Goal Completed…by the hair of my chinny chin chin. I finished 4 books in December to reach my goal. I would not say 2024 was a great year for books. I was in a GINORMOUS reading slump, but in the end, I stuck it out.
As this year comes to a close I can’t help but wonder where it went. A lot of people I talk to say that 2024 felt never ending to them, but to me it all blurred together and I can hardly believe it’s been 365 days since I drove home from a New Year’s Eve party.
2024 had its ups and downs and lots of stagnant moments but with the 25th year of my life slowly wrapping out I spent some time scrolling back through my photo album. I learned I need to take more photos and videos of memories outside of just my students, but amongst the class parties and photos of my students’ latest playdough creations, I found something beautiful from each month.
Mid-October makes me want to accept that it’s a new season, though I always miss summer. I am ready for Fall outfits and cozy weather… if California will get on board and drop the temperature. Here is what I’ve been loving so far this October.
To play in my car with the windows up and the A/C on haha. At least I can pretend it feels like Autumn outside.
If you are hanging out in SoCal you need to have some places to eat, and lucky for you I spent the summer doing just that. From Palm Springs to Laguna Beach and some places in between I’ve got you covered. (Check out my SoCal Tourist post for things to do!)
As this is an Actual sentence spoken to me, this Summer I wanted to actively see more of the places near me. While more often than not I don’t go more than 20 minutes away when I do I head to San Diego, so this year I decided to head North. Lo and behold, there are a lot of other cool things to do if I dare to venture a little farther from home.
So if you want to adventure around Southern California, these are the things worth your time.
Summer is in full swing and after taking a month to relax and wind down after the school year I am getting antsy. Here is what I am most hoping to accomplish in the next 6 weeks before I go back to work.
My reading goal has not been going lol So I hope to read at least 4 books before work begins again. I am about 40 pages away from finishing one book and hoping that the next few books I choose will be great enough to fly through. Fingers crossed.
Continue readingMy energy has been squashed from the last few weeks of the school year. Second graders have been in summer break mode for a month now, so you can imagine what my classroom volume level has been like. (and if you can’t just message me and I will send you an audio recording of it haha) I’m a few books behind, but am still proud I’ve read anything at all.
“The only way to beat death is to chase it.”
Struck with the same death curse his father, the king, died from just a few days before Red finds himself stuck. Will he have to accept his death, or will he have to learn to trust the very person he blames for his father’s death? The royal sorcerer.
The magic world-building was fascinating. The royal sorcerers’ magic is tied to their King/Queen’s Truthwell. It was a slow build as this is just the first book in a series, but that was probably the most interesting part of the whole thing. While I did enjoy reading it, I didn’t feel totally invested in the plot because there are many qualities of the two main characters that bothered me. Probably won’t be continuing with this series.
Continue readingMarch flew so quickly that it’s actually the middle of April now. AH! But here is the best of it 🙂
As a kickoff for our Jogathon, we had a BMX show for the students, and some of us teachers got jumped! One of my students even hugged me after saying she was happy I was still alive. Meanwhile, another went “I thought, eh see you at the hospital I guess” HA!
The final installment of the Ireland Diaries is here. If you haven’t read the others you can find the links to them below 🙂
Sligo and Easkey were the final places I visited on my Ireland journeys and it was also the part that I was most excited about. My cousins on my dad’s side live in Ireland and, with the exception of one, I had never met any of them in person before. We had been chatting on the phone and emailing and skyping etc since we were little kids but that was all.
Our whole lives we spent every year hoping it would finally be the year we could meet. It only took me 21 years but I did finally get my grandparents to take me to Ireland to meet them, and it was like we had been hanging out in person all our lives.
Welcome back to another post in the Ireland Diaries. If you’ve missed the others you can find them HERE.
Getting to go on a train trip was one of the things I was most excited to do when I went to Ireland. I told my grandpa that he could choose whichever trip he wanted as long as there was a castle to see. The trip we chose went from the Heuston Station in Dublin to Cork, then a van ride up to Cobh, and a train ride back. It takes about 3 hours by train to get from Dublin to Cork and the ride there didn’t seem as long as I expected. Though it may have been because I dozed part of the way.
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