Life Update – SOHO 2016, Teaching, and Gateway Grizzlies

I realize that I haven’t really just written a general life update for my blog since November, so I think I’ll just talk about what’s been going on with me.

     

I’m still teaching at a school for autistic kids. That’s my day job. Summer school has been really fun, and the kids have been very relaxed. I feel sad that I’m losing certain kids after summer, though. I really like teaching them how to read, but I’m going to be working with a non-reading crowd in August.

I’m working on writing novels by night. It’s a real challenge, but I’m positive that what I’ve been doing will be worthwhile. I paid off my car in February, and that has been an awesome feeling (also, no car payments keeps money in my wallet). Then, in March, I got rear-ended by a woman driving too fast. It was her fault. The dent was small and hard to see, so I didn’t press the woman for insurance cash, and I feel good about that. I try to be a good person when I can, and that would have been very expensive for her for such a small dent. She seemed grateful, anyway. 

Also, I cut my hair. Crazy. It's been years and years since my last cut (seriously, like 8, I think).
Lately, I’ve been driving up to Springfield a bunch to see my friends. Birthday parties, engagements, music festivals… The last few months have been really fun.
My Aunt Rose had a big birthday party, too. My uncle rented out a suite at the Grizzlies Baseball Field and we had a gathering. I’m very lucky to have such an awesome family. We all care about each other. I never knew my father’s side, but my mother’s side has more than made up for what I missed out on.

Looking forward, I am a week away from having 16 days in a row off from school for summer break. I’m planning on working on my writing and going to a retro-gaming convention, but other than that, not much else. I’ve been apartment hunting. I have not found anything yet, though.
Overall, life is going well. I have a good job, good friends, good family, and I’m having fun. What else is there?

Gloomy

Lots of storms in the Midwest. A big part of one of my trees fell over.

Much of my life in July has been trying to set myself into a good routine. I've been eating right, working out, and writing every day.

I'm not great at routine, because I love variety. I guess that's the hardest part. 

The only thing that knocked me off my routine (and he would have said it's no excuse) is that I had a friend pass away recently. He had an awful condition. It really hurts me to think that someone the same age as me is gone because of a disease. It sucks, truly. 

I feel like he could pop up on facebook at any moment and say something snarky to me. I will miss him. I'm going to his visitation today. It's going to be so weird. He would hate the whole thing. He was a metalhead, so any emotional shindig would have made him cringe.

This selfie I took is of my new Fallout 4 shirt. I love Bethesda games so I had to jump on this. It's cool looking, but the material is sorta cheap and it doesn't feel like the size I bought it in. Maybe I should just focus on losing the weight, right? Hah.

This month is going to go by fast. July is summer session at the school I work for, so we don't have any Fridays this month. All four-day weeks. It's really nice. Then we get a little break in August. More time to write, for me. It's not all gloom and doom, I suppose.