July Ramblings

I'm taking a BLM class through Iowa Safe Schools-what an amazing organization this is!  The class is great, learning a lot, and I'm almost finished. The homework keeps me busy though as I worry about school openings and life surrounding Covid numbers rising all over including Iowa.

I''m still reading Ibram X. Kendi's book and I realize I have a bad habit of setting nonfiction down in order to pick up fiction. I had a turn to stroll around our public library last week (by appointment only) and picked up the first in a mystery series by one of my favorite authors William Kent Krueger. He wrote Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land. He has 17 books in this mystery series started in 1998 and they feature an Irish/Native detective named Cork O'Connor and are set in northern Minnesota.

My book club this month is reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Murial Barbery. I'm barely half finished and it's got a lot of big words in it and I'm not really pulled into the story yet. It's interesting mind you but not like "ooh, I don't want to stop reading..." I'm also reading a book for school, Lalani of the distant sea by Erin Entrada Kelly.  I'm also still reading to a group of students using Google Classroom. I upload videos of my reading in my backyard and they listen at some point in the day. I just finished Kazu Jones and the Denver Dognappers by Shauna Holyoak and I just started Carl Hiaasen's Squirm, which is on our state award list for this coming year.

When I need a mind break I've been catching up on HBO's Insecure with Issa Rae. It's one of my favorite shows because I connect with her humor, her awkwardness, and the shit she goes through on a daily basis. I get her and I think of her like a friend. This is the perfect reason for watching shows outside of your regular comfort zone. You can learn things about people.

I'm still pretty much hunkered down at home. I venture out to the grocery store every once in awhile, fully masked up and disappointed in a world of people that can't seem to do the same. What the heck people?!? Ridiculous-we could lower our numbers if you all would just get on board. I also go to work because I've got three boxes of new books to process before school starts (if? Yes, I'm looking at you mask-less people) and I want to get them finished and do a massive clean-up there. I've only spent a couple hours total just reading away in my beloved orange hammock~I trust there will be more before the summer is over...