I’m sitting in the laundromat so now seems as good a time as any to update. (Wifi at the laundromat? What a time to be alive!)

A lot has happened since I made my executive decision not to finish my daily blogging challenge for April:

1. My mom visited for two weeks. We went to Santa Barbara, one of the many (!) overlooks on Mulholland Drive, and met a cousin neither of us had met before. We also had dinner with one of your favorite new authors and mine and pre-gamed for a trivia night. (My mother has no interest in trivia so left after pre-gaming.) It was a great visit.
2. I went to the LA Times Festival of Books. I met so many wonderful authors for the first time: Gayle Forman, Rick Riordan, Jason Reynolds, Mary H. K. Choi, Aminah Mae Sofi, and some others I can’t remember now. I also saw some of your favorite YA authors and mine on some excellent panels and added soooo many books to my TBR. Everybody I talked to kept calling the event Bookchella, and it was accurate. It was reader nerd bliss.
3. The elimination diet is going along, slowly. I lost about two weeks of reintroduction time because I ate something that disagreed with me and had no idea what it was. (I did not prepare adequately for the Festival of Books, basically.) Anyway, I have learned that I am definitely, 100% lactose intolerant and that I can tolerate avocado (and like foods) in small amounts. Same with cauliflower (and like foods), though less of them than avocado.
4. I have spent the past two weeks nesting because my daughter will be here for the summer. After being on my own for nine months, I’ve had to do some things to  make my apartment hospitable to two people instead of one.
5. I still have spring breakitis, I think. (Part of it is that at this time last year, I was completely done with teaching for the year. What a difference a change in school makes.) This is my way of saying I’m way behind on grading. Still, my post on selfish teaching holds. Grading has been a lot easier since I’m doing assignments that I want to read.
6. I signed up for TSA Pre✅. I am sure this is the best decision I have made so far this year.
7. I have very strong feelings about the Jane the Virgin season finale (SO STRONG), so I hope that writing this blog post will kick off some blogging mojo so I can talk about it here. Because I do want to.
8. I really hope Kevin (Probably) Saves the World doesn’t get canceled.

Continue reading “April 2018 Monthly Wrap Up” →