Book & Reading Quotes for Your Planner

September 14, 2021 Leave a Comment

Book and Reading Quotes Perfect to include in Your Planner or Bullet Journal | ChocolateMusings.com

October seems like the perfect time to put on a sweater, find a hot drink, and cuddle up with a book. Here are some book and reading-related quotes perfect for your planner. Let me know which quotes are your favorite or if you have any favorite book or reading quotes, not on my list!

First, here is a book-related quote we all need to remember: never judge a book by its movie.

Though there are so many more book or reading-related quotes, I chose a select few, partially because they were short enough to be included in a bullet journal or planner. Then I separated them into a few different book quote categories.

Books are more than just entertaining escapes to worldly troubles. I know I read books for entertainment but I also read them for inspiration and motivation.

The world belongs to those who read. – Rick Holland
The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. – Dr. Seuss
Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary. – Jim Rohn
The reading of all good books is conversations with the finest (people) of the past centuries. – Descartes
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. -Joseph Addison

Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary - him Rohn | Book Quotes for your Bullet Journal or Planner | ChocolateMusings.com

Change and Educate Your Mind – Book Quotes

Think before you speak. Read before you think. – Fran Lebowitz
I’ve read too many books to believe what I am told. -Suheir Hammad
One must always be careful of books and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us. – Cassandra Clare
Books don’t change people; paragraphs do, sometimes even sentences. – John Piper
When trouble strikes, head to the library. You will either be able to solve the problem or simply have something to read as the world crashes down around you. – Lemony Snicket
You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. – Ray Bradbery
Reading means borrowing. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Spending Time & Money – Reading Quotes

So many books, so little time.
One more chapter…I whispered two hours ago.
Books – one of the few things you can buy that will make you richer.
Money talks. Mine always says, “wanna go to the bookstore today?”
Today I’d like to sit and read. Forget I have a job I need. Ignore the things I have to do. And just enjoy a book or two.
Let’s be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading. – Lena Dunham

Enveloped in the Story

Some books you read. Some books you enjoy. But some books just swallow you up heart and soul. – Joanne Harris
A book a day keeps reality away.
Books are uniquely portable magic. – Stephen King
I have lived a thousand lives & I loved a thousand loves. I’ve walked on distant worlds & seen the end of time because I read. – George R. R. Martin
I am not a bookworm. I’m an escape artist.
Once you learn to read, you will be free forever.
We lose ourselves in books. We find ourselves there, too.
A book is a dream you hold in your hands. – Neil Gilman
Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere. – Jean Rhys

Watercolor Book & Splatters - Quote on Books & Reading - Perfect to letter in your Bullet Journal or Planner | ChocolateMusings.com

Happiness Through Reading Quotes

I cannot live without books.
What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee? – Anthony Trollope
Wherever I am, if I’ve got a book with me, I have a place I can go and be happy. – JK Rowling
I always kept two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. – Robert Louis Stevenson

Quantity of Books

Who has enough books? I know I don’t.

It’s always better to have too much to read than too little.
Too many books? I think what you mean is not enough bookshelves.
A room without books is like a body without a soul. -Cicero

Bonus: Definitions

In addition to these book & reading quotes for your planner, here are a few book & reading-related definitions:

Bibliophagist (n.) An avid or voracious reader
Logophile (n.) a lover of words
Biblichor (n.) the comforting, faint & musty smell of old books
Bibliophile (n.) one who is keenly devoted to books
Antiquarian (adj.) of, dealing in, or interested in old or rare books.
Bibliopegy (n.) the art of binding books
Bibliocentric (adj.) placing great or central importance on printed texts
Bibliometric (n.) use of statistical methods to analyze books, articles, and other publications.
Bibliomaniac (n.) one who is keenly devoted to books
Bibliotheca (n.) library, archive
Incunabulum (n.) an early printed book, especially one printed before 1501

I hope you found some inspiring book or reading quotes for your planner. I’d love to know which ones you include! Tag me on Instagram @ChocolateMusingsCreates and use #myplanningmuse.

Other Book & Reading Posts

Now that you’ve gotten your book quote fix, check out these other book & reading posts to inspire you in your bullet journal.

Here are some books I’ve read on organizing, decluttering, and habits. I’d love a recommendation and add it to my list. Let me know if you have more to add in the comments below.

No Matter Which Notebook I use – You’ll Always Find These Supplies Close at Hand

How I Track Recipes in My Bullet Journal

January 6, 2019 2 Comments

New Recipe Book? Here’s How I Track My Recipes.

I love recipe books, and I love getting them for Christmas or going on vacation and finding new local recipe books. My most favorite recipe books are compilation books, where everyone from church or school contributes their favorite recipe, they’re compiled in a book, then you buy them for fundraising or at cost.

Recipe books accumulate in my bookshelf, so I guess you could say that I am a recipe book collector. Recently, I bought three whole30 recipe books – no, I’m not an ambassador for the program, but I’ve been doing the program. I thought it was a great example to show you how I track the new books in my bullet journal.

Here are the books I bought:

Now I’m slowly making my way through the food creations, tracking and recording in my bullet journal.

Watch the Flip-Through on How I Track My Recipes:

The Process for a New Cook Book

When I get a new recipe book, Before I start adding the list to my journal, I mark the pages in the recipe books and then forget which recipes I wanted to try. I go through every single page and mark each page with a recipe I want to try with a sticky note tag. Then I write the page number and the name of the recipe in my bullet journal in a list. I know when I write things down, I tend to remember them better.

Selecting Recipes

If a recipe doesn’t look tasty to me, I don’t try it. Sometimes I’ll go back and revisit the book and try new ones. I can create a new list or add to my current list. When I try the recipe, I mark it with a key to show me which recipes I liked and which ones I didn’t like very much.

I prefer my color keys to be very different in color. If I did all green or all red tones, or varying intensities of any given color, I would get confused with the ones I loved and the ones I didn’t like, so my colors are always varied.

Color Code Key

Using Tombow Dual Brush Markers, I assigned a color Key to this set of recipes:

Yellow Gold 026: YUM! The whole family loves – the quickest way for a recipe to land in the regular rotation.
Coral 873: I love – but the family doesn’t. That means I won’t make it as often. If I develop a particular craving for a recipe in this category, sometimes I declare a ‘fend for yourself night’ and indulge myself.
Gray Green 228: No Go – something that didn’t work at all
Orchid 623: We liked the recipe, but it requires a change to something in the recipe – I love to do this for recipes and customize them.

There are some weeks that I want to try all the new recipes and feel ambitious in the kitchen. There are other weeks that I don’t feel like cooking at all. So it’s nice to have a reference for when I want to try something new, and I don’t have to flip through all the pages in every recipe book each time I want to try something new.

What Do I Do With All the Recipes I Love?

If a recipe wins our hearts (and stomachs) or I modify the recipe enough to fit our style, I add it to our online recipe manager. I use Pepperplate.com, but I know AllRecipes.com has a recipe manager as well and there are some other choices for apps and digital recipe managers out there too. But I’ve used PepperPlate for years – I can’t even tell you how long. If they had an ambassador program, I’d jump on that boat so fast. My husband and I both have the app and we can access the recipes and ingredients. I love their meal scheduler and shopping list creator. Plus you can import recipes from different sites.

Additional Layout idea

There are so many ways to track recipes. I would LOVE to make a recipe journal. Either write out the recipes by hand or create a visual diary of the recipe. One Thanksgiving I made a spread highlighting delicious food. It’s still one of my favorite spreads to date. Here’s the mouthwatering video:

How do you try new recipes from recipe books? Or do you find them from online? Do you have a special way to organize your favorite meals?

Supplies Used:

Scribbles That Matter A5 Dot-Grid Notebook: https://amzn.to/2Lm40Za
Papermate Flair Pens: https://amzn.to/2PDWHfy
Camera Paperclip: https://amzn.to/2EvqPJ5
Tombow Dual Brush Pens: https://amzn.to/2PDy7eN

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November Mid-Month Habit and Mood Tracker Check

November 19, 2017 4 Comments

November Mid-Month Habit Check + Mood Tracker Update

When I sat down to start writing this post, I realized this is the monthly insight into my life. There are so many emotions tied to habits, so many excuses, so many passions. I can’t write about my habit tracker {and now added mood tracker} without being a little more personal. Of all the things I have in my bullet journal, my habits and my moods show the most insight into my life on a day-to-day basis.

So here is a monthly update on my Habit and Mood Trackers.

Half Circle Habit Tracker in my bullet journal - mid month checkup

November 2017 – Mid-Month Summary

Whew! This month has been – well – different. There were some major things happening at work that made the rest of my life feel like it was spinning out of control. I couldn’t separate my personal life from my work life. It’s not that I didn’t want to or didn’t try. I could not separate them. My friend from work (who got me my job) moved to another company. My employer was very unhappy with this. Alright – I could have gotten around this and helped everyone make peace with it if needed. But we were in the middle of a loan for my friend. There were confusion and so many emotions swirling and information that none of us knew what was true (I am a home loan processor by day, by night I blog, but I am superwoman all day).

I tried to remove myself from the situation, I even banned both parties from speaking further about each other and would not participate if I didn’t agree with a conversation. But being in the middle of the loan where I had to know details so I could do my job made things even more complicated. Every conversation, innocent in intent, kept stirring up more and more. And I couldn’t get away. It was as though dark swirling clouds circled my head.

How All This Affected Me

The stress was taking a toll on my body. The muscles in my back were tight, I had to remember to unclench my jaw regularly and my stomach was so upset for about a week. That coupled with my husband having a cold for two weeks straight and the coughing that kept me up just as I would drift off to sleep wreaked havoc on everything I tried to do this month to improve myself. Thank goodness I tried to get ahead the beginning of the month because, by the middle of the month, I was struggling in more than one way.

In Control or Out of Control

There were many things out of my control – but I used those things to negatively affect my goals and daily life outside of work, which made my life feel even more chaotic. So for the rest of this month, I am going to make an effort to go to bed earlier, wake up earlier and check off my goals before the rest of my family wakes up. When things are out of control in your life, taking command of the things that you can control makes all the difference in having a bad day vs. a good day and a bad month vs. a good month.

New This Month

I created a mood tracker this month – my first. I saw what other people were doing, and knew that I couldn’t group my days into one mood. Both designs are very functional – I am not the biggest fan of the overall look as it is very utilitarian, but like most utilitarian designs, it gets the job done. The more yellow, green, or purple, the better in this case. This month there are a lot more ‘frustrated’ and ‘anxious’ times than I expected.

I classify the moods/sleep by these categories:

Mood:

Sad
Content
Happy
Productive
Frustrated
Angry
Excited
Blah
Anxious

For Sleep:

Refreshing
Good
Restless
Bad Night

Half Circle Mood Tracker with sections of the day in my bullet journal - mid month check-up

Design Assessment vs. Functionality

I would like to make a ‘pretty’ mood tracker that is aesthetically pleasing (like the mandalas or feathers or the endless myriad of designs I’ve seen) and still include the times of day to help me see where the problem lies. If I like it by the end of the month, I will figure out a way to make it pretty and functional. The times of day are broken into chunks (you can see it if you scroll down on the graphic):

Before – before work, getting kids ready for school (on weekends, I consider this to just be morning vs afternoon)
Work – which I blocked off during the weekends
After – afternoons when I get off work and the kids are home from school
Dinner – often a time of angst because of picky eaters
After – after dinner as the kids are going to bed and the time that my husband and I have together afterward
Sleep – track how well I slept

For the most part, I feel like this has provided great information into my days, so I think I will keep it! I will be thinking of different ideas to make it prettier for the future. I thought of using this general layout and turning it into angel wings, I would like to do flowers or I saw a hot air balloon idea that may work but I will keep the segmented times of the day.

My habits – well they suffered this month as well. I finally read The Miracle Morning and loved it. It is very motivational I started getting up early and enjoying morning yoga and reading. I would get so much done in that short hour, and many of my habits would be checked off in the morning. I discovered that if I am going to do this, I need to go to bed earlier.

If you are curious – these are the habits I track

Study – usually scriptures
Kid Time – time where I put my phone down and play with my kids, we go to a park, play outside, watch a movie together
Exercise – I count yoga in the morning as exercise, a walk, etc
Journal – Writing in my journal, even if it is a one-liner or one word in my gratitude log
Kind words – speaking kindly to everyone around me and not losing my temper
Words – it’s my swear jar in reverse – I fill in a square if I don’t swear all day. Last month I had just 5 days where one of those pesky words slipped out but I’ve already passed up that quantity this month.
Healthy Choice – consciously choosing to eat healthily vs. not. Taking a side of veggies instead of seconds of pasta etc – this one will be more developed in the future, but I included it so I could become aware of it before fully developing what I wanted to do.
Dishes – do the *&%$ dishes
Straighten – choose a room and straighten it
Clean a room – vacuum, dust, wipe down, clean it.
No Spend – frivolous spending, eating out, extra spending (I don’t count grocery shopping or getting gas)
IG – Instagram – keeping up with my challenge!
Show Me Your Letters – Hosted by the Happy Ever After Crafter – a great place to start if you want to start modern calligraphy (I will be doing a post later with my favorite lettering resources)
Prayers – I will probably separate this into AM & PM later
Laundry – ugh this task and dishes are never-ending. Only checked off if I have completed one full load – not just put it in the washer or taken out of the dryer but put away.

I put habits on my tracker to assess how I am doing before making loads (haha I’m punny) of changes.

Other things I’ve done this month

I read a new book this month on habits. Read is a relative term, I listened to it. But hey! According to “things I am going to do” I wanted to read/listen to more books. I have consumed two books already this month – Better Than Before & The Miracle Morning. Thank you library. I will do a book review of these books later – spoiler: I liked both.

Habits and Moods mirror each other & provide daily insight, half-circled mirrored bullet journal layout, Habit and Mood Tracker

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

~Tricia

September Set Up

August 29, 2017 3 Comments

Hello, September.

How I’ve missed you.

Fall is a time that gives me the…well warm fuzzies. Even though September is not yet full-on fall, there is a certain deliciousness that comes with the crisp nights and cooling weather, the warm hues all over the tree tops as the autumn colors dot the horizon. The reds, oranges, yellows, soft browns, and PURPLE! Purple is a fall color I swear.

Apple strudel is definitely on the menu. I don’t care if I have to eat the entire pan by myself because no one else in my family likes it. I wouldn’t say that is necessarily negative, I consider it a perk.

September feels like a great time to cuddle up with a fuzzy blanket and read a book. I thought maybe I could have this Monthly Intro Page do double duty as a book tracking page (I’ve also heard the page called monthly cover page/splash page/monthly greeting or welcome page) whatever you call this “Hello September” page, I love the way it turned out. I added touches of iridescent watercolor paint after coloring with Papermate Flair Pens and using a water brush for blending.

As with most pages that I paint, I get caught up in the artwork and want to keep it for the beauty of the art. I don’t want to write on it! We shall see if I decide to deface the cover page and turn it into a reading tracker.

See how pretty that paint is? It shimmers.

Sigh.

Monthly Page Layout:

This month, I shrunk the size of the day’s boxes and am adding a smaller habit tracker fto the side of the page. Another reason I love fall is the return of a regular schedule. Don’t get me wrong. I love summer for the freedom it allows, but fall provides needed structure in my life (and my children’s lives!).

Blending Tombow Dual Brush markers has fascinated me. I’ve seen it all over instagram – so I tried it. Surprisingly, I really like the color combination of the orange #933 and the purple #636. I plan to write in black so scaling the numbers up in the day boxes and using them as a ‘background’ was perfect.

I wanted more fall colors and leaves. Lots of leaves. I never realized how hard leaves were to draw! Using a variety of the Papermate flair pens, I drew out basic leaf shapes (you can see my pencil marks) and filled in with colors and used a water brush to blend the colors. The flair pens don’t blend completely, but I really like the look it gives in this case. On some of the leaves, I went back and outlined them again.

The return of the habit tracker

Since fall is the return of schedules, it is the return of the neglected Habit Tracker to my bullet journal. Using the space on the right-side of the page, I added a baby-step tracker filled with only the essential items. Habits that I truly need to form {or break!}. As you can see, there are a lot of personal-development items on my habit tracker. It’s time to get my personal life back into shape!

For creating an effective habit tracking:

I am rather pleased by the colors and the layout for September. I added the washi tape for goals and the ‘to do’ section quite by accident. They are actually covering a hand-lettering mistake. The tape is sparkly orange and I wrote on it with a white “Recollections” opaque marker that I found at Michael’s in the loose pen aisle. I mark the monthly spread pages with washi tape for easy navigation. I added the white dots to the lettered titles too. I like the texture it gives and gives the text even more whimsy.

I wasn’t intending to add leaves to the boxes on the calendar, but it became necessary as I smeared the ink on number 13. I can’t tell, nor do I care because I like the added leaves! The number 25 may need some of the same help. Or maybe I should fill that day with plenty of fall activities that I will never know otherwise.

How do you fix errors on your page? Washi tape? Art? Stickers? Just leave it? Bullet journaling has taught me that it’s ok to make mistakes and to love them for what they are. Let me know what you do in the comments below.