Friday Off

I love having every other Friday off! With public service, we have some odd hours compared to the "typical" 9-5 workers. We work evenings and some weekends, and it's different from week to week. After 23 years of this schedule, it seems quite normal to me. I work every other Saturday. The weeks that I am working Saturday, I generally have Friday off. I've come to cherish these Fridays.

Sometimes I use Fridays to get important things done. I will schedule Dr. Appointments and medical tests on Fridays if they allow them. Some Dr.s (surgeons, in particular) don't have office hours on Fridays, but for them I try to schedule appointments in the mornings on the days when I'm working late (and consequently going in late).

Sometimes I use Fridays to catch up on housework things: shopping, cleaning, dishes, cooking, laundry, but to be honest, my husband does more than his fair share of all of that, so I rarely have to spend an entire day doing that alone.

Sometimes I spend the day meeting up with friends and lunching.

Sometimes I go to the yarn shop. Today was one of those days! The Knitter's Mercantile is my favorite LYS, and there is a group of women to often meet there on Friday mornings. Everyone is welcome and there have been some huge crowd from time to time! Today there were just a few of us. (I heard they're meeting every other week at another shop - how could they!?!?!?)

I had a lovely morning at the Merc. I made some good progress on one of my Xmas gifts (shh!) and I met a few new friends. One lady was doing her first project with the magic loop method (a cool way to knit in the round). After Jan (the shop owner) showed her the basics, Maureen sat down next to me and I was able to coach her as she got it going. As we talked, we finally realized that we go to the same church - LOL. Small world, eh? She is starting to get knitters together to make hats, gloves and scarves for kids in South Linden (where I used to work) for the winter months. I'm so there!

I'm glad I was able to make a new friend and get a new outlet for charity knitting. I love knitting gifts, and knitting for charity is just as good or better. What could be better than knitting for kids in our own town who need it? I bet some of those kids have even used my library. Pretty cool. If you're on Ravelry, the name of the group is Handknits for Harambee.

Keep Our Library Strong!

Think for a moment about what your community would be like without a public library. Do you use your public library? What do you use it for? Don't use it? Why not? Are you glad it is there for others, even if you don't use it? Remember when I wrote about how proud I am to work for the Library of the Year? Want to read research about how libraries produce incredible return on the investments our communities put into them, including economic development?

Well, we have an issue on the ballot Nov. 2. If you live in the area, you will have the opportunity to tell us (and everyone else who is paying attention) if you believe that public libraries are important to you. Think about these things: books that everyone has access to but no one person needs to buy, storytimes for children, Summer Reading Club that motivates children to keep their skills up during the summer, Homework Help Centers after school, Job Help Centers in every location where people will help you create a resume, get your first email account, learn to look for and apply for jobs online, access to the internet and free wifi, movies and audios that you can borrow for free, friendly, helpful staff (who have all had to take cuts in pay and hours and have still added services this past year) . . .

If this levy doesn't pass, Columbus Metropolitan Library will lose roughly half of it's operating funds. We've already made all the "easy" cuts we can make.

If you'd like to support the best library in the nation, you'll vote YES on Issue 4.

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!