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Saying Goodbye to Blairhaven

2011-09-08T13:37:00.000-04:00

In early June I took a trip to a place that has been near and dear to my heart for almost 35 years. I drove some of the same familiar roads I’d always driven to get there. When I got to the center of town I drove through the little rotary where a flagpole marks the center, I took a right onto Standish Street and then another right at the fork in the road onto Crescent Street. This is where the tears started. I knew it was going to be one of the last times I would see Blairhaven.     I’d been to Blairhaven in South Duxbury, MA countless times. First as a camper in the late ‘70s; then as a teen attending retreats with the NCYL (now SCYL) in the early to mid ‘80s; as a camp counselor in the summer of 1982; as an adult staffing teen retreats in the late ‘80s to early ‘90s; and even as an adult attendee at a women’s retreat. In addition to all those visits, we often attended the end of year church picnic at Blairhaven. Over the years the building and property became very familiar to me and I truly loved being there. The sunsets on Kingston Bay were always gorgeous. Walks to Myles Standish Monument were part of the regular routine during a visit to Blairhaven.
    When I first I attended Blairhaven as a camper, Lois McCurdy was the camp director. I didn't grow up in the church. I started attending the Sunday school in Elmwood, MA when we moved there in the summer of 1975. The pastor was rather bland and the Sunday School was pretty generic but the kids kept talking about Camp Blairhaven. My mom decided to send me there. I honestly don’t know if her decision to send me to camp was a result of my nagging or if she’d talked to other moms in the neighborhood. Blairhaven was only about 30 minutes from Elmwood so it must have felt safe to her. For the rest of my life I will never forget my first encounter with Lois McCurdy, the camp director. Smiling, cheerful, and welcoming are words that come to mind when I think of Lois. She was sitting at a table on the porch near the front door of the big house. My mom brought me over to the table to check me in and Lois introduced herself and told me to call her "Aunt Lois". I immediately felt comfortable. It wasn't that I was really worried about being away from home because I knew several neighborhood kids who were also attending camp, but Lois’s demeanor immediately put me at ease. In addition to being camp director, Lois taught the religion class.
    Up until that point, I really had no idea what religion the Elmwood New Church was associated with. I was christened at Christ Church (Episcopal) in Quincy, Massachusetts. My mom always wanted us to go to Sunday School so we went to whatever Sunday School was convenient. As long as it wasn’t Catholic, or too weird, we went to Sunday School. When we moved to East Bridgewater, sending us to the Sunday School 5 houses down the street was really convenient. We got a basic Christian education at Elmwood New Church. It wasn’t until I went to Camp Blairhaven that I discovered for the first time that the beliefs of the church that I’d been attending for at least a year, mirrored my personal beliefs about heaven and hell. I was 12 years old. You could say I was hooked. Between learning about the church, making new friends, swimming in the bay, trips to Powder Point beach, games on the front lawn, craft projects, and the camp store, the days were packed and there was little time for boredom or homesickness.
    I attended summer camp at Blairhaven until I was considered “too old” at which point I started attending camp at Fryeburg (but that’s a story for another time). In the summer of 1982 I was, however, old enough at 17, to be a junior camp counselor. The camp director that year was Trevor Woofenden (now my husband). I’d known him for several years through attending church conventions and retreats with the NCYL. Little did I know then that as soon as he saw my application to be a counselor that he immediately decided he wanted me to be on staff. Junior counselor really meant dishwasher and I washed so many pots and pans that summer that I was washing pots and pans in my dreams. As a junior counselor we had to be in the kitchen after every meal for at least an hour but for the rest of the day we were free to do whatever we wanted.     Other staff members that summer included: Jim Lawrence, Gladys Wheaton, Sue Tafel and Robin Tafel, to name a few. As a dishwasher, I participated in most camp activities and trips but for me the highlight of working at Blairhaven that summer was simply being there for the entire month of July.
    I attended my first youth league retreat at Blairhaven on Memorial Day weekend in 1980. Anyone who has ever attended a youth league retreat knows how much fun they are but what was really special about a retreat at Blairhaven was the location. Watching the sunset over Kingston Bay from the front porch, sunbathing on the porch roof, late night walks to Myles Standish Monument, and playing games on the front lawn were just some of the more memorable things we did at retreats.
    In the mid 1980s the Blairhaven Committee hired their first resident director of Blairhaven, Rev. Ken Turley. Ken was also the pastor of the Elmwood Church at the time. Ken and his wife Laurie lived in the main house while the barn (which had previously been used as a boys dormitory) was completely renovated and converted into the director’s house. Also around the same time, the much-loved front porch was enclosed and a ramp was built, covering the much-loved front steps of the main house. Other changes to the main house included a handicap accessible bathroom on the first floor. While these changes made it possible to host larger groups, the feel of the building was never the same to me. The wide porch on two sides of the building had been completely enclosed.
    I’ll admit that I have a thing for porches and it goes back to my childhood when we would visit my great-grandparents’ summer house in Chatham on Cape Cod. The house was a simple cape but it had the most magnificent porch on all four sides, three sides had a view of the ocean, with one corner glassed in, also facing the ocean. The glassed in porch was the perfect place to be when the wind on the bluff was just a little too much. Blairhaven, with its magnificent porch on two sides, one facing the bay, was a close second to my great-grandparents’ house in Chatham. I was sad to see the porch go, and even though the enclosed porch had plenty of windows it wasn’t the same. The Blairhaven that I had grown to love had been changed forever.
    When it was suggested to sell Blairhaven a few years ago, it wasn’t the first time. There hadn’t been a resident director for quite a while and the building needed some serious work. But still, just the idea of letting go of Blairhaven seemed like it would never happen. I thought that it would always be there. It was a relief to learn that the town of Duxbury would buy the property and that it would be part of a waterfront park.
    In May, an email from Rev. Susannah Currie alerted me to the fact that all of the furnishings from Blairhaven would be available and that the Massachusetts Association and New Church Union wanted    sister camps to be first on the list to take whatever they could use. As registrar for Fryeburg New Church Assembly I knew that the camp could certainly use some new-to-us beds. On the weekend of June 11th and 12th, we arranged volunteers, rented a truck and took one last trip to Blairhaven. It was bittersweet, to say the least. It was wonderful to be there again, even in the pouring rain, as it was when I arrived. We spent that Saturday afternoon going through house, and packed a U-Haul truck with furniture for Fryeburg. It felt good to know that Fryeburg would be benefitting by the sale of Blairhaven but at the same time I fought back many tears and occasionally gave in and had a good cry. A small group of people, including Ken and Laurie Turley, Gladys Wheaton, Herb Ziegler, Beki (Phinney) Greenwood, and Denyse Daurat enjoyed a delicious dinner together that evening. We shared some memories of Blairhaven and some were surprised to learn of other’s connections to the place that has meant so much to so many people. On Sunday morning about 40 people turned out on a rainy morning for the final service at Blairhaven. More memories and remembrances were shared, as well as a tear or two shed.
    I was lucky to have one more visit to Blairhaven on July 4th. Trevor and I were in the area and were able to spend the night and watch the fireworks across the bay from the (now enclosed) porch. The next day we packed up our truck with more items for Fryeburg and said our final goodbye to Blairhaven.

Networking Works!

2011-08-26T17:12:00.000-04:00

I got a job by networking. Yes, it's true. I got a job by NETWORKING. I start training at my new job next week. I will be part of the team of Reference Librarians at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC).

Exactly how did this happen? Back in late April I attended a one-day workshop at Mount Holyoke College. The presenter was fantastic and one of those amazing librarians that you suspect doesn't sleep much. During our lunch break I was chatting with a couple of GSLIS students and one of them introduced me to the dean of library services at STCC. We chatted about science librarianship and she told me that they were hoping to have an opening in the fall and they would like to have someone on their staff with a science background. I told her that I have a BS in Geology and would be very interested in working at STCC and gave her my card. She told me to be patient because STCC is state-funded and it would take a while.

Over the summer I continued my job search and wrote a few impassioned cover letters but kept checking the STCC website hoping to see a posting. A couple of weeks ago she called me to tell me that they would be having a couple of openings in the fall and would I be interested. We had several emails back and forth over the course of the next week. She encouraged me to consider the part-time evening position that would start in September. Last week I took a trip to STCC for a 2 hour "meet and greet" with the library staff. It wasn't a formal interview but it certainly felt like one. The next day I wrote to her to say that I would love to work there. The position was officially posted, I applied for it, and learned on Wednesday of this week that it's mine!

Another recent GSLIS grad had a similar "not an interview" experience recently. I'm beginning to suspect that in this tough job market that the folks who do the hiring are trying to avoid reading through hundreds of resumes and prefer instead to hire someone that they've met. Lucky for me I happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Wrapping it all up

2011-05-04T21:19:00.007-04:00

Mount Shasta and Whitney Glacier in California, seen from the crater (Shastina). Photo by C.E. Watkins. Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel.

My time at Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science is coming to an end! Saturday May 7th is the last day of classes and I graduate on May 20th. It's been quite a journey for me and I won't go on and on at length about that right now. This semester I had an internship at the Science and Engineering Library at UMass/Amherst. I loved being there and would love to work there someday. If you want to know what I did there you can read about it in the GSLIS newsletter, Infolink.
In addition to my internship I took a class called Photographic Archives Management which was absolutely fabulous! I spent the semester working on a group project which turned into a website called Photography of the American West: 1850-1885. I really enjoyed working on the project and the class was really fun. I love photography and this project was a great opportunity to explore 19th century photographers and the "wild west" as Trevor has been calling it. I hope you enjoy exploring the website. I'm proud of it! I wish I could take credit for the design of the site but I can't. We were fortunate to have someone in our group who is very tech savvy and knows all the cool tools to use. I'll take credit for a good portion of the content and quite a few of the fabulous resources we found.

Repair this Book!

2011-03-03T12:45:00.000-05:00

Seriously, send this book to be repaired. This book is from an academic library in the Happy Valley. Yes, that is a little sticker in the upper right corner that says, "Loose pages. Be careful. Please rewrap in rubberband after use." Yes, that is a produce rubber band. You know, the kind that comes with your asparagus from Peru in mid-winter. It says, "PRODUCE OF PERU". People, please, repair this book!

BUY this book!

2011-02-12T07:52:00.000-05:00

I've been reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. The blurb about the book says, "Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years." It's really well written, hard to put down at times, and to be quite honest, shocking.

The HeLa cells have been used for medical research for decades. Doctors, researchers and big pharma have gotten quite wealthy as a result of using her cells for cancer research. Yet her family is poor, undereducated, and many go without medical insurance.

At about 2/3 of the way through the book I couldn't stand not knowing if Skloot was going to do anything to right the wrong that had been inflicted on the Lacks family. So I skipped ahead to the back of the dust jacket and read that the author had set up a scholarship fund in Henrietta's name. Curious, I went to the website and learned that the author is donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the book to the foundation. Then I learned that the foundation had already awarded grants for tuition for 5 descendants of Lacks as well as healthcare for 2 members of her immediate family. Feeling guilty for borrowing this book from my library, I immediately went to Barnes & Noble on-line and ordered it. As soon as my book arrives I will return the one I borrowed from the library that is now overdue and in high demand. Thanks, Rebecca Skloot, for taking care of the Lacks family!

Resolutions

2011-01-04T20:46:00.000-05:00

It's that traditional time of year when people make resolutions. I generally make a resolution that I think is actually achievable, not some grandiose, completely impossible goal that will be completely abandoned by January 8th (or sooner). For example, I never resolve to lose 50 pounds. Although losing 50 pounds may be a good idea and possibly a good goal, I think I would abandon it by January 29th or the start of the new semester, which ever comes first.

A few years ago I resolved to use less plastic shopping bags. This required that I always have a shopping bag in my bag (which means I have to carry an ample size tote and not a cutesy tiny purse). I bought a ChicoBag. It's made of nylon and squishes into a little pouch when not in use. It's about the same size as those cheapo plastic bags that you get at a grocery store, Target or CVS (or anywhere else that has plastic shopping bags). It's been so well used over the past few years that I've reinforced the seams with my trusty sewing machine. In addition to the ChicoBag (I actually have 2 now because I got one for free from an exhibitor at the ALA mid-winter meeting last January -- Thanks DK Publishing!) I have several cloth shopping bags that either stay in my car or leave the house with me when I know I'm going shopping. This is where it's all about learning a new habit. You know you're going shopping, right? You've got your list all ready? Grab some shopping bags on your way out the door. Put them in the front seat right next to you. When you go into the store, take them with you. Use them.

This was working pretty well for the first year so I decided I'd make that my resolution for the next year. You know, improve upon the first lesson. And it worked so well, that I repeated it for a third year.

Just want to let you know that this had less to do with saving the environment than it had to with the fact that we have WAY too many plastic bags in this household because we live with other people. I'll never ask them to stop using plastic bags but at least I can contribute less to the accumulation of plastic bags in our house.

This year, I've set, what I think, is an attainable goal for the month of January. Baby steps! I confess that I got an early start on Dec. 26th. My goal is to exercise every single day for the month of January. So far, it's DAY 10. I've either been to the gym and done 20 minutes on the stair stepper, or walked 2 1/2 miles through mushy snow (that's quite a work out!), or gone to a yoga class (turns out that I'm somewhat flexible but don't have much strength in my thighs -- but I knew that already. PLUS I've got these 2 large melons that get in the way of some poses.)

Most of this is prompted by an article I read in the January 2011 "O", the Oprah Magazine. The blurb on the cover said, "Weight Loss Made Simple: the only tip you'll ever need (page 126).... so I was so excited and thinking this was going to be some super-secret, super-easy thing like eat more chocolate, drink more wine, take this supplement (vitamin)... etc., and the answer was, you guessed it, EXERCISE. So, it seems that EXERCISE is the solution to most of the problems that I've been having for the past 5 years or so once I turned 40. I don't sleep well - at least twice a week, sometimes more. I want to lose weight -- sure, of course! I want to look better -- who doesn't? I have joint pain - not so much but I had this injury from 2007 when I slipped and fell at work and could no longer sleep on my left side comfortably or sit cross legged (used to be called Indian style) without my left leg wanting to be considerably higher than the right. But when I started going to the gym last January, within weeks I could sit cross legged again. Good stuff, exercise and stretching. So, I resolved to exercise on a more regular basis.

Why the gym? Because I can think of a million excuses NOT to go for a walk outdoors. It's too cold, it's too hot, it's windy, it's too sunny, it's raining, it's snowing, ... the list goes on and on. At the gym it's climate controlled and, believe it or not, there are people of all shapes, ages and sizes. It's just great. I fit right in. They offer all kinds of classes that are free with my membership and I can just drop in for one class and try it out and never return if I don't like it. They have very convenient hours - 4:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays (not that I've ever considered going to the gym at 4:30 a.m. but it's nice to know they are open), and similar convenient hours on Saturday and Sunday. They've got womens' locker rooms with showers, a sauna and a steam room. (mens' too but I've never been in there) It's about 3 miles from my house.

As my life gets busier when the semester starts at the end of the month I know it'll be a bit more difficult to get to the gym every day but I'm hoping that if I plant this seed now it'll be easier for me to find the time, and I'll want to get regular exercise. At that point I may have to make a new resolution for February.

Delicious!

2010-11-05T10:24:00.000-04:00

If you thought I was going to write about something tasty I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'm here to tell you about Delicious bookmarks, an on-line social bookmarking service. We don't always access to our own computer or laptop so it's really nice to still have access to all of your favorite websites, or resources that you never want to forget. If you're like me and you don't have a memory like an elephant, you may like Delicious bookmarks.

I was introduced to Delicious in spring of 2009 when I took LIS 407 AKA Reference for Information Professionals. I bookmarked, tagged and annotated all of the resources we studied (over 200), and when it came time to take the open "notebook" timed (75 minutes) 75 question exam at the end of the semester, I used my Delicious bookmarks to get me through and got an 96 on the final (out of 100). Yay for Delicious bookmarks!

In the Fall of 2009 when I took LIS 484 Literature of Science and Technology, which is sort of like Reference for science librarians, I used my Delicious bookmarks again to bookmark, tag and annotate the new resources I was learning. Thankfully there was no final exam at the end of the semester.

I've continued to use Delicious bookmarks in my career as a library school student because we're always learning about new resources that we may want to refer back to and it's nice to be able to keep them all in one place, annotate and tag. Most recently I installed the Firefox Delicious plug-in and, wow, it's going to make adding bookmarks and tags even easier than ever before. There's a side bar that you can open and have access to all of your bookmarks.

Thank you Firefox and Delicious!

This Post is Overdue

2010-10-20T12:58:00.000-04:00

I met author Marilyn Johnson at the recent NELA (that's New England Library Association for those non-librarians out there) conference in Boxborough, MA. She's author of This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save us all. She's also a friend of my friend and fellow GSLIS student, Sasha. They worked together at Life magazine back in the day. So, I actually got to talk to her for a few minutes, not just shake her hand and have her autograph my book which is what usually happens when you meet authors. I forgot to bring my book with me! But I think we'll meet again so I'll be sure to bring my copy along with me. She's a super nice person. I made the horrible faux pas of admitting that I'd [only] read half of her book. She asked me if I liked it and I said yes and then had to come up with a quick excuse for not finishing her book. The truth is, I really enjoyed what I read and told her so, however, as soon as the spring semester started I stopped reading it. I got too busy. Her book is fabulous, like a long love letter about librarians. For me, though, she's preaching to the choir. I know how fabulous librarians are. I just hope that non-librarians are reading her book too. Librarians don't often toot their own horns about how we are saving the world (?!) so it's nice to have people like Marilyn Johnson tell the rest of the world how wonderful we are.

If you don't hear from me for a while...

2010-07-23T13:35:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm taking a class called Social Media for Information Professionals and the funny part is, I don't have time for this blog right now. I'll be blogging elsewhere for a while.

Summer School

2010-07-19T17:31:00.000-04:00

I'm taking 2 classes this summer and they both started the week of July 12th. One is a 100% on-line class and the other is an intensive (Six 7 hour days in class plus a week-long reading and research period). The intensive class ends on July 29th just in time for me to go to Maine for 2 weeks. The on-line class ends on August 20th. Fortunately for me we have WiFi in Maine.

What is that jumble of words, you say? That's called a word cloud. You can make one for yourself in Wordle. I made that word cloud from an introduction I wrote (about me) for the on-line class that I'm taking called Social Media for Information Professionals. It's taught through the WISE (Web-based Information Science Education) consortium at the University of British Columbia. That's right, Canada, and not just Canada but West Coast Canada. I'm trying hard not to let that interfere with my on-line experience but it already has. I'll spare you the gory details but just trust me, it's been frustrating. As usual, I will "suck it up" and do my best and get all the work done in a timely manner and likely receive a good grade for all that.

The other class I'm taking this summer is at the opposite end of the spectrum. It's called History of the Book and it's taught at Smith College in the Mortimer Rare Book Room. Our instructor is Martin Antonetti, curator of the Rare Book Room at Smith College. I've been very excited, almost to the point of giddy, about taking this class. Not just because it's at Smith College (a mere 7 miles from home), and not just because it has received rave reviews from other students, but because it's taught in the Rare Book Room at Smith College which is comprised of approximately 30% manuscripts and books written in Latin, 30% in French, and 30% in English and 10% in other languages (like Ethiopian). Plus the room is chock-full of EARLY, like really OLD stuff. It's amazing! The craftsmanship that went into the production of books in medieval times is mind-boggling at times. We've had the opportunity to look at absolutely stunningly gorgeous 15th and 16th century illuminated Bibles. I'll stop gushing about this class because the on-line class pales in comparison and I don't want you to think I'm not enjoying the other class but it's just different in a very 21st century social media kind of way.

4th of July weekend

2010-07-06T12:08:00.000-04:00

After feeling as though I lost an entire week last week due to my misadventures in airline travel, I was really looking forward to spending the holiday weekend in Carver with my pal Beki and her husband Jason. Trevor had a gig in Burlington VT on Saturday night, and was hired to stilt-walk in the Hingham, MA 4th of July parade on Sunday afternoon. I love the Hingham 4th of July parade so I decided to drive to Carver on Saturday and enjoy the company of Beki and Jason and Trevor would meet us there much much later (like in the wee hours of the morning.) Beki and I enjoyed refreshing cocktails on her deck before dinner and got caught up on "news" (AKA gossip). We had a yummy home-cooked dinner and were snoozing by 9 p.m. Trevor arrived sometime around 3:30 in the morning and somewhat surprisingly, went directly to bed.

On Sunday, he was up and out the door by about 9:30 a.m. and headed to Hingham for the parade. We planned to meet him at the end of the parade route and drive him and his fellow guild member and stilt-walker, Henry, back to the start of the paraded route to get Henry's car and Trevor's stuff. We arrived in Hingham square just moments before the route was barricaded and parked at the town beach. Since we were at the end of the parade route it wasn't until almost 12:30 (parade kick-off was 12:15 p.m.) when the parade reached us. Trevor and Henry arrived sometime around 1:30 p.m. looking hot and tired! Since it was a bit of a scorcher on Sunday, Beki, Jason & I decided we'd seen enough of the parade and found Trevor and Henry just around the corner from where we were sitting taking off their stilts and wiping sweat from their brows. We walked to the car and then took a round-about route back to Hingham High School where Henry's car was parked. Loaded up my car with Trevor's stuff and drove back to Carver.

Later on Sunday afternoon we visited Beki's brother Sean and his darling 18 month old cutie-pie daughter Caroline for a short while. Caroline is, without a doubt, adorable! From Sean's house we drove to Fairhaven to Beki's BFF Amanda's gorgeous beach house on West Island to hang out, play Quiddler, watch the sunset (above) and then watch an absolutely amazing display of fireworks across the water. Trevor counted a total of 36 different shows in surrounding towns.

On Monday we drove to Scussett Beach and were disappointed to find the the parking lot was full so drove north back to Plymouth in search of a beach with parking and eventually ended up in Plymouth to see the Mayflower II and Plymouth Rock. We drove home that afternoon in scorching heat in my car with no AC. We all had a such a great time that we hope to do it again next year! Except the part where my car has no AC and beaches were too full.

Horrendous Trip Home

2010-06-30T09:49:00.000-04:00

I went to St. Paul, MN for our annual church convention and had a wonderful time with all those fabulous people, some of whom I only see once a year. They're like an extended family to me.

My trip home was absolutely the most horrendous airline experience I've ever had in my entire life. When the Delta baggage agent remarked to me, "Hartford the hard way", he either knew how hard it was going to be for me to get home or he really had no idea how hard it was about to be.

I had a flight on Delta airlines on Sunday afternoon from Minneapolis/St. Paul at 3 p.m. that got into Milwaukee at 4 p.m. From there I had a connecting flight to Detroit that was delayed due to weather. If I took that flight I would have missed my connecting flight to Hartford. I got on a different flight to Cincinatti with a connecting flight to Hartford. Then it was announced that the connecting flight to Hartford from Detroit was also delayed so I'd be able to get home, even if it was 1 or 2 in the morning so I re-booked for that flight. The plane that was going to Detroit got in and it was announced that the flight attendants had been working 13 hours already and it was "illegal" for them to fly so that flight was eventually canceled. I spent the night in a hotel in Milwaukee. Got a mediocre night's sleep and got up at 3:30, showered and got the shuttle to the airport by on Monday morning by 4:45 for a 6:00 flight to Memphis and (supposedly) connecting to Boston (not my 1st choice but a decent 2nd). Got to Memphis and on the flight to Boston. The flight was about 1 hour into its 3 hour trip when it was announced that there were mechanical problems and the plane had turned around to Memphis. Landed in Memphis and was re-booked on a flight to DC (any city on the east coast, preferably where I know someone and there was an Amtrak station was my attitude at that point) with a connecting flight on US Airways to Hartford at 6:30 p.m. that would have gotten to Hartford Monday at 7:45 p.m. The flight leaving Memphis was late and got into DC at 6:00 p.m. There was no ground crew to meet the plane and they were having technical difficulties with the jetway so we didn't actually get off the plane until 6:40 p.m. at which point my connecting flight on US Airways to Hartford had left. There were no Delta customer service agents anywhere so I called the 800 number and within no time turned into an hysterical, crying, sobbing mess. I had been traveling for over 24 hours and was still not home. Had I driven a car from Minneapolis/St. Paul I would have already been home. The next flight for Hartford was sometime on Tuesday via Detroit. There were NO direct flights to Hartford, Boston or JFK. At which point I decided I didn't want to take a chance on getting stranded in another airport and called Amtrak and made a reservation on the next train going to New Haven, CT (2 hours from home). I took a taxi to Union Station in DC (which is gorgeous, by the way), and got on a train at 10:50 p.m. (leaving 50 minutes later than scheduled) The train got to New Haven, CT ON TIME at 4:20 a.m. Tuesday morning. Unfortunately I had to wait until about 5:10 a.m. for Trevor to pick me up since we thought it was getting in late around 5:00 a.m. He took me to a near-by diner for breakfast and by 6:05 a.m. we were on I-91 North headed for home. Got home at 7:45 a.m. and was in bed by 8:15 a.m. Slept until noonish. Got a call from US Airways at 12:30 p.m. saying they had my suitcase so we drove to Hartford to pick it up.

In total I was on 4 flights in 28 hours and was still not home. I made it as far as Washington DC on Delta. If I stayed on Delta I would have gotten home sometime on Tuesday, having left Minneapolis/St. Paul on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m.

Amtrak was WONDERFUL! I made my reservation over the phone, printed my ticket at the station, didn't have to go through any long lines for TSA security, boarded the train, found a seat and we were off and moving. The seats are way more spacious than airplane seats, more leg room, more head room, electrical outlets to plug in your phone and/or laptop. Although the train left DC almost 50 minutes late we arrived in New Haven ON TIME! I will definitely consider taking Amtrak on my next long trip.

I will never fly Delta again.

Sort of a Big Deal

2010-06-19T20:34:00.000-04:00

I've been asked to serve on the Board of Trustees for Hatfield Public Library. There's suddenly a vacant position on the board and Eliza (director of HPL) asked me if I would be interested. The requirements for the position are: interest in libraries (YES) and community member (YES). I told her I'd more than likely say yes but that I'd want to discuss it with Trevor... and blast it all over Facebook and Twitter and my blog before officially saying yes. It's kind of weird though because instead of being "just" a volunteer at HPL I'll be Eliza's boss! I'd better finish that project before my first trustees meeting (early September).

Miss Cataloged

2010-06-18T11:05:00.000-04:00

One of my self-imposed tasks that I do when I'm putting in some volunteer hours at the Hatfield Public Library is to create book displays in the non-fiction room. I do this because I enjoy it, it keeps the room looking fresh as opposed to stagnant, and most importantly because it gets people to check out books! The theme of one of my recent book displays is Travel Memoirs (Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is one). This week when I arrived at HPL and went downstairs to the non-fiction room I discovered that among the half-dozen travel memoirs was a book that clearly did not belong. Apparently when a patron took one of the books from the display (actually, it was Eat, Pray, Love), someone replaced it with just any old book that was nearby. I took the book out of the display and looked at it a bit closer only to discover that it was cataloged wrong. The book in question was about writer Robert Bloch, who is best known for Psycho. It was cataloged as 813 Robert, not 813 Bloch. I checked the circulation card and saw that it hadn't circulated since 1996. Hmm...I wonder why?

I asked Eliza, the library director, what I should do with the book since it was cataloged wrong. Maybe she would want to re-catalog it? So that people could actually find it? She looked it, asked me how long it had been since it last circulated. I told her 15 years ago, and even then only twice. "Let's just get rid of it." was her response. If HPL had more space it might make sense to re-catalog the book but since HPL is SO TINY it's sometimes simply not worth the bother of correcting the cataloging to keep a book on the shelves.

Farewell, Ann

2010-06-15T20:59:00.000-04:00

Our friend Ann died. She wasn't a close friend, but a friend, nonetheless. A kind, sweet, and hilarious person. We first got to know her when she started doing stand-up comedy with our friend, Jennifer, about 4 years ago. Ann's partner of 16 years, Linda, passed away last September after a battle with ovarian cancer. When Linda passed away I thought to myself that Ann would certainly have a few decades on her own. She was relatively young at 50. But I'm sure it was as much a surprise to her as it was to many of us when she became ill with multiple myeloma in February and was suddenly on a downward spiral. Trevor faithfully read her blog and occasionally filled me in. Being ultra-busy pursuing a MLS from Simmons College, I have little time for reading blogs that aren't written by librarians or about libraries. So sadly, I wasn't following along. On June 1st Trevor told me that Ann announced on her blog that her doctors told that she had 1 to 3 days left. My head was spinning. I really felt out of the loop. So I called Jennifer. Jennifer very nicely replied and said, yes it was true, Ann was dying. Every day, several times a day, I checked in on her blog until Saturday June 5th when it was announced that Ann had passed away. I felt relief for her that her struggle was over and that she died peacefully at home surrounded by her friends and family. We attended the memorial service on Sunday and it was lovely. Trevor is not one to jump at the opportunity to attend funerals but we both wanted to go to her service simply because we liked her and she was a really nice person. I knew I would see Jennifer there but it turns out there were a few other people there that we knew, including Rev. Andrea Avayzian, whom Ann affectionately called P.A. "Pastor Andrea". There were several heartfelt, touching, and funny remembrances by friends. Once the service was over Jennifer gave her remembrance and then showed a video of Ann's stand-up comedy routine. Everyone applauded like she was there in the room with us. I laughed at her jokes like I always did. It was a perfect and fitting ending to a very personal memorial service.

Down to One

2010-06-04T16:09:00.000-04:00

This may be a bit personal but I will proceed with it anyway... I was driving home from a lovely Memorial Day extra long weekend spent in Fryeburg, Maine in a cabin on the Saco River being constantly irritated by my brassiere which was about 2 years old and falling apart. I refrained from taking it off at the White River Junction rest area on 91 South and driving the rest of the way home bra-less but I didn't. However, as soon as I got home I went right to the bedroom and took the darn thing off and tossed it in the trash. And then, to be absolutely certain I wouldn't try to fish it out of the trash, I dumped the little trash basket into the big trash can in the kitchen (who knows what's in there). Luckily, our housemate, Ilai (pronounced Ely), emptied the big trash can within a day or two. Now it's in the dumpster and I'm definitely not going to dumpster diving to retrieve this bra. Why in the world would I even consider this? Because it was one of two comfortable, well-fitting bras that I own. Now I have one. And it's brown. Which really limits my choice of top colors to dark colors. So, if you see me and the top I'm wearing is any of the following colors: dark red, orange, brown, black, dark green, or navy blue you'll know that I still only have one bra. How long will I tolerate this? Who knows...

It Was Meant to Be

2010-04-19T21:01:00.002-04:00

I'm working on my final project for LIS 488, AKA Technology for Information Professionals (that's me). The assignment is to write a tutorial for the technology of your choice on our class wiki. We're given a lot of freedom with assignment. It can be:

hardware
software
programming language
social networking tool
or any technology that is sufficiently complicated enough to require a tutorial

So, I chose LibraryThing. Why? You ask? Well, because I felt the need to make amends with LibraryThing. Not that I'd really done anything wrong to LibraryThing but maybe I'd spoken ill about LibraryThing and just didn't get LibraryThing. Why did I need LibraryThing? All of my pleasure reading comes from the public library. Who cares? I'm not building a personal library. I've got Good Reads to help me keep track of what I've read (from the library) and what I want to read. But what about those hundreds of picture books we have? Don't they deserve cataloging? Even if it is in LibraryThing? So I embarked on this project to add all of our picture books to my LibraryThing account. I even upgraded my membership to Lifetime member ($25).

Today I started adding all of our picture books to LibraryThing. Wow! What a trip this has been so far. It's tempting to read every single book but so far I've resisted. Between the two of us, we really do have hundreds of children's picture books. Some dating back to the early 1900s. Several first editions, as well as several Caldecott award winners. We both have personal favorites and oooh and ahhh over them. By the way, if you think I want to be a children's librarian, you're wrong.

So, while I was adding books to LibraryThing today I came across this funny little note [THERE IS A TAPE THAT GOES TO THIS BOOK] from many years ago:

I admit that I'm not sure if the handwriting belongs my sister or me but I can tell you that this is from when we operated a community library in our attic sometime in the late 70s that we appropriately called, The Attic Library. We organized all of our books alphabetically and even put cards in the back. We even had a Reference section that was mostly decades-old encyclopedias. We had a periodicals department that consisted of old National Geographics and Life magazines. We even published a newsletter. It was a cozy space to hang out in with cushions on the floor (it was an attic, after all). Hours of operation were limited to when we felt like hanging out in the attic (not on wicked hot summer days). It was fun while it lasted (a couple of summers).

When I found this note today, I laughed out loud and realized that library school really is where I am meant to be. Who would do that? And where is that tape?

Library Humor

2010-03-26T10:15:00.001-04:00

I love Rhymes with Orange!

The not-really-a-break Spring Break

2010-03-12T08:54:00.000-05:00

I've been on Spring Break this week! Woo hoo! Or is it boo hoo? It's true, I don't have classes on Saturday of this week. However, I still have plenty to do. This is how I've spent my spring break:

Instead of getting right back to work on Monday morning I took the day off from schoolwork and got busy with writing the registration form for camp. It needed to be done by March 1st. OOPS.
I went to the gym on Monday morning because I could. The sauna was so toasty warm I almost fell asleep in there.
On Tuesday I started researching for an upcoming paper due on 3/20.
Volunteered at Hatfield Public Library Tuesday afternoon.
Wednesday morning found me back at the research. Finally settled on a topic and emailed my prof. She's so excited (?!) about my topic (RFID in libraries) that she wants me to present to the class. I'm pretty excited about my topic too but now I'm wishing I'd picked something dull and ordinary.
Paid bills, filled out paper work for health insurance from the Commonwealth, mailed my passport for renewal. ($75!) Cleaned off my desk in the process. Have you ever noticed how your virtual desktop is far easier to keep tidy than your physical desktop?
We went to the annual spring flower show at Smith College on Wednesday afternoon (see tulips). It was such a lovely afternoon we took a walk along the Mill River in Northampton after sniffing flowers. And because I wasn't in a huge hurry to get home we went to the Forbes Library while we were in the neighborhood. I picked up a cute-looking graphic novel I was hoping to read this weekend but Mom's visiting so I don't think that'll happen.
Trevor had a meeting on Wednesday night so I plopped myself on the couch and watched Jon Hamm (of Mad Men) host SNL on Hulu.com on my new MacBook. It was really funny!
Thursday morning I was back at the research. Saved all the articles I want to print to my flash drive and drove to South Hadley to take advantage of the free printing at the GSLIS office. Ate my lunch while printing articles for the paper due 3/20. Chatted with a fellow student who was also experiencing a not-really-a-break break.
I got my hair cut! Found a stylist at Ochoa in South Hadley who is trained in the curly girl method of cutting hair.
Went to the gym Thursday on my way back from the haircut. Went to the co-op after the gym on my way home.

That's it so far. This is my plan for next week:

Read about a dozen articles ranging in length from 1-21 pages for the paper due 3/20.
Write the 5 page single-spaced paper due 3/20.
I'm still researching my topic for a short assignment due 3/20.
Study for exam on 4/3.
Read the usual chapters and articles for classes on 3/20.

Looking forward to my "real" break when the semester is over on May 8th!

Miss Me? Part 2

2010-03-02T20:41:00.001-05:00

Well, it's been a whirlwind of technology impediments for the past 2 weeks. That wire? That's the phone line that brings DSL into our house.

First, my trusty circa 2004 Mac iBook started acting flaky on me totally out of the blue. It was experiencing "kernel panic" which made me feel all panic-y about my laptop that's been my trusted friend and gateway to the "Interwebs" since November of 2007.

So, I brought my circa 2004 Mac iBook to a local Apple authorized dealer and repair shop and they kept it for 5 days! (2 of which were a weekend) I was in the midst of writing a paper for one of my classes. I got up in the morning, ate breakfast, showered, packed a lunch and drove 25 minutes to S. Hadley to use the computer lab at the Simmons GSLIS West office every day for 3 days. I even started getting a bit territorial about "my iMac". I even went so far as to add a few things to the Firefox Bookmarks toolbar that would make creating citations from a website so much easier. I am a tiny bit embarrassed to admit that I even kicked someone off "my iMac". I was becoming such a regular there that the Assistant Dean laughed at me on the second day in a row when I was there to continue working on the paper.

On Monday I went back to the local Apple dealer to check in and they said they would call me that afternoon. They also had a refurbished laptop for sale. It was installed with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). My circa 2004 Mac iBook was a refurb which I bought in 2007 from a reputable outfit in Florida. My iPhone is "refurbished" (cost me $49). I'm in favor of "recycling" so I normally don't have a problem with refurbished equipment. However, this time, I was severely disappointed. I started writing a paper for a new assignment and got about 4 pages done. The next morning it started acting really flaky and the screen would just go black. I could barely keep it stable long enough to save my paper to my flash drive. I packed it up, brought it back and said, "I made a mistake. What I really want is a new MacBook with an Intel processor."

I bought a brand new 13" MacBook with the newest operating system, Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6, installed. I also bought iWork (word processing, spreadsheets and slide presentations) for $79 (there's a $30 rebate). In the end, I paid twice what I paid for the refurbished laptop. With the Intel processor I'll be able to upgrade to new operating systems.

So I brought it home and did a two-hour software update. I went to volunteer at Hatfield Public Library that afternoon and had a great time shifting and weeding the non-fiction collection. It snowed on Tuesday evening. It was that wet, heavy snow that we get this time of year. I woke up on Wednesday morning to no power and no DSL. A branch knocked down the phone line that brings DSL into our house. Here I was with a brand new laptop and now power and no DSL! That afternoon I went to my gym and used their power and DSL to work for about an hour. We went to our public library the following day to get caught up on email and, for me, on-line research for another paper.

It took no less than 5 communications with my Internet Service Provider (starts with a "V", sounds like "horizon") to get them to understand that someone needed come to my house to fix the downed phone line. A technician showed up on Saturday morning at 8am (one hour before my on-line class), and said, "Is that your phone line down out there? Do you think that's why your DSL isn't working?". "Yes," I replied. "They didn't tell me a phone line was down...." And then he grumbled, "Verizon is idiots." (oops! Told you who my ISP is!)

It was fixed within an hour and I was able to participate in my on-line class on Saturday morning without borrowing my neighbor's wifi. As soon as I was done with my class we packed up and drove to Cambridge for the rest of the weekend. But, that's for another post. You'll have to wait.

Miss Me?

2010-02-09T20:15:00.002-05:00

Classes started up again on Saturday January 30th. At the end of this semester I'll be half-way done! I'm taking 2 classes this semester: LIS 451 and LIS 488. Pardon me for speaking in Librarian. I will attempt to translate.
LIS 451 is also called Academic Libraries. What does that mean, you ask? The following is from the (daunting) 17 page syllabus, "This course surveys the development, current state, and future directions of community college, college, and university libraries. The focus will be on broad issues within a context that connects academic libraries within their parent institution and the broad context of higher education. Such issues include managing change, scholarly communication, publishing, information technology, advocacy, staffing, budgeting, public relations, policies, services, evaluation and assessment, planning, and higher education environment. The course approaches these issues from a systems perspective and the framework developed for ASERL. Prerequisite: LIS 407."

Our first class was the equivalent of a technological train-wreck. Our instructor is based in South Dakota. Yes, I said South Dakota. Our first class meeting was conducted via an on-line meeting using DimDim. It was horrendous. Future classes on-line classes will be conducted using Elluminate. We've been told this is better. I have high hopes. Fortunately we were able to divvy up the reading assignments for the first week amongst a group of 4 so instead of each reading approximately 200 pages we read about 50. Right now I'm researching a topic for the first paper (10 pages) which is due Saturday 2/20. In addition to reading 4 chapters and 2 articles for this week I'm reading at least 8 articles for the paper. Some of which are almost 30 pages long. YIKES!

LIS 488 is Technology for Information Professionals. The following is from the 11 page syllabus: "This course covers the conceptual and contextual foundations of computing, networking, the internet, social networking, and digital publishing technologies as used in information-intensive professions. There is an emphasis on the terminology used in the professional LIS literature. The course serves as a gateway to other technology courses offered at GSLIS."

The instructor for this course is Linnea Johnson and she's based in Boston at Simmons College's main campus. She's really cool, super nice, wicked smart and really knows her stuff in a geeky/techy way. Our first on-line lecture was an MP3 which I was able to download and put on my iPhone so that I could listen while working up a sweat at the gym. It was a chronology of the history of communication and computers. Really neat. She also included a slide lecture that had links to 13 youtube videos. One of which was a clip from a David Letterman show featuring Grace Hopper. Watch it. She's a hot ticket, as we say. I love her visual demonstration of a nanosecond.

We're also using Twitter in LIS 488. We're using a hashtag which aggregates all our tweets about class-related messages. I'm relatively new to Twitter so it's fun to get an opportunity to use it. If you want to follow me you're welcome to. I mostly tweet about library-related stuff that I find interesting. Micro-blogging on Twitter is challenging since it's only 140 characters. That's right, 140 characters. Not words. No mucho blah blah blah as I like to say.

Trip to Boston

2010-01-18T17:56:00.001-05:00

I spent the weekend in Boston with two friends from Simmons College GSLIS, to attend my first ever ALA conference. I picked up several ARCs while I was there. ARCs are not giant boats that you may need in the event of flooding but they are Advanced Reader Copies that publishers give away! Most of the time ARCs are unproofed but they're free so I'll take one, and then another, and another and before I knew it I had at least 25 books. Some of which were not ARCs at all but regular books. NEW! Hardcover! Autographed by the author. Perfect for giving as gifts.

In addition to gathering up as many free books as possible from publishers, I also attended an author forum which featured 4 authors whose books have been made into movies; Eric Van Lustbader, Chuck Hogan, Tracy Chevalier, and Julie Powell. I had never heard of the first 2 authors. Tracy Chevalier is the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring. Julie Powell is the author of Julie and Julia, which was recently made into a movie starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child.

Immediately following the author forum, I scurried down to the Exhibit Hall to fork over $10 for Tracy Chevalier's latest novel, Remarkable Creatures. She was there autographing books so I even have an autographed copy. It's the story of a young woman, Mary Anning, in the 19th century who is an amateur fossil collector whose discoveries were, well, remarkable.

On Saturday after collecting more ARCs from publishers, I attended a lecture by a former US VP who is fond of speaking about the environment. It felt like he was preaching to the choir so I left and went back down to the Exhibit Hall to, yes, you guessed it, collect more ARCs.

By mid-afternoon, my fellow student, Laura and I had bags of ARCs and decided we needed to get rid of them before we could continue with the rest of our day. After a semi-quick trip on the MBTA back to Cambridge to drop off books, and headed to Copley Square to visit the Boston Public Library. I used to work in that neighborhood back in the 80s and occasionally ate lunch in the courtyard but it had been decades since I'd been inside the old McKim building. It's so gorgeous!

We headed up Boylston to Lir where we attended a social hosted by the DLS, Distance Learning Section is their official name but when we arrived they told us that the acronym also stands for Drinking Librarian Section. Providence was at work yet again when I was sent that email!

After hanging with the DLS for a while, Lexi showed up and we decided to depart and form our own DLS. After wandering the upper end of Newbury Street we settled on Daisy Buchanan's. Not exactly the experience I was looking for, but it was inexpensive and not crowded at all.

Another semi-quick trip on the MBTA back to Cambridge, we stayed up way too late chatting and finally called it a night at 11:30.

It was a really FUN, yet exhausting time, and I've managed to find room in my book shelves for all of the ARCs.

Missed it by That Much

2009-12-31T16:01:00.003-05:00

We spent 5 days in Vermont for Christmas. One of the best parts about visiting the Northeast Kingdom for Christmas is we get to play in the snow! My sister, Wendy, has this great sledding hill behind her house! At the top of the hill is an amazing vista. I love to go sledding. It's about my speed. Here's Jon and Trevor about halfway down the sledding hill. And Higgins, the dog, getting in the way, or trying to get in on the fun. The only problem is that there's a compost bin at the bottom of the hill and a brother-in-law who likes to push the envelope. He's a great guy and I love him but that's his only fault. (Wendy may say differently.)

So, here's the compost bin in question. It's a nice looking compost bin. Jon asked me at the top of the hill if I wanted a push. I said, "No." But he pushed anyway. I'm not saying he pushed me in the direction of the compost bin. Not saying that. But I was sledding down the hill at a good speed and heading straight for the compost bin. And the closer I got to the compost bin, the more I was saying, "No. No. No." I was doing my best to steer the sled to the left to miss the compost bin but it wasn't moving. Had I been on my Flexible Flyer I'm sure I would have had better luck.

So, I'm heading straight for the compost bin and desperately trying to steer away from it and all the while thinking to myself if I crash that's going to hurt so at the last possible second I leaned my whole body to the left and stopped the sled from crashing into the compost bin by about 1". It was very dramatic and James Bond-like. Then I got up, shook off the snow and went in the house and grabbed my camera. That was the end of sledding for me that day. I went in the house, told everyone I was making hot cocoa but I really was having a shot of Jon's whiskey.

Monkeys to the Left

2009-12-22T15:54:00.000-05:00

This sign is at the top of the exit ramp at exit 21 off I-91 in Hatfield. It's been there for quite some time, like since the fall. But recently, I noticed that it had been modified a bit. There's a deer checking station (whatever that is) in Hatfield to the right and there's monkeys (?!) doing something in Hatfield or Northampton to the left.

Writing in Code will Make you Blind

2009-12-11T14:14:00.001-05:00

I've been working on a webpage this week for one of my classes and I just finished adding the final touches on it and made it go live!!!! WooHoo! Now the whole world wide web can see it!

No Leftover Pie

2009-12-09T07:31:00.000-05:00

This year we spent Thanksgiving in different states. It worked out just fine because I had a huge paper to write for LIS 404, a.k.a. "Principles of Management", due on the 5th of December. Trevor was working on the Friday after the holiday at the Grand Summit Hotel at Mount Snow, VT. I volunteer/intern at 2 libraries on Tuesdays from 10 am to 7:30 pm. With our schedules and my deadline it made more sense for me to stay home for the holiday. Thanks to my cousin Phoebe who finagled me an invitation for Thanksgiving dinner in nearby Storrs, CT at my aunt and uncle's house. I say "nearby" because at 1.5 hours it was far closer than my other options, which were East Burke, VT (3 hours), and Vienna, ME (5 hours).

I had a lovely, relaxing holiday with my cousins, their spouses, my aunt and uncle and their family friends. We had cocktails before dinner, jumbo shrimp (and I mean JUMBO), veggies and dip, and a delicious Thanksgiving dinner! YUM! I think Uncle Rossie makes the best gravy on the planet! Aunt Gretchen set a gorgeous table and my cousin Becca folded the crisp white napkins into some sort of bird. Everything was lovely. Dessert was fantastic too! There were 3 pies: apple, pumpkin and pecan. And homemade whipped cream to go on top. I was stuffed!

I really enjoyed hanging out with cousin Becca in the evening chatting while we each worked on our knitting/crochet projects.

I spent the night and had a delicious toasted bagel and a hot cuppa strong English tea in the morning before heading home.

Now here's the problem. When you spend Thanksgiving somewhere else, like I often do, you don't have any leftover pie at home. Unless you make a pie or someone sends you home with a slice or two. One thing I enjoy about Thanksgiving is leftover pie. Especially pecan pie. More specifically, my leftover pecan pie. So I came home and whined about it for a day. Then I went to the co-op in search of a slice of pie and came home with a slice of cake and a quart of ice cream. The cake was delicious but it wasn't pecan pie. And the ice cream was sweet and creamy and cold like ice cream is but it still wasn't pie. So I solved my problem on Saturday morning by making a pecan pie. My pecan pie is sweetened with honey and maple syrup. The crust is made with unsalted butter and whole wheat pastry flour. I make the pastry by hand, adding one tablespoon of ice water at a time until it's just the right consistency. The crust is tender and flaky. I chop the pecans so that when you slice the pie the slices are neat and not messy like they often are when you use whole pecans. That afternoon I had a slice of "leftover" pie with a cuppa Earl Gray. It was sooo good!

Why are All These People Calling me?

2009-12-08T07:24:00.002-05:00

I've been wanting a desktop computer, an iMac of course, and there was an ad for one in our coop's newsletter for $200 plus a printer so I called about it. When the woman answered the phone she sounded like she was genuinely surprised to get, yet another, phone call about this computer that she was advertising for sale.

This is what she said, "Oh yeah... I've been getting a lot of calls about that. I'm not sure I want to sell it. Give me your number and if I decided to sell it I'll call."

Well geez lady, if you weren't sure you wanted to sell it then why the heck did you place an ad for it?

In the Style of "Alice's Restaurant"

2009-11-20T19:37:00.000-05:00

I received the following email from my father today. I think it's the longest email he's ever sent me:

"I found the receipt from Target it was in a pile of papers on the kitchen counter, I remember now finding it in the bag and taking it out before I used the bag to collect the rubbish in it was a nice big bag and held a lot of rubbish when I was done collecting the rubbish I put the Target bag in another bag of rubbish put a sticker on it and put in the rubbish barrell and dragged it out to the street for pickup the next day and then the big truck comes around and a guy jumps out and picks up the barrell and dumps the rubbish in the back of the big truck the truck drives off with rubbish and takes up to Coventry (thats near Newport) and dumps the whole thing in a hole that someone dug. So I guess the next thing would be to snail mail you the reciept from Target that I found in the big bag and used to collect the garbage in that I put in the rubbish barrell for pickup by a big truck and a trip to Coventry to be dumped in a hole in the ground. I hope this explains everything without going into a lot of detail. Dad."

To which I replied:
"Dearest Father Collector of Trash in Target bags,
Yes, please send me the Target receipt that was once in a Target bag which you found and thankfully saved and put in a pile of other papers , via snail mail in a stamped envelope with my address on it and your return address on it and walk it to the post-office and drop it into the mail box or slot where it'll get picked up by a mail carrier and taken to a sorting center in VT and then to another sorting in MA and then to Northampton and then to the Hatfield post office and then into a plastic bin and the postal carrier who drives the red jeep will put into into my cluster mailbox in front of our house one day soon and I'll retrieve it with my little key that unlocks the mailbox and I'll carry it into the house and open the envelope and be able to return the footstool to Target which is just a few inches to tall and makes the backs of my knees stretch in an uncomfortable position and is also the wrong shape so Trevor and I can't share since he wants a corner and it's round and therefore has no corners. Thank you.
Love,
Nancy

He explains his odd behavior in the following email:
"maybe I have been listening to Arlo Guthrie sing 'Alices Restaurant' too much Arlo is the son of folk singer Woody Guthrie. Arlo Guthrie lives somewere in your area, his father wrote a lot of folk songs and was Bob Dylan's idol. Bob Dylan was born Robert Zimmerman but changed it to Bob Dylan to honor Dylan Thomas he wrote poems not music like Bob Dylan did. You can get anything you want at Alices restaurant. Dad."

It's November and approaching Thanksgiving and not at all unusual for Dad to be overdosing on Alice's Restaurant. I'm not worried. Really, I'm not.

Introducing: The Java Jacket

2009-11-16T19:29:00.000-05:00

I found a pattern for Java Jackets somewhere in my cyber travels and crocheted a couple of them this summer which I sold at the Sales Table at camp this summer. On the ride home, I crocheted another out of some yarn that my sister Wendy gave me. It's Vermont yarn, spun and dyed in VT. I've been carrying one with me and using it whenever I order a hot beverage in a coffee shop.

I've also been conducting an informal survey of coffee shop staff. Here's the informal results of my informal survey: over 95% of respondents agree that the java jacket is cool. The same 95% think that all customers should use the java jacket. The very same 95% think it's an environmentally-friendly product. Let's forget for the moment that we're still all using a paper coffee cup! The java jacket is small and can fit in your pocket or purse.

Thankfully, my product has attracted the attention of the buyer for a natural foods store in Newport, VT. I'll be producing 12! Yes, a dozen! For SALE at Newport Natural Foods in Newport, VT. The above, in red, is my favorite. I've made a total of 4 so far, one of which I ripped out. One is in the works. I've given myself a deadline of November 30th. No problem. I can make 9 more in.... what's today???

Little Trip to the NEK

2009-11-08T17:43:00.001-05:00

That white stuff floating in the air? It's snow! We spent a few days at Little Newfield in Island Pond, VT because we could. There was a dusting of snow on the ground both mornings we were there. We kept the woodstove going and got the little cabin quite toasty. The cabin is a "chop wood" kind of place. Thankfully, it's no longer a "carry water". And since it's off the grid, yes, it's also a "do dishes" kind of place too. Two out of three isn't bad. It's better in my opinion.

I spent most of my time reading for an upcoming assignment in one of my classes. I did make a short trip to the Island Pond Public Library to check my email and (ahem) update my Facebook status. I thought I might try to do a bit of work while I was there but I was very distracted by the library director who was talking rather loudly to someone on the phone. Geez! We're in a library! And from the sounds of the conversation, I'm not even sure if we were in the same library. He was making it out to sound like it was a lot bigger than it really is. Don't get me wrong, I love the Island Pond Public Library. It's a really nice little library. But their catalog isn't on-line...and they don't have a website....

Trevor spent his time doing crossword puzzles, reading science fiction, splitting wood, and cranking the radio. We listen to a Canadian radio station that's en Francais and really enjoy being out of touch with the US while we're still in the US.

Just before we left, when the propane was shut off and all of our stuff packed into the truck, Trevor made a valient effort at turning off the water beneath the cabin. But since we didn't know that the shut off valve was wrapped in a foot of insulation, he never found it. The owner will ask a friend to turn it off.

We hope to get up there again but we may have to schlep our stuff in on a toboggin.

Message from Anamal Rescue

2009-10-30T17:50:00.001-04:00

This sign was taped to the cluster mailboxes at the corner of Linseed Road and Old Stage Road in our neighborhood. Just so you know, I did not take it down. It fell down.
In case you have trouble reading that it says:
Anamal Rescue would like you to know that turtles are dieing from cars hitting them plese be carful on linseed there may be turtles crossing. Thank you Hannah + Millie.

New Desk!

2009-10-26T17:22:00.001-04:00

I got a new-to-me desk today. It was $50 and although the seller on craigslist said it was oak it's really oak veneer. It's pretty decent though and gives me more work space to spread out. As you can see, I've already made it all "cozy" with my stuff. It's an improvement on the old desk which had no drawers.

I spent more time than alotted cleaning out the metal filing cabinet and redistributed stuff and fiddling around with the position of the desk but in the end it was worth it.

Many thanks to Trevor for going with me to pick it up and helping me with setting it up and moving stuff around and redistributing plants!

A Tree Grows in...

2009-10-23T20:08:00.001-04:00

Trevor's made a couple of rock "trees" with the rocks he got from VT. This one is my favorite.

Dirty Job Party III

2009-10-23T20:04:00.002-04:00

Trevor's been taking large flat rocks from.... VT.... a nice place where there's a stream.... and waterfall.... and making a nice looking wall of sorts! We've got Johnny Jump Ups and Myrtle growing amongst the rocks. If you have nice flat rocks you're not using, let us know.

Dirty Job Part II

2009-10-23T20:01:00.000-04:00

[I "upgraded" to the new Blogger editor and I'm not a fan...]

More dirt....

See those fork lifts? That's why I want a fence. 'Nuf said.

A Dirty Job

2009-10-23T19:58:00.000-04:00

Trevor's been trolling Craigslist and Freecycle for dirt and railroad ties for a few weeks now. He's building a retaining wall, to retain the dirt that he's acquiring, and then he'll put up a fence to enclose the backyard. At which point, I'll have a blog post titled "Fence me in", I can't wait! He thought it would get all done this Fall and was disappointed yesterday when I asked him if we could put away the grill and the table and chairs... thinking that we'd have one more meal out there in a fenced-in backyard.

Chalkboard Message

2009-10-21T13:17:00.002-04:00

Trevor & I went to VT for a few days (2 weeks ago...) and we come home to this nice message from our housemate, Joanne.

Ig Nobel Awards

2009-10-05T19:45:00.004-04:00

In honor of the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine being announced today, I'd like to introduce you to a different type of Nobel Prize, the Ig Nobel Award. The 2009 Ig Nobel Awards were recently presented in Cambridge, MA at Harvard University's Sanders Theater. My personal favorite is the recipient of the PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, "for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander."
REFERENCE: U.S. patent # 7255627, granted August 14, 2007 for a “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.” That's right! It's patented!

Since the Nobel Prize in medicine was announced today I thought I should include the Ig Nobel award in medicine. MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years. (Ha! Moms everywhere were wrong about that!)
REFERENCE: "Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?", Donald L. Unger, Arthritis and Rheumatism, vol. 41, no. 5, 1998, pp. 949-50.

I also really like this one:
LITERATURE PRIZE: Ireland's police service (An Garda Siochana), for writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country — Prawo Jazdy — whose name in Polish means "Driving License".
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: [Karolina Lewestam, a Polish citizen and holder of a Polish driver's license, speaking on behalf of all her fellow Polish licensed drivers, expressed her good wishes to the Irish police service.]

Highlights from 2007:

File this one under "no way".

PHYSICS: L. Mahadevan of Harvard University, USA, and Enrique Cerda Villablanca of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, for studying how sheets become wrinkled.
REFERENCES:
"Wrinkling of an Elastic Sheet Under Tension," E. Cerda, K. Ravi-Chandar, L. Mahadevan, Nature, vol. 419, October 10, 2002, pp. 579-80.
"Geometry and Physics of Wrinkling," E. Cerda and L. Mahadevan, Physical Review Letters, fol. 90, no. 7, February 21, 2003, pp. 074302/1-4.
"Elements of Draping," E. Cerda, L. Mahadevan and J. Passini, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 101, no. 7, 2004, pp. 1806-10.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan, and Enrique Cerda Villablanca's sister Mariela.

I can tell you how my sheets get wrinkled...

What I learned in School Today

2009-09-26T18:02:00.002-04:00

Think of the most ridiculous item that might exist and have a patent. Like, cat boots, and do a search for this term on Google patents. And see what it comes up with! You can look at the images and drawings that go along with the patent.
Here's a suggestion: search "nose pick". Have fun!

Standard Response

2009-09-18T19:43:00.004-04:00

Because I get a lot of questions about being in school, along the lines of "How's school?", I've decided to develop a "standard response". This, of course, will only work on a semester-to-semester basis since courses and situations change. I'm secretly hoping that if I overwhelm the inquiring minds, they'll stop asking...
Here's some questions and answers:

How long is the program? a year?
If anyone has completed the program in a year they are a legend and no doubt their personal relationships have completely failed. They're now single or divorced. Most sane people take 2 years to complete the program. It's 36 credits. Each class is 3 credits. 36/3= 12 classes. Most people take 2, maybe 3 classes each semester. It's a part-time program.

How's the semester going?

This is my 2nd semester at Simmons GSLIS West. At the end of this semester I will be 1/3 of the way towards my degree (36 total credits). This semester I'm taking 2 classes: LIS 404, Principles of Management (required) and LIS 484, Literature of the Sciences and Technology. My classes meet on Saturdays on the Mount Holyoke College campus. If all goes well, I will never have to take a class in Boston. LIS 404 is blended, which meets half the time face-to-face and half on-line. LIS 484 meets in person.

Here are the course descpriptions:
LIS 404 Principles of Management: Designed to acquaint students with the basic management functions of planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. The course is intended to help provide understanding of human interactions in the workplace and develop the practical problem-solving skills needed to handle managerial problems professionally. Approaches to managing, from authoritarian to participative to laissez-faire, are examined. Work for the course includes readings, case studies, critical incidents, simulations, and discussions.
LIS 484 Literature of Science and Technology: teaches the structure and properties of the literature of science and technology as they relate to information generation, dissemination, and use. Students are introduced to major reference sources and bibliographic tools encountered in scientific information work in all formats. Collection development, scientific communication patterns, bibliographic instruction, and other topics related to sci-tech librarianship and information handling are covered. Practical assignments in scientific and technical reference, and individual projects are provided. Prerequisite: LIS 407.

Although LIS 484 meets face-to-face every Saturday afternoon, a portion of the class is taught on-line via Blackboard (aka "e-learning"). It's conventient since I can do my course work in the comfort of my home in my pajamas. You may laugh, but this is true.

In addition to my 2 courses I'm a volunteer at two libraries. I've been volunteering one afternoon at the Springfield City Library in Springfield, MA for almost a year. My responsibilities include:

Gathering library materials for "Library-in-Your-Mailbox" clients.
Providing Reader's Advisory service to "Library-in-Your-Mailbox" clients.
Maintaining records for "Library-in-Your-Mailbox" clients using MS Access.
Assistant instructor for computer literacy courses.
Creating fiction and non-fiction book displays.
Searching the stacks for missing books
Searching microfilm for obit and/or death notices per patron requests.

Beginning next week, I'll start a volunteer internship at Bay Path College Hatch Library in Longmeadow, MA. I'll be doing a variety of tasks, including Reference, Inter-library loan, cataloging (tech services), and bibliographic instruction.

In general, I try to have two solid days off a week- Sunday and Monday. Tuesday is my "in the field day". And Wednesday - Friday are study days. Saturday is school day.

I hope you've enjoyed my "standard response". Please let me know if I haven't answered any of your questions about school.

Trip in Town

2009-09-14T20:02:00.005-04:00

OK, so my title "Trip in Town" is because that's the way you talk about going to Boston when you're from there. "I'm going to Town." etc... And since I'm from out that way and spent a good 10+ years working in Town I learned to talk like that. "The City" is New York, "Town" or "In Town" is Boston. (by the way... I "borrowed" this photo.)

So, the country mice (that's us), left Hatfield at about 9:30, made a couple of stops Downtown (that's Northampton for us), and got on the road at about 9:50. We got to Simmons at about 12 noon and, naturally, couldn't find parking! I had to retrieve my 3 photos that were hanging in the tech lab since January. Trevor found a sort-of place to park while I went into the building to get the photos. Once we were done there we drove over to Jamaica Plain, or JP as the locals call it, and went to Arnold Arboretum and had a lovely picnic lunch. The Arboretum is an amazing oasis of 265 beautiful acres of trees, shrubs, and manicured lawns in the city of Boston. It's owned by the city of Boston but is leased to Harvard University for 1,000 years. I think that arrangement might have started 100 years ago so Harvard may only have 900 years left on their lease.
We spent about 2 hours ambling around and only saw 1/4 of the place, at the most! What we saw was fabulous and we're already planning a return trip.

This is one of several cork trees at the Arboretum. The cork from this tree is not kind that's used for wine bottles or whatever else people use cork for (can't think of anything... one track mind...) The most famous cork tree was cut down about 12 years ago. Too many people sat on one of its branches and the branch broke. I think I may be guilty of once sitting on that branch!

This is one of several HUGE Poplar trees. We ate lunch beneath this tree. While Trevor napped I snapped a few photos.

This is the tallest tree in the Arboretum, a silver maple. That's Trevor way on the left. According to the brochure, it survived the hurricane of 1938. It's one of the 600 trees at the Arboretum that is over 100 years old.

A dawn redwood that is native to Japan. It's pretty cool. Trevor likes it. Trevor hasn't met a tree he doesn't like. If he has, I don't know about it.

Sapphire berries. Very pretty. Also on the tour of trees and shrubs over 100 years old.

My First Commissioned Piece

2009-09-09T19:16:00.005-04:00

My friend, Bob Perry, is one of the owners of the Elephant Walk restaurants in the Boston area. He's also treasurer of the Fryeburg New Church Assembly . This summer at camp he asked me to crochet a scarf for his wife, Geraldine. The scarf that he wanted was the Curly Scarf in the Chicks with Sticks Guide to Crochet. I donated a scarf to the sales table auction at camp this summer but he thought the yarn was going to be too itchy for Geraldine who has very sensitive skin (I could relate). I happened to have a ball of Plymouth Baby Alpaca Brush Paint in my bag. It's 80% baby alpaca and 20% nylon. He really liked the colors (none of the ones on the Web's page) and so we decided that I'd make the scarf with that yarn. He also told me he'd pay me for my time.

While we were in the NEK for our long weekend, made extra long when I realized we didn't need to go home on Monday, I worked on the scarf. I spent about 2 hours working on it. Pretty much the entire time was spent sitting on the deck in the sun crocheting. It doesn't get much better for me. Sitting in the sun on the beach crocheting is how it gets better.

When I was done, I took several pictures, as you may guessed. I emailed Bob when I got home to tell him the scarf was done. I sent him several photos. He said, "I love the scarf - and I L O V E the photo presentation! Very creative; very cool!" We agreed on a price ($40) and I mailed the scarf today.

Now I'm thinking about how I can do more of that...

WOW!

2009-08-29T10:20:00.003-04:00

Worst Quiddler hand ever! I did manage to pick up an H and discard an A before Trevor went out. He won this game! His score was 318 mine was 295. ( I don't always win.)

I've been slacking about blogging!

It's raining today. All day. Summer's over. Boo hoo.... was wishing that since we got April for July that we'd get July for September or something like that but I'm wrong.

We had a beach day on Wednesday. We went to my new favorite beach, Rocky Neck Beach State Park in Connecticut. It's about 1.5 hours from here. The water was really warm, the sand super fine, and a bit windy (watch out for that umbrella!). I was so happy to be there I was jumping up and down in the water. Waves were good too! I got a few new freckles, too. Nothing like a beach day to cure what ails me.

I made a book display in the fiction department at the good old Springfield City Library where I volunteer once a week. This time my theme is "Culinary Mysteries". And, no, it's not mystery food. Although, that's what you sometimes find in the back of the fridge when you've forgotten about leftovers. Culinary Mysteries are cozy mysteries (the kind of mystery where you never read about the blood and gore of the actual murder) with a cooking theme. On Monday I'll make a book list to go along with the display. My last fiction display was quite popular with the patrons. I'm hoping this one will be too.

I'm not making any promises about blogging more often since that didn't stick last time.

Signed by the Artist

2009-08-19T11:20:00.005-04:00

Every year, towards the end of the 2 week session at camp we have an auction of items from the sales table. The auction is a fund (and fun) raiser for camp. Some of the items aren't that special (meaning they've been sitting on the table for almost 2 weeks and no one has bought them), and go for more than twice their ticket price. Hand-made items are very popular at the auction. I really liked this small painting done by our friend, Anna Rich, so Trevor bid on it and won it! It's about 4"x6". And she signed it for me!

Anna is an illustrator for children's books. Her latest book is called Under the Night Sky. It's about the Northern Lights and it's gorgeous. We also auctioned a copy of the book and it went for $40! Her son, Otto, who is 10, told us, "it took a really long time, believe me".

Back to "Normal"

2009-08-18T21:43:00.003-04:00

We just returned from 2 weeks in Maine. This photo is from last summer though. On the last day we were there, my camera got wet and it's not working properly. Last summer the Saco River was so high we never got a chance to swim in it. This summer it was quite high the 1st week, but by the middle of the 2nd week we were able to swim in it. On Sunday afternoon, Trevor and I enjoyed a leisurely canoe trip from camp downstream to Swan's Falls. If you actually paddle it takes 2 hours. If you hardly paddle at all, like us, it takes 3 hours. I prefer the latter.

We returned to stifling heat and a broken washing machine and happy-to-see-us cat.

More news about camp to follow.

Little Vacation to the NEK, part 2

2009-07-24T21:05:00.002-04:00

Because we could, we went back to the NEK for another little vacation. We arrived on Sunday afternoon and stopped in at the parents' in East Burke for a quick visit. After a morning of sun-bathing (white girl turned pink), we hiked the South Shore trail on the southern end of Lake Willoughby on Monday, and then had dinner with the parents. On Tuesday I used the wifi at the Island Pond Public Library (it's crunch time for camp) while Trevor "stole" more rocks from the river at Pete's. On Wednesday we packed up and drove to Brownington to hang with Wendy, Jon and Chloe and then drove home. We miss Pete but we really like using his cabin!

Library Humor

2009-07-23T07:14:00.002-04:00

Our new housemate, Joanne, sent us this postcard. Reminds me of those New Yorker cartoons where you can submit your own caption.

Making Pesto

2009-07-17T16:50:00.004-04:00

Every summer I make a ton of pesto. I gave up on growing my own basil years ago but I've found a few farm stands where I can get it wicked cheap. There's one on in Hatfield where I can get a giant bunch for 75 cents! The above leaf is huge and I'm beginning to suspect it's not organic... but it's very fresh and cheap.

My ingredients all lined up and ready to go. The recipe I use is from the Silver Palate Cookbook.
As you can see, I use 365 products. They're good quality and economical.

Basil, walnuts, and garlic in the Cuisinart Food Processor, then blend until it's all blended together. I love my food processor. Thank you, Trevor!

Add olive oil in a slow stream.

Add cheese, salt and black pepper and combine.

Put into little containers and freeze. I'm still using up last summer's batch. I also give it to friends. They appreciate it. It's great to have pesto on hand.

Do your dishes!

Little Vacation at Little Newfield in Island Pond, VT

2009-07-15T09:54:00.003-04:00

Trevor and I spent 5 days at my brother's cabin in the Northeast Kingdom of VT. It's a rustic place with running cold water, a propane fridge, stove and lamp, an in-house and an out-house. 70 acres with lots of walking trails, a nice waterfall, beaver ponds and photogenic old vehicles. No cell service or internet connection so it really is a great get-away from it all. Le radio c'est en francais too! (If you find the right station.)

View from the deck towards the southeast.

The little cabin sleeps 5.

The front room is a great place to hang out and enjoy the view when it's raining.

One of several old vehicles on the property.

Smile!

Just when I've had enough of Trevor's accordion practice, his wrist gives out.

A hawk flew into the sliding glass doors. It was a little stunned and then got up and flew away.
Left a few feathers behind.

The brook.

One of the beaver ponds.

Accordion Practice

2009-07-01T21:57:00.004-04:00

Trevor got a new-to-him accordion last week. Here he is practicing a classic tune. I hope you enjoy it.

Sleepless in Seattle

2009-06-30T17:44:00.003-04:00

The blue-ish looking house with all the blue flags behind it is the house that was in the movie Sleepless in Seattle. How do I know this? I believe everything my tour guide tells me. Plus it looked a bit familiar. I hear it's for sale.

Closed on Saturday and Sundays for the Summer

2009-06-29T16:22:00.003-04:00

I was in Seattle for a few days last week at the annual convention of the Swedenborgian Church. The convention was on the campus of the University of Washington, which is beautiful! I thought it would be fun to visit the library while I was there but it was closed!

See that little sign on the door? It says closed on Saturdays and Sundays for the summer session.
Darn!

Linseed Road Bird Cafe

2009-06-23T13:19:00.002-04:00

The Linseed Road Bird Cafe has been very busy lately. We've had lots of visitors along with the regulars. Recently a pair of rose-breasted grosbeaks has been stopping by for a bite to eat. That's the male on the left of the platform feeder. To the right of Mr. Grosbeak is Mourning Dove, and a LBJ (little brown jobber) and it looks like a chickadee is about to take flight.

Behaving Badly in the Library

2009-06-20T08:36:00.004-04:00

The past two times that I've volunteered in Springfield at the Central Library it's been on a Friday when the library is closed. "The library is closed and there are people working?" Yes, there's plenty to do when the library is closed. Since the library is closed it's an opportunity to behave in ways that you normally wouldn't when it's open. Everyone is still professional but since the public won't see us it's time for a more casual wardrobe so out come the cat t-shirts and tie-dye (in my case) and sandals (it is summer after all).

It's also an opportunity to talk loudly and to shout! Libraries aren't as quiet as they used to be but in general we refrain from shouting from the main floor of Rice Hall up to the mezzanine when you're looking for someone. Although, I've seen patrons do this but not librarians. This is what Matthew did yesterday when he was looking for me. I thought it was kind of funny and if he reads this I hope he sees the humor in it too. I was searching the stacks for missing books in the 640s (that's Dewey for cookbooks) when Matthew walked into Rice Hall - a room so large you could fit 2 of my houses in it - and said, "Nancy?" I was a little surprised that he did that. I mean, just walked into the huge room and called my name. But there was NO ONE there and he knew it was okay. Except for the janitor. I knew he couldn't see me so this was my opportunity to seize the silly moment. So I called back as though I was on a mountain top, "I'm up here."

I thought Matthew was just going to tell me that he was going to lunch but then we proceeded to have a somewhat lengthy conversation about the WorldCat.org Facebook application and it's uselessness with him standing on the main floor of Rice Hall and me on the mezzanine sort like the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet but not. In the middle of our conversation the janitor started vacuuming but this did not stop our conversation. After about 5 minutes, we wrapped it up and he left for lunch and I went back to the 640s to finish up my hour of searching the stacks for missing books. I actually found quite a few. By the way, Springfield has a lot of cookbooks in their collection.

Muffin Face

2009-06-15T09:26:00.003-04:00

I made muffins this morning. I can't report on how they taste yet. I haven't tried one. They're whole wheat with dried cranberries, raisins and chocolate chips. I used a recipe from the Tassajara Bread book. We used to have a clipping from a newspaper article posted on our fridge. The title of the article was "Muffins make people Happy". I don't know where it went to. But this muffin (below), looks a little worried to me.

A worried muffin.

Garden Tour '09

2009-06-14T19:36:00.008-04:00

The Friends of the Forbes Library hosts a garden tour in Northampton every year. It's fabulous and I go every year. This year I was fortunate to have Trevor's company. There are 8 gardens on the tour. We started at about 11AM, about an hour later than I was hoping. For some silly reason I had scheduled a 9AM conference call with other members of the Executive Committee of the National Alliance of New Church Women, of which I am Madame President. Actually, it was the only time that everyone could agree on. Anyway, we got started around 11AM, visited 3 gardens and then had a picnic lunch at the Smith College botanic gardens and then saw the rest of the gardens. It was a beautiful sunny day. I look forward to next year's tour.

Because it was a bright sunny day, I mostly took close-up photos of the plants I liked.

Spirea. We saw lots of it in different gardens on the tour.

A big showy peony.

Lion overlooking the hostas.

Clematis. I want some.

Nice place for a nap.

I love roses. I want more.

These roses are lovely.

These are so lovely that I put this photo on my desktop.

This yellow rose is quite lovely too.

This is gorgeous too. Yes, I have a thing for roses.

Jeremiah

2009-06-13T20:56:00.004-04:00

If you were born in the '60s, like I was, you might remember a song about a bull frog. I do. We met this one today at one of the spectacular gardens on the Northampton Garden Tour.

Tobacco Barn Mural

2009-06-05T08:58:00.002-04:00

I was taking the scenic route through Hatfield the other day when I came upon this wonderful mural painted on the side of an old tobacco barn.

Evidence

2009-06-01T09:24:00.003-04:00

The above photo is a footprint on a window ledge on my front porch. Back in April, I bought 5 bags of cocoa shell mulch on sale at the Hadley Garden Center. I wasn't ready to spread it yet so I piled up the bags on the front porch up against the house. I thought they would be safe from hungry critters since it wasn't really food. I've learned not to leave bags of bird seed on the porch. However, cocoa shell mulch apparently smells like food and some hungry critter tried on more than one occasion to break into the bags. I found holes in the bags and mulch on the porch. It wasn't a huge mess so I didn't do anything about it.

This is what I think happened:

Hungry critter comes up on the porch and sniffs around for some something good to eat. Sniffs the cocoa shell mulch. "Chocolate! This is going to be GOOD!"

Hungry critter rips into the plastic bag and starts munching on the mulch.

"This stuff is terrible! This isn't chocolate!"

Hungry critter repeats this routine on several occasions. Remember, their brains are tiny!

Weeks later, I finally spread the mulch. Hungry critter must rely on sloppy birds leaving sunflower seeds on the porch. Didn't like the cocoa shell mulch anyway.

Chloe's Imaginary Ice Cream Shop

2009-05-20T21:03:00.006-04:00

This is Chloe. She's 3 1/2 years old. While we were at her house on Saturday night for a family dinner, she was running an imaginary ice cream shop. She offered me a cherry and carrot ice cream cone. An unusual flavor combination but it was quite tasty.

This is what happened when she offered Trevor an ice cream:

Chloe ran into the dining room where Trevor was sitting at the table. The ice cream shop was in the living room. She said, "It's imaginary ice cream. Do you want some?"

Trevor says, "Sure, I'd like some pumpkin ice cream."

Chloe says, "We don't have that kind."

Jon, Chloe's dad, interrupts and says, "Could you pretend..."

Chloe says, "Yes"

And as she was walking back to get it, Trevor called after her, "And I'd like that with jimmies and coconut, please."

As she went to get the ice cream, Trevor said, "May I have it in a cup please?"

To which Chloe responded, "We don't have cups, but we do have some really nice sugar cones."

Trevor said, "Okay, if you don't have any cups, I guess I'll have a cone."

As she was leaving the room, Trevor said, "May I please have a spoon? Do you have any spoons?"

As she was coming back with Trevor's ice cream, Chloe said, "Of course we have spoons."

To which Trevor responded, "Good, because I'm going to put my ice cream in this real cup here on the table and eat it with a spoon."

More May Flowers

2009-05-15T16:58:00.003-04:00

If someone offers you violets, remember this: JUST SAY NO! That's right! Say NO to Violets! They will take over your....GARDEN! Even the tiniest amount of violets will explode and become your entire garden. I'm not kidding. I've got a problem there!

This isn't even all of them. There's more.
Anyone want any violets?

Lilacs. I love lilacs. Don't you wish it was a scratch n' sniff?

BIG Lilac.

It's huge! I still wish it was purple.

May Flowers

2009-05-12T10:12:00.003-04:00

I think these are called fleur de lis iris. My friend Rachel's mom gave these to me about 6 years ago. They're really happy in their new location. They were moved about 2 years ago. (see below)

Fleur de Lis yellow iris in foreground, beautiful Bleeding hearts in the background.

These are called Chicks 'n Hens and they're a succulent. They really like it in the "rock" garden where there is very little soil. I really like them.

More fabulous Bleeding Hearts. These are also courtesy of my friend Rachel's mom.

This photo is actually about the purple lilac in my neighbor's yard. I covet my neighbor's lilac. Can you see it? It's to the right of the Rte 5/10 sign. Our lilac is white. I want a purple one!

We've got a Winner!

2009-05-11T06:04:00.003-04:00

There's no actual real money involved here. In fact, there were only 2 people voting on this (me and Trevor). But we both agree that, of the 18 pictures I took yesterday of the garden, this is the clear winner. Don't you agree?

When in a Recession...

2009-04-27T19:30:00.003-04:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, we're in a recession. (3 posts in one day? It's like feast or famine here. Famine will be returning shortly. Fret not. ) This is the ideal time to apply your Yankee frugality methods. I'm all for using the clothesline. It's my Yankee up-bringing. My mother used the clothesline quite a bit when I was growing up. I say "used" because she doesn't use it nearly as much as she used to. Perhaps it's simply because the amount of laundry has dramatically decreased. Instead of doing laundry for 6, it's laundry for 2.

I got into the habit of using the clothesline more last summer when I was unemployed and I could plan my laundry days around warm, sunny, preferably breezy days. It looks like I can do that this summer too!

This picture is not my laundry though. It's Trevor's. Technically, the place mats, that he neatly hang together, could be considered "mine" since I bought them. He kindly included them in his laundry today and even hung them on the line when I told him I don't put them in the dryer.

It was a perfect hot summer-y day for using the clothesline. I look forward to many more.

Clamped

2009-04-27T17:46:00.004-04:00

My chiropractor told me to buy new shoes. Specifically, she told me to buy Birkenstocks because they have good arch support. She doesn't know this about me, but I have 3 pairs of Birkenstocks: 2 pairs of sandals and a pair of clogs. The sandals, one of which is pictured above, are about 10 years old. They sandals were in need of a little repair. I didn't want to buy new sandals for the following reasons:

New Birkenstocks cost over $100.
New Birkenstocks take months to break in.
I am a Frugal Yankee.
We're in a recession and this is the best time to apply the "Frugal Yankee" excuse.

So down to the work bench I headed with my sandals. The sole of the left sandal on each pair needed to be glued together. I used GOOP water-proof adhesive and a finger "condom" (a tiny little latex condom-like thing that covers your finger - I'm sure they have a medical use that I don't want to ponder right now...) to apply the GOOP to the sole between the sole of the sandal and the bed of the sandal. Then I used a giant C-clamp to hold the sandal together. I'm sure D.O.D. (dear old dad) has other uses for C-clamps, like repairing furniture, but that's what I'm using it for. Because I could only find one giant C-clamp for that was perfect for this purpose, for the second sandal I just applied the GOOP and have been wearing them all day. Perhaps the weight of my body (!) is enough.

Sandals should be about as good as 10 year old Birkenstocks with a little GOOP applied would ever be. What I'll do come Fall, I don't know. I'm not one for socks with Birkenstocks.

Addendum: I've been corrected. This is not a C-clamp. It's a pipe clamp.

Stuck Indoors on a Lovely Day

2009-04-27T09:43:00.002-04:00

We're having a heat wave. I love it when summer arrives in April! On Saturday, Stephanie, our Reference instructor, brought us outside for the 2nd half of class. It was great! We sat in the amphitheater on the campus and it felt very much like ancient Greece but we weren't watching a Greek comedy. We were talking about Library 2.0 tools and annotated bibliographies. And off in the distance were the sounds of a horrible amateur heavy metal band.

Ah.. gotta love college campuses in the spring. Young women running around barely clothed. Bad music. It hasn't changed much. Except, it seems like the barely clad young women are even more barely clad these days. Seems to be more prevalent at a woman's college, even at Mount Holyoke. Makes me feel old.

Summer weather or not, I spent most of yesterday inside working on a paper that's due at 5PM today. I did move outside when I had to do a bit of reading but it was back indoors when I had to get back to the writing. Now we're into day 3 of summer weather and I'm indoors again! And I will be until I get that paper done!

So, why am I blogging?

Bird Channel

2009-04-20T09:59:00.008-04:00

Here's Tiger Lily sitting at "her" window waiting for the Bird Channel to have some visitors. It's early March and Mom hasn't paid the cable bill. That is to say, I haven't bought bird seed in while. Thankfully, a couple of weeks ago I sprang for a 50 pound bag of sunflower seeds on sale at Dave's Pet City and we're back in business. Now that we're having temperatures in the 60s and 70s during the day, the window can be open and she can enjoy surround-sound and smell-o-rama.
Regulars on the Bird Channel include:

Female American Goldfinch. What is going on down there?

Male American Goldfinch. I don't know what's going on down there but I see it too.

Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal always arrive together.

Mrs. Sparrow nags Mr. Sparrow and he simply turns his back to her.

Mr. and Mrs. House Finch. Herman, someone is watching us!

My personal favorite, the brave and daring Black-capped Chickadee.

Another personal favorite, the Chipping Sparrow, occasional guest in the winter months.

Another winter guest, the Dark-eyed Junco.

Performing amazing, gravity-defying tricks, hanging from his hind feet while he eats from the feeder, an unwelcome guest on the Bird Channel, the Gray Squirrel.

An occasional guest on the Bird Channel, the red squirrel. Not nearly as annoying and cuter than his cousin, the Gray Squirrel.

Special guest last week, the Downy Woodpecker.

I forgot to mention the Tufted Titmouse, another regular winter guest. Most recently we've had grackles and mourning doves.

All of these photos were found on Google images.

What Rhododendron?

2009-04-10T16:57:00.005-04:00

A few years ago I was talking to my mom about our rhododendron. And either she's never been here in late May or early June when it's in full bloom or she's too busy noticing everything that's wrong with the house and porch that needs to be painted, but it's pretty hard to miss. Once when I was talking to her about my flower beds and flowering shrubs, she said, "What rhododendron?"

Here it is in it's former glory days. I say "former glory days" because it got infested with rhododendron borers and several branches were looking rather limp. So I did a little homework, consulted my Reader's Digest Illustrated Guide to Gardening, and then took a trip to the Hadley Garden Center. Tom, big cheese at the Hadley Garden Center, told me to trim off all the bad branches, below where the borers were. He also sort of recommended a nasty chemical I could use but suggested I do a bit more homework and talk it over with Trevor. We know him from church. He's a super nice guy. So I bought 5 bags of cocoa shell mulch (it was on sale) and went home.

The next good day the rhododendron got a trim. This is what it looks like now:

Trevor did a nice job of cleaning up and even added a rock border. He pulled out all the vines- bittersweet and poison ivy. We have more sunlight coming into the playroom now.
I was so worried that the birds would be pissed off but they still sit in the rhododendron waiting their turn at the feeders. It'll take a few years before it returns to its glory days.

Perhaps Mom will know what I'm talking about when I talk about the rhododendron?

When to Use Your Feminine Wily Ways...

2009-04-08T19:43:00.002-04:00

In a moment of complete distraction, apparently (this is the part that I'm still not sure of...) I failed to stop at the stop sign on the corner of Linseed Road and Route 5/10. If you've been to our house you know that as the stop sign in front of our house. I was speeding down Route 5/10 thinking about was I somehow going to squeeze in a trip to the Hatfield transfer station, that is only open Wed from 12-5 and Sat from 8 - 12 noon, and since I go to school on Saturdays that pretty much rules out Saturday. So Wednesday it is! They open at noon on Wednesdays so if I can I drive there at a little before noon and then have a quick lunch at the co-op before heading to Springfield for 1pm for my weekly volunteer job there at the Central Library, it all works out nicely. I'd made an earlier attempt at going to the transfer station (Remember when it was called The Dump?) only to find that the railroad crossing gate was down across Chestnut Street (the easiest and quickest route to the Hatfield transfer station) with no train in sight! I turned around and headed home. I called Trevor to tell him I wasn't going to be able to go today and could he meet me to take the tub back in the house only to discover that his phone was disconnected! So at this point I had to go home to alert him about his phone status or lack there of...and was a little tiny bit worried and distracted about the situation since he's spent the past 3 or 4 days working on all this paper work for housing court for the big giant asshole of a housemate that we're taking to housing court, and who is moving out, by bicycle (but that's another story...). So I left and, apparently, as I said didn't stop at that stop sign in front of my house. Like, I don't know it's there??? Well, maybe it was a Missouri rolling stop. But since I've lived my entire life in Massachusetts I can't really say it was a Missouri rolling stop. I always stop at that stop sign. Suddenly there's a siren and blue lights flashing behind me! Being the good citizen that I am, I pulled over. Only to discover that I was being pulled over!

So it was the usual... "How are you ma'am?" (Yes, I'm that old...) Me: fine.
"License and Registration... Was there some kind of emergency?" (Biting my tongue.... well, the transfer station is only open from 12-5 on Wednesday and I can't go on Saturday because I go to school on Saturday....) What a really said was, "No, I'm just having a bad day." And then out of nowhere, the waterworks started. Trembling voice, shaking and everything! He asks me how my driving record is, I say "excellent". He walks to his cruiser to call it in and meanwhile I wait patiently in the car... the loser housemate goes pedaling by on his bicycle toting a trailer of belongings behind him. Oh, the humiliation!
The waterworks, trembling voice and admitting I was having a "bad day" worked because I got off with a written warning. I'm sure having an "excellent" driving record helps.

Sheep Art

2009-04-07T08:39:00.002-04:00

Oh the things we learn in library school! It's an endless source of entertainment. If you haven't already seen this video, here it is for your viewing pleasure. What does this have to do with library school you ask? Nothing really but it was in an email from the college.

I love this video so much I'm posting it everywhere! Here, on Facebook, I've sent it in emails.

Watch it!

Hike up Petticoat Hill

2009-04-06T17:21:00.003-04:00

Spring has arrived and we've been aching to get out and walk in the woods but most of the places we enjoy walking have been quite wet (she writes, while listening to the pouring rain on the skylight). How do we solve this problem? Hike up, woman! Hike up Petticoat Hill to be specific.

Petticoat Hill is a Trustees of Reservations property in Williamsburg, MA. It's about a ten-minute drive from our house. The summit trail is moderately steep for the first 10 minutes or so. Once you've arrived at the summit, which is a little disappointing since there's no view, the trail meets up with Locke's Loop trail. Locke's Loop, is, well, a loop trail. It's a nice amble through the woods. The whole loop trail, including the summit trail takes about an hour. We know this because the first time we hiked it last week we heard the clock in the village ring 3 o'clock shortly after we started and then 4 o'clock when we were just about finishing up. We enjoyed the hike so much on Tuesday that we went back on Thursday. I think it's getting added to our list of favorite places to hike.

What am I Infatuated With this Week?

2009-04-01T21:17:00.002-04:00

The World Almanac and Book of Facts, of course! 2008, 140th ed.

THE ready-reference book to have with you on a deserted island. Includes lots and lots of statistics and information on a broad range of topics: economy, business, energy, crime, military affairs, personalities, arts, media, sci & tech, consumer info, US gov't, US facts, history and elections, world history and culture, and sports. Who surpassed Hank Aaron's home run record in 2007? Which state produced the most corn in 2007?

An endless source of entertainment and trivia. Love it. Want the 2008 ed. (hint, hint) Will settle for 2009 in 2010.

Is it a Bubbler or a Water Fountain?

2009-03-24T20:56:00.003-04:00

Since the beginning of the semester, I've been following LISNews, a blog of Librarian and Science News. There are several contributing authors who write brief articles linked to a news articles about anything and everything related to libraries, librarians, books, authors, etc. The blog is updated several times a day. This week there was a relevant news story about the newest volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English, currently 4 volumes. A two-year federal grant from the National Science Foundation will help publish Volume 5, S-Z in 2010. The DARE, as it's known among librarians will have answer to questions like when and where is it a bubbler, who in the US says such things as "down cellar" (my parents do). The DARE is the kind of fascinating reference source that is so easy to get completely lost in. Trust me, I have. The project was started in 1965 by English Professor Frederic Cassidy, who died in 2000 and whose tombstone reads "On to Z". May he finally rest in peace.

Did You Drop Something?

2009-03-21T20:30:00.002-04:00

One never knows what will turn up when the mountain of snow at 2 Linseed Road starts to melt. Hunks of blacktop are pretty normal. As are hunks of front lawn. But this year we had a first: an unopened bottle of Peppermint Schnapps. It had obviously been sitting there for quite some time, judging by the dirt and decaying label. I'm not even sure if I like Peppermint Schnapps. I never tried it in high school or college (either time) but I saved it anyway. It IS alcohol after all and I am a frugal Yankee. It may come in handy some day. If anyone has suggestions for cocktails made with Peppermint Schnapps they would be welcome.

A Universal Problem

2009-03-17T13:53:00.002-04:00

When I put in my weekly volunteer hours at the Springfield City Library, one of my tasks is to search the shelves for missing books. Trevor is highly amused by this but it's necessary because often the books that are marked as missing in the OPAC (that's librarian-speak for on-line catalog), are sitting right there on the shelf exactly where they're supposed to be. Every once in a great while, a book is miss-shelved. Some are missing and have been for quite a while. I read this story today that demonstrates that this is a universal problem among libraries. Just wondering though, if some of those books have been missing for over 50 years, maybe it's time to get a replacement? I won't be hopping the pond any time soon to search for missing books at the British Library since I can only tolerate it for 1 hour a week.

What a Difference a Haircut Makes...

2009-03-07T19:50:00.003-05:00

So, after nine months of boycotting haircuts, I got my haircut. You may not know this about me, but, in 2005 I adopted the Curly Girl method of haircare. I didn't just go baby steps with this. I went cold turkey. I put down the (shampoo) bottle, tossed by combs and brushes, gave away my hair dryers and never looked back. My hair has never been happier. I've been blessed with naturally curly hair. I also have the hair color that millions of women pay to have. I'm fortunate in that department. What hasn't been so lucky is finding someone who actually knows how to cut curly hair. Over the years, I've seen the look of complete and total bewilderment on the faces of many stylists. To the point where I just plain old gave up.

Then, Curly Girl entered my life. (oddly, recommended to me by a straight haired person...) Curly Girl recommends that when you see someone with curly hair who has a good haircut to ask them where they get it cut. I did this and found a fabulous stylist in Amherst who cut my hair twice but she was too good for Amherst and moved to Boston. Her replacement wasn't nearly as good and I didn't go back.

Just last week, in my Reference class, a fellow student (and Curly Girl) said she goes to a stylist in Northampton who does a fabulous job with curly hair. I asked her the name of the salon and stylist. I called on Tuesday and made an appointment for Thursday. This was, by far, the best salon experience I've had in my entire life. Worth every penny.

This is the salon: The Fire Fly Salon, it's in Northampton, on Main Street. The woman who cut my hair is the owner, Kay. She's amazing. She's intelligent, she has an MLS! She worked as a librarian for years in public, academic and museums. She knows how to cut curly hair! She has curly hair! She loves cats, she has seven! Now she owns and runs an Aveda salon in Northampton. It really doesn't get much better for me. A curly-haired, intelligent, cat-loving former librarian who's a hair-stylist? I really couldn't ask for much more. I'll certainly be going back.

The whole experience was amazing too. She actually sat me in a chair first and we talked about my hair and what I wanted and didn't want (shampoo). Then she wet it and cut, and then wet again and styled. Did I mention the head and shoulder massage? And the hand massage towards the end. It was simply a wonderful hour-long much-needed pampering session. And, as I said before, worth every penny.

Half a Day Off is better than None

2009-03-01T21:27:00.003-05:00

I spent about 4 hours at the Simmons College GSLIS West office today finishing up the Technology Orientation Requirement that is due tomorrow by midnight. I had to make a web page and a wiki page and submit the URLs to the Tech Lab. Once I was done there I decided it was time for some time off! I came home and Trevor and I went up (that's Yankee speak for "north") to Shelburne Falls for the annual meeting of the other co-op that we're members of, Green Fields Market. One of my classmates from the Reference class was there. He is an employee of GFM so we had a good time commiserating about the class during the meal. It's such a relief to know I'm not the only who feels this way about our instructor.

I spent a little time in the business meeting and once I realized the kids were having more fun I left the business meeting to check out what the kids were doing. Trevor brought toys, books and games to for the kids to play with. There was also a woman with lots of hoola hoops for everyone to play with. What a fun time!

I took pictures, crocheted, talked to people, played with a hoola hoop! I look forward to another day off- Soon!

Maybe next month I'll get a day off...

2009-02-22T08:39:00.004-05:00

I knew I was going to be busy but not this busy! OK, I confess I took a few hours off on Monday afternoon to go to a movie with Trevor. The Academy of Music was showing "Oliver" and it was a sing-a-long with the Young at Heart Chorus. It was really fun. That's a long movie! Tuesday morning I did my taxes and the FAFSA. Boy that was fun! I'm not feeling bad about the movie, but I would like those 3 hours back that I spent on taxes and FAFSA. This week would be good.

In addition to going to school all day on Saturdays, there have been workshops to attend on every Sunday in February (including today) with the exception of Feb 7th. I'm attending today's workshop on search strategies and databases, and the one next Sunday (which is March 1st), since I have to finish the Technology Orientation Requirement by March 2nd and I don't speak HTML.

I'm observing at the reference desk at the W.E.B. DuBois Library at UMass tomorrow afternoon for as long as it takes to get 5 really good reference transactions. That's when a person comes up to the reference desk and asks the librarian a really good question, not just "where's the bathroom?", or "I need to find this book.", or "can I borrow a stapler?" or "the printer's out of paper". A really good one, a juicy one, a question that makes the patron want to bow down and worship the librarian when they're finished.

This week will also include: an assignment for Reference due Saturday (and if it's like the previous 2, it'll take me most of the week to complete). A paper (5-7 pages), which I haven't even started or read the material, due for Evaluation also on Saturday. Volunteering at the Springfield City Library Wednesday afternoon.

Busy busy.

Discovering Ways to Procrastinate...

2009-02-10T14:22:00.003-05:00

I know it's awfully early in the semester for procrastination but... when the reading gets dull, one must take a little break. I've read that a good way to study is to do 50 minutes then take a 10 minute break.

What are you going to do in those ten minutes? There's the usual: make more tea; check e-mail; update your Facebook status; and while you're there poke some friends; read a blog or two; update your own blog.

Today I learned of a new way to spend those ten minutes: librarian dress up! That's right folks, it's the on-line version of Colorforms and this particular librarian has quite the range of costumes to pick from. Have fun! Mix and match! (I did.)

If You Don't Hear from Me for a While...

2009-02-03T20:40:00.002-05:00

Like I said, if you don't hear from me for a while it's because I'm completely overwhelmed by the amount of reading and work I'm doing for grad school. I'd probably do just fine if it was one class. I'd do all the reading and do a bang-up, stellar job on the assignments, but, I'm taking two classes and, well, it's a lot of work!
The Reference and Information Services class that I'm in is my equivalent of undergrad Paleontology with Jim Cullen at Salem State College. That may not mean much to most of you but imagine this: learn 233 sources (reference sources: print, on-line, etc) by the end of the semester. It's your final exam: 30% of your final grade. It's pretty much the same as: learn the phylum, class, order, family, genus, species of all of these specimens (fossils) from 2.5 billion years ago to 65 m.y.a. (that's 'million years ago'). Okay, it's maybe not that bad but at this point in the semester it feels like it. Yes, I'm overwhelmed, to say the least...
Did I mention that I'm taking another class? And the other one isn't exactly a walk in the park either. I'm confident I'll survive all of this but there's added stress in my life in the form of an evil housemate (and I don't use the term 'evil' lightly) who refuses to move out. We even offered him cash! If someone offered me cash, I'd find another place to live. He refuses to pay rent, utilities and do house chores. Nice, huh? So we'll likely have to go to housing court to get rid of this giant 47 year-old self-proclaimed Red Neck teenager who's a big bully. OK, I admit I'm ranting.... but I need to.
Nice timing too. I've waited 10+ years to start grad school and now this giant baby is causing a lot of stress in our lives. We're both completely baffled by all of it. I'm a trusting person, perhaps too trusting, some might say. But that's only because I'm wanting my version of Heaven here on Earth right now. I strive for it on a regular basis. When something like this happens all I learn from it is that I can't trust people and I have to protect myself even more from something like happening in the future. Not exactly my idea of Heaven...

Feel free to send me an email, call, chat with me on Facebook...

You Gotta Read This....

2009-01-30T09:00:00.002-05:00

If you're interested in librarianship, that is, read this blog. Especially this essay about worshipping librarians.

25 Random Things About Me

2009-01-25T19:37:00.003-05:00

FYI: A friend of mine on Facebook (actually, it was cousin Becca), "tagged" me and requested that I write 25 Random Things about Me. So, for those of you who are my friend on Facebook this is a repeat, and I apologize for that. Yes, it's not very original. But entertaining, nonetheless? The Silly Sisters are here to remind you not to take this too seriously.

A personal note: I normally hate doing these things but this time it was kind of fun. It's very random and whatever came to my mind I wrote down.

1. I'm thrilled we have a new president. I love hearing and listening to President Obama.
2. I love not having TV. Who needs it? Not me.
3. My body has its very own internal clock and wakes me up at the same time every morning.
4. I love my kitty.
5. I do have some regrets.
6. I wish I could sing like Ella Fitzgerald. But I have no rhythm, so there's very little hope.
7. I enjoy going to church but not any church, preferably a Swedenborgian church.
8. I'm lactose intolerant.
9. I would love to go to Paris and London.
10. I prefer warm to cold. I hate cold. I'd rather be dripping with sweat.
11. Yarn! I love yarn! I learned to crochet a year ago and love it.
12. My photographs have been published and exhibited.
13. I still have my teddy bear from childhood.
14. There are rocks and fossils all over my house and in my flower gardens.
15. I love sand!
16. I miss Trevor when he has to go to work.
17. My left foot is slightly larger than my right.
18. I have an entire drawer devoted to socks. Smartwool are my favorite.
19. Caffeine makes me all jittery.
20. My favorite junk food indulgence is White Cheddar Cheez-its. I only buy them from vending machines and NEVER keep a box at home.
21. I miss my grandmother, Hattie.
22. My favorite book of all time is Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck.
23. I saw the Grateful Dead 6 times.
24. My favorite colors are: orange, brown and all the ones in between.
25. I'm going to be a librarian! I'm beginning to take courses for a Masters in Library Science from Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

Last Free Saturday until Mid-March

2009-01-24T16:32:00.003-05:00

My classes at GSLIS West, as it's known, start next Saturday January 31st. I'm enjoying my last free Saturday until mid-March when I have my spring break. Not sure how one Saturday in March is really a spring break but we'll see when I get there. Then there's another one in April for Easter.

Are you curious how I've been spending my last free Saturday? First of all, I got up when I felt like it. This is not unusual at all. I've been getting up when I feel like since the middle of February 2008 when my former employer decided they could get by without a lab manager. I've been doing this with such regularity that I've forgotten how to work my alarm clock. I'll practice setting the alarm this week so that I'll be on time for my classes on Saturday.

So, I had one of my all-time favorite breakfasts that reminds me of my grandmother, Hattie. I made myself 2 soft-boiled eggs and a slice of my home-made 100% whole wheat bread toasted and smeared with butter. I served the eggs in one of Hattie's egg cups. The one that's large enough on the bottom to hold 2 eggs. And a cuppa Irish Breakfast tea sweetened with agave with dribble of milk. YUM! I love breakfast. It's my favorite meal.

After breakfast I got busy making lentil soup for Trevor. I don't eat lentil soup but he does. He's working at the Grand Summit Hotel at Mount Snow today stilt-walking in the lobby and playing games with kids.

And since it was Saturday, I did a very traditional Saturday chore: I WENT TO THE DUMP! Okay, it's really called the transfer station but I like to call it the dump. As usual, the old dudes that work at the Hatfield transfer station were listening to the polka show on WMUA 91.1.

I stopped in at the co-op on my way home and picked up some lunch. Had a nice chat with the cashier and the new marketing director and headed home.

This afternoon I did another traditional Saturday chore: I WENT TO THE PACKY! The returnables department was so swamped with people I decided to put my small bag of returnables in my trunk and pick up some wine.

I went to the car wash! My car was so gross! Now it's all shiny :-)

I decided to stop in at Webs and pick up some yarn (Plymouth Yarns Baby Alpaca Brush Paint) so that I can make myself another pair of fingerless mitts. While I was there I ran into my old house-mate, Jenny. It was so great to see her and hear about her and Jake's (another former house-mate) new baby. They live in Brattleboro, VT now.

A quick stop at the Forbes Library in Northampton to drop off books, movies, CDs and pick up some more and then I headed home.

It's been a pretty good day so far.

New Yarn

2009-01-23T17:10:00.006-05:00

A skein of Malabrigo silky merino yarn (if you actually follow the link it's "Vienna") arrived in the mail yesterday. That and a new bra, which is also exciting but I won't write about the new bra. Don't think that it's because I can't write about a bra, because I certainly can. Believe me, I know a thing or two about bras.

It's all about the new yarn. Now, this skein (actually, technically, it's a hank, but let's not get all techy about yarn for the moment), is the most beautiful yarn in my stash. It's so soft and the colors are gorgeous. They're all "Nancy" colors if you know what that means. If you don't it means they're browns, oranges, tans, etc. Did I mention it's silky? The yarn is 50% silky and 50% merino. The yarn arrived in the middle of the afternoon right when I needed a break from the Technology Orientation Requirement that I'm attempting to complete before classes start on 1/31. Everything is due on 2/15 but I just want to get it out of the way so I can focus on my coursework.

Back to the yarn.... this is my second skein (well, technically, it's a hank) of Malabrigo and I have to say that Malabrigo makes the most beautiful yarn ever! I'm still in possession of the first skein (hank) I bought and look at it every once in a while to just admire its color and softness. I love Malabrigo yarn so much that I joined a group on Ravelry called "Malabrigo Junkies". Speaking of Ravelry, did you know that you can search for patterns by yarn and then use filters to narrow your search to type of project (knit or crochet), yardage, needle/hook size, etc? It's great! So I found a pattern for a scarf that is pretty simple and it turns out that I have the book it's in!

So, I wound my skein into a center pull ball with my handy-dandy ball winder and swift. (Thanks, Trevor.) Then I took out a hook and got to work! I'm completely in love with this yarn.

I'm thoroughly convinced that crocheting will help me maintain my sanity over the next couple or years or so while I work on my MLS from Simmons College GSLIS. I just hope I have time for it!

Whirlwind trip to Beantown

2009-01-21T16:45:00.004-05:00

Trevor and I drove to Boston today so that I could drop my 3 photos at Simmons GSLIS tech lab on Palace Road in the Fenway. The trip wasn't as much fun as I was hoping it would be due to lack of parking. No, not lack of parking. NO parking. We found Palace Road pretty easily and then drove around blocks and blocks and up then up to the "hospital region", as I like to call it, and then back to 300 the Fenway where Simmons is and drove around and around back to Huntington Ave to Longwood Ave and back to Palace Road for at least 30 minutes, maybe more like 40. Finally we gave up and Trevor illegally parked on Palace Road while I went and made a phone call and got let into the building. If we'd actually found a place to park I would have liked to see the Simmons College library so that I could feel all nerdy inside. But, alas, no parking.

Then, to add to our (or my, still not sure at this point) frustration, I forgot to write down the directions to the Elephant Walk Restaurant at 900 Beacon St in Boston, which according to Google Maps is .9 mile from 300 the Fenway. And, me not being very quick map reader, we turned right onto the Fenway instead of left and before we knew it we were going the wrong way, away from our destination. To make matters worse, ended up on Soldiers Field Road going west.

At this point things were getting ugly in the truck cab. Full bladders and empty stomachs, did not help the situation. Being in the nagivators's (yes, I did spell that correctly) seat, I had to make a quick decision about what to do so that we wouldn't continue to spiral out of control. We got off Soldiers Field Road and went to Harvard Square. This I could handle. I'm very familiar with Harvard Square. I even know where to find an affordable meal. We found parking right on JFK Street and walked to Algiers on Brattle Street and things were looking up. Our parking meter, which only had an hour on it, was running out of time. No time for stopping in any shops. We got right back to the truck and headed back to the turnpike. We were back in Northampton by 3:15.

Check it Out!

2009-01-18T08:48:00.005-05:00

My old pal, Kathy Tafel, is going to the Presidential Inauguration (I always have trouble spelling that word.). She's blogging about here or you can just look for her blog to the right: You're the Decider.

I Love This Stuff...

2009-01-16T20:39:00.006-05:00

From the National Weather Service Forecast Discussion:
(who reads this stuff besides me and meteorologists?)


.NEAR TERM /UNTIL 6 AM SATURDAY MORNING/...
SOME DIURNAL STRATOCUMULUS WILL LINGER INTO EARLY THIS EVENING.
OTHERWISE EXPECT ANOTHER MOSTLY CLEAR NIGHT WITH
DIMINISHING WINDSAND A VERY DRY AIRMASS.
THIS WILL LEAD TO ANOTHER NEARLY IDEAL
RADIATIONAL COOLING NIGHT WITH FRIGID
LOW TEMPERATURES EXPECTED.

ONLY FLY IN THE OINTMENT COULD BE A SHORT WAVE
DISTURBANCE SEEN ON THE INFRARED SATELLITE PICTURE
LOOP APPROACHING FROM JUST SOUTH OF HUDSONS BAY CANADA.
HOWEVER THIS SHORT WAVE IS EXPECTED TO PASS WELL
NORTH OF THE REGION WITH LIMITED MOISTURE.
LOWS TONIGHT SHOULD BE FAIRLY SIMILAR TO LAST NIGHTS.

"DIURNAL STRATOCUMULUS?" I love it!

They're talking about clouds, right?

"Only fly in the ointment"? Is that a technical phrase?

So, there's going to be some clouds sometime and it's going to get
wicked cold and then we might see some precipitation, likely snow.

I'm pretty good at this, don't you think?
One undergrad course in meteorology and I'm ready for the big time!

I think I'll keep my day job, though. Just in case things don't work out.

And the Winners Are....

2009-01-13T08:16:00.004-05:00

I submitted 3 photos for an exhibit in Boston at Simmons College in their technology lab. All 3 were accepted and will be on display beginning January 26th, ending sometime in May. Now I have to have them printed, matted and framed.

The above was taken at my brother's place in Island Pond, VT.

Sunset at Plum Cove, Annisquam, Cape Ann, MA.

January Raspberry Canes, Nourse Farms, Whately, MA.

Fingerless Mitts

2009-01-11T19:33:00.003-05:00

I made a pair of fingerless mitts for my friend Beki to match her surfer chick cap. It's the same yarn, Plymouth Baby Alpaca. It's super soft! I love it so much I might have to go buy myself some in "Nancy" colors. Beki's tall and thin and seems to have extra long arms so I added a couple of inches onto the length.

So, are you asking yourself, "why fingerless mitts?" Well, they come in handy! You can dial your cell phone without taking your gloves off. If you're indoors somewhere and it's a bit chilly and your hands are cold you can just put your fingerless mitts on and you can still type on your computer, or knit or crochet. Can you see how they come in handy?

You may not to make snowballs wearing fingerless mitts but I'm sure you have a pair of mittens or gloves to do that!

Another Day at the Springfield City Library

2009-01-08T15:50:00.002-05:00

While searching the stacks for missing books at the Springfield City Library today, I found that I was searching for Bibles and, guess what? They were not on the shelf! They're missing and likely have been for MONTHS. Those Bibles will probably never be returned. Which means those Bibles are stolen! Then I thought, isn't that a violation of the Ten Commandments? Or perhaps the reader hasn't gotten to Exodus Chapter 20 yet. Are they bogged down in Genesis?

No funny titles to report this week. Maybe next week. Keep your fingers crossed.

Snowshoeing with Friends

2009-01-04T10:56:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, we drove up to our friends' house in Bellows Falls, VT and went for a snowshoe in the woods behind their house. This is Barb, she's our fearless guide.

Here's the snowy woods we went snowshoeing through. We saw lots of animal tracks. Barb says they were deer tracks. We also saw some smaller animal tracks, maybe rabbit.

Clockwise from the top, Barb, Don, Nancy and Trevor.

Left to Right: Barb, Don, Nancy and Trevor. Don is actually smiling in this photo after we were all done and back at the house. He says it's rare but I've seen him smile a few times before. Don wanted to stay in the house and cuddle with the crockpot while the rest of went out. Barb wouldn't let him. When we got in the house he admitted he had a good time! I had a fabulous time and so did Trevor. And Barb too! Thanks! Let's do it again.

Self Help Section

2009-01-02T19:21:00.001-05:00

Today when I was working at the Springfield City Library, I came across this title:
Meditations for People who (may) Worry Too Much .

I chuckled to myself and thought that perhaps we don't want to suggest that people (may) worry too much. It's just a suggestion... you might, maybe, kinda, sorta, worry too much and maybe, kinda, sorta might find these meditations helpful... if you're worried, sorta, kinda... just sayin'.... but don't worry about it... especially when you're meditating... especially don't worry that you're doing it wrong....

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T16:30:00.007-05:00

Good-bye to 2008!
You weren't so great!

Okay, it wasn't that bad.

Some of the highlights of 2008 were:

Reuniting with old college and high school friends via Facebook. In May I met up with my friends Jon Brinkmann and Ken Corcoran. We were the majority of the Salem State College Department of Geological Sciences Class of '98. We were only missing 2 classmates. One is deceased and the other lives in Texas. We caught up with Amanda in November when she was in MA for her sister's wedding. Another college friend, Jocelyn Brotherton, came for a visit in July. We visited places of geologic interest in the Pioneer Valley. On one of my trips "out east" I attended Jocelyn's graduation party and got to see my old roomie, Stephanie Healey.

I attended our church's annual convention in Bridgewater, MA. I hadn't been to a church convention in a really long time, like 15 years or something like that. I had such a great time. I saw lots of people I hadn't seen in, well, a really long time. One of the things that happened at the convention was I got elected president of the National Alliance of New Church Women. I created a blog for them. I don't update it nearly as often as I do this one but it's there.

I applied to and was accepted at Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Classes start on Jan 31st. I'm going to be a librarian!

I'm volunteering at the Springfield City Library one afternoon a week. So far, my responsibilities are: searching for missing books in the stacks; replacing updated call numbers on books; and handling a few Library in Your Mailbox clients; and searching microfilm for death notices. The Springfield City Library is a beautiful old building at the Quad in downtown Springfield.

In October Trevor and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. We went on a little trip to Cape Ann, Gloucester to be specific. We had beautiful weather and a great time. We're really good at that, having a great time together.

A year ago on New Year's Day I taught myself how to crochet from a book, The Happy Hooker. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to take a class at Webs. I signed up for a 6 week class and had a really good time. I put down my yarn and hooks and didn't really do anything until August when Beki and I crocheted owelets while we were at camp. I put down my yarn and hooks again until November when Beki, Emily and I went to Webs. I decided to crochet Christmas gifts and I was off and making chains, single crochets, double, half double, triple. Anyway, I made several trips to Webs in November. I crocheted the following:

6 Surfer Chick quick caps (one for Amy, one for Wendy, one for Beki, two for me, and one "leftover")
a pink hat and scarf for Ivy
mittens for Chloe
hat for Mom
bookmark for Mom
hat for Pete
2 pink organic cotton washcloths for Sarah
a little pink piggy for Chloe

I haven't stopped crocheting, just slowing down a bit. Right now I'm working on a giant granny square blanket and a scarf.

Here's my resolution for 2009:

I resolve to reduce my carbon footprint by signing up for e-statements and eliminate paper statements from banks, phone company, etc.

My Very First Amigurumi

2008-12-31T12:05:00.003-05:00

My husband, Trevor , gave me Tiny Yarn Animals by Tamie Snow for Christmas. I immediately went searching in my bag for some yarn that I could use to make an animal. Amigurumi is Japanese for stuffed toy, in case you didn't know. I was at my parents' house at the time so didn't have my whole stash with me. I did just happen to have some pink merino yarn though. Valley Yarns Amherst Powder Pink to be specific. Tamie Snow recommends using the "cheap stuff" which I don't carry with me. I do have some "cheap stuff" but it's not what I use on a regular basis. Anyway, I pulled out some yarn and hook and got to work! I didn't work on it continuously but if I did I probably would have finished in 2 or 3 hours. I started it on Christmas day and by the next evening it was mostly done. I finished up on Saturday morning, with help from Elijah, my sister's cat. We were staying at their house at the time. So, to finish my yarn about the little pink piggy, I added it to the bag of gifts for Chloe's 3rd birthday, which was Monday the 29th.

You Do?

2008-12-26T15:24:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday, the 20th, (my 44th birthday), we had a Little Christmas celebration with Mom, Dad, Wendy, Jon and Chloe. Wendy, Jon and Chloe are spending the holiday with the Snyders in Philly. During lunch I leaned over to Chloe (she's almost 3), who was sitting next to me, and said, "I love you, Chloe." and she said, "You do?".

Here she is enjoying some chocolate cake! Yum!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T09:10:00.004-05:00

A few years ago I gave up on sending Christmas cards. I prefer to send store-bought cards to close friends and family, Trevor prefers to send hand-made cards to EVERYONE he knows. I don't know if we'll ever compromise on this so I'm taking a Christmas card hiatus. Although, the other day, when I was in Broadside Bookshop in Northampton, I saw what I thought was the perfect Christmas card for a librarian to send...

Anyway, Trevor always comments on the photo cards we get from friends that feature their children but not the parents. And this Rhymes with Orange strip pretty much sums up his feelings on the subject. If you've been guilty of this just know what I wouldn't actually "clip and send" this to you (Kurt and Shelley....). I do have friends who pose with their children on their cards. Last year, Amanda and Michael posed with their children, Austin and Regan. They're a good-looking family. If I could find the card (I actually do save the photo cards- just not sure where they are) I'd scan it in and post it here. This year, Heather and Peter posed with their son, David. Some parents feel the way my friend Ken does about posing with the kids, "Just the pics of the kids alone.... Do you really want to see me hanging on your mantel for a month?? I didn't think so."

And speaking of cards, I'm always amused by the card that I get from Florence Savings Bank. Why does the bank send me a card? Because I went to them when I had to roll-over my IRA several years ago. This year, they sent a PHOTO CARD!

A Note of Thanks

2008-12-15T14:50:00.002-05:00

My niece, Ivy (she's 5), was sick for a bit and so I sent her a get-well card and put some stickers in the card. Today I got this note in the mail with most of the stickers that I sent her! This is the second time I've sent her stickers and got back a home-made card with the stickers that I sent her on it! But this time, that's her handwriting! She's in kindergarten and according to her papa, she has the best handwriting in her class. I agree! I love her :-)

Boy Hat

2008-12-14T15:16:00.006-05:00

I finished! I finished the hat in Cozy Crochet by Melissa Leapman that she calls "Boyfriend Hat". I call it boy hat. It's half-double crochet into the back loop only back and forth, etc, several rows. Then you just sew up the seam and weave the yarn through the edge and bring the top together nice and tight, and turn up the edge for a cuff. It's very simple. Yarn I used is Ella Rae Classic Elite. If it fits my big head (23" circumference!) I'm hoping it'll fit the guy I made it for. Can't tell ya... it's a Christmas present!

My First Attempt at Felting

2008-12-14T14:50:00.008-05:00

I've been wanting to try felting something for a while. I just really like the way it (whatever it is) looks after it's been felted. I've already corrected a few times by my neice, Emily, that the process is actually "fulling" but since I think few people would understand what that is, I'll continue to call it "felting". I've also been wanting to crochet a bowl so I found the perfect project! I found a book called Felted Crochet by Jane Davis and requested it from my library through inter-library loan (too many details? too bad). I made the stiff yarn bowl and this is what it looks like before felting. Notice that it's 11". I used Valley Yarns Berkshire Bulky which is 85% wool, 15% Alpaca. It's double crochet all around then single crochet along the top edge in case you were wondering. (Asleep yet?)

Here it is in the washer with a few canvas bags to provide more agitation. It's also an excuse to wash your canvas shopping bags.

Here it is freshly felted (or fulled). It only shrank about 10%, a lot less than I was expecting but it's still has that fuzzy look that I like about felting.

Here's the bowl in use on my table next to my chair where I sit and work. Notice that it's holding yarn and, hooks, etc, and not soup or cookie dough. Some may want to call it a basket and that would be fine but I'll continue to call it a felted bowl.

Free Tickets

2008-12-10T07:28:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, while I was sitting around crocheting a pink mitten and listening to WMUA, the DJ came on and said he had tickets to see The Bobs and if you want to see The Bobs at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton tonight call him. So I did! And guess what? We went to see The Bobs at the Iron Horse last night! I'd seen them before back when, what I'm starting to think were "the good old days" of working at Northampton High School. The Bobs are a 4-person a cappella group from the West Coast. They've been in existence for over 25 years and sing everything from Led Zeppelin to Cream to The Beatles, etc. They're a lot of fun and it was really nice to go to a show for free! Well, not entirely free since we bought drinks and a basket of french fries! But, the tickets were free!