Bookish (and no so Bookish) Thoughts

Link up below!

1. So, we live in a nice area in a not so nice region, if that makes sense (for those that are SoCal natives, we're in South Corona). Anyway, that being said, there is crime, as there is anywhere. Last Saturday, while my husband and I were out to dinner with friends and his parents were watching the baby, there was a motorcycle gang shooting on the freeway two miles away from our house. We were stuck in traffic (like baaaaad traffic) and I started googling, and low and behold, the Mongols and Hell's Angels had a shoot out on the freeway and there was a death and a few injuries. I know, violence and death are bad things. BUT, I love motorcycle gangs. I just do, I can't help it. I don't even watch Sons of Anarchy (yet)! The level of euphoria that I experienced directing my husband through side streets off the freeway (including unlit dirt roads) was something I haven't felt in a long time- legit motorcycle gangs were going at it in my neck of the woods! I spent a great deal of time reading up on the two groups that night (they have websites!), so now I'm basically an expert. 

2. The Fleetwood Mac station on Apple (or is it iTunes?) Radio is pretty excellent stuff.

3. Sawyer has always been a mellow, happy baby, but the last week or so he has been down right ecstatic. If he was a teenager I'd accuse him of doing drugs. The kid will lay in the middle of the floor and laugh at nothing. And when you make an effort to really get him to laugh he gets even more giggly. It's pretty much the best. And it makes it a million times harder to leave him at daycare in the morning.

4. A neighboring school district has decided to ban The Fault in Our Stars from middle school libraries. I'm not a fan of the book, at all, but I think this is an incredibly archaic move. I opened it up to my students for discussion and they assured me that middle schoolers no so much more about sex than that book describes. What a relief.

5. I've been drinking way, way too much Diet Coke since school started (less than six hours of shitty sleep a night will do that to you) so I decided to cave in and become a coffee drinker (again). Today was day three of iced coffee in the morning (I make a big pitcher at home) and I must say, my quality of life has improved dramatically. I'm just so much happier now.

6. I have severe picture-deleting anxiety syndrome. I have over 1600 pictures saved on my phone and I often get the "out of space" message. I've backed up my phone onto my computer and have backed that up onto an external hard drive. A lot of my pictures are on Facebook or Instagram, and I've also done photobooks. It's just so traumatic. When my dogs die I'll want all the pictures I have of them. When I'm sitting in my living room in sweats on a Saturday night I'll want to relive my nights of going out with a full face of makeup. And so on and so forth. I'm trying to do a few a day and have decided I'll leave all the ones from 2014, for now. 

7. My students started a petition for me to join Snapchat on this site called edmodo (it's like Facebook, but for classrooms). The thread ended up with over 400 comments, most of which were quotes from Mean Girls, by the end. I'm so relieved they're weird. I was worried there for a few weeks! How was I going to get through two years with a group of normal kids? It turns out this group is much funnier and witty than I thought. They're growing on me.

8. I just reread "Master Harold"... and the boys by Athol Fugard and I forgot how powerful it is. And irritating to punctuate as a title.

9. I'm obsessed with replicating this hair style:

[source]

10. I'm really looking forward to this weekend- Friday night Homecoming game with my brother and Sawyer at work, a trip to what's supposed to be a cool park Saturday morning to walk, and then lunch with one of my oldest friends that afternoon.