Two weekends ago, I joined the church here in Anchorage. I'd been visiting for a few weeks. Initially I wasn't sure, but the more I went, the more I liked the church. The people are wonderfully friendly. I'm starting to meet more people my age who would be good to hang out with. (with whom it would be nice to spend time - if I want to avoid ending in a preposition.) Joining the church was super simple, just tell them, fill out a card, and they make an announcement during worship service. That Sunday was the monthly welcome/farewell potluck dinner. It is a huge military town, and so there are people who leave on a regular basis hence the farewell part. The potluck was a great deal of fun. Anchorage has a very large international community. In some ways it was a very traditional potluck, with many dishes you would find in any church potluck in the Midwest and the South. However, there was also hand rolled (and absolutely delicious) sushi, another Japanese dish, and other fun international delicacies. Of course since my denomination is primarily prevalent in the South, there was regular ice tea and an equal sized container labelled "Sweet Tea". A fantastic combination of down home and international, and the people are the same wonderful menagerie. I am really enjoying it.

And of course it is also very Alaskan. I was given a "welcome to Alaska" basket by the women of the church this week. It featured many homemade items (Alaskans are very crafty people, partially in defense against the long winters). There was homemade jam, a quilted hot pad, and a jar of what seems to be preserved salmon (undoubtedly caught by one of the church's men and preserved by his wife). There were also a number of maps and info about Alaska. The church has been so welcoming and wonderful. I'm going to play cards with some people tonight. At church after lunch last week, I was recruited to teach 1st grade Bible Class (formerly known in my world at least as Sunday School) over the summer.

Now I must go to work. It seems to be snowing. Well in a way. It's snow/rain, melting as it comes into contact with the ground. We had had just beautiful weather for the last, upper forties, I had been wearing just a light jacket. April snow. How fun. It's still above freezing, and we need the moisture.

Really honest, I mean to post, I log on, read everyone's entries, reply, and then run out of time. So this time I'm posting first! Here are things that are rambling around my world in no particular order from the last few weeks. They are a scattered offering of the things I've been meaning to post.

• I have a cold, I hate having a cold. Bleck.
  
  
• The other day I made homemade play dough for my storytime kids to use during craft time. This way they can take it home and we don't worry about reclaiming the libraries valuable expensive brand name play doh. I have an awesome recipe and everyone wanted it (thanks Mom!). When I was making it at home, I made a huge mess and dropped some on the floor. My cat ran over, sniffed it, and ate it. She even licked her little kitty lips. She remained on alert the rest of the time for any dropped bits she could eat. Jane Austen cat even hissed when I took a piece away from her. She never hisses at me. She must really like the stuff (which is like pure salt).
  
  
• I find it irritating when people start a sentence in their subject email or put an entire sentence up there and then put nothing in the body (as that was there whole message) or continue the thought without repeating the subject. I tend to not connect the subject always entirely and I have to go back and re-read it because I'm confused.
  
  
• I missed church on Sunday because of my cold. I missed two weeks ago because of travelling. I think I missed the week in between but I can't recall why. Perhaps I went, I must have, I almost always do. I'm in danger of becoming a heathen.
  
  
• I got a postcard from bbjore in Iraq. That was totally awesome!
  
  
• I subscribe to Christianity Today for my church's library but had it sent to my house. March's issue showed up with an interview with Katherine Paterson, and a few other children's lit bits. I may have to keep it for a bit longer.
  
  
• For those of you who don't know, I'm a huge scifi geek. I've been working my way through the Star Trek: Voyager series on DVD. That was the only series I watched consistently when it was new on TV. Somehow though I missed most of the 5th and 6th seasons as I didn't remember most of those episodes. I liked it quite a bit. Now that I'm almost done (down to 7th and final season) I've started Battlestar Galactica. I'm getting these DVDs from the library. I may take recommendations in a couple of months for what I should do next: Babylon 5, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Star Trek: Next Generation, something else I'm not thinking of? Edited to add, I meant to include Farscape and Stargate on the list. I've already started (first two eps) of Stargate. Thanks for the reminders
  
  
• Warm weather is finally upon us again and I'm happy to be wearing nicer warmer clothes.
  

There's more but that is all I have for right now. Look an update!

I had this nightmare Saturday night/Sunday morning. I was in high school in chemistry class taking a test and I didn't know a single answer. I couldn't even guess. And I was looking at the questions, knowing that the first few were supposed to be really easy, and I still didn't know any. It was kind of an upsetting dream. In chemistry class, I was never the best student, but I always studied and usually knew most of the answers.Part of me wants to believe that sooner o later these nightmares about school go away except I know people in their 50's who still have them.

I had a nice quiet relaxing weekend. I went shoe and other things shopping with Heather and got lovely brown ballet flat style shoes. This is good because the heels are really starting to kill me. I stayed in and watched television shows that I had taped, read, and scrapbooked. I was showing my roommate what I had done and she was laughing that it was Christmas 2004 pages. Well, the last two years have been pretty busy what with GRADUATE school. She gets that, but was just teasing me.

This weekend our Outreach/Adult minister retired at church. Our senior pastor resigned/moved to another church at the beginning of the summer. So we're down to a youth minister, an associate minister (who is wonderful and has been there forever but I don't really think is interested in being the sneior minister) and a children's minister (who can't preach). No pulpit minister and those other two and a series of guest speakers to try to make do. It will be a fun run as senior minister searches for churches of our size (around 1200 people which is HUGE for our denomination) can take six months to a year.

This week a regular storytime attendee came into the library. She's one of my favorites. (Teachers are perhaps not supposed to play favorites, but librarians do all the time). Her mother asked me to be Cinderella at her birthday party (the girl's party not the mother's). I was very flattered. My first thought was, ah, you think I'm pretty enough to be Cinderella? Sadly I couldn't do it because I'll be in school that weekend. Still very flattering, made my whole day.

We often get requests like that to do a private storytime at a birthday party. Our children services coordinator keeps joking that she's starting a business in her off work time and contracting us out. She'll take the bookings, we'll do the gigs. It would all be legitimate so long as all of it is done off work time and we don't use any library resources not available to the regular public. I could check out a book to read there just like any other person, but I couldn't use some of the staff resources like big books and flannel board sets we use during storytime. It would most likely work well and we would make some good extra money. But I don't think any of us really want to do it. The whole birthday party entertainer scene rather frightens me.

I missed church this morning. I was tired. It was raining. None of these are good excuses. My alarm went off and I rolled over and decided to sleep another half hour (which turned into an hour) and then work on capstone. My parents called since I missed church. My father wanted to know if I was sick (that's usually the only reason I miss church if I'm in town) and my mother wanted to know if I'd had a hot date the night before.

Sometimes I feel like all I ever do is complain about school. I am less than a week away from presenting capstone (ouch, that's super scary). I'm not ready. I'd pulled and prepped material. Capstone is a big presentation and portfolio you do. You pull tons of projects from previous semesters that prove you've met all the program objectives. It is very important that it is "professional" and attractive looking. I was going to have trouble doing that and representing it well in a paper format. Originally I was going with the paper format because it seemed easier. Instead I'm making a website. Plus my prof loves websites. I'm not linking it for privacy reasons, but it isn't unimpressive. We'll see in a week how I feel. I think the website will work better, but I changed my mind so late. Though I'm just transferring stuff I had already done and it transfers fairly easy. Nothing like the old switcheroo though.

I moved this weekend. It went well thanks in large part to the help of Heather and Brion. Brion brought his truck and we got it all in two trips (using all our cars on the first trip). Then we had yummy Zarda bbq. I got all my books and such over this weekend. I hadn't actually planned to bring them for a few weeks, but there was room and willing arms so we did it. This puts me ahead of my schedule. Of course, they're just sitting there in boxes taunting me until I have time to deal with them. All the physical moving of boxes and furniture was Saturday. Sunday, there was church. Then during Sunday school thee was a meeting of the people interested in the library ministry. My church has a really good sized library, well organized and run. However the director is getting on in years and her health is not wonderful, she needs someone to take over. I was worried it would be just me, but two other women who are school librarians also volunteered. It looks like it is going to be a blessing to work with this ministry. One of the women is actually a school library that is in the service area of my public library. My job is to coordinate efforts with her, but I hadn't realized yet she goes to my church. It is always great to have those crossovers. I'm also really grateful that I have a chance to use these "worldly" talents, skills, education to serve God. I love my job because it is so service oriented. Even at a secular institution like a public library I believe I can be a servant and do God's work by helping people to find the books/information/etc that they need. I'm not explaining this well. This is better articulated in my head (which isn't really articulated since that means to verbalize, but you know what I mean). It is amazing to do this in such a focused way as that at church.

Heather (huckleberrycake) and I went to a scrapbooking class after church at Archivers. We paid $15 and made a very cute paisly mini album. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it yet. (I'm thinking I may round up years of Easter dress pictures and put them in there). However it was fun (and I priced the materias and such, the materials cost way more than $15 when you figure in inks, stamps, etc.) After that we ate a yummy late lunch at Sweet Tomatoes. The great thing about that place is it is a buffet, but it is a soup/salad buffet and that makes it all that much better. Then I moved 90% of my clothes over to my new place.

Monday, I worked and then moved the rest of my clothes and shoes. That was the first night I spent at the new place. Tuesday I bought groceries (since all I had at my new place was Diet Coke and Teddy Grahams not exactly the most healthy of diets), then worked the evening/closing shift. Wednesday (yesterday) worked then a Junior League meeting. I didn't know as many of the people at that meeting but I am always amazed at how friendly and nice everyone is at the league and how easy it is to sit down at a new table and start talking to people. Plus I am starting to recognize people and people wave when they see me, so slowly I'm carving out a niche. Now I just need to learn to remember names. Wednesday night got home (my new home) and there were plumbing issues. That is a separate post. There are still unpacked bags of clothes and many boxes. But the clothes are a bigger priority. They are mocking me. I hope to get them done tomorrow (my day off).

I woke up at one point early this morning with the phrase "charboiled grass" running through my head. I realized that didn't make sense and I racked my brain until I came up with "barbeque charboiled grass". Satisfied I went back to sleep.

Now of course I have no idea what that means, but it seems to have worked.

I am in Emporia for class and as a result not sleeping well. The radio part of the alarm clock radio in my room kept going in and out and I decided not to trust it. I turned it to the buzzer for the alarm (and of course set my cell phone as back up). I had tons of trouble sleeping last night, tossed and turned for three hours. When I woke up in the morning, the alarm sounded like an alert alarm in a ship or a submarine. Danger Collision! Or warning, Nuclear Meltdown! Had me wide awake, panicked, and heart racing. I realize how much I love my ihome clock that wakes me up to a selection from my ipod. I'm so spoiled. The night before when I didn't know exactly what the alarm would sound like, every little sound woke me up thinking that might be it. I woke up everytime from 4:30am on when the heater kicked on, or the compressor in the mini fridge, or the pipes whined when the person in the room next door took a shower. Not a lot of fun. I'm not well rested (good thing I have a two hour drive home after four hours in class). And people wonder what I crash and nap in the Sunday afternoon after I get home.

This last week was pretty good. This is my busiest semester yet, but if I can get through it, I'll be within shouting range of being done. I haven't done anything at church or with my church group in a week and it will be another week or so. Wednesday instead of Wednesday Church I went to a Junior League meeting. It was interesting. It was the voting meeting for the board, new leadership positions, and the budget. As a new member I can't vote, but it was still informative. I got a fun little compact mirror that says Junior League on it.

This is my children's class (we're on break), and it is a lot fun. I didn't go out last night like I usually do in Emporia, stayed in and watched made for tv movies and read. Fun.

Happy Halloween!

There is almost no one in the library tonight. I believe staff outnumbers patrons three to one. It is a nice change of pace from our normal hectic lives. And we can catch up on planning/processing/projects, the three p's of my life. I'm dressed as Little Red Riding Hood because I already own the cape, and I only have worn it once before. My mother made it for me last year. I would post a picture, but I think I probably did last year. I'm wearing different clothes than before, but oh well. I'm too lazy to take a new picture and post it. I also french braided my hair. It took me years to learn to french braid my own hair. Okay, not really years because it never occurred to me to try until a few years ago and then I mastered it in seven or so attempts, but still. I'm fairly proud of this ability as it comes out looking pretty decent. I don't ever wear it that way in public because it looks so old fashioned. Maybe someday it will come back in fashion or I'll stop caring. The latter is much more likely to occur fairly soon.

I worked this weekend. I also had a hayride and bonfire with the people at church. That was fun. Of course any event that ends in s'mores and cider is bound to be good.

Last week was our library halloweeny story times, we did monsters. I wore a pumpkin tshirt over a black turtleneck and slacks so I still looked slightly professional. Also on Friday, I got to go out to eat with one of the Junior League girls who teaches right by my library. We went to this bar&grill that has the most amazing friday fried chicken special. Mmmm.... Can't eat that too often.

Here's last year's picture:
( little red riding hood )

So on Saturday, I didn't get to enjoy the nice weather too much. I went down to the trolley tour as mentioned. And then I ran to the plaza to drop some clothes off for the Junior League thrift store. (Have a donation quota which I've more than met now.) They were having a pick up at the Lill studio which is this really neat make-your-own purse boutique. Really cute stuff and now I have a discount coupon. Even with the coupon, it still might be rather pricey, so I am still debating.

Sunday skipped church to work on progress review. That afternoon went to Oktoberfest for the church singles group. Had hot dogs, burgers, brats. Played volleyball. Watched the Chiefs game. Oh, and I made funnel cake. I am a veritable funnel cake master. I'm not quite ready to throw away my life and become a carnie, but it is a good skill to pull out and use for fun days like that.

About noon yesterday the weather changed. Early this week, our high was 88. That is ridiculous for October. Now it is cool, and fall feeling. Fabulous. I was so ready for this change of weather. In about a month and a half when it is freezing, I am sure I will be complaining. However, right now, I am loving it. One of the guys said last night that he loves this weather because he can smell football in the air. Eh. I'm not smelling football. But I have plenty of other fall wondeful associations.

I have been looking for a dress for buffyholic's wedding next weekend. I have a lot of spring/summer dresses, mainly sundresses, but no fall dresses. I usually wear a sweater and a skirt. I want to go a little bit nicer for this. I found this one from Nordstrom's which I really like, and I ordered it. But it won't get here in time. It won't even ship until after the wedding. I may try to go find something else. And when I get it, I'll see if I want to keep it or return it. I don't know.

It is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Argh... Enjoy... I have a pirate storytime coming up in a couple of weeks... Tried to post this this morning and it wouldn't go through.



I had a very busy weekend. Very busy. Here is the run down.

Friday I worked and then I didn't do anything that evening in preparation for what was to come...

Saturday morning, got up fairly early and went downtown to sort books for Hooked on Books. It is a Junior League thing co-sponsored with the local newspaper in order to collect books for underprivliged children. We had received quite a few books from the drop sites and also from the Scholastic Warehouse (though admittedly those seemed mainly to be books they were attempting to get rid of). Some people stuck little stickers in them that said the name of the charity. Then we sorted them by grade level and other people boxed them. I didn't want to be all look at me, I'm an expert, listen to what I say about grade level appropriateness. And they had little signs to help people determine what reading level they were. My small group was there and they all knew that I am a children's librarian for a living, and people figured it out pretty quickly. Mainly I just did my thing, occasionally moved books from one pile to another, and answered questions. (I knew the woman in charge and she was telling people to clear up confusion with me). It was mainly new members doing the sorting, most of whom were younger and had no children and were quick to admit that they didn't know what grade level the books were. It was a fun thing, I got a mini-placement credit, did some good work, and got to hang out with the girls in my small group. They're a fun group and I am enjoying getting to know them. I left a little bit early.

I left early to head to my church were I manned the cotton candy booth for the Fall Fest. Cotton candy is a very weird thing, yummy, but weird. And really sticky and messy when making it. Then I grabbed a hot dog and hung out for about fifteen minutes. I went home, quickly changed, and went to buffyholic's bridal shower. Always fun. She is one of my oldest friends. After the shower, we hung out for a bit at her house and I got to meet her fiance. Then psycho_hedgehog and I went out to dinner. After dinner we met up for drinks with Katy and fiance. I was so tired. I had a fairly busy and tiring day. We went home after a little bit of hanging out.

Sunday woke up for church which was nice. We had a group called Watershed, the Jesus Painter, all special things since it was friends day. Then there was Sunday School. Then I led my book club. After book club I met up with a girl from Junior League. We had lunch (I spilled half my soup on myself). Then we went to DEAF sunday at the school for the Deaf. There was a deaf comedian and it was really funny and very interesting. I almost bought a quilt at the silent auction. Went home, took a quick nap, did some homework, and then went to Lifegroup. Very long tiring weekend, but good. All things I enjoyed doing.

I just got back from a Praise and Prayer (where we go to a house, eat some food, hang out, pray, and sing songs) with my church singles group. We have so much fun and it is uplifting. I'm blessed to have found this group. Anyway, while there, one of the guys in the group tells me that if you get together a group of 30 people, there is some very high chance that at least two of them would have the same birthday. This seems unlikely to me. We agree to wager on it, and he decides the terms of the wager. If he is right, then I'll buy him a cup of coffee when our group gets together for our weekly coffee shop time. We get everyone to go around the group (of about 40-50 people) and say their name and birthday. (We had enough new people we needed intros anyway). We had a match within the first five people. We ended up with FOUR sets of matching birthdays. I was blown away. So I owe Joe coffee. He learned this in his college stats class. And when I got home, my sister told me she did the same thing in her discreet (or discrete?) math class. Serves me right for never taking stats in college (or high school). Though how many of you can read Chaucer in the original Middle English? Or even know the difference between Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Modern English? Yeah, because those are important skills.

I don't play video games, but this was a fascinating article about pacman and its cultural impact. (Or is it Pac-Man?)
Pac-man turns 25

My last update was such a downer that I thought it would be good to do a nice cheerful update.

Here is an article I found about Senior Year Music. Look up the year you graduated, click on it, and see the tops songs of your senior year. I didn't know most of the ones my senior year, but that doesn't surprise me. I didn't listen to music much that year.

I could tell you more about my vacation. I went in to Savannah with my aunt and cousin to see Juliette Gordon Low's birth place house (the founder of girl scouts). It was very cool. It is a big deal for girl scouts (or ex-girl scouts in this case) go see it. Since the Scouts aquired it directly from the family most of the pieces in the house were from the family. It was one of the best restored houses I've ever been in (and I've been in a lot of historical houses). Unfortunately our tour guide was old and kept forgetting what she was saying. Plus she talked so quiet you could barely hear her. It was rather funny. The Andrew Low house (which Juliette lived in after her marraige) was also very cool and that tour guide rocked. My cousin's wedding was nice. She was married in the old historical part of the city, in the church where Jingle Bells was written (a Northern minister was transferred down, he was homesick, he wrote the song). The church is now Unitarian and I'd never been to a Unitarian (or even non-Christian) wedding before, it was different, very short. Then she took a carraige ride to the museum where the reception was. It was all very nice and pretty. There was more lying on the beach and hanging out with my family. They got my cousin and I an early birthday cake. I went to the marine center and saw more baby turtles (they have a big save the sea turtle thing and the sea turtle crossing sign). I love that city.

This last weekend my church's single group had a retreat. We had a lot of visitors. It was a lot of fun, met new people, got to hang out with the ones I know, and learned about the Bible. Very uplifting, good times.

After much agony and debate, it is time for vacation. Agony and debate because with the amount of work I have for one of my classes, I considered not going. I have four times I have to be online for this class. One was last night, one is tomorrow night (when we get in since we're driving), one is during my cousin's wedding, and one is memorial day. Great timing, huh? Plus I have a paper I have to write. And a ton of reading and such to do for this class. I printed out as much of it as I could. And I printed out locations of Starbucks with wireless internet (and determined what it will cost me to do this). I think I have figured out how I can get all my school work done and still go on vacation. There were other details to conquer too. To take care of my turtles, I paid one of the neighborhood kids to come over twice a day to feed them. Love my babies. Going to miss them. Also I have gotten to the point where I actually really enjoy playing my guitar every day. This is the most fun I have had with a musical instrument ever. I am going to miss it since I am not taking it with me on vacation.

This class I had this last weekend was really great. My professor is an Austrian immigrant who is just a giant in the field. He knew his stuff, told great stories, and is a good teacher. I really like this class (Global Information Infrastructure). Also my young adults and libraries text book was written by a employee of the same library system I work at whom I know. That's cool.

I am going to Savannah, Georgia which is such a fun pretty city. (They had a children's librarian job open two months ago that would have been perfect if I had already finished my masters, I was tempted to apply anyway, but didn't.) My cousin is getting married which is the reason for the trip theoretically. And my family and my uncle's family rented a house on Tybee Island (which is just off the coast of Savannah). It should be so nice. Of course I will probably be spending a lot of time in Starbucks doing school work. Maybe I'll be able to see the beach from starbucks. I'm really excited about this trip and have been looking forward to it for months. Also my throat hurts and I may be getting sick. The scrapbook I've been working on for my grandmother I will get to give to her.

I saw Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, III with people from church. It was okay. Not as good as the originals, but not as bad as the new ones either. Dialog is awful, and the acting was sub par, but the special effects were beautiful. However all of the fight scenes lacked suspense. I knew who was going to live and die because I had already seen the next three and I knew which characters were in the next movie. Oh well, nothing that can be done about that.

Time to go. I may or may not update again, but I'll probably scan lj friends from the coffee shop, but not too extensively.