Thanksgiving

I saw my Grandparents today for the first time in years...with my Grandpa around 20 years, and my Grandma around 10 years. My Aunt Faythe sent out a YouTube video she created of a Thanksgiving dinner from over 20 years ago. I'd say it's probably from either 1987 or 1988.

My parents were just a few years older then I am now. And my brother displays the same mannersisms in the video that he does now! It was a blast watching this video, feel free to enjoy...and you can make fun of my weird hair and really big glasses if you want. Yes, that is me writing down the drink orders :)

Click on the link below to view a Thomas Thanksgiving:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdVLAtcvMGM

A walk in the woods

On Monday morning I took advantage of the comfortably cool weather and took to my car with a bag of Lucky Charms, a water bottle filled to the top, my camera and exciting intentions to climb a very big hill with the goal of viewing some natural beauty. About 10 minutes north of Winona I found my exit for John A. Latsch State Park. A small state park with only few trails and camping sites. It's directly off of HWY 61 and when you turn into the park you're greeted immediately with a few parking spots and signs. Quaint, quiet, and mostly known only to the locals. A perfect place for some solitude and peace.

I found the steps I heard about right away. And the incline was dramatic right away. I had to stop about 4 or 5 times. To take pictures of course. Okay, and to catch my breath, grab a drink of water and rest a second so I wouldn't have a heart attack. Finally after only about 25 minutes I reached the top. It wasn't a dramatic moment, kind of slow actually. I would get peaks of the Mississippi and treetops as I would get closer to the top of the bluff I was climbing so I gradually knew how close I was to my destination. As I reached the top, the steps turned into man made trails and finally I reached a point where it was simply the top of the bluff and a gorgeous view.

One of the fun finds was that the man made trails didn't just stop at the edge of the bluff. They actual went away from the edge, towards more trees and small fields of wildflowers. And the best part was having the bluff all to myself. Realizing this kind of natural beauty exists creates a natural joy that has filled my heart with pleasure all week. I can't help but quote John Muir:

"Fresh beauty opens one's eyes wherever it is really seen, but the very abundance and completeness of the common beauty that besets our steps prevents its being absorbed and appreciated. It is a good thing, therefore, to make short excursions now and then to the bottom of the sea among dulse and coral, or up among the clouds on mountain-tops, or in balloons, or even to creep like worms into dark holes and caverns underground, not only to learn something of what is going on in those out-of-the-way places, but to see better what the sun sees on our return to common every-day beauty"

Wii

On Saturday I went out and made a big purchase. I bought a Nintendo Wii! Part of it was paid for with b-day gift cards from my family because I've been wanting a Wii for awhile. I finally got one and it's wonderful.

I've had a lot on my mind this summer and this Wii erased everything. On Saturday for 2 hours straight I enjoyed tennis, golf, and bowling with no thoughts of men, work, and other various points of stress. It was pure bliss.

On Sunday I woke up, made coffee and went straight to the Wii to do a little boxing and play a little baseball. No I did not spend all day playing on the Wii...I do have a bit of a life. But today I am sore so I may have a overdone the Wii activities a bit this weekend. I guess I'll have to learn moderation, something I've always tried to learn but never been very good at. At least some moderation is forced...Wii has an Wii fitness training option that you can only do once a day. It gives you your Wii fit age...on Saturday mine was 80! On Sunday it was 70! After work I'll find out what it is today, hopefully its at least gone down to 60 :)

Headache

I had a headache for 3 days straight. Three days! And it was one of those annoying dull headaches that isn't bad enough to stay home from work but is distracting enough to make work incredibly difficult to do. It was horrible. I tried a variety of medication, aspirin, ibuprofen, Tylenol. I finally decided it may be sinuses. I went out and bought Sudafed...the real stuff. I by real stuff I mean I had to hand over my drivers license, and sign my name saying I won't be making illegal drugs with the Sudafed. I had to do all of this while my head was hurting on its 2nd day.

Lucky for me I also found while I was shopping for drugs, Golden Girls on sale for $8.99 a season...what a deal! So I bought 2 seasons of Golden Girls, and Sudafed...what a combination. Later that evening I took 2 pills and put in disc 1, I think it was around the 2nd episode that I was officially knocked out from the drugs. The strange thing about Sudafed is that you never feel like your completely sleeping, I think it must be what a coma is like...your kind of aware of the background noise but not conscience of it. I realized this because when I awoke I decided to go back to the 3rd episode and watch what I had missed during my sleep/coma. And it all seemed familiar, I remembered the conversations...freaky right. Sudafed rocks.

Today was the third day of my headache...I was bummed to wake up and find it was there, but it finally went away this afternoon and I have been as happy as a clam since. Headaches are annoying and they make me desperately wish I had a boyfriend that could go buy Sudafed for me...but then if that were the case I wouldn't own The Golden Girls, and I really like that show :)

New Hobby/Obsession

I have become obsessed with organizing my DVDs. All week I have been organizing and then planning and then reorganizing...it's madness. Maybe this is because I'm librarian, maybe I have a little compulsive disorder problem. The disturbing part is that I don't mind this new hobby, in fact I love it.

Here is why I keep reorganizing. I have Case Logic cases for my DVDs, this allows me to fit my hundreds of DVDs on one bookshelf. However, I have movie DVDs and television shows on DVD...plus I even have some VHS still. So my dilemma has been do I keep the VHS movies separate from the DVDs - part of me says yes because VHS deserves to be secluded to their own shelf...or drawer (!). But then I look my VHS and realize how many great movies I have that I have not replaced with DVD...a great movie does not deserve seclusion simple because of its format. So. I have been intermingling my formats...thus creating difficulty in organizing alphabetically. My case logic cases fit 72 DVDs, and I even have one that is wider and fits 144 I believe. I was grouping my movies in alphabetical clusters....a few VHS tapes and then a case afterwards with DVDs that start with the same letter as the group prior on the shelf. This worked for a few days.

Then I thought about genres. At one point I had tried group genres and then alphabetizing within the genre. As a librarian it's easy enough for me to classify a movie...however, I forget how which genre I've put movies into and then I go to look for a certain movie and find myself spending more time looking for it then I would if things were just alphabetized. Plus I feel like I'm at work if I start subgroups of my movies.

Oh and then there has been the whole issue of movie versus television...do I mix them or keep a case or two only for television series. I've done both and I think I've come to the conclusion that I prefer the television shows organized separately from the movies.

My last issue has been room for growth. In the Case Logic cases I like to leave a few DVD sleeves empty after each letter because I'm sure I'll buy more and it's not to have to shift all your DVDs to fit one new one in the case. So, do I decide on a raw number of empty sleeves and if so what is enough for growth or do I figure mathematically the proportionate amount of growth expected per letter based on how many I have of that letter compared to the total. I'm leaning towards the second option because I love doing math and it sound just quirky enough to be on the verge of crazy.

In fact this whole DVD reorganizing this week is just quirky enough and a huge stress relief for me...which may be just enough crazy to keep me sane.

Typewriters

In the last week there has been a student who has become extremely interested in our typewriters at the library. In the last year I have not seen one person approach the two electric typewriters we have in our computer room so I'm intrigued by this student's curiosity. Being at least 10 years older than him...okay definitely 10 years older than him I started to realize this may be his first encounter ever with a typewriter.

My memories with typewriters are from when I was a kid...probably around age 9 or 10. We learned how to use computers in elementary school and I think all the reports I wrote were on Apple computers. So my use of the typewriter was always just for fun...I think because I dreamed of writing books I loved the idea of typing out my first novel at the typewriter. We had a high end typewriter that had the "lift-off" tape so you could erase mistakes...what a handy invention that was. I was doing a little research on typewriters and discovered that in the 70's IBM came out with this "lift-off" tape. They also produced the "Selectric" machine...a typewriter that had enough memory to contain 50 pages before it was typed out, this allowed the writer to come up with rough drafts. I think of the typewriter as such an old machine that I never realized just how advanced it was 35 years ago.

I'm not sure what type of typewriters we have at the library but they are not advanced! A few observations I made of our typewriters that are both annoying and fun:

• They do not erase.
• They are loud! One typewriter is louder than 10 people typing on computers :)
• To move the page up or down...thus moving your typing ribbon up or down a line you have to press the code button and the number 6 or 7 depending on the direction. I found that fun! I still remember when word processing on computers involved command keys. Now we have the handy F1, F2, F3...etc.
• The typewriter keyboard has a Return key...remember this key everyone?! It Returned your ribbon to the other side of the page. Now we have an Enter key because we Enter information into the computer.

Modest observations...I just love how technology changes and evolves...concepts stay the same but we adapt in small ways to help these technology changes fit into our lives. Here are a few websites I found about the history of typewriters...enjoy! Go find a typewriter and type a loved one a letter!

The Classic Typewriter Page
IBM Archives
The First Typewriter
The Virtual Typewriter Museum

July...seriously?!

How is it already mid July. They say time flies when you're having fun but the reality is that as we get older time all becomes relative to how much time has passed. For example when your 5 years old and it's summer, and your waiting for Christmas it feels like that 6 months will take forever. Because 6 months to a 5 year old is 10% of what their total life has been...and that's not even accounting for what their memories have been. When you become 31, the 6 months til Christmas flies by because now 6 months has become 1.6% of your life. I wish I could say this observation is all my own but it is not....a coworker pointed this out the other day.

Speaking of work and time and life...how has it been 3 months since my last post? I am now 31, a library director (for only a year thank goodness) and still single. I like the first two and am learning to accept the third reality. This week I am enjoying the simple pleasure of sleeping in every day. I'm working the evening reference shift all week and am thrilled to not have to set my alarm clock once this week! Yay. I have never and never will be a morning person. Oh I've had jobs that started bright and early and all of my past coworkers will tell you that I don't fully become coherent till around 9 am...until then (or until I've had copious amounts of coffee) I'm just a walking zombie. So working the later shift and sleeping in this week may do wonders for my creativity...maybe I'll actually get a few blog posts out this week.

Contemporary Quilting

I recently went to an exhibit on Contemporary Quilting. It was wonderful, so many creative designs, all artistic and emotional...the creators had really put a piece of themselves in their work. I myself have known quilters for the past 5 years or so and have come to understand what a passion these women have for communicating and expressing something important to others through their fabrics.

I've wanted to take up the hobby for a while and have not had the time. This year though I managed to finish my first lap quilt.

Nothing to gush about but I did enjoy choosing the colors for the quilt and deciding how the pattern would be put together. It was a simple quilt but did take a while to complete being the first one I've worked on! I am far from skilled in the sewing department but I think as I continue this hobby piecing the quilt together will go faster and faster.

What I worked on above is more of a traditional quilt design. What I'm inspired to try now is a Contemporary Art Quilt. A while back I was inspired to try something new, work on a project that would never sit on a lap but instead would hang on a wall - but it would be fabric. I created the two pieces below.

These are simply contructed pieces, I am particular about colors going well together so picking the fabrics took longer then sewing them! As you can see there is a dark to light, light to dark theme. And the pieces would hang opposite on the wall, one vertical, one horizontal. What I will do next is pick a border and backing fabric and I'm going to hand stitch it all together with some sort of eccletic pattern. I think I may also use some beading.

I'm very inspired after this show so I believe I may have more pictures of new projects coming soon!

The critter in the attic

For the last few months I've heard a rustling in the attic. It's winter and every little animal needs a warm place to dwell so it really didn't seem like surprise or a big deal when occasionally I would hear the scattering of feet across the ceiling. I figured once the weather warms up the squirrel or chipmunk that's cozied up in the attic will find a new dwelling outside.

With the latest noises this weekend I now suspect that Charlotte and I have a new roommate, maybe even a few new roommates, permanently. Every day for the last 3 or 4 we have heard not just the scattering of feet but actual thumping, chattering and scratching.

The thumping I can understand...there are probably a few squirrels up there deciding where to place their nest of leaves and food stock and these decisions can sometimes lead to fighting I imagine. Or perhaps these squirrels are so excited to be roommates that there's some harmless tomfoolery.

The chattering sounds like squirrel noises...but I'm puzzled as to why a squirrel would be chattering. Do they talk to themselves? Or is this another sign along with the thumping that there are a few that have created a new home for themselves. And what are they discussing...I'm hoping it's just conversations like, "hey look at this insulation it makes a warm bed."

The scratching freaks me out a bit. Charlotte notices it before I do, she'll disappear to the office and then start meowing and when I go to find her she has big fat tail and is staring at the ceiling. Then I hear the scratching, it literally sounds like the squirrel is attempting to break through the ceiling and take over our part of the house. I'm hoping that it will be a Shawshank kind of process and by the time the squirrel succeeds I will be long gone...not that I should be frightened of a squirrel. But, well, many of you know of my bat experience last summer and a squirrel seems like a similar adventure that I would rather not deal with.

All in all I'm okay with a critter in the attic, as long as it stays in the attic. I'm not sure that Charlotte feels the same way, but every cat needs a little adventure and I guess hers will be the scary noises coming from the ceiling.

Wordle

I discovered Wordle today. I have so many ideas of how I will use it. Above is an example of what I just created in about 15 minutes.


So what is Wordle. In wordle you enter your text and then the program creates a word cloud, or also known in the library world as a tag cloud. The words more commonly present in the text will show up larger in the image. It is a visual way to display what the text is saying. It is so easy to use, and you can choose different colors, fonts and styles in which the words can be displayed.

You can also select the maximum amount of words you want displayed in the image. So if your text has 500 words but you only want a small cloud you can select up to 50 words and then the most prevalent 50 will show up. So cool. Oh - and you can use wordle on your blogs. I'll be trying that pretty soon :)

Another helpful hint - Do you want to create a wordle of lyrics from your favorite song but don't have them all or don't feel typing them? Find the song on the Internet. Type in the title or part of lyrics in Google with "quotes around the phrase/title" and then add lyrics after. Here's an example, in Google try typing the following:

"Add to the beauty" lyrics

The first hit will lead you to the lyrics of Sara Groves song Add to the beauty, a fabulous song I might add! Then highlight the whole text, copy it (control c) and paste it into the wordle box (control v). Done, in a few minutes! The power of technology makes me so giddy :)

So I know your wondering, what text did I use for the above image? I'll give you a hint, it's a song. Any guesses anyone? I'll let you think on it for a few days! In the mean time, give Wordle a try....I believe I'll be changing my facebook profile pretty soon with the help of Wordle...give it a shot yourself at wordle.net

melting snow and running?

I've been enjoying the warmer temperatures this last week. It's amazing how exciting 30 degrees can be when it's February and you've been cooped up inside for the last 2 months. I have actually found myself outside twice in the last week going for runs.

Well, I should clarify that when I say run I mean a very long walk to get my body warmed up, then I run for a few minutes, walk for another long jaunt and then run a few minutes, and the cycle continues. You get the idea....I am not a true runner, yet.

I've always wanted to be a runner but I find the excruciating pain in my sides and constant gasping for air pretty annoying. And as I'm "running" I always feel a sense of doom that this may be my last time outdoors, that death is just around the bend in the path and then I start picturing myself passing out or having a heart attack. And at that point I remember that I forgot to bring identification with me...how will the paramedics know who the limp, unconscious girl in the fetal position is on the side of trail.

Running for me is completely depressing and filled with tension and torture. But I do feel good about 20 minutes after I run, and it always feels good to get your heart pumping :) So I'm training myself, working my way into becoming a runner so that will someday be able to run for 20 minutes straight. Until that day, I'm keeping my identification with me at all times.

A new year already?

Oh how I have neglected my poor blog.

The truth of the matter is my life has been very low key recently and I have had a bit writer's block. So I guess I will just update a bit...

I am cold...very cold. I am not enjoying the frigid below 0 temperature, as much -22 below this last week. Yuck. Why I am still in MN....I do not know. I had such a great Christmas break, 3 weeks with no students on campus so work was easy and quiet and I was able to stay home a lot :) I enjoy being a hermit during cold weather and look for any reason to stay cuddled up in blankets on the couch with a good movie or book. I also took time to enjoy some of my hobbies during our academic break...mostly I just working on some sewing projects, I am attempting to finish my first quilt.

Work is great as usual, getting pretty busy right about now so the days and weeks are just whizzing by. I don't know how much explained my job in pasts blogs - I'm an Interlibrary loan librarian so when the research assignments are the main focus for students my job gets busier. Whenever a students wants a book or article that isn't in our library - I find it and make it accessible to the student. This means I also send other libraries items from our collection. So there - that's what I do...all day long I look at citations and online catalogs and handle paperwork :) Oh and I do get to do some reference for about 1/4 of the work week.

What else can I update...what is new with the new year...I am looking at houses but have not committed myself to the idea of buying one just yet. I like where I live because it's easier to get anywhere (work, grocery store) on foot or bike. So - although buying may be a better investment I like the convenience or my current location. Plus I get to see deer weekly :) They meander through my yard and down the driveway - it cracks me up every time I see them.

I am currently babbling so I will end this post with promises of writing more frequently as boring and inconsequential the posts are surely going to be! I would like to end with expressing my latest and greatest discovery of the year 2009...the humidifier. Yes I knew they existed, even grew up using them but it has been at least 10 years since I have lived with a humidifier. Let me just say it is the best thing since my discovery of the bloody mary - and that discovery was life changing so I cannot imagine how my life will be changed in 2009 without dry air. Yay for a New Year :)