title: Passion Under the Microscope author: Christine Miles publisher: Sealed with a Swoon Books publication date: March 19, 2024 pages: only on Kindle, so ?? peppers: 3 (on this scale) warnings: none summary: Tanith, a high school science teacher sprains her ankle while trying to get a photo (for her class on reproduction) of mating birds. Her…
Author: caritagardiner
268. Why MC
If you’re reading this post the day it goes live, Happy Valentine’s Day. The day designed to celebrate love seemed the perfect time to talk about one of the people I feel so grateful to have in my life that I think finding her was meant to be. Sometimes, connections between people are written in…
NetGalley Review of Match Me if You Can
title: Match Me if You Can author: Swati Hegde publisher: Dell publication date: 4 June 2024 pages: 304 peppers: 2 (on this scale) warnings: alcohol-induced vomit, heavy drinking summary: Jia is bored by her job writing a dumb romance advice column for a newspaper, so she funnels her passion into two things, her successful anonymous blog and…
267. Why the Messy Middle
Don’t you love great before and after photos in glossy magazines? Or the makeover montage in a light movie? I do, and I also love reading the meet cutes and happily ever afters of every romance novel I pick up. Even knowing that the path from A to Z isn’t supposed to be a straight…
266. Why Doing Not Being
If you’re thinking about becoming a doctor, you can click on the photo above to find out more about the long path to earning that title. This post isn’t about learning to become a doctor but about one of the things I’ve learned from watching my amazing older daughter decide NOT to keep following the…
265. Why Now
I fully understand the impulse to wait to do something until I can do it perfectly. I want to delay until I have figured the strongest argument and crafted it into the best imaginable wording. I’m writing today’s post partly to remind myself to resist such urges for several reasons. First, it’s important to remember…
264. Why Wear Earrings
The photo above shows a section of my screen during a Google search for “wear pink sparkly earrings.” I don’t have and don’t want pink sparkly earrings, but I thought many of you reading the title of this post might assume that’s where I was going, and I aim to please. I’ve had my ears…
NetGalley Review of The Rom-Commers
title: The Rom-Commers author: Katherine Center publisher: St. Martin’s Press publication date: June 11, 2024 pages: 336 peppers: 2 (on this scale) warnings: injury (off-page, described), surgery (off-page), bar-fight (off-page) summary: The agent of not-so-successful screenwriter Emma, who’s been taking care of her father for the last ten years, finds her a job helping to fix the…
263. Why the Three Cs
I’m old enough that when I hear about the three Rs of education, I think about Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic. At the start of the school year, however, one of my colleagues (Hi, CHF!) gave a talk about the three Cs of teaching and learning. Being a big fan of both the colleague and the…
262. Why I Teach
I took the photo above of three boys in my fall Senior English elective. These guys are seventeen and eighteen-years-old and proudly sporting backpacks made for toddlers. I love this about Hotchkiss kiddos. In fact, there’s a lot I love about the students here, and a series of short videos on our school’s social media…