Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts

[Golden Gate Park]

Happy Wednesday, friends. If you're new around these parts every week I do these posts full of topics that are running around in my head, yet don't necessarily warrant a full post. If you care to play along link back in your own post and leave your link in the comments.

1. My day started off with a mad dash to take Sawyer to preschool and then back home to meet the plumber, whom I paid $60 for about five minutes worth of work, doing something that I really feel deep down in my heart I should be able to do. The problem is that I don't trust myself to do much of anything to our house, out of fear I will cause even more damage. I'm so envious of people that unclog drains, fix leaks, effortlessly put up shelves, swap out light fixtures, etc... I need to take Home Repair 101. 

2. The good news is that I am leaving soon to drive to Palm Springs to meet up with an old friend from my teaching credentialing days for lunch. I always forget that Palm Springs really isn't that far, ninety minutes from my house and only about sixty-five from Sawyer's preschool, and with far less traffic than going to Orange County or LA. I'm listening to a great new audiobook, Sick, a memoir by Porochista Khakpour, about her struggle with Lyme Disease, which is actually making me look forward to the drive. 

3. Currently, I'm reading Hannah Pittard's Visible Empire, which Belletrist promoted like crazy. I'm still a little indifferent towards it, but I'll give it some more time before getting too cranky about it. I'm also reading a book about preventing Alzheimer's, which is turning out to be both informative and terrifying. My grandmother has it, though, and I just feel like I'd like to be more informed and maybe ready to make some tiny tweaks to my life to postpone (if I was more optimistic I'd say "prevent," but alas I am not) the disease. I haven't any sort of genetic testing or anything, but better safe than sorry. 

4. I need to reread Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye for the 430583853 time, since that's what my students read over summer and also Blake Crouch's Dark Matter for our English department book club (I have to admit to totally judging the trade paper back appearance, but maybe it will be an easy read compared to some of the more complex themes I've been reading lately? It'll be the literary equivalent to a Del Taco burrito, I hope). 

5. Last night I went to bed early (for summer) and had my first wave of pre-school-starting anxiety. I'm never nervous about new students or administration, or even waking up early. What bothers me is that not enough time has passed for me to forget how heightened my stress levels can get, and I know soon I will feel buried, knowing I am behind with grading, that I could be doing a better job with my students, that I should be playing more with my son, that I'm not hanging out enough with my husband enough, and that I'm neglecting my own hobbies, interests, and friends. Everything becomes half-assed because in order to full-ass anything something else would be no-assed. Does that make sense? I become almost manic in my attempts to gain control, making lists, attempting to run my life efficiently as possible. Luckily, since this is the fifth school year I've started as a mom (when the panic really started) I know that the dust will settle and the new, or regular really, norm will settle in and we'll proceed.

6. Sawyer has been terrified of the pool for basically the whole summer, for some reason unknown to me. He went in once and was basically fine, but since that first time over a month ago he has refused to go in. That is until the other day. He will now splash around on the spa bench and even blow bubbles, so I'm going to claim that as a minor victory. I always assumed that he was going to love the water, since, you know, we have a pool and that should be automatic (right?), but man was I wrong. I'm glad I don't have to worry about him sneaking outside and taking a dip alone (even if he tried we have an alarm and a multiple locks on our doors), but I wish he was more open to learning to swim. 

7. We are in the middle of our typical crazy hot July (triple digit temps more often than not) and I must say that I am SO thankful for our solar panels. It will be even better when we have them paid off, but I just checked our power usage and our solar production and it's still crazy how beneficial they are. All I know is that when we do have them paid off and only have our yearly payment to the electric company for our overages I'm keeping the house at 65 from June to October. 

8. I am trying to frantically get done a ton of things around the house that I had planned on slowly doing throughout summer (I go back in ten days). In the last week I've painted an accent wall, gone through all of Sawyer's toys, cleaned up the backyard, and am organizing cupboards. I'm at the point now where part of me wants to keep being productive and the other part is more like "eff it, enjoy your last week and a half off."

9. Last Sunday I flew to the Bay Area for a day to see an old student of mine who I am close to, and we hung out for the day in Berkeley and San Francisco. I swear, it's quicker to take an hour flight up there from an airport that's only thirty minutes a day than if she had gone to UCLA or UC San Diego, considering the traffic. It was nice a nice chance to get out of our heat down here and also catch up with her before we both start our new school years.