More Stuff I Made

Here is a picture of my new duds:


I just finished the hat last night. The hand warmers are starting to get a little worn looking, since I wear them all the time. They are great for the reference desk! Especially in a library where the boiler isn't quite working right yet. Soon all these troublesome pesky things will be fixed!

I am feeling like a somewhat skilled crocheter these days. My man looks handsome in his scarf too. Next are some ear warmers for dad's bike helmet...

I lied...

Libraryland was crazy yesterday. I spoke too soon when I said that it had been slow. I don't know what the door count was, but people were coming in in droves and they stayed for the duration. We had to shoo them out the door at closing. No behaviour problems though, that was nice. People were very understanding when I told them they couldn't sleep, take their shoes off or leave their bags unattended in the library.

Here is a picture of the scarf I made for my sister in law:

The picture is a little bright, but hopefully the effort shows. She picked a really pretty color.

We watched Ratatouille last night. It was pretty good, although I missed the last 10 minutes so I will have to try to catch that later. Tonight I am hanging with my friend. Tomorrow night is the Symphony! Beethoven's Ninth. I am looking forward to that.

Holidays and Libraryland

Shoot, I forgot to take a picture of my other branch last time I was there. Everything looks great there right now--the Children's librarian rearranged her section too and it just looks ...so bookstore! Usually I don't go for that sort of thing, but in this branch it works well. I PROMISE to take a picture next time.

My holiday was spent with family in the second largest city in Washington. I regret not taking any pictures while I was there. I had a great time relaxing with the family. We did a little shopping--I got a pretty new coat (FINALLY!). It is actually just a basic gray pea coat, but it goes really well with the scarf and hand warmers I made myself--and will go great with the matching hat I am working on right now. Of course there will be a picture as soon as I am done with the hat. I spent a lot of time crochetting while I was with the family as well. I made several scarves for people--one really pretty one for my sister in law. The new man came over a couple of times and was able to hang out with us. He has family in Spokane, too. He also came to the family dinner I threw at my Dad's last night, so now he has met all of my immediate family except my mom and The Boy. Pretty intense for 2 months... Everything is good and he makes me really happy. I think I make him happy, too. ~ (dreamy) sigh~

Libraryland is slow at the moment. People are still visiting with friends or relatives, or even working, like us. I would say that we are only at about 30% of our regular volume. It will pick up next week, and likely be even busier than usual, at least for a little while. It is hard to watch my displays stagnate though. I like picking out new books to display and writing or finding reviews to go with them. I am also still very excited about the comics event coming up next month and have started putting flyers in all the display comic books. It is really a pain to go by and realize that no one is checking them out! I just need to be patient. Holiday hum-drums.

Libraryland Update

So...I have applied for my job. I wrote a two page letter to support my claim--probably too much information but I just couldn't stand to cut anything more out. I am optimistic.

I totally re-arranged the teen section at one of my libraries. It really seems to flow better. There isn't a lot of room there, but I was able to get the magazines off the top of the shelves to allow more display space. Then I used the first block of shelves for new books and display, the Buffy Series--which checks out amazingly well since they have been pulled out of the collection--and the audio books. Then I have the straight YA fiction. In the other area, I moved the shelves so that manga will fit on the top two and the larger graphic novels and super hero comics fit on the bottom. To make this easier on the shelvers, I put the manga in series order so that anything that didn't fit on the shorter shelves could go down with the other comics, then I sent out an email to staff to let them know about the new shelving theme. When I came in yesterday, someone had switched it all back. I found the culprit and she said she didn't know what manga was... So ASK! Anyhow, the new order is making most of the shelvers happy. And things look a lot better--fresher--over there.

My book reviews in display books are going over really well. I use a mix of my own reviews, some from Kirkus or Publishers Weekly and a few I got from teens over the summer. I find that my own reviews seem to sell books the best, but I don't have time to read everything that I find display worthy. Eventually...but new books come out every day, so probably not.

Oh hey! Cool comics events right here! These are for teens and adults so invite all your friends. I am really excited about ours. I walked the 'hood on Tuesday and handed out fliers and put up posters in local businesses. I met a lot of cool people--everyone was really nice and the shoppers weren't too annoying ;)

Holiday Bliss

Did I mention that I have all my shopping done? Yes, I do. This is bliss to me. I took my friend's daughters Xmas shopping today and expected total hell, but was pleasantly surprised. Evidently people are not shopping as much this year. Yay! I managed not to buy anything until the last minute, when we went into Fuego. I love that store...like a cutesy Archie McPhees.

The talk with The Boy's father went well. Amazing what 24 hours between bad news and discussion will do. He was reasonable and was actually down with laying it all on The Boy rather than trying to blame his teachers and such. Thank goodness.

I am getting a new-to-me TV tonight. I seem to be the luckiest of free TV recipients. Last year I got a pretty nice 27" Toshiba from some colleagues. It has worked well. Now my Dad is getting a new TV and has offered me his huge HD TV. It is mostly the HD part that made me jump on the opportunity. I heard a rumor that all TV will be HD sometime in the near future. So here I am, jumping onto the HD bandwagon. No, I still will not have cable.

Now to decide what to do with the 27", and hope that the new one will fit on my stand...

Holiday Delight

The Boy is letting his grades fall again, and evidently his papa thinks that the way to deal with it is ignore it. Not cool. However, I will let him speak for himself before I get to crazy-mad. The Boy seems ok with missing out on sports this year to let his grades go to basketland. Not ok with me. He has to have something he cares about or he will be a deadbeat living off disability when he gets older. Ouch, my back... ;(

I have been sick all week and finally went home early yesterday. Realized today that I left my cell charger there...blah. I don't want leave the house, but I don't want to be without phone usage either. I just want to lay around, crochet and get better.

Oh and watch Wonderfalls! What a great show! If you like Pushing Daisies, you will like this. The library has it... Put it on hold, enjoy! Thanks to LA Jen for recommending!

Quick Post

I have just a few minutes before I start work, so here I go...

The weekend was a good one, except I didn't take any pictures while I was in Spokane. I went and stayed with my brother and his wife. They are in the midst of adopting a child--I am so happy for them. The will go far across the United States in a couple of months to pick up their brand new baby girl. They have their nursery almost set up and I had fun shopping for baby clothes for them recently in Salt Lake City with Sis. They are such a loving family, it will be good to see them with a baby of their own.

We mostly watched movies and went xmas shopping. I got that side of the family all sewn up and now I just have the other to finish. Seven siblings... ;)

The Boy had a mini break down at dinner on Saturday. It was Step-dad, Oldest Brother, his wife and Younger Brother, The Boy and I. We were having yummy thai food and the family started asking me about The Boy's diet and things. Basic diabetes stuff. The Boy got upset and called me a B**hole, which I did not appreciate. I dragged him off for a talk, but all we got out of that was that we were both embarrassed and ticked off. We returned to dinner and moved to opposite corners of the ring, avoiding talking or looking at each other. Later that night, after tensions had eased, I tackled him and told him that his family just wants to understand what is going on with him. It is because they care about him, not because they think he is a freak. I told him that there is nothing wrong with him, that he is normal. Lots of people have some health issue that they deal with. He took all that in and when I was done talking, he agreed. Usually I would be worried that he only said that to get me to shut up, but after that he began talking to me about other important, or not so important, stuff. Hopefully it let him get some things off his chest.

Final note of the day: I found out that my staying past a year has not made me a permanent employee. At some point my temporary position was extended for a second year. My job should be posted in a little while, but I am not worried. I am the best person for the job.

Stuff and stuff

I feel zombified today. Getting stuff done, but I know my brain isn't really present. I can focus on a task, but as soon as I am done, my brain goes back to being jelly. And I am cold, very cold. Wearing my furry winter coat inside, cold.

I have been less than good lately about about updating, I apologize. And I should mention that if you click on the picture in my last post, it will take you to my flickr page and show you all the wonderous photos of Nevada, Utah and the Step Out to Fight Diabetes walk that I took. I don't know why I put the last ones in there, but I am lazy and haven't moved them yet.

The new man is working out well. I get warm fuzzies thinking about him.

I enjoyed going through flickr today, looking for "teen" and "library" catagories. Most libraries have joined as a system or as a branch and have teen related pictures up, but don't have separate accounts for them. I am also finding, through the pictures, that many have very teen friendly areas, like ours at Central. I wonder if these are mostly central type libraries, or if some of the branches are as innovative with their spaces for teens.

It snowed this week on Saturday and it was beautiful. Then it turned to rain and things flooded...the road between my house and the beach fell down. It was sad. I hope the trail is still there, but I have little faith that it is. The road won't be fixed until Spring. Places south of Seattle have it much worse.