September 21, 2016

 I'm tired and I have to open tomorrow. Let's do this.

This morning I had two hours on the desk to finish my homebound stuff. I checked out all the books I pulled last night for my homebound patrons. Then I typed up all the response slips and got those printed out and cut up. After placing the correct slip in each book I got them all bagged up and placed back on my cart. I finished just as my time was up on the desk and I had to do a walkthrough. I would have been done earlier but I had to help several patrons.

One of which is a lady that calls in frequently and has developed a bit of a reputation around the department. She's always wanting us to put in ILL requests for random books and if it isn't available that way than she wants us to do a purchase request. She also calls and wants publisher information or phone numbers for random places across the country. I didn't know about it before but I think she might have been the one who wanted to know the number for a church up north and then the information for a diabetes camp for kids on the East Coast. It has been decided that she kind of treats us as her secretaries and I am beginning to agree with that assessment.

Before I went to lunch I had time to call my patrons. I spoke with two, left one messages, spoke with someone in the office of one of the nursing homes, and the phone just rang forever for another one. Could have been worse.

I went to lunch and we packed up and went out to deliver books as soon as I got back. Normally we go out at two o'clock but it has been bumped up to one o'clock because the librarian I go with now has a meeting later in the afternoon that she has to be back for.

We went to a new patron to start things off but we didn't have any trouble finding the house because it's on the same street that one of my friend's mom lives on. My first patron for the day was our third stop and I scared her, which was funny because she laughed about it. She's one who sits in her back room and just wants me to come in. I knocked on the door really loudly first then picked up her paper and some mail left in the door before heading in. Once inside said hello and called out her name before heading back to her room. I then walked into the room but she was busy reading something. I was about to say something else when she looked up, noticed me for the first time, and let out a little scream. She then smiled and chuckled until she looked at the mail I brought in and said “oh, crap” in an annoyed way before we started talking about her books.

I was worried my next patron wouldn't be home because he normally emails me a list of books ahead of time but I didn't hear from him, he didn't respond to my email, and he didn't answer the phone today. But he ended up being home and he was a little more talkative than usual.The next stop was the first nursing home. There weren't any staff to be found, and we looked all over the place when we first got there because both my patrons weren't in their rooms. I found one out playing a game with a group of people and she said I could grab her books out of her room, which I was okay with because the door was open. I couldn't remember what my other patron looked like but she ended up being the lady sitting next to my other patron. I'll remember what she looks like next time.

When we got to the second building for that nursing home, where I have the only patron, they won't give us the code for the door and I got stuck in the little entryway. I rang the doorbell twice with no response and then had to call them to get let in. I guess the doorbell is broken. After the waiting I found out that my patron had actually moved into the building we just left. So we headed back. This is the patron that last month basically didn't care for all but two of the books I brought her. And those two were the ones she had picked out. This time around she seemed to like my selection better, so fingers crossed she has a positive review of them next month.

In the second nursing home I met one of my patrons for the first time. She normally just leaves her books outside her door but today she had family visiting and the door was open. I got a chance to talk to her and find out more specifics about what she likes and what she wants, which was really helpful. She then gave me the code to get out the back door so I could walk across the courtyard and go in the other wing to get to my other patron. I discovered an air conditioner right inside that second door so I stood there for a moment before heading down the hall. My second patron also had family visiting which was good because I was able to get all the books back thanks to one of her daughters digging around until she found them all. This is the patron who I ended up leaving one book every time so she was up to eleven books out instead of eight. But now we're even.

This is the nursing home where the other librarian's last patron is a bit of a talker so instead of waiting in the hot hallway, I told her I would probably wait for her outside where there was at least an occasional breeze. But first I went back to the air conditioner and stood it front of it for awhile. Then I went out and loaded up the car and stood in the shade for awhile before deciding to get in the car and get the air conditioner going to cool it down. Right as I turned on the car the other librarian came out. Perfect timing.

We had one patron left and we finished up a few minutes before three o'clock. Not bad at all, especially considering the new patrons, a couple detours, and a little backtracking.

When we got back to the library we unloaded all of our books, took out the response slips and checked them for damage before turning them over to circulation. I returned the car keys and then headed up to the third floor to drop off an ILL request before going in the bathroom to change out of my sweaty clothes.

After all that I had about an hour before I was on desk again so I spent the time weeding books. I made it into the 930s which is a tricky section because one of the goals is for the books to have been published within the last ten years. A lot of them were much older than than but had pretty good circulation numbers. I filled up a whole row of my cart with books I want to check for newer editions and left several books on the shelves that could fit in the same category. My boss was off today but I'm going to check with her tomorrow and see how strictly she wants me to follow the publication date rule. That section is going to get a lot smaller if we decide to go strict.

I got off at six o'clock and headed across town to meet my mom at the realtor's office. And then we headed out to look at houses. Tonight we went to several houses and tomorrow we're going to look at townhouses/condos/duplexes and some of the older houses downtown. My mom would say there was one but I'd say there were two out of the eight houses with some potential. I liked the location of one but it smelled a little weird and there was only one bathroom. I don't really want to smell like my house, if that makes sense, and I would like at least two bathrooms for when I have company over. It also didn't have a basement, which isn't a deal breaker but it would be nice.

The second house had a really unique layout. I can't even really describe it but it almost felt like a puzzle, with a bunch of odd shaped rooms fitted together. It was kind of like a really tiny home had been built onto one room at a time. Very unique. It also had a big garage and a shop in the back of the garage, which would be nice. The downsides include a weird basement, floor elevation differences between each room which I think I would trip over all the time, a washer and dryer in the kitchen (with obvious signs of leaking and water damage), not much yard because it was right up against a duplex and a busy street, and the house needed painting. But overall I liked it.

I'm looking forward to finally seeing the townhouse tomorrow that I've had my eye on since June. I need to see it in person so I can see if it lives up to the pictures and see why it hasn't sold yet. I like the idea of a house over a townhouse because I wouldn't be sharing a wall or two with neighbors but I also like that there would be less outside upkeep with a townhouse. We'll see if my opinions change tomorrow.

After looking at houses my mom and I got Sonic for dinner and talked about houses. It still doesn't quite feel real yet and I don't think it will until I actually makes an offer on a place and it is accepted. That will definitely feel real.

The rest of the night I looked at house stuff and watched YouTube videos. Now I'm going to go to bed because it is after midnight. This took so long to write. And now I will get less than six hour of sleep before working a full day and then then driving all over town afterward looking at houses. At least tomorrow I won't also be driving all over delivering books in the hot and humid weather. Always a positive.