Approaching the New Year

There is something about this time of year that makes me look back.
As the saying goes "the more things change, the more things stay the same." The year has been filled with many small changes that have kept the same old, same old running smoothly. :-) Cause at this stage in my life I appreciate things running smoothly and not having huge changes to adapt to. Adapting to the many small life changes that getting older (both us and our family members) has brought us has been enough. Life has given us a temporary period of relative calm this year. Which means bigger changes are on the horizon of course. Changes that hover just over your shoulder, out of sight, waiting...
I can say with absolute certainty that it has been a good year for myself and my family. Thank you.

It is also time to look forward.
I could make a list of resolutions, goals etc. and I should, but right now my mind is focused on the less concrete "feels."
I hope my sons continue to work hard in their jobs, but I also hope that they find a passion, goal, focus (or multiple) to balance their lives. It could be post secondary education. It could be a re dedication to a sport/health. It could be a new relationship (romantic or otherwise). I hope they find something new to bring joy into their lives.
I hope that my husband and I can continue to grow our lives together, supporting each other as changes come our way. I hope that our family, extended family and friends have a year that brings them joy and that we can continue to support them as they face their own challenges.
I guess that is what it comes down to... I hope.

I wonder what she's trying to tell me.

This is Tiger.
She is a 17 year old Manx cross that we've had since she was a kitten. Yes, an orange female cat is rather rare. Tiger has been a house cat right from the beginning and up until this year she has been quite content with that. This year has seen her fighting to get outside more and more often. Some days she gets ambitious and wanders under the raspberries and other days she just lays in the sun. She does NOT like grass and refuses to walk on it so her walks around the yard can be quite creative.
But it's on days like today when I wonder if she's trying to tell me something.

Wearing Down

Suddenly it is halfway through August. I'm exhausted, yet the To Do list gets longer and longer. I'm trying to carve out a few hours of "me" time every few days just to balance the pressure. Too many demands, not enough me to go around. I need to learn how to turn off my brain so I'm not dreaming of work, or other To Do stuff.
"to sleep, perchance to dream"

It's been a hell of a month.

Sometimes the only thing you can do when life gets overwhelming is keep your head down and push through. That is how this last month has been, a bunch of little things that added up to a load of stress.
I think the hardest part was the departure of one of my coworkers. Living in a tourist town means getting used to people moving on frequently. Occasionally you really connect with someone and it is even harder when they move on. In this case she was not only a coworker, but a friend and parenting mentor. The move was unexpected but necessary and I hope all goes well for her and her family. Unfortunately it leaves a few holes in my life :(
Add some health issues, some problems with our library renovation, the start of the summer reading program, a 10 day 30C+ stretch (read not much sleep) and an eruption of mosquitoes and other biting insects and that is has been my month.
I had plans for this post being much more emotional/philosophical, but apparently my sleep deprived state is not making it possible. In the end all I can do is hope the next month will be better.

It's a Library

I am very luck to have 2 adult helpers for the summer reading programs this year. It will be especially important this year because I had to break the program into smaller programs (I choose to do it according to age but I will be flexible for family groups) due to the small size of our temporary space.
One of my helpers was our STEP person (gov't grant for students) last year. When we broke up for activities and crafts she would take the older kids and they had a book club like discussion of what they were reading, talked about fav authors, etc. Cassidy, who is a communications student, also did writing tips and other creative stuff with them. She doesn't qualify for our STEP position this year (she took a year off to go travelling, luck duck) but she wanted to be involved. So she will be hosting the Teen Book Club that we're having on Thursday nights. I'll be taking what I learned from her last year and applying it to a half hour Teen Book Club Tuesday afternoons, and a book club for ages 10 to 12 also on Tuesdays.
My other helper, Jenna, is a student teacher who will be going into her last year of school. While I have known her for years (she's the same age as my eldest son) I have never worked with her. I wanted to use her skills so I offered her the opportunity to do some of the program planning and a chance to take the lead on running some of the programs. I gave her copies of my planning documents, schedule and resource materials that I use. She is quite excited about the opportunity. For me, the best moment was when she indicated she wanted to see me in action first.
Why is this important? It is important because she recognizes that this is NOT a classroom. My focus for any of my programs is to foster an enjoyment of the library as a place to be, and then to foster reading as a FUN activity. As I tell the kids, and their parents, I don't care if they read cereal boxes as long as they read something.
Too many kids, and their parents, view reading as work. A person's ability to read well improves their quality of life. Like all skills, if you don't use it, you lose it. If you don't enjoy something, you will do as little of it as possible. If that something is reading... I think you can see where I'm going with this.
Don't get me wrong, I think teachers do amazing work and they are often under appreciated. Public libraries, and the staff that do programming, are an unrecognized partner in developing and maintaining EVERYONE's reading ability. I'm hoping that Jenna's time with me will show her that there are partners in the community that can help support what she will be doing in the classroom. And if she becomes aware then hopefully she'll share that insight with her fellow teachers.

Growing Up

Our eldest son just turned 21 and is contemplating changes in his life. He has worked full time for the last 5 years. We didn't push going to college or university because we feel the boys needed more life experience before they could really commit to a program. Now he has reached a place where he'd like to make a change. With hubby at work & his little brother out we were able to have a good conversation about possible things he could pursue. Nothing was decided of course, but just having a chance to find out what he was thinking was wonderful. I don't understand how parents think they don't have a role in their adult children's lives. All relationships require work to stay healthy. I'm glad that our relationship is still strong but we do have to work at it.

Blog June

Man, have I dropped the ball this month. I managed to go 4 days without posting even though I thought about it every day. I have to work on that follow through.

Interesting Stuff

Every month or so I go through the various bookmarks, notes and starred websites, articles etc. that I've come across but haven't had the time to read yet.
I have a tendency to keep links "just in case" they might come in handy for the various reports and newsletters I do. If I think that it might be of interest to someone (coworker, friend, family member) I'll send it off to them.
I started going through the list last night and a few things that I will be keeping:
The 40 Developmental Assets for Adolescents
Support Video Games: Get a Library Card
Summer Reading Flow Chart
Cory Doctorow Vivid Sydney Keynote
(I love Cory's talks. Thought provoking ideas presented in an entertaining style.)

What have you read lately?

I Might Have...

to many books
to read
right now.

I'm finishing Jeff Rubin's The End of Growth (loved his Your World Is About to Get A Whole Lot Smaller). Then I have this list of library books to get through:
The Drowned Cities
Kushiel's Dart (for the Vaginal Fantasy book club)
Tigana (for Sword and Laser book club)
Steampunk!
as well as a stack of 7 kids and teen books for potential use in my summer reading programs and book clubs.

And of course I have purchased a few too like:
The Looneyspoons Collection (recipe book that my best friend recommended)
Redshirts audiobook (narrated by Wil Wheaton!!!!!)
and the latest Clive Cussler novel.

Guess I should stop writing and start reading. :D

Audiobooks

Hubby and I love audiobooks for traveling, but I also like to listen while I'm doing chores around the house. I added some new titles to our audiobook collection today The Storm by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown and Redshirts by John Scalzi. Nothing like action and humour to help you pass the time. :D

Summer Reading Programs

After 10 years of offering one summer reading program (SRP) for ages 3 to 12, I have had to make big changes. In the past the wide age range made it very easy for families to be involved. Older kids acted as helpers and the younger kids benefited from the mentoring of the older ones.

Unfortunately our temporary location is MUCH smaller and there is no separate area to hold it in. Since I usually had 20 to 30 kids attending for a 90 minute program there was no way I could hold it at the temporary library. I looked around for a room either in the Activity Centre or in the high school which is next door. Unfortunately all the rooms are booked for sports camps. I could have looked further from the library, but I thought that defeated one of the purposes of the program which is to draw people TO the LIBRARY.

So...I ended up breaking the program into shorter programs organized by age group. I will run them back to back to minimize issues for families with children in different age groups. The Preschool Program for 3 and 4 year olds will be no more than 30 minutes, followed by Booksters for ages 4 to 6, then Imagineers for ages 7 to 9. Booksters and Imagineers will be about 4o minutes. To complicate things I'll be offering a book club for the 10 to 12 year olds overlapping the end of Booksters and the start of Imagineers. The book club springs from an activity that my adult helper began last year. She would take the older kids to discuss the books they were reading while I did crafts with the younger kids.I'll be doing the programs at the temporary library, hopefully outside. This will encourage the kids to pick up items before or after the program and allow the parents or caregivers to remain close by.

Realistically I know I will have some blurring of the age boundaries to accommodate the needs of my families and interests of the kids. It will also mean that I will have to be REALLY organized. We participate in the TD Summer Reading Club which provides reading kits for the participants. This year's theme is Imagine. It is such a broad idea I gave each week a more specific theme, ie. animals, quests, etc. Themes will be the same across the Preschool, Booksters and Imagineers programs. I'm also planning to adapt similar crafts to minimize prep. I have also made it mandatory for parents or caregivers to accompany the 5 and under kids. This should replace the help I use to get from the older kids. AND I have a student teacher who will be helping me this year! Add a few teens in and we should be good.

I have also been working with our summer care program, Summer Fun, for the past 6 years to offer a modified summer reading program to their kids. In the past they would either bring most of their 30-40 kids to the library or I would go to them. This year we are both in smaller locations. So we've decided to break their group into 3 and have each smaller group come to the library, one  after the other, for a 30 minute program. This would be similar to what I am doing with my library programs, but with less crafts. Now if we could decide on the dates and times I could relax.

What Day Is It?

It's Sunday evening and I'm a vegetable.
All this week we've had class visits tot he library from the elementary school. This is an annual event that we do while the school does inventory. It reminds the kids about the public library, gets them looking for their cards (all students get a free membership) and we get a chance to plug the summer reading program.
If that wasn't enough it's been raining. Not your everyday rain shower, but 30 hours of downpours. At one point on Saturday in the library every computer was being used, every chair was full, there were kids on the floor reading picture books and seniors browsing the stacks. I had no idea we could get that many people in our temporary location.
Today started with the usual family calls and chores. This afternoon we had our 18 month old niece for several hours. You forget how busy little kids can be.
Now I'm sitting down with my feet up and I really don't want to move. Unfortunately I have 2 book club books to read in the next few weeks and they are both long ones, Tigana for Sword and Laser and Kushiel's Dart for Vaginal Fantasy . I'm not sure why I thought 2 book clubs would be a good idea.
Tea might be the first thing I do.
What day is tomorrow?

Gardening Wars

There has been an explosion of dandelions in the neighbourhood this spring. It probably stems from the hot dry early part which damaged the grass  and allowed them to get a massive head start. The weather has now morphed into cool and wet which is allowing the grass to recover. Unfortunately it's too late to stop the spread of dandelions. Since we don't use chemicals on our lawn hubby and I have put in a lot of work in digging out the dandelions in the front. It looks good but we still have a small side and huge backyard to get under control. I'm thinking that the only way I can tackle this and keep sane will be to deal with it on small space at a time.
Although I might resort to paying some little people to pluck all the dandelion flowers to keep them from going to seed.

Movie night

After a busy day yesterday hubby and I went to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It was fabulous! I think the reason it works is it tells a number of 'little' stories within the whole. I'm not at the age of these characters (yet) but I could relate to the relationships and challenges they were going through. In the end the movie left you with a sense of hope and that makes the it worth seeing.

Post #2

Hubby & I enjoying the day yesterday.

Late...

as usual. This was suppose to be yesterday's post but life, and technology, got in the way.

Last year hubby and I purchased a Victory Cross Country motorcycle. He drives and I'm the professional passenger. We had a great time touring close to home last year and we are ready to go further afield this year. Of course that means getting back into "shape." I have a hard time sitting for long periods so we have to start the season with short 30 minute trips and work up to 1-2 hours trips. I can't go any longer than that before I HAVE to get off and walk around for about 20 minutes.
Yesterday we took advantage of the great weather and toured out to Moose Lake. I took some photos and I'll post them later today. It was a great time and I hope the weather lets us get out again soon.

A Good Day

Yep, got up too early. Which allowed me to make all my family phone calls, get the laundry and dishes done, pick up some items from the grocery store and buy my sister-in-law's birthday card all before noon. This was followed by getting the last few plants planted and the pots put the their summer locations. Which led to picking up after the dog and cleaning up after the cats. Finally leading to taking the garbage and compost out and sweeping the outside decks.
Then hubby dropped a full jar of mustard on my foot and the productivity stopped. I ended up having to ice and elevate it which I, of course, did at the computer. Which, of course, led my down the rabbit hole that is the internet. It was a good thing I had to go to dinner at my in-laws to celebrate sis-in-law's birthday or the whole afternoon would have been shot. While I was there, I meet a friend's 3 week old son for the first time.

It was a good day.

All or Nothing

What the heck? I haven't blogged since March? I know things were busy but even I am surprised I was away that long. Good thing #blogjune started on Twitter to remind me to start again. And just like last year I started late.
Ok, it is an Australian/New Zealand thing, but if it get me back into the writing habit I'll take it!

Music

As I sit here trying to gather my flitting thoughts. (It's rather like herding cats) I am listening to Within Temptation's The Unforgiving album on repeat.  For some reason it really speaks to me today.
Somedays you just have to go with the flow.

Yoo Hoo. Any one home?

Surprise, I'm back!
I didn't really mean to be away from here as long as I was. I hope to be better in the upcoming weeks.

Libday8

Library Day in the Life round 8 has finished up and I thought I'd do a quick recap of my week. My work week is only 22 hours, so I don't work Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday evening means interlibrary loan pickups as our weekly delivery came in. We also had a special National Film Board of Canada showing of "Mighty Jerome" to start African Heritage Month.
Thursday was correspondence and planning. I'm already working on the library's presentations for the Go Girl conference in April and the Summer Reading Program.I also managed to print off the drawings for the new high school. People who had missed the public meeting earlier in the week were looking for them.

Friday started early because the boss was away and I had to go in and open. The morning was quiet so J and I had a great talk about programming, getting the media to cooperate and more. Since we do almost all of the event /program planning it's nice to hash things out with someone who knows what you're talking about.
Saturday went alright. I think it might just be that time of year, but I'm finding my patience is not that long right now. I had 3 kids at Saturday story time. That's not a lot but after having no one for 8 weeks in a row, it was a surprise. Especially since I was going to terminate the program in a few weeks.
All in all a good week.

What Is Going On?

Yesterday had a weird 'alternate universe' feel to it. Youngest son (18) was doing the dishes when I got up at 6am. Turns out he never went to bed. On the surface this doesn't seem shocking, but this is the kid that has NEVER managed to stay up past 1am in his life! Add to it he was VOLUNTARILY doing the dishes! (okay so this second part is actually the more amazing bit)
Add to this, my eldest son (20, & yes he still lives at home) the night owl, actually went to bed before midnight and was up, showered & dressed before 7am for NO reason!
All day there were things happening, that on the surface looked innocent enough, but given the people involved were strange indeed.
I'm happy to report that today seem normal. So far...

Canada and Our Aboriginal Community

Interested in learning more about the modern day Aboriginal Community in Canada? Interested in being part of the dialogue? Check out 8th Fire on CBC.

It's Cold Outside

I'm sitting at my kitchen table wrapped in a blanket. The furnace hasn't cut off for more than 5 minutes all morning (possibly all night.) When it is -35C out, the drawbacks to living in a 40 year old trailer become very apparent, even if it is affordable.

In a weird way it seems rather appropriate that this is the day that so many websites, in the US and beyond, are demonstrating against the US government's SOPA bill.
I won't rehash what others have said (and done a better job than I could) about the drawbacks of the bill. I will direct you to Michael Geist's blog and his Huff Post column for more information.
The world is extremely interconnected. What the US government is attempting with SOPA (and PIPA) is to strong arm the rest of the world into doing things THEIR way. Seems like a rather dictatorial move from a country that prides itself in it's democracy.

Good Reads

Boing Boing will go dark on January 18 to fight SOPA - great explanation of SOPA by Cory Doctorow
Also from Cory Doctorow is The Coming War on General Computation.
Ned Potter, over at thewikiman, has a great post about spoon feeding students. It isn't the standard argument.
Shawn Ram has a post, It shouldn't be about the NUMBER, on his blog Learning to Lead, Inspiring to Change, that should be mandatory reading for all parents.

Stuff

After an extended break I finally opened up my blog. After starting the following post on New Year's Day I never did get back to finish it. After 2 weeks I can't remember where I was going with it anyway. I do, however, still think that the last sentence rings true.

I've drafted so many blog posts and tweets in my head this month, just never got them written. I needed to mull over the ideas, feelings and information for a little while longer. I'm not sure if I will get everything down today, but it is time to start.

Blogging is saying something out loud. Whether or not someone "hears" you is not always the point. Sometimes you just need to let it out.