Moonlighting in the Northeast

Adjusting to "New Normal"

2009-07-19T18:04:00.003-05:00

We're back in Connecticut now after two weeks visiting family in Iowa. Henry was a fantastic traveller. We traveled with him as an "infant in arms", so really it wasn't that different from sitting with him on the couch. He just ate and slept and pooped like normal. The hardest thing was doing diaper changes on the plane. On the way out I changed him on my lap, which he loved but we were flirting with disaster. On the way home he had a big poop just before we took off and I didn't want to change that in my lap, so I had to wait until we reached cruising level. But, we had turbulence so we had to wait for that to clear. And then, I had to wait until the beverage cart was finished because the aisles were so small. I think he had to sit in that poopy diaper for two hours-- I felt awful but he was fine.

Pooping stories aside (because there are many more I could share). Once we were home I started a cleaning frenzy. We arrived home on a Tuesday and I was going to go back to work on Friday. And somehow, I could not justify returning to work if my home life wasn't in control. So, the first floor looks somewhat decent now and I'm going to try my hardest to stay on top of things. Henry is 7 weeks old now and this postpartum slob life has to come to an end.

What else has to come to an end is my postpartum snacking. I've been eating junk and fast food indiscriminately because I was healing, breastfeeding, and exhausted. At this point I'm pretty much healed so that's no longer an excuse. As for breastfeeding, what I'm eating isn't the best nutrition for him, even if I can have more calories than even when I was pregnant. And with Henry sleeping for a 5-6 hour stretch most nights (isn't he an awesome baby?) that's also not an excuse. Going back to work also has me back in my closet and disappointed at how much no longer fits. I'm still up 15-20 lbs from my prepregnancy weight, which was technically overweight anyway. I know I should expect to take as long to lose the weight as it took me to put on, but it's not going to happen on it's own.

In general, I'm just working on getting my act together and adjusting to our new life with baby, where I'm not a slob and a junk food addict! As an update to my last post, Henry is our little chunky monkey and is packing on the pounds. He's growing so fast he's in size 2 diapers and 3 month clothes already. I'm also coming to terms with this breastfeeding/formula supplementing regime. Pumping doesn't bother me like it used to. And, my supply doesn't seem to be suffering at all since I do pump when we give him a bottle. And, I have to say, it is nice to have Tom helping with Henry's feedings at night and I can slip back into bed.

Here's to hoping, "new normal" has me blogging regularly again.

Already a month has passed...

2009-06-25T07:18:00.002-05:00

I was reminded this week that with parenthood, "the days are long but the years are short." Only a month in and I can't believe how true it is. The days have been run into each other in a blur of feedings, naps and diaper changes. And now my little man is almost a month old. I'll have to do a photo shoot today or tomorrow.

Already, Henry has changed so much. He's crying less, and occasionally awake without being hungry (hallelujah)! Yesterday he smiled for me, which was absolutely thrilling! His tear ducts are starting to produce tears. His little cheeks are chunking up (oh so cute). And, last night he slept for six hours, what an angel baby. Just in the past week I feel like I'm really starting to fall in love with him. Not that I didn't before, but it's just becoming more intense and, dare I say, obsessive.

The drama for the past week has involved Henry and his weight gain. At birth he was 7lb 3oz, and at hospital discharge he was 6lb 13oz. A couple days later when we went to the pediatricians office he was 7lb 4oz already and I was thrilled! I figured I had this breastfeeding thing nailed and relaxed about it. We had a lot of eager helping hands at home, which was good because it seemed like Henry was often fussy. Well, when we went to the doctor's office the following week, Henry was only 7lb 7oz. I had already seen the lactation consultant and she said our latch looked great and Henry had a strong suck. So, our pediatrician recommended that I get a breast pump and pump after I feed Henry to boost my supply.

We ordered the pump online a couple days later, but I didn't worry too much about Henry's weight. I figured he had such a big gain to begin with he was evening out. Well, when we went in for a weight check the following week he again only gained 3 oz (as opposed to the 5-7 oz he should be gaining). Now, I needed to feed Henry, give him an ounce of formula or expressed breast milk, and then pump for 10 minutes! It turns out my supply had decreased, probably because Henry didn't have the stamina to suck for longer than 5-7 minutes per side and because we were misinterpreting his hungry cues as other problems and soothing him to sleep when he needed to eat.

So, I finally started pumping. Which I truly hated to begin with, and I could only get a few drops at a time. So, we had to give Henry formula. I tried to make it a fun thing and take pictures while Tom fed Henry, but I couldn't shake a nagging feeling of failure. I had always wanted to breastfeed exclusively, and only imagined using formula as a choice if I wanted extra sleep or to go out and do something on my own away from Henry. I had certainly never anticipated using formula as a medical necessity to help my son grow. We had a weight check after two days and Henry was up to 7lbs 13.5oz. Good for Henry, but I felt like it was because of the formula not because I had done a good job.

We had an exhausting weekend since I felt like I was feeding times three. But Henry was a much happier baby-- he was barely even crying! I felt awful that we were starving our son and didn't even know it. But, I was still resenting every bottle of formula and encouraging Tom to only feed him the minimal amount from the bottle. I was afraid Henry wouldn't want to eat at the breast if he was full of formula, and I couldn't make more milk for him if he didn't ask for it.

Then came Monday and Henry had a growth spurt day. He was feeding at the breast from 10am-noon straight taking breaks only for a couple diaper changes. I couldn't believe he stayed awake the whole time, and I figured it was great for my supply. I switch fed him from one side to the other until he was fussing on both sides because my milk was too slow and then finally gave him over to Tom for a bottle of formula. Even though he had been eating for two hours from me he still sucked down a full two ounces and still wanted more-- I was just crushed and completely broke down. I couldn't shake the feeling that the formula was sabotaging our breastfeeding efforts. And, despite knowing otherwise, I felt like my inability to satisfy Henry at the breast said something about me as a mother. I was devastated.

That night Henry slept for two four hour stretches and it truly felt like a brand new day. I was able to express enough to replace one formula bottle, which made me feel better. And Henry was in such a good mood. He slept soundly for much of the day, and we went to visit my coworkers at the library. And yesterday, he was still quite happy and awake more than he has been since he was born. Seeing how much happier he is when he's well-fed and seeing him plump up a bit has me feeling so much better. I just need to remember he's still getting the benefits of breastmilk and my supply is getting better day by day. And, it's not the end of the world if we have to buy some formula from here on out to keep him fed-- at least it's an option.

Well, that's my super long post on breastfeeding, which has to end now because Henry needs to eat again (surprise, surprise)!

Our New Arrival

2009-06-01T20:16:00.003-05:00

The last couple weeks were tough with anxiety and waiting, and now it seems like it was ages ago I was pregnant! (When really it was less than a week ago).

Henry Julian 7lbs 30z

We're back from the hospital already, and getting used to each other. We had a rough night the first night home, but I hear that's normal. Milk came in today so it's making him much happier- which makes mommy and daddy happier, too.

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-10T16:39:00.002-05:00

17 days until baby's due date! The not knowing when exactly is killing me though. Every time I leave work I try to clean up my desk a bit, but I keep going back! It feels like baby is dropping (and doc agrees), but that could mean anything from a few days to a few weeks. Last week I was having a few contractions, but this week nothing. I keep expecting my water to break or contractions to start and I'm still waiting. Everything's been going to perfectly this whole pregnancy, I wouldn't be surprised if baby comes pretty close to his due date, but we still don't know.

We went ahead and got a used glider rocker this week. It stills feels like there are things we need, but it's hard to know which are impending needs and which can wait.

I guess I'm still feeling pretty good. No heartburn (yay)! But, I'm exhausted on and off and taking as many naps as I feel like. My back bothers me on and off as well, and naturally getting up and turning over in bed is hard work. Although when he's rolling around and bumping me I don't seem to mind the discomforts so much. Tom's been doing a good job helping out around the house which helps a lot.

So, we continue to wait...

Happy Birthday To Me

2009-05-03T19:38:00.002-05:00

Today's my birthday, yay! It's amazing how unimportant it seems with other things looming in our future, though. As shocking as it is, baby and I will be full-term on Wednesday! So, Tom and I went out and got our car seat and stroller this week so we at least have those. And, we have a load of baby clothes and blankets in the wash right now.

We did have lots of other things going on this week. Tom had his 3rd year review which he successfully passed, so he's okay to continue his work. I went to the CLA (Connecticut Library Association) conference on Thursday. The conference was interesting but left me exhausted, and I'm only starting to feel a little rejuvenated this afternoon. I'm hoping after three exhausted days I'm due for a few good days here. Although I was super emotional today so Tom's thinking the baby is coming this week! My bet's on the week of the 20th so we'll see who gets bragging rights.

Spring Has Sprung

2009-04-19T10:57:00.004-05:00

Happy Belated Easter!

To celebrate Easter Tom and I went to church in the morning. Then, we bundled up in winter coats and hats and took a walk on the very windy West Haven Beach. It was nice to get out though and see the water. Then we had baked chicken for dinner, and I made a cake. So, fairly uneventful but we tried to make it special.

I went to the dentist this week and got my teeth cleaned. I love clean teeth! The hygenist and dentist though were both telling me how small I looked for how far along I am. Funny- I don't feel "small"! I also had a couple coworkers shocked this week when I mentioned it was only 6 weeks until my due date.

With time getting short I'm actually getting around to getting a lot of things done that I've been putting off for awhile. I've had the yarn to knit up a baby hat for months, but was having trouble just getting started with it. After a couple false starts I'm finally plugging along on it, and it's turning out pretty cute. I also got my hair trimmed this week and got an oil change on the car. The haircut was fine, the oil change I was a little disappointed.

I went ahead and took the car into a Firestone for the oil change, and it felt like just the oil change was a little overpriced. But, I asked when I went in if they could "fit me in". I guess I should've been more specific and asked if they could fit me in "now". I waited 30-45 minutes before they even took my car in to the shop. And, pregnant lady on uncomfortable chairs was none too pleased.

When they finally finished with my car they told me that the clunking that I had been informed by a couple mechanics was just a normal part of my Chevy Malibu was actually dangerous. It was a malfunctioning steering shaft that could leave me without steering at any time if it goes! They said the factory wasn't recalling the part but recommended replacement. About, $300 "which isn't that much as far as car repairs go". Ha! (As if I don't know that.) But, $300 for an unecessary repair sure as heck isn't in our budget right now. I bet they didn't even notice the problem, it was just flagged in their computer system as a potential repair to offer.

When I left the shop I noticed they hadn't reset the oil life in the computer so I had to go back. Thankfully it didn't take long, but I was still a little annoyed. Then on the way home I noticed a burning rubber smell at the stoplights and really strong smelling in the garage once I got home. It's been going away as I drive more, but I think they must have spilled some oil. Tom and I looked in the engine and didn't see anything like a loose cap or forgotten rubber gloves. I was a little uncomfortable though that's it's difficult to see our belt from the top looking down. On the Taurus it was right there to see, but it's underneath a bunch of stuff in the Malibu so we couldn't check that. Tom did notice though that we were very low on windshield wiper fluid. That really ticked me off! That's part of an oil change is that they top off all your fluids!

So, guess who won't be getting my repeat business? I sure miss my shop right by my old library. I told Tom he needs to check with people who have cars and find out where they get their work done because I don't want to be stuck with a shop I don't like when something really goes wrong. Otherwise, all is well out here. Anxiety is beginning to mount, especially for Tom. At least I know at any given moment that I'm not having contractions. Tom says he's beginning to jump every time the phone rings and I'm not home.

It's a gorgeous weekend here in Connecticut. We've had windows open and are thinking of going out for a walk later today. The cat can't get enough of the open windows and birds!

And the Spring Ants Return

2009-04-05T19:58:00.002-05:00

Another Spring, and the ants are back! We must have a nest right outside our front door. No matter what Tom plugs up they still seem to come back. Last year Tom caulked around the front door and that seemed to keep them out. But, this year they somehow squirreled in through a crack in a tile by the front door, which Tom caulked. And today we saw some again. So, Tom will inspect outside in the daylight, but we'll probably need to get some ant poison to go outside. I don't know what they're eating inside because they're not in the pantry or the cabinets. I found a bunch under some old root beer bottles, but we've since gotten rid of those-- determined little buggers.

We had a few lovely days this week in between the rain which has helped to cheer me up tremendously. So, aside from lingering anxiety about upcoming irreversible changes to our lives, things are going well. Baby's growing quickly. It felt like he grew an entire pound last Thursday night the way my back and body were complaining Friday. But, I've since adjusted as well as can be expected. Apparently, he's the size of a large jicama. Which looks like this-- I guess. Again, I don't eat jicama. Last week he was the size of four oranges. Next week he'll be the size of a pineapple. At least I know those! Knowing we're eight weeks away is mind-boggling. It feels like we have so much left to do, but a lot of it has to wait until he's here. All my good eating habits from the first trimester and a half have flown out the window. I just don't feel like expending energy on cooking and frankly, all I want is junk. At least my weight gain is steady at this point, and it's comforting to know most of what I'm gaining is actually baby weight considering how quickly he's growing. Sometimes I can feel a solid bump against my hand when I rest it on my belly, and I'm fairly certain it's his little bottom. Then, I think about how big that bottom is already and get a little nervous about how that little bottom is going to get out. But, really, what's the point in thinking about that? It's going to happen and it won't be pleasant, but then it will be over and I can forget all about it.

Tom and I went down to my new library this afternoon. They have a Sunday Showcase series and this week they were featuring a family group that peformed folk music. I'm a sucker for anything with a banjo and a fiddle, and Tom seemed to enjoy himself, too. I started tapping my belly in rhythm with one of the songs, and baby danced a bit to the music. (We'll call it "danced" as opposed to "tried to get away" or "tried to plug his ears").

In a Funk

2009-03-29T12:40:00.002-05:00

Well, we're 31 weeks now! I'm still blown away by the fact that my sister was born at 32 weeks, and I'm almost there. I have a ton of appointments and things set up for April already. Hopefully most of the business will get taken care of, and then we can have a nice quiet May to settle in and wait.

Although nice and quiet doesn't sound that great right now. I have a ton of little hobby things I could work on, but I haven't been. So, I'm feeling underwhelmed and in a rut in general. And, unfortunately, lacking in motivation to start things as well. Cooped up and uncomfortable would probably sum up how I feel. Certainly, the rainy day today isn't helping either.

Another thing that isn't helping are the disappointing sermons at church lately. I've never been entirely satisfied with our church choice here, but it's so convenient to walk to church every Sunday. Two Sundays ago we got some political rhetoric from the pulpit about the proposed Bill 1098, which had something to do with targeting the Catholic church's finances and who controls them. Not that we got any of the facts mind you, instead we were forced to watch a video of the archbishop at a rally and all the wonderful things the Catholic church does and how dare the government target us. For actual background on the issue you can see this article "Catholic Church Battle Intensifies At State Capitol", but it's no longer under consideration. Then, we had to watch a second video on the Archbishop's Annual Appeal. Oh so spiritually satisfying.

This week we had a visiting priest who was a chaplain in the army for 30 years. His homily was extremely disjointed, jumping from topic to topic with nothing really to connect the thoughts. Most of the homily was snippets about how priests fight for our souls while soldiers fight for our freedom. And, I was extremely frustrated when he threw in something about how heaven has different levels for people based on how good they are on earth. Where in the bible is that? If he had discussed that idea I think it would've been a much more interesting homily. I would've liked to hear him articulate why there are "heaven levels" when I distinctly remember something about the first being last and the last being first.

I was talking with Tom a bit about it on the way home, and he mentioned that the problem is probably that we see church as an intellectual thing, and for some priests it's more about us coming and filling our spiritual gas tanks. I suppose that's true, but I think it's sad when I get more out of the blurbs discussing the readings in the missalette than I get from my priests in homilies.

Only 10 weeks to go

2009-03-18T18:59:00.002-05:00

We are 30 weeks today! 70 days until baby is here... holy crap! And here's hoping baby doesn't decide to come on May 1st, because Tom has both his 3rd Year Review and Dana Club Skit Night that day. Which happen to be his only obligations for months. But, once his 3rd Year Review is complete he doesn't have any big hurdles until he needs to submit his dissertation and defend.

I didn't post this past Sunday because I actually had some girlfriends over during the day. I went out to the grocery store for some last minute things at 9am, and saw people already getting started drinking in one of our favorite local bars even though the St. Patty's Day Parade wasn't until 1pm. Then, we went to church. And my friends came at noon and stayed until 7pm. We had homemade mac and cheese and lots of snacks and watched some movies (High School Musical 3, Clueless, and Horton Hears a Who). We also played Apples to Apples, which was fun.

I suppose I should actually link to our baby registries (as I'm starting to hear about showers and whatnot). Here is our Babies R Us Registry, and our Amazon Registry. If family from Iowa is worried about shipping, you can order from Babies R Us by phone, and we can pick up the item here and no one gets charged shipping (yay!). Also, Babies R Us has some coupons good until March 26th that I found. Not that I'm telling you all to get us things for the baby, I'm just trying to make it easier if you are anyway.

And Third Trimester Begins

2009-03-08T15:45:00.003-05:00

This week was a baby week for sure! Childbirth classes at our hospital cost $220 which I really didn't want to pay (even though Tom is willing to do anything to help me through the birth so he was fine with it). So, I decided to try borrowing a childbirth DVD from the library and I think it worked out really well.

We watched Laugh and Learn About Childbirth. The cover of the DVD makes it look new, but it was probably taped in the 90's. None of the information seemed out-of-date, though. I did learn a few things I didn't know before, and I think it helped Tom quite a bit since he hadn't heard many of the things I've run across on message boards or in books. Since it was a full childbirth class I think we probably got everything out of it we would've gotten through an in-person class, and we could take breaks whenever we needed it. Such as, oh, she's going to have us practice pushing-- I better take a potty break.

I went to Once Upon a Child this week and got a couple new onesies, and some cute little overalls for our little buddy. And today we picked up a hand-me-down crib from one of Tom's acquaintances. Not that the crib is set up yet, but we have it. We also went out last night and started a baby registry at Babies R Us. So, as of right now we're registered at Babies R Us and at Amazon, but not everything is on the registry yet. I may also be transferring some of the Amazon registry items onto the Babies R Us registry. Or maybe I'll keep them on both registries (if anyone has thoughts or opinions on this please share).

Oh, and for "springing forward" Tom and I failed to spring! Apparently, Tom didn't even know it was Daylight Savings Time already, which doesn't suprise me since he never knows when school vacations are either. And, I simply forgot to move the clocks forward. We're back with the rest of the world now, though.

Quiet Week

2009-03-01T13:18:00.002-05:00

So, no new baby news. He's still bumping me and we're still slowly growing.

I read a couple of books this week that were pretty good.

The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner, I really enjoyed this novel about the French Revolution.

And I also finished a series book The Sorcerer of the North by John Flanagan, which had a cliffhanger ending. Grrr.
And, we've been watching the Muppet Show Season 2 which I borrowed from the library.

We had dinner with some friends last night- we had a taco bar night with chicken tacos. Very tasty. And, we have Tom's old office mate from Iowa visiting for a couple days here tonight and tomorrow. And, that's about it! See you all next week.

A Lazy Week

2009-02-22T12:30:00.003-05:00

So, we had a fairly uneventful week this week. I'm starting to settle in at my new job, slowly but surely. I've been a little obsessed with baby's movement this week. My belly is mesmerizing- I can actually see him move from the outside. I keep forcing Tom to try and feel him through my belly, but he doesn't like cooperating for Daddy yet, and Daddy doesn't always have a lot of patience. Baby is at least 2 lbs now and probably bigger! I still have a regular pre-pregnancy appetite right now, which is probably a good thing. But, I seem to be running to the bathroom all the time, without much to show for it. And I know that's only going to get worse!

Friday we went to Happy Hour at Tom's professor's house. And Saturday we had pizza for lunch and played some board games with some friends. Other than that, we've been regular old homebodies this week. I think the cat loves having me home more often, and our house is slowly looking cleaner and cleaner. A week and a half until third trimester!

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T21:50:00.002-05:00

So, baby is apparently the size of a rutabaga this week. I think they're stretching it a bit with the produce comparisons. I haven't had a rutabaga, in fact I'm not even sure if it's a vegetable or a fruit. I can tell he's getting pretty big, though. I love feeling him move! I'm just waiting now to hit that 3rd trimester! Tom and I will be getting moving on the registry here soon, for anyone who's been anxious for us to start it. We're thinking about doing an Amazon registry and then supplementing it with Babies R Us or Target. Despite the fact that I'm growing a bit I still feel quite comfortable. I'm just having trouble with socks, shoes, shaving my legs, and picking things up that I've dropped. But, I can still see my feet!

My new job is going pretty well. They started me right up on the reference desk by myself already, which isn't too bad at all since I was using the same catalog system at my other library. It's just tricky learning new policies, new names, and the new collection. I was a little grumpy last week from adjusting to my new schedule (or what feels like a lack thereof). I have a large to-do list but no motivation to work on it. Hopefully this week I'll be more up to tackling it.

The cat got a regular check-up at the vet this week. It's hard to believe we've had her for two years, already! She's healthy, and the nurse declared she was "as pretty as a calendar cat". She hollered the whole way there and back, though. And after she was home she slept for two days straight! Must be hard to be a cat, when a trip to the vet is worth two days' worth of trauma. Lyla does have a little bit of tartar so I might try brushing her teeth if she can stand it. We'll be celebrating her fifth birthday on Feb. 17th, the anniversary of when we adopted her. Who doesn't want a toothbrush for their birthday?

As for Valentine's Day, I was at work during the day, and there was lots of lovely chocolate in the staff room. Then Tom and I went to Arby's for dinner, which was pretty quiet. The other diners included two elderly couples and a single guy. Then, Tom and I went and saw Slumdog Millionaire which we both enjoyed. The filmmaking was beautiful and the music was catchy. The film made you think about life in other parts of the world, but it wasn't mired in suffering. And the ending was ultimately happy enough to leave me satisfied. (I used to really enjoy gritty movies, but I'm finding I enjoy them less and less for whatever reason.) After the movie, Tom and I stopped and splurged on Cold Stone ice cream. So, a fun date night. Tom's big treat for the weekend were some Special K cookies I made for him tonight. I knew I had hit a home run when he smelled them and grinned and told me they "smelled like home".

Endings and a Babymoon

2009-02-08T12:17:00.003-05:00

It feels like ages since last Monday when I had my prenatal appointment. Everything's looking great. I only gained 2 lbs since my last appointment which makes up for my holiday gains. Good news. Surprisingly my appetite is back to normal, too. I had a few weeks where I was starving, but not so much now. Strange, as I thought I would just continue to get hungrier and hungrier.

I was very preoccupied this week with finishing up at my job. It was depressing cleaning all my things from my desk and taking down my pictures. It felt like the last day of school, cleaning out my desk or my locker. Seeing something familiar so bare and impersonal is very disconcerting. My coworkers were wonderful and threw a big party for me on Wednesday with more cookies than I had ever seen in one place in the library! Thursday was my last day and it was difficult. But, I'll be visiting and everything will feel better once I'm settled into my new job. A lot of people seemed shocked I was only taking a long weekend before jumping into my new job. But, honestly, when you only get two weeks on vacation a year a three day weekend feels absolutely luxurious. Also, I'll only be working three and a half days a week. You can't work much less than that.

Friday and Saturday Tom and I drove up to Amherst, MA for a little babymoon. We ate at Red Lobster for lunch and stopped at the Springfield Armory on the way up. And then Tom sat in the car with the laptop while I ran into Webs Yarn Store and got some pretty yarn to make a hat for my sister, a hat for the baby, and a scarf for myself. That evening we went to Pizza Hut for dinner and swam in the hotel pool.

Saturday we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to the Eric Carle Museum. One of the galleries was closed so we actually got in for half price. And I saw that they're going to have a Tomie DePaola exhibit this Fall which I think would be fun to see with baby and my mom (since Tomie DePaola is one of her favorite authors). We walked around Amherst and saw some bookstores and had lunch at the Amherst Brewing Company (too bad I couldn't try their beer). Our last stop was at the Amherst College Natural History Museum, which had some really interesting trace fossils on exhibit. Overall, a fun and relaxing trip.

A couple of sickos

2009-02-01T12:50:00.003-05:00

We've been going through the kleenex and oj at our house this week. I've had a head cold since last Sunday, and Tom developed a sore throat and cough towards the end of the week. Of course, what I needed was decongestants, which I'm not supposed to take. So it's been liquids, saline nose drops, and tylenol for me. Now, I've got thick mucus in the back of my throat that won't go away, but at least no more sinus headaches. And, bonus, my nose is starting to look like normal again.

As for baby, I have a prenatal appointment on Monday. I don't think I gained as much weight as last time since my appetite has been closer to normal than it had been. Our little guy has been getting stronger and stronger. I can feel some of his kicks from outside now. And Tom in the last couple days is starting to feel him, too. It's hard to believe I'm only a month away from third trimester. Even harder to believe this baby inside me will be a baby outside me in a few short months. I don't think I'll believe it until I'm holding him.

A former classmate recommended this cloth diaper trial I'm kind of excited about, http://jilliansdrawers.com/cdcm.html. I think the all-in-one diapers are super cute and look pretty easy, but I wasn't sure which brands to go with so it looks like this might be a good option for us.

Also, this coming week will be my last week at my current library, and I'll start my new job on Monday the 9th. I'm both sad and excited about the transition. My commute was awful last week with snow days and accidents leaving me stuck in traffic more than I have been in months. I suppose it's the cosmos telling me it's time to move on!

A week of minor disasters

2009-01-18T12:48:00.002-05:00

Monday I had a prenatal appointment. Baby's doing great, but I gained too much at once since my last appointment. Whoops! I'm not surprised though. What with Christmas and the stress of transitioning between jobs I can see why I wasn't as careful as I could have been. Now, that I'm watching what I'm eating I noticed I really was eating more than I normally would. So, hopefully I'll get my weight gain back on track.

Wednesday evening I went straight from work to Tom's department for a pizza party. We got home around 7:30pm. Tom went to his office to get something and felt the carpet squish under his feet. He looked up and saw that our laundry closet was drenched and dripping! We called a handyman and turned off the water, which thankfully minimized the damage. The handyman had to take out the ceiling in the laundry closet to find the leak. It turns out they were running out of pipe when building our condo and kinked a pipe instead of extending it. And, the time was right for a needle sized hole to pop open. If we had noticed the leak any later we would have had more significant damage. As it is the pipe is fixed, and the dryer vent is reconnected, it had apparently been stretched too far and disconnected as well. The handyman put up new drywall and did two tapings for us, and Tom plans to do the last and then paint the closet with Killz primer. Washer/dryer and carpet all seem to have outlasted the deluge which is a huge relief.

We've also been resettling after the siding project. With just minor things left to fix we were given the okay to move things back! It's been just wonderful to put things back where they belong after a couple months. So, more resettling and relaxing is in store for the long weekend.

Changes, changes

2009-01-11T12:22:00.004-05:00

Big news this week. I turned in my notice at my current job; I will be starting a new position at a different library on Mon. Feb. 9th. The library is only 25 minutes from as opposed to my current library which is 45 minutes from home. The position is part-time which I wouldn't have considered before I was pregnant. But, being part-time with baby is very appealing.

I had a difficult time turning in my notice since I like my coworkers so much. I just had to remind myself that change is always scary but usually for the best. My new coworkers will be just wonderful, too, I'm sure.

All the work drama has left me completely unmotivated both at work and with projects at home. We have a half bath waiting for some paint and some hallway trim that I've been working on painting for, ohhh, probably a year now. I have some maternity pants that need hemming. And, I'm also dreaming of some knitting projects for baby; maybe a hat, or a sweater, or a stuffed monkey. I have every intention of tackling the bathroom today. We'll see how that goes.

The renovations on the outside of our house are still in progress. The new siding seems to be up on all units now. But, we had water bubbles under the paint in the nursery again. The contractor thinks it's from the door the previous owner put in himself on the balcony. So, we think that means a new door for us sometime soon. Hopefully, the work will be finished soon. We really want to put our furniture back as we've had everything pushed away from the windows in the nursery and the living room since early November.

Holiday Recap

2009-01-04T13:27:00.004-05:00

Tom and I managed to make it back to Iowa for the holidays. I had a little drama getting on to my flight home (arriving at the airport 90 minutes before my flight was almost not enough time). But once I was on everything went quite smoothly despite some delays. I got to spend a few days with my family. I had a minor meltdown when I realized maternity clothes were too big but I couldn't fit into my regular clothes anymore. So, I got my hair chopped off! I actually really like the haircut, so I'm glad I did it.

Christmas Eve and morning with my family was great and then we went on to spend Christmas Day with Tom's family after a slight delay. We were borrowing a car and managed to lock the keys inside it while it was running. Good old AAA got someone there within in hour even though it was a holiday. To top off our exciting Christmas Day I was sitting in my in-laws vibrating recliner couch and the baby really did not like it. Since baby was kicking up a storm I told Tom to come over. I turned off the chair, and Tom got a good hard kick in his hand! What a Merry Christmas!

Unfortunately, I did get stuck in Chicago overnight on the way home due to fog. Thankfully my sister was able to get me and I could crash at her place for the night. The next morning I was put on Tom's flight, and I got to sit in first class. So, it turned out to be not such a bad thing.

Tuesday, we had our "big ultrasound"! And the technician and two nurses separately told us that our baby is a little boy! I'm a little disappointed to be missing out on bonnets and dresses, but I think I had a hunch all along it was a little guy in there. Tom and I are winnowing down our name list, but we're going to keep a couple of options so that we can name him once we see him. I can't believe I'm halfway done with this pregnancy already. Less than 150 days until we meet our little boy. I'm able to feel his kicks pretty often now. I feel him moving every day, but he's been hanging out in my nice and roomy pelvis so the kicks tend to be in my bladder. Oof, there's one now! Ha! For those who follow this kind of thing, at 19 weeks he is the size of a large heirloom tomato. But, on Tuesday he was 3/4 lb. so Tom was calling him our "little hamburger".

Baby Boy says "hi"!

New Year's Eve involved a shortened work day for me due to snow. Then Tom and I decided the snow would keep people home so we went ahead and went out to Red Lobster for dinner. I accidentally ordered a full order of rainbow trout instead of the half order I usually get, but somehow managed to clean my plate. I'm thinking it will be a long time before I remember what being full feels like. We watched Horton Hears a Who at home, and I was in bed at 11pm! On New Year's Day we did a sparkling grape juice toast to 2009 and had some Norwegian lefse.

Here's hoping for a wonderful 2009 for all of you!

Week 16

2008-12-14T20:50:00.003-05:00

16 weeks has been an exciting baby week for me! We are the length of an avocado now, which is crazy because I remember getting excited about grape sized! I felt a couple of flutters this week, too. It felt like my eye was twitching but it was in my abdomen. And a couple mornings I've woken up to a lop-sided belly. I could feel how hard my stomach was, and knowing my baby was right under my hand was surreal. I'm starting to just barely show if I wear the right things to show it off. I'm still hoping for a baby belly for Christmas, forget the presents!

Christmas parties are in full swing out here! I had a departmental party Friday night, which was fun. And Saturday night we went to Tom's professor's house for a holiday party. We're having difficulty finding someone to watch the cat this year, though. We'll have to get that figured out soon, as we'll be heading back West for home this coming weekend.

We've got some snow

2008-12-07T11:35:00.003-05:00

Things are a little wet and slushy out here, we've got a nice coating of snow! Certainly feels festive which is good since we can't get to our Christmas decorations due to the repairs. Which, by the way, are progressing nicely. We have the framework for our new balcony railing upstairs, and our soon-to-be nursery is no longer open to the elements. Hopefully it will all be finished by Christmas.

Speaking of holidays, Thanksgiving was nice. We went to our friends' house for turkey day itself and played some wii afterwards. All in all, a lovely day. And Saturday my sister, Mary came for a visit. So we cooked her a second dinner Sunday and have been enjoying the leftovers all week! It was good to see some family if even for a little while.

In baby news we had our first trimester screening ultrasound the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and found out baby was too big to do the test! Baby was measuring 8 days bigger than he/she should have been, but they didn't change our due date. So as of last Tuesday baby was almost exactly 3.5 inches rump to head, and I'm sure we're even bigger now.

Look at our little baby tushie shot!

I think this is about where we got to see some kicks.
Tom also told me to stop squishing the baby with the placenta.

So all is well. We're already excited about our big anatomy scan on Dec. 30th. I also checked out Raising Baby Green from the library. I didn't learn much from it, but Tom and I were very interested in the diaper chapter. We're thinking about trying cloth diapers with flushable liners. Of course, we're still learning more about it, but anybody with any experience or advice, feel free to share.

Rainy Days

2008-11-16T11:47:00.004-05:00

Not too much new this week. It was damp and rainy all week, so the work on our condo was pretty much nonresistant. We ended up with a new leak through the window frame on the first floor, but the sun is shining today. Hopefully, everything will dry out and we'll they'll do lots of great work this week, and we can have everything fixed and ready to go for when my sister comes to visit over Thanksgiving!

I finished a big people book this week. The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent, about the Salem witch trials. It enjoyed it enough to finish it, but it was a little bit of a downer for my tastes. But, it did get fabulous reviews in the journals.

Friday night after work I went over to the Geology building and we chatted with people and got some pizza at the night before, preemptive rain daily Princeton/Yale tailgate. Yay for free pizza and friends. And, one of Tom's fellow grad students also has a wife who's pregnant so Saturday night we went over to their house for dinner. So, a full weekend for usually, not quite so social us.

In baby news this week, we continue growing. I went out and bought the first thing I've gotten for Baby. I bought a five-set of onesies. At 12 weeks, I figured it was time I got something! This was a week of funny smells. One day at work this week, I smelled banana peels all day. What was frustrating was trying to figure out for half the day why that weird smell was so familiar. And yesterday morning our house smelled strongly of bleach, but believe me, this house has seen no bleach for quite awhile. I had to unbutton a pair of my pants this week, so I'd feel a little more comfortable but really no belly yet. I'm already really looking forward to our next ultrasound on Nov. 25th!

And construction begins!

2008-11-10T09:32:00.003-05:00

We had a lovely surprise on Saturday. There was bang, bang, banging on our building! Construction has finally started on our crumbling facade! Increased condo fees are not good, but having a deck that is not condemned and no longer having a leak in the soon-to-be nursery will be a relief. So, last night we were running around moving back furniture from the front half of our building. And, naturally we will be living in chaos for the next few weeks, but we're hoping it will all be over by Thanksgiving. Especially since that's when my sister's coming and seeing our house for the first time and meeting Lyla. Speaking of Lyla, she will not like the repairs as she's being penned in Tom's office while the work is happening. That's like torture for a cat who doesn't like to have any doors closed to her.

In this week's baby news we had an appointment with the nurse midwife this week. I'm not particularly thrilled with him, because the whole point of a nurse midwife is to have someone who will spend more time with you explaining things, and hopefully be there with you more during the labor. This guy always seems in a hurry and made it a point to emphasize that if I'm in labor on a weekend he won't be there. At least I'm getting care, and I know someone from the practice will be there when I finally do pop. And, at the appointment Tom did get to hear the heartbeat. I also agreed to have a first trimester risk assessment to check if I'm a carrier for any genetic disorders, and we get an extra ultrasound to check for any warning signs for other problems. I don't really think anything is wrong, but yay for extra ultrasounds! So, that will happen later this month.

Exciting News

2008-11-02T11:19:00.005-05:00

First bit of exciting news. I am newly committed to blogging on a regular basis. I have decided to set the timer for 30 minutes after church and make myself sit down and post a little. Partly, to keep family and friends up to date, but mostly for myself to remember what I'm up to (even if it doesn't seem like anything special at the time).

And the second bit of exciting news, and a big reason why there are things in my life I want to remember, is that Tom and I are expecting! I've been waiting to have kids for a long time, and even though we don't feel ready financially, I think Tom and I are ready as a couple and as individuals. So, yay! Due date is May 27th, 2009. Right between our birthdays and just before our five year anniversary.

I had a hunch right away that I might be pregnant because I was getting sick a lot. (Not the way you'd expect, the other way). I also had some bad anxiety attacks. I was about ready to go to the doctor because I thought I had a virus or infection or something, when I realized I should be getting my period soon. About at this time I realized it was anything carbonated that was making me so sick. And then Tom left for China. Three days after he left I took a pregnancy test, and got two pink lines immediately! So Tom got a picture of the stick in his inbox.

I waited to tell family until my parents came to visit, so I could tell somebody in person. But I didn't quite believe it until I went to the doctor and got an ultrasound. Mom came with me and we both cried. The little heartbeat was absolutely amazing, and I was so thrilled I could care less about the 10 vials of my blood they took for testing.

So far I've been very lucky with morning sickness. Between weeks 6 to 8 I felt pretty icky, but I never felt like I was going to vomit. It was more of a lingering mix of motion sickness and hunger. My most significant symptoms have been increased gas and burping.

We're at 10 1/2 weeks right now and everything still seems to be going great. I get nutritional counseling on Monday and then I won't go back to the doctor until I'm 2nd trimester.

So out East here, we're excited, nervous, excited, anxious, excited. 6 1/2 months to go!

Summer at the Library

2008-07-21T09:42:00.002-05:00

We've been very busy at the library this summer. This past week we had a very successful Hannah Montana party and our annual Pet Show. I was shocked to find out it was the 32nd Annual Pet Show! That's a lot of years of pets.

Tom's home, but feeling under the weather. And we're looking forward to seeing his folks who are coming for two weeks starting on July 25th!

In Spain

2008-06-15T11:12:00.003-05:00

Hola! Tom and I are in Madrid!

My flights went smoothly getting out here. I flew directly from Hartford to Amsterdam, which was nice. But, the plane wasn't as fancy as when I flew United to China. On that flight I had my own little tv in the seat in front of me to pick movies or watch our flight status, and they served us meals from menus. On my NWA flight here they just had a basic plane with tv's along the middle, and we all had to watch 27 Dresses which I just saw at home a week ago. The Amsterdam airport was nice, and everyone spoke English which was convenient.

Tom's flight came in 30 minutes before mine so he met me in the baggage claim and we took a taxi together to our hotel, which is really pretty by the way. http://www.hotel-atlantico.com/

My body's clock is still off. Tom and I both took siestas today and yesterday, but last night I had trouble sleeping. We'll see about tonight. When we arrived I had lunch at McDonald's (I know, very Spanish, eh?). And before dinner we walked around the area and found Puerto de Sol, and had hamburgers at a restaraunt close to our hotel, and I had Spanish red wine. Which, by the way, the wine is cheaper than the soda (not good considering Diet Coke, here called Coke Light is Tom's vice).

Today Tom and I had Dunkin Coffee (ie Dunkin Donuts) for breakfast, Tom with a mini pizza, myself with a cafe con leche. Then we went and found Puerto de Sol again and saw a protest. We walked to Plaza Mayor and found El Rastro which is an outdoor flea market. We only walked around part of it though. Then we found a restaraunt and sat al fresco. I had a dish with sauteed mushrooms, asparagus, and some jamon ham. Tom drank Coke Light and I had Vino tinto de vaino, which I think is like a wine spritzer. I wanted Sangria but it comes in a pitcher and I didn't want Tom to have to drag me back to the hotel. I'm not sure what's open this evening, but we'll at least be heading back out for dinner.

So far, I've been really impressed with how lively the streets are. The buildings are beautiful and there are performers in many of the plazas: living statues, puppets, music, a performing goat, etc.

I've been slipping...

2008-05-30T09:30:00.007-05:00

Sorry I've been letting this go for so long. Alas, if I'm going to update my blog I've been updating my work blog.

Tom and my trip to Boston way back at the beginning of the month was fantastic. We had lots of fun. The Amtrack train was really comfortable, and we much preferred it to dealing with Boston traffic. And, we got Dunkin Donuts for breakfast which we ate on the train (and Tom got chocolate chip muffin all over himself).

We arrived on Saturday and went to our hotel (which had the comfiest hotel bed I've ever stayed in). After leaving our bags we went out to Fanueil Hall for lunch. We both got pulled porksandwiches, but since we could only find a bench to sit on I managed to spill my Diet Coke all over Tom and made him drop his french fries. I felt bad, because usually my clumsiness only affects myself. I got a really cute teapot that I picked out and Tom bought for me at a store in the area (it's polka dotted and the pot sits on it's own cup, super cute).

Then, we went to the Aquarium. The aquarium was very busy so we had to wait to look into any of the tanks, and frankly there just wasn't that much there, although the penguins were very cute. Chicago's Aquarium and the Aquarium in the Omaha Zoo are both still much better than anything we've seen out east.

We went back to our hotel for a bit and then went out to Fenway Park for a Red Sox game. I think I would've had a much better time if it wasn't $7.50 for a Miller Lite (sheesh, it's like paying $7.50 for water) and it hadn't been so darn cold. But, it was a great birthday nonetheless.

Sunday we went out and walked the Freedom Trail. We stopped at the Green Dragon Tavern for lunch, and although it was touristy it was pretty good. After wandering around the Freedom Trail and Faneuil Hall area some more we got our bags and went and hung out at the train station and read for a couple hours and ate dinner at the concession area. Overall, a great trip.

Speaking of trips, Tom will be leaving me for six weeks while he goes on his European Grand Tour. Denmark, Spain, France, and Germany to look at rocks in museums. It's a good thing he's not doing anything interesting while he's out there, or I'd be jealous! I will be joining him for a week in Spain, though, which I'm super excited about. I can look at castles while he's networking, sounds like a great arrangement to me!

Look what my kiddies made for me!

2008-05-22T13:38:00.002-05:00

Click here to see how much my library little ones love me! Hee hee!

Beer and Book Club...anyone?

2008-04-29T15:13:00.003-05:00

Unfortunately, all the readers I know are non-drinkers...

Book-Beer Pairings from Omnivoracious

This article lists different books and authors, and like wine and food pairings, the authors themselves recommend beers to drink alongside their books.

Thank goodness I don't have to do any reader's advisory for adult fiction, because I didn't know many of these authors or books. I know Chip Kidd, though, and apparently his book The Learners has a scene where they drink Rolling Rock at Modern Apizza in good old New Haven! Another book to add to my "to read" list (which is mind-bendingly long).

Soon to Boston

2008-04-17T12:57:00.002-05:00

Well, I'd been meaning to write about my trial, but I haven't had time to sit down and do it justice. I'm still meaning to, so maybe it will show up one of these days. The ants have been receeding slowly, which is good. But, some are still lingering in odd places.

Tom and I are planning to take a trip up to Boston on my birthday, which should be fun! We're planning on walking the Freedom Trail, and then the next day going to the aquarium and maybe something else. We'd love to see some used book stores, so maybe that will happen. We'll be staying in a hotel right by Faneuil Hall called the Harborside Inn. Yay for trips!

I've been slowly plugging away at painting our baseboards-- I got the frame around the front door looking all spiffy. Which, coincidentally, makes the cream colored caulking on the floor tiles look that make dingier...sigh.

The search for the perfect new-to-us car continues. We're currently considering anything with high mpg's, which means we're looking at Hondas, Toyotas, and some Volkswagons. Anybody had good experiences with anything like that?

The scarf that never ends and spring ants

2008-03-29T14:11:00.004-05:00

This Wednesday I finally finished the scarf that never ends... yay! So, I will be attempting a matching hat now, and hopefully it will be done before I need it next winter. I'll take pictures of it after I block it (if I can figure that out).

I've got extended jury duty this coming week since I was selected for a trial. I think they wanted me on the jury because I don't know anybody in the area, I don't really know the area well, I try to have an open mind, and I only read children's books. This is apparently supposed to go all week, but I'm thinking it may not. After speaking with administration at work, I really hope it doesn't. They expect me to come in and work on Saturday, because it was my regularly scheduled day. They said the only thing they are required to do is not dock my pay, and it's too bad I have to spend my day off in court. So, I had a disgruntled employee week. Ah well.

We've been having a small ant problem. Lots of little ants are literally coming out of the woodwork to keep us company. So we have many ant traps out, which seem to be helping. Since there were a couple ant traps here when we moved in, this might be an annual problem.

Money's also been much on my mind this week. We met briefly with the loan officer for our condo association's loan to (hopefully) finally get our exterior work done. This would double our monthly condo fees, which would equal about a third of our mortgage every month. And, I would love to do more home improvement projects, but we may not have the money for that. And frankly, at this point, anything we would be doing to the inside wouldn't add much value with the exterior looking like...well, not matching the interior. We are seriously considering a "new to us" car, which is more money to be worrying about. And all of this doesn't even take into account any bigger plans we may be dreaming of.

Lyla kitty is enjoying the sunshine through the window right now...except she must have read my thoughts because she just hopped up on my lap and is giving me her "aren't you going to move that so I can sit there" look. And while I was typing this I had to push her paw off the laptop half a dozen times. So cute.

Thank goodness for daylight savings

2008-03-14T18:33:00.002-05:00

My apologies for not posting since Chicago. I'm back home safe and sound. I was a little down after coming back. Perhaps it was the late winter, because I've been in much better moods since daylight savings kicked in. It's so nice to come home and still have sunshine. I had jury duty this week and was selected for a trial coming up in early April. After I got home though I wasn't feeling especially well. Everyone at the library has been dropping like flies healthwise. I was a little concerned because it wasn't like my cycle like cold-- it started in my chest. I was coughing up phlegm even though I didn't have any drainage. So I went to a walk in clinic and found out I had bronchitis and an upper respiratory infection. So, I'll be resting up this weekend.

Trip to Chicago

2008-02-19T10:40:00.002-05:00

So, here I am in Chicago (for a few more hours). Friday I came out to see my sister and I'll be flying home today. The trip out went really well. I was supposed to leave at 7:00 and have a layover in DC, arriving at 10:30. Well, they overbooked my flight so they offered me a later nonstop flight instead, which sounded great to me. I think the airlines charge you ridiculous amounts for non-stop flights which is ridiculous, because Chicago is United's hub. But anyway I got on the flight and thought I might have an empty seat beside me. It turns out a girl was supposed to sit there and she was nervous about sitting without her mom. So, her mother asked if I would mind switching with her. It turns out she was sitting in first class. Woo hoo! And, I also got a $100 voucher because they switched my flight. And to top off my lucky streak we arrived at 9:30, a full hour earlier than my original flight. Of course, my bag was still on the original flight, but that wasn't the end of the world by any means.

Poor Mary was sick throughout my visit. So, hopefully I won't be catching it, since she was a nasty cough. On the way back from the airport we got quite lost. But anyone who knows Mary and I in a car knows how lost we can get. There were so many pot holes, but these aren't pot holes they're like pot chasms. In any case Mary ended up getting a flat sometime when we were driving around. And we had a couple guys helping us, but the tire was stuck from all the salt and rust. We had to get a tow guy to come and knock it with a sledge hammer at $20 per blow (that wasn't what her charged us, that's just what I figured after doing the math= 2 blows and $40 total). And, on the way to Firestone the donut got a flat as well! Thankfully, we were only a block away at that point, so we just rode on the flat. Oi!

And I'll be heading home today. It's been bitterly cold here in Chicago, and apparently in the 40s back in Connecticut, so I won't be too upset to be going back home.

Another Article for You

2008-02-07T15:22:00.000-05:00

Shelters for Dickens, Shakespeare and the Homeless by Chip Ward

This is a fantastic article about what it's like dealing with the homeless in a public library. The article is very well written and certainly made me wonder about the way I see the homeless that come into our library.

A great quote...

"The cost of this mad system is staggering. Cities that have tracked chronically homeless people estimate that a typical transient can cost taxpayers $20,000 to $150,000 a year. You could not design a more expensive, wasteful or ineffective way of providing healthcare to individuals who live on the street than by having librarians dispense it through paramedics and emergency rooms."

Bad Weather in China

2008-02-05T11:04:00.000-05:00

China rail trip becomes 61-hour ordeal

Wow! This story tells about one man's arduous 61 hour train journey. The longest train trip I was on was the 12 hour express from Nanjing to Beijing, and I thought it was awful! I can just imagine what all that trash was like, ick. And the descriptions of the train bathroom left a lot out, I'm sure. Keep in mind that these trains have proportionately small amounts of beds. Most of these passengers would be in "hard seats". These are less comfortable than plane seats, but with slightly more legroom (provided that the person facing you isn't hogging the space). And, there are always "standing room" passengers as well who will grab your seat if you get up for a moment and can be very reluctant to give it up. Egads-- I would've had a mental breakdown.

A Dreary Day

2008-01-30T15:52:00.000-05:00

This morning was a down kind of morning. At the end of the month I tend to have fewer storytimes, which means I have less to do. I love doing nothing, but I like to do nothing at home-- not at work. If I have to be someplace(like, oh say, work), I want to be busy.

Also, I had a minor confrontation with one of our tutors on Monday evening. She doesn't like waiting so she will always interrupt me, regardless of if I'm speaking to a child or an adult. She had sent one of her students up to me to sign up for the internet, which I did not let him do because he was 17. Our computers are only for children under twelve. So, she interrupted me to complain that they've always used these computers and wanting to speak to "whoever was in charge". Which, I was happy to tell her was me. My supervisor sympathized with me during the day Tuesday, but after speaking with the tutor on Tuesday night mentioned at our meeting this morning that it was okay to let this particular student use the internet because he was special ed. Although she had told the tutor that internet usage was at the librarian's discretion, I still have the lingering feeling that she didn't back me up enough. I told her we should have a written policy for tutors so that we all treat them the same and don't get hit with "but so-and-so always lets me do that", but she told me that was unnecessary. ::sigh::

But, the sun came out this afternoon and I got some new projects to work on. I'm going to weed our small shelf of concept books and finish up with the duplicate copy weeding she hasn't had time to go through. Also, I'm newly committed to finishing the improvements I started on months ago for our Homework Help page. And I have craft group tonight so I can work on the scarf-that-never-ends.

I'm so jealous of my parents and aunt who will be heading out to Aruba this weekend. With these post-holiday doldrums I could use a little sun and sand myself. I guess I'll have to be happy with my trip out to Chicago over President's Day weekend (which will be fantastic, too, I'm sure!)

I've got the sniffles... again

2008-01-24T15:25:00.000-05:00

This must be the winter of the neverending cold. I'm sick for two weeks and healthy for two weeks, sick for two, healthy for two, and on and on. The whole cycle started in November, so I'm getting a little frustrated at this point. I'm planning on breaking down and finally calling around and finding a general practitioner on Friday (I have the day off since I'm working Sunday).

I was quite frustrated last week. I brought the car in for an oil change, and lo and behold they found something else to fix. Not that I'm surprised-- with a car as old as ours, there will always be something. It's just difficult to know if that something is really necessary to fix or not. This time it was the rear struts and springs. Apparently this is a pretty common ailment for Fords. After looking online and reading about springs going and shredding insides of tires to pieces, I decided this was indeed a necessary fix. But, I've just about had it with our car. If we're making $500-$1000 worth of repairs every time I get an oil change I'm not sure it's worth it anymore.

If anyone didn't get our belated Christmas letter, let me know!

ALA Youth Media Awards Are Out!

2008-01-14T13:41:00.000-05:00

This year's Newbery and Caldecott were announced this morning.
http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2008/january2008/announce08.htm

Elijah of Buxton and the Wednesday Wars both got honors, but lost out to
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz
Which, I have not yet read, but heard great things about.

The real shocker is that the Caldecott Award (for best illustrations), has historically been reserved for picture books. But the winner is a very thick illustrated novel.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

I Recommend...

2008-01-11T15:03:00.000-05:00

I've been going crazy placing holds on new release movies at the library. And once I get into the adult portion of the library I find myself checking out big people books. So, I decided to give you my three favorites I enjoyed over the holiday season in three seperate catagories.

Three Adult/Teen Books I Loved

1) Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen Two estranged sisters find themselves, each other, and their true loves with the help of their own subtle magics. Not overly sweet, I found this book completely satisfying. The older I get, the harder it is to find books that I can't put down, and this was one. Upon rereading it, I'm sure I'd have criticisms, but not right now. Realistic, romantic fantasy at it's best-- this book was what convinced me to blog this list.

2) A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Housseini Everyone's talking about this book, which means that it probably never could have met all my expectations. But, it was still really good. Hosseini did a fantastic job of balancing story, character, and setting. Like the Kite Runner, the book is emotionally difficult to read, but still is ultimately uplifting. I suppose you'd say he's fantastic at writing bittersweetly. My only complaint is that I didn't appreciate the self-sacrificing nature of one of the main characters, which is a personal preference and I don't believe a flaw on the writer's behalf. This would be a great book group book, because they're a lot to think and discuss about in this one.

3) Twilight by Stephanie Meyer and sequels New Moon and Eclipse This is admittedly, a guilty pleasure. In a nutshell, this series is like Romeo and Juliet-- if Romeo were a vampire and Juliet had irresistable blood. Meyer writes like Janet Evanovich-- it's breezy and quick with a main character who is your typical girl next door who finds herself in odd, chaotic situations. Not much happens plot-wise in the first 3/4 of each book, but I loved them anyway.

A caveat about me as a reader:
Every reader has unique reading preferences. I like to analyze myself as an excercise in reader's advisory. Just because I like these books does not mean you will like these books. I enjoy reading books that have strong character development, preferably with exotic and detailed settings that are not like my own. I find myself ultimately dissatisfied with a book if there is not any romance in it, but I do not actually like any books that could be ascribed to the genre "romance". I like happy endings, but with some loose ends left.

Three Movies I Loved

1) Bourne Ultimatum If you didn't like the first two movies, you won't like this third one. But my dad and I both agree this is the best of the three.

2) Jane Eyre This is an almost perfect representation of the book. I love the actress who was chosen to play Jane, she is beautiful, but not in a conventional way. And they got all the most important parts of the book. If you don't want to read the book, this is the best substitute. Although, in my personal opinion you should read the book and then enjoy the movie, and repeat ad nauseum.

3) Stardust
A funny romantic fantasy adventure. Based on Neil Gaiman's book, which I have never read. Although in general, I find I love Gaiman's premises just not his execution. So, this was a perfect compromise! So... who's going to buy it for me?

Three Great Kids Books

1) Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis My favorite children's books are the ones that have deeper meanings. Children can read what's there and appreciate the story itself, but as they grow the book shows them things-- about life, humanity and love. But these things aren't preachy or didactic, they're just there to be absorbed in the child's brain and will appear days, weeks, or months later. I think this is one of those books. Elijah is the first child to be born free in Buxton, Canada at the end of the underground railroad. Elijah is a soft boy who cries and panics easily and just wants to be treated like an adult. The books shows different events from Elijah's eleventh year, but the most powerful moments are the ones that involve slaves, both recently freed and still trapped. I'm rooting for this one for the Newbery.

2) The Perfect Nest by Catherine Friend This is sooo cute! Run to the bookstore and flip through it. I can't wait to read it for storytime.

3) The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt
This book is a funny and touching account of a boy in seventh grade during the Vietnam War. Holling has to spend every Wednesday afternoon with his teacher while the rest of his class is at Catholic catechism class or Jewish synagogue class. It's hard to describe this book, so I'll just tell you to read it-- you won't regret it. This is my colleague's favorite for he Newbery.

An update, "finally"

2008-01-07T10:16:00.000-05:00

Sorry to all who have been upset because I haven't been blogging. I've been busy with the holiday season and whatnot. We had a snowstorm out here that left me with a three-hour long one-way commute as oppossed to my usual 45 minutes. Thank goodness I didn't have to go north of Hartford, apparently that was tremendously worse. I now have a new definition of a Nor'easter. A Nor'easter means that it is going to snow, and there will be mass panic. The snow is not so bad, people's reactions are infinitely worse.

Tom and I went home for the holidays. The flight out ran like clockwork. We got to spend some time with both sides of the family and had some great food. Tom's been a happy camper because he was able to get a nice toolkit with the gift cards and cash he was given. I'm not sure if I have all this right but I think it came with a drill, a circular saw, a radio, a router?, ummm, and other things he's really excited about and I'm sure I will be too. Okay, correction, I'm excited about the potential for home improvement projects. Speaking of which Tom has down some psuedo-new carpet in the hallway. He's not very happy with the results, but I am. And he painted the unfinished pantry door. I did some baseboard painting and put up and took down Christmas decorations.

My computer has been out of commission as well, which has also severely hampered my ability to blog.

Oh, and the cat projectile vomited on the coffee table, my CD player, and the rug this morning--all in one shot.

A Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-24T12:48:00.000-05:00

It's been a month of the sniffles so far. Tom came back from his GSA conference with a cold and was kind enough to share it with me... for weeks. We thought we were both better but then it flared up again for us both this week. Ironically, I think I had a cold last Thanksgiving as well because I remember washing my hands an inordinate amount of times on both occasions. Counting us we had 14 for Thanksgiving this year! Inspired by Tom's mom, Ellamae, I made the turkey, potatoes, dressing, gravy and rolls and had everyone else bring sides, desserts, and beverages and it worked out great. We started at 1:00 and no one left until 9:00pm. I would say that was a successful party! There's nothing better than a great group of people, good food, and some board games.

Tom and I have also been attempting to change the carpeting on the landing from the entrance to the first floor. The carpet there was evergreen green which didn't match anything in the whole house except for the pantry. So we ripped it up. I was hoping to refinish the floor underneath but apparently it's not wise to refinish pine, as apparently everyone in the world but me knew. We found out that you can just replace the tread, which I was keen on doing. But ultimately we decided since it is just a temporary house for us we would just recarpet matching the rest of the place with a cream berber. We're trying to use the remnant we had and cut it ourselves. So, so far it's just laying over the steps. The cat loves it. My knitting is proceeding slowly with a rib stitch scarf that I can now officially put all the way around my neck-- I'm only adding an inch or two a week.

Funny Cats

2007-10-31T19:35:00.000-05:00

I love lolcats. And I only had 5 trick or treaters come to my house. Boo! Now I'm inundated with candy... very not good since I've been eating candy at work all month.

Happy Halloween

2007-10-31T14:57:00.000-05:00

Check out this list of Haunted Libraries. Although I'm not convinced many of them are very haunted if at all. Books fall off our shelves all the time but I don't think it's because of the librarian who used to work here but died and now she's come back and is knocking over picture book displays.

I forgot to bring my camera in to work today, but I am Charlotte the spider this year!

To make my costume...

1. I sewed together some fabric that I found called "gorilla fur" into simple arms that tapered at the bottom.
2. I cut an oval out of some cardboard. I placed some batting on one side of the cardboard and covered both cardboard and batting with simple black fabric with staples and hot glue.
3. I stuffed the furry arms with a little bit of batting for shape and hot glued them to the back of the cardboard.
4. I hot glued some elastic towards the top on the back of the cardboard to make a kind of backpack with arms.
5. I sewed up some furry hair wrist bands.
6. Using fishing line like it was thread, I sewed all of my arms together and connected them to the wristband. I found that shorter was better so that my arms moved more when I did.

I didn't feel like going overboard but it also would've been neat if I painted extra eyes on my face. The kids loved shaking my spider legs. One of my co-workers wouldn't tell me what costume she was planning, so I didn't tell her what I was planning. Great minds think alike! She was Charlotte's web. She took a large spider web and threw it around herself and used cut-out letters connected to the front to spell "TERRIFIC". We made a great pair!

More Fall Fun

2007-10-23T20:01:00.001-05:00

Guess who's pumpkin is whose?

That wasn't too hard, was it?

Tom and I went out to the "pumpkin patch" to get our pumpkins on an unseasonably warm day. It was packed. So much for a nice quiet day in the country. It was also a lot more expensive than I thought it would be. Perhaps a smaller operation would've been a better deal than the big farm with the corn maze. Or more likely the grocery store.

Megan and Lyla looking bewitching.

Tom being manly.

And a closeup of Tom's Trilo-pumpkin.

On a more serious note. A couple of weeks ago we were in church and for communion reflection we were singing "Peace is Flowing Like a River". I cannot hear that song without thinking back to grade school. I remember the day after Desert Storm we had a special prayer service, and we sang and sang and sang that song "...flowing out into the desert, setting all the captives free..." I have been singing for peace to flow into the Iraqi desert all my life. There are young women right now in Iraq, and all they remember is that their whole life we have been in their country with our armies. All I feel is a gnawing feeling of guilt, and I can't even begin to imagine what they're feeling. How can prayers make up for a life filled with war? Or, for that matter, how can money?

Definitely unseasonable and depressing ramblings, but mine nonetheless. By the by, things are moving and shaking in the work world-- anybody who wants to call and offer professional advice would be more than welcome.

Vermont in the Fall

2007-10-12T16:31:00.000-05:00

Tom and I went out on a little trip up through Massachusetts and into Vermont last weekend. It was so fun to drive around and see everything. All the scarecrows and pumpkins and leaves sure puts me in the Fall mood. I want to go back sometime and spend more time in Sheffield MA-- it looked like fun and we didn't really get a chance to get out and see anything. We stayed in Killington, VT and ate at a great restaurant called Charity's out there. Route 100 just north of there is beautiful in the fall. And we went up by Lake Champlain and eastern New York so Tom could see some rock cuts. Here's a picture bonanza.

Somewhere in NY while Tom was looking at rocks.

Picture with trees.

Awww. Don't I look pretty?

Stream off of Route 100 in VT.

Barn off of Route 100 in VT. (I was looking all weekend for a barn with good foliage in the background. We pulled off to get the trees and I turned around and saw this barn. It was perfectly providential.)

The mist looking fantastic in VT.

Tom and his rock cut in NY.

Looking sharp.

Lake Champlain.

More foliage. We were a little early, but still it was pretty.

Too many people at the Ben and Jerry's factory to take the tour, but we still got some ice cream and our picture taken with this truck.

More foliage.

The stream off of Route 100 again.

A cemetery in MA. I was particularly pleased with the way I got the late afternoon shadows off the tombstones.

Same cemetery. Just as pretty.

Lake Champlain again.

Pretty leaves.

Lake Champlain and Tom looking for his mystery rock cut.

I went to a craft group this week and someone showed me how to start knitting. It's not as if I needed another "hobby". I have enough things I know how to do, and like doing, I just can't seem to get around to them. But, this is kind of fun. See! I made a thing.

Pseudo-Political Stuff

2007-10-05T11:36:00.000-05:00

My coworker sent me this link-- I thought it was pretty interesting.

Candidate Match Game

Apparently I am most like

1) Joe Biden
2) Hillary Clinton
3) Dennis Kucinich

Let me know how you score!

You won't believe this!

2007-09-22T11:31:00.000-05:00

This article really frustrated me.

It's about a guy who wasn't allowed to get on his plane because he was reading a novel with a bomb on the cover! Would a real terrorist be stupid enough to read up on terrorism in an airport? I understand that the airline pulled him aside for questioning, but when they realized it was a novel and was benign that should've been the end of it.

The party went well last night, but I had to drag myself out of bed this morning to get to work. I was pretty tired. Ah well, it was worth it. Pictures of the place will be coming, but we forgot to take pictures during the party.

Feeling panicky

2007-09-17T20:26:00.000-05:00

Does anyone know what I'm forgetting? I have this terrible looming feeling I'm forgetting something. I know it can't be important, but I still have this gnawing worried feeling. I tried my usual lists, as keeping fanatic lists usually calms me down, but not so far. So, maybe what I'm forgetting was to blog. I know I've been meaning to blog a great cat story, but I kept putting it off for fear of not doing it justice. We're going to be throwing a We're All Moved in Happy Hour for Tom's colleagues this Friday which also has me more flustered than need be. We'll be serving beer, wine and soda. For foods I'll have a few warm heat up in the oven appetizers, carrots and dip, chips and salsa, cheetos and pretzels, and tasty ho-ho dessert cake. Okay, just typing that menu makes me feel better. Onto the cat story.
----------------

When we moved into our condo our three story hallway was a bright orangey pink, as I've already established. Tom and I strongly disliked the orange and felt compelled to change it. We chose "restful" a grey that came out looking more mint green-- still better than orange, we say. To prepare the hallway for the painting we meticulously taped the floorboards, the doors and the ceilings. We also removed light switch plates and ventilation grates so they would still look white.

The cat, of course, was very interested in the wall vent with no grate. This hole is about the size of a piece of paper, but directly at cat-level. I propped the grate in front of the hole--because what she can't see can't interest her, right? Well, this proved a new and interesting challenge and she decided to start batting at the grate to move it aside. So, I decided supervisory exploration was in order. Once she sees it she won't be interested anymore. So I let her sniff it. She looks at me. She sniffs it some more. Then she goes in even farther. So, I panicked and grabbed her away and promptly covered the vent in as much painter's tape as I could.

The vents stayed taped this way for a long week until we did the final painting. Tom decided the vent on the second floor needed some plastering and sanding before we painted it. This is because Tom thinks everything and anything just needs plastering and sanding (I think I'm getting tired of cleaning up his white dust everywhere). With sanding completed Tom headed upstairs to grab the paint. I happily pulled painter's tape off the walls. On his way back down the stairs we heard something funny.

"Reeooowww?" Thump. Thump. Thump.

Tom sounded like a sailor. The next thing I know he was trying to fit his whole head inside the 8x10 vent and calling, "Lyla? Kitty?" Interspersed with expletives, naturally. Finally we hear a feeble "meow?"

Okay, at least the cat's alive. Now we just have to get her out of the ductwork before she causes damage to herself or the vent-- hopefully without needing a chainsaw. She was using her panicked meow at this point which is exceptionally pitiful, but it sounded really close to us. Tom thought he could just reach in and get her-- I thought he wouldn't fit in far enough. So, I recommend a towel for her to climb up as I was running around looking for a flashlight. Tom looked like he was trying to dislocate his shoulder.

But, kitties don't go up. Kitties go down. Newton is usually right. So I headed downstairs, hoping for the best, and right at the foot of the stairs at the floor vent was Lyla, crouched down and meowing at me desperately. I never saw her move so fast as when I lifted up that grate. I never saw Tom hug her as hard as he did when he saw she was okay. Naturally, the cat was totally unfazed by any of this and was wondering what all the fuss was about. She ate for a couple of minutes and then went back up to inspect the grate some more as Tom finished screwing it in. At that point, we were tempted to send her back down--but wrapped in swiffer pads!

Just in Case You Didn't Already Know

2007-09-08T09:11:00.001-05:00

12 Great Reasons to Visit the Library

It's nice to see something written in support of libraries that wasn't authored by a librarian. I don't know how many of you use your library, but you all should! And while you're at it don't forget to use your librarian. Somedays I just sit at the desk watching a patron struggle with the catalog and wander around the room. I've already asked them twice if they need help, but they've declined. And yet I'm still sitting at my computer or shelf reading not far from them thinking, "Please let me help you... please let me help you... I can find it now... I can find something better than that book you think is going to work... please let me help you."

I don't know if it's true of all librarians but I get an awesome high from finding the perfect resource for someone. It's the thrill of the hunt, using the right search terms to get the most effective results, finding the book on the shelves straightaway, and seeing the patron's face light up, "that's just what I needed". I love my job, now I just need more people to let me do it!

Making a House a Home

2007-08-29T11:07:00.000-05:00

We have been painting. Painting, painting, painting. We had to cover over all the scratches, nicks, and dings we made moving in. And, seeing as Tom and I were not keen on the salmon/pumpkin/flamingo pink shade that was residing in our monstrous hallway (it changed based on the light) we decided to tackle that as well. Others would say, "it's not that bad" but we hated it, and frankly that's all that matters. We chose a light green/gray to replace it called "restful", and although the color
is quite restful the process of getting it up has not been. The difficulty is mostly due to the fact that our hallway has stairs and high ceilings. It's hard to paint high ceilings when the ladder has to be extended over and around flights of stairs. We now have a stripe of primer on our high ceilings which I'm thinking will be fixed by professionals. I'm anxious to get the hallway done so we can finally get the carpets cleaned (which are filthy).

Craigslist is my garage sale-ing heaven. I get to see all the used stuff without actually driving around and getting lost, and Tom and I found a great used matching couch and love seat for our living room oncraigslist . We had a terrible time getting the couch onto the elevator in the building of the seller, though. At one time they thought they were going to have to carry it down all 12 flights of stairs. After failing with only one of the twelve flights a second attempt on the elevator was made, and dismantling the ceiling paneling on the elevator worked pretty well.
Naturally after all that the couch wouldn't fit up our stairs either. We had to get some friends over, remove our patio doors and hoist the couch up a ladder and onto the balcony. It was a nightmare, and I had my hail mary's going the whole time. I was convinced we were going to lose Tom, or the couch, or the balcony, or all three. And that in the end we wouldn't be able to get the sliding doors back in. Thankfully, I was wrong and we now have grown-up comfy looking living room furniture.

Interestingly, our neighbor was asking us if we had broken our sliding door. When we told him we hadn't we just couldn't fit our couch up the stairs he looked very confused, then said, "Oh yeah, Terrence [the previous owner] put that door up." So, this makes our external french door in the hallway even more strange. Apparently he drywalled off the hallway so he could add a weatherproof door that we took down the day we moved in. Tom guessed that he probably spent $500 and who knows how many hours putting in this stupid door and we wish it wasn't there for a multitude of reasons. We would just reverse all his work, but that's too hard. So we're just leaving it off the frame until we decide to move and then we'll put it back up.
Really puts our home improvements into perspective though. We ask ourselves, will this be something the next owner will just want to change right away? Definitely food for thought on any project.

We also had a chance to go camping and I have poison ivy, sumac, something. It's not itching nearly as much today (hooray)!

So that's a few weeks in a nutshell. Oh, and href="http://newbritainherald.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?userphoto=&image=15759480">here's a picture of Tom doing his Prehistoric Creepy Crawly Bug Show presentation for our summer reading club.

Also, I've felt like this blog is a little disjointed between my professional ramblings and personal life so I went ahead and started a work blog. Hopefully this
will help me be more consistent at both. Here is is if you're interested.
Ms. Hegna's Library Links

Haven't I been saying this?

2007-08-09T15:19:00.001-05:00

Sorry for more links, but I felt vindicated when I saw this!

'Genius' videos may hinder baby development: study

Babies need interaction to learn-- they learn by playing, sticking things in their mouths, and watching and listening to the people around them. Children that little cannot comprehend that what they see on the television is supposed to represent a real object. I wonder if the results were due to the videos or rather to the lack of interaction that was happening because the child was in front of the TV. I watched one of these videos once and I couldn't stand it because it was geared towards babies by showing a baby on screen playing with a toy. Just give a toy to the baby instead! All of the baby "genius" music and videos and books are created by people out to make money-- not by actual child psychologists or pediatricians. If you want your baby to listen to classical music it doesn't have to be "Baby Einstein". And while we're on the topic, flash cards aren't going to help much either. I hope when I have children of my own I can just remember to give them my time and my love and they'll be just fine!

Disturbing Article About Kids and Marketing

2007-08-07T15:24:00.000-05:00

Lovin' it: McBranding hooks preschoolers, study finds

It's frightening how susceptible young ones are when it comes to marketing.

From Staff Development

2007-08-03T11:44:00.000-05:00

This is something the head of the Reference Dept. at my library put
together for our staff development day. Some of the links are really
interesting.

"Intro to Web 2.0
(Info and addresses to the web sites we talked about at staff development day.)

"O'Reilly
-- What Is Web 2.0 or http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
This is a good article sometimes a bit technical but filled with good information.

"The sites we visited:
www.google.com
From the main page menu you can access News and Maps
For others programs look on the menu under more – click on lab and products ( http://www.google.com/intl/en/option/)
google labs http://labs.google.com
"This is the best way – you can see all the products that Google has to offer!

"Or you can go direct with these addresses to the sites we visited:
-Google Voice local search - http://labs.google.com/goog411/
-Google sms
-http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/mobile/sms/
Get info on movies, weather, zip code etc as a text message on your cell phone

"Web 2.0 directory - www.go2web20.net/ - Great place to start! Great variety of web sites to sample. Can be done by your favorite subject if you look at top and click on Tags. Expect to play around and get lost with all this has to offer!

www.Flickr.com – photo sharing page
www.YouTube.com – where everyone can share their videos
www.myspace.com - a social networking website.
www.Del.ico.us.com - all your bookmarks in one page and accessible from wherever you are. See what others are bookmarking.
www.Librarything.com LibraryThing
- for storing and sharing personal library catalogs and book lists.
Includes reading lists and wish lists, and meet other users who have the same books.

"Danbury Public Library and LibraryThing Thingology (LibraryThing's ideas blog): Danbury, CT kicks off LibraryThing for Libraries! Check out their catalog – see how they use LibraryThing. It adds Tags, Other additions and similar titles! http://cat.danburylibrary.org

http://wiki.webjunctionworks.org/index.php/Sample_Library_Blogs
–see sample library blogs

"Learning 2.0 - The Things (http://plcmcl2-things.blogspot.com/)
Program developed at Public library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County to have their staff learn about Web 2.0

"Other sites:
-www.Geni.com
work on your family tree and share it with others.
-www.Technorati.com
an Internet search engine for searching blogs,
-www.buzzdash.com
polls on everything. See what others think!
-www.ipernity.com "

Harry Potter Party

2007-07-20T10:19:00.000-05:00

Harry Potter Party July 12, 2007

Outside the Community Room

Table 1 Ollivander’s Wand Shop
Activity: Wand-Making
Let children decorate their wands with the provided ingredients.

Table 2 The Sorting Hat
Activity: Sort children into houses
If the child already knows which house they are they can write an appropriate colored nametag immediately. If they do not know their house they can take the quiz or use the Sorting Hat 8 Ball. All children will get a silver sickle to spend on food at Honeydukes when they get their nametag. (Quiz based on this website-- Sorting Hat Quiz)

Inside the Community Room

Table 1 Potions Class
Activity: Quodpot Solution
Quodpot Solution is used in the pots serving as goals in the game of Quodpot (American Quidditch—see Quidditch Through the Ages) to keep the Quod from exploding. It’s also fun to play with.
Official Recipe:
Solution 1: Dissolve one Tbsp. Borax in one cup warm water. Stir until completely dissolved.
Solution 2: Stir together ¼ cup glue and ¼ cup water.
Mix equal parts of solution 1 and solution 2. Place in plastic bag with one or two drops of food coloring and knead until satisfied with consistency.

Table 2 Honeydukes
Activity: Food Table—Children get a cup of dragon snot and a piece of cauldron cake in exchange for their silver sickle.

Center 1 Paint Charms
Activity: Face Painting
Choices: Harry’s Scar
A Broomstick
Harry’s Glasses
Harry Potter Logo

Table 3 Defense Against the Dark Arts Class
Activity: The Riddikulus Spell: A Lesson in Fighting a Boggart
Supplies: Two piles of plain paper
Crayons
How To: From one pile of paper children will draw what they fear the most. To accomplish the Riddikulus Spell, they draw from the second pile of paper the thing they fear the most in a funny way. There will also be some Word Searches, Quizzes, etc. available. If a child completes the spell they should show their drawings to the table’s attendant for a bumper sticker prize.

Center 2 Care of Magical Creatures Class
Activity: Feed Norbert
How To: Norbert (the bean bag toss) will be fed by children when they toss the bean bags into his mouth. If they succeed they get a sticker.

Table 4 Restricted Section of Hogwart’s Library
Book Display—books can be checked out in the Children’s Department.

Center 3 Transfiguration Class
Activity: Pin the Tail on Dudders
How To: When approximately ten children have gathered, start the game. Blindford a child and spin them gently. Turn them toward the poster with piggie tail in hand (piggie tails made from crepe paper with tape rolled on the back, add their initials in marker). Whoever is the closest to Dudley’s rear wins an Applebees certificate, and all children get a tattoo for participating.

Table 5 Charms Class
Activity: Magic Trick
How To: There are five pennies in a cauldron. Let a child choose a penny. Pass the penny around so everyone can see the date. Put the penny in the cauldron with the other pennies. Mix up the pennies. You will be able to find the correct penny because it will be warm. Copper retains heat, and in this case the body heat from everyone looking for the penny’s date. Teach the trick to the children.

Table 6 Quidditch Practice

Activity: Quidditch Bingo
How To: Hand out Bingo Cards. Draw pictures from the cauldron and read to group. Each child that has that picture will place a marker (puzzle piece) over it. The first child to have a full row will win a prize.

Look what was in our paper this morning!

2007-07-20T10:10:00.000-05:00

Library Accused of Being Anti-Gay

Apparently this gentleman was told that most of the materials donated to us are put in the book sale (like we tell everyone), and when he decided not to donate it to the library he said his donation was "declined". The whole article is skewed in a sensationalistic manner which is frustrating.

Anyway... get very excited about Potter Mania. I have a temporary tattoo on my face as I type!

Can you say "busy"?

2007-07-17T08:39:00.000-05:00

So, we finally closed on Friday July 6. We moved on Saturday July 7. The following week was the busiest week of the summer for me at work. 2 storytimes, our Harry Potter Party, and the Pet Show! Egads. More later, but for now coverage from our local paper. Click on the article to see it bigger.

Home-Owners!

2007-07-06T20:49:00.000-05:00

Tom and I have officially signed our lives away and are now proud condo owners! The closing was a lot easier than I thought it would be, which was good. Overall, I kept expecting something to feel really special but nothing did. I thought it would be weird to write a check that big, but having been paying rent checks over a thousand helped a lot with that. Once you get used to writing the word "thousand" on checks it's not so bad. I kept expecting something to go wrong at the closing, but nothing really did. Of course, once we got to the condo we couldn't get the air-conditioning to work, but that's life. Today I cleaned the pantry and the fridge so I could at least put some things away tomorrow. We're both looking forward to having more space. Ironically, one place we were excited about space in has turned out to be not as great as we thought... we can barely fit our car in the garage. We'll have to figure out something to make it work. So far we've been parking a little crooked. After cleaning Tom and I ran out to the store to stock up "payment" for our movers. Tom has 12 people and two pick-ups coming to help us out. Of course, I'm sure our services will be requested in due time, but it's nice to know there are so many people here willing to help. It feels awfully strange to be putting down roots so far from family. I keep expecting my mom to show up to help me clean or my dad to come over and help Tom figure out the air conditioner. We'll manage, of course, but that doesn't make it any less bittersweet.

To celebrate, here's some Star Wars spoofs.

Robot Chicken Star Wars Link.

Guess who's in New Haven?

2007-07-01T18:17:00.000-05:00

First off, on the house front things are not going as planned. Our mortgage approval didn't get in on time so we weren't able to close as planned on Friday. We're crossing our fingers for Tuesday, but Thursday is more likely. With Kara visiting we're at least going to tell the realtor we need to see the condo since we were planning on having keys this past Saturday. As long as we're ready to go this coming Saturday since we have 11 people planning to help us move.

Kara's in town, and we've been having a lot of fun. We all went to the beach yesterday and ate pasta at Wooster Street last night. Today we went out to the mall and stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home, and we're having fajitas for dinner.

Kara and Tom had some excitement earlier this week when they went touring the downtown area. Here's a link to a news clip!

Pictures of New Britain

2007-06-14T16:40:00.000-05:00

A historical photographer, Jerry Dougherty, took some pictures in our library recently. Check out pages 4, 5, and 6 on his website under New Britain's pictures, for some nice shots of my library. The pictures include our mural in the children's department and our new artwork that was rescued from the basement of the old Ben Franklin School and framed and hung in the children's department in May. http://public.fotki.com/GCDOUGHERTY/new_britain_ct/

Last Tuesday

2007-06-14T16:17:00.000-05:00

Last Tuesday, I was stuck in a 45 minutes traffic jam between 3 exits on the highway. The way home is one thing, but I had my favorite classes waiting for me for storytime. I was not a happy camper. But, Tom did send me flowers for our 3 year anniversary later that day which helped a lot.

Now, we're back in Iowa and enjoying our trip very much. We had a couple short and sweet days in Avoca with Tom's parents enjoying the ranch house they just moved into. And, since Monday we've been in Clive having a grand old time.

Highlights so far...

Saturday-- My flight ran like clockwork and I got some comfy inserts for my shoes.
Sunday-- Tom and I went with his parents to the Old Market area in Omaha and had Maggie Moo's ice cream... yum!
Monday-- A super lunch with both sets of parents in Avoca, and real deep-dish pizza from Felix and Oscars for dinner.
Tuesday-- I got a chance to catch up with Bethany
Wednesday-- We helped Mari find some clothes for her new job, and got together with some family in the evening.
Today-- Mom and I went through a bunch of old things in the house, deciding what to keep and get rid of. It's funny how attached you can get to little things that hold memories.

I read Gary Paulsen's new book, Lawn Boy and really enjoyed it. It would be a cute book to use if you were trying to explain economics in a classroom.

On Tom's Behalf

2007-06-14T16:11:00.000-05:00

(Tom sent this out as a mass email, so some of you may have seen it already)
Folks,

All of you know I am not one to send out mass emails (ok, so maybe at Christmas time, big deal . . .), but I have found a topic here that I think is important enough to forward on. Apologies to those I have not talked to in awhile, I feel rather guilty about a message like this being my most recent cause to email you. But still, I send this to you hoping that you will read the information below and send it on. To climb on my soapbox, I'm trying make a citizen-powered political statement.

Congress is presently trying to push through a bill that offers tax breaks for what has been called 'liquid coal.' Their goals are laudable--trying to turn away from oil, and aiming for the US's energy independence. However, this is what I would like to call the "we're out of trees, lets burn the shrubs" approach. The reason we are all driving cars powered by gas is because coal is an awful choice for liquid fuel when they began building cars, and it is an awful choice now. Environmentally, it is a stupid choice.

Economically, it is a stupid choice. No other country is interested in liquid coal (to my knowledge, please email me if I am wrong). This means that the US would have no market for its 'quaint' coal fueled dirty machines.

As all of you know, I have been studying geology for about eight years now. I have read reports from people within the oil industry that predict that we will hit peak oil production within the decade. Oil is downhill from there. The so-called 'liquid coal' would be, at best, a twenty year band aid. We have the power, now, to make the call for real change to renewable energy source, and to get the government to fund initiative to make these sources feasible and attainable. If we throw half the money we threw at oil, we could have this done. Ethanol, wind, solar, hydro--hell, burning manure is better than this (I think . . . unless the cows eat some sort of coal-based feed . . .).

You may not agree with the politics of the people who usually support alternative energy sources, you may not agree with the politics of the organization sending out this petition--but I urge you to take this petition seriously, to sign it, and to contact your local representative. Energy independence is a laudable goal, and achievable. But this is not the way to do it! Email me if you have any questions. Look into this on your own and make your own decision. We can't afford to act as slowly as a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor now, because our kids won't know what a glacier is . . .

Best,
Tom

The forwarded message:
Congress could vote in the next few weeks on a bill that would double our greenhouse gas emissions from planes and cars. It sounds crazy, but this is exactly what will happen if a current plan to use "liquid coal" passes. Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels and we have a serious global warming problem.

I signed a petition urging Congress to vote no on tax breaks and subsidies on coal. Can you join me at the link below?

http://pol.moveon.org/stopkingcoal/?r_by=10484-6790182-VyAaFP&rc=paste

Thanks!

Busy Memorial Day Weekend

2007-06-02T16:18:00.000-05:00

So here's my new haircut I just got today. It's settled in a bit since we took the photo and the bottom isn't so flippy. Still, it's a big change. I think I had 6 inches taken off, but I'm really excited about the little bangs. I haven't had my hair this short since I started college, and frightningly enough, I think it makes me look older. As long as it's nice and cool for summer and doesn't take me as long to dry in the morning I'll be much happier!

In other news, Tom and I had a busy Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday we went to early church and ran some errands so we could go out to Mystic on Sunday and Monday. Sunday we went to Mystic Seaport. You can see Tom here with their lovely whaling ship which he was absolutely transfixed by. He took a class on Melville and fell in love with Moby Dick, so he thought it was fantastic to see what a real whaling ship was like. I was disappointed because I heard you got to see people doing shipbuilding work, but all the shipbuilders were on vacation for the long weekend and no one really was in costume. We'll have to go back sometime when we can see them working. I was really impressed with the scrimshaw art, which is carvings in whale tooth or bone. We purchased a Christmas ornament with fake scrimshaw on it which is just beautiful. On Monday we went to the Mystic Aquarium which neither of us were very impressed by. We thought both the Omaha Zoo and Shedd Aquarium in Chicago were better. They had pretty much all of the same kinds of fish as Shedd, just less of them. They did have an interesting sea lion show though. After the Aquarium we went to Downtown Mystic and we stumbled onto people preparing for the Memorial Day Parade. Few restaraunts were open but we saw a bar was and it turned out they were serving food so we ate there surrounded by all the officers and firefighters in uniform having a few drinks before the parade. While downtown Tom had a great time talking to an antique print seller and I enjoyed some ice cream while criticizing the marching band. Good times were had by all.

In between all of this we actually had someone staying with us in the evenings. She was in New Haven to look at Yale's collections, but she was German, and looking at a German calendar she didn't realize Monday was a holiday. So we took her to a free Memorial Day Concert on Sunday night which turned out to be just a repeat of the music you hear on the 4th of July. America the Beautiful, showtunes, jazz music, Sousa marches, the whole nine yards. Our German visitor deemed them "a little too patriotic" for her tastes. I think we were the youngest people in the audience. I hope you're enjoying the gratuitous pictures of Lyla! I particularly like the one where she is eating her paw.

More International Excitement

2007-05-26T18:17:00.001-05:00

Tom's professor had another Happy Hour in his backyard Friday night. I love Tom's professor and his wife so I'm always happy when we go. This week Tom's classmate, Jacob (pronounced Yacob) had a surprise for us. Jacob is from Denmark and likes to shock people by talking about all the weird food he has eaten (either in Scandanavian countries or in his travels). Last night he brought out some Icelandic schnapps called Brennevin. Then he proceeds to tell us it should be eaten with this shark called Hakarl. As he is telling us this he proceeds to pull 3 bags off of a tiny jar. Of course, the inevitable questions comes up, "This doesn't involve burying anything in the ground does it?" Apparently it does, the words "urea", "ammonia", and "fermentation" are used. I was a good sport and tried it anyway, but I didn't need seconds. I always find Wikipedia to be quite succinct in these matters, so without further ado, the Wikipedia entry for Brennevin...

"Brennivín is an Icelandic schnapps, considered the country's signature alcoholic beverage. It is made from fermented potato pulp, and flavoured with caraway seeds. It is sometimes called svarti dauði (“black death”). Also at times it is drunk as a "chaser" after sampling "hákarl", which consists of putrified shark meat, to mask the meat's taste. The word brennivín literally translates into English as 'burning wine'. Despite its unofficial status as national beverage, many Icelanders do not actually drink it, and a majority of the ones who do, drink it only when feeling patriotic or when trying to impress foreign visitors.

"This general distaste for the drink can be attributed partly to its strong taste and high alcohol content (37.5% ABV) and partly due to its reputation. Despite the fact that Iceland presses huge taxes on most alcoholic beverages, brennivín is actually one of the moderately priced liquors available in the national alcohol store, Vínbúð, and is thus often associated with alcoholics. It's very difficult to find in the United States."

The Brennevin wasn't all that bad (especially after the fish).

Click for Kitties

2007-05-22T21:20:00.001-05:00

You will not regret this if you click here!

It's Friday Night

2007-05-18T20:40:00.000-05:00

Another week, come and gone! The week was a regular old week. I kept myself busy at work, which was good. I had a busy day Thursday with 100 total children I did third grade visits for... whew! I also had a lady get mad at me because her child had overdue library books from 2001 so we couldn't sign him up for the children's computers that she wanted to use instead of him anyway. I could write more about all the things that this woman wanted to do that were against the rules, but she stormed out all upset, so I won't spend any more time on her either (so there). I work tomorrow so I was home today. It was grey and rainy and I didn't get as much done as I wanted to. And the weather's leaching off onto my mood as well. I don't want to sound pathetic, but it is so hard to be so far from the people that mean the most to you. I'm sure after some time with a good book and some cookies things will look brighter!

Great Film

2007-05-12T12:23:00.000-05:00

When I went to CLA the speaker I heard showed us this video. It's extremely powerful.

Sheesh, Mid-May Already

2007-05-12T11:29:00.000-05:00

Home inspection went well. As we suspected, a few little minor things. Some one-time water damage, some windows that aren't opening, a small leak in the utility room that needs a plumber for 30 minutes. The big issues with the siding and the rotting balcony are getting fixed by the condo association this spring and summer, which we're hoping will boost our equity right away. We've been talking about all the little things we're looking forward to. Our own garage, having a kitchen sink that is actually in the kitchen, balcony space to put flowers out. Of course, not everything is eye to eye. We can't seem to agree on the new furniture issue. Tom seems to think that when the financial dust settles we'll be worse off than I think we will be. Also, when planning on buying furniture he's thinking it will take big dollars. I think we'll be doing better than he thinks we will, and that I can do a lot with just a couple hundred dollars at a time by garage-saleing or craigslisting. In any case, he's not letting me think about it until we're moved in and have paid our mortgage for a couple months, ::big sigh::. He's reasonible, but sometimes he's not any fun. :) While, I'm mentioning Tom, I'll just say that it's weird to see him studying when I'm not taking any classes at all. I was actually shocked to hear it was finals week. When did that happen? The months sure are flying by-- it'll be fall before I know it what with all that's happening this summer.

This week at the library I overheard a bossy tutor tell one of our full-time clerks how to clean a DVD! I think we know better than you do, honey, since it's our time and money invested in those things. Oi. I also had a cute third-grader this week.

Little Girl: Can you help me find first word books in Spanish
Me: Well, I can certainly try, let's go look on the shelf. (While we're browsing) Just so you know, what I'm looking for are smaller books. It's a little difficult for me since I don't speak Spanish...
Little Girl: You don't speak Spanish??? (Looking shocked) I thought you were Hispanic!
Me: (Laughing) No, I'm not Hispanic.
Little Girl: Well, what are you then?

I must have said something to make her think I spoke Spanish. Ever since I found out that about 60% of the children in our school district are Hispanic I've been making an effort to pull books with Hispanic influences-- books about Roberto Clemente, Central American folktales, book series with Hispanic characters, etc. It probably doesn't help that many of the teachers in our district also speak Spanish, and people often confuse me for a teacher (you wouldn't believe how often I'm referred to as "the teacher"). It also could have been a case of imprinting-- she's Hispanic, therefore she assumes most people are Hispanic. I was entertained, in any case.

Next week should be interesting. I will be going to a parochial school to do a "3rd grade visit". The Lion's Club only funds for busses for the public school kids and the private schools can't afford to bus the kids in so I will be going to their classrooms. My supervisor was very vague on what I should do while I'm there, except that I will be doing 45 minutes. So at this point I'll be telling my usual story (the paper bag princess), reading a poetry book I love called, Monster Goose. Maybe singing a funny song, like the Shark Song, and then I'm trying to learn a new interactive story to tell. I don't know how long that will take... probably 30 minutes, maybe that's too long. I've also pulled about 20 books to do booktalks on, which come to think of it is probably too many. And I guess I'll try to talk about what resources we have at the library and a bit about the summer reading program (although I have been told next to nothing about the summer reading program, except that they don't think it's worth it anymore because only 600 finished last year). Coralville, which was a much smaller library had at least 1,000 finish. Anyway, enough about all that for now. I can try and suggest things next year after I figure out how everything works.

Can't Wait for This

2007-05-06T23:05:00.000-05:00

Tom loves Robot Chicken-- I love Star Wars. Needless to say, we can't wait for this.

Quarter of a Century

2007-05-06T21:40:00.000-05:00

I had my birthday this week-- yay! I was pretty grumpy and lonely on Wednesday, but cheered up for my birthday on Thursday. Tom surprised me with an ipod shuffle (one of the cute new ones that clip on). I had been bugging him to get me one, but I didn't expect it. And I told him I wanted to try a fancy French restaurant in Branford that I had read about so we went there, too. I consider myself a worldly eater after having been in China-- I'm not easily squeamish about food and like most things I try. So, I was very excited to be trying some new exotic foods. The menu at this restaurant was price fixe and came with an appetizer, salad, main dish, and dessert. For my appetizer I ordered scallops. I was expecting buttery, warm scallops and instead got cold scallops with a cilantro puree. I don't do cilantro. I got sick off of some meat and cilantro dumplings in China. Fresh salsa bothers me because of cilantro. And the scallops worked like tofu and sucked up all the cilantro taste, even after I scraped the bright green glop off. The salad was delicious, but for the main dish I had ordered duck. I love duck-- I asked how the waitress recommended cooking it, and she said medium rare. So, we had a fancy dinner, but I didn't eat much of it. The duck would've been great on it's own, but I was feeling pretty icky after the scallops and couldn't finish it. It's sitting in my fridge now, but I'm sure I'll just throw it away. For desert though, I had the creme brulee, and I am now firmly of the opinion that creme brulee is the most awesome dessert ever. I have never met a creme brulee I didn't like. I think it's because it reminds me of toasted marshmallows but it's even better. So, now I've been to a fancy French restaurant. Tom and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves-- nice quiet corner and a long leisurely meal, but I don't think we need to go back.

On the home purchasing front we are scheduled for our home inspection tomorrow. I'm not anticipating any big problems since it's a 1993 construction, but we'll both sleep easier knowing exactly what's what with the place.

The next few months will be crazy... here's a tentative look!

Late May-- Tom heads to Harvard for research
Early June-- Tom goes to Iowa
A Week Later-- Megan joins him in Iowa (June 9- June 17)
Late June-- Closing!
Late June, Early July-- Kara visits
Late July, Early August-- Tom's parents visit
Sometime in August-- My parents visit

Deposit is down

2007-05-01T11:40:00.000-05:00

We agreed on a counter offer and a deposit is down! Here are more pictures.

The front of our building. You can see the great park we overlook.

The living room (it has a fireplace). :)

The dining room.

The kitchen.

Here's what will be our guest bedroom.

Here's Tom's move-in-ready office!

Our garage and small balcony.

And the view from the bedroom balcony.

You won't believe what we just did!

2007-04-29T16:51:00.000-05:00

We just made an offer on a condo! Ahhh! I'm so excited. We'll see if they like it or not. These are two pictures of the "master suite", it has two huge closets, a bathroom, and a balcony.
Very exciting! So here's hoping they like our offer. :)

Cough, hack, cough

2007-04-25T20:14:00.000-05:00

So...I'm not feeling the best right now. I've got a chest bug and I feel like all I've been doing for the past few days is cough. I try to restrain it at work so I don't hack all over everything, but sometimes I just can't stop-- not fun. I'm not surprised I caught something because last week... man, last week.

So, in CT the kids get two Spring Breaks. I'm not kidding, two. The first is in February and the second is in April. The April one can be snow make up days, but still. Apparently, it's not supposed to be busy for April break because people like to go out and do things. Well, you might've seen in the news that we had a nor'easter out here-- I'll translate for all you Midwesterners... it rained for a few days. Some basements got flooded, stupid people drove into standing water and got their cars stuck, a few people lost power. As I said, it rained. Well, everyone came into the library. We were busy. My supervisor was on vacation. It was Conn. Library Association conference week, so someone was gone every day at the conference. And someone called in sick every day. With half our library aides (who shelve and help with circ) out as well we were officially half staffed with twice the volume of patrons. I was at the conference on Monday, but I still had a full week when I came back. My least favorite part of the week were the unattended children. They obviously don't get enough attention at home, so they hang around the desk, playing with the decorations or asking questions when they don't care about the answers. And since we had no volunteers for the computers I was spending a third of my time explaining the CD-Rom game procedures and getting kids set up on the computers. And the picture book room--don't get me started on the picture book room. On Friday every time I walked through the lego blocks would be all over and the big wooden blocks would be in the dollhouse and the chairs would be everywhere. Once I cleaned up the room, no one was there. I left for twenty minutes and I came back and no one was in the room. But darn if the legos weren't out, the blocks were in the dollhouse, and the chairs were all over the room! Either it was monkeys or unattended children, and my money's on unattended children. Thankfully, this week has been suspiciously quiet, but I'm hacking up a lung. The worst part of it is that I'm functioning fine, it's just my darn chest and throat, so I don't think I can justify staying home sick. Tomorrow I have third grade visits, so we'll see if I change my tune after talking for two hours straight.

In other news, my parents came awhile back. We went to NY City, they fed me well, fun was had by all. Tom and I are currently in the middle of the home-buying process--scary but exciting. It's finally Spring which I couldn't be more thrilled about. And we're planning a trip back to Iowa the second week of June. Oh, and we saw Spamalot in Hartford last week. And I suppose I should mention I'll be a quarter of a century before I know it. And the cat is well. And I'll keep up better with my blogging now that I have all of that out of the way (I hope).

Response: "Report puts a pacifier on 'smarter baby' debate"

2007-04-03T19:56:00.000-05:00

Report puts a pacifier on 'smarter baby' debate an article I saw on Yahoo News today. I've been telling people this all along! Now, I'm not going to substitute an AP article for the real deal (for Pete's sake, they don't even say what research they're writing off of), but it's nice to see a validation of my opinion in the popular media. To summarize, classical music CD's and brain development DVD's for the under-3 set have no proven benefits. It aggravates me that these materials are marketed as if they're developed by experts, but they're not. Now, I'm no expert myself but I have two college courses and a lot of free time research invested in child development-- and what I've come to understand is that spending time with baby is what's most important. Singing, talking and playing together will benefit little ones so much more than sitting them down in front of a Baby Brains DVD. I'll come down off my high horse now.

Speaking of playing with kids all the wonderful teachers in my life should try to find a copy of Jon Scieszka's Zena Sutherland Speech originally published in Horn Book Magazine. Any database will probably have access to it. "What's So Funny, Mr. Scieszka" was published November 1, 2005. I'd copy it here, but I think that's illegal.

Personality Types

2007-03-08T22:46:00.000-05:00

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Fascinating stuff this. I am ISFJ with INFJ leanings.

Here's an article about what my personality type means if you care to see. http://typelogic.com/isfj.html

Endymion Spring

2007-03-07T22:57:00.000-05:00

Read it, read it, read it! It's like the DaVinci Code but it's for kids. And instead of taking place in a museum involving a murder, it takes place in a library! Left for the afternoon in an Oxford library with his younger sister, Duck, Blake idly runs his hands across a row of books when one jumps out and bites his hand. Inside a seemingly blank book a riddle appears and Blake and Duck have to solve a literary mystery that started back with Gutenberg and his infamous bible! In the book the digitization of libraries is mentioned, and "Endymion Spring" the book within the book itself changes shape to meet the needs of it's current keeper. I couldn't help but make a correlation between the two.

I once had someone tell me that there are ghost people and there are psychopath people. Most people are scared by one or the other. Me, I'm a psychopath person and ghosts don't scare me at all. But, leave me alone in the dark and I'll start imagining someone's outside waiting to get me. Now, compare Inkheart and Inkspell to Endymion Spring. In these books are two separate kinds of fantasies involving books. Inkheart and it's ilk is the fantasy of book characters and places coming to life. This is not so much my thing. But, Endymion is about the books as an item coming to life, secrets of the places they're held in (libraries), and the secrets they hold within the pages. I wonder if people who passionately love Inkheart will passionately love Endymion Spring. Hmmm.

A Slice of Dinner Life

2007-03-04T18:51:00.000-05:00

Our Very Unhealthy Pizza Biscuit Casserole Dinner

1 pkg Bisquick Complete Garlic Cheese Biscuit Mix
(usually next to the muffin mixes in the cooking section of the grocery)
1/4 lb cooked hamburger mixed with ready made pizza sauce
Mozzarella cheese to cover

Bake the bisquit mix in the bottom of a casserole dish. Add meat and sauce with mozzarella cheese on top. Cook until heated through and biscuits are done.

We are lazy cooks!

Our Cat Has Herpes!

2007-03-01T13:49:00.000-05:00

Tom took Lyla to the vet on Monday. It turns out she has feline herpes and she had ear mites! From what we understand feline herpes is spread from cat to cat by sneezing, or eating from a bowl that wasn't cleaned thoroughly, or even from cats breathing on each other. Lyla will always have it but in times of stress it will flare up and cause her to have runny eyes and nose, a slight fever, and sneezing. When she does have a flare up she's more likely to infect other cats (not that we foresee her interacting with many other cats). The ear mites were taken care of with one ear treatment at the vet's office. Poor Lyla's nose was really runny last night and this morning so any recommendations on how to help alleviate her congestion would be helpful.

Yesterday at work the puppet guy came and I got to play with puppets for an hour and help pick out some new ones for the library. I have the most fun job ever!

Sick Kitty

2007-02-25T22:15:00.000-05:00

Poor Lyla isn't doing so well. A few days ago she sneezed a couple times which had me concerned because I've heard sneezing in cats isn't good or normal. Sure enough, the next day she was sneezing pretty often and sometimes pretty violently. We called the vet and they gave us an appointment for Monday morning. She's definitely not feeling well today. She didn't eat a thing or get up at all last night. We woke up late and she didn't follow me while I was cleaning her box and I didn't have to add any food to her bowl. We went off to church and when we got home she was still under the bed. We gave her some wet food for dinner and coaxed her into eating. Unfortunately we're supposed to bring a stool sample tomorrow but she hasn't left us any yet. Who ever thought I'd be waiting and wanting my cat to poop.

On a lighter note I went out to get some fabric to make a cat pillow for Lyla. They had lots of different fabrics at the store but I opted for a simple dark green fleece because fleece seems to be her favorite. I think I made a good choice because she's sleeping on the fabric on the floor before it's even a pillow. Well she was sleeping, she's now sitting on it and sneezing--poor thing. She's so cute though. She actually likes being covered by a blanket so she was on my lap for most of the evening tucked into a blanket with just her little head poking out or sometimes her paw. Awwww...my sick kitty's cute.

Despite the sick cat Tom and I were bad pet owners and went out to the graduate school winter ball last night. Let's compare and contrast the same event at Iowa and Yale.

Location: Iowa-- Private room in a bar called the Summit.
Yale-- The New Haven Lawn Club's Grand Ballroom.

Dress: Iowa-- Some guys in shirts and ties, most in regular clothes. Some girls in fancy dresses, most in cocktail dresses or regular bar clothes.
Yale-- Most guys in full suits with a smattering of tuxes. Most girls in party dresses, many in evening gowns.

Food: Iowa-- Cheese and meat trays. Some meatballs and egg rolls.
Yale-- Full dessert reception with full slices of cake, cream puff swans, creme brulee, fruit tarts, chocolate covered strawberries, cannolli, etc., etc.

Drinks: Iowa-- Decent drink specials
Yale-- Very pricey cash bar with free coffee and water. Hence, many fancy flasks.

Entertainment: Iowa-- Bar music
Yale-- Swing dance band playing ballroom music, followed by a DJ.

Price: Iowa-- Free
Yale-- $15 in advance, $20 at the door

Both had their pros and cons. It is one of the few occasions in which I felt underdressed, not to mention I really missed my Iowa friends.

Living with Lyla

2007-02-19T15:52:00.000-05:00

We Lyla at a nice shelter in town called Animal Haven. We actually went in looking for a kitten and found Lyla instead. She looks like a kitten, but she's actually 3. Her family had to get rid of her because their son had allergies, and she was trained pretty well. She's adapted pretty well to our place. Her favorite spot is on the couch between Tom and I. The first night we had her was difficult. We had decided we didn't want her in the bedroom because cats are nocturnal and we figured it would be best for our allergies. She cried and paced in front of the door all night so neither one of us slept well. And we ended up breaking down and letting her in last night. It turned out to be for the best--she only tried to get up on the bed twice and spent the whole night sleeping under the bed. So far she doesn't play much, but she is extremely affectionate! So far she's working out much better than a dog would have--so maybe it is all for the best. I can't believe how easy cats are to care for. You just clap loudly or tell them no when they're doing something you don't like, and that's that. (Well, except for the whole crying outside of the bedroom thing, but that's a reasonable compromise). Lyla came with her name, and neither one of us could think of anything better so for the time being Lyla's the name. Other things we've been accidentally calling her-- Layla, Leela, Leia, Leah, and Athena (my sister's cat). Tom and I actually had a mild argument over "kitty" means cat or kitten. I'm adamant that we always used it to mean cat, so therefore the derivation is irrelevant. But Tom says kitty is just another form of kitten and Lyla is not a kitten, so I shouldn't call her one. I still think I'm right. :)

Welcome our new family member!

2007-02-17T19:54:00.000-05:00

Welcome Lyla!

Some Post-Valentine's Day Love

2007-02-16T19:34:00.000-05:00

Winter is Here

2007-02-14T21:54:00.000-05:00

Well, I had my first bug in Connecticut. I thought my allergies were acting up for a week, but then I got hit full force with a regular cold. It was just a regular old cold. I wasn't stuck in bed, it was a working cold, but the drainage added up and I ended up with larygitis just in time for third grade visits. I've never lost my voice before so I actually found it kind of interesting. Thankfully I rested it enough I was ready to do programs again after a working day and a weekend.

Today was the first big snow we've had in Connecticut. By big I mean more than a couple of inches. Not much more though. The forecasts had been warning us of snow for a week so the schools cancelled before the weather even hit. Needless to say it made people in the library pretty bitter when we were open on time today. I think the snow wasn't bad enough to close, but since everyone else was closed not many people even came in to the library, so it was a waste. At least they had us close at 2pm. By the way, Connecticut roads are held to the same standards as the CT DMV. It takes them all day... or longer. No wonder they closed everything down, rural Iowa does a better job! I wonder what would happen if there was more than 4 inches--sheesh.

The Scroll Vs. The Codex

2007-02-14T21:48:00.000-05:00

Tom found this for me! I found it very amusing--I can relate all too well.

More From the Library

2007-01-31T11:14:00.000-05:00

Apparently, the cold weather has brought all the bad elements into our library. Fortunately, in the Children's Dept we seem to be immune. But, we've had issues with teens getting kicked out of the library on a daily basis, and arrests happening at least once a week. There was a rumor about a girl getting her hair set on fire in the Teen Dept. And one of our teenaged library aides had the back window of her car broken into and the bag of library books in the back stolen. The books were later returned by a patron who found the bag untouched by a nearby dumpster. We apparently might be losing our fantastic security guard over all the trouble. And, the only difference in our department is that we are busier. I guess I forget the neighborhood I'm working in until I hear about stuff like this.

In any case, more funny stories from the Children's Desk.

A little patron is asking for help finding Accelerated Reader books, and another librarian tells him to wait a minute because Megan left the list in the closet. As she's heading over to the closet she hears, "Megan MyLastName? That's my librarian". Of course, as soon as I heard the story I knew who it was, but it made me chuckle.

Another great story. Yesterday I was doing dragon stories with 1st and 2nd graders and I had my dragon puppet with me. I was asked what his name was, and seeing as I didn't have one for him I asked what they thought his name should be.
"Dragony" offered one.
"Spot" said another.
"Washington" offered a third (this one I kind of liked).
"Natalie McSchnoozbottom" said another.
A quiet girl was politely raising her hand so I asked her what she thought, to which she responded in all seriousness, "Horny!"

I told her it was a nice idea but I didn't think that was the right name for him.

Neat Library Story

2007-01-27T20:24:00.000-05:00

On Thursday I had regular third-grade visits to the library again. The 3rd graders come, I tell a story, we do a tour, I do some speed-booktalking, and then they get to check out books and magazines. For the most part, I love 3rd grade visits. Occaisionally I get a badly behaved class, but it's only for an hour and then they're gone, and at least with some books. The teachers can drive me crazy though. You can tell how good a teacher is by how well her/his class listens and attends to their instructions. I had one teacher this Thursday with no respect for his kids and they had no respect for him. He went off to do his own thing while we were doing the tour and there were no chaperones! Anyway, I don't want to gripe about bad teachers. The first group I worked with was fantastic, and they were so excited about where and how to find things. When they're checking out books I'm usually bombarded by questions.

The Top Ten Most Common Questions I Answer for Any Given Class

--Where are the Goosebumps books?
--I need Captain Underpants!
--Where is the I Spy?
--I want a wrestling book!
--Where are your scary books?
--Can you help me find a book about sharks/spiders/snakes?
--Where is Charlotte's Web?
--Can I check this out? (Meaning a current issue of a magazine, or a DVD, CD, etc. that they can't check out on 3rd grade visits. I explain this a minimum of 3 times for every class, but I inevitably get asked).
--Is there another book like this one? (A kid shows off something cool, and another one wants it, this is usually an easy one because I like to booktalk with multiples).
--We can check out any book? (This is my favorite question).

Sometimes, I get more challenging questions. This week a child wanted a book in Arabic. I wasn't sure how many books we had in Arabic but it turns out we had at least 15 that a girl and two boys could choose from. They looked positively ecstatic, even though there were only a few. The teacher comes up behind me (the good one), and mentions that these kids just moved from the Middle East and were having a hard time with English. How cool is it that we had something that could make them feel that much better? That is one of the images I'll have to carry with me, and save for a rainy day!

I hearby solemnly swear...

2007-01-23T21:36:00.000-05:00

...not to post about a dog until he/she is signed, paid for, and home with me. I thought it was odd that the SPCA didn't have me sign anything about adopting Adam, but I figured they had my application with his paperwork, so that must be enough. Apparently not, as someone else came fell in love with him on Sunday and signed paperwork. Meaning, they have precedence. Not that that does them any good yet as Adam has definite issues with his shoulder that need to be worked out before anyone can take him home. Highly unprofessional, but not surprising seeing that every time I called this guy he couldn't remember who I was. I can't believe he let us drive all the way out there before figuring out we weren't the other couple--I started every phone call with him by stating my full name. In any case, we set up the kennel and bought some stuff, and now it's all just sitting there. Thank God we weren't adopting a child or anything--I can't imagine how difficult that must be when it doesn't work out.

I can't help but wonder now if the fates or God or whatever you want to call it don't want us to have a dog right now. Why else would we be having so much trouble? And now I'm having second thoughts about whether or not we should have a dog, there are some days we're barely home between work and social stuff in the evenings. I think I've depressed myself enough tonight--off to bed.

Finally?

2007-01-20T17:30:00.000-05:00

We went out looking today, and actually had some success.

They are currently calling him "Adam" so I'll refer to him as that as well. We will be picking up Adam from the shelter on Monday provided two things to well. The first, that everything checks out okay with our landlord (should be no problems there). And the second, that a vet check on his limping leg goes alright.

Adam was transported from Georgia just this week. He was found as a stray in late Novemeber after getting hit by a car, hence the limping leg. He is a 2 year old beagle/basset hound mix (about 20-25 lbs) who is so sweet and loving! He was very social and loved getting pets--he actually made a kind of purring noise when I was petting him. He plants himself and won't walk on the leash, but I'm sure he'll be more willing to work on things once his leg is feeling better. I'm cautiously excited! Tom and I are going to spend more time with him before deciding on a name, but any recommendations would be welcome. :)

Overheard in the library

2007-01-17T18:36:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a unique situation. Usually I run my book/movie/book on CD errands in the adult portions of the library over my lunch hour. Since I spent my lunch hour running around on goose chases over dogs that other people adopt before I can get there, I had to run my errands after work. While browsing the nonfiction videos three teenagers run past me, and shortly I hear this.

Security Guard to Rowdy Teenager
"[You're causing trouble, and you're going to have to go home. You can't stay in the library anymore today]" (This is not a direct quote, but you get the point).

Rowdy Teenager, "You can't send me home-- it's my library!"

Security Guard, "No, it's not your your library, it's our library."

Rowdy Teenager, in a suitably whiny tone, "Well, why can't it be my library?"

Haha! I don't have to deal with that at least!

Rain, rain go away

2007-01-15T16:00:00.000-05:00

It has been bitterly cold out here in Connecticut. It's not that the temperature is so low, it's the bitter, unending drizzle. My nose has felt like an icicle and I've been chilled to the bone for two days now. There's just too much moisture in the air.

Despite the cold Tom and I did a few things this weekend. Friday was my day off this week so we went to the Connecticut Humane Society where we met a dachsund that we almost adopted. They talked us out of the little girl because she was extremely nervous and they thought she wouldn't be any good with kids under the age of 12. And since we do plan on having a family sometime in the next few years or so we thought it would be best to continue looking. I've still been checking petfinder.com and recently three little dogs were posted at the Hartford shelter, but I have to hurry if I'm interested in those guys. What this particular shelter does is it has a "legal day of adoption" which is the day the pet is allowed to leave for adoption or could be put down if no one has filled out any paperwork. So, my bleeding heart will have me trying to scuttle over to Newington over my lunch break to see doggies. You can click here to see the dogs posted for this shelter. Dogs 341, 340, and 338 are just breaking my heart they are so cute. I've told myself I will bring an old towel or something so I don't feel too bad if none of the dogs are the right fit and I don't take anyone home.

In other news, I bought a sewing machine today. They had a great deal on a Singer at Target and I got it. Now I'll have to grab some sewing books from the library. I'm especially interested in figuring out how to hem and tailor my own clothes-- we'll see how that goes. Even if I don't use it very often a sewing machine is kind of like a power drill; you never know when it will come in handy.

In honor of Dr. King I'm posting the full I Have a Dream Speech. This is a case in point for me about why we should allow google video and youtube in the children's computer center in our department. But, then again, if kids told us they wanted to watch this we would certainly say yes. I wonder if teachers are using this in their classrooms...hmmm. If they're not, they should be.

Doggy Drama

2007-01-08T21:50:00.000-05:00

So...I would love to adopt a dog. Unfortunately, the whole process is much more complex than I had realized. I called four different shelters on Saturday and none of them have any small dogs. I later emailed another rescue group only to find they wouldn't let us adopt because we live in an apartment. Never mind the fact that we will be staying in this apartment until we buy something. So far, disappointment all around. Any doggy adoption tips would be welcomed!

By the way, this is really good chocolate cake.

Awesome Chocolate Cake Recipe I Found on the Web

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup boiling water

Mix together dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients, reserving the boiling water. Mix for 2 minutes at medium speed. Add boiling water-- batter will be very thin and runny.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

My homemade cakes are usually not as good as a mix. This one turned out perfectly and Tom and I both agree it is very tasty, so I thought I would share.

Waiting for Thursday

2006-12-18T22:22:00.000-05:00

I had to be mean librarian for the first time today. I've had to be harsh before, but today... well. It was brought to my attention by a volunteer that a young man was on a CD-Rom game computer using the internet. I went up and told him, firstly, that checking email was not allowed in the children's department and then I asked him how old he was. He said 13, and I told him he had to use the computers in the adult or teen department and even if he was 12 or under he has to sign up with the librarian at the reference desk. So later a different volunteer tells me the same young man is on myspace on the computers and the poor volunteer had asked him four times to leave. I was mad! I'm not sure I'm entirely in support of our many rules for internet usage in the children's department but I am all about fairness, and if I told that nice, polite girl she couldn't use it, there's no way this kid could. So, I went over and told him he had to exit the browser immediately, that he must always ask a librarian before getting on these computers so we can go over the rules, of which myspace is definitely not ok. I told him his behavior was completely unacceptable and I was going to call the security guard the next time I saw him on the computers without permission-- today or any other day. Grrrr... rule breakers make a nasty librarian out of me. I had teenagers break a little chair today and the worst I told them was just that I was extremely disappointed, but this young man...completely unacceptable.

The rest of the week should go fairly quickly, though. Tomorrow my boss is making us lunch-- yippee! And Wednesday I'm busy, busy. Staff meeting first thing in the morning, followed by preschool outreach, then a web meeting, and then two desk hours. I'll be a busy beaver, just the way I like it! One of the library aides was mentioning he was so tired due to finals, and I realized that I don't have finals anymore. It was very exciting. I mentioned to the aide that this was my first winter without finals and he asked me if it was all worth it. And you know what? I'm so happy in my job, and if that's what it took to be in a place where I can help a mom find a book for her son who just won't poop on his potty, well then so be it!

By the by, Tom tells me my writing is confusing because I'm always changing topics and trains of though. So, if this post (or any post for that matter) was at all confusing to anyone, my apologies. :)

It's beginning to look a lot like... (fill in the blank)

2006-12-12T20:11:00.000-05:00

Firstly, my husband deserves warm and hearty congratulations from all for finally getting his well-deserved M.S. But, sadly, the stage of my life where I could say I have more education (on paper) has passed. I'll just have to one up him in other areas (and the kitchen does not count).

Today I did stories at a day care. I do five classes for 15 minutes each when I visit, and my favorite is the baby group. Fifteen months to somewhere in the twos is the youngest group. I did body parts today, and it was so funny to see them work things out. Ok...my nose. She wants me to find my nose. I know that...I think. Oh, she's looking at me and pointing at something that's in the middle of her face. What is that thing? Wait...is that my nose? I'll just put my finger there...oh she's smiling. Yeah, that's right. That's my nose. I found my nose! Did you see? I found my nose. I was just pleased they were fascinated enough to stay on their bottoms while I did my thing.

I had my doubts, but I want to publicly apologize to Eyes, Nose, Fingers, and Toes by Judy Hindley. The experts were right. You are a sure-fire hit with the toddlers--bravo!

Funny anecdote of the week. Something is always going on out here. Sunday morning, I awaken to a voice through a loud-speaker. I figure someone is in trouble with the cops at the gas station right next to our bedroom window. But the voice continues for quite awhile, and then Christmas music. I finally peek out of the window to see people walking towards downtown in running clothes. There must be a marathon. Indeed there was, and the starting point was right outside the gas station which is right outside our window. So 1300 marathon runners were waiting outside our window, along with the mayor, television crews, and various other local celebrities. How do I know this? They announced as much as we made our way to church. In fact, they had the countdown as we were walking towards church. 5,4,3,2,1...first a few feet, then many more, all pounding right past us. Including a jingling Santa Claus, who was quite fit for this time of year. Apparently the bar down the street was having a toy drive/marathon. I can say definitively that it was the first time I had to fight my way home from church through throngs of beer-drinking marathon runners.

Playing Catch Up

2006-12-06T21:02:00.000-05:00

Many apologies for not posting sooner. So much has been happening, I didn't know where or what to write about, and hence didn't write at all.

Thanksgiving went well. Mari came for a whole week, which was fantastic. I cried when she came, and I cried when she left. At least I'll be home soon for Christmas (if even just for awhile). I was pleased with my Thanksgiving dinner, it tasted just like home. At least I know I'm capable of that now. We had a couple foreign students with us, and I think they weren't sure about a lot of the food, but it was fun to show them what a Thanksgiving dinner is like.

Mari and I went to a local animal shelter to look at dogs. I fell in love with a little dachshund, but when I went back with Tom the next week he had already been adopted by a family in Rhode Island. I was more upset about it than I thought I'd be, but Tom and I have agreed to look together for a dog in January-- so I'm quite excited about that.

Work continues to go well. I did a penguin storytime yesterday for the Scholastic Academy kids, who are absolutely fantastic--these are disadvantaged kids that are extremely smart and they get to come to the library once a month. Since, they are so smart I get to do all the stories that are too complex for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. My stories...

My Penguin Osbert was definitely the favorite.

Tom and I bought an artificial tree yesterday-- it looks really nice and quite real so I'm pleased. Hopefully when we put it up it will fit. I've been drinking egg nog watching Christmas shows and playing Christmas songs at the reference desk, so I've been getting in the holiday spirit. If anyone (non-family), wants to see Tom or I over break, we'll be around from the 21st through the 26th. Unfortunately, since the trip is so short we won't be able to travel back to Iowa City or anything like that though. So, Clive earlier in our trip, and Avoca later in our trip if you want to enjoy our company! But, as always, we are taking reservations for the couch for anytime in CT.

Long Weekends... yay!

2006-11-10T12:43:00.000-05:00

So, Tom and I were going to go to Cambridge this weekend, but it didn't work out. Tom needs to look at a specimen in Harvard's collection, but Harvard gets Friday off for Veteran's Day, so no trip. I'm actually not that upset. There's still so much in New Haven we have yet to see. Today I've just been bumming around this morning and I think I might go out to get a haircut at sometime. And I can catch up with laundry and cleaning kinds of stuff. And I have lots of big people books I got from the library, so I can read some stuff that's not from the children's dept.-- yay!

Work is going well. I have more programming to do so that makes things a bit livelier. I'm doing about one outreach program a week (to a preschool or daycare), I do the baby/toddler storytime Time for Tots about every other week, and 3rd grade visits start next week. But, that's more of a memorized thing than something I'll be planning. And I get to do reference desk time. Although most of what I do involves checking to see that 12 year olds aren't 13 yet and then signing them onto the computers. We have internet for kids under 13, but it seems like only 12 year olds want to use it. I wonder if it's because the allure for the internet is wrapped in with social development and the increased importance of peers that comes with adolescence. I'll keep trying to tell myself it's a developmental necessity and not a huge annoyance.

Happy Halloween

2006-10-31T18:56:00.000-05:00

What a week. I locked myself out of my apartment yesterday. I realized we needed to send our rent check, and the checkbook was left in the glove compartment of the car (safe, I know...at least it's not there now). So, when I went to put the stamp on the envelope at Tom's desk, I set down my keys, and didn't realize until I was standing outside in open-toe shoes with three bags. But my trusty cell-phone was on hand and my landlord gave the code for the lockbox that held the keys. Whew. Late night at work and then home, only to find out my sister was laid off. Thankfully, she's feeling better about the whole thing now (or at least was the last time I spoke with her).

Today I left my name badge at home. Which no one really noticed since I was Dorothy today. I did a storytime for a K class and a 3 class, and they were perfect. They listened really well. But, I was tired afterwards and was having difficulty concentrating on my book reviews. 5pm felt like it took forever to come. I was almost home when my tire blew out. And the tire that blew was on the traffic side. Thankfully, I left a message and Tom got home shortly afterwards and was able to borrow the neighbor's car to help save me. Had the situation been different-- had there been daylight, the tire was on the other side of the car, and I was not dressed as Dorothy I think I could've done it on my own. But, then again, I probably would have been exceptionally cranky because it would've taken me much, much longer than it took Tom.

So, tomorrow I have to find time to get the spare replaced. Is it the weekend yet?

Feedback please!

2006-10-15T18:00:00.000-05:00

Any opinions about the Walgreens picture thing? Do you know of any better places to post photos. I now have accounts on Yahoo photos, Flickr, and Walgreens so let me know if there is a preference--email or comments is fine.

Busy Weekend

2006-10-15T17:18:00.000-05:00

Friday:
Got home from work and got pretty to go to a Lobster Party hosted by one of the professors named Dolf in Tom's department. It turns out he does the same thing every year. It's almost like a class because he had us study all the food before we ate it. We had to figure out the proper way to hold a mussel and how to determine the left side from the right side before they were cooked. We also had to hold the live lobsters (which was a bit much for me). It's one thing to eat an animal, it's another to poke and prod it into a stupor before you boil it alive. I had a difficult time eating both since I've never had mussels or lobster. Tom's advisor, Derek, was telling me to just pull away the rubbery part of the mussel and eat the rest. That wasn't much help because it all looked rubbery to me. And no one else really wanted lobster so I had one all to myself. I ate as much as I could, but it was cold by the time I got into the tail. I also managed to squirt everyone around me with lobster water when I cracked it open at various times. Dolf had many lobsters and kept trying to give us more, but seeing as we only had two people who wanted to eat lobster at our table and we already had two lobsters we had to decline repeatedly.

It wasn't all seafood.
This is a fruit called Durian. It's from Malaysia. We had a short lecture on Durian--it's popular with orangutans. We learned how it was unique because of it's octagonal spikes, it's heft, and it's distinctive smell. Apparently the smell was lessened because it had been frozen. I can't imagine what it would have smelled like normally. Tom, of course, wouldn't try the lobster, the mussels, or my riesling, but he tried the Durian. He told me afterwards he almost vomited twice, no doubt because he took a nice big whiff before sticking it in his mouth. I wasn't a huge fan myself. The texture is almost pudding-like and it tasted like strong onions to me.

Here's part of the entry from Wikipedia...
"Writing in 1856, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace provides a much-quoted description of the flavour of the durian:

A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy.[13]

Wallace cautions that "the smell of the ripe fruit is certainly at first disagreeable"; more recent descriptions by westerners can be more graphic. The English novelist Anthony Burgess famously said that dining on durian is like eating vanilla custard in a latrine. Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says:

... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.[14]"
Wikipedia. "Durian" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian. Updated 10/9/2006. Accessed 10/15/2006.

Saturday:
Tonight was the Geology Girls' Night. As a spouse of a Geology student I got to attend. We went to Lalibela, an Ethiopian restaurant. The food came with flat bread which reminded me a thick crepes and we ate from the dishes using our hands an the flat bread. It was spicy, and I thought it was very good. Unfortunately, it took us forever to get it. We had a reservations but they clearly weren't prepared for us and they kept running out of things. Not enough water glasses, napkins, service-- only one wine list for the whole restaurant. You would say, thank goodness they didn't run out of food, but apparently it was less food than people usually have at Ethiopian restaurants, so who knows. I think I would go back, but when it was less crowded.

Sunday:
Tom and I tried the Yale gym today. He showed me how to weight lift a bit. Tom has been saying he needs to go over with some articles, and the idea of that made me laugh. But, we got there and multiple people had scientific or school material with them. The guy next to me on the stair machine was grading papers! We're aiming to go three times a week, so I figure I might as well try to start eating better, too. With any luck I'll come home looking a little better, and have a cheeky pan-European accent. I'll be making "bookings" instead of "reservations" and the like--hah!

Picture Day

2006-10-12T20:12:00.000-05:00

I might be giving up on Flickr. Walgreens lets me upload full-size photos, which means photos will be online significantly faster. Let's hear it for faster.
So, without further ado, pictures (link here).

What's Black and Blue and Pink All Over?

2006-10-11T20:24:00.000-05:00

Me!!! Except for my toenail which is a frightening gold/tan color. It no longer hurts--I just have to be careful I don't pull it off. I must have ripped the nail from the bed because I can only pull with the bandaid from one direction without getting thoroughly creeped out. Tom thinks I should just cut it off, but I heard it's better to keep the nail on to protect the nail bed and to guide the new nail in, or something like that.

And, Tom and I took a lovely trip to the beach on a perfect Fall day on Sunday. We took pictures and walked by the water (with shoes on because of said nail). We were on some rocks and Tom decides to take my picture. "Stand over there" he tells me. Of course, it takes someone like me not to associate dark, green, algae-covered rock with "danger--may be slippery". Two hand scrapes, a nasty bruised knee, and a chlorophyll-covered butt later, I remember common sense and feel pretty stupid.

Today I'm grumpy from having to knock on the neighbor's door to get them to move a car that they by all rights should not be keeping there (Tom and I need to grow some spines). So, I tell Tom he needs to ask them to move so we can go out to dinner. It's raining, and on my way down the steps I fall (I don't remember how or how far, but Tom swears it was quite a few steps). All I know is I have a new bruise on top of my beach-bruised knee, and a matching one on my shin. Oh, and the huge scrape on my other knee which managed to rip my new tights. And by this point my butt doesn't feel superb either. I'm hoping I get my act together, because I just bought a box of bandaids and I'm flying through them more quickly than expected.

Small pictures of the apartment are online for anyone interested. Just email me-- I figured it was safer not to release the contents of my apartment and their exact positioning to the whole world.

Fall is Coming

2006-10-04T19:09:00.000-05:00

Work is going well. Not too exciting yet, but as I get more to do I'm sure everything will work out fine. I'm pleased with how competent I feel. I'm able to jump right in. Today during the staff meeting I had to do a couple of booktalks and it was a breeze. Desk training has been quick and dirty since I know how to do it already-- I just have to learn the specific rules for this library and their system. My supervisor has been having me catch up with her book reviews and selections from 2005. This I'm not thrilled about. I think I'm selecting too many books, but I have yet to get any feedback. I don't feel like I'm actually choosing books--I'm just approving unless one of the reviews says there's something wrong with the book or we already have it. I don't know enough about the population yet or about how many ultimately get chosen from one issue of Booklist to judiciously choose only a few books from the many reviews. So, I'm pushing through these blindly so I can get to the newer stuff. It feels kind of silly since everyone has had their "Best of" lists for 2005 out for ages. Ah well.

The weather was beautiful outside today so I ate lunch outside, it was fabulous. It's amazing how much change I've seen in the leaves in just 2 weeks during my drive to work. Which is a gorgeous drive despite the traffic. We had fog this morning and it was like the road was in a cloud--beautiful.

Tom has finally submitted his master's thesis to his advisor. We should be celebrating, but I think we both know we have yet to see the end of this. Also, no celebrations yet for my first paycheck. It's biweekly pay periods, but I started in the middle of one period so it's still a week yet until I get my first check. I think that will call for a nice dinner. And by nice, I mean city nice!! Maybe a steakhouse or one of the fancy gourmets. There's supposed to be a great French restaurant and an amazing Spanish infusion type restaurant.

And, my sister's coming for Thanksgiving. I'm already wondering where to take her and what to show her--can't wait.

Miss Megan

2006-09-30T12:40:00.000-05:00

First week went well. I was underwhelmed for quite a bit of the week, but things got better as things went along. The library is beautiful and everyone is really nice. It sounds like I get to do third grade visits, which means tours, a story and some booktalking which is right up my alley. I also get to do the Computer Club. That program requires picking links to related items for a group of kids to go through in the computer lab. I'm not quite sure how this works or what it's appeal is, but that's yet to come.

I got my first library hug on Friday. It was from a little three year old girl whom I played with during the Time for Tots program. We played with the dollhouse with the Mom, the Dad, the sister, and the brudder. For some reason she kept laying the people on the table so I asked her if we usually eat or sleep on the table. This was hard but eventually she told me, "eat". I asked her what she liked to eat, and after about a minute of silence I told her I liked to eat pizza. Two minutes later she says "freezer". So I start talking about how, yes, some pizzas do come from a freezer and they're good to have for dinner to eat on the table. She looks at me meaningfully and says "stove". She was a smart little cookie. She also had fun rocking a baby doll and telling it "sshhhh". She gave me and Miss Amy a hug on the way out.

Speaking of Miss Amy, I'm not sure why children's librarians are all Miss Fill-in-first-name-here. I'm not going to go bucking tradition, but I don't like being "Miss Megan". It's probably because I have issues with the whole Miss./Mrs. thing. Formally, I don't get angry when I see Mrs. on a wedding invitation or anything like that, but I really don't see the purpose anymore. I think Ms. works perfectly well for referring to someone. Men don't have to advertise their relationship status when people are referring to them, why should women? That and I feel to young to be a Miss. but not old or prestigious enough to be a Mrs.

I should write much more about this week, but it's hard to pick out the things that are the most interesting after the week is over. I will try better to blog during the week, but I was a little tired from getting back into a regular schedule.

Go Hawks!