Life in Denim and Flip Flops

Sorry it's been so long since I posted. It's been a bit of a crazy week since then. Gretchen came to visit for the weekend. We went to a Gala at my work, which was fun mostly due to the wine, food, friends and a couple of decks of cards. It was fun to get dressed up and have an excuse to wear heels. Something like this certainly helps to accentuate the age difference between you and the rest of the faculty/staff. But we found our place and carved out a kid's table and made the best of it. The rest of the weekend involved finishing up my holiday shopping. Usually I don't quite leave it this late, but I really feel like December snuck up on me this year. I still don't believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I forget how much I hate holiday shopping traffic, but having Gretchen along made it survivable. :) Monday I was back at work (a little late due to random insomnia night) getting ready for the fall semester and watching the impending weather forecasts with a close eye....

So for the past 3 years, I've been a nerdfighter and a fan of John and Hank Green . The last 2 years on December 17, they've launched the Project for Awesome to take over the YouTube most discussed and most rated pages for charity. People make videos and rate and comment and favorite those to the top, bringing awareness to those charities. On top of that John and Hank have put up money to the charities championed in their favorite videos. In the past, I've only participated in the commenting portion of the day. I've had some really great discussion in the comments with people I've met from around the world. This year I decided to change that. I made a video talking about the Kids Need to Read Foundation . an organization I'm donating to for Christmas this year. Enjoy it below. And don't forget to go to YouTube and search for Project for Awesome (P4A) videos all day, to do something good for charity.

I've got a bunch going on this week. I really need to get Christmas cards written and sent out. I send out too many, and they've been getting progressively later each year. I swear they will be out by the end of the week! Which reminds me, if I don't have your address, you should fill it out here . Even if you haven't moved recently, I seem to have lost some addresses in the new computer shuffle in March. I've also got to clean the apartment. Gretchen is coming this weekend to visit. She's going to be my date to the Gala. Someone's got to keep me company. Events are always fun with her, and besides one my coworkers is threatening to bring a deck of cards for entertainment. Hopefully we can both finish Christmas shopping too. (I'm also behind on that.) I need to decorate the apartment for the holidays. My penguins and Christmas tree are up in my office, but my other two trees haven't been pulled out of the spare bedroom yet. Oops. Plus I've got me...

I used to love recess. I went to a small K-8 school growing up. There were about 160 students total. My class hovered at about 21 students. 19 of those kids went to school with me all the way from kindergarten to 8th grade. Needless to say, we were close. And thankfully for the most part we got along. (Ok, I spent one year coming home crying after school, but for the story's sake let's ignore that.) We had plenty of recess time each day. We played basketball, football, kickball, dodgeball, and jsut about any other sport we could get our hands on the equipment for. But I think my favorite game we played was Sinissippi Trails. The game was a winter game, when it was way too cold and snowy to play anything else. Playing on the snow mounds and starting snowball fights were good ways to get in trouble, so we had to find some other way to entertain ourselves. I wish I could remember who's brilliant idea it was to do this, but I can't. The game was basically a tripped out vers...

Here's a short snow rant. I actually like things about snow and winter, I promise. But today the stuff I'm not so fond of. frozen eyelashes- I hate when you feel like if you blink too long your eyelashes will freeze to your face. Or when it melts against your cheek as you walk inside. I feel like I must look like I'm constantly crying. people that don't clear their sidewalks well-Whether that be by only salting and not shoveling, shoveling early so that a sheen of ice can form, or not shoveling at all, it's just not cool. people who drive too fast-I believe the motto "I trust myself to drive, just not everyone else." One person driving unsafely can cause problems for so many people. when snow becomes rock hard ice-If you get wet snow (as opposed to that dry blowing stuff) and then it get really cold you get solid hunks of ice that are impossible to shovel. cleaning off your car when its covered in ice- Ask my mom about that one. She helped with an epic ice...

You didn't think that was coming did you? I know that I promised a rant about getting to work. And you'll get it. Just not today. Today I'm gonna talk about a pair of cool new gloves I got. I mentioned them to Christina on twitter the other day. They're grey elbow length fingerless gloves with ruffles and a bow. They're so freaking cute. I wore them under a heavy red cardigan sweater. Our reference desk gets a little cool during the winter and my hands tend to freeze. My solution at home (to the same problem) has been to cut the fingertips out of those cheap 2 pair for a dollar gloves. Not exactly the most professional way to do it. My mom and sister found these new gloves at Aldo. I love them!! They totally keep my hands warm as well as my forearms without having to wear 2 layers of long sleeves! I told Christina I'd get her a picture. So here it is. Aren't they adorable? Now I just need them in a few more colors. Also, if you haven't seen Christina...

As of the writing of this blog, we are still on for class tomorrow. Most of the public schools in the area have canceled. I have this horrible feeling we'll be a last minute, early morning cancellation, which means I have to get up early and check my email or catch the radio at the right time. Either way I have to wake up at normal/early time. Boo. Anyway, on to the chronicling of the "blizzard of doom." Walking to work this morning wasn't bad at all. It was snowing lightly, and my only complaint was dealing with it snowing into my face. It continued to snow til about 11. Then we got a few hours of clear weather, but mid-afternoon brought the return of the snow. I snuck out a little early to mail a package. As my luck would have it, the wind had changed and I now got snow in my face on the way home too! The sidewalks weren't too bad if you took slow short steps. When I got home I took some pictures and decided to take them every 2 hours or so for comparison. This ...

I've decided this winter I'm living vicariously through Christina. I've always lived in places that snow all winter. I do really like snow in some circumstances. The first time you get a really big snow, and you get up early sneak outside on the fresh snow and you experience the hush. That part I like. The shoveling, trudging through snow, wearing boots and bringing shoes, getting ice on your eyelashes, feeling cold for the first 30 mins of work, and walking on ice...those, not so much. The idea of wearing shorts on Christmas Eve is one I have no problem with imagining this year. And documenting this snowstorm, thundersnow, blizzard thing for Christina so she can live vicariously through me could be lots of fun. I'll keep you updated on what one of my students is calling the "blizzard of doom" tomorrow!

The snow is coming; the snow is coming! I decided to stock up on food and necessities before the snow starts to fall. 1-3 inches are forecast tonight, and 3-6 inches on Wednesday. I tend to become a hermit in winter and don't really drive anywhere unless necessary. So grocery shopping becomes a bit insane. Today I went a little overboard and bought food for 4 different entrees. I should be set for about 2 weeks. Which is good, after I looked at the new forecast. Wednesday's totals could be 6-12 inches, on top of the 1-3 inches from tonight. I'm pulling for the minimum 7 inches, but planned for the 15. And the snow is just the start. Apparently they're worried about wind and blowing snow and possible blizzard conditions. So after doing all the food shopping I ventured out again to buy snow pants. I found some on sale for $15 at the farm supply store. Might just turn out to be the best purchase ever this winter as much walking to work through non-shoveled sidewalk as I do...

Since I didn't do it Thursday I thought I'd list a few things I loved this week for my post today. entertaining fans-The guys who sat behind us at the Badger basketball game kept me giggling during the second half with references to Tony Kukoc (old-school white boy basketball reference), "Wait so Bucky isn't a real dude," and their desire to have a Forrest/Jenny yelling moment across the Kohl Center with their friend. watching the students rush the court-Watching UW beat Duke was amazing. What I really loved was seeing the students rush the court after the game and remembering what that was like. I'm not usually a small enclosed spaces person, but with all that adrenaline I didn't seem to mind! introducing my director to the "in your pants" theory-Apparently I'd never told the library director about the game of adding "in your pants" to a book title. I did so while there was a cart of donated seminary books in the offices. OMG were ...

This week it has been really evident that the students are ready to be done. The buzz in the library has been a bit insane. Both the computer lab and public computer area have been at capacity, and finding an empty study table has been impossible. We've got a whole week and a half before finals. It's only going to get worse. The one thing that has really helped has been bringing in some "white noise" to chill the place out a little. It really does calm the nerves and keep people from really noticing the noise. At this point last year, it would get so quiet in the library that even loud typing was starting to annoy people. The ambient noise just keeps everything at a low hum so little noises aren't annoying, and the big noises aren't as noticeable. The reference desk and the circ area have just been overwhelmed. We can never keep up with shelving this time of year, but this year it seems worse. So many students are returning things now that we're having a h...

I really ought to get started on my Christmas cards. Each year I write out a list of people I want to cards to. Then I begin the real search, finding everyone's address. This used to be the easiest part. All I had to know was their box number. Then I decided to start asking in emails and tagging them with "addresses." And cobble that together with what I could find in facebook. This year, I'm going to put them all in one place. Well actually, you're going to help me. If you could be so kind as to fill out the form below, I'd love you forever. Oh, and I'll send you a Christmas card. And a birthday card too! Don't worry, no one can see this but me. It dumps it into a spreadsheet that I can organize and sort :) Thanks!! Loading...

I was planning on blogging something substantial and coherent tonight, but then I got sidetracked by the amazing UW-Duke game. We pulled it off. Led the whole freaking game. The students rushed the court. Duke was the #6 team in the country...and undefeated. But now they are 6-1 and I'm guessing they won't be #6 come Monday :) What an adrenaline rush! I'm gonna watch Glee now, cause I won't be sleeping for a bit!

Today was a scheduling day. Anne Marie and I schedule our library sessions together because it's a bit of a complex process. We see one course 6-8 times a semester. This spring there are 12 sections of that class. This results in 90 course sessions. Oh, and a third of those sections aren't in computer labs (pretty much as must for us!). And two of those non-lab sections are at the same time. :) Plus there's the difficulty of trying to keep the multiple sections a prof teaches together on the same day. That's just one of the 4 courses we see multiple times a semester. Needless to say, two people are a total must. Anne Marie is the organized and detail oriented one. I'm the one who draws on a calendar and sees the big picture of how to fit it all together. It totally works. Well most of the time. We've gotten a bit more creative this semester, putting multiple classes together, using overflow classrooms, and arranging 3-party room switches. As insane as this sound...