Sunday Salon: May 28, 2017

My life in books:
Reading over the past couple of weeks wasn't too bad as I read these books and I've also been reading a couple books for work.

• Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen--a good YA novel by an award winning author
• A House without Windows by Nadia Hashimi--set in Afghanistan
• The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian--a semi-creepy, but good storyline
• Dive into Inquiry by Trevor McKenzie (a work book)
• Power Up: making the shift to 1:1 teaching and learning (a work book)

Challenge updates:

• Read Your Own Damn Books--My goal is to read 25 books from my TBR shelves this year. So far I've read 24, adding 2 in the past two weeks. 
• Travel the World in Books--The idea is to read books set in as many countries as possible. This week I added Afghanistan, which brings my total to 19 countries.
• Literary Escapes--Similar to the previous challenge, this one tracks the US states. In the past two weeks I added Connecticut and North Carolina, bringing my total to 15 states.
• Read all of the ALA YA Award Winners--I finally read another book for this challenge! Now I just have to get ahold of an Alex Award winner.

My life outside books:

Working:
We are definitely winding down to the end of the school year. I've spent this month meeting with all the social studies departments in the district to wrap things up.

Family:

I finished the crazy all-green puzzle; it felt like quite an accomplishment and my mom was right, it was good to have an activity to keep me amused while they are gone.

My last Sunday Salon fell on Mother's Day and today is my mother's Birthday. She is 6,000 miles away and it feels strange that she, my dad, and my brother are together celebrating and I am so far away. We'll get to talk at least.

I posted a few days ago that I have signed up to do the AVON Walk to Cure Breast Cancer. I am overwhelmed at the thought of fundraising even more than the actual walking! My laziness and eating have been out of control lately, so I hope this walk and training help me get back on track.

Watching:

• I was disappointed by the movie, Jackie. I'm not sure why it didn't work for me, it just didn't.
• The Amazing Race has only one more episode left. My favorite team is out, but I am still excited for the final. 
  
• This week I discovered episodes of M*A*S*H on some random channel. I have such great memories of watching that show every week as a family when the show originally ran. It's been fun to watch this week; I think the show holds up pretty well.