Begin Again

The year is almost over. I asked Beloved what his favorite thing was about the soon-to-be last year and he said our new house. It is a wonderful place.

We have now hosted Christmas. I wanted it to be relaxed and low key. And it was. I did the devotion (See December 2009 for the written script) and filmed it with my new camcorder. I was nervous and it took like 17 takes but it turned out really well.

We had family in from Maryland as well. I think my favorite part of their visit was them getting to see my library and F's reaction to his gift. He described the USS Enterprise pizza cutter as beyond spiffy. I am glad that they both came down this year and I know that it pleased Dad to no end to have all 6 of his children in the same room.

For the before Christmas and the day after, Beloved and I hid away and did our own thing. Getting together with everyone is wonderful but tiring. I told him that next year, we are going to the Bahamas....

Good day and Happy almost Old Year : )

In the wee small hours of the evening...

when the whole world is still awake. I listened to the Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack the other night and that song is still stuck in my head. We have put up the tree and the musical animals. We have bought presents and looked at possible christmas cards. We have put up the kitty nativity. But other than that, no other Christmas preparations have been made.

We are having Christmas at our house. It will be in the afternoon. Unfortunately I don't believe it will be dark enough to go down the street to the dueling houses. There is a corner at the end of the street where about 75 percent of the houses are done up in all many of Christmas decorations. It is like a visual top that contest.

We are not topping that though. I have some decorations in the window and the wreath on the door. I am not strive to outbrighten my street. I will just stay in my car and watch as others play that game.

Good night and enough that : )

I did not...

I did not go shopping in the wee hours of the morning post Thanksgiving. I believe my sleep is worth more than any sale.

I did not completely stuff myself with turkey. This year, our first year in the new house, it was just the two of us. I got a small turkey breast (which we are still working on : )

I did not see my family. That might seem a bit odd. I did get a voice mail and had talked to my dad earlier in the week.

I did not feed the cats turkey. Well, at least not until Sunday night : P

I did not get cranberry jelly. I got the whole cranberries sauce instead.

I did not eat stuffing. With no turkey to put it in and no Mom's best stuffing to eat, I just made some for Mark. I ate mashed potatoes instead.

Good night and do not....

My short list

Growing up, I was known for my enormous Christmas lists. I considered it a wish list and therefore anything was game. I used to always have Peace on Earth on it too.

Right now my list is about 20 or so items. It is probably the shortest list I have ever written. Don't get me wrong... I still want presents. But I am content right now. I have a job I like. I have a husband who loves me as much as I love him (which happens to be quite a bit). I have friends and family that I love and who still love me and like spending time with me. I have a joy about life that I treasure. I am fairly healthy.

My wish list is now a would be nice list. LOL But I am continuing a tradition of one abstract wish on the list. A couple of years ago, I asked for sunset in a bottle. I got it from my parents. They took a picture (I think it was a sunrise but I'm not quibbling) and put it into a glass bottle with a cork stopper. It is one of the best things on my desk at work. Last year, it was a jar of moonlight. I got that from Mark. He had found a candle in a jar. The candle's name was Moonlight : ) It is in the office at home. Two things I've learned.... ask because you just might get it and intangible doesn't mean impossible.

Good night and make a wish.

Without a List

A package came in for me yesterday. Well, for me, in the sense that I knew what was in it. It was a present for Beloved and my parents.

So I ended up hiding half in my closet and half in the guest room closet. I bought both before I knew what anyone wanted. Though B's is something he has mentioned wanting. It wasn't from his list. Since no lists have been made. We always make our christmas lists after thanksgiving.

I am a list girl. I make lists for shopping, goals, my to dos. I even have an eighth grade one of the man I love/marry lists. That one was a long one. I don't recall what was on that one but I believe cute buns was : ) Though it didn't make the starred list. The starred list was the one we had to create of the things that were important from the first list.

I also had a daily verb adverb list. It was things like love fully or laugh deeply or sing loudly.

Good night and live joyfully.

Bitten by Shrimp

I normally love shrimp. I am not to the level of Bubba, Forrest Gump's friend, but I do like it.

Yesterday it did not love me back. As best I can figure, it was either the shrimp or the ranch dressing. Regardless it was a less than stellar night. I don't think I actually truly got to sleep until about 5 a.m. Too much running to the bathroom. I hated pulling B. away from his Friday night game. I just wanted him to be there with me. There wasn't much he could do. But I wanted him there.

I am feeling better today. Not quite 100 percent. Maybe more like 75ish.

Good night and be well (me too)

Day Off

My new place of work is giving me something I have never had before.... regularly scheduled three day weekends. It is weird. And somewhat wonderful. I am just not sure exactly what to do with it. There are so many possibilities. I mean some of my day is already eaten up by the haftatos. I have to take the car in for an oil change. I have to send a letter. I have to feed the kitties and take my meds. But there is a luxury of time. Or at least it feels that there is. Even my haftatos are based on my free will. I could not take the car in. The kitty feeding is a bit more a willdo though.

I just finished a very excellent zombie book. It included zombie cats so hence why the feeding of kits is a willdo and not a haftato. It actually made me cry. The book not the zombie cats. It was set in the time after. Zombie were now a way of life and survival was possible. Normal had become a different type of normal. Plus how do you not love a book in which the bloggers have become the source of info...particularly as a blogger?

Good day and watch out for zombie cats...

43 days left

I like seeing things that not everyone does. It is like a secret between me and God. I just happened to glance behind me while driving. There are these little bumps in the road. I am sure that there is a proper name for them but it eludes me right now. They are what tell you if you skirt out of your lane. They are also what when my used to be brother in law would call driving by braille.

Did you know that if the sun shines on them just right and you happen to look in your rearview mirror that they look red? A long red dotted line.

I have looked back plenty of times but the sun wasn't shining the right way I guess.

Now it is a secret between you, me and God.

Today's thing was the number 43 on the calendar. There are only 43 days left in the calendar year. Well, granted that does assume that you are reading this today and before today becomes tomorrow for you. This is a day I am happy with. I rode to work with Beloved, have a good lunch, talked to friends, did a teen program, laughed and there is still another 7 hours or so left in it.

Good day and good day : P

By the wayside

I lose track of things. I will have something in my hand or be on my way doing something and poof! I get sidetracked by something else. I will realize later that I had something else I was doing or holding before this new thing or idea.

I realize that there are people, places and things that I never get back to. I remember a peach courderoy sundress that I loved some time ago. I don't think I outgrew it but danged if I can remember where it went to... There are high school friends that I wanted to keep in touch with but this new experiences made me wander off this way for a while. I realized that I had not kept in touch like so many of my yearbooks signatures had asked.

In the library, we get rid of things fairly often. We see that a book hasn't been checked out or the info has changed or the spine is falling apart. The book gets discarded. But this weeding is necessary. Information or the need for information changes. It ebbs and flows. Today's popular book is tomorrow's remember when. I was looking up ideas for teen programs and came across this blog. It asked an interesting question, " In 100 years, will any one remember or read Harry Potter? "

Good night and remember me.

For those who haven't seen it yet

The tales of a snarky sheep as mentioned in the previous post...

Don't worry this is certainly not the last of Miss Ewe's adventures in libraryland. If I can have an evil twin named Evil Eva, I most certainly can have an alter ego in Miss Ewe. I mean how far can I go. I just change a letter and poof it's me.

B and I have also been working on a video storytime including your favorite snarky sheep. In addition to writing, we have been working on waltz. Last night's lesson including timing. Both important in dance and life : P

Plus I am still working on letting him lead. It is hard to let someone else have control of where I can and when I go. Rather reminds me of my relationship with God. And the funny thing is both are for my own good. He can see the dangers coming up behind me and I can't.

Good night and 1,2,3

Kermit, eat your heart out...

Tomorrow we are going to try our hand at filming a puppet play for the library. It is supposed to be a funny promotional tutorial. I wrote the script. It involves a snarky sacrastic sheep named Miss Ewe. LOL She is like an evil Lambchop. I could imagine them battling it out and Miss Ewe wins by cheating. She even has an evil sheep laugh.

Needless to say, B has been quite thrilled and very helpful in collaborating with me in the writing of the puppet plays. It is weird to think of writing with someone else. Somedays I feel like someone should give me a Does not Play well with others t-shirt.

Good night and bah bah ha ha ha! (evil sheep laugh)

Between

Sometimes between is my favorite. The moment between day and night, the moment between closing my eyes and sleep, the moment between kissing and lips apart....

Right now I am between permenantly. I am between packed and unpacked, between one library and another. I am not yet sure how I feel about it all. I am even between in how I feel about it.

We have made the leap, made the move. We now owe a ton more. That's at least up to third born child. First goes to student loans, next to credit cards and now third to mortage. We'd better get started if we hope to pay them off soon or ever.

It is a lovely house. I've got pics somewhere. Should I ever unpack them I could post them here. It is huge. I thought we needed to get rid of more stuff. No, we just needed to live in a bigger place. And we have a whole garage in which to store all the things we might need. Right now it is functioning as a kitty playground and storage facilities. Even my garage is in between.

Good day and go on through.

No more and no less

As of Friday, I will be a two-fer librarian. Half my day will be spent at one branch and half at another. It won't be my current home branch either for each half day.

Major bummer. I've put in so much work at this place. Sigh. Now to put in so much work at another.

But am I? I don't know. It is against my nature to just sit around but it feels like things won't be kept up at the current place. I mean the staff will be lessened by one and only be here half time. There is enough time to maintain status quo but not really.

It is particularly sad since we just celebrated our 50th anniversary and here it is six months later. The library version of assisted living. No programs, no growth... that is my fear.

But it is not without hope. There is such potential here. I just wish and hope that someone grabs onto it and runs with it. Create something new and better.

Sigh. I hope.

Good day and dream big. I think that I am leaving it better than I found it. I suppose that is how I am supposed to leave everything.

Bail anyone?

I went to jail today. I rode in a police car. I had to raise my bail. I broke out.

All in all, a different day for me.

I imagine my friends and family were surprised and my neighbors would claim that I was a quiet person who kept to herself as the news blared about my arrest and subsequent break out.

But no sirens wailed. No cameras were posted outside my house. I even wore my Please No autographs pin to deter the fame mongers.

Guess getting jailed for MDA doesn't get me any street cred.

Dang.

Good night and remember a good friend will pay your bail. A great friend will be sitting next to you and saying how much fun that was..... : P

How much?

Well, it's official. As of Friday, Beloved and I signed a contract on a house. It is a lovely 3 bedroom/ 2 bath house on a very quiet street. How quiet you might ask? Well, B and I drove by on Saturday around 9 pm and it was quiet. But it is a great house as far as we can tell and a really nice yard. Big enough for a play area when the time comes. We'll be close to D and H and other family. Not to mention we have already mapped the times getting to our works. His is 11 minutes and mine is 9 minutes. That is so much better than the 30 it takes now.

We looked at a lot of houses. So very weird ones too. I still think the one with the totally open garage which flowed into the totally open room and then the long front porch was the oddest. But this house really fits both of us.

It is really exciting and just a wee bit nerve wrecking.

Good night and happy finding.

Mom and Dad's garden

Hanging around with Mr. Mark and Monkey


My favorite statue from Mom and Dad's garden

Dive Bomber Monkeys

Mark and a friend

What every blog needs, me in bug eyed glasses : )

Dad has this great post about his garden. We went over to see it in person the other day. Did I take pictures of the beautiful flowers? The giant century plant? The gardeners of this wonderful garden?

No, I got pics of Beloved with the monkeys that are in a small part of the garden. But it makes him laugh which in turn makes me laugh and Mom and Dad rejoice in how happy we are. So not a bad choice of pics after all.

Good day and ee-ee-oo-oo (which may be monkeyish for good day : )

A Hunting we will go

Today B and I went into the bank to apply for a mortage.

Yep, we are going house hunting. Our lease is up in June. Every job opening right now and his job and my job currently are both here. My family is here. Our friends (well a bunch of them : ) are here.

It is an exciting time in our lives. And a bewildering and well, a scary one too. I like the idea of somewhere that is just ours. Well, ours and the cats : P

I'll keep you up to date with the search and feel free to send me tips...

Good night and bring on the boxes.

Refreshing and Renewing (hopefully)

Hello all. I have been a bad blogger recently.

I have been cheating. I've got it bad. I now do a lot of stuff on facebook.

Sigh... can you forgive me?

I am right now in P's spare room. Yep, I made it down to O for the second time in like four months. I am at the FLA conference (better known as the Florida Library Association for you non-librarians out there). It was the first day of the conference and I have really enjoyed myself. Both in conference and out. I got the chance to do breakout sessions about Twitter, Second Life and Teen spaces. I also got to hang out with a favorite couple, P and C : )

Thus far this is my second ever conference and apparently I try to go to the ones in which I can get some family time in too. The last one was in San Jose CA and I got to hang out with Uncle R and Aunt D : )

The conference is a really good tool for refocusing (the one re word I forgot to add to my title). I need to break away from my mundy library life and see what I am doing for the bigger ideals that I have about my library in Evieland. You know.... the place where there are no words like, well, NO : D

I really loved my drive up here too. I took the backways as I so love to do. It did add like 30 minutes to my drive but I knew that driving the regular way I would miss things. Like a bear warning sign for the next 3 miles or the huge grey elephant with a counter for eating at or the Church of the Holy Comforter (which made me laugh for like 10 minutes as I picture the Sacred Duvet and still has me giggling)

Good day and drive well. I'll be back in town on Friday night.

Meow Plague

We are still a bit under the weather kittywise. I had to take Henri to the vet this morning. It is like having kids. If one of them gets it, you can be sure the others will too.

I was so frustrated last night I told B I wanted to get rid of all of them. It was my anger and fear talking though. There was kitty barf everywhere...

I am struggling with my job too. I love that they think I am capable enough to handle being a branch manager. But I am so much happier being a simple children's librarian. I am not sure what to do.

It has just been stress upon stress. B and I are looking at taking up dancing again. We haven't for the last couple of months. We both need a stress outlet. He is so wonderfully supportive.

I love him.

Good night and stop, breathe and reboot (what I tell the customers when their computer freezes)

Prayer for a Kitty

: ) Somehow both Dad and I are talking about prayer today.

I had to just drop off one of my kitties with the emergency vet tonight. She was getting sick and began to drool. I have never seen a cat drool before. They have given her anti vomiting medicine and a pain killer along with fluids. I am not sure what is wrong with her but am hoping it is just something she ate that upset her stomach. I am taking her to my regular vet tomorrow to get some tests run.

B and I had just been talking about her last night too. It is Hazel. She is named after my great aunt and a character in one of my favorite books Watership Down. Aunt Hazel was a really wonderful person who loved cats. She couldn't have any where she lived so she had a collection of porcelin ones. I remember giving her a mug that had a cat as a handle with its head sitting on the rim peeking over it to look at the fish painted in the bottom.

I had intended to save Hazel for when I have a girl child but I got the cat first. I made B promise not to tell our kids about the cat being named it first. I have been trying to come up with another name for the cat just in case.

I am a kitty mom though. I found myself yelling at other drivers to move faster so I could get her to the emergency vet. Dear God, please watch over her tonight and keep her safe. Please heal whatever is wrong with her and bring her safe home tomorrow.

Good night and Amen.

Back for now..

The pool is fixed. We are back open for business.

But now they are thinking of making me a floating library. It would mean I would be working at the branch a couple days a week and at another library a couple of days a week.

I like and don't like the idea. I love the idea of having a couple of days off from running the branch though. I feel like that I will be playing catchup with branch duties for the times that I am gone though.

In other news, I am feeling better. My voice is mostly back. Though right now I am channeling Barry White...My darling, I can't get enough of your love, baby... My voice is very low right now but at least it is back. I was missing it over the weekend.

Poor B... he was really good about taking care of me. He got my grocery list of OJ, drinks and lots of soup. The streaming Netflix came in handy too. I am watching the Six Wives of Henry the Eighth again : )

I am never quite sure which one I feel sorriest for.

Good day and I remain your faithful servant.

Just in time for the summer...the Library Pool

Yes, that's it. Darn the computers! My library is getting a pool.

Well, not intentionally that is. We had a pipe burst under the slab near the copier and computers. They are talking about repiping the library. So they closed us down for the week.

Thus I will be working at another library for a couple of days. The plus side to this caper is no being in charge. I am a lowly peon once again. And loving it.

Good night and joyfully I go to work once again. At least for two days : P

I love...

In no particular order and for no particular reason

I love....

the smell of my dad's pipe tobacco
the feel of B's hand on my waist
curling up with a good book
the way my family laughs together
the quiet before the storm at work
my kitties
other people's kitties
a windy day
the feel of the ocean and sand as I stand still and let the waves crash around me
the second before I open a present
really talking to someone
words like dusk and gregarious

I could go on for days.

Good night and I love you.

The Struggle

Last week. Last week was... Last week was bad.

Now let me preface this by saying I love being a children's librarian. I think it is the best job in the whole wide world for me.

But I haven't been able to do my job for the last month. Whenever I do something I really want to do a good job. Not because of the job but because of myself. I like being good at things.

If you give me one job and let me excel, I will do my very best. But give me two (one which had someone else doing it also full time) and you will get a half effort. I try to do both. But I don't have two hundred percent to just hand away all the time.

We had the police called three times to the library this week. The first time was the worse. We had a gang of teens outside with a baseball bat. It was scary. Then we had a young adult come by the library. He comes in all the time to use the Sorenson because he is deaf. Apparently there was something happening at his house because the police came by again to handcuff him and take him away. Lastly, the gang of teens came back. But got away before the police came. We found out before they came that they might have been involved in a knife fight at another library.

Can librarians get hazard pay?

And all this pulls away from the job I love. The job I can not do properly because of the other.

It is cause for some major praying/wondering/thinking.

Good day and this week will be better I hope.

The Next Time my credit card people call...

A weird title for a joyful posting. But I never claimed to be unquirky.

I often ponder and pray and sing in my car. I like to think of it as my cathedral of one. I was thinking of blessings tonight. Bing Crosby suggest you should count your blessing instead of sheep. Now me, I like to be awake while blessing counting. I have a lot of people tell me to have a blessed day. I am quirky and I believe a bit naive. I see the world as good and I like to thank God often for all my blessings. And that got me thinking about all the blessings I take for granted.

Like being able to read. I don't even really think about it much. There are letters and numbers in front of my face all the time. But I know what they mean. And I am assuming you do too. But there is a lady who comes in twice a week to see a reading tutor at my branch. Just by listening to them as they sit quietly talking and reading aloud in the time that they have been coming to the library, the one learning has grown by leaps and bounds. She really seems to enjoy it now.

And health. We have someone who comes in regularly whose husband has cancer. Liver cancer, I think. It has been a hard battle for her and him. She is one I pray for a lot in my car. I tell her that every now and then if she asks me to pray for him. She feels like all the prayers is why he has been able to hold on for so long. I am blessed to be healthy and he is blessed to have so many praying for him.

That is just a few of my infinite blessing. They are riches beyond measure. Yes, Capital One probably won't take them in lieu of payment but I don't think I would even consider offering them up. They are priceless.

On a side note, someone told me today that I was an answer to a prayer. She was trying to find a seminary to attend but doesn't use the computer so well. I was able to find her one that she felt right for her along with phone number, address and directions on how to get to it. Little did I know that I would be a blessing for someone else : )

Good night and god bless : P

A weekend by the Numbers

124/78 last BP measurement

6:55 pm the time we got in from our drive. Just a short drive into the sunshine...

3:30ish the time we left for our short drive.

4 cats that rule the roost and for whom we brought another put together tower yesterday.

0 cats who are currently on the tower I put together

almost 30 days of having our tree up. I think we were going to take it down this weekend but in the midst of our quiet weekend, it just never got done. The family (cats and us) really like having it up.

5 times I have bemoaned the idea of being the PIC from my branch from now on. I love being a children's person. I stand being in charge and am very good at it but it takes some much away from being just children's which is my love.

2 credit reports for me and B. I try to remember to check them annually.

16.15 how much we spent at Angel's Diner in Palatka, FL It is reported to be the oldest diner in Florida. The food was quite good and the staff very friendly. We will definitely try them again some time : )

2 movies we saw this weekend. They were both about vampires. Twilight: New Moon and Daybreakers were both very good in their own way. I think that Daybreakers has the better visual effects with some slow motion work and interesting camera work.

Good day and tomorrow is another day.

Patti and Clint's Wedding In Reverse