I
just realized that this blog is year old as of yesterday. I intended to blog
yesterday to celebrate. But I also intended to blog the day before that and the
day before that as well. I’ve clearly been having a difficult time with
prioritizing blogging. I do have some legitimate excuses, like being pregnant
and being out of town. But enough of the excuses. Here I am sitting my ass down
on the couch to write. Finally.
I
attended my second SCBWI conference last week in Los Angeles. It was fabulous
once again. A highlight for me was meeting Jane O’Connor, the author of the
Fancy Nancy books. While getting her autograph, I showed her a picture of me
and my old teaching buddies dressed up as Fancy Nancy characters. She was
charmed and asked for me to email it to her. So I emailed it and she wrote a brief
note back to me. So unbelievably cool. I also got to speak to
author/illustrator Peter Brown for a minute while he signed his book Mr. Tiger Goes Wild. He was super
friendly and warm. I was so caught up with my chat that I forgot to get a
picture with him, but I have no regrets.
A
few weeks ago I ran the Wharf to Wharf race in Santa Cruz with a dear friend.
Well, we didn’t really run together because she actually runs while I jog at a
snail’s pace. I succeeded in running the first five miles, but my knee gave out
and I was forced to limp the last mile. I was a little sad that I couldn’t run
across the finish line (I have never walked across a finish line before) but I
was pretty happy that I was able to finish. In some ways it was a fun race, but
it also sucked. I felt like I had to pee the entire time thanks to little dude
bouncing on my bladder. I think I’m done with running until after he’s born
because it just isn’t fun anymore.
Pregnancy
has definitely changed my life. I haven’t had a solid night’s sleep since
April. Most of my clothes don’t fit anymore. Running sucks. I can’t boulder
anymore and no one wants to top rope with me. Everything that used to feel easy
feels hard. I get emotional watching Charmed. I want to eat ice cream all the
time (to be fair I wanted that before I was pregnant too). Being pregnant is
like being on an amusement park ride. You’re all excited to get on the ride and
parts are fun and exciting, but then things can get scary and you feel sick.
And just like a ride, you can’t get off until it’s over. At least at the end of
this ride, I’ll have a darling baby boy (which I’m getting pretty excited
about, especially after my ultrasound this morning). But I’m not sure if I’ll
be yelling, “Again! Again!” anytime soon.
What
I’m reading: I finished reading Drums of
Autumn and have started on the 5th Outlander book A Breath of Snow and Ashes. I read the
11th Maisie Dobbs book A
Dangerous Place which was depressing, but good. I loved Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle so I read The Silver Star which was excellently
written. I also read Go Set a Watchman
by Harper Lee. It was interesting, but just not a very good story in my
opinion. The Invention of Wings, by
Sue Monk Kidd, was a great story. I didn’t realize until I read the afterward
that it was based on the life of a real person. In college I took a writing
class that featured the works of Toni Morrison, so I was excited to read her
latest book, God Help the Child. It
was interesting and totally bizarre, but that’s kind of her style. I’m
currently reading Maya’s Notebook by
Isabel Allende and two non-fiction books: Exercising
Through Your Pregnancy by James Clapp and Catherine Cram and Parenting From the Inside Out by Daniel
Siegel.