Sunday Salon: Work, Books, Blogging and Food

It's been a bit quiet around here lately and I apologize for my absence. Life has been busy and a bit hectic and as I posted last month, my beloved Grandmother Clara passed away at the age of 92 a few weeks ago. I miss her already and treasure the beautiful memories that I have of her and know that she will live on in all of our hearts. I know that she would be excited for me that I've switched career paths a bit.

I'm an Occupational Therapist and have mainly worked in the medical area with adults. I took off some time to be a stay at home mom and returned to work a few years ago on a limited on call basis for a local hospital. I've always had an interest in school based Occupational Therapy and  decided to switch paths when I found a wonderful family owned local company that provides contract therapy to local school districts. I went to several professional conferences over the summer to prepare and I plan to attend even more. I'm just that way when I start something new professionally, I have to be comfortable with it and dive in and learn! I started working part time for a local school district and I can tell that it's all going to work out well. Everyone has been welcoming and the students have been great to work with so far. The biggest challenge has been  learning a lot of new things and retaining all the information. I feel like my brain has been on information overload and I've been pretty tired. 

I haven't been reading much for my own interest lately and even started reading the wrong book for my book club this month. We're reading a book by Kate Morton and I have both of her books on my bookshelf but accidentally thought that we were reading The Forgotten Garden which I started reading and loved right away. Well, I realized when I met up for lunch with a few of my book club friends that we are discussing The House at Riverton by Kate Morton. So, I've switched gears and started reading it and hope to get it finished for book club next week.

Needless to say, I'm behind schedule on books that I've accepted for review and am being very selective about the books that I accept for review at this time. I've actually gotten quite a few books in the mail sent to me automatically as a blogger and not ones that I've requested. I'll do my best in getting to those and ask that everyone be patient as I adjust to a new routine. I also have not been visiting other blogs and I miss connecting with my book blogger friends.  I plan to visit soon and ask that you guys be patient with me and please don't give up on reading my blog as I'm posting less frequently at the moment. I have been hearing the buzz about Mockingjay, Suzanne Collin's final book in The Hunger Games Trilogy and can't wait to get my hands on a copy to read! When I was at the middle school in the district that I work in I was thrilled to see a brand new box set of The Hunger Games trilogy displayed in a classroom! I'll definitely have my eye out for what the students are reading. In the lower grades, my office is set off of the media center/library and I'll definitely be watching to see what the students favorite books are and I'll have to check in with the librarian as well. My son is in middle school now, which is another adjustment for us all (especially getting up much earlier in the morning to head off to school and work). He is liking it so far and I loved going to the open house and going through each of his classes in his schedule. Of course, Language Arts caught my interest and I was thrilled to hear about what they will be focusing on learning and reading this year, one of the books will be Tuck Everlasting  by Natalie Babbitt. This is a book that I haven't read and I plan to read it along with him. My son told me that they are  reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick in class now and he is enjoying it.

I'm looking forward to the start of Fall as it's one of my favorite seasons. I love to cook more in the fall and will share recipes here. With working part time I plan to use my crock pot more which is perfect for the fall. I'm always on the look out for new recipes so please comment here or email me any recipes to share or any favorite cookbooks.

Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend,