Sunday Salon: In Transition

 Don't think that by this week's post title that you will be reading a wearisome, "I'm finding myself" post where I'm turning from a caterpillar into a butterfly or some such crap.  By transition, I mean that this week was simply the in-between from school to summer.

As I told you all last week, the boy is done.  The girl had her finals this week, which is always...interesting.  Glass half-full, nothing is more important to my daughter than her grades.  Which is why there was more than one fight in the house, dare the rest of us disturb her focus.  Yes, I know she is taking the hardest classes they offer her, but she is a bit high-strung.  It works for her I guess, because she not only got A's in every one of her classes but aced all the finals as well.  I'm pretty proud of her.

My parents flew back to Indiana on Tuesday and my husband went out of town on business on Wednesday, so I had the little darlings all to myself.  I like the summer, the relaxed schedule...it is a nice change of pace.  This summer the girl has an obnoxiously huge amount of summer work to do for her 3 AP classes next year, she is going to try to pack in some serious volunteer hours at the shelter, do some running with her cross country team, and is going to get more hours of driving experience before she gets her license in August.  The boy will have some reading to do, and will need to decide if he is playing football in high school (if he does, there will be conditioning starting in another week or so).  Just enough to keep them from being too lazy.

I signed up for a 30 day Ab challenge on Facebook that goes for the entire month of June.  Did anyone see that?  I figure it can't hurt.

I started watching the TV Series "Bates Motel", per the encouragement of my daughter.  She and I are also (slowly, maddeningly) finishing up the last four or five episodes of "The Walking Dead", in preparation for Season 5 in October.  And this Friday, we get a new season of "Orange is the New Black"!!! I am SO excited.  We have just a few more weeks of "Game of Thrones".  Never in a million years did I think I'd watch so much damned TV.  My son and I watched "Prisoners" on HBO this past week, starring Hugh Jackman but also many other A-list actors, and it was fantastic.  Way better than any of my expectations.  If you get a chance to watch it, definitely do that.

Anyway, for all of THIS going on this past week, my focus is slightly off with reading and reading blogs.  Since I always seem to have a kid in my car or a kid walking with me these days, I have had little time with audio, but I'm within a half hour of finishing "Five Days at Memorial", which is phenomenal.  It is about the five days at Memorial Hospital in NOLA after Katrina, the conditions, and the choices made by the doctors to care for the critically ill patients.  This is what non-fiction is all about, guys.  And in the hands of narrator Kirsten Potter, who is a favorite, it is a complete package.

I finished Anne Carter's (Pam Ripling) "Unmasking Paulie Bingham", a love story...sort of...about a bi-sexual glam rocker and the love of his life, Kate.  But it is so much more.  It almost defies description, and is unlike anything else I've ever read, so.  Check out my review.  Anyway, there is a sequel to this book called "For the love of Katrina Bingham", so I quickly downloaded that one and will finish that one soon.  I'm pretty attached to these characters.  In between these two books I read "Blankets" by Craig Thompson, the graphic novel I've been hearing about forever.  Wonderful book.  Now I know why everyone loved it.

Not sure what is on the agenda today.  It is just as hot and humid as it could be down here, so I'm not really anxious to get out in it, but I may have to appease my husband and golf with him.  Whatever happens, I know it will end with "Game of Thrones" and that is good enough for me.