, but they were BFF. They had many adventures together. Their biggest one was probably going to the Country Living Fair in Columbus OH. After they arrived in Ohio and went to the rental car pickup, the desk person apologized that they wouldn’t be getting a car they expected to rent. The only car left for them was a bright red Ford Mustang. Instead of being disappointed, they were excited! Imagine two cute little old ladies, each barely around 5 feet tall, tooling around OH in a roadster. They had the time of their lives driving through the rolling hills and farmland, going to the fair and checking out antique stores. I wish I could have been there, it sounds so fun!
As Chris slowly declined, sister Suzie realized she would be saying goodbye to her big sister soon. In the hospital, she asked Chris if Chris would send her a sign from heaven when she got there, to let Suzie know that she was there, with their parents who had already passed on, and that she was OK. Chris said she would. Suzie felt so assured by this promise. Knowing her sister, who was a good obedient girl, she knew Chris would get permission in heaven before she sent the sign.
Suzie shared that she got her sign. Last Sunday, she and her daughter and granddaughter went to the cemetery to get ready for the burial. On the way home from the cemetery, she saw a bright red Mustang zoom ahead of her in the next lane. She said that was her sign from sister Chris! I love it! It reminds me of the signs from God that David Boice felt when was has checking out 52 churches in 52 weeks. He saw a cardinal bird that he felt was a sign for him that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the church for him to join. (You can read the story here.) I love the truth of signs. Heavenly Father blesses us with many signs to speak peace and joy to us. I love that he gives universal signs for all of us, and personalized signs just for each of us, because He truly does know us.
If you’d like to learn more about signs, here is a beautiful story of one man’s experience with a physical sign and how it helped him understand the importance of spiritual signs. Here is a basic overview of spiritual signs. Then here are signs of The Second Coming of Jesus Christ. If you want to go even deeper with signs, then propheticappointments.com is the best place to go, and watching the Prophetic Appointments YouTube Channel. You will learn of amazing signs of the constellations in the heavens regarding Christ’s birth. You will also learn of the signs in the heavens of Christ’s Second Coming, including the solar eclipses that happened in 2017 and 2024.
As interesting as all these signs are, the most important sign for me and you to learn about, is a sign we are to develop within us. It is the sign of charity. A person who shows charity shows the sign of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. Aunt Chris had charity. Thank you Aunt Chris for your example! Her children, sister, and bishop spoke of how she was always serving. She shared everything she had. She showed up at every funeral, every service project, every event in her congregation, and helped. She took food to the hungry, like fixing a dinner to deliver to her niece and then driving it one way for 45 minutes when her niece was on bedrest during a pregnancy. She went to her grandchildren’s milestones events. She gave money to people. She showed love by doing, not just with words.
As Paul said, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”- 1 Corinthians 13:1-2
Today I’m sharing how to get thrift store prices on books without leaving your home. This is such important knowledge, if you are a book lover and/or homeschooler! If you are not one of those, just skip this post. Go learn how to make Greek yogurt here, read some review of date night movies here, or read about my trip to Orchard House last year here.
OK, if you love books and love thrifting, read on. Say you are stuck at home because you have a lot of little children that preclude you from having a reasonably sane shopping trip at the thrift store, or you are ill, but not so ill that you can’t do some online shopping, but too ill to go out shopping. Maybe you don’t have any one of those situations, but you need a specific book for your family read aloud time, a hobby of you or your child, your book club, or a class at your child’s homeschool co-op. Or maybe you just have a need for a dopamine pick me up that comes from finding just the right book at just the right price that fits your mood that day.
However you fit into the above categories, if you have read this far, you probably share this overall condition with me:
Isn’t that the cutest shirt ever?! Go here to get it! It would make a great birthday gift for a bibliophile! Image Credit: etsy.com at the just mentioned link.
Any excuse to buy books right?! So let’s talk about thrifting for books from the comfort of your couch at home, poolside, sipping lemonade, in an airport, or up in the mountains, still with an Internet connection.
First of all, go to addall.com. Make sure you at the site for used books for addall.com not new books. The URL should look like this: https://www.addall.com/used/. If you are using the new book website and searching for used books, your search will be very limited and mostly fruitless.
If you are thrifty book lover, or a bibliophilic thrifter, however you describe yourself, this is going to be your best non-human friend ever! You’re welcome!!
You’ve probably bought used books online from thriftbooks.com, abebooks.com, ebay.com, alibris.com or even amazon. Well, this site allows you to take all of your online used book shopping to a whole new level! It allows you to find deals on books you love, and on books you are going to love that you didn’t even know existed!
The reason addall.com is so swell is because it does all the comparison shopping for you at used book websites all across the Internet, at the sites I just mentioned, and more.
OK, so when you are at addall.com, just type in the info of the book you are looking for, and voila, in less than a minute, you can find the cheapest price for the book across the Interverse (Internet universe). For the book’s info, you can use either the author, the title, the ISBN number, or even just a keyword.
Here is what my phone’s screen looks like when I looked for a treasury of Beatrix Potter stories.
The overall price is the red number in the red box: $8.97. That includes shipping, at least in the continental US! True, this isn’t a huge bargain like if you found the book for $1 or $2 at your neighborhood thrift store or used library book sale. It’s still a great deal though, since the retail price of a new copy is $19.99 on amazon. If you had to drive a long ways to find this at a thrift store, and counted the cost of gas and the cost of the time it would take you to hunt down the book, the addall price is probably worth it for you. It just depends on how much you want this specific book and how far you’d have to go and how long it would take to find it. As they say, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. If you can find it this cheap on addall.com, get it while you can, even if you could possibly get it cheaper at a thrift store with only the possibility, not the certainty, that you could find it.
So, if you wanted to buy this BP Treasury copy at the price shown in red above, click on the word “Amazon” in green, inside the green box. It will take you to amazon and then you buy the book there.
So addall is like having your very own personal shopper’s assistant, or a thrifty girlfriend, who goes out and scouts out the deals, showing you all the used copies for sale, from the lowest to the highest prices. So go ahead, bookmark the site now. You’ll be having a lot of fun with it!
Here’s another search I did, for a Reader’s Digest songbook. So far I have the Christmas, Popular Classics, and Children’s songbooks in the RD series of songbooks. The series has 14 in all, according to goodreads.com, here. I got the Christmas songbook for my 16th birthday, and the other two I found thrifting just this past summer. I love being able to play the Indiana Jones March, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Christmas songs, and so many other fun songs from these books.
These books are so wonderful for a piano player! Each book has dozens of songs, is huge, so easy to read, and spiral-bound, so they lie flat. (Every single book out there full of sheet music should have lie-flat spiral binding, just sayin.’)
So you pay $3.57 base price, $4.59 for shipping (sorry, the shipping price above is covered up by the privacy terms symbol) which totals $8.06 for this songbook of tunes from the 1950s. This would make a perfect gift for someone like my parents who were teens in the 1950s, or anyone who loves 50s music. Elvis, anyone?
Is your mind starting to go wild with the bookish possibilities of what you can find with this website?
Here are more examples. Below are some books any homeschooling mom would love to find at a thrift store, with how much you can get them using addall, as of the day I did the search, 9/3/25.
Say, you are doing Five in a Row, a curriculum for preschoolers. This is a fun unit study plan where you read aloud the same picture book five days in a row. Each day, after you read the book, you do a different activity related to the book. One day it’s an aspect of the book that relates to geography/social studies, another day, it’s science, another day, it’s math, another, it’s art, another, it’s language arts. It’s super fun! (I attempted to do it one year with my two oldest but was just not organized enough to keep it up but if you are organized, go for it.) Anyway, one of the books featured in this curriculum is the classic book, The Story About Ping. So say you are doing Five in a Row and can’t find a copy of Ping from your public library, which is not surprising since public libraries are getting rid of children’s book pre-1980 more and more these days.
Cheapest addall’s price: base $1.80 plus $3.99 shipping for a total of $5.79. Score!
$1.24 + $4.49 = $5.73
I’ve been wanting the above book for years. I’ve been surprised that my public library doesn’t have the picture book versions of Narnia. What a great buy for such a splendid book!
How about some Anne of Green Gables?
$2.36 + $3.99 = $6.35
Guess what came up, this beautiful edition above. Not a paperback copy, but a beautifully illustrated cover book in a slipcase, perfect for gifting! Only $6.35 total! Amazing!!!
If you are like me, you thought you had all 8 of the Anne books in the series from when you were a teen, and you just discovered that #3 is missing after moving and finally having a place to shelve all the books. You can find it on addall! This one is $1.37 + $3.99 shipping, total $5.36. If I hadn’t have found one when I went thrifting back in July, I would have gotten it here.
Now, here’s a classic book that I never knew about until I homeschooled. The book below won a Newbery Medal in 1956. It’s the story of a real man, Nathaniel Bowditch, who was the founder of modern maritime navigation. He grew to manhood in Salem, Massachusetts, overcoming many obstacles, including having to go work full-time as a young teen to help support his family. The Modern Practical Navigator, authored by him, is carried on every commissioned American naval vessel to this day. You can even buy it on amazon here. This biography of Nathaniel, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, is such a great book! It’s often required reading for LEMI’s Pyramid Project, a math and science class. If you haven’t read it or had your children read it, you are missing out! Get it and read it! At the price below, you can read your own copy. You can listen to it free in YouTube here.
$1.34 + $4.49 = $5.83
How about something for mother culture?
Anything by Susan Branch will fill the bill. Here’s her book Christmas Joy.
99 cents + $4.49 = $5.48. What a great deal! You can see my review of her Summer book here and her Autumn book here. Reading these books is like chatting with a dear girlfriend, filling you to the brim with yumminess. Her books are all so fun!
Now, how about, the DK Complete Book of Sewing? As of today, this book on amazon is $25.06, base price, without even adding the shipping cost.
Using addall.com, you can get it for $2.75, plus $4.49 shipping, for a grand total of $7.24. Sweet!
I still have my Usborne Puzzle books that I bought in the late 1990s for my older children. The series has about 8 books or so, and I bought most of them back then. Each has a different theme like castle, mountain, planet, etc. These are delightful books that involve “seek and find” activities along with mazes and other visual activities, following a super fun storyline of a child or a pair of children going on a themed adventure. All 7 of my children have loved these through the years, and now I read them to my grandchildren. My married daughter loves them so much that she wants to collect them now. Sadly, they are out of print from Usborne. Addall didn’t have any individual ones the day I looked but had books that were 3 titles in one. Below is the price for Puzzle World.
$4.04 + $3.09 = $8.03. A great buy!
.99 + $5.49 + $5.48. I’m totally going to get this book for my drummer son!
$4.45 + $4.49 = $8.94. I’ve read two of Patricia St. John’s books and love them. Now I want to read her story. It’s hard to find this book at any library. Listen to this podcast below to know why she’s so amazing.
Want some motivation to read aloud to your children? Here you go! This book is only $2.29 + $4.49 = $6.78. If you want to know all about the book, go here, where I have a podcast episode about it from Sarah Mackenzie of readaloudrevival.com
.99 + $4.49 = $5.48
$1.29 + $4.49 = $5.78
$5.43 + $4.49 = $9.92. I needed this book once for a class my teen daughter took at our co-op. It was all checked out at the public library, and then over $20 on amazon, not available through Prime, and took over two weeks to arrive! Her class discussion was over by the time it arrived. If only I had known about addall.com back then.
Here are some tips for using addall.com:
Don’t expect to find newly-released books by bestselling authors. But do expect to find books that have been out for at least a year.
2. Have the spirit of treasure hunt thrifting. That is, you might not find exactly what you want, but be willing to be grateful and surprised with the unexpected treasure. You might be looking for, say, The Lord of the Rings and can’t find it at a low price but instead you find the Hobbit devotional book, above for $2.29 + $4.49 =$ 6.78. So awesome! Get that instead and keep waiting for the LOTR to come down in price, while in the meantime you borrow a copy from the public library or a neighbor.
3. Think about a favorite book of a loved one, then use addall to see if you can find a deluxe version, like the Anne of Green Gables book in the slipcase I showed up above, a pretty boxed set of a series, an annotated version, a cookbook inspired by the book, or some kind of treasury from that author, to give as a gift. If giving the item as a gift, be sure to check the notes about the item to make sure it’s in giftable condition, not with writing inside or tears, or a bent cover.
4. Be willing to go back and check the prices for a much wanted book. Prices can change daily and I’m assuming books are added to the searchable inventory daily as well.
5. If you are new to homeschooling/collecting books/reading for education and fun, have a list from one of these sites of recommended books below, and keep them handy on your phone or in your purse so you can know what books are worth buying and keeping.
It’s the day after Labor Day, so that means it’s the reasonable, appropriate first day of school, because Labor Day marks the end of summer for many people, at least in the US. I’ve been working on a post about Why and How I Homeschool. It’s not quite done so I’m sharing today three videos to encourage any one out there who is on the fence about homeschooling, to do it, and if you are homeschooling, to keep at it. It’s one of my passions and I talk about it whenever I can!
It doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to involve any curriculum other than math, at least in the 12 and under years.
I homeschool for four reasons: faith in God, family, freedom, and fun. So like I said, I have a post coming up about that.
These videos all mention at least one of those reasons in some way.
The first is from Marcie Holladay, of singlemomonafarm.com, a single mom of 10, with 5 children left at home.
Now this one is from Megan and John Knorpp of knorppandsouth.com, parents of 9 children, including 5 adopted.
The third is from Sarah Janisse Brown, mom of 15, and founder of funschooling.com.
Just three more weeks until we get to watch a new season of Relative Race, Season 16! I’m doing a happy dance!!! This is a show with such amazingly joyful reunions of adopted children in search of their biological family. A clip is here, with a lot more here.
Go here to find out what Relative Race is all about and why I love it so much. Then go here to read the things I have shared about Relative Race.
Then here’s a new interview below with Dan Debenham, host of Relative Race. Skip to about the 8 minute mark for when the part with Dan starts, in a Zoom meeting. The meeting is courtesy of the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group (UVTAGG). The first 8 minutes involves announcements and business of that group. It’s from April 2025.
Then go watch these videos with Dan Debenham here and here. If you are ever having a bad day, just watch an episode of Relative Race! You can them watch on BYUTV here, and some episodes are at RR’s YouTube channel here.
Tree of Life Mothering 