We've reached the moment. 

I'm finishing and handing in my book on August 9th. That's the day. It's 11 days away from now. Why the 9th, a random Wednesday more than a year-and-half after I'd hoped to complete my fourth novel?

It's because that's the day my agent is back from vacation. And sometimes you just need a hard deadline. And, if I do it, then I can maybe have a few days off before I begin major revisions, and then, you know, school starts. I'm a teacher, actually. That's my main job.

I'm trying to make writing fun again, but today it's a struggle. Everything is just a little bit harder than it should be. 

Here are 5 fun things? To try?:

1. The Barbie movie was so fun and excellent and loudly subversive and one of my highlights of the summer.
2. The people in my family do funny parodies of the song at the end of The Lorax. The one that goes, "Let it grow."
3. Bagels. But, I'm out of cream cheese. But peanut butter is good, too.
4. I ordered a funny t-shirt (it's a long story, but it says "mid runner," and I bought it to apologize for a dumb slip of the tongue I made at track practice that the kids won't let go). The kids liked it and laughed.
5. My book is going to be done. Done, but not perfect, on August 9th.

 This premise challenge was pretty hard. But, today I'm getting it done:

1. A city gal goes to college and falls in love with a guy who wants her to then move up to live on the Alaska homestead with his family. They have a reality television series, and she needs to be on it. And have a pit toilet and hunt bears.

2. A woman puts an app on her kids' phones that lets her read their every text without them knowing. She accidentally finds out way more than she wants to know about her son's friend group and their weird friend-hazing cult type thing. She tries to stop bad stuff from happening and ends up in a compromising situation.

3. A woman hates her stepfather. She's always just had a bad feeling about him. When her mom dies and the woman starts cleaning out the attic, she discovers that her stepfather is actually much worse than she imagined...and her mom might have been complicit.

4. An animal-lover can't stop getting animals. She has many dogs and cats, plus a couple of fish tanks, four guinea pigs, a handful of gerbils in separate cages, and a tortoise. It's hard to explain this situation and the accompanying smells when she starts to date.

5. It's the 100th year of a summer camp. There have never been deaths at the camp before ever in the camp's history, but this time, there are two in a boating accident. The trauma turns up other secrets of the camp from past and present.

6. A woman enters a writing contest and doesn't make the finals. This snub puts her over the edge, and she starts to stalk every finalist, turning up in their towns and at their online events to heckle them and make their lives miserable. This isn't a good career move.

7. A kid plagiarizes a paper, but it turns out his dad is the one who helped him with the plagiarizing. And the dad is the headmaster at the school.

8. A woman was on The Biggest Loser back in the day. She has since learned that The Biggest Loser is very bad... it messes with one's metabolism in a way that makes it impossible to maintain a healthy weight long term. Plus, the trainers yelled at her so much that she now hates every single thing about herself if she's not working out. She seeks revenge on the trainers.

9. A woman wishes to buy a vintage typewriter and finds one on Facebook Marketplace. She drives a half-hour to pick it up from a stranger. The stranger is odd and wears ill-fitting clothes. When she gets home and types on the keyboard, fantastic words and sentences spew forth. It might be haunted.

10. A woman has not seen her father in many years, and when she does see him, she's stunned by his youthfulness. He might have discovered a secret and dangerous drug to prevent aging. She launches an investigation.

Quick and dirty. And Done.

I subbed yesterday. Certainly, that's fodder:

Fresh from student teaching, Darby keeps hearing about a teacher shortage, but at the same time, she keeps getting passed over for the jobs she applies for. It's December, so most of the openings are actually filled, but still. "You were our second choice," the principals keep saying when they call her to say that someone else will do so-and-so's eight-week maternity leave. Eventually, all of the first choices will already be hired, and then she'll actually get a job. In the meantime, she'll sub. 

It's a dystopian nightmare from the start. No lesson plans, kids who throw chairs, one who defecates in the corner, and worst of all, a guy from her graduate school program who just happens to end up at the same schools she subs at each day, even when she district-hops midweek. What's with this guy? And what's the definition of stalking?

That's one. Here's another:

Ingrid lands a long-term sub job. She's pumped because she's been out of the workforce raising her kids for a few years, basically going crazy watching spit-up dry on receiving blankets and shaking rattles above their wobbly heads. But now the twins are in Kindergarten and the next one can do daycare. Ingrid's husband wonders whether the daycare investment is worth it, but Ingrid insists. "What is the price of my fucking sanity?!" she demands. He lets it go.

Little does Ingrid know, she's walking into another nightmare. The teachers in this place are unbelievably competitive. They hide lesson plans from one another, steal each other's recess spots, and trash-talk each other's contributions to mandatory workplace potlucks. Ingrid's got to not only manage her rowdy class and keep them quiet in the hallways, but she also has to navigate this grown-up bullshit. A week or two into the job she discovers one teacher's shocking secret, and suddenly the power dynamics start to change.

A woman is just making her way through life, trying to be a good parent and wife. One of her kids is usually humming or singing lightly, little non-tunes, under his breath. The tunes are high pitched and loosely melodious. She doesn't think he even notices he's doing it, and is generally pretty pleasant.

One day, the song the boys hums takes a shape that is uncomfortably familiar to the woman. It's the same damn song her dad used to sing to her when she was little. It makes her spine tingle. Something messed up happened when she heard that song. "Where did you learn that song?" she demanded. She hasn't seen her dad in more than 20 years, either because they're estranged or he's dead.

It turns out the song came to him in a dream. The dream is that a guy who resembles the woman's father whispers in the kid's ear. Maybe he's singing to him from outside the window.

 Ok, I saw this idea on Twitter, and I can't remember who started it. But, I'm doing it. 

Here's the deal: 

You think of a premise for a story each day in January. You don't tell the whole story. You just tell the PREMISE. The "what if." 

Lee said she would do it, and for this and many other reasons, Lee is my favorite. Nicole also said she would do it, but she doesn't have a Blogger blog. Nevertheless, Nicole is also my favorite. It would be really great if I could introduce these two favorites IRL, but alas: Covid. And also, geographical differences. Anyway. Onward. Here's my premise for January 1st. 

Join in if you'd like. (You'd like!)

Here's my premise for today:

What if a third-grade teacher had a heart attack while teaching the class. She tries to pretend everything is totally fine until she's on the floor and sweating and the whole she-bang. And when this happens, at the very same time, there's a lockdown. The kids are well-trained, but all hell breaks loose...

Hmmm. 

Well, I'm not exactly sure that story has potential, but that's the point of this whole thing. Just the premise. Let's do it.

It's been another month since I wrote anything here. Pretty soon this whole damn blog will just be laments about not writing on the whole damn blog.

Anyway, we're off on a weird Christmas adventure, locked down in our home as so many others are. Inspired by a colleague, I asked the children a week or two ago about what fun events in which they might want to engage.

They arched their eyebrows and sneered in response to this query. "What are you talking about?" one of them asked.

"Like maybe we can drive through a Christmas light display on the State Fairgrounds?" One of my third graders had told me about this diversion. She was awed by it. Of course, it's worth remembering that she is eight years old.

Still, the kids agreed to the lights, although without much enthusiasm. "Okay," they said. I did some quick research and discovered that the only available tickets were for tours that began after 9:45pm. I mean, I like fun, but I also have a bedtime.

So, I canned that particular light idea. Luckily, a colleague mentioned another fun tour where you get to tune into a radio station and Christmas music syncs to the holiday display! I booked a ticket for 6:30pm this evening. It would be early enough that we'd make it home for my 9pm retiring.

"We will be going to the Severs' Corn Maze Light Display!" I announced to the family with militant cheer.

Everyone feigned excitement. Or, at least everyone reserved their bellyaching. I promised drive-thru Chik-fil-A as a bonus. And then guess what happened? Our brown Christmas has been thwarted by the season's first big blizzard. It's happening this very evening at the same time as my light tour. We're getting between 5 and 15 inches with 2-4 foot drifts on top of the glaze ice that will form after a morning of rain and 40-degree temps. By the time I tuck myself in, the temperature will be below zero with fifty-degree wind gusts. 

So, the moral of the story is, don't plan any family fun. It won't happen, and your kids will just be in a position to tell you they told you so. You're welcome.

I'm back in the classroom this fall for a stint until Thanksgiving. It's third grade. Here are the pros: 

• I get to work with a fun and creative teacher whom I admire. 
• I teach half of the kids each day, and having just ten kids is pretty easy in terms of management.
•  Walking in the hallways was one of my least favorite parts of the job before, and now it's really not that hard because, for one thing, we don't go anywhere. And two, when we do go someplace (outside), there are only 10 of us and we have to walk very far apart. 

I just posted my last regular blog entry on The Debutante Ball, so I'm officially out of excuses not to be here. Here's what's happening: The summer is winding down. I'm heading back to the classroom this fall to be a long-term substitute in third grade. It's the same position I vacated a year ago. I feel happy and excited to be going back for fourteen weeks.

Were you wondering about quarantine summer highlights?

• Shef got his driver's license and tools around in a 2013 Rav4. He drives himself and Mac to cross country practice, which man... that's a game-changer.
• I finished copy edits on my second novel, Are We There Yet?. It's out March 16th. I hope it's good. I think it might be. You can decide for yourself.
• I am excited that my chin zits will be covered by masks for the foreseeable future. At the same time, I'm not excited about the pandemic. It's my least favorite thing ever, probably.
• Our school is starting on a hybrid schedule. I will be teaching live and in person, but only 10 kids at a time. Each kid sits at their own table. The plus is there will be plenty of space for that child to spread out and work. The minuses are several, including trickiness in terms of collaboration, community, and fun. But, we're going to try our best, and my co-teacher and I decided there will be a lot of art projects.
• My own kids go back to school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and every-other Fridays. They're on Green Team. Before the two teams were assigned, Shef really had a strong preference for Blue. Now, "all his homies rep green," and he seems fine with it. He's made memes to accompany his team selection.
• Shef and Mac will continue to go to cross country practice every day, which is another good reason to have the driver's license and the Rav4.
• I have been running a ton, and I think my work clothes still fit despite a Covid weight gain. I don't care about the Covid gain, really. There are more important things, and I like eating cookies and white bread. The running is good for clearing my head, which is fuzzy a lot of the time.

It's kind of confusing because we're not technically on lockdown here anymore. In Minnesota, you're allowed to have gatherings of 10 people or less. But can you imagine? Inviting people to your home and perhaps killing them in the process by accident? I mean, no thank you.

In the meantime, here's a story I've been wanting to tell. There's no deeper meaning, but I find it amusing.

The other day, I was staring out the front window and happened to notice a plastic bag sitting in front of our door. I brought it in, and it was four items of frozen food from the frozen food delivery company, Schwan's.

When I was little, we used to get Schwan's, and I thought it was very exciting. There were personal pan pizzas and chicken kievs. But I personally have never made contact with the company called Schwan's. In short, I did not order this frozen food

I sent an email to the neighbors using a list I had stored from National Night Out. Hey, I told the neighbors, if this is your stuff, LMK and I'll drop it at your door. In the meantime, I'm keeping it in my freezer.

A couple of days went by, and no one replied, so one night after dinner, I helped myself to one of the Cookies and Cream Ice Cream Sandwiches from Schwan's. The kids did, too.

The next day, Shef wondered if he might bake up some of the Raspberry and White Chocolate Scones.

"Let's see how hard it is," I said. I pulled out the package of pre-scored dough, perfectly shaped into triangular pieces. The directions said to heat the oven, break them apart, and put the triangles in for thirty minutes. We did it, and the results were quite delicious. Later, Dan expressed concern over the healthiness of the scones.

"Are you worried about Shef's caloric intake?" I asked, eyebrow arched. I mean, that child is 6 feet, 2 inches tall, and a mere one hundred and thirty-nine pounds.

A few days after that, we had the frozen lasagne, and everyone was quite pleased. We have just one shrimp stir-fry dinner left. It seems the least appealing of the four things, but we'll probably give it a try.

How and why did this boon come our way? I think I might never know.

Here it is! My final list of 2019! Most of my reading has been in the fiction category. I read 35 adult novels and 11 written for kids and teens. A reminder: I only finish books I like and admire, so all of those 46 were good! You can see all the books I read this year on Goodreads (and while you're there, you can mark MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES, out 2/4/20, as "Want to Read." That helps me.) 

And, here are my favorite five novels in alphabetical order by author.

When you're a teacher, you get a school picture packet like the kids do. You don't have to pay. The picture company just sends you an envelope with a 5x7 and several wallets.

Sometimes if the picture was good, I'd send a photo of myself to my mother. Because what else are you supposed to do with multiple school-style headshots when you're a full-fledged grown-up?

Also, most years, regardless of the quality of the photo and sometimes especially if it was bad, I would cut up the wallets, sign the backs ("Stay Super Sweet!" or "BFF!") and give them out to my friends. I did this in an ironic sort of way. Like, I knew it was funny to give out school photos when I was actually 27 or 33 or 41. People laughed. My school friends would cut up their own photos, give me 2x3s, and I'd put them on the bulletin board behind my desk.

I bring this up because it occurred to me the other night that handing people copies of my novel feels sort of like handing out school photos. Except unironically, but also uncomfortably. You hand a friend a book, and you're asking, Would you like a copy of something I did? Would you like to stare at it indefinitely? Would you like to spend eight hours with it and then have to pretend that you liked it? And, should I sign my name in the front? #BFF?

I'm looking forward to feeling less awkward about this. How long do you think it will take?

I've had a couple of magic marathons. My training was solid, I felt confident, and everything went amazingly on race day--strong finishes, even paces, big smiles.

I've also had a couple of just fine marathons. I ran within my fitness and felt pretty good.

And then, there have been a few really hard-fought marathons. My stomach got messed up, my legs dragged more than they should have. I ran through a dark night of the soul to get to the finish line.

This last weekend's marathon was one of the hard-fought ones. After 16 or 17 pretty good miles, I started cramping in my feet and legs. My stomach hurt. I narrowed my focus to one foot in front of the other. About three miles from the finish line, I reminded myself that if I dropped out, I'd have to go home and tell my children that I didn't finish the race because, in the end, I just didn't feel like it.

That's not really the message I've been trying to impart to my kids about sticking with the hard things. I've been more on the "try your best and accept your failures" train lately. I've ridden the "don't give up" car. So, one foot in front of the other, right? There really wasn't a choice.

Eventually, I got to the end and meandered through the finish area. Only one volunteer asked if I needed the medical tent. I made it to the light rail train, which I planned to ride back home. This was harrowing because of my stomach situation, but you'll be happy to know I held off the sickness. When I arrived at the homestead, I burst in the door. Shef stood to give me a hug, and I ducked under his arm and headed for the powder room. On the way, I accidentally yakked on the kitchen floor.

That's the kind of day it was. I pointed at the vomit and told Dan, "I didn't make it." It's true I didn't make it in that one instance, but in the "finish the marathon" sense, I did make it. I just didn't make it look pretty.

Publishing: I'm working on something called "first pass pages," which is when you see your manuscript printed out exactly how it will look in the book with the right fonts and headers and page numbers. It's called "first pass," but really it means "last chance," because it's my very final opportunity to change anything. I'm not supposed to change much -- a word here or an error there. It feels a little nuts to be signing off on all of these sentences, all 96,000 words, or whatever, for the very last time. Many steps of writing Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes have felt like adventures. Reading the pages as other people will (I hope!) read them is one of those steps.

Trail Running: I've finished the Endless Summer Trail Series, an adventurous race series at area parks. I really enjoy these little forays, heading into the woods and trying to finish faster than other people in my age group. I wish I could say that I don't care about winning, but everyone knows I do care about it. At these races, after my kids and my brother and I try to beat as many people as possible, we eat Dominoes pizza and drink a Summit India Extra Pale Ale. Well, the kids don't drink the beer. That's just for me and for other people over the legal age of 21. The pizza and the beer (and the Coke for the children) are included in the race fee, and if that isn't the best model ever, I don't know what is. I'm already looking forward to next summer's trail running adventures.

Eating Out: There's a place in St. Paul that's getting all sorts of buzz, and Dan and I are heading there to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary tonight. When I thought to get the reservation, there were only two slots available: 5:15 and 8:00. I had to pick the earlier because, well, regardless of how capital-A adventurous our August is, we still have to be in bed by like 9.

Lee's blogging about Action and Adventure this month, so I'm doing it, too. It seems like it's going to be fun.

My big Saturday adventure is more of a quiet sort. I'm catching up on some reading. And yes, I'm beginning the ADVENTURE challenge with kind of a whisper, but I think we can all agree that reading surely qualifies. I've already learned about CAR-T cells today and a movie called The Farewell. And, I read a short story that might make the reader re-think what she knows about love and marriage. That same story also made me think about craft and literary elements and what a writer can get by with, depending on his aims.

All of these adventurous thoughts sprang from my reading of The New Yorker. Many times, I've thought about how I both love and loathe The New Yorker. I like being the sort of person who gets a paper copy of this iconic publication in the mail every week. My dad re-ups my subscription annually, so it's not even something I choose; it's just part of me.

Even so, I almost never actually read The New Yorker.  I've been able to let go of the guilt about this at various moments and stages, like when I'm a full-time teacher and parenting some crazy busy kids 24/7.

But, now I'm supposed to be a full-time writer, and I'm supposed to be literary AF. So, reading a couple of New Yorker articles--we're not even aiming for cover-to-cover--shouldn't be that big of a problem. Soon, the kids will be back in school and maybe I can make a magazine ritual. An article with my matcha on Tuesday mornings, for example, and another one in the late-afternoon lull on Fridays.

Adventures can be momentous and also sort of regular. I guess I'm starting with the latter.

Well, we're having a winter storm event. It's mid-April and these things happen here in Minnesota, but I'll admit I'm not thrilled. Other things that don't thrill me:

• Kids kicking other kids. I did tell the kicked kid that there is some danger in crawling under tables pretending to be a cat, but still, we all know we shouldn't kick.
• Delayed onset muscle soreness, also known as DOMS. This condition causes water retention and discomfort. It's tough being an athlete in one's forties.
• Homework. One of my kids sometimes requires vigilance and assistance in homework completion. Let's just all skip it, shall we?
• Rhubarb. There was a rhubarb-based dessert in the cafeteria the other day, and while I enjoy most foods, I just don't care for rhubarb. Next time, let's hit the fruit-based dessert with a little apple flavor. Maybe some peach.

A year ago, I signed with my agent, a super smart woman named Joanna MacKenzie who works at Nelson Literary Agency. And next year at about this time, my first novel will be out from Penguin Random House and available for purchase in numerous venues.

It feels crazy and surreal.

Way back when I was in fifth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Hollenbeck, said I was the most likely in her class to publish a novel. I was flattered by this praise, and, in fact, I planned on writing several novels. I'd already begun one or two, and my mom said they were quite good.

I'm sure that as a fifth-grader, I didn't think it'd take me 30 or so years to actually put a book in the publishing pipeline. Other things got in the way, of course--exciting and important life and career events. But now, I'm happy to be living out the destiny prescribed to me by my teacher, Mrs. H.

Since I announced my book deal in December, lots of people have expressed surprise about just how long it takes to get a book into actual stores. "Spring Twenty-TWENTY?!" they exclaim when I mention the release date. I agree that it seems like an insanely long process, but by publishing standards, my path has been pretty short and straightforward.

Sometimes people like to know these things, and so I'm going to write it out. Here's the "when" of the path to publication for Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes so far:

Fall 2004: I started writing this blog after writing nothing but academic papers for at least 10 years. The reason the earliest posts aren't here is that I first used a now-defunct platform, the name of which I can no longer remember. I wrote like crazy on this website, usually posting more than a hundred short pieces per year. I worked on dialogue and humor and crafting stupid little life experiences into things I felt were worth saving. I interacted with other writers and felt like a real writer myself. Basically, the blog changed my life, and though I wished it were more popular, it didn't really matter that almost no one read it.

January 2014: I decided to "reclaim my reader identity" (I'm sure I got this phrase from Lee) by resolving to read 52 books per year. Best resolution ever. I read lots of books I wished I'd written.

January 2015: Since I liked my new reader identity so much, I decided to work on my "writer identity" (again, stolen, I'm sure), and I started drafting a way-too-ambitious family saga that spanned generations. Beginning that book was an important step, but it wasn't really meant to be.

December 2015: Over winter break, I started writing a different thing about a woman who ran through a crowd of kids at her son's school, checking the drama bulletin board to see which part he'd gotten and injuring a teenaged girl in the process. KK and I had dreamed up this scenario between classes at the middle school where we taught. We thought it was hilarious.

Spring 2016-Fall 2017: I took several online courses about how to write a book, met a fabulous critique group, worked with a developmental editor, and coerced several people into reading my manuscript about the theater mom and (of course) a beleaguered English teacher. Finally, I felt the book was finished enough to query in early 2018.

January 2018: I sent out an initial five query letters to literary agents, none of which resulted in manuscript requests.

February 2018: I finaled in a contest called Sun vs. Snow that helps writers get their work in front of agents. I got my first two manuscript requests this way, and I felt more confident about the whole process of trying to get an agent. My submission materials were better after working with a mentor through the contest. I also hired an editor to help me polish them.

February-March 2018: I sent an additional seven queries to agents I thought might like my book. Two of these people asked to read the whole thing and then offered to represent me. I picked Joanna.

May 2018: Joanna and Angie, the in-house editor at Nelson, sent me an eleven-page editorial letter along with line edits. As gently as they could, they told me I'd need to rewrite the book to fix character and conflict problems before we tried to sell it.

May-August 2018: I wrote and rewrote and cried and had panic attacks. But, even as I suffered, I realized Joanna and Angie were right about all eleven pages of their feedback. The book would be way better after the rewrite. Elated and exhausted, I turned it back into Joanna in the first week of August.

September 2018: Joanna wrote me a much shorter editorial letter in which she detailed about three-weeks' worth of further revisions. When I first got the email, I freaked. I couldn't even open it, feeling like I was in for another ten weeks of tortured self-doubt; but my writer friend Alison read the suggestions first and talked me down.

October 2018: I did a few more clean-up edits, and then, by the last week of the month, Joanna blessedly said it was ready to send to a list of about twelve editors whom she'd contacted.

November 2018: The book sold to Kerry Donovan an editor at Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in what's called a preempt, which means they paid a little more so other people couldn't also look at it. Berkley announced that the pub date would be "Spring twenty-TWENTY," and away we go.

There's a whole new timeline about what happens next. It's exciting, right? But, I don't want to be boring about the whole thing. I'll be back to amusing anecdotes about daily life in no time.

I lowered my book quota this year from 52 books to 36. I did it because I felt very busy writing my novel. It was a good decision, but next year I'm headed back to 52 Books Plus, as I promise in my Twitter handle, @52BooksPlus.

As it turns out, I read 41 books in 2018. The majority of these (26) were works of fiction for adults, lots of them within my own genre of contemporary women's fiction. I added another 7 middle grade or young adult novels, and then I read 6 works of nonfiction. I usually read more evenly across genres, in part so I can provide reviews in several categories.

This year I just read the books without thinking too much. So instead of my usual series of best books posts, I'm just doing this one. 10 books I loved in 2018, in alphabetical order by author. I hope you'll tell me what you think of these books and/or whether you give them a try in 2019.


Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
In this installment of the Cormoran Strike series written under a pseudonym by J.K. Rowling, our heroes investigate the maybe-murder of a child in the countryside. They follow the tip of mentally ill and deeply sincere Billy Knight, who thinks he witnessed the killing when he himself was a child. Billy leads the detectives to a group of leftist activists who aim to take down the government Minister for Sport amidst the 2012 London Olympics. Robin and Strike handle the intersecting conflicts as well as their own personal lives, which appear particularly messy one year after Robin's ill-advised wedding to Matthew Cunliffe, whom we all hate. I love these books and read them immediately upon release. I've written about the echoes of Harry Potter before.

I've been reading Vikki Reich's daily November blog posts, and I've been thinking: how hard could it really be to just write something here once a week?

Vikki is a humor writer I admire, and her blog is really good. So, it's not as if I'm thinking: it'd be so easy to write something like Vikki every week. No, it's just that when I read her stuff I realize blogging has a lot of value, at least to me. I love reading about other people's lives, and I like going back through the archives here and reading about my own life.

Wouldn't it be nice to chronicle a little longer? Just keep track of the mundane?

In any case, here are a couple of things:

• We've been working on volume this week in third grade. As in, noise level. Previously, we've worked on stamina and coping skills. Those things are still high on our list of priorities, but this week I felt like a lot of people were yelling all the time. We've now worked on self-awareness around yelling. I come around and gently remind people about our goals. I say, "It sounds like you're yelling." We've achieved sporadic and marginal success in lessening the frequency of yelling.

• Mac has me obsessed with this podcast called Six Minutes. It's a story about a girl mysteriously lost at sea and the family who takes her in. Also, it's about helicopters and bad guys and hoverboards. It's transformed our commute. Each episode is--shocker--six minutes long. If I can't listen to my new Spotify playlist that includes "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" and has my family engaged in a whole new round of mom-mocking, then I choose Six Minutes.

We're in Week 3 now, so I'm quite experienced in third grade. At the very least, I now know how to get the students to lunch and back again. Their quietness in the hallway is another matter, but I'm taking my wins incrementally.

Lesson Planning: The trickiest part is not actually designing the instruction. That transfers well from one division to another. The hardest part is figuring out how long things are going to take. "This'll be a solid 20 minutes," I think to myself; and then it's either 10 or 40. It might be a good 10 or 40, but it wasn't what I was expecting.

Vocabulary: Sometimes I use words the students don't know, and they look at me like, "What?" These moments surprise me, but I just find a synonym and move on with life. Recent examples: insightful, problematic, and expedient. No worries here: studies show that using big words with little kids is a solid vocabulary-building technique.

Math: Of all the disciplines I now teach, math is the one I've never taught before. One of my students told me he's especially excited to be in my class because I'm a middle school teacher and certainly capable of challenging him in math. He thinks it might be his best year ever in math. I think positive expectations are key to success.

Sitting upright: While I've had to remind students of all ages to maintain posture during lessons (it was a always a rule, for instance, that you couldn't put your head down on your desk in my classroom), it's especially a thing in third grade. While we're having instruction time on the rug, I prefer that you're not rolling around. I also prefer that you're not dancing on the sidelines of the instructional space. It doesn't matter how cute you look while you're dancing; it's just not time for that right now.