November 30, 2016

This morning I had some free time when I got to work so I went and pulled the books for one of my displays next month, because December starts tomorrow, which seems absurd. After getting about ten or fifteen books on my cart I gave myself a flat tire while pulling it behind me. My shoe came off my heel and all the books went flying off the cart. Thankfully the cart remained upright. I got all those books pulled but I still need to pull books for the parent cart, which is in the children's section of the library. One of the reasons I haven't pulled books is because I don't have a list. It's supposed to consist of popular, light read kind of books. That should be fairly easy I just need to figure out what to pull. Hopefully that will happen tomorrow.

I got a new copy of my weeding list and this time I made a backup before I started messing with it. I then spent a decent amount of time messing with it so make my job easier when I actually go out into the stacks to weed. I got the columns arranged in the order of the criteria I use to make my decisions, marked the books that are off limits because they were added within the last four years, and this time I went through and bolded all the books that met the criteria to be weeded. In the past I printed the list out and then went through and marked the ones that met the criteria, which was much slower than going through it before printing it off. Now when I'm out in the stacks I can turn on autopilot and move through my list fairly quickly. I'll still need to make the occasional judgment call but I won't be slowed down by having to do them mental calculations for each book I look at.

This afternoon I had a meeting with my boss and the librarian in charge of adult programming to go over our schedule for the next semester. The other librarian had everything nicely laid out already and was totally organized. She has a lot more experience than I do but I also just think she is a very organized person. I had all the class ideas written out but hadn't actually decided the order or when they would happen. In the meeting we figured out the days we wanted to have classes and programs, and discussed some of them more in-depth, as well as future things we wanted to do. It was a very productive meeting.

Afterward I used the broad calendar the other librarian sent me that she uses to her schedule and added in my stuff. I decided on what classes and programs would happen each month, and it seems nuts that I now have a pretty good idea of what I'll be doing through May. I went to schedule my first classes but came across a decent hiccup because a tax prep group has booked the tech classroom from nine o'clock in the morning to five o'clock in the afternoon, Monday through Friday, for most of January. So that throws a wrench into my plan for January classes, unless we do them in the evening, which I don't want to do because despite what people say, they don't really want an evening class. Kind of annoying.

I got a call near the end of my shift from the lady who always calls asking for phone numbers and interlibrary loan books and the addresses for random places. Tonight she wanted to know about a local event. She wanted me to look it up and call her back. Thankfully I kept the conversation going long enough to find the information and give it to her because she got off the phone. During our conversation she yelled at me a couple times to speak up because she couldn't hear me, meanwhile a television was blaring in the background on her end. Wonder why she couldn't hear.

Tonight was Chipotle night, and it seemed like it has been forever since we had one. To celebrate I got white rice, because it is way better than brown rice in terms of flavor. Brown rice kind of sucks but I get it because it's supposed to be healthier. I'm not doing any other healthy things with my life at the moment so maybe it is best to stick with the healthier rice.

After dinner I showed YouTube videos, checked the air pressure in my mom's tires, helped my sister put the minivan middle seats back up, and loaded some more stuff into my car. Tonight I packed up a table, some jigsaw puzzles, and my microphone stand. Now that I am living alone and have less opportunities to actually speak out loud when I'm not at work, I thought I might try recording my days again, which I did for awhile but then lost interest. It would give me an excuse to at least speak a little bit during the days I don't work so that when I got to work my voice still works. I'll probably lose interest pretty quickly once again but we'll see. I'll have to get over the awkwardness of talking to myself in an empty house.

Right now it is late and I want to go to bed. So I think I'm going to do that. I get to sleep in tomorrow and I'm looking forward to that.

November 29, 2016

Yesterday I forgot to mention that I got another phone call about a set of lost keys with a library card on them. I was able to look up the patron and she was really happy to hear from me, after she realized why I was calling. Her first thought was that I was calling about an overdue book. So once I told her she didn't have overdue books, and that her keys had been found, I made a new best friend.

Also from yesterday, the main cataloger stopped by our department and commented on how I was wearing green and the other librarian was wearing red, making us look like a very festive group. That turned into favorite colors, mine obviously being green and the other librarian's being red. The cataloger said that her favorite color was also red but growing up red was associated with houses of ill repute, so she never wanted to tell people what her favorite color was when she was a child. I thought that was pretty funny. She is a really interesting person.

Now for today. My main accomplishment was getting and finishing a personalized reading list. That took a decent amount of time. I also did other things but they were fairly typical things that have quickly faded from my memory. I spent awhile editing my next weeding list but then in a hurry to switch computers, I messed up my sorting so the information wasn't right, but then saved it so I couldn't undo it. All that work gone. Now I need to wait for a new file so I can start over. This time I'll have a backup.

I had to wake up the older gentleman I had to ask to leave the library the last weekend I worked because we were closing. If I come across sleepers I ignore them, only engaging with them if someone else points them out and forces my hand. Today he was pointed out because he was fully laid out on one of the benches in the atrium. If he had picked the back atrium bench he probably wouldn't have been spotted but he went with the one by the front door, so I had to wake him up. The saddest part was that he was using a soda can as a pillow. He was again waiting for the dinner at the church across the street. Thankfully today we closed at our regular time so he was able to stay inside until going to the church.

Tonight I went through town to get home and it took almost fifteen minutes because I spent several minutes waiting at stoplights. The stoplights are not friendly to side streets around six o'clock. I think I'll stick with retracing the path I take to work. Going it takes about twelve minutes so I'll have to time it coming back. I also want to try some variations on it, which I think will be slower but I want to confirm it.

While looking through a Library Journal before the end of my shift I had my next great library idea. The previous one involves serendipitous browsing and digital spaces. This idea involves wayfinding and augmented reality. I spent my night researching it further and I think my idea is definitely possible, I just need to find the right resources so I can actually make something and see how it works. Hopefully I actually get that far, because my previous idea kind of fell to the wayside.

When I got home I used my oven for the first time to make a pizza and it went well. I then watched YouTube videos and researched my idea. I wanted to watch more Bob's Burgers tonight but Netflix was no cooperating. It would play a few second and then freeze completely, or the video would freeze but the audio would keep playing. I tried two browsers but that didn't seem to matter. Coincidentally I looked over an article this morning about how to make Netflix run faster without buffering hiccups. I didn't alter anything but maybe I should have.

I also paid my first gas bill and made my first mortgage payment. I'm such a grown up now.

Soon I will go to bed. Tomorrow will be much of the same except it will end in Chipotle night. I need to remember to take my laptop with me in the morning. We'll see if that happens.

November 28, 2016

This morning I woke up, got ready, and eventually left for work. I timed it and thanks to some lucky stoplight timing, I got to the library in just twelve minutes, which gave me three minutes to park and get inside. Not bad. It's still about twice as long as my old commute but it could be worse.

Today was an interesting day at work. I was on desk for the first two hours, had walkthroughs for the next two hours, and after lunch I had four free hours. I feel like I should have been more productive with that much free time but I did manage to keep myself busy the whole time, so there's that.

While I was on desk I got a phone call from an older lady who wanted to double-check how to spell the name 'Sheila'. It felt like a very old fashion reference question, and I loved it.

Recently one of the other librarians wrote about comic books for her newspaper article. Following that article she received a handwritten note from a ninety-four year old lady who hated the article. At one point she told the librarian that she must have been on a “high horse of intellectual 'superiority'” while writing the article. And, pretty much her whole reason for disliking the article was because it never mentioned the “funny pages”. Ignoring the fact that the article wasn't about comic strips, it was about comic books that we have at the library. The woman obviously saw the title of the article, developed a notion of what she thought the article was about, or what she wanted the article to be about, and was upset when the article did not meet that preconceived notion. Seems like the problem is with the patron, not the article, but to each their own.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I got a small package with glazed pecans and a thank you note from the man I looked up old track articles for a little while ago. It was kind of a pain looking up the articles when he didn't have any specific dates but it was also an interesting challenge. And it was pretty cool that he took the time to send me a thank you note and a small gift.

This afternoon with all my free time I worked on compiling my list of books for my display next month. I got way more books than I'll probably need because I doubt the popularity of my display, but better to be over-prepared than under-prepared. This morning I actually took the time to refill my two displays, even though they could have made it just fine to the end of the month. Over-prepared.

On my lunch break I went to my mom's house because it's closer, but it worked out because part of the lights were blown down from all the wind yesterday and I was able to fix that. After work I stopped back by to finish replacing the smoke detector batteries. I also picked up some stuff, because I'm slowly but surely moving my stuff.

I wanted to finish the last of my Thanksgiving leftovers tonight so I ended up eating too much. There was too much for one meal but not enough for two. Well, there was probably enough for two, but I had already resolved myself to finishing the leftovers, so I did.

After dinner I read through my mail, looked through a couple books I checked out today, watched YouTube videos, and now I'm watching Bob's Burgers. But as soon as I finish writing this I will be going to bed. I'm freaking tired.

November 27, 2016

This morning I slept in and then didn't do much with the rest of my day. It was a nice day off. But it also left me with very little to write about. Most of my day was spent watching YouTube videos and Netflix while playing Terraria. I thought about maybe organizing some of the stuff I still have in boxes but that motivation never presented itself. The only productive thing I managed to do was iron my pants. My goal is to get all the ironing done at once instead of having to do it every morning. I'm set for the week so hopefully I can keep it up.

In Terraria I expanded my house and got several NPCs to move in. I haven't bought anything from any of them yet but at least they have a place to stay. The last NPC to move in was the fisherman who gives daily fishing quests. My next step is to figure out how to get a bug net so I can catch bait. I remember seeing a bug net at some point but I'm not sure where. That's what the internet is for.

Tomorrow morning will be my first time waking up in my house and getting ready for work. My only real concern is leaving the house with enough time to get to the library on time. I'm farther away now so I'll have to get my timing figured out. Also, it'll be the first time I've had to wake up early for work since last Tuesday, so that'll be fun. I am looking forward to getting back to work but I'm not sure how productive tomorrow will be. It's going to take a bit to get back into the swing of things.

November 26, 2016

I only got to sleep about six hours last night because I had to go pick my friend up at ten o'clock from his dad's house and take him to his mom's house to get his vehicle, which we parked there last night.

After dropping my friend off I went to my mom's house to get more stuff. I managed to get the railroad track in my car along with some other stuff, continuing the goal of leaving with more than I came with. The green keys I ordered had arrived in the mail so after leaving my mom's house I stopped by the hardware store to get them cut. I figured it would cost a bit of money to get them cut but the girl who cut them said she didn't think there was a cost involved so I guess it's a free service. And now I have green keys.

When I got home from that tried to do some things but instead I took a nap on my comfortable couch while listening to The Weeknd's new CD. I continued listening to it while reading a few chapters in Shutter Island after my nap and it's a really good CD. I was already a fan of his music and this just confirms it.

I got my Christmas tree and other decorations set up today, which was my main goal, so I am pretty happy with my day. Before and after dinner I played more Terraria. I did a lot of adventuring but now I want to spend time fixing up my house and making proper rooms so that NPCs will move in. I lost my guide in a Blood Moon event and he hasn't returned so I'm not sure what that's about. Life will continue.

Soon I will go to bed and I don't plan on setting my alarm. Tomorrow is my last day of break before going back to work and I don't mind if I sleep though half of it. I should probably go get more stuff from my mom's house but I kind of want to take the day off from moving stuff. I should probably find places for all the stuff I've already brought over.

November 25, 2016

Last night I went to bed way too late and this morning I got up way too early.

At eight o'clock I went over to my sister's house so I could take a ride in her husband's semi-truck, which he was taking to a nearby town to have it worked on. Obviously, it was high up, but it was strange being able to see the entire road. I've gotten so used to staring at tailpipes in my short car and not even being able to see beyond the car in front of me. It was nice.

After we dropped off the truck we rode with my sister over to their house, which they don't live in any more and are trying to sell. We were meeting our step-uncle over there because he was picking up a freezer. I haven't seen him in awhile so it was good to catch up. While we were there we saw a big column of black smoke a few blocks away, which was quickly followed by several fire trucks and police vehicles. We never learned what caught on fire but they seemed to get it under control pretty quickly.

On the way home we stopped at Spangles and I got fries and tried their new tiny donuts. The donuts were good but I don't know that I needed to eat six of them. My sister still has the minivan and the middle seats are still down from helping me move stuff, so on the way back I was sitting in the middle of the back seat, completely stretched out. It kind of felt like I was a rich person sitting in the back of my limo.

Once I got home I grabbed my laundry and headed to my mom's house. I started my laundry, and after a bit of search, found and put up the Christmas lights. Once that was done I started on installing the timer on the lower backyard light. It turned out to be a little more involved than I originally thought, so it took longer than I thought, but I got it done in the end. During the setup I put in the latitude and longitude of our location, including the time and date, and it can apparently automatically figure out sunset and sunrise and turn the light on at sunset and off at sunrise. Technology. After that was done I changed out the batteries in a few of the smoke detectors but ran out of batteries so I'll have to do the other ones later.

My new goal every time I go to my mom's is to leave with more stuff than I came with. To that end, I packed up my Christmas tree, Christmas stuff, and a few other random things. Success.

An hour or two after getting home I went over to my friend's mom's house for dinner. I thought it would be just him, his mom, and our other friend, but it ended up including a large number of my friend's extended family. I met aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews. In the end I didn't actually eat any dinner because our invitation was kind of last minute and everything contained meat. Thankfully I ate a piece of pizza before coming over and I ate a few carrots while my friends ate delicious looking meat-filled food. Before the meal we all circled around to pray. That's not my thing but I always go along with it because why not. While we were circling up to hold hands I ended up with my friend on one side and his older cousin on the other. I hadn't grabbed any hands yet and his cousin said she didn't bite. And then as soon as we held hands she bit the back of my hand. It was pretty funny.

By the end of the family evening my other friend was convinced this older cousin was flirting with him, and my friend agreed that it may have been a thing that was happening. She's apparently in the process of divorcing her third husband so my other friend made a joke about being her fourth. I have entertaining friends.

After the family thing we stopped by my friend's dad's house to drop off his dog and then we went to my house so I could give them the tour. We hung out for awhile, playing guitar, and watching part of the original Judge Dredd. And then we went to a bar because my friend wanted to. We hadn't left my friend's mom's house until after ten o'clock so it was sometime after eleven o'clock, probably closer to midnight, when we went to the bar. I was ready for bed by eight o'clock so I wasn't too enthused about going out to the bar, but I'm never enthused about going to a bar, so there's that.

Despite being nearly empty, the music was incredibly loud, as per usual in a bar. I don't get it. I would think people go to bars to socialize but really they just end up yelling at each other to be heard over the music. Maybe the goal is to get people closer to one another. I think creating a more intimate, quiet environment would go further in achieving that goal, but what do I know.

My friends drank several beers and I had a glass of water. About half of the time I just sat there and watched several different TVs because even though my friends were sitting next to me, I couldn't actually hear them unless they were facing me when they spoke. I'm not a fan of bars.

We ended up staying until the lights came on and made it back to the car around two o'clock in the morning. The original plan was that my friend was not going to drink that much so that by the time we left he would be sober again. He may have recovered from the drinks he had at dinner but ended up drinking way more beer than he originally planned to. So, we ended up driving back to his mom's house, parked his vehicle (which I had been driving) and got into mine so I could take both of them home. I got back to my house sometime before three o'clock.

When I pulled into my garage and tried to put the door down it would start but then go back up. I tried three times with the same result and began to worry it might be annoying to my neighbors, if they could hear my garage door from their bedroom in the middle of the night. It was so late that I kind of resigned myself to just leaving the garage door open and worry about it in the morning, but I ended up doing some research online. That led me to check the sensors on the door, which seemed fine, which was good but also annoying because that would have been a simple solution. I ended up just hitting the button a few times and that seemed to work. Who knows.

November 24, 2016

Tonight when I got home there were three deer, a small one, a slightly larger one, and a slightly larger one, standing in the street. They slowly walked across my driveway, nibbled on some of the plants in my front yard, and then walked off around the house. It was pretty cool.

This morning I slept in, got up and read a couple short stories, and then took a nap on my couch. It was my first nap on my couch and it was pretty great. The couch is a comfortable couch to sit on but it is a great couch to lay down on and take a nap. I'll need to do that more often.

I didn't really do much with my morning but this afternoon I got my computer set up. It took a bit of time but I managed to get everything connected correctly on my first try, which was nice. My cable management is also decent, as long as you don't look in the one corner where I stuff all the cables, leaving them a complete tangled mess. Out of sight, out of mind. I took a picture of my desks when I got it all done because everything looks so clean. I wanted to remember what it was when it inevitably becomes cluttered.

This evening I went over to my mom's for Thanksgiving dinner. My mom made a bunch of food and my sister brought over a bunch of food that she made. I brought a water bottle. Not really pulling my weight. I believe it was last year that I ate way too much and felt awful, so my goal this year was to not go that far. I succeeded but just barely. I ate mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese, Brussels sprouts, and a roll. I did get seconds but not a full plate, even though I wanted a full second plate, and maybe a third. One of the deserts my sister made was the traditional chocolate pie. It had an Oreo crust and two different layers of chocolate. It was interesting. The crust was awesome, the bottom layer of chocolate tasted very reminiscent of chocolate ice cream, and the top layer probably tasted like something. Overall I think it was too rich for me, but I liked the concept, and the crust.

After dinner I loaded my car up with a bunch of stuff, including clothes, food, a couple lamps, and some other random stuff. Then I brought up my mom's Christmas tree from the basement and got it set up for her. I think tomorrow I'll grab my smaller tree and bring it over to the house. Christmas before Thanksgiving is unacceptable, before Halloween is even worse, but now Christmas is fair game.

When I got back to my house, and the deer had run off, I was able to unload all the crap in my car. Then I was able to watch a few YouTube videos and relax for a little bit before starting to write this. It is now after midnight and I need to go to sleep. I have been offered a short ride in my sister's husband's semi-truck. I've never ridden in one before so I figured why not. Unfortunately he's leaving at eight o'clock in the morning, which means I'm not going to get a full night of sleep. I need the motivation to get up and out of the house in a timely manner, though, because my mom wants me to put up her Christmas lights. And change the batteries in the smoke alarms. And install a timer on the backyard light. I don't know if I will accomplish all of those things tomorrow but I'll have a better chance if I get out of the house before noon. So now it's bedtime.

November 23, 2016

Last night was my first night in my new house and sleeping in my new bed. It felt a bit like sleeping in a hotel but it went well. My bed is comfortable and I didn't want to get out of it this morning. And because of that I didn't really accomplish much this morning. I moved all of my DVDs down to the basement before lunch, just to feel like I did something.

After lunch I installed my new shower head. I am still concerned about the longevity of it due to the materials it is made with but at least in terms of height, it is a vast improvement over the old shower head. Much like the last shower head I changed, this one was pretty simple. All I really needed to do was wrap the threads with the wipe tape stuff that I believe is supposed to create a more leak-proof seal. On my first attempt I didn't get the shower head screwed on correctly, so there was a leak, but it was a quick fix and now it works like it should. As for the shower itself, I like it but it is going to be a bit of a nuisance to clean and dry every day. There's a lot of surface area and a lot of nooks and crannies. I might have to go with a more traditional path and just clean it on a regular basis instead of every day.

This afternoon I stopped by my banks to transfer some money from one to the other, and then I headed to my mom's house. The next several hours were spent taking apart my computer and desks so I could take them to my house. My mom also boxed up some of the random stuff in my office. And to make the most of the trip I through in all of my guitars and bass guitars, as well as my food.

I had stuff in my car, my mom's car, and my sister's rented minivan by the time we left. Once it was all unloaded at my house my mom went to pick up pizza for dinner and my sister went to let her dogs out. I set up the long folding table in front of the couch and we sat on the couch eating pizza and watching YouTube videos projected up on the wall. We also watched part of an episode of Bob's Burgers. It was a pretty nice first official family dinner in the house. And I have leftover pizza, which is always a plus. Even though after tomorrow I will also have leftover Thanksgiving food.

After dinner I spent some time putting my three desks back together and deciding on how I want my monitors to be set up. Before I had my two 24” monitors set side-by-side and the two 32” TVs next to them but stacked on top of each other. Now I think I want to do the two 24” monitors next to each other on the middle desk, and then a 32” TV on either side, one on each of the side desks. I like the look of it right now but we'll see how I feel when I get my computer set up and actually have the monitors turned on.

A while after that my friend and her boyfriend stopped by because they are in town for Thanksgiving. They brought me a housewarming gift of puzzle-shaped coasters, owl salt and pepper shakers, and a notepad and pen for making grocery lists. Pretty cool. I gave them the tour and then we ended up on the couch watching Twitch livestreams and talking about various things. It was a pretty good evening.

When they left I played Terraria for awhile and now I am finishing this up so I can go to sleep. It is after one o'clock in the morning and I'm freaking tired. Tomorrow I want to actually get my desktop PC put back together. Then I want to eat way too much food. I'm looking forward to it.

November 22, 2016

This morning was fairly busy at work. I had planned on working on something, I think, but never made it to whatever it was because it felt like I was playing catch up. There were a lot of emails to respond to, purchase requests to find, and interlibrary loans to search for. There were also phone calls and patrons in person. It made the time go by quickly, so I guess there's that.

A couple girls from the school I worked at came in with their mom to make copies. It took forever for the change machine to take the mom's dollar and at one point she remarked “This change machine is like my kids, it won't eat anything I give it.” I thought that was pretty funny.

My recently former homebound patron (because she moved to a different nursing home) came in today to check out DVDs and return her last round of books that I took her. I didn't see her but the maintenance guy talked to her and he said she went on and on about home much she appreciated the homebound service and how much she liked all the things I picked out for her. That's pretty cool.

I went to lunch early so I could get back in time to set up for the tech class this afternoon. I learned this morning that I would be teaching part of it. Good to know. We ended up having twelve people show up for the class, which isn't a bad turn out considering the limit for the class is fourteen. And the class went well. The tech lady and I went back and forth covering different aspects of Windows 10, and I think that worked better than one of us talking for the first half of the class and then other for the second half. Frequently trading off kept things moving but also provided some downtime where people could throw out questions if they had them. We were able to cover a lot of information and answer a lot of questions, and at least according to the evaluation at the end, the patrons seemed to get a lot out of the class. Success.

When I got home tonight I ate dinner and then packed up my car with things I would need to finally spend the night at my house. I brought pillows, toiletries, clothes, blankets, my laptop, and library books. The shower head my mom ordered also showed up so I grabbed that. I think I have all the tools I will need to install it. I'm not convinced of it's longevity because it feels like plastic covered in plastic chrome, but I am hoping it can be maneuvered high enough so that I don't have to duck down too low to get my head wet.

After I unloaded everything at my house I got my laptop hooked up to the projector. I spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos, listening to music, and playing Terraria on my wall. I forgot to save the game I started a couple days ago to the cloud so I started another one. Maybe I'll just keep the two saves local to their respective computers.

It is now around midnight and I am going to call it a night. I'm freaking tired. I am currently typing this on the wall, which is pretty cool, but I'm struggling to keep my eyes open, so I'm going to crawl into my new bed and hope it is as comfortable for a full night of sleep as it is for a few minutes of testing it out.

November 21, 2016

This month is flying by. Just saying.

Today at work I finished weeding my second section, pulling around sixty books to get it done. The inside cover of one of the books I weeded was a really cool green and I kind of want it to be the color of my front door. I need to go hold it up next to the siding and see if it work with the color of the house.

I finished watching usability videos for the website and started recording another hundred. I don't know that I will have time to watch that many before the end of the month but they will at least be ready to go if I find myself with nothing else to do.

I sent out follow-up emails to patrons I have made personalized reading lists for, starting in July and going through September. We only rarely get the feedback forms back, I don't know if we've gotten one since I have worked there, and it would be nice to know if the time we put into the lists resulted in a positive outcome for the patrons. So I sent emails asking for feedback, which is not something we have done in the past but I figured it couldn't hurt. We'll see if anyone gets back to me.

I spent a long time this afternoon trying to answer a couple questions about a local Thanksgiving lunch and a food drive in a nearby town. The patron asking said the lunch was at a pizza place last year and wanted to know if they were doing it again. It took awhile but I eventually found that the pizza place no longer exists. Around the time I started looking elsewhere I got a call back from the patron who called a neighbor and found out a different restaurant was having a lunch this year, so I moved onto the second question. After a lot of digging I found out where and when that town was having a community Thanksgiving lunch but couldn't find any specific information about a food drive. There was no mention of it in the town's newspaper and all the local church newsletters only referenced the community lunch. I called the patron and let her know about the lunch and that the only thing I could find was that one of the churches was responsible for collecting food for the food pantry this month. I don't think that is what she wanted but I gave her the number to the church so she could follow up.

About an hour before I left I had one of my more interesting reference interactions. A lady came up to the desk and seemed a bit rushed. She said her son had a paper to write over Thanksgiving break and she wanted to know about looking for sources in the newspaper. She also said she had no interest in the computer. Despite that I started with the computer option because trying to find what she wanted in the physical paper and microfilm would have taken forever. I was quickly able to find the articles she wanted using keyword searches and copied and pasted them into a Word document. I then looked up her card number and we went over to one of the public computers so we could log in as her and print off the articles because that makes it easier to pay for the prints. While over there she said she also wanted Letters to the Editor on the same topic so I edited my search and got those copied and printed.

During the whole process it came out that her son was actually a college student, probably a Freshman because this was for a speech class, and the mom picked the topic for him because he hadn't picked one yet. And she was going to do all the research. Or have me do all the research. I would not be surprised if she also wrote the speech. At one point she lowered her voice and said she would pay me in cash so she wouldn't have to figure out the computer. I thought this was a joke and finding the articles was actually the easiest thing I had done all day so I didn't give it a second thought. But then, after we had printed everything off, she lowered her voice again and got very secretive. She was hiding one of her hands under the newspaper she brought in and then tried to hand me money. I told her I was already getting paid but if she wanted to make a donation to the library she could do that. And instead she just put the money in my jacket pocket, said something about paying people for their work, and thanked me. It was a tad uncomfortable.

Once she left I tried to look up on our website how we handle donations but it seemed like the easiest way was to do it with a credit card online. So I went to my boss and asked what the easiest way was to make a donation. She jokingly said to make a check out to her, but then I said what about cash, given to us by a patron, and pulled out the $40 the lady had given me. I told her I had tried to decline and suggested the donation route but it wasn't successful. She made another joke about how I probably didn't realize I would get paid like a dancer working at the library, which was pretty funny. She also said that she would take it over to admin tomorrow and see if we could use it toward our tech classes in the Spring. I would be cool with that.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos and livestreams while playing Terraria. I did not go over to my house. The original plan was to spend my first night there because I had tomorrow off. Well, I no longer have tomorrow off. We have a tech class tomorrow with at least eleven people signed up for it and the only person scheduled for it was the lady teaching it. That would have been overwhelming and pointed that out to my boss when I realized what had happened. So now, I am working tomorrow so I can help out with the class, and I have Wednesday off instead. That actually works out a lot better because now I have five days off in a row. I am cool with that.

Due to that I have postponed my first night until Tuesday so that I don't have to worry about waking up and getting ready for work in a new environment. I know that is probably weird that I haven't spent the night in my new house yet but I'm weird, so I'm staying in character.

I will soon be going to bed. I always look forward to sleep.

November 20, 2016

This morning I got to sleep in and it was pretty great.

Today I went to work at noon. After talking with my coworker today I think on Sunday we're supposed to come in at noon. When we do our timesheets we put Sunday down as five and a half hours but if we come in at noon we are actually there for six hours. I don't really mind it because it gives me time to count the drawer and get ready at a leisurely pace.

I did things today. I made a personalized reading list. We got a request yesterday which I was going to do but we got another one today which was much easier because they actually included authors they liked. The one from yesterday looked like they just clicked most of the checkboxes on the form, which made their request super broad, and they didn't include any authors or books they liked. That is the fault of our form for not requiring specific information, but it also the fault of the patrons who don't include basic information that would make our job easier. All that being said, I managed the request we got today fairly well, and I found a book that I ended up checking out (because I only have thirteen books checked out right so what's one more?).

I caught up with my chat statistics today. Turns out the last time I updated those was on the seventh of this month. But now we're good.

Near the end of the day I got a chance to weed and pulled forty-three books from our collection. Forty-three books that were all old and outdated and no longer circulating.

And we'll say that was pretty much my day at work. I also helped some patrons randomly throughout the day. I also had to ask an old homeless guy to leave at the end of the day when we closed. That sentence does not sound very good but I asked him politely and we had a nice conversation as he got himself ready. When he was a kid he apparently went to school at the nearby elementary school, long before the library moved to the current building. He was just waiting for the community dinner at the church across the street and I told him I had heard it was pretty good. As he left he told me to have a good evening and I told him to do the same and enjoy his dinner. I felt bad that I had to ask him to leave but I am thankful it was a clear night and that the temperature was only a little crisp and not cold.

When I got home I ate dinner and spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos and a couple episodes of Supergirl. I also played Terraria. I haven't played it in forever but I was talking with my coworker and his girlfriend yesterday and she recently got sucked into the game. That got me thinking about it again and now I'm back. My old save disappeared, and I may have it copied somewhere, but because it's been so long since I played I was already planning on starting over. I think I had progressed about as far as I could on my own with my last save and kind of forgot what I was up to, other than grinding seasonal drops. There have also been a lot of changes to the game since I last played, so I'm basically jumping in as a brand new player, relearning the game, and discovering all the new additions to the game. It's as addictive as I remember it.

Tomorrow I work and then I think I'm going to spend the night at my new house for the first time. My boss called today and said she had forgotten to give me a day off this coming week for working the weekend so now I have Tuesday off. That means I can spend the night tomorrow and not have to worry about getting up early and getting ready for work in a new environment. I had already planned to spend the night Tuesday because I don't go in until noon on Wednesday, meaning I wouldn't have to wake up early, but not working at all on Tuesday is even better.

November 19, 2016

 Waking up this morning sucked. I appreciate every day that I wake up but there are days that I wish it didn't have to be in the early morning. Mid to late morning would be preferable. I get to do that tomorrow and I am looking forward to it. As long as I get to sleep at a decent hour tonight. Which will hopefully be soon.

Work today seemed to take forever. I ran out of things to do fairly quickly, which added to the length. I sent a couple emails, pulled books for my displays, compiled survey results from my classes, narrowed down the classes for the Spring, and think I finalized the exploring technology programs. So I did some things but they didn't take very long. I would say most of my day was probably spent talking with my coworker about video games and school and a bunch of other random stuff. He also ran out of things to do so we had a lot of time to kill. Neither of us is sure what we're going to do tomorrow. Maybe I can come up with more details for the Spring classes and programs.

Tonight I watched Netflix and that's pretty much it. I started with The True Memoirs of an International Assassin, the new Kevin James movie. I enjoy his stuff and this movie did not disappoint. Now I'm watching Crashing, an incredibly awkward British comedy series. I love it.

And I'm going to watch one more episode and then go to bed so I have plenty of time to get a full night of sleep and then lay in bed for awhile before I have to go back to work.

November 18, 2016

 This morning I woke up early and it was cold and gray outside. The perfect kind of day to not wake up early. But my hair was long overdue for a cut so I got ready and left the house. When that was done I spent the rest of my morning bringing stuff up from the basement that I wanted to take to my house today. This included two small bookcases, all of my DVDs, one of my grandma's chairs, one of my office chairs, my sewing machine, and one of my desks. There is still a lot of crap to move but I've made a dent.

My sister helped a lot with her rented minivan because I would not have been able to get anything but my DVDs and sewing machine in my car. A minivan is still one of the vehicles I want the most. There is so much room for storage.

After getting everything unloaded I had a little bit of time to hang out so I watched a livestream and learned how to use the label maker. I only made two labels for the breaker box but that's two more than I had before. I need to figure out how to sum up the one breaker that is connected to a bunch of random stuff.

Tonight turned into Chipotle night and I got super lucky, finding a parking spot on my first try and not having to wait in line. My food was also not bad but at this point I mainly eat Chipotle out of tradition, not the taste. Vegetarian Chipotle is kind of boring compared to the meat version. Because it has been awhile since the last Chipotle night I had a lot of videos to show and we didn't make it through all of them. Maybe next week.

I spent the rest of my night watching YouTube videos and livestreams and not much else. I'm kind of worn out after all the moving today. And there's still so much to move. Fingers crossed this will be the last time I have to move for awhile.

Tomorrow I have to work. I think a lot of my day should be spent coming up with the classes and tech programs I want to do in the Spring. I'm having a meeting next week with my boss and the librarian who comes up with adult programming to work out the schedule so we don't have any conflicting dates. It's still very weird planning so far in advance. I'm not good at it yet. I'll get there eventually.

Now I'm going to go to bed.

November 17, 2016

 This morning I ignored my alarm clock for awhile. I slept a little bit past when it went off but mostly I just laid there and listened to the music and the DJs. I was a little ambitious with my original alarm time and knew I didn't need to get up so early.

When I did finally get out of bed I took a shower, made my lunch, ate breakfast, and loaded up my car with stuff to take to my house. I brought my laptop, vacuum, folding table, sheets and mattress cover, towels, and a little bit of food.

Before going to the house I went to one of the nursing homes we delivered books to yesterday. One of the residents called the library yesterday and was interested in the service so one of the librarians got the information ready and I said I could save a stamp and drop it off today because I would be nearby. I wasn't dressed in my professional attire but I put my name tag on so I at least looked affiliated. I gave the resident the envelop and ran through a brief description of what the service was and how it would work. I think the other librarian I go with will get her because the patrons she has now get fewer books than my patrons.

And then I went to my house. Not too long after getting my car unloaded I got a call from the furniture guys who said they were running ahead of schedule and wanted to know if they could drop my stuff off. Heck yes they could. I quickly got my vacuum set up and vacuumed the area in my room where the bed was going to go because I figured that would be the biggest pain to move later. Turns out the couch was much harder to move, but live and learn. The guys showed up and made quick work of the bed, couch, and ottoman. I ended up changing my mind about the bed but the feet on the legs of the frame were slidey disks that made it really easy to rotate the bed. I had them put the couch in the middle of the living room because I still needed to vacuum and I figured I could start with the area where I wanted the couch to end up, and then move the couch. The couch is way more dense than I originally thought and did not slide well at all. My lower back was immediately a tad sore so I know it's not gonna feel great in the morning. But I think I got it where I want it so I should be good for awhile.

I feel like most of my day was spent sweeping my carpet with a broom and vacuuming. I swept along the walls to get all the loose carpet out where the vacuum could reach it, and then I vacuumed. I finished the upstairs before lunch and then did the stairs and the basement this afternoon. For the price I paid for the installation I would think vacuuming up all the little bits that come loose in the installation process would be part of the package. If I installed carpet it would be. Kind of like how I think any handyman or anyone who does work in a home or business and makes a mess should clean up after themselves.

While working on this I discovered that one of my air vent covers is missing. There were obviously all taken out while the carpet was going down and weren't put back afterward. And now one is missing. My mom thought maybe she moved it somewhere but I feel like I looked everywhere, so I don't know. The floor vents are on my list of things I want to replace but it would be nice if I didn't just have a hole in my floor until I can get around to that.

After my lunch break I went and got my oil changed. So all of my goals were accomplished today. I dropped off the envelope at the nursing home, I got my furniture, I vacuumed, and I got an oil change. When I had finally finished up all the vacuuming I lounged back on the couch and watched a couple episodes of Supergirl projected onto the wall. It was pretty great.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos and looked at queen-size blankets online. At some point I'll need to get a blanket or comforter or something for my bed. I would like to make a quilt but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Tomorrow I have a haircut at eight o'clock in the morning, which I figured would serve as motivation to get me up and going on my day off. I would like to spend the day moving stuff but I'm not sure what to move. I don't really know where I want to put anything yet. I also can't really move the big stuff like my dresser because I need my dad's trailer and some other people. It is really tempting to hire some movers for the bigger stuff just so I can get it done. We'll see.

November 16, 2016

 This morning I slept in and then read a book for awhile before getting up, getting ready, eating lunch, and going to work. In my hour before delivering books I called my patrons to tell them we would be coming and watched some video game trailers, trying to decide which game I want to pick for my discussion in January. I also spoke with the librarian who taught the class last night and she said it went pretty well. Eight people showed up, which is the maximum amount for an evening class, so that is good. Only seven people signed up but based on the description I think the eighth was a local college kid who works as a Dell representative. I talked to him earlier in the week because he was interested in coming to the class to help out, which sounded good, but he also wanted to promote Dell, which is against library policy. I let him know this and said he was more than welcome to come to the class, or possibly teach classes in the future because that is something he was interested in, but that he couldn't promote anything. So it sounds like he showed up, and was able to answer a couple questions that the librarian and tech lady weren't able to, which is cool.

Our book deliveries went well. I drove the minivan and we made good time around town. I think we would have set a record but it took us half an hour at one of the nursing homes because one of the other librarian's has a very chatty patron. My patron next door to the chatty one is still sleepy. I was briefly concerned because as I came down the hall her door was wide open and I was afraid something had happened. I was relieved when I saw her furniture was still there. She opened her eyes when I said her name and looked at me a couple times when I got the books, but most of the time she was just slouched over sleeping. The chatty lady told the other librarian that my patron has been having some health problems recently. That is sad to hear but at least it is an explanation for why she seems to sleep constantly. Granted, I only see her for a few minutes once a month, so maybe she's the life of the party the other 99.9% of the month. The chatty patron also mentioned that four residents have died at that nursing home in the past week, so my initial worry about seeing the door open was not misplaced.

My new patron reaffirmed her status as my favorite because she gave me verbal feedback about the books and she also wrote feedback on each of them, which is the point of us including the feedback bookmarks. It is so much easier to pull books when we get feedback on what the patrons like and don't like.

After I delivered to my patrons I went out and loaded up the van with the old books. I have learned that immediately leaving the building when I am done is the best thing to do because it is always nicer outside than it is in the hot stagnant hallway. When the books were loaded I kept the back door open and sat there reading a book until the other librarian was done.

I was also encouraged to leave after one of the staff came down the hallway pushing a resident and explaining that she lived there and had her own room. I guess the resident thought her daughter lived there and couldn't figure out why she was there. Pretty sad.

When we got back we unloaded the books, pulled out all the bookmarks, checked the books for damage, I cleaned off the books from my patron who is messy, and we moved them over to the counter where Circulation checks them in. I had about thirty minutes to kill before I went to dinner and I didn't accomplish to much with that time, other than taking a book up to the head cataloger so she could change the number on the spine.

Right before I left we had a guy come over who had reserved the auditorium and he was fairly upset. He said he needed to hook his computer up to the projector but the tech guy didn't have a key to open up the compartment where the plug in was. He said after the tech guy left he tried the door to the compartment and it apparently wasn't locked because it came right open. When the tech guy came back and saw that the guy had opened the compartment and plugged his laptop in he told the guy he couldn't use the auditorium anymore and would have to leave. The guy was upset because his meeting was already fifteen minutes behind schedule and now he was being kicked out. My boss went off to get more information and see what she could do and I had to leave for dinner.

When I got back from dinner I got the real story. Turns out the guy had lied to us when describing what happened. Before leaving, after not having the right key, the tech guy said he was going to go see what he could do, whether that was moving the guy over to the other meeting room or bringing in a TV the guy could connect his computer to. As soon as he left the guy started messing with the compartment door. It was definitely locked and he had to do something he shouldn't have been doing in order to get the door open. He had also apparently been doing more once the door was open than just hooking up his computer because I guess he was trying to figure out how to turn the projector on when the tech guy came back, saw all that was happening, and told him he would have to leave. (We all learned that it is apparently a policy with the tech people that if a patron reserves a room and messes with the technology in the room instead of getting help, then then lose the privilege of using the room). My boss, once she discovered the real story, gave the guy a pretty severe talking to but didn't want him to leave angry because that reflects poorly on the library, so she said he would get a pass this time but in the future he needed to ask for assistance. But karma can have a fairly quick turnaround and in the end the tech guy couldn't get the technology working because of whatever the guy had done while messing with it. And even after getting the pass, instead of accepting fault, the guy explained to the group of people there as my boss and the tech guy were leaving, that it was was the fault of our technology. Nice guy. Also, in trying to create smalltalk, my boss asked him about what his meeting was about and the guy was real evasive about it. My boss is fairly certain he was probably there to sell stuff, which is against our policy, so his name is probably going on a list. We don't actually have a list but yeah, I don't think he'll be back.

Tonight I finished updating all my homebound information so I'll be ready to go next month. I also helped a middle school girl figure out the look of her PowerPoint presentation. Made me feel nostalgic for working at the school. It took awhile to figure out how to do what she wanted to do but we got there eventually. Most of it was also an avoidance tactic on her part because she was really concerned about the aesthetics of her presentation when she hadn't even started adding content yet. And I know what she was doing because I do the exact same thing when I just can't bring myself to start doing the actual work of a presentation. If we were actually in a school setting I would have told her to focus on adding in the content and then worrying about the design of the slides afterward, but now my job is to help patrons with their questions, so that's what I did.

And that was the bulk of my evening. It was really quite. For a little while I looked through one of the new cookbooks we got, Thug Kitchen 101. I only heard about them recently when one of the people I watch on YouTube cooked one of their recipes. The writing is entertaining and I'm intrigued by some of the recipes in the book, so I've added it to my list of books I want to read. I'm hoping that with getting my own house and my friend gifting me a year-long subscription to eMeals, that I'll actually get into cooking. My sister said she'd go with me to the store and help me shop for ingredients since she is well versed in shopping for ingredients. I'm really only good at buying bread, peanut butter, and frozen food. I need to be a better adult.

Oh, speaking of because I was just reminded by my last sentence, it was either my boss or one of the other librarians who was in a meeting today and it came up that some of the staff would like me to give my budgeting class again. Like a lunch thing where staff could bring their lunch to one of the meeting rooms and I could give the presentation. My sarcastic response was that three of the staff members were already supposed to come to the class but none of them showed up. But, I think the idea is pretty cool. I spent a lot of time coming up with that class and only four people came to it, and only three of those four were glad they came to the class. So I welcome the opportunity to present the class again and make my effort on creating it a little more worthwhile.

Tonight when I got home from work I watched YouTube videos and looked at a Brylane Home catalog with genuine interest. In particular I was looking at curtains and blankets and bed covers because now I have a queen size bed. The house came with curtains and blinds for all the windows but at some point I would like to add my own style, aka green. It's weird being a grownup.

Now I am going to go to bed because it is late and I need to wake up in the morning. The plan is to load up my vacuum cleaner and go over to the house and vacuum up all the new carpet debris before the couch and bed are delivered so I don't have to move them around afterward trying to vacuum. I would also like to start moving some other stuff over there. My sister got her rental today until her car is fixed from the accident, and it's a minivan. So much room for moving my crap. It would be real convenient for moving all my books but I still don't have any place to put them yet so I would end up just stacking them on the floor and having to move them again when I figured out the bookshelf situation. We'll see.

I also want to get my oil changed tomorrow. But I need to go to sleep now.

November 15, 2016

 This morning when I got to work I parallel parked perfectly. I'm pretty sure that was the first time ever. My previous attempts have required at least a little bit of adjustment to get closer to the curb. Not this time. It was perfect. Unfortunately, no one saw me, so you'll have to take my word for it. Thankfully, no one saw me because if someone had been watching I probably would have screwed it up.

When I got upstairs I bragged about my amazing parking job. Then I looked at the schedule and was reminded that I was actually supposed to come to work at 10:30AM instead of 9:00AM to compensate for this coming weekend. Whoops. I analyzed the schedule further and decided I would take a longer lunch and leave early. Problem solved.

I spent most of my morning thinking about video games. I played a little bit of Oregon Trail and Oregon Trail Deluxe via Archive.org just to see if they would crash on me. I want to play that game in one of my programs next semester and it would suck if it crashed in the middle. It didn't necessarily crash on me but I did discover I would get a black screen if I tried to go from full screen back to the browser. Something to keep in mind. I also didn't have time to play through a whole game, so there is still a chance the game is unstable. I'll have to actually play the game all the way through before I use it for a program.

I also compiled a list of games that I own that I could use for my video game discussion. There are a lot of them. This afternoon I added a hidden page to the tech class website and I embedded all of the game trailers on it. The idea is that I can have everything in one place, which will make it easier to make a decision. I can also give people the address and they can go and watch some trailers and let me know which games they think would make for a good discussion. Ideally this will turn into a series, so we'll look at several games, but I want to start off strong and pick a game that will appeal to people. I'll get there.

Before I went to lunch I got to do some weeding. I ended up pulling fifty books. Not bad. The dinosaur section was easy pickings, for better or worse. When I got back from lunch and was on the desk I was able to process all of them and add them to the cart to go upstairs. There was one book in particular that had a great title, The Gentle Subversive. I asked my boss if that could be my new job title.

I ended up taking an hour and forty-five minutes for lunch. That is way better than an hour. When I got home I was able to relax. I wasn't immediately thinking about having to go back to work. It would be nice if I could take my two fifteen-minute breaks (that I already don't take) and just take an hour and a half lunch every day instead. Today I took an extra fifteen minutes, in addition to the extra half hour, because I needed to set up the computers in the lab for the class tonight, so I wouldn't be able to leave a full hour early, only forty-five minutes. It's ridiculous how meticulous we have to be about hours when we aren't hourly employees.

Anyway, the class tonight was over Windows 10 and I wasn't teaching it. I didn't even come up with the information for the class. The librarian and the tech lady teaching it came up with their own material. My role in it was updating the page on the class website with all the links and books they were going to talk about. I also got the computers ready for them before I left so they wouldn't have to worry about typing in the address for the class website on all of the computers. The librarian teaching the class is older and has been nervous about it since she was told she would be teaching it. She did a bunch of research and I reassured her that she would already know way more than anyone who came to the class. I checked the feedback from home tonight and it was pretty positive, so I am going to assume the class went well. I'll find out for sure tomorrow.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos, played video games for a little bit, and clicked around the internet. I could have spent my time doing more productive things but I chose not to. Now I'm going to bed. We're coming up on midnight, and I don't have to work until noon tomorrow, but I want to sleep in for real, not just sleep late but get the regular number of hours because I went to bed so late. I want to get at least eight hours of sleep, maybe nine. It would also be nice to read from one of my library books before I have to get out of bed. We'll see how the morning treats me.

November 14, 2016

 My house is now a home. I have the internet.

I woke up a few times throughout the night but for the most part slept pretty well. Well enough that my bed did not want to release its grip on me this morning. But I managed to get to work on time so all was well.

Work today was really productive. I was busy the entire time and it wasn't just busy work. I came up with the lists for my remaining homebound patrons, pulled the books, processed them, made the bookmarks, and got them all bagged up. For a couple of them I actually just went to the stacks with my phone so I could check their previous books and grabbed new books based on their general preferences. That was much easier than scrolling through the catalog.

I got a little bit of weeding in but only had time to make it through one section of a shelf and there wasn't a lot of weeding to be done. So out of all the books I only pulled twenty-eight. Apparently books about gems are popular.

I watched a bunch of usability videos for the website. Much of the same old thing. I was talking with my mom and sister yesterday about how there are all these different teams at the library and how I'm not on any of them, even though I may be qualified to be on some of them. Or in the case of the team that works on the website, analyzing data for them in the form of all the usability videos I watch every week, but not actually being a part of the team. In general I'm not a fan of group work but it would be nice to at least be considered.

It is taking me forever to write this. I keep getting distracted. Case in point, it has been almost five minutes since I wrote that last sentence. I'm currently watching an episode of Supergirl and it is one of those needlessly frustrating episodes where people act like idiots and assholes. Supergirl stops two road rage guys from plowing into a bunch of kids but then everyone turns against her after one of the guys tries to punch her and she stops him. Then the military asks her to fight a robot and she does but then they blame her when the robot goes crazy. Frustrating. The plots in this show are a little too on-the-nose, blatantly giving Supergirl a problem in the beginning that neatly aligns with the overall story of the episode.

We got a call today about a lost set of keys with with a library card on them. I was able to look the patron up and leave her a voicemail letting her know where her keys were. I think that is the second time I've been able to do that, and it hasn't definitely happened more than that since I've been there. Even if you never read a book, it pays to at least have a library card on your keychain, because you never know when you'll lose your keys, and the library is very helpful.

I need to take another personal day at work so I am taking it on Thursday. I previously had to move my furniture delivery to Friday because I was working in the morning on Thursday instead of closing like usual. But now that I'm not working on Thursday, I called the furniture store over lunch and asked if I could move my delivery back to Thursday. Thankfully they were able to do that and I promised this would be the last time I moved the delivery. I also scheduled a haircut for Friday morning. And I'll be getting my oil changed on one of those days. So productive.

Tonight I went straight from work to my house to await the internet. After an hour there still wasn't a technician but I did get a call from someone telling me the technicians were finishing up a previous appointment and they would be about thirty minutes. I was shocked at the consideration shown. Definitely unexpected.

About thirty-five minutes later two technicians showed up, I explained what happened last time, told them where I wanted the cable run, they offered a solution, and got it done in about a half an hour. That, compared to the odd duck who took an hour and a half after being an hour late, connected the line to the one coming up out of the carpet in my living room, and then I still didn't have the internet. These guys were able to run the line along the back porch and drilled through to the spare bedroom.

Before they left we tested it to make sure I had the internet, which was a good thing, because I did not. I had the same issue I had last time, where I could connect to the router but didn't have an internet connection. They called it in, tried resetting everything, which didn't work, and then read the information on the modem to the guy on the other end. Turns out the MAC address was off by one letter or number, which someone allowed it to be authorized or whatever, but wouldn't allow it to actually connect to the network. This would be a result of the odd duck reading off all the information in several different accents. Nice. One of the technicians also noticed that my connection was set to a much lower speed than what I signed up for, so that was also changed. Overall, it was a very successful evening. And on Thursday, after I get my bed and couch, I'll be set. Minus all the other stuff I need to move.

Now I need to go to bed because it is after eleven o'clock and it has taken me nearly two hours to write this. Thank you Supergirl. Tomorrow will be another day at work. I'm not sure what's on the schedule. I need to do somethings probably, so we'll see how successful I am at that.

November 13, 2016

 Still no internet. The adventure continues.

I woke up early this morning so I could go get my oil changed before the internet technician showed up to my house. Drove all the way across town and discovered the place I go for oil changes wasn't open yet. So that was a fail.

I went back home and packed up all of my kitchen stuff before heading over to the house. About halfway through moving boxes in I grabbed the folding table that was left in the garage and set it up in the living room to put the boxes on. That way I didn't have to bend over and stand up repeatedly while unpacking boxes. It worked out well. For the past however many years of my mom slowly buying me kitchen stuff, I have accumulated a lot of kitchen stuff. I'm definitely set on plates, bowls, cups, and utensils. I don't even really use cups unless I'm drinking orange juice. Ninety-percent of my drinking involves water out of a Nalgene bottle. Maybe I should branch out into cups.

I got everything unboxed and put the utensils and Lock & Lock containers away but I left the rest on the table. I still need to wash everything and I thought it would be easier to keep track of if I didn't put everything in cabinets and drawers. I also need to wash the stuff I did put away but I couldn't resist putting something away, just to see what it would look like.

I was able to go through all the breakers with my sister's help and figure out what most of them were for. Flipping them on and off and then figured out what went off. There are still some mysteries but I have a much better idea now. And with this knowledge I was able to change out the two switches for the back porch light. They were both mushy and one was bad enough that it wasn't very reliable. The first switch went without a flaw but I did get a tiny shock while doing the second one. I flipped the two breakers that affected the master bedroom but I think the switch is on the spare bedroom breaker so I got a little buzz when I accidentally touched a wire while trying to get it unclamped from the old switch. It wasn't bad and I got that other breaker turned off before continuing so all was good. And now I have two nice switches. At some point I would like to go through and replace several more switches throughout the house but I'll try and pace myself.

About two or three hours after the installation window for the internet I tried calling customer service but they aren't open on Sunday. Then I pulled up my email and for the first time saw the date for the installation as tomorrow. What the hell. I never checked the confirmation because the lady I was chatting with clearly wrote that the appointment was for Sunday. I'm a fairly decent reading and I can tell the difference between 'Monday' and 'Sunday'. They definitely look different. So all day I was at the house, not wanting to leave for fear that the technician would call while I was gone. Turns out that worry was unnecessary. The window I thought was today obviously won't work tomorrow because of work but I got online tonight and was able to move it to be from five o'clock to seven o'clock. I don't get off work until five o'clock but what are the odds they're actually ready at five o'clock. Hopefully not good.

There is a restaurant nearby so when my mom was finished up putting shelving paper in my cabinets we all went for an early dinner. Every time we drive by the place is overflowing but going early is the key. We got in before the rush and by the time be got our food it was a more respectable time to be eating a meal. I made my own macaroni and cheese that had white cheddar sauce, pesto, and broccoli. Very adult. And pretty good, other than being a little too cheesy. But to be fair, that is kind of to be expected with 'cheese' being featured in the name of the dish.

When I got home I washed towels and watched YouTube videos, trying to stay awake long enough for my to

November 12, 2016

 Today turned into an unintentional adventure. This made is a very long day.

This morning I went with my mom and sister to the furniture store to look at couches and beds. When we walked in we were greeted by a young salesman. I am glad that I didn't get the older gruff salesman. The guy I got recently graduated from college and could relate when he asked me what I was looking for in a couch and I said “cheap”. I then amended that to “inexpensive” when my mom protested. I liked that the salesman kept this in mind and didn't try to push the expensive stuff on me.

I sat on several different couches and felt a bit like Goldilocks. There were some that were instantly wrong, either too firm or too short, and there were others that seemed close but not quite right. And then there was the couch I ended up buying. It is a darker gray, really soft, and has a very relaxed feel. You can just lounge in it. As an added bonus, it comes with pillows that are the same dark gray on one side and have a pattern on the other side that involves a nice green. Meant to be. I also got the matching ottoman.

Before deciding on a couch we took a break to go try beds. The salesman steered me away from the low-end beds and went with the next step up. A sales tactic, yes, but something I would have done anyway because even though I didn't want to spend a lot of money, I also knew that it was important to not go cheap. I have had my current mattress for close to twenty years I think, it's always been way too hard, and recently the springs have started to become noticeable. So my bar for comfort is set pretty low. The three beds I laid on in the brand I was going for felt pretty similar and it seemed kind of crazy that they could charge significantly different prices for what seemed like almost the exact same bed. But I'm not a mattress maker so what do I know. I ended up going with the firm mattress because it felt good and I figured it would have more room to break in, if that's a thing. It also came with the box spring and it was only about twenty bucks for the frame. All for less than some of the mattresses I looked at online that didn't come with a box spring or frame. So that was nice.

While the salesman was going to check on prices and deals I went and tried the really expensive mattresses. They had a hybrid mattress that when you laid down on it you could immediately feel the difference and it felt amazing. It was hard convincing myself to get up once I had laid down. Knowing that it would set me back more than $3000 was a decent incentive not to get too attached. That kind of mattress can be a long term goal. The one I ended up buying is leaps and bounds better than my current mattress so I'm happy.

I decided on the mattress and then went back to the couches. Specifically, the gray one. My mom made sure the pillows came with it and then asked what kind of deal we could get if we got the couch and the ottoman along with the bed. I knew that was part of the furniture buying process but I probably wouldn't have done that if I were on my own. I was glad to have her around because she has a lot more furniture buying experience.

I scheduled to have it delivered Thursday morning and tonight I checked my schedule and found that I actually work Thursday morning. It is super rare for my to not close on the Thursday but I managed to schedule something on the one morning I work. I had a feeling something wasn't going to work when I was scheduling it too, which is odd. I'm going to call back tomorrow and see if I can get it moved to Wednesday morning or any time on Friday, because I work next weekend so I'm off Friday.

After the furniture my mom had to go eat lunch with her friend so she didn't have time to take my sister to Jo-Ann's. My sister's car is sitting out at the body shop waiting to get fixed and she hasn't gotten a rental car yet. So I took her to Jo-Ann's after mailing a couple bills. She got jars for the salsa she's going to make, and I got nothing, because even though I have a couple gift cards, I just spent a bunch of money on furniture, and I didn't have any clear craft projects in mind that I need supplies for.

We went to Sonic after the store and that's where the adventure began. It started off well because I had the best breakfast toaster I've ever had at Sonic. It was the first time in my vast experience that the Texas toast actually resembled toast. It was thick and had a crunch to it. Usually it is super thin and squishy with grease. I felt like I was in a commercial or something. I also had a frozen strawberry lemonade for the first time and it was delicious. And there was the miracle of not having any of the strawberry chunks clog my straw.

All of this goodness came at a price, however, which became apparent when I tried to turn my car on. The engine didn't start and all I got were clicks. Not good. I called my dad and a little while later he showed up with my brother. The first couple attempts to jump it didn't work but as that was happening I was texting my mechanic friend. He offered a much better strategy for connecting the cables to my battery which has recessed posts. He also suggested having my dad keep the RPMs on his truck between 1500 and 2000 for a few minutes. This ended up doing the trick. The plan was to take it across town to a mechanic because my dad had called them and they said they were busy but they would be able to at least test the battery. My friend said I should drive it at 45mph at least, I guess for the sake of the battery, so we drove out and around town instead of through town. At the shop they quoted me the price of a new battery and installation (under $200, which sounded pretty good after the furniture) and had me leave it there so they could test the battery.

From there we went back to my Dad's so he could get a sandwich lunch and then we loaded up his ladder and plumbing bag and headed over to my house. My brother hopped up on the roof and cleaned out my gutters and then him and my dad looked at my whistling toilet. My brother said it would be about $25 to replace the part that was whistling. He also said he could get me a deal on a pressure assisted toilet that was oval-shaped and ADA compliant, which means it is taller. All selling points for me. He said he could have it for me by Monday but I think I'll wait until my checks get here, so I can actually write a check for it. I also might wait for my next paycheck. I saved a lot of money over the summer but I would prefer not having to dip to heavily into that. But now I have a toilet goal, something that only an adult would have.

When we were done at the house we dropped the ladder off and then headed back across town to the mechanic. I hadn't gotten a call yet but they closed in about thirty minutes so my dad said it wouldn't hurt to at least go check and get an update. This turned out to be a good thing because they had checked the battery and it turned out to be fine. The leading theory is that my running lights on my car drained my battery while we were sitting at Sonic. I turned my car off but forgot to take the key out of the ignition, and as long as the key is in the ignition the lights stay on. I used to take the keys out when I would go to Sonic with my volunteer kid but it's been a long time since I've just sat in my car so I didn't even think about it. Lesson learned. I'm just glad that I didn't have to buy a new battery. At least today. We'll see if it starts in the morning.

Tonight I did laundry, watched YouTube videos, and read a little bit. It is now midnight and I think I'll go to bed. After today, bed sounds pretty good. I also want to wake up early enough so I can go get my oil changed before going over to wait on the cable company to hopefully give me internet. I'll believe it when I'm online.

November 11, 2016

 This morning I was on desk for two hours, off for one, and then back on for one more before lunch. I planned on working on my homebound stuff, and I did very briefly, but I kept getting distracted by other things. Like helping patrons, answer chats and emails, and completing other small tasks. As an example, I came up with a decent list of read-alikes for Longmire. Also, I got a call from someone who does something where she has clients. She thought my budgeting class would have been great for one of her clients and wanted to know if it would be taught again. I couldn't guarantee that but I did give her the link to the website where she could download the presentation and all the other links I covered in the class. That won't count toward our statistics but at least all my time and effort have paid off just a little bit more.

While I sat at the desk, a parade went by outside for Veteran's Day. The library is far from soundproof and the parade was really loud. But the desk isn't anywhere near a window so I didn't get a chance to see any of it. Every time I thought about getting up to take a look I would get a phone call or a chat. Maybe next time.

This afternoon I made decent progress on my homebound stuff. I made lists and pulled books for my two biggest patrons and one of the smallest ones. I think I pulled about thirty-two books. That means next week I'll need to pull about twenty more. Hopefully it will be easier knowing I am over halfway done. The assistant working tonight wanted something to do so he was going to make the bookmarks and get the books bagged up for me. I think everyone else always has an assistant pull books and do all the processing but I generally do that myself. It feels weird asking people to do something that I can do myself. I would not make a good boss.

Tonight I did nothing. For quite awhile I considered working on my cross stitch but the motivation wasn't there. For anything. I just watched YouTube videos and tried not to fall asleep. Oh, and I also confirmed my health insurance for next you. I wanted to talk to the lady at work about it to find out what I currently have but she was gone yesterday and today and it was due tonight. So I made my best guess and I am hoping I didn't forget anything important.

This weekend I will probably do some house related things. Tomorrow I'm going to go look at furniture with my mom and sister. I also think I might move my kitchen stuff in, since it's already boxed up and I can fit it in my car. Maybe not all in the same trip but it'll all get there eventually. I still need to get ahold of my Dad and see if I can borrow his ladder so I can clean out my gutters and I need to talk to him about some other stuff. And then on Sunday, maybe I'll get the internet.