It’s the first day of March, so regular readers of the blog know what that means: time to decide at the very last minute to participate in the Slice of Life Challenge hosted by Two Writing Teachers.

Hi.

Since I have not updated my blog regularly since then (always a resolution for the year), here are thirteen things that have happened since the last challenge.

1. In April, I presented at the Pop Culture Association annual conference. I did blog about 2/3 of that experience.

2. I realized that part of the reason the beginning of last year was so hard for me was that my knee injury meant no tap class. No tap class meant no creative outlet. No creative outlet meant big time burnout because all I was doing was work. So, I signed up for an improv class and participated in an improv show. It was a lot of fun, and life definitely was better because of it.

3. I finally managed to join Women Who Submit. They hold quarterly registrations, and I had been out of town EVERY SINGLE TIME. Until I wasn’t.

4. I got a short story (“Ordinary Daze”) accepted to and printed in the Santa Fe Writers Project online journal.

5. I got an essay I wrote about having Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) accepted to an anthology on Black mental health that’s scheduled to be released in May.

6. I went to Hawaii (twice!).

7. I got nominated for a teaching award for the second time and lost for the second time. (It’s an honor just to be nominated.) (No, but really it is.)

8. I saw two of my favorite movies, Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon and Back to the Future, on the big screen for their respective anniversaries. I saw Back to the Future on IMAX, and some of the jokes hit so much better on the bigger screen (like Marty encountering his father in the diner for the first time).

9. I gifted a friend with a ticket to the Brandy & Monica The Boy Is Mine tour, so we went to the concert. It was A++, no notes.

10. I signed up for a stand-up comedy class and performed a five-minute set during our class showcase. And even though I vowed that was the first and last time, somehow I’m performing again this Thursday.

11. We said good-bye to my dad, whose cancer stopped responding to treatment in October.

12. I also spent a lot of time with friends and family, some because of the funeral, some because of–even though I love to complain about it–my very long winter break. (My school has a winter session, which means if I don’t teach during the winter, I get eight weeks off. The trade-off is our spring semester ends mid-June, and that’s the part I hate. But if not for the long break, I wouldn’t have been able to spend as much time with my parents nor would I have been there when my dad entered hospice care. So. You know.)

13. I didn’t post any wrap-ups to ye olde blogge, but I did post my top/highest rated new-to-me movies and TV shows of 2025 over on the ‘gram. (But not the books somehow even though I made the graphics. Good grief.)

So that’s that. I’m looking forward to the challenge!