Pawprints on my heart

Once upon a time, I had a little cat who wasn' t so little. He was grouchy and demanding but also incredibly loving. If I sat down, he was in my lap. My sister brought him to me from Gainesville. Before that, he was an outdoor kitty who lived around in her apartment complex.


Basil was one of the first kitties of mine that my husband met. It was love at first sight. For us and for him and Basil. He called him my comfort kitty. Whenever I would get upset, the first thing B would do would be to go find Basil.

After over eight years with me (and then us), one day he began acting strange. He just seemed to lay around (even more so than normal) and didn't want to eat or drink. I decided to take him to the vet and this was a good thing. His liver was failing and if I hadn't taken him, he might have died while we were at work. We wouldn't have been able to say good bye. But we did get to say good bye and got to tell him how much we loved him.


He died over 6 months ago. I don't know why I was thinking about him today. I do think about him often. I miss him so much. I cry about him sometimes. Heaven is where he deserves to be even with his grumpy meows. It is sad to miss him but in the end I treasure all my memories of him.

Good day and meow : )

One Last Holiday Tradition

We had meant to do it for my birthday but instead, we did it tonight. We headed down to St. Augustine for their Night of Lights. It is like the whole center of town is decked out in lights. Houses, parks, museums, churches... all were gleaming in the night.

We were able to hop about a trolley to ride around to see it all. Hop being a loosely used term. Particularly since we had parked at one trolley lot to take a trolley to stand in line for another trolley. But it was truly lovely and worth the wait (mostly : ) The streets were just buzzing with people. I think the thing that was Beloved's favorite was the display at the Potter Wax Museum. Both their front windows were decked in holiday decorations along with Darth Vader, Boba Fett, R2D2 and C3PO. I'm sure the Rebels and Empire troops held the cease fire for Christmas.

Good night and May the Christmas be with you.

Turkey is In

And the cats have begun to enjoy their presents. Apparently all the unwrapped boxes became new kitty toys : ) It was a quiet Christmas. My favorite gift was my subjective one. I did my list on Amazon this year. But as always, I had one request that wouldn't fit on Amazon. I have so far asked for a bottle of sunshine, a jar of moonlight and this year's was a box of dreams. Beloved got me that one this year. He found a candle that was both labeled dream and was in a box labeled dream. I must start making these requests more difficult : )

I wonder if there are any open restaurants just in case... that turkey scares me a bit. I don't roast whole anythings very much. Baking I can do but roast just seems strange and foreign. We're also going to be having baked potatos, corn on the cob and cranberry sauce. LOL on the last one as Beloved and I don't like the same type of cranberry sauce. We bought two cans. One for each of us. We can comprise on most things except cranberry sauce.

Good day and Merry Christmas, world!

Mrs. Claus

What do you mean you didn't leave out cookies for Mrs. Claus?

I really wanted to make our holiday party something special. So today I did storytime as someone special, Mrs. Claus. The above pics are my dress rehearsal. I was a bit busy doing storytime so I forgot to get someone to take my picture today. I had added a Christmas apron and painted my eyebrows white. It was wicked hot but such fun. We read A Pirate's Night before Christmas and Who will drive my sleigh tonight for the storytime. Then we had a sing-along (I had to remind them of that) and then lots of fun crafts. We had a stocking giveaway and then everyone got to take 2 books as a present from the library. There were about 20+ people there of all ages.

Good night and to all a good night : )

Another Day of Shooting

After a long morning of cash handling training, I needed a break. A puppet break, of course : )

We shot another scene for the puppet commerical. I can't wait to post it in total. They are doing the Hootie awards again and this might help my vote for Most Likely to Talk to Puppets. Not quite the Oscars but still it is fun to receive credit for something that make me and others laugh.

I also am going to be Mrs. Claus for work on two different days. I have all my pieces of my outfit. I am looking forward to that too. I literally have the best job in the world for me. I love doing storytime and sharing the joy of books with kids. I still get lost in my books and want kids to feel the same way. Books and language. I love using new or interesting words. Gregarious or erudite are two of my favorites. I hope I am both of those things : )

Good night and in the jungle (You'll see when I post the video)

Librariam

It was not my first attempt at mispelling today. Earlier I had been creating beautiful tags for some staff awards. One of my first one was supposed to say Most likely to suffer a breakdown if they catch a customer shelving a book. On my tag, it read Most likely to suffer a breakdown if they cath a customer. I certainly hope no one is doing that in the library.

Then tonight, as I was renewing my passport. This title is what I put for Occupation. I changed it as it would look super bad to have that forever stuck on my passport.

God night and yes, I know but it was intentional : )

Woops!

: ) It was a good thing I got pics of the beautiful job I did on decorating our house with lights. Apparently the hooks I used were NOT super duper solid as my lights were on the ground this morning.

Though on the plus side for today, I did get to film most of my puppet commerical for the staff party in January. Any day where I get to have fun with puppet is a good one.

Good night and puppets rock!

Holidays at the Harms

Our first ornament was also our wedding topper. Now we collect them whenever we go somewhere new.

Kitty Nativity. I am super sure that this is an actual reenactment of the birth of Christ.

Our Tree

Mechanical Christmas Singers

Holidays at the Harms : )

Santa Kitty is Coming to Town

(S)He knows if you've been bad or good... or in this case evil for putting a poor cat in a Santa Hat.

The wreath on our door

A first. We've never put up Christmas lights. Thanks to Mommy Harm for the lights.

Decks the Halls

It's beginning to look a bit like Christmas. We put up our tree and lights yesterday. It was fun as we put the ornaments on the tree, we remembered where we had gotten them. The first ornament we got was the cat bride and groom. It was also our wedding topper. Since then, we have gotten them from everywhere we've been together. I really like our Pirate Santa that we got in Amelia Island. LOL He even has a peg leg : ) We also have ornaments from his and my childhood. I put up the crochet catcus for him and he hung the golden carriage for me.

Good day and joy to the world!

The night lingers...

I have never been a quiet sleeper or so I've been told.

Last night was the worse it has been in a while. B said at first he didn't realize I was asleep. I had my eyes open and I was talking. But then I started having conversations with people who weren't there... he said something about hikers. Then I started talking gibberish. The weird part is there are parts I was at least aware of slightly. I remember trying to talk but I couldn't get my mouth to work. He said I kept pushing him in the shoulder... not hard but still.

The other thing was the kitten was hopping all over me. He had bought one of his toys in. Ben has done this in the past. It is a pole with a string tied to it. It got tangled in my legs. I was laughing and trying to get free. B thought that the kitten might be scratching me. He asked me if he could put the kitten out. I started to cry... not just politely into my pillow... but full on wailing. I actually woke myself with it. And continue for a minute or two afterwards until fully awake. I really don't know what set the crying off. I don't remember.

I was a bit stressed over work schedules changing before bed but that was about it. It definitely has me feeling off kilter today. Very similiar feeling afterwards to a horrible nightmare I had years ago at a youth group mission trip. I want to just stay away from everyone.

Good day and sweet dreams.

My Beloved

I was so nervous about meeting him that I almost didn't get out of the car. I mean, we had talked on the phone and via email but our first date was our first face to face. I had picked the perfect outfit and had checked him out on Google. There was a surprisely abundant amount of info. It has helped that he had run for office a while back. But all of that didn't make me any less scared. I was afraid of falling in love, I was afraid of a horrible date, I was afraid one day I might like him more than he liked me.... to put it mildly, I was afraid.

But I did make it out of the car into the July noon heat. A couple of minutes more of me being afraid and I would have missed him. See, he had left his phone by mistake and with me being late, had been worried that I had called and cancelled. He had been thinking of going home for his phone when I walked up. We ate japanese food and talked, rode to the movies and talked, went out for ice cream and talked. By the end of the six hour long date (the longest I have ever had), we had date two planned.

As we talked, I found him to have a kind heart, an incredibly brillant mind and a quirky sense of humor. That is the same thing I find when I talked to him this morning.

The first time I heard "Feels like Home", I knew that was our wedding song because it is exactly how I feel in his arms. I feel like I am home. I've told him that I love him beyond words. I've tried to put it into words like this posting. But it doesn't do justice to the breathe and depth and scope of how I feel.

I love you, Beloved.

Good night and Happy Birthday, Beloved.

Mama Kitty

Beloved and I have added a new addition to our kitty family. This is Ben or Benja the Ninja as B calls him.

I was not sure that I wanted another kitty before. Losing Basil was extremely tough. It was the first time that B had to help me into the house because I crumbled when I got out of the car. It still is tough.

But Ben has helped and I love him for that and for being himself. He has an extremely sweet nature but loves to play too. He is a lap kitty like Basil and a water kitty like Henri and a player like the girls.

Good day and happy kitties : )

I swear I was a shy child

Alas, no one believes me anymore. I try to tell people that I was so quiet that my family used to routinely make everyone else be quiet and then ask me to talk. I still am quiet at times or in larger groups.

But no one believes me. I am a one-liner. When B and I write the puppet plays, I am a good quipper. I tend to that a lot I have noticed. I do the one liners to make people laugh. My favorite iin the library play was when I sang "I'm a dictator, I'm a dictator, I'm a dictator, woo hoo hoo." It wasn't scripted... it was just what I felt the Miss Ewe character might do.

Funnily enough, no one believes me now when I say I'm not a puppet person. I have now done three filmed ones. We just finished Glog a bit ago. But I still say I am not a puppet person. I might be learning to be one but I am not one yet. We are still working on the editing. : )

Good night and Wakka wakka wakka : )

I may be less quiet but I still find I need my quiet times.

Sleepy Day

I found myself awake for no reason at 6:30 a.m. this morning. It was the second day in a row that this had happened. I dreamed that I had gone to a party and seen an old friend. When I hugged him hello in the dream, it felt very much like a good bye hug. How you can tell the difference I don't know. Afterwards in the dream, I demolished a toilet. I mean smithereens... what exactly this means I don't know. Beloved said he dreamed of a anamatronic puppet play in Amelia Island. We had just gotten back from there last week. He dreamed that he lost the tickets and had been waiting in a long line. He had finally found the tickets when he had woken up.

This was my part of my dream list I wrote in 1996.

I am quite amazed on how many of these I have done. What is even funnier is I have the 1994 version of this and how much changed in just two short years. I have always been a big dreamer either awake or asleep.

Good night and sweet dreams... : )

How to Disappear

I've been reading this book recently called How to Disappear by Frank Ahearn. Now, let me preface this by saying I am not planning to disappear. Though I imagine if I were, I wouldn't be telling anyone either.

It really has been an interesting read. You basically not only have to learn how to leave your old life behind but then you have to create a false trail for those that come looking for you to waste time and money and hopefully convince them to give up the search. He spread intriguing stories throughout the book along with helpful advice. Like the one guy that was so hard to find until the writer found out that he had a serious love for lobsters and tracked him through one of the few companies that ship lobster around the states. Or the people who went the trouble of hiding only to be busted by their friends posting pics telling everyone what a great time Bob was having in SouthAmerica.

Though he does include a section which fit me more. It was about the controlling how much information is out there about you or making it harder for those that bug you to find you. Though I had to laugh when he said to write the misinformation (wrong address or slightly wrong name) down in a notebook. I am constantly leaving stuff down and then walking away particularly at work as I get started on a new project.

Good night and I will be back : ) ...maybe : )

1st Ever Jacksonville Public Library Hooties

For a staff event recently, they came up with some unusual awards such as JPL's Unsung Hero or Most Likely to Shush you. Well, I won one of these prestigious awards....

I was awarded the Most Likely to Talk to Puppets.

In order to accept my award, I found it only fitting to make sure that I took a puppet to the award ceremony. It came up on stage with me. As I turned to the audience with my puppet on my hand, I wondered aloud why they felt that I was a person who talked to puppets...

And they laughed. Then my puppet said Thank you and we both went and sat down. All in all a good night. And a very fitting award : )

Sometimes the Emotions get in the way...

I have been working diligently tonight on transcribing a notebook of poetry. I am about five pages away from being done.

It isn't mine. It is a dear family friend's. She passed away today. It wasn't sudden as she had been put into hospice not that long ago. But it does make me sad on one hand. I know that she has gone Home but I am selfish and wanted her here. God does seem to get all the best people.

Though I ended up with a lot of really good memories and some good stuff. I thought about it the other day and she is literally all over my house. Paintings in the bedroom and guest room. A end table in living room and bookcase in the library.

And this notebook.

I found one that I particularly liked ( I hope you don't mind, Dad. I'll take it off if you do....):

My evening and morning canticles
Are sung by a small brown bird
Perched on the tip of a naked tree
Rejoicing in all his eye can see.

His Word delights and sustains us
My heart leaps up at the sound of the bird
My throat fills with praise for my God.
I lift my arms, like the tree I am bare.

He clothes me with blessings and love.

Thank you, Lord of the day and the night.
For the bird and the tree and their song
For the gift of praise which we lift to thee.

By Barbara White

Thank you, God, for letting this incredibly special person into our lives. I know you took great care of her here and know that you will continue in heaven.

Good night and God bless.

Reading

I have been reading a number of books all at once. It just depends on where I am. I have The Devil in the White City in the bathroom. It is the telling of the first World's Fair in America and the serial killer that used it to his advantage. I think the best thing I learned was that Elias Disney was a carpenter and told his son Walt about his part in creating the World's Fair. I have Little Women Vampires in my bookbag. It is the latest in a series combining classics literature and a current trend. It is not wonderful but it is very cheesily good. My favorite part so far is when Beth thanks Mr. Laurence for the piano by turning him into a vampire. I have also been reading Full Moon No Stars which is a new Stephen King. It is rather like looking at a baby and seeing the parents in various expressions. I see different parts that remind me of other of his stories. Though I am only through halfway into the second story, I have decided that he must have a thing about librarians. My favorite part of it all was his dedication. It said To Tabby... still. He is one of the few people who I have read where I like his introductions sometimes as much or more than his stories. This week is National Library Week and for it, my branch (well, it was me actually) put up a display of Readers Rave. These were books that staff, teens and volunteers picked out. I even created a whole line of personalized bookmarks. That way, you know who liked a book. Mine say Eve Enjoys : ) And I do enjoy my books. I still check out as many as my account will hold and have to stop myself from checking out more. I just checked out one called Hello Kitty Must Die. I'll let you know what happens. Good night and read well.

Dad's Puppet Progress

Today, B and I worked on the costumes for Dad's puppet commerical. It was something B and I came up with to promote Dad's books. Plus it gives us a chance to have a little fun together with puppets and filming. We still have to order the club wielding puppet and blue fish.

Daniel the Priest Praise the Lord!

Daniel sans costume

Daniel's Costume

Soon to be Clubs

Cross

Good day and have you hug a puppet today?

Stewball and 500 Miles

I used to wonder what my soundtrack for my life would be and what songs would be included. Music premeates my whole life. I listen to it or sing as I wake up, work, shower and a multitude of places in between. I laugh and cry to music. Today I actually teared up singing along and listening to "Feels like Home". It was what B and I danced to as our first dance as man and wife. I had recorded a version of it as a present for him but it didn't work. But in a way it worked out better since I got to sing it to him as we danced. I remember growing up listening to some of my Mom's records. I loved Peter, Paul and Mary. And Frankie Avalon and Godspell. I even remember singing the theme from American Tale on long trips with P. Or creating a song book with all the songs from Camp Weed. ... no, it wasn't That kind of camp. It was a church summer camp. I have always taken the Make a Joyful noise to heart. Good night and sing loud!

National Security

I'm waiting for the SWAT, National Guard and Special Forces to descend on my doorstep.

I just got off the phone with my older sister J. In a spur of just for the heck of itness, I had sent her flowers. And had placed the order with FTD. I had never used them before. So I was surprised to find out that they use FedEx instead of a local florist.

I guess when a surprise box landed on her doorstep, she was a bit suspicious. I had forgot to sign the card as my message took up all the space. I had assumed that the florist would put who it was from on the outside of the envelope. Plus FTD has some privacy policy. They won't tell her who sent it.

So she had T open it outside. It had come from Georgia. Goodness knows nothing good comes from there : P Apparently I didn't know I was a mad bomber. I just thought I was a nice sister.

When she told me, I almost fell on the floor from laughing so hard. I just have this mental picture of them sending Britney out to sniff and investigate and her running away. Or them sending the bomb squad to blow it up and a shower of petals afterwards. Too funny....Evil Eva the Mad Bomber strikes again... insert evil laugh here.

This will cure me of for the heckedness.

Good day and laugh well.

Change for me

Same face, same hair, same me... Beloved is changing though. He is moving his Wednesday game to Monday. This means a night I work is a night he games. Thus Wednesday will be free for other things like dancing. : )Yay: )


I didn't ask him to but he did it for me. I've changed one thing too. When I start to fuss about cleaning or whatever, I stop take a breath and tell him thank you. Or I love you. What I am fussing over is not important. Those words are.

In fact, they are right over my head right now. I have a note posted to my desk. It says Love you! Mark.

Good day and I love you too, honey.

Perspective

I have worked in all sizes of libraries : small, medium and large... and every single one says that they don't have enough room. Granted we do get books in all the time, but books (yes, I said books) go out the door too. Maybe we should all invest in Nooks : ) though I've heard crannies are better : P

The library has been busy lately. Everyone coming back in from their holidays. I've been helping out at another library and doing their storytime. I have missed doing storytimes. For my first one, I wore cat ears. The reason I am doing the storytimes is to train the staff there to do them. They have been told that they must provide storytimes and have not one staff member with a children's background. The closest they have is one who used to do teen work. Sometimes the teens can be a bit like toddlers but not quite. Basically I am slowly having them take over parts of the storytime. I hope it will work.

I myself am doing teen programs at my home branch. Today's program is the Wii. It is just a chance for the kids and myself to socialize and have some fun. I have a unique opportunity to be a positive adult in their daily life.

Good day and have fun!