Poetry Friday!

First off, it's Poetry Friday, and I want to direct you all to one of my favorite "spooky" poems. Little Orphant Annie is by James Whitcomb Riley, and I've always found it delightful. I first heard it performed by my friend, Jeri Kladder, and I will forever hear this poem in her voice. She does a remarkable job (thus my remarks!). Go read it!

I WON! I was at Zaproot, while doing surfing for my library's Learn and Play (Library 2.0) initiative, and I entered my name and addy in a drawing to win a cool bag. The site is all about promoting GREEN stuff, and this bag is really nifty! I can't believe I won! You can see that smooshes into the little stuff-sack to be much smaller than my coffee mug, and . . .


when opened out, it's bigger than my cat! It's like tent fabric, and since the stuff-sack is integrated into the bag it'll always be there. There's even a little carabiner clip (but I'm going to have to replace it because it's already not springing closed) attached. Once I have a new clip, this will be the perfect Bag-To-Keep-With-Me-All-The-Time-So-I-Don't-Have-To-Use-Plastic. :-) As cool as this bag is . . . the coolest thing, though is still that I WON! I WON! I WON!

Speaking of my cat, I've been wanting to get some better pictures of Rosie. Thing is, she doesn't lay around like a slug pose like Sam does. She does, however, like to sample my glass of water before I take it up to bed with me each night. You can see her sniffing, and then looking at me like she's not done anything wrong.


The flash reflecting in her eyes seems so appropriate for The Look. I should have real Halloween pictures posted sometime later this weekend - at least one of Simon. His Bible Study group is going Trick-or-Treating tonight.

What's in a Name?

1. YOUR REAL NAME: Catherine Williams

2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle.) Catizzle

3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color and favorite animal) Pink Panther (hmmm - sounds familiar)

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (your middle name and street you live on/or neighborhood if it's a number) Louise Blythe

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name) Wilca

6. YOUR SUPERHERO/CRIMINAL NAME: (Your 2nd favorite color, and favorite drink) Purple Mocha

7. YOUR IRAQI NAME: (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, 1st letter of your last name, 2nd letter of your moms maiden
name, 3rd letter of your dads name, 1st letter of a siblings first name, and last letter of your moms first name Alwrcvlc

8. YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(PARENTS MIDDLE NAMES): Doris James

9. YOUR HOOD NAME: (first 3 of your first name and add -iqua) Catiqua

10. YOUR STRIPPER NAME: (first pet's name and first house's street name, or neighborhood if number) Sammy Shorehaven (sounds more like a mob name, so I"m going to use current information) - Rosie Blythe (there, isn't that better?)

Literature Map

My friend, Jim, posted a cool meme . . . and you know I can't resist memes! For all the L bloggers who read this, please note that this Literature Map link came from a non-library person - go civilians!

A simple, two-step approach for generating your own, fully personalized, 21st century, Web 2.0-based reading list:

1. Make a list of the top three books that have influenced your life, and make a note of the authors’ names
2. Visit Literature-Map, plug each author name into the text box (one at a time, naturally) and generate a cloud of related authors. That ought to keep you busy for a while!

Thanks for playing. Have a nice day.

My list of 3 life-changing books (I won't include the Bible, although that continues to influence my life):

1. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. (map) (Oh, you like Sendak? Have you read Sylvia Plath yet? LOL)
2. Charlie Parker Played Be-Bop by Chris Raschka. (map unavailable because the site hasn't heard of him before)
2a. (to replace Charlie Parker) Book Thief by Marcus Zusak (map)
3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. (map)

I'm a librarian, so, predictably, I can come up with a VERY long list of books that have changed my life. I limited myself, though. :-)

Carousel

If you want to see more of the pictures I took of the carousel . . . have fun!

Great Long Weekend!

I drove up to Youngstown (Boardman, really) on Wednesday, to my parents' house. Early Thursday morning, Mom and I got on a bus, were joined by my second Cousin, whom I call Aunt Nancy and her daughter, Kim, and went to NYC.
(picture shows Nancy, Mom and Kim)


It was a long trip, and there seemed to be several delays, the most dramatic of which was when the other bus blew a head gasket (whatever that is) and started billowing nasty smoke, just before we reached the Lincoln Tunnel. We were late to dinner at Pellegrino's in Little Italy.


The folks on the other bus missed dinner (they packed it up and loaded it onto our bus for them for later), and we were late to the show (Chicago, which was great, but missing my favorite song sucked). But, I haven't laughed so much in a long time. Aunt Nancy and Kim and Mom are EXCELLENT travel companions!





The main reason we went to NYC was for Friday morning . . . to see and ride the restored carousel that was the carousel of our youth. Idora Park was a smallish amusement park, originally constructed to entice people of 1899 to the end of the streetcar line in Youngstown. When I was a kid, we used to hold backyard fund-raising fairs to raise money for Muscular Dystrophy and get free tickets to get in to the park.


The carousel has now been restored (took her 22 years), and is in a warehouse in the DUMBO district of NYC. It is now being called Jane's Carousel, for Jane Walentas, who is the artist who did the restoration.
(This is Mom with Jane)




We got to see it, ride it numerous times, and I took over 100 pictures.

Each horse has a medallion like this one that tells what row it is in and what model it is. Very cool!

Jane's resoration work is nothing short of miraculous. The precious-metal leaf used, the beautiful color, it is all amazing. It was cool, too, to see these people (mostly elderly) so thrilled to see this bit of their childhood.

I loaded more pictures to my Facebook Account, if you want to see them. Let me know if that works, or if not, I'll load them into Flickr.

Of ships and sails and sealing wax . . .

Does anyone else read bloggers from the kidlitosphere? I've been reading/lurking at a few blogs for a while, now, and I have to say that one of my fave things is Poetry Friday. Every Friday they (some of them) post a poem or link to a poem or whatever. It's fun! I can't imagine I'd be able to keep up and stick to the schedule, but I like reading what they post! They even have roundups to stay in touch with one another and draw the reader around the web. Cool, huh?

Can I draw on the walls, too?

Just a quick link to really cool marker art.

Searching for stuff, Thing #19

I LOVE Firefox. I had it, then my computer got mussed up so I didnt' have it, and there are some apps that I need for work that don't use FF, so I didn't bother loading it at work, but then I was at IT one day and they teased me a little because I only had IE on my computer (and for goodness sakes, guys, YOU are the ones in the department that built this laptop anyway, so either give it to me or don't tease me for not having it . . . or something, and really, how crazy is that!?!?!?), so I finally caved to peer pressure (and knowing better) and loaded it again - both at work and at home. {end breathless rant}

My fave of the CML Power Tools is the Catalog Search Plug-in for Firefox. It's brilliant! I can simply choose to search DP instead of Google whenever I want. LOVERLY!

I don't have more to say (isn't that miraculous?).

Comiqs - Thing #18

I've made my first online comic strip!


Simon's New Sweater from Caterwauller on Comiqs

It was fun and easy, too! I wish I had more photos of people in my Flickr account to fool around with . I'll have to work on that! I think this is an app that my son will get a kick out of.

Google Docs - Thing Something or other

So I decided to check out Google Docs. I have gmail, and I like gtalk . . . and I've used the calendar and Google Reader . . . so I finally opened the Docs thing. Guess what! I already had a bunch of documents there and I didn't realize it! They were all from email attachments! I was amazed.

I started by cleaning out the docs that I don't really need. Then I added a new one - with information that, truly, I'd like to have access to from any computer. It's easy and fun! Just like they said!

I'm interested in trying out more apps, but honestly, I'm a little bit under a pile and I want to catch up on the rest of the Things before venturing beyond google for this one. You know - make sure I taste every dish on the buffet before coming back for seconds. :-)

New Blog!

I'm part of the Ready to Read Task Force at CML, and as we move into the implementation of this year's phase of the ongoing project, we've been recruiting and training a big team of Ambassadors who will be going into the neighborhoods and meeting families who are not generally visiting the library. They'll be talking about early literacy and sharing the Ready to Read research and information with parents and caregivers to try to improve their children's success in school. Because there will be so many people involved and so much going on, we've started a dedicated blog to share with one another. Feel free to follow along!

Vocabulary Building?

I was just reading CodeMonkey's blog, and noticed he has a reading level on his blog. So, of course, because I am a meme junkie, I had to do it too, even though I've done it before . . .

TV Reviews

I've improved! It must be all the L&P thing we've been doing. I'm talking about work instead of just life.

Reluctant Wiki-er, Thing #16

Well, I am sure you could tell a few posts ago that I wasn't too thrilled about the whole wiki thing. I mean, we have discussion boards and we have other collaborative web things, and I just figured that a wiki would be more of the same: clunky to use, challenging to keep up, short-lived novelty, etc.

I'm starting to think maybe I was wrong! I know, I know, it seems impossible (hmm, I guess you're all thinking that what is impossible is that I'll actually admit I'm wrong - me being wrong is fairly normal?) I finally had time to watch the little vid clips that the L&P team provide on their blog, and I think they might be right - Wikis are cool!

What I'm thinking about wikis:

• Someone on my branch staff had suggested a month ago that we should start a local history blog for the Linden Community. I'm thinking, now, that a wiki would be more functional and use-able. It would be great to get local folks contributing as well as library staff. I'd love to make/post some video footage of interviews with community elders!
  
• A Wiki would make it much easier to handle things like the Ready to Read Ambassador organization. We just need to figure out how to make/use a calendar in it.
• Sharepoint kind of sucks (I've always found it clunky), and a wiki would be easier to keep up with.
• I'm still convinced that a wiki is only as valuable and as strong as the people involved in it's writing.

FO, growing boy and Long Overdue

FO = Finished Object (knitterly terminology) Here you go - Simon's sweater! This is the Ravelympics event I tried to compete in. I did a lot of knitting during the Olympics, but still didn't finish. It is now done, and Si loves it. I purposefully made it too long so he has room to grow.





Yes, he is a growing boy! Sometimes I wonder if we could actually see him growing if we sat him on the couch and used time-lapse photography for a week. LOL Here he is in my dad's old fatigue jacket and hat. Dad was part of the Korean Conflict. He doesn't talk about it much, but his old fatigues all ended up in our "costume box" and Si has taken bits recently to use for actual clothing.






What would you call a group of 3 Librarians who are performing music together in public? We tried out a lot of names, and in desperation settled for Book Notes for this gig at the Clintonville Farmer's Market yesterday. While we were playing, Jami's hubby and our friend Joe came up with "Long Overdue", which we all like better than anything else we've thought of, so for now that's our new name. We have no other gigs booked, but boy, did we have fun!


Mike took the pics, of course.

Wiki wiki bo biki- Think #15

Boy, I'm definitely going to fall behind in the L&P thing. First was The Great Blackout of Ought Eight, and now is The Paperwork Pileup, made worse by the fact that my MODEM at home is BUSTED! I never really realized how much I take care of online work while at home until this week. It's very hard to keep up with everything at work in just 8 hour days . . . and then I was sick on Monday and Tuesday . . . and my finger tips hurt . . . and the dog ate it.

Ok - enough whining.

I took this "learn about wikis" thing as an opportunity to finally look into the ALA Ready to Read Wiki. I have to admit that I'm completely underwhelmed. Of course, the most recent posts seem to be from 2007, and many of the categories, etc, seem to have just one or two posts on them. I didn't find it impressive or useful at all, which leads me to my main point for this post.

MAIN POINT>>>> A WIKI is only as useful as the group that uses/writes it.

So, creating a Wiki is cool. Writing and contributing to a wiki is cool. However, just like the more antiquated "discussion boards", if the community that is using the wiki is boring, so will the wiki be. I'm still looking for library wikis that honestly look useful and cool, so if you have something specific to recommend or explain to me, have at it!

Hopefully my home connection will be healed tomorrow (laying on of hands should occur between 4 and 6 tomorrow afternoon, so look for the lightning). Maybe when I have my house back in order I'll be less cranky.

Who Are We?

I love thinking about the future. Partly, this is because I love not having to think about how far behind I am in what I should have done today . . . but partly I love it because it allows for that higher-level thinking. I love dreaming, basically. The Current Professional Terminology (CPT) for this is being a Visionary. Whether you call it visionary thinking, daydreaming, dreaming for real or just plain imagination, I love it!

So, when I was given (thanks, E!) tickets to Thomas Friedman lecture at OSU, I jumped at the chance. (Ok, no actual jumping was involved, but in my mind I was jumping) Talk about a visionary! Friedman wrote The World is Flat, which I've read and enjoyed and which really has some excellent point in it about the Global Economy and what the US or any country should be thinking about in terms of staying a legitimate "player" in the market.

What does this have to do with Library 2.0? Well, I'll tell you my version! I'd love it if you read his book and have some comments and shared them. Anyway, his new book is Hot, Flat and Crowded, and it's about how we need to consider Green Technologies (GT), alternate fuel sources, etc, and bring back a culture of innovation in the US if we're going to be able to keep up . . .again, with the Global Economy thing! (see here for a discussion on his website)

One point that really resonated with me and with what we've been talking about is the idea that 20 years from now the whole world will be completely different from what we know today. Now, don't be thinking Wall-E, but also don't discount the truths that are underneath that animated movie. We need to get our head around the concepts of GT and be innovative in finding ways to live w/o leaving such a gosh darn big carbon footprint!

So - hold on here - I'm almost to my point . . .

Government regulation is something that Friedman says will help with this problem, because, he says, we should be charging people a Carbon Tax - something to compensate the world (and whose bank accounts?) for the cost of producing, say, the lovely AC that is currently making my office 68 degrees. He also says that our governmental system (all hail the glorious Democracy!) is NOT good at dealing with long-term, multigenerational changes (this I totally agree with!).

Who is good at handling mulitgenerational change? Well, I would propose that Libraries sometimes are . . . and maybe should always be. Think about the longevity of our institution. Think about CML and how long some of us have been working here. You know, sometimes change is hard to deal with at CML because some of us have been here so long, our experience and our natural human tendancy to think "but we've always done it this way" is slowing down our ability to be maneuverable in the market. On the other hand, we could choose to embrace that longevity and harness it to perhaps create multigenerational change in our world.

This, my friends, is where my brain is today. I am thinking about how we can make a huge difference 20 years from now because of what we're doing today. We can live with a smaller carbon footprint, build our new buildings to be more efficient, AND (those of you who know me should have seen this coming) get all of our local parents to accept responsibility as their children's first teachers . . . and 20 years from now the Columbus School System will be thriving, our children will be out of poverty, the crime rate will be down, etc.

Ahh, it's getting me dizzy, up here on my soapbox.

As for Library 2.0 and the future of libraries I'm ready to jump on the Vision train. I see our library as being a catalyst for effecting real change in our community, through the Ready to Read program, through continuing to be a valuable center for lifelong learning and research, through being a promoter of innovation and through providing people of all socio-economic levels the same great service and opportunities to learn and to access information.

You're It! Thing #13

Yup - I'm finally back to Learning and Playing at work. I'm on thing #13, which was really meant for last week, but . . . well . . . read my last post for my excuses. I'm checking out delicious, which is a social bookmarking sharing site. You keep your "favorites" list on this website instead of just in your browser, and you can access it from any computer instead of just your usual place. So, I can keep one list of sites that I can access from home, from my laptop at Panera and/or from work. I signed onto this site a year or two ago and it never really tripped my trigger. Now, however, looking back at it again, I'm thinking that I might give it a try! I'm doing more and more online work for all aspects of my life (Boy Scouts, PTA, my band, playing . . oh yea, and work), and this might help keep track of things I like better. We'll have to see.

So - take a look at my delicious list and see what you think. I'm not done, yet, with taking care of my big browser upload, but soon you'll be able to see most of my bookmarks. :-)

Handling all my old bookmarks again brought me back to my favorite online song cartoon, if you're into things like that. Take a few minutes and listen/watch! I like Heywood Banks!

Who's peeking out from under that stairway?

• 1.4 million people in Ohio w/o power
• 7,000 calls to my staff
• 5,000 calls from my boss
• 100s of trees down as we drive around
• 75 mph gusts of wind
• 70 hours w/o power at my branch
• 57 hours w/o power at home
• 4 days w/o school for Simon
• 3 hours spent in my car just to recharge my cell phone
• 2 bits of minor damage to our house
• 1 helluva windstorm

Donating, Picking, Slideshowing

Well, we'd intended to go to Via Colori so Simon and some other students at his school could do a square at the chalk art festival, but then his teacher got an email saying we didn't have a square. We could have, apparently, been "alternates" and gone down on the off-chance we'd get a square that others didn't want, but we decided to do other things instead.

We took a donation to Ronald McDonald House. We thought about taking a picture, but decided to let Simon be a little more incognito. This is money he collected at his Birthday party, in lieu of gifts. It was cool! The women working the front desk were REALLY nice and doted on him a bit, and gave us a quick tour around the facility. I hope Simon feels even half the pride that I feel in him doing this!

We also went apple-picking. It was great! I tried to upload some photos for you, but for some reason it isn't working. They're pics Mike took, and I'm wondering if the files are just really big or something.

Anyway, because of work, I'm still playing around with Flickr apps, so here is a slideshow of hats and scarves that I've made - lol.

Things 11 and 12

I've been using LibraryThing and Twitter for a while now. I added both as widgets to my blog a while ago, too. You can see them to the right!

I like LibraryThing because it is allowing me to track my reading. What I don't like is that it doesn't allow for showing how much of the book you've read. For instance, I'd like to be able to post a book and then show how far I've gotten in the book when I go to update. I can do that with my knitting projects on Ravelry.com, and I like it! My reading isn't usually just one book at a time, ya know? I've heard some folks talk well of goodreads.com, so I might take a look at that soon. I just don't want to get engulfed in yet another social online site. They become so time-consuming!

Lazy Blogger's Post

I just found this cool generator for Lazy Blog Posting, and I created this:

Wholy smoke I just had a cup of tea and realised I have not updated this since they invented sliced bread... You would not believe how hard it is being waited on hand and foot and generally lounging around. But I'm sorry you'll just have to take my word for it..I am lost in a sea of pseudo-olde-english with a weight-lifting regime, watching Dexter, just generally being an embarrassment to my cats, my day is long and tiring from sun up to sun down and beyond. I am so tired of my kids wanting me to give them attention and stuff. life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.I go, my lords and ladies; just that when the weather turns bad, I will blog more often. No, really! This is for my ever faithful, devoted public.


Funny! It's like Mad Libs, techno-style!

More Fun with Flickr - Thing #10

I've been having all kinds of fun with Flickr this morning. I've been playing at Big Huge Labs, using their tools. See what I've done?

First, I made myself a smart-alecky name tag . . . I love the pink! Actually, this could be a fairly useful tool. I'm thinking of encouraging my PTA officers to make name tags for themselves. If I make one for that, I'll be on my Flickr photostream.

Next, I played with the beaded photo thingy. One thing I like about these applications is that you can take pics from your computer - you don't have to load them to Flickr first. Cool.

Finally, I couldn't resist the thought bubbles. Ha! I saw the app for making trading cards, but I thought all of these looked like more fun. Maybe I'll do trading cards later. I'm thinking it could be really cool to make trading cards for each staff person for our next all-team meeting!

Twilight Fans

Those of you enamored of the Twilight Series (Parson's staff, this means YOU) - have you seen this comic?

flickr toys

More toys, suggested by Gerald 2.0 :
First, a contestant for my banner, if I can figure out how to put it into the template in the right spot. This comes from Spell with Flickr



Next time, I'll go to the trading card thingy he suggests. Right now, I'm going to go back to my regularly scheduled day off and watch an episode of Firefly.

How much is enough? (#9 of 23 things)

How much is too much news? How much is enough? How much time should I spend reading news each day? These are questions I've always had in my head . . . well, maybe not always, but for a really long time.

I have never been one to read a lot of news. It's depressing, often, and it takes time when I could be DOING things. So when asked to explore news feeds I thought to myself "gack! I don't even like to READ the news!"

But I have found that some well-chosen RSS feeds of headlines is a helpful way to cut down on the time it takes to read the news while still being aware of what is going on in the world. So now I have some headline feeds that are easily accessible from my browser toolbar. I can scroll down the list of headlines and just pick the few that interest me. The rest I can ignore. yay! Ignoring is fun!

For all of my friends who are news junkies (you know who you are!) - happy now?

#8 RSS Feeds and Blogrolls

Hmm - say it again - "blogrolls". Does that sound yummy to anyone else? This week's Learn & Play stuff starts out with some great information on what an RSS feed is and how to use them. I already use Google Reader to keep track of all the blogs I follow. Am I a faithful follower? Nah, not really. I like how GR will give me the first line of the post and I can use that to determine if I want to open it and read it or not. I do read a lot of blogs, though, so don't think I'm not reading!

I have about 80-90 blogs that I watch. Some are mostly dead, while other blogs have new posts every day. What's great about the Reader is that I no longer have to go to each one and see what is going on. I can just look at those who've updated. LOVE IT! Saves me so much time, and it helps me keep up better!

I should probably add a newsfeed or two - but I haven't yet. I don't generally like reading the news - it's often depressing. But I guess that's just a personal problem I have!

So - in the spirit of Learning and Playing at work, I've also investigated Bloglines. I started an account and added some feeds. It's neat! I like being able to easily share your blogroll with others. Here is my public blogroll - yippee!

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.

My Dad is GREAT!

My Dad got his test results from the Oncologist today - he's been in treatment for Prostate Cancer for the last 7 months or so. His tumor is shrinking a LOT, and he's doing great! In fact, he's doing so well they don't even need to SEE him for another 6 months! Yay!

Learn and Play at CML: blog count!

How many blogs do you have? How many social network sites do you keep up with? How many are you signed up on? I am losing count of my own! I have 2 blogs I've written . . . and keep fairly regularly. I have a couple more group blogs I've contributed to. I'm fairly regular on Facebook, and I like Ravelry a lot. I also Twitter, and I've tried Plurk, but since I'm already established at Twitter I think I'll stop plurking.

I have accounts at a few other social sites, but I don't keep up with them. Some places, like MySpace, make (or at least used to) you get an account just to be able to see and comment on other people's pages.

OK - blog count for me:
There is this one you're reading. There is my Live Journal blog, which I post to occassionally. I contribute to Zimmermania sometimes. I've blogged for PLA. I blogged for CML while I was at PLA. I've encouraged blogging as a learning tool for other staff. Now there's a new initiative starting at work that will have people starting blogs for work. Why would I want to start a new one? I might use the opportunity to try a different software, but then again, maybe I'll just use this one or my LJ and be done with it! But here's my question - is it appropriate to lead all those work folks to my personal blog? Do I want them all here, up in my bi'nness? Yea, I guess it's ok - I've got nufffin to hide, right? Besides, maybe one or two of them will take up knitting as a result! W00t!

Nintendo A Capella

I love music, and I used to love playing Nintendo . . . so when I found this video I just had to share!

Education in the US

What is happening to our education system? What can we do about it? Are these questions even answerable?



One thing is for sure - change won't happen if we don't even talk about what is going on.

A Scout, scenery and felting!

Here is our scout, ready for a week of leadership training - doesn't he look great? The tan is complements of his week-long canoeing trip in Michigan this past week. 12 hours after he arrived home we left to drive him to the next camp. Crazy!

You can see how hazy it was down in Southern Ohio this morning. Beautiful, but very humid and hot.

Anyone know what kind of flower this is? There seemed to be a lot of them along the roadsides today. First to ID it wins a prize!

I was inspired by the artwork of my friend and colleague, Mary Ann, and I have been knitting these bags all weekend long! I still have some final touches I want to put on them, though, before showing them to her and . . . get this! . . . trading her a purse for one of her paintings! Like a Real Artist!

I made a few others, too. It's been fun, knitting them. I'm pulling 3 strands of Lamb's Pride Worsted together so I can play with the colors more, using #19 needles (golly, those were expensive!)

I plan to do some needle felting to put the pussy willow pods on the fronds.

another word cloud

This one is from some of our website content regarding Ready to Read. Click on the thumbnail picture to view it bigger.

Word Cloud

This is a cloud of the last 5 or 6 posts I've made here.

Fun! Try one yourself!

Passion Quilt

I posted this at my other blog, but I've decided that I like it enough that I want to share it again and again. The idea is that you choose an image that inspires you, add a caption, and post it - like making your own motivational poster. It's a challenge that has been going around the library blog world for a while.

I like the way this came out, don't you? It's Si, of course, several years ago when he still didn't care about people watching him or what they'd think of him.

Want to try making your own? Let me know if you do!

Meme from MIL

Sorry about all the CAPS!

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? I guess not really, but sort of named after my mother's great aunt

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Watching TV, I'm sure

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? I don't mind it much, but I'll tell ya, my sister thinks it's horrible!

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? good bologna or roast beef

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Yes - 1 son

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Yes! If nothing else, I can be quite entertaining to watch (as I mess things up).

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? No, never. {tries to look innocent}

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS ? No

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Not for a million bucks . . . ok, well . . . maybe for a million bucks, but not for any less!

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? either Cheerios (and not the generic kinds!) or some kind of yummy granola with nuts and dried fruit

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? If they have laces, but most of my shoes are slip-ons

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? OK mentally, not so much physically

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Chocolate Pecan Ice Cream from Handels

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Either their smile or their eyes

15. RED OR PINK? BOTH!!!!!

16. WHAT IS THE THING YOU LIKE LEAST ABOUT YOURSELF? My body

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My Pop-pop - he would have loved to know Simon. Grandma, too, really.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK? Well, I got this email, but obviously, I'm posting it to my blog instead of emailing it out. I'd love for some folks to email it to me with their answers or post it on their blogs w/answers!

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Ha! None! Still have my nightie on!

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE ? Cheese and crackers last night after the Boy Scout meeting

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? The sound of the cats' water bowl filter

22. If YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Hot Pink!

23. FAVORITE SMELLS? Lilac bushes, campfires, garlic and onions being sauteed

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Mike

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? I love her! Thanks, MIL!

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? I don't enjoy much on tv - maybe Synchronized Swimming and Figure Skating - I like sports live, though, even baseball and football

27. HAIR COLOR? Gray, brown, blond

28. EYE COLOR? Hazel, I guess

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? I used to, but I like my glasses so much now that I don't bother - I think the glasses help disguise the wrinkles or something.

30. FAVORITE FOOD? dark chocolate with salted pecans, thick angus steak with garlic and bleu cheese, cheese fondue

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? The first few episodes of the John Adams Mini-series, I think

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? light green

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? Neither, it's Spring and Fall for me, thanks. I love the changing times.

35. HUGS OR KISSES? Hugs

36. FAVORITE DESSERT? Basically, if it doesn't have chocolate in it, it doesn't count as dessert to me, usually . . . except maybe some really high-quality vanilla ice cream

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Oh, I dunno, I have a sneaking suspicion that no one will.

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? see #37

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? Golly, I've got several going: Diamond of Drury Lane, Thursday Next in First Among Sequels (on audion in car), and a sociology book about how we develop racial identity called Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? We don't have one

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT? Nothing - I was with the Scouts from right after work until 9, and then I came home and collapsed - LOL

42. FAVORITE SOUND? regular people singing together, children laughing

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Beatles . . . no, the Stones . . . no, the Beatles . . . ahh, ok, then - Both!

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? either Southern California (San Diego?) or Vancouver - wait - mapquesting . . . Vancouver, BC wins!

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I can play the ukelele . .. kinda . . . and lots of other instruments (mandolin, clarinet, saxophone, mountain dulcimer, hammered dulcimer, nose flute, ocarina, thumb piano, beer bottles, etc) and I sing!

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Youngstown, OH