A Little of This, A Little of That

On Saturday we arrived home from a weeklong trip back to Pasadena. My boyfriend’s brother and his wife were awesome enough to have us as their houseguests for our entire visit. While my boyfriend worked on a conference paper, I gallivanted around town visiting friends and shopping.

It was weird going back to Pasadena because when we got there we had only been gone for three weeks. Going around town I felt like I still lived there. And now that we’re back in Oakland, I feel like I never left here. Perhaps I’m just losing it.

Appropos of nothing, a random pic
from an office door at Caltech...
Three cheers for the X-Files!

Anyway, it was a super fun trip. I got to meet my dear friend’s brand new baby daughter. Every day I met up with friends who I used to work with and I stuffed my face with frozen yogurt and lots of tasty food. I went bouldering with a friend and was happy that I’m still strong enough to make it up some slightly challenging climbs despite the fact that it’s been a month since I last climbed.  I also got to have coffee with one of the friends I made at the SCBWI conference. We spent a few hours chatting about life and writing. It’s so nice to talk to someone who understands exactly how you feeling about the work you do.

My boyfriend started his new job today and I feel like I’m officially starting my new not-full-time-employed life. Last week, I got hired to sub in a local school district, so I went in today to pick up my new hire packet. I had to get fingerprinted (for the umpteenth time). It’s funny to me that districts aren’t allowed to share your fingerprints with each other because if I committed a crime, I’m sure they’d share them with law enforcement. I’m not quite sure when I get to start subbing, but maybe next week. I hope I like it as much as I did in the last district I subbed for.

Now that this new chapter in my life has officially begun, it’s time to buckle down and get serious about my writing. I’m currently looking for a critique group to join. I had avoided doing this in Pasadena because I didn’t want to make a commitment to a group and then move away.  But it’s something that I think is invaluable for a writer.

In lieu of a critique group, I sent my most polished story to a few friends who write and/or work with books hoping for some good feedback. I also sent this story to a guy I met at the SCBWI conference. We were standing in line waiting for Judy Schachner’s autograph and somehow the topic of teaching came up. He was very excited that I taught first grade because he’s writing a book about first grade. While we waited in line, he picked my brain about all things first grade. When we were rudely interrupted by Judy Schachner wanting to sign our books, we exchanged email addresses. I sent him a bunch of information about the first grade experience. He was grateful for my input and offered to read something I had written.

After reading my story he responded with some really great ideas to improve it. Some of his recommendations were things I hadn’t thought about, while other things were ideas I had played with, but wasn’t sure how good they were. This is why I want to join a critique group. Writing is such a solitary occupation that it’s easy to forget that someday people will read what you write. Working with other writers helps you to clarify your ideas and tighten up your story. I hope I find a good group to work with soon.

What I’m reading:  I finished reading The Bright Forever. Overall it was pretty good and I enjoyed how the story was told. It went back and forth between first person narratives from several characters and chapters written in the third person. I’m starting East of Eden by John Steinbeck and I’m supposed to be reading Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth with a friend, but I have failed to start reading it yet. 

Fix and Fancy It Up

After getting mostly settled in to the new apartment, I got a case of the home improvements. Suddenly I had the overwhelming urge to make new placemats and napkins. I needed a set of six immediately. The two we had were clearly not enough for all the entertaining I’m apparently planning to do. And the dining chairs needed new cushion fabric straightaway. So off to the fabric store I went.

I have already rewritten history in my head because I was going to say that the placemat/napkin project went off without a hitch, but that’s a lie. I miscalculated how much fabric I needed and came up about six inches short. So back to the fabric store I went. Aside from that, things went well.
 

Both the napkins and placemats are reversible

The chairs on the other hand were a different matter. I bought the fabric and then decided that as long as I was replacing the fabric I should really replace the foam as well. So off to the foam store we went. Then I decided that the chairs were looking pretty dirty. I started cleaning them only to discover that I took off some of the finish from the wood. Or perhaps the finish had disappeared years ago and dirt was masking the bare wood. Anyway, once I was down to bare wood I clearly needed to refinish the chairs.

Off to Home Depot we went to pick out sanding supplies and paint. I love refinishing furniture, I thought. We should just buy a bunch of old furniture for cheap so that I can refinish it, I thought. Wrong. Wrong. And one more WRONG just for good measure. Refinishing furniture sucks. After hours of sanding I had only finished one chair. My triceps were killing me. And there were still three chairs to sand. Not to mention all four chairs still needed paint. Don’t get me started on paint.

Did you know that latex paint is fast drying? You probably did. That’s why I picked it out. It dries fast and it cleans with water. Here’s what I didn’t know about latex paint. It dries from the outside in. That means that it’s dry to the touch within minutes. It also means that it takes a long time to cure (dry all the way to the inside). You know how long? 30 days!! So I felt compelled to scramble and do all the sanding and painting as quickly as possible so that we could start using the chairs someday. After four full days of work, the chairs are now happily drying. And will be for three more weeks…

What I’m reading: I finished The Thorn Birds! It was thoroughly enjoyable. I’ve started read The Bright Forever by Lee Martin. For some reason I had a really hard time getting into the story, but I like it more now. There’s also another book that I’ve been reading FOREVER and probably will continue reading for the rest of time. It’s on my Kindle app on my phone and I only wind up reading it when I’m absolutely desperate. It’s called No Name and it’s by Wilkie Collins, who wrote The Woman in White (which I thought was a great story). Anyway, I started reading No Name quite a long time ago. It was so bad that I decided to not finish it. But then one day I was sitting somewhere waiting with nothing to do and I started reading it again. I only read it when I’m desperate, so it seems like it’s the longest book ever. It’s really only 390 pages, but it feels like it’s longer than Don Quixote. Anyway, if you’re ever tempted to get this book for your Kindle just because it’s free, don’t succumb to the urge. Free isn’t everything.

A Whirlwind

The past two weeks have simply flown by. I actually had to sit here and remind myself how long I've been living in Oakland. It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost two weeks since we moved in.

The actual moving part was relatively painless, as far as moving goes. Hiring movers was amazing! I highly recommend it, particularly if you don’t have to pay for them yourself. Despite skipping the physical work of moving, there was still a lot of mental work to do in terms of deciding where everything should go. And then once the movers left, we began the long, slow work of unpacking, organizing and arranging.
 

In the midst of unpacking

We got rid of a several car loads of stuff. It’s amazing how much junk two people can accumulate. Goodwill loves us now. Despite having shed many possessions, we still own quite a lot of stuff and there’s been an element of Tetris about putting things away. But the end is in sight now. We've found a place for almost everything.

The apartment itself is actually much nicer than we remembered it, plus they did some more renovating after we first saw it. There are new granite countertops and faucets in the kitchen and bathroom, and new sliding glass doors in the shower. The screen door leading to the balcony is new too. The kitchen is so much bigger than our old kitchen that it makes me quite happy. The stove is an ancient electric stove which I’m trying to get used to cooking on. I don’t miss the old stove we had, which dumped most of its heat into the kitchen instead of into the food, but I do miss gas burners.

Aside from the apartment being pretty nice, Rockridge is awesome. Our apartment is four houses up from College Avenue, which is just darling. There’s a Crossroads Trading Company (which is one of my favorite stores) on the corner. There are a couple of really good coffee shops just a few blocks away and every restaurant we've eaten at has been delicious. There’s a Trader Joe’s a couple of blocks away and a new Safeway is going in too.

Another huge bonus is that Lake Temescal is within running distance from our apartment. It’s about a three and a half mile run to get the lake, run around it, and run home. I love running by water! So I've been really enjoying this nice little run. There’s even an easy way to lengthen the run by a mile by doing a second loop around the lake on different path. I got so excited about running again that I signed up to do the Bridge to Bridge run with my friend.

What I’m reading: I finally finished Private Life by Jane Smiley. While I think highly of her writing style, I did not love the story. I enjoyed her book A Thousand Acres much more. I’m getting close to the end of The Thorn Birds. I've mostly been reading it in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. I’m still really enjoying this book and I’m going to be a little sad when I’m done with it.