Sunday Salon: October 6, 2019

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz has taken over running The Sunday Salon.

My life in books over the past week: 

• The Sidekicks by Will Kostakis
• Pretty Revenge by Emily Liebert
• EduProtocol Field Guide: Book 2 by Marlena Hebern and Jon Corippo (for work)

• Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee

Challenge progress:

• A to Z Reading--I have read books with titles for 21 letters so far: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, and W.
• Diversity Reading Challenge--I have read 54 books.
• Literary Escapes--I have read books set in 33 states so far, adding no new states in the past 2 weeks. I have read in 50 countries so far, adding none in the past 2 weeks.
• Motif Reading Challenge--The October motif is "Tricks and Trades" (books set in a theater, an amusement park, a circus, or a book involving magic, illusions, or characters with special powers.)
• Non-fiction--I have read 22 books so far.

Completed challenges:

• My Own Books--I read 21 books off my shelves from March 15 to May 15, 2019.
• Big Book Challenge--I read 8 books over 400 pages during the summer.
• YA Award Winners--I have read all 11 winners

My life outside books:

Work:

Work is fine. Nothing to report except that I have a buy week coming up.

Personal:

Yesterday was so much fun! I am Vice President of the Alumni Association Board for my high school ("The" high school in town, we like to say). The school is beautiful and almost 150 years old. Anyway, we had our first "All Dons Reunion" (our mascot is the Dons) and had about 2,000 people attend.

We had food trucks, bands and DJs playing music from all the decades, each decade had a tent for classmates to meet up, and I worked the Alumni room for a couple hours. We had people contribute to an oral history project and just check out all the school memorabilia we house (it's like a mini museum).

There were alumni from the class of 1939 through the early 2000s, all wearing versions of Olive and Gold, reminiscing, and having a good time on a beautiful Santa Barbara day. I even got to visit with my swim coach; it was great to hear our stories from her point of view. It was fun to see classmates and a bunch of us went out Saturday night to continue the festivities. All in all, a happy day.