Just like with my letter A (Anne of Green Gables) and B (The Baby-Sitters Club) posts, you may be wondering again (again!) if I mean Ella Enchanted the Newbery Award winning book by Gail Carson Levine or Ella Enchanted the movie starring Anne Hathaway.
And, yes, again I am talking about both.
Just like with yesterday’s post about Anne of Green Gables, you may be wondering if when I say The Baby-Sitters Club is a perfect comfort for these here pandemic times, do I mean the Netflix show that came out last year, the classic book series, or even the graphic novels that were first published in 2006?
And the answer, once again, would be yes. Of course I mean all of those things.
If you’re unfamiliar, a reading deprivation occurs in week four of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. During a reading deprivation, you give up reading for a week. I started mine on January 1 so that means I’m currently on day four. Just like last time, I have basically given up all media that uses words, including social media. I also gave up Bejeweled (except–TMI alert–when I’m in the bathroom) because I definitely use it as a form of distraction and admit that about myself. Unlike last time, I am a little less crazed–probably because I knew what to expect this time and also, maybe, because I have grown as a person in the last four and a half years.
As a result of the no words thing, I am VERY into the Pop Goes Classical playlist/station on Spotify. It is getting me through. Current faves include “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Queenz of Piano and “Lose Yourself” by David Garrett.
The holidays were nice and low-key. Jólabókaflóð (Yule Book Flood) was a success this year. I received The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (reviewed below) and milk and honey by Rupi Kaur (started but, obviously, on hold until the end of the week). I gave The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas to my daughter’s friend who said she wanted to read more classics, and I gave my daughter The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo because she said she wanted to read more about minimalism. We exchanged books, drank hot cocoa, and read together for about an hour or so. It was a delight. Christmas was also a lot of fun with us hanging out, opening presents, watching movies, and eating some food.
I did make a post last week, and I did read some books and watch some movies that I didn’t post about here before the end of the new year.
Okay, I’m going to get into the ashy eye story in a minute, but also I just want you to know that I got a COVID test after flying across the country, and it is negative. So…whew.
But, yes, I have an ashy eye.
So I discovered this ashy eye issue the day I was packing/prepping to fly across the country. My eye had been bothering me since Thursday. It kept watering for no reason, which honestly happens to me quite a bit, but I thought it was just allergies. You know, a fire was raging, and debris was flying through the air, so it seemed logical. But that night I couldn’t sleep with my eye mask on because it felt like something was stabbing me in the eye.
Then, on Friday, my eye was still bothering me. It was still with the leaking and all, but I could smell smoke in my house, so, again, I just banked on allergies. Also, my daughter told me I looked like I had gotten punched in the eye because my eye was swollen. “Yes,” I told her. “It’s the allergies.”
Continue reading “It’s Wednesday & I have an ashy eye”So my book club is doing middle grade mysteries for October, and unfortunately, I can only nominate one book. One! This is sad for me because I have a lot of books that I could recommend because I want the people in my book club to read and/or talk about them. Just for context (do I need more context?), after I taught the detective literature course at my school last fall, I said my dream would be to teach the class again and focus solely on middle grade capers or puzzle books. (I was sick of all the murdering and violence in the adult literature.) The point is that this topic lives close to my heart.
So, anyway, here are all the books I wanted to nominate for my book club to read and the one I did wind up nominating in the end.
Continue reading “5 Books I Wanted to Nominate for My Book Club’s Middle Grade Mystery Theme & the One I Did”Whew, it has been a minute since I’ve done a Top Ten Tuesday post. Did you know there’s a new host? And that today is the meme’s tenth birthday? Whew, time passes so quickly.
Today’s prompt is to pick a past TTT topic you’ve done and re-do/update it, which is perfect because I’m still mad about all the books/movies/TV shows being promoted as Black stories but that only show Black pain or Black poverty or just read my original post about it. In fact, I’m mad enough about it that I’ve had more than one conversation with friends about how stupid and annoying it is, and I have concluded (again) that Toni Morrison is right about racism functioning as nothing but a distraction.
Continue reading “Books About Black Teens Redux #TopTenTuesday”
No joke. I submitted grades on Saturday for the end of our spring semester. I was doing prep for my summer class that starts Wednesday, and I could not figure out what I had done in the class before. Or what I was planning to do. What are assignments? How does one organize a class? Part of it is that I’m teaching the class online for the first time. But the other part was that my brain was seriously just like, “I don’t know, man. You tell me.”
I said to my daughter OUT LOUD, “I am a terrible teacher who doesn’t know how to teach.”
Continue reading “It’s Monday & I’ve Forgotten How to Teach #IMWAYR”
That’s it. That’s the post.
Kidding!
I did make lasagna, though. I can’t remember the last time I did. Between the IBS and the lactose intolerance and the no wheat thing, it seemed like a pipe dream, but a friend of mine posted a picture of her lasagna, and I remembered seeing gluten-free no-boil lasagna noodles at the store (and I’m stocked up on Lactaid), so I thought, “Eh, why not?” and so a lasagna was born.
I almost burnt it, but that’s neither here nor there.
You know what’s sad? How poorly I do without external motivation. The A to Z Challenge is over, so I haven’t posted anything since last Monday, but ALSO I had to force myself to post this today, so I wouldn’t go one more day without not posting it. I mean, it’s fine because I do this for me, but I had stuff to talk about on Monday! I just didn’t.
So here’s that stuff.
Continue reading “It’s Wednesday and I made lasagna #IMWAYR”
That’s right: It’s a hybrid post. What I thought was motion sickness today was really just a migraine set up, so I don’t have it in me to write two separate posts. If you’re just here for the A to Z stuff, it’s at the end, so you can scroll scroll scroll.
Last week was spring break, praise the Lord. I took the entire week off from work: no grading, no emails, no course prep, nothing. It was nice. I spent two days doing some deep reading–in part because I had to limit my screen time, but also because I just wanted to read. The motion sickness/migraine madness meant I unfortunately couldn’t catch up on blogs like I wanted to. However, I did manage to watch Parasite, which broke my brain, and I also started a rewatch of The Bernie Mac Show (both are on Hulu), which is bringing me so much joy. I mean, honestly, there are not enough BMS gifs out there and my heart, it weeps.
WEEPS.
Continue reading “It’s Monday and P is for Psychotherapy! #IMWAYR #AtoZChallenge”
Whew, this past week has been a bear. I’ve had a headache of varying intensity for the past week. Both (last) Monday and (this past) Saturday’s headaches migraines were so bad that I basically stayed in bed all day. I had stopped tracking my headaches (I tend to get them in clusters twice a month) so I wasn’t surprised I had headaches this week. I was just put out by the intensity of them.
Anyway, Saturday was pretty bad and then it rained, and it’s supposed to keep raining so I think at least part of it was due to the pressure change. At any rate, I’ve had a mild headache on and off today, so I hope/think I’m at the end.
Continue reading “It’s Monday & I’ve had a migraine for a week #IMWAYR”
The Englishist 