School's Out for Summer

Since less than a month has passed since I last blogged, I’ll count that as progress towards being more disciplined about blogging. While I haven’t been blogging with great frequency, I have been writing and I finished a few rewrites of a story I’m working on about a fairy. I’ve also come up with two new ideas for books, but it’s hard to tell right now if either of them will amount to much. I submitted a story for my manuscript consultation at the SCBWI summer conference and I’m pretty excited to get some feedback on that.

School’s out for summer and it’s the first year since I started teaching that it doesn’t affect me at all. I haven’t subbed in a couple months which has been great. I think I may be over subbing, but I guess I have a few months to decide. What I’d really like is to find some kids to tutor. A few of my critique group friends have school age kids so I should really see if they can put me in touch with anyone who’s in need of tutoring. It seems like a good way to make a little money and still get to teach. Subbing seems like it would meet those criteria, but it turns out there’s usually no teaching involved.

I’ve hardly been climbing lately which is a huge bummer, but I did manage to get my brother to go top roping at the gym with me so that was fun. I really need to start hang boarding to build up my finger strength again because I’ve been getting weak. The weather has been beautiful for the past few days so I’m hoping that will help inspire me since the hang board is on our balcony.

A few weeks ago I went to visit the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez. It was pretty cool to see that house where he lived (it’s huge and has a bell tower with a bell that you can ring) and learn some things about him that I hadn’t know before. He was a fruit farmer and made his fortune selling fruit from the trees in his orchards. He was worth $250,000 when he died (the equivalent of $5 million now). I was surprised by his having been wealthy but I guess it explains how he was able to make so many trips to the Sierras. There’s also an old adobe house on the property which has been turned into a museum. I thought it was a worthwhile place to visit, but only if you happen to be near Martinez (it’s on the way to Davis so it was very convenient for me).

A robotic arm from Pneubotics (the company my husband works for)

 Last week we took a brief trip to Pasadena. We stayed with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and it was fun to spend some time with them. I was able to visit the school I used to work at and go to the end of the year staff party. It was great to see some of the kids I used to teach and to catch up with my old colleagues. I also went to the DARPA Robotics Challenge in Pomona. My husband’s company was there to exhibit their robots, but they weren’t actually part of the challenge. I got to watch the last part of the challenge and see JPL’s robot compete. It was cool to get to see their robot in action. They didn’t win but they did pretty well.

 

John Muir's house

What I’m reading: I finished reading Needlework by Bekah Berge (such a great read and I hope it finds its way to a bookstore soon) and Voyager by Diana Gabaldon. I read And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Housseini which I thought was pretty good but I was not in love with the multiple first person points of view. I also read The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natasha Sanmartin Fenollera which was interesting but didn’t really do anything for me. And I read a memoir written by my husband’s grandfather called Growing Up in the Santa Clara Valley: From Picking Prunes to Submarine Service by Thomas L. Allen. I’m currently reading Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon and The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman which is superb so far.