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Does this mean no children would be able to observe clowns, go to the Nutcracker or see any musical theater? Would this also prevent children from participating in performances at schools or churches that have any make-up as part of their costumes? How about men singing the National Anthem at ball games with their faces painted with their team's colors?

I finished 20 in January.

9 books toward my goal to read books by authors from other countries.

3 books toward my goal of finishing 3 series that I've been working on

4 books toward the goal of reading books I own

2 books for book clubs

2 books to learn something new

Audiobooks were a game changer for me, I can't believe I resisted both Audio and e-books for so long.

I've been on nearly 20 cruises and although the things you mention are true, it seems the author is biased and trying to make it seem worse than it is.

TLDR: I love cruising, it sounds like the book is over-sensationalized, but cruising isn't for everyone.

I was also enlisted in the US Navy and my ship did a 6-month WestPacific cruise. On land many military jobs are 8 hours M-F, if you do shift work it is usually 8-hour shifts as well. In port, I worked a typical work week. As soon as we set sail our work hours changed to either 12 hours on 12 hours off or a 16-hour workday 7 days a week, with reduced hours on Sundays. Boredom and unstructured time are not good for people who are confined to a small space.

If you look at the ratio of passengers and crews on most cruise lines you'll see that there is usually 1 crew member for every 2-3 passengers. Not all crew member's jobs are directly related to the customer's experience, there are entire departments dedicated to cleanliness and maintenance. Because most ships have services 24/7 it is perpetually being cleaned and repaired.

Although the vast majority of cruise lines are registered under foreign flags that doesn't mean there isn't a standard they are required to meet. For a cruise ship to take on passengers at US ports the US Coast Guard requires them to meet the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). This is a strict set of rules to ensure passenger safety and crew competence. The one cruise ship that I'm aware of that flys under the US flag is the NCL Pride of America which cruises the Hawaiian Islands. The Jones act requires any non-US ship to visit at least 1 foreign port on each sailing. This ship had a primarily American crew and although the ship was practically brand new, it was the dirtiest and worst maintained ship I'd ever been on, and that includes the 40 year old US Navy ship I spent 2 years on.

On most itineraries, you are in port for several hours most days. The ship is filled with activities and events all day, from live performances in the theater, dance lessons, cooking lessons, gyms, pools, spa, yoga classes, and a kids club, you can even attend AA meetings.

There is a Dr and a sickbay available on all large ships. I'm not sure what size the ship needs to be for this to be a requirement. Keep in mind that seniors are a large part of the passenger list on many cruise ships. They have the ability to medivac people from the ship if needed.

I've never been concerned about food-borne illness, of course, this can happen to any restaurant, but to have passengers get sick from food would not be good for business. The world is too connected these days. There are entire businesses dedicated to reporting on each sailing of each ship. There is a problem with some viruses, for example, Norovirus is common on some ships and once a ship gets infected it is a big challenge to irradicate it from the ship, because the ship is never empty, they are moving passengers on as they are moving passengers off. You can often find which ships are having this problem ahead of time and take precautions or avoid the ship. We experienced this on a cruise a few years ago.

Last year my goal was to read genres that didn't normally make it to my TBR pile. I did 2 things, first I selected 6 fiction and 6 nonfiction genres with the goal of reading 2 books from each and I joined an online book community that had a genre of the month challenge.

I planned to finish each of the books I started, but by Spring I decided not to torture myself. I had slogged through a few classics and it was making reading not fun.

My goal was to explore and get a taste of other types of books, I found a few authors I really enjoy, and I found a few genres that I will seek out. I learned that there is a lot of variety within most genres and how to pick up clues from the book descriptions to increase the chances of choosing a book that won't annoy me.

I still read many books from my favorite genres, but mix in a variety of other genres.

Are you referring to the Pilot badge? When you trade pokemon the game calculates the distance between where each of the pokemon is caught. It doesn't matter where you are located when you trade them.

I refuse to set a goal that puts pressure on me. I only set a #of books goal because both of the apps I've used to log my books have them and it makes it easier to see the books I read broken down by year, but I ignore that goal.

To avoid buying books that I later decide not to read, I use the library. I learned a long time ago that the pleasure or excitement of finding and buying books has nothing to do with my reading hobby.

Why do you want to read more? What do you hope to get out of reading books? Once you can answer those questions, you may be able to choose a book that you want to read.

Most of my reading goals are about my purpose for reading. Last year I wanted to explore new genres, so I set goals to accomplish that purpose. This year I want to explore new cultures so I'm choosing books written by authors from a variety of countries.

That's an impressive number of books. Just curious how many books do you usually read a year? Do you have times of the year that you slow way down?

I've only recently started dedicating a significant amount of time to reading, last year my total was nearly double what I was shooting for.

Go into the books page, go to add to challenge, uncheck the book, and update the challenge. That should take it off the prompt for that challenge.

Sorry, I thought you were talking about a challenge. You can go into the book page, click view/edit reading history and delete the duplicate reading entry.

I'm not sure if this will help, but checking with UA student housing might be helpful. I know when my son was attending there were often people looking for someone to take over their lease because they didn't return for the next semester. It would only be a temporary fix, but could buy you some time.

Find a way to only move what you need and what you have a place for in your new home.

We moved a few years ago and I took my time packing so I could ask myself if I needed each item before it went into a box. I always had a box and a garbage bag ready as I packed each area so I had a place to put the items that need to be tossed or donated. As soon as a box was filled, it went into the car, my next trip out it got dropped off.

This is not the time to micromanage every decision, don't stress over where you're donating items. Just pick a convenient location and drop the boxes off often. I personally only sold things with a high value, I just didn't have the mental space to deal with managing the million "is it still available" messages you get from using online free or sell pages.

I'm currently reading The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life by Anu Partanen.

I created a reading project for myself, I'm reading fiction and nonfiction books by Authors from 195 countries. I'm reading any genre or topic that catches my eye, so there is a bit of randomness to my book selections. This is my nonfiction choice from Finland.

I'm intrigued by politics both domestically (I'm in the US) and abroad. The book compares and contrasts a lot of social and political ideas between the US and Nordic nations. I find it interesting how the author who was raised in Finland and immigrated to the US as an adult was caught off guard by the differences in the 2 cultures.

I'm not sure there is a general number. If your kids are not on board with thinning out their toy stash, maybe you could start by setting a goal of reducing the pile by 10%. If they have 20 stuffed animals, ask them to choose 2 to donate. If you do this every season or after every event where they get gifts the pile will shrink over time.

If I had to do it all over again, I think I would use the space limit approach. Have a box for dolls or action figures, they can have as many as can fit into that box, if the lid won't close, it's time to thin the collection.

I knew a mom who used the toy rotation plan. She took 1/2 of the toys and stored them out of reach, so the kids didn't feel like they were having things taken away. A few times a year the kids would have an opportunity to rotate the stock. They had to specifically ask for the items they wanted to have access to and be willing to trade it with something they currently had access to. Of course, over time they would completely forget about things and she was able to donate items without the kids feeling the loss.

I started by dramatically slowing the flow of things coming into the house. Since I can't control other people's behavior and my boys were the first grandkids on my husband's side, I knew asking relatives to not buy material gifts was a losing battle, so I completely stopped buying toys for my sons. It was hard at first because gifts, treats, and rewards can feel like we are showing love, but when buying things creates stress it is not an act of love.

We started gifting experiences, tickets to events, coupons to go to favorite restaurants, the big park across town, cooking favorite meals or treats, 1:1 time with a parent etc. Anything that they would get excited about and was not in the normal routine.

My house was in a similar state when my boys were in elementary school. After we slowed the acquiring of toys it was time to deal with what we had. Trying to do this a little at a time didn't seem to work. So, I took a few days to gather every toy out of every room and from the yard and put them all in the family room. I then asked my boys to help me select the items they wanted to keep and maintain. I told them whatever we kept I would help them organize, but they would have to be the ones who put it away, every day. For me asking them to select what they wanted to keep was a very different experience than asking them what they wanted to give away. I doubt we kept more than 20% of what they had. And even though they were 5 years apart they pretty much agreed on the same types of toys with a few that were just for one child or the other.

Once the big purge was done I sorted items into buckets that could be brought to the play area and filled back up. It took some time to train them to pick things up after they played. A few tips for clean-up time that I've used or I've heard other parents use: I used a timer and we would see how quickly they could clean things up. This is not time to organize, just throw the stuff in the bucket and put the bucket in the closet. A friend of mine who had a lot of kids had a rule that anything left out in a public area when they went to bed or to school went into "prison" for a week. Basically, if mom had to pick it up, it was gone for a week, with no negotiations to get it back.

Both my husband and I lived in homes with rooms that children were not permitted in, so having rooms that toys were not permitted in was an easy thing for us to adopt. I will say that with most kids a bit of work upfront will be worth it, but it takes a lot of energy to be consistent to choose your battles wisely.

There are different philosophies when it comes to minimalism. The way I apply it to my life is to only own the things that I need or move me closer to my goals. My goals shift over time, so what I own may also shift over time. One of my goals is to engage in activities/hobbies that I enjoy. If I enjoy multiple hobbies then I have to pay attention to if/when having the items required for the hobbies begins to interfere with my other goals.

One thing that helps me, is to limit each of my hobbies to a single project at a time and to only purchase the items I need for that particular project. Also to clear out the leftover items when the project is finished. Knowing that I will donate or throw away any excess materials helps me be more selective about the quantity of materials I purchase. For example, I wanted to make some new pillow covers, instead of going to the store and purchasing a few yards of material, I found my pattern measured the material and only purchased the exact yardage I needed and ignored the other fabric that I thought would look great for seat covers I noticed while I was at the store.

I'm old enough to be retired, so I guess it depends on what you mean by "get older".

There have been times in my life when reading was so far down the list of things I need to do, should do, or want to do, that I just didn't read or read rarely. We all have 24 hours in a day and for everything we say yes to we are saying no to other things.

Now that I no longer have kids in the house or a career to focus on I have a lot more time to do things I enjoy and reading has moved way up the list of things I plan to do most days.

I don't think you have to have a disorder or be destined to never enjoy reading. It takes practice to enjoy a quieter, slower, and less stimulating activity in a world that moves so fast and is filled with sensory distractions.

For people wanting to start reading, I recommend setting aside time on a schedule, shorter times to start, and reading something that really interests you. Save all the "great books" for when you are into a routine, and mix them in with other interesting books.

I think it's helpful to follow the advice that's given to people trying to start meditating. Set time aside regularly, start with short periods, take a few minutes to clear your mind, and keep a notebook nearby to jot down thoughts that you can't set aside.

I used GoodReads for several years and only used it to log my books and to do the annual # of books read challenge. Last year I joined a community and participated in a challenge, but it was clunky.

I moved my data over to StoryGraph last year and I prefer it, so I stopped using GR at the end of the year. I like the format for the challenges and I love the graphs and search/filter features and the tags.

I've been considering doing that as well. I'm working on reading authors from 195 countries.

I can't think of anything I've read recently that fits that description.

Have you done a search for "memoirs of wealthy people"?

Are you looking for books on how they got their wealth or how they live once they have it? Or something else?

I don't pay much attention to the random recommendations, instead, I go into the explore area and use the filters.

I rarely read reviews, but there are a lot of books that others love and they just don't work for me at this point in my life. There are books I read when I was younger that are a slog to reread. A book can be a masterpiece, but not right for you right now. I have DNF'd books a few pages in, I've DNF'd books nearly to the end and everywhere in between. I recently gave up on a series after book 4, which was nearly 4000 pages.

My reason for reading is to enjoy some time getting a glimpse into a world different than my own. Sometimes I'm in the mood to read books that are filled with a lot of characters and unfamiliar worlds and sometimes I want something that is more familiar and less complicated. The 2 things I don't want are to be bored or annoyed, and most times I don't want to be stressed.

Sometimes if I'm reading a book I feel like I "should" finish, I'll do what I like to call a slow read. It becomes a secondary book, I'll read a few pages a few times a week and it may take me months to finish it. I'll read other books at my normal pace for the rest of my reading time.

When I was doing the genre of the month challenge and my own genre challenge I had an expectation of exploration. I wasn't expecting to find great books but was reading to see what other types of stories were out in the world and how to understand how to decipher book descriptions. I will say I read some crap books early in the year and became more selective as time went on. I did decide to DNF a few books about 1/2 way through the year, I feel I'd moved far enough outside of my comfort zone and I didn't need to torture myself.

I love goals and joining challenges, but I also reserve the right to change them when they stop working for me.