Sigh. Spring Break is over.

I will post an update soon with pictures of my Spring Break projects. For now, you can all be content that I'll be going to work every day next week just like the rest of you. Boo.

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to have more balance in my life. In this vein, I'm now attempting to be more of a "real person" and do more than just work, eat, and sleep. The result is that I am often more tired, but I feel a whole lot better about life in general and a whole lot more normal.

We have several sources that I check for free/cheap events in our local area, and I thought I'd share just in case any of you want to be real people, too! Though these are specific to the Claremont area, I'm sure there are similar things in your area.

1) Claremont Colleges Event Calendar One of the perks of being married to a perpetual student/professor-to-be is that we will always live in a college town. And colleges, especially awesome colleges, have great free or inexpensive events constantly going on during the school year. We have attended many lectures, concerts, arts events, and other events just by keeping tabs on the school's central calendar. Not all of the colleges' events make it onto this central calendar, but an awful lot do.

2) Our local NPR station's event calendar We love NPR, and we love NPR events. Last night we went to a StoryCorp listening events that knocked our socks off. NPR's calendar lists all kind of cool events, many of which actually have nothing to do with NPR. Some of the events are free, some are cheap, and some aren't so cheap.

3) City of Claremont's website Our town often makes Richard and I stop and say, "Wow. We live in AMERICA." We call it the Star's Hollow of the West. (I know many of you Texans are not believing that a town in California could love America, but there you have it.) The patriotic package is complete with events that could only happen in small-town America: parades, free concerts in the park, town barbecue, firefighter's pancake breakfasts. If you've seen it on TV in some small town, it happens in Claremont.

4) Groupon and LivingSocial You've probably heard of both of these sites, but the idea is you buy gift certificates to restaurants, services, and events at a huge discount. We've only actually bought one, but I like seeing what's going on in our area.

So there are my ideas, do you have any others?

Doheny State Beach

We took the opportunity of a warm (and completely free) Saturday to head to the beach today. We made sure to get there early so we could beat the crowds.... of which there were none.

We really like Doheny State Beach- I think it will be added to the list of favorite beaches. There was plenty of parking, close bathrooms, lots of sand, beautiful water, cool birds (pelicans!), and just enough interesting people to watch but not too many to be annoying.

Having spent many a day last summer at the beach, we are now pros at packing and getting out of the house in a timely manner.

And beach set-up 2011 is vastly superior to beach set-up 2010. We have an obnoxious new shade tent! I see many a beach day in our future...

It is statistically guaranteed that the closer you get to a holiday (or any sort of "break") in a high school, the crazier things get.

Spring Break is next week, so things are getting a wee bit crazy round these parts. But oh, I can make it. I keep having visions that look like this and pull me through the day.

I intend to spend all my time by the pool next week, except for the hour in which I will be getting a massage (courtesy of a Christmas present from Rich).

Rich will still have school, so that's a downer. Otherwise, blue skies ahead. 1.5 more days- I can do it!

Oh dear...

"I didn't go to tutoring because my probation officer didn't let me cause Im on house arrest."

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

The best recital ever

Last night, Rich and I were all set to go to a violin, viola, and piano faculty recital at the colleges. We arrived 10 or so minutes before it was scheduled to start and were shocked to find a line of college students about 20 people long.

"Wow," I commented to Rich. "I can't believe there are this many students at a classical music event. This must be, like, the best recital EVER."

We stood in line with the students, even more shocked to see guards with wands scanning each person who went inside.

"Man, they really take the no recording thing seriously here!" Richard joked.

The girl in front of us was wearing Party Rock glasses, and had a tattoo (fake, I think) that read, "Sorry for Party Rockin'!"

We made it through the metal detecting guards who asked us if we had any cigarettes in our pockets to the doors where they asked for our tickets.

"Tickets! We thought this was a free event."

We trouped over to the ticket booth where they told us the concert cost $30 per person. "For a faculty recital!" Richard scoffed. "You've got to be kidding me."

Turns out, there are TWO buildings called "Bridges"- one at Pomona College and one at Scripps College. And we were not, in fact, standing in line for the most rockin' faculty recital of our lives, but for a concert for a group called LMFAO. I'll give you a minute to go find them on YouTube.

We made it over to Bridges Hall, where we were greeted by a grad student handing out programs and a much grayer audience. There was no shuffling at the recital, but it was pretty awesome, nonetheless.

Edited to add: After reading this, Richard has kindly asked me to inform you all that BOTH Bridges are at Pomona College, not a Scripps College. When I asked him if that really mattered, he replied, "Well, yeah!" So all you fact checkers out there can breathe a bit easier now.