Cathy the Librarian

The quote is from the Mickey Mouse song, although what it has to do with my post, I do not know.
Anyway, long time no see.

Lots has been going on.

1) School has started. THANK GAWD! I love those teens, but they were so bored, they were driving me mad. Leaving butts all over the library, throwing food and paint at the building, beating each other up. You get the idea. I really try to stand up for them and listen to them, but sometimes its REALLY hard.

2) I went to Webster for a staff exchange day. It was so great! I love that Adrienne (kids librarian) gets to lie on the floor of her office to look at books and prepare for story time. One of my co-workers said I could do that, but I’d get rolled over or stepped on. The library is gi-normous! You need to call people to talk to them, not just holler or twirl your seat around. There are three people at the Reference desk (we don’t even have a reference desk). Everything is bright and clean. Adrienne has her own story time room, and TONS of crafty stuff. She has a dedicated staff just for children’s services, plus there are two (ish) teen librarians. Sigh. It was a lot of fun and interesting.

On the other hand, I REALLY like where I’m working. Everyone is really close, there is no reference desk (which is good because it gives me more ordering/programming time, but bad because I don’t have much reference desk experience), everyone knows eachother. They like me (they really like me).

This does lead me to some other things I’d like to talk about:

3) Sometimes I feel VERY overwhelmed, like I’m definately taking on too much. There is a class for librarians on managing stress. I may try to take that. Maybe they will teach me how to meditate…  Unfortunately, this is completely my fault, because I added all the new programs. The only one that was in place as a yearly continuing program was story time. I sometimes feel that I have too much on my plate and it makes me frazzled. Double unfortunately, I want to make everyone (except myself, it seems) happy. I’m a people pleaser, or try to be. I have a couple big projects that I’m doing now that have a deadline. Plus there are other little projects that I have taken on, never mind ordering books and programming. Especially the story times. I’ve been wanting to explore new ways to do story time. Which leads me to story time.

4) I love story times. I put out surveys to see when people want story times, I advertise within the library and one of my coworkers puts notices in the newspapers. I HEAVE fliers at them. Everyone calls asking about story time. Begging for story time.

Four kids signed up for the 3 – 5 years and four kids for the 1 – 2 years. I asked one woman with small kids and she said “We don’t do story time.” Well fine. Neither do I. Oh, don’t worry, I’ll give it a couple of weeks.

I also did a drop in, evening story time. EVERYONE was begging me! “Why in God’s name, don’t you do an evening drop in story time? We don’t want to sign up. We work, and we want it at night.” So, I do it and how many people show up? ONE. And the only reason she showed up is because one of my co-workers drove her to the library (she was her granddaughter). Sigh.

Finally.

I have been having more dizzy spells again. I keep trying to forget about them, mostly because I’m really scared. Of course that’s probably the last thing I should be doing.

These spells are strange. Someone will say something that’ll get me thinking and suddenly the dizzy spell will come on. I don’t know if its because I shouldn’t be thinking too hard, or what. I get a dry throat flushed in my face and I get sweaty. Plus of course the dizziness. Jeff says I should be keeping track of them… and not like the time I said that I was going to keep track of everything I bought and post it here. Maybe next year. Anyway, I’m going to call my mom and then the doctor next week. Jeff’s orders.

I guess that’s it.

Oh, wait. I want to get a custom made earring known as a twister from Primitive Impressions. I’ve seen them and they look really interesting. However, they need to be custom made because they’ll be going through all the holes in my left ear and the holes in my left ear are a little different from the holes in someone else’s ear. Curious, and interesting. We shall see. Got to talk to the hubby, although I’ve mostly convinced myself. The only thing that’s holding me back is the PSP. I’m going to get one so I can play Loco Roco, show pictures/video and listen to MP3s. Fun!

Now I’m off to Slumberland.

The quote is from the Mickey Mouse song, although what it has to do with my post, I do not know.
Anyway, long time no see.

Lots has been going on.

1) School has started. THANK GAWD! I love those teens, but they were so bored, they were driving me mad. Leaving butts all over the library, throwing food and paint at the building, beating each other up. You get the idea. I really try to stand up for them and listen to them, but sometimes its REALLY hard.

2) I went to Webster for a staff exchange day. It was so great! I love that Adrienne (kids librarian) gets to lie on the floor of her office to look at books and prepare for story time. One of my co-workers said I could do that, but I’d get rolled over or stepped on. The library is gi-normous! You need to call people to talk to them, not just holler or twirl your seat around. There are three people at the Reference desk (we don’t even have a reference desk). Everything is bright and clean. Adrienne has her own story time room, and TONS of crafty stuff. She has a dedicated staff just for children’s services, plus there are two (ish) teen librarians. Sigh. It was a lot of fun and interesting.

On the other hand, I REALLY like where I’m working. Everyone is really close, there is no reference desk (which is good because it gives me more ordering/programming time, but bad because I don’t have much reference desk experience), everyone knows eachother. They like me (they really like me).

This does lead me to some other things I’d like to talk about:

3) Sometimes I feel VERY overwhelmed, like I’m definately taking on too much. There is a class for librarians on managing stress. I may try to take that. Maybe they will teach me how to meditate…  Unfortunately, this is completely my fault, because I added all the new programs. The only one that was in place as a yearly continuing program was story time. I sometimes feel that I have too much on my plate and it makes me frazzled. Double unfortunately, I want to make everyone (except myself, it seems) happy. I’m a people pleaser, or try to be. I have a couple big projects that I’m doing now that have a deadline. Plus there are other little projects that I have taken on, never mind ordering books and programming. Especially the story times. I’ve been wanting to explore new ways to do story time. Which leads me to story time.

4) I love story times. I put out surveys to see when people want story times, I advertise within the library and one of my coworkers puts notices in the newspapers. I HEAVE fliers at them. Everyone calls asking about story time. Begging for story time.

Four kids signed up for the 3 – 5 years and four kids for the 1 – 2 years. I asked one woman with small kids and she said “We don’t do story time.” Well fine. Neither do I. Oh, don’t worry, I’ll give it a couple of weeks.

I also did a drop in, evening story time. EVERYONE was begging me! “Why in God’s name, don’t you do an evening drop in story time? We don’t want to sign up. We work, and we want it at night.” So, I do it and how many people show up? ONE. And the only reason she showed up is because one of my co-workers drove her to the library (she was her granddaughter). Sigh.

Finally.

I have been having more dizzy spells again. I keep trying to forget about them, mostly because I’m really scared. Of course that’s probably the last thing I should be doing.

These spells are strange. Someone will say something that’ll get me thinking and suddenly the dizzy spell will come on. I don’t know if its because I shouldn’t be thinking too hard, or what. I get a dry throat flushed in my face and I get sweaty. Plus of course the dizziness. Jeff says I should be keeping track of them… and not like the time I said that I was going to keep track of everything I bought and post it here. Maybe next year. Anyway, I’m going to call my mom and then the doctor next week. Jeff’s orders.

I guess that’s it.

Oh, wait. I want to get a custom made earring known as a twister from Primitive Impressions. I’ve seen them and they look really interesting. However, they need to be custom made because they’ll be going through all the holes in my left ear and the holes in my left ear are a little different from the holes in someone else’s ear. Curious, and interesting. We shall see. Got to talk to the hubby, although I’ve mostly convinced myself. The only thing that’s holding me back is the PSP. I’m going to get one so I can play Loco Roco, show pictures/video and listen to MP3s. Fun!

Now I’m off to Slumberland.

This morning I had a dizzy spell of some sort. I don’t think it was your run of the mill dizzy spell, but I don’t want it to be something more than just regular dizziness. I sort of felt the blood drain out of my face and while it wasn’t like the aura visions that I had been before my seizure, it wasn’t like a regular feeling of dizziness. Of course, I tried to make it go away, because I didn’t want anything to be wrong. Unfortunately, I don’t really know exactly what happened.
If you are one of the five people that read my blog, you will understand my concern. If you just happened to stumble upon my blog and are wondering “What the hell is she going on about?” let me explain.

January 1st of this year, I was enjoying dinner with my hubby, my second set of parents (err… in-laws) and my son. All of a sudden, my mother-in-law noticed my face had gone all funny. I then started shaking and doing all sorts of strange things. Of course, I heard all of this second hand because I wasn’t there at the time. That’s right, I don’t remember a thing. It was like my brain just went on a mini vacation.. in a blender. What I had was a grand-mal seizure. (I did NOT lose bladder control thank god).

I went to see the neurologist and as we talked, I realized that for the past year, my brain had been working itself up to the seizure. I was having seizure auras, which caused me to have a strange sense of deja vu. I would have these at the strangest times, sitting eating dinner, at the end of the summer reading program pizza party, typing on the computer, going to the loo. There really didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason. All I understood was that they were happening too much and freaking me out. Unfortunately I didn’t realize until after the seizure what was going on.

The doctor then told me that there really weren’t any outside factors that had caused my seizure. Turns out (as my mom finally decided to tell me the day before) that my father and his mom both had seizures. Therefor I can blame it all on genetics. Which doesn’t really make me feel any better, but I know why it happened.

So now I’m on medicine called Lamictal (which also treats bipolar disorder). They slowly increased it, and at one point I was taking 200 mg (?) a day, but then I broke out in a rash, which if it goes on too long, can send you to the hospital. So then I had to start all over slowly. There are quite a few side effects, and I’m pretty sure that I have a couple of them: dizziness, headaches, blurry vision. Before the seizure, I actually had very few headaches. Now my head never feels like its screwed on just right. I sort of feel like the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. Stuff just keeps falling out of me. Plus I’m pretty paranoid about every strange feeling going on in my brain. Of course I don’t usually want to tell anyone about it because I don’t want to cause trouble, and I really hate being a burden, since of course:
I can’t drive. I can’t drive until I’ve been on the medicine for six months. If I hadn’t gone on the medicine, I’d have to wait a year before I could drive. Granted, I don’t want to have a seizure while in the car, because I could kill someone. I also hate being such a burden on people.

Next Wednesday I have an appointment with the Neurologist. On the one hand, I don’t want to tell her that I had a strange dizzy spell. But, on the other hand, I don’t want to have another seizure. I don’t want anything to be wrong with me, if we’re going to be honest, but since its too late for that, I just want to be healthy enough to enjoy being with my son and husband. Plus I’d like to start in on making another baby, and I don’t want to be a wreck for that. My neurologist says that its okay to have babies while on lamictal, but upon looking at side effects and such, its not very comforting. I’d like to have one more kid, but I don’t want him/her to have health problems because of me.

My mind has been pretty crazy lately, but it feels good to get all this out. I really wish that I could be “normal” in any sense of the word, but it looks as though I’m destined to something different.

Oh dear, and I have to be at work tomorrow. I was going to try and get there at nine in the morning, but now I’m thinking that I’ll just take some cataloges home and go through them for an hour after work… a librarian and her cataloges are never parted, although I wish we were, because I’m afraid a stack of them are going to cave in on me and kill me.

And now for something completely different! One of my co-workers has been crocheting purses. If you know ANYTHING about me, you know that I absolutely LOVE purses. I love these purses that she’s been making, and I know for a fact that she sells them, but for some reason, she won’t sell them to her co-workers. She’s just evil!
I tried to find a pattern that looked similar, and this is the closest I could find – here or here or here or here or here or here or here or here plus directions on how to make it here. Well anyway, you get the picture. If you google buttonhole bag, you get pages and pages, and they’re all cute.

Hmm. For a minute it made me forget how sucky it is to have had a seizure. I love bags. (Don’t tease Jeff. I know you’re going to read this. You just don’t understand. You’re a guy.)

On Friday (March 31) I was trying to swallow my multi-vitamin. I had some troubles, as I often do, and I couldn’t swallow it too well. I suddenly felt some tightness in my chest, and as I leaned up against Jeff, I passed out. Jeff said that it looked like I shook once as I fell. I came to really quickly, but it still sucked and it was scary. Then I had to go right to a school for a career day that I promised to do. I’ve been feeling under the weather for about a week and a half, and that morning I just didn’t need any added stress. My head was a little banged up and my nose was really sore. I couldn’t let anyone down though! What if because of me, one of the kids (2nd to 6th grade) had a life changing experience and decided that they wanted to be a librarian? Um, yeah right. I’m not really sure that anyone listened to me. I mean really! Who thought that young kids like this were going to sit still for a half hour to listen to the likes of me? Then, I got to the library where I was supposed to talk (appropriate, I guess) and I didn’t have a teacher or an adult of any kind in the room with me. Okay, I thought, that’s alright, I can handle it. Well I handled it fine until two of the kids decided to hide under the book shelves. I really couldn’t think of much to say for a whole half hour. I told them about how much education you need to be a librarian. I explained what I did, and what important things you need to know (Math, people skills, reading and writing skills, friendly outlook on life). I also read some books. I had originally brought the books to show the kids that reading didn’t need to be boring, so I brought books like The Truth About Poop, My Librarian’s a Camel, Magdelena Catelina Hoopensteiner Wallendiner Hogan Logan Bogan is her Name, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and The Terrible Underpants. I read some of the books and I made the kids shake their wiggles out. Unfortunately, between the cold and the dizziness of passing out, I wasn’t a thrill a minute. Luckily, I brought in my school yearbooks from when I went to the school (I was an alumni of this particular school) and since some of the teachers that were there when I was a kid, are still there, they got a kick out of that and wanted to keep looking at the yearbooks.
I was exhausted the rest of the day and spent the rest of the day at my parents’ house hanging out and reading. I don’t think I could handle having someone’s kids all day long, especially if I didn’t know the kids (or the parents) at all. That would be insane.

Good Night all. I’m really sleepy, and I want to look my best tomorrow!

So I had this seizure on Sunday (which would be first of the year, how appropriate is that?) Okay this is bad but I can handle it. My muscles ache, my tongue hurts (since I bit the hell out of it) I feel sort of strange.
This is what I can’t handle, even though its all very reasonable…
1) I can’t DRIVE!
I live in West Henrietta. I work in Hilton. I won’t ask you to do the math because I’ll tell you, it takes me 40 minutes to get to work. On the other hand, my husband lives (with me in Henrietta… wow maybe this has affected my head) and works in Henrietta. Granted he does take Jack to my parents’ house, but that’s all in the samish area. And now he has to drive me to work. Errgh.
2) I have to get weird tests done.
I had the CAT scan the night I went to the ED at Strong, I just got the MRI today and tomorrow I have to get the EEG. The CAT one was okay, I guess, but the MRI was pretty icky. They ask you if you are claustrophobic, then insert you into this little tube. Then all these loud beeping noises go off and you HAVE TO LIE COMPLETELY STILL or they get to do it ALL OVER AGAIN! Then they insert some dye in you and do it for another five or ten minutes. Fun Fun Fun.
3) Before you can drive, you have to talk to a Neurologist.
Guess when my appointment is?
Guess!
Nope, its not in January.
It’s February 9!
I will go crazy before then!

Why oh why did my body have to rebel against me? Its not fair. Oh, well. The woman who did my MRI said that my brain was perfect. At least if people give me grief, I can tell them that I have a perfect brain. I guess its not as exciting as I thought it’d be.

I am so so so sick of all these “diet” books that make you take out all carbs or all sugar or eat nothing but protein. Blegh. After a long conversation with some of my co-workers, I decided that I am going to follow the food pyramid, which was changed this year. It’s set up completely different, with all of the sections showing vertically instead of horizontally and exercise is included on the pyramid. I think that if you look on the website, the section for exercise is the biggest part of the pyramid, and this is the part that most people are missing, including me. You can diet as much as you want, and unless you balance it out with exercise, you aren’t going to do yourself much good. If you cut out too many calories, your body will go into starvation mode and conserve all the calories you do take in. I think the FDA is basically trying to tell us that everything is about BALANCE!!! Therefor, I am going to follow the guidelines for the food pyramid and DDR every night for 30 minutes. Hopefully, I’ll be healthy in no time. Really though, all I want is to be able to keep up with my kid(s). I don’t want them to be embarrassed of me. Maybe someday I’ll even be a MILF. If you don’t know what that means, I’m not going to tell you because its not nice to say.

Anyway, beginning yesterday, according to MyPyramid.gov – United States Department of Agriculture, I should follow this (plus around 30 – 60 minutes of exercise each day).

Your results are based on a document.write(OutputCalories);2000 calorie pattern*.

document.write(CalculateGrains);6 document.write(CalculateGrainsTxt);ounces document.write(CalculateVegetables);2.5 document.write(CalculateVegetablesTxt);cups document.write(CalculateFruits);2 document.write(CalculateFruitsTxt);cups document.write(CalculateMilk);3 document.write(CalculateMilkTxt);cups document.write(CalculateMeatBeans);5.5 document.write(CalculateMeatBeansTxt);ounces 1 Make Half Your Grains Whole Aim for at least document.write(CalculateWholeGrains);3 whole grains a day 2 Vary Your Veggies Aim for this much every week: Dark Green Vegetables = document.write(CalculateDarkGreenVeg);3 document.write(CalculateDarkGreenVegTxt);cups weekly Orange Vegetables = document.write(CalculateOrangeVeg);2 document.write(CalculateOrangeVegTxt);cups weekly Dry Beans & Peas = document.write(CalculateBeansVeg);3 document.write(CalculateBeansVegTxt);cups weekly Starchy Vegetables = document.write(CalculateStarchyVeg);3 document.write(CalculateStarchyVegTxt);cups weekly Other Vegetables = document.write(CalculateOtherVeg);6 1/2 document.write(CalculateOtherVegTxt);cups weekly Oils & Discretionary Calories Aim for document.write(CalculateGramsOils);6 teaspoons of oils a day Limit your extras (extra fats & sugars) to document.write(CalculateCalories);265 Calories

I always appreciate encouragement, because while I think that this shouldn’t be TOO had to follow, I still think I’m going to need to watch myself to make sure I don’t go too crazy.

I am so so so sick of all these “diet” books that make you take out all carbs or all sugar or eat nothing but protein. Blegh. After a long conversation with some of my co-workers, I decided that I am going to follow the food pyramid, which was changed this year. It’s set up completely different, with all of the sections showing vertically instead of horizontally and exercise is included on the pyramid. I think that if you look on the website, the section for exercise is the biggest part of the pyramid, and this is the part that most people are missing, including me. You can diet as much as you want, and unless you balance it out with exercise, you aren’t going to do yourself much good. If you cut out too many calories, your body will go into starvation mode and conserve all the calories you do take in. I think the FDA is basically trying to tell us that everything is about BALANCE!!! Therefor, I am going to follow the guidelines for the food pyramid and DDR every night for 30 minutes. Hopefully, I’ll be healthy in no time. Really though, all I want is to be able to keep up with my kid(s). I don’t want them to be embarrassed of me. Maybe someday I’ll even be a MILF. If you don’t know what that means, I’m not going to tell you because its not nice to say.

Anyway, beginning yesterday, according to MyPyramid.gov – United States Department of Agriculture, I should follow this (plus around 30 – 60 minutes of exercise each day).

(plan deleted since it was breaking the page layout 🙁 )

I always appreciate encouragement, because while I think that this shouldn’t be TOO had to follow, I still think I’m going to need to watch myself to make sure I don’t go too crazy.

My life right now consists of sleeping, working and feeding Jack. There’s so much stuff I want to do (like write some more in this blog) but every spare moment I get is for sleeping or eating.

Right now I’ve found this great book called The Ultimate Smoothie Book by Calbom. I made one with banana, soy milk and peanut butter for breakfast. It was so good, I want one EVERY morning! At first I thought soy milk, ick, but its really yummy. Plus, its quick and I can drink my breakfast on the way to work!

I’m still pregnant. I can think of quite a few other states I’d rather be in right now, and pregnant is not one of them. Jack seems quite content just hanging out right where he is, but for me I think I’d like him to come out any time now. Like maybe right now. Nope. Guess not.

The mystical “they” say that there are things that can encourage the baby to come out. Spicy food, long walks, and doing things that got you pregnant in the first place. Well, I’m still pregnant. So there goes that theory out the window.

Friday was my last day at work. I sort of wish that I had stayed a little bit longer, but my boss didn’t want me to go into labor at the library. I must imagine that wouldn’t be a pretty sight for all my co-workers and the library patrons. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if I started having contractions when all the kids were in the library for story time! What fun! “Mommy, why is the librarian crying and screaming?” Unfortunately it means that I’m home with not much to do. I’ve already cleaned up most of the house (although I could mop the floors) and I still need to finish writing thank-you notes (sorry everybody) but I feel very restless. I take naps, but they don’t last too long. I guess I should be taking advantage of this, considering that at the latest life will be changing very drastically on April 6, when the doctor is going to induce me (and which happens to be my mother-in-law’s birthday!)The doctor asked me if I wanted to wait until my birthday (April 18) and suprise suprise, I infatically stated that under no conditions would that be happening.

I went back to work today. It was really pretty exhausting to start working again after lying on the couch for two weeks. Still it was nice to be able to do something constructive. Everyone at work was pretty great about me taking it easy, however I’ve started to feel like I’m nothing but a fetus carrier, and not a person anymore. This is a feeling that I get not just from work, but from everywhere: doctor, friends, family, strangers. I’m just a belly with legs… its pretty creepy, I know but then again I am pregnant and therefor crazy.
I’ve been feeling quite panicky recently. I can’t really imagine why, but there you go. I’m really scared that after the little guy is born, there will be lots of people who want to visit him and hold him, but bit by bit, it will be like I’ve dropped off the face of the earth and swallowed up into a cavernous black pit. I’ll end up spending all my time caring for Jack and forgetting to wash my hair or change my clothes and I’ll begin to (or continue to, depending on who you talk to) lose my mind.