Back after a long hiatus

Whew! The school year is finally over! So what do I do? Well, I have to now conduct a Summer reading program using an online bulletin board called canvas. If you've never used it before, it's INCREDIBLE!! You can create entire courses using it, post links, materials and rubrics and also have a gradebook, etc. Initial setup is entirely free! The kids are reading their choice of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Girl with a Pearl Earring, or House of Sand and Fog. Most of them are doing quite well with the first selection. Some of the more ambitious readers have chosen to read two of the books.

So I'll be keeping up with that and also going to Miami for a teaching conference for a week--picking up some grad school credit there. I'm also hoping to do some shopping.

As for writing, I must confess I haven't done much lately. I have, though, been doing a LOT of reading. I ran across a patio sale here in Panama where people were selling millions of paperbacks. For a cool $30 I picked up around 25 different books, including series sets of Lindsay Davis mystery novels. Super fun--the protagonist is Marcus Didius Falco, who lives in Rome during Vespasian's rule as emperor and he works as an "informer" for the Empire. His mysteries take him on trips to Corduba, Germany, Gaul, etc. which is rather fun, especially since I just finished reading Julius Caesar with the kiddos. Don't know if anyone else on here has ever read her, but honestly, I'm amazed at her ability to make ancient Rome come alive! It's great! I think I'm actually learning a lot from reading her books as to how she constructs her mysteries as well. Anyway, I highly recommend her novels.