Si's Birthday Party

We had Si's Birthday Party very early (2 weeks!), and it was a perfect-weather day! It was warm, but not beastly, the sun was shining and the sky was blue! We found a good spot in a local park, set out some balloons, set up our propane grill and waited for the boys. We had about 16 boys, total. Fun - and loud!

Mike was our GrillMaster - good cookin, Sweetie!

The boys played games (yes, there is a kid in that tree - we made him get down) . . . .


and ate . (that badge Simon has on says "If you knew my family you'd understand - what do you think he means by that? LOL Actually, we'd joked about it so much that I made him the button this summer when I had access to a button-maker.) . .





And although we'd said "donations to Ronald McDonald house in lieu of donations", I did make sure he had a little something to open. He likes his new shirt!

We also have a healthy donation to RMH that Si and I are going to deliver either tomorrow or next weekend. I'm so proud of my kid!

Penblwydd Hapus Simon!

I Like those Stinkin' Badges!

I've added a few more widgets, after discovering them through other peoples' blogs. Tell me what you think about the Flickr and Meebo badges!

Techno Geekness in Libraries

I've been reading blogs from librarians for a long time. Although I've read lots and lots, and I have lots on my blogroll (see sidebar), there are really only a handful that I will go to all the time. One of them is Amanda Credaro's
Warrior Librarian. It's satire at it's bookishest! She's covered all the bases over the years, too. For instance, I just hit the "home" button from one of her other links and got a bogus 404 error message. It's hilarous! And who among us can resist being able to re-arrange Melville Dewey's face!
(This brief review of the website is my "Thing #7" for L&P @ CML)


On a personal rant, today is the first day of school for CCS, and I dutifully dropped my son off instead of making him take the bus. I just can't resist that puppy dog face he makes when begging! OK, I'll be able to resist tomorrow . . . Anyway, I stupidly forgot to take our traditional "First Day of School and Try To Look Happy About It" picture. I'll grab one tomorrow and post it. (boy, by the time they hit 8th grade, it's hard not to get jaded!)

Knitting banned in Library?!?

I love Shelf Check

. It's usually a very timely comment on what is happening in the library world. Today's strip is about
this article about an Ontario Library that banned all crafts in the library. Seriously? I teach kids to knit my library as often as I can! In fact, I just spent some time this afternoon organizing some of the yarn and needles that my knitting pals have donated so that I will be able to easily access it all as needed.

Ban weapons? Yes. Ban knitting needles? NEVER!

Freakin' Flickr

The next "thing" I needed to do (after last week's assignments of starting a blog and posting - duh!), was play around with flickr apps. OMG - I had no idea there were such crazy things out there! Today I found a Flickr Chia Pet thing to play with (talk about wasting time!), a whacky little music thing, but what I really wanted was to be able to create a photo mosaic. I found mosaickr and starting playing around a bit. The tricky part is that I don't have more than a hundred or so photos in my flickr account. I'm going to have to work on that!

It was a little slow to use, but that could be the connection here. I took this photo of Michael Stephens and myself and tried the tool.


As you can see, it turned out kinda splotchy. Maybe I I stand really far away . . . . (getting up and walking far away) . . . . nope, still doesn't look much like us. LOL It was kinda fun to see how it worked, though!

I also had fun this morning, creating a cool new flickr badge for my side bar. Boy, my sidebar is starting to really look neato! I need to take some time to clean up and change how the LibraryThing stuff displays, though. I don't like that big font, but I can't figure out how to fix it - any readers out there wanna give me some tips?

Hi-fi, Sci-fi - Library

Great music video about how libraries are changing! Be sure to watch all the way to the end - cute kid!!!! Who knew guys from Kansas could be so cool? Don'tcha just love Library Staffers?

Out of the 'Lympics

Well, I've gotten about 1/2 the sleeves done on Simon's sweater, my Ravelympics entry, but I'm very low on yarn. I'm going to have to take drastic measures (a.k.a. do some striping) if I don't get more yarn. There are 3 people on Ravelry who have the yarn I need listed as part of their stash, and I've sent messages to all three. Hopefully one of them will come through!
Until then, I'm taking myself out of the Ravelympics and going back to knitting on other projects. Sigh.

Things 1 and 2

Lifelong Learning - I love it! I love thinking outside the box and learning new things and evolving. Here are a few of the things I've been learning this week:
* playing the mandolin
* new song lyrics
* cooking gluten-free foods (for a friend)
* how to live with a teenage boy (I learned that sometimes they sleep PAST 12 and won't wake up when the phone rings!) "That energy which makes a child hard to manage . . . afterward makes him a manager of life." - Henry Ward Beecher

Using technology - I also love using technology to learn! I learned to knit with a website. I find song lyrics (and the songs themselves) online. Last night I was practicing a new song with YouTube! Of course, it sounds a bit different with my voice and my mandolin. LOL Of course, I have a clear goal for this - not looking ridiculous the next time our little group plays in public. Ha!

So - this is my first actual "thing" of the 23 things. I've now finally completed last week's exercises. I'll go log this progress and come back for this week's activities!

(thanks for reading!)

Ravelympics, NYC, returning to work, Learn and Play

We had our kick-off for Learn and Play and CML on Tuesday. I went in, and I'm really glad I did! Gerald and the rest of the team did a great job with their presentation!

And Michael was fabulous! He's so inspiring. If you aren't a library-blog-reader, you probably don't realize that he's a blog ROCKSTAR!!! See what his blog is like here.

I'm really looking forward to doing the 23 things given as our goals to learn more about Web 2.0. Obviously, blogging isn't new to me, but I'll find things to learn and blog about, don't you worry! I'm saving my big excitement until I'm officially on work time, though . . .

I've sorta kinda been on vacation this week. We didn't go anywhere as a family, but we DID put in some hours for the Boy Scout Garage Sale that is our only fundraiser of the year. Took all summer to gather all the goods, took all week to set up, took 6 hours yesterday to sell as much as possible, will take a few more days for our old bodies to recover. I was a cashier all day, while Mike helped me and helped in the Furniture tent some. Simon was a delivery kid, doing whatever the adults asked of him all day. TIRED! I've got no pics because I didn't want to run the risk of my camera being sold. :-)

Last weekend I helped my dear friend Carol move her son to NYC. He's living and working there as part of Teach For America. We took him clothes and stuff and got him into his new apt., although he's been there all summer already. We drove out Friday, played in the city Saturday, moved him Sunday and then . . . .

drove to Elizabethtown, PA, to stay with Ann the night, then drove home on Monday. Don't ask us about the driving home on Monday part - let's just say we made a slight navigational error and it took a bit longer than necessary.

I've been working on a sweater for Si. I cast on during the first day of the Olympics and I hope to finish by the closing ceremonies. It's part of the
Ravelympics game on the Ravelry site. I have the body done up to the armpits, and I am almost done with the sleeve cuffs. I'm going to do both sleeves simultaneously so I don't have to take notes along the way for increases. LOL

Meme from Carol

TYPE ONLY '1' WORD. IT'S HARDER THAN YOU THINK!!!

1. Where is your cell phone? charging

2. Your significant other? work

3. Your hair? messy

4. Your mother? amazing

5. Your father? delightful

6. Your favorite thing? singing

7. Your dream last night? anxious

8. Your favorite drink? water

9. Your dream/goal? peace

10. The room you're in? kitchen

11. Your fear? disliked

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? college-mom

13. Where were you last night? knitting

14. What you're not? done

15. Muffins? gritty

16. One of your wish list items? money

17. Where you grew up? Ohio

18. The last thing you did? shower

19. What are you wearing? playclothes

20. Your TV? off

21. Your pet? felines

22. Your computer? on

23. Your life? complicated

24. Your mood? anxious

25. Missing someone? Simon

26. Your car? transportation

27. Something you're not wearing? shoes

28. Favorite Store? Merc

29. Your summer? eventful

30. Your favorite color? changes

31. When is the last time you laughed? knitting

32. Last time you cried? yesterday

33. Something you hate to do: clean

34. Something you love to do: sing

35. Something you wish you were able to do well: diet

Knitting for Charity

If you're a frequent reader, you might have noticed that I love knitting for other people. Family, friends, aquaintances, and strangers - it's all good, in my book! I particularly enjoy knitting for charity. Well, I just bought a pattern for charity! The Hibiscus for Hope is a pattern created specifically to gain support for Breast Cancer Research in Canada. I know, it's not even my own COUNTRY! I can't resist!

Knitting and the Olympics!

OK, why haven't I posted more knitting? I'll tell you why - it's all the fault of Ravelry. This great social networking site for knitters and crocheters has been taking up my attention. I love it! I post my projects, keep track of what is on my needles, how long it takes me to do projects, etc, and I can post my pics there, too. I can also check out what my friends are making, and we can comment to one another.

They're starting an incentive with the Olympics, encouraging us to cast on a project during the opening ceremonies that will be challenging . . . and then to finish before closing ceremonies 2 weeks later. I'm going to do it! If I put this link here can you see my project page on Ravelry, or does it just take you to the homepage again? Let me know.