Cathy the Librarian

Non-Kid-Lit Blogs: A Rare Post of the Day

Adrienne tagged me on this meme that’s doing the rounds: Five Non-Kid-Lit Blogs We Read. She got tagged by MotherReader.
Okay. I can do this. Its my responsibility as a blogger to do this. I really can’t believe that this should be so hard since I’m on the internet EVERY DAY. Plus I get caught in the weird blog whirlpool. One blog after another swirling around me. I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot recently. There are so many good blogs out there and as I go into my blog trance, one flowing into the other, I lose track of time and space. Of course I also lose track of which blogs I really like. But like a trooper, I will push forward and take one for the team.

I also decided that I would put blogs that I actually read, not ones that would make me super cool… although I’ve decided that these are pretty cool. I mean my sister’s one of them, for gosh sake! Who’s cooler than that?

1. My heart of Darkness – By day she’s a Physicist, by night a poet and all the time she’s my sister.
2. Unshelved – Daily comic that guides me in my attempts at uber-librarian-dom, whatever that is.
3. Alternative Teen Services – Teen Librarians of the world unite! I want to write articles for the blog, and they said I could. Of course that would mean that I should also write in my own occasionally.
4. Momchops – I am a faithful reader, now if only she would post more often… of course I could say the same of myself. Feh, I have an excuse. I’m a very busy youth services librarian in a eetsy beetsy library. She’s just the assistant to the director of the Monroe County Library System.
5. What Not to Crochet – Now that I like crocheting, I had to know what NOT to crochet… although the thong looked awful comfy.

Okay. Who’s turn is it now? Who actually reads my blog? Hmm. How about:

1. Sam
2. Patty
3. Olivia – I don’t know that she actually reads my blog, but should she, TAG! Your it!

I get so busy, I can’t believe that I’ve neglected the blog for so long! I’ve just been on the go so much! Umm, well mostly crocheting and playing with Jack, but those are important too, aren’t they?

I’ve been trying to take more pictures of the things I’ve made, so pictures will be up soon. The subject of my interest recently is felted jewelry. I made some pins, a couple bracelets and a necklace/belt (for my niece).

There’s also been a lot of work going on in my teen area. As I may have mentioned before, Jenny is my practicum student, and she just finished weeding my teen collection. A LOT of books disappeared. We then moved the graphic novels to a more spacious location. I am very happy with it, and it looks 20X better. I just wish that I didn’t have to get rid of anything that hadn’t gone out in three years to do it. Our library is so small (how small is it :)?) that we’re almost at a one book in/one book out state. That is really awful. Although what is worse is that some people think that we’re plenty big enough. 🙁 I’d love to have some more space to display things, and make it look more like a book store, which as current experts say, is the way to get more books circulating in the library.

Poop.

By the way, Jeff called me yesterday all excited because while Jack was sitting on Jeff’s lap, Jack started grunting, which is the sure sign of poopy. Okay so that’s not the exciting bit. Anyway, Jack looked right at Jeff and said “Poopy!” then got off Jeff’s lap, went into his bedroom, grabbed a diaper and sat on the changing pad. Jeff then had to call me right afterwards.
Awww. How cute is that? … Okay so if I wasn’t a parent, I’d wonder when the cute part was coming, but as a parent all those weird things suddenly become adorable. Parenthood is strange.

Poopy!

Committees. A word that is ingrained in every librarian’s brain and will stay with them until the day they die.  A word that librarians can love or dread. A word slightly less scarier than “low circulation” or “low attendance”. Ohhh just the thought of it gives me goosebumps.

Every librarian soon learns after leaving the nest of library school and entering into the big bad world of the public library that they will be “asked” to join committees. Right now I’m on a couple committees for kids:

1. scary books (list) committee
2. technology program committee
3. kids website committee
4. Amerks program committee (now done)

I think that might be it. For some reason I thought I might be on one more, but I’m not sure. I also somehow was put on the teen webpage committee, which I think has one or two more people on it, but I’m not absolutely sure. I think it may be because I opened my big mouth and came up with an idea for the teen section of the website: have kids/teens draw caricatures of the librarians and then have people vote on the best which will then be put on the main page of the teen site with a link to each library. Some of the librarians were slightly disturbed about having a caricature done of them… it just occurred to me, maybe we could have teens come up with a library mascot or character that represents the library as they see it, instead of the caricature of the librarian… that might make them slightly happier.

Well anyway, as you can see I have quite a bit on my plate, which is probably why when at one of the meetings my boss went to they were talking about creating an emerging technology committee, she thought of adding me to the committee… but then thought better of it. Come on now! That actually seems like a committee I could commit to 🙂 LOL Yea. I know stupid, but its almost one in the am. You cannot blame me for stupidity this early in the morning.

So anyway, now my interest is piqued. I want to know who else will be in this group and what the group will be focusing on. COME ON! I need answers! I was afraid to sound too interested to Sally, because… well now I don’t really know why. I think that this would be something that I could sink my teeth into. I am all about libraries taking another step forward into the 21st century. We need to keep up with the Jones’ if we want to stay alive. Public libraries need to be more competitive if they want to get some of the funding that everyone else is fighting for, and I think that by taking advantage of technology and marketing ourselves to those who don’t know that we exist we will be taking a step in the right direction. At the moment we’re merely a place that “dirty men look at pictures of naked people” and a place to pick up tax forms. I, personally don’t want that to be our image. Sorry folks. I think its time for change. Unfortunately, I think that someone is going to need to rile up the chicken coop to get it going. Luckily, I think that there are enough librarians that are receptive to what needs to happen that it shouldn’t be too awful. Maybe they’ll just need a middle-sized fox to get into the coop, not an ex-large one. 🙂

Don’t really know where I’m going with this anymore. Time for bed. G’night.

Yesterday I bought buttons for some bags I’m making for my nieces. I found this box of random buttons at Joanns, and I had to buy it. I found some REALLY great buttons in the box, and I just happened to have a tote bag laying around so…

This past weekend I went to a women’s retreat with my church. I invited my friend Clorinda and I think she had a great time too. There was nine of us; half of them were in my car: my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, Clorinda and I. It was nice and relaxing, not having to think about how much work I had to do at home and at my job. How far behind in things I always seem to be. We talked some about God, but we also talked about life in general. It was interesting to talk with other women and listen to their views on life and God. I don’t really seem to talk about God much, although it seems that I have been saturated by religion where-ever I am, having gone to Catholic school through high school, and being very involved in my Catholic church until Jeff stole me away to his Presbyterian church. I guess I’ve always just taken God for granted and not really thought much about the subject. Especially since being a Catholic and having to memorize so much. Anyway, it was nice to think a little bit about how I feel about God and religion. And I realized that I really don’t think about God.

The other part of the retreat was to think creatively. We made blessing bowls out of papier-mâché, water color paintings, prayer beads, scribble drawings… we were also encouraged to write about the thoughts and ideas that were cluttering our mind keeping us from moving on in our lives. We also discussed the importance with prioritizing our lives, and thinking about what is most important in our lives.

Clorinda and I spent some times with the water colors. She talked about her new obsession with circles. She also showed me an appliqué of a bird that she’s working on. Of course that got me thinking, so as soon as I got home, I had to do something of my own… and here is the completed project.

Here’s a close up of the appliqué. It was really easy actually. All I did was buy some felt pieces, some fusible backing and some embroidery floss. I ironed the backing to the felt, and the felt to the bag. Easy peasy. I made one for myself, and now I’m going to make one for my mother (for her birthday, which was on Valentine’s Day… doh).

I’m just trying to decide if I want to sew around the center yellow circle… what do you think?

Yea! My sister informed me this evening that the Police are getting back together to tour for a year. Oh my GAWD! You guys do not even know how much I love the Police. I found out about them in high school (maybe from my dad?) and I have loved them ever since. I love solo Sting too, but I LOVE the Police. I could listen to their music over and over and over. And in fact I have.

On another note, I was doing my typical thing of flitting through the blogsphere, and I knew of the site etsy already, but I hadn’t seen NeedleNoodles’s work before. All the crocheted candy, fruit and sushi you could ever want or need.
Finally, I’m going to read a series book tomorrow for my kids book discussion on Thursday. We do a different theme each month, and this month we are reading about weather (fiction/non-fiction). One of the girls LOVES weather fairies, so I’m going to try and tackle a couple by Thursday at 5pm. Shouldn’t be a problem, since I think I could read one in about 30 minutes. Even easier if the house is encased in snow like it is in Oswego. I was going to find pictures, but I’m tired and if I have to drive to work it might be nice to be awake for it.

Good night everyone!

I applied for a scholarship to go to the New York Library Association Youth Services Section (or NYLA YSS for short) Spring Conference, which I figured I would never get… and I did! I was one of two people to get a scholarship to go to the conference! It is supposed to be a lot of fun, and I can’t wait. I’m trying to convince my sister that she wants to go (and I KNOW she wants to meet Libba Bray something fierce) but she needs to convince her job that she can go. I think it would be a lot of fun to go with her, plus I think it would be a nice experience for her.

Also I’m going to be in a panel of librarians (and others) to discuss teen services with the city librarians. I think it should be very interesting for me personally, because I’ll be up there with two Cleavland Ohio librarians, a Buffalo librarian, someone from the police department and someone from child services. Then me from Parma… hmm. Should be interesting.

A reporter from The City Newspaper asked me a bunch of questions about the teen programs in my library. She was very impressed that we have more teen programs than children’s programs in the library, and I wasn’t sure if she was writing an article or what. Of course, I realize that probably no one anywhere near Hilton reads The City Newspaper or even knows that it exists.

Oh and I finally made a flier for my storytimes… I’m feeling very apprehensive this time round, but I’m going to do it. I’m planning a birth – 18 months (unstructured play/reading time) 2 – 3 years story time and 4 – 5 year storytime. I did buy ribbons, noisy instruments (like bells) some balls, and some scarves that the little little ones can play with. I have AB-SO-LUTE-LY no idea what I’m doing. Should be a lovely train wreck.

Author: Title:
McCaffrey, Anne. Dragonquest
Duncan, Lois, A gift of magic
Galdone, Joanna. The tailypo : a ghost story
Hague, Michael. Kate Culhane, a ghost story
DeFelice, Cynthia Cold feet
The book of simple songs & circles
Shaw, Susan. Black-eyed Suzie
Doyle, Eugenie Stray voltage
Brennan, Herbie. Faerie wars
Gaiman, Neil. The wolves in the walls
Gaiman, Neil. Coraline
White Christmas (movie)
Hahn, Mary Downing. The old Willis place : a ghost story
Tuccillo, Diane P. Library teen advisory groups
Avi, 1937 The end of the beginning
Carman, Patrick. The Dark Hills divide
King-Smith, Dick. The golden goose
Cushman, Karen. Catherine, called Birdy
Moriyama, Daisuke. Chrono crusade
Westerfeld, Scott. Peeps : a novel
Fox, Mem, 1946 Guess what
Glover, Jane. Mozart’s women : his family, his friends, his music
Delaney, Joseph, 194 Revenge of the witch
Hale, Shannon. Princess Academy
Medley, Linda. Castle waiting
Delaney, Joseph, 194 Curse of the bane
Kirkman, Robert. The walking dead
Kurata, Hidevuki. R.O.D., Read or die
Austen, Jane, 1775-1 Northanger Abbey ; Lady Susan ; The Watsons
Miller, Kirsten, 197 Kiki Strike : inside the shadow city
Hettmansperger, Mary Fabulous woven jewelry
Huber Cypher, Carol. Hand felted jewelry and beads

I can’t remember if I’ve said this before, but I’m giving a presentation (with a couple of other children’s librarians) on technology next Wednesday. Therefor I’ve spent ALL my free time checking out blogs and article, as well as trying to create yet another blog Librarians Rock the World and a bookmark list from Spurl. Plus I’ve recently added some reviews to my book review blog (one of which I lost that was about the book A Great and Terrible Beauty when I accidentally closed the window I was working on. Damn.) Needless to say, when I get home, the last thing I want to do is get back on the Internet and type in yet another blog. But here I am.

I’ve been listening to oodles of books (which I posted on my other blog) and I’ve been pretty pleased with my choices. I have stacks and stacks of books in my bedroom, just waiting for me to read…. as a matter of fact I think I’ll post what I have out on my card!

They are called Landrollers, and they really freak the hell out of me. I have no idea who would actually wear these out in public, but I’m sure they’ll end up like the crocs. One day suddenly everyone will be wearing them and then like the sheep that I am, I’ll want a pair… Oh god I hope not. They really are bizarre looking. Plus I can’t really imagine that they are that comfortable, because the wheels are out on the sides with nothing right underneath you. They look hideous. Of course inline skates look strange and uncomfortable, but I got a pair of those. Of course those are a pain in the ass. I’m such a klutz that even the inline skates are hard for me to maneuver around in. I might as well be wearing high heals with wheels… hmm that might be funny. I sort of wish that roller skates were still popular. Those weren’t as bad, although I’m sure I would still freak out when I go down a hill or slight slope.

When I was living in a section of Henrietta that had more houses and more of a neighborhood, I used to skate a lot (and I really did it too!), but since we moved to this new development, there really isn’t anywhere that I can go that doesn’t get much traffic. I love my house a heck of a lot better than the one that we were renting, but I miss the neighborhood. And I miss living with four other people in the house (besides Jeff and I). It was almost like living in a dorm, with friends coming in and out and all the noise (and fighting). But it was fun because there was always someone to talk to and I usually had a skating partner.
I guess now I’ll have to stick to DDR, and leave the weird stuff to other people. LOL 🙂

BTW, I’ve sent my resume to Ogden Library… scary! I know I won’t ever be able to fill Patty’s shoes, since she’s one of my librarian idols (along with Adrienne and Stephanie), but I really like Anne and Roberta, so I think it could be fun.