Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Merry Christmas!!!

I traveled to Atlanta on Saturday and got to my parent's house in time for dinner. The trip was uneventful and traffic on the highways not nearly as bad as I thought it might be.

Christmas was fun for all, we had a good time together. I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas and got to spend time with family and/or friends.

Chris flies down to Atlanta on Thursday evening. I can't wait to see him again.

Hope everyone had a very blessed Christmas!!

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Done for the Week!!

I am done with work for this week!! Yay!!

Today was a long day, but it started with a wonderful surprise: an early morning phone call from Chris wanted to meet me for lunch!! That was a fun thing to look forward to!

I spent the majority of today working on my Faculty Performance Review form. This is a new form for us this year and we are required to do a self-evaluation as part of it. It took my all afternoon. It was a lot of work, but luckily I did not experience all the problems everyone else seemed to: the form locking up on them, or being unable to open sections, it not allowing them to type in certain areas, or do cut and paste. I was able to do all this. I could see how some people could have run into this problem, but maybe I have enough experience with Excel spreadsheets that I knew how to fix what I thought were minor problems.

Anyway, it is done!! Thank goodness.

Tonight: finishing wrapping Christmas gifts; buy tissue paper; laundry and pack.

I leave Saturday for Atlanta. Friday will be spent cleaning, taking Jake to the vet for one last shot, and probably running errands (unless I can avoid that). Tomorrow night Chris and I are doing our Christmas!! (Okay, so Advent isn't over yet, but we won't see each other on Christmas day, so we're doing it now.)

Merry Christmas to everyone! May you all be blessed this Christmas season and for all of 2007.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Hectic Day

Wow, Wednesday was a hectic day!

I had to go to two post offices to get the Christmas stamps I wanted, that got me to work late.

Once I got to work I discovered that I had forgotten the gingerbread Chris made last night for the Holiday Party for my department. I had the lemon sauce for it, the knife to cut it with, and the bowl and spoon for the sauce, just didn't have the actual bread itself. So had to go back home for that.

I think I was actually at work for the day by 11am. The party was at noon and I had to be there at 11:30 to help set up. So I finally started doing actual work today around 1:30pm.

I met a goal today though: I finished the 2007 projects list for my unit.

Tomorrow I will try to work on my 2006 evaluation and 2007 goals. This will take a long time and all I have is tomorrow and January 2 to work on it. Procrastination rules! Wish me luck!!

Tonight: clean house and do laundry. Maybe I'll even get a chance to relax, I'm exhausted. Okay ... time to go home, it's 6pm and I think the students have already shut down the library.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Only a few days left

Hi all! Today was our Holiday party at work. Lots and lots of food and a good time had by all. I am completely stuffed!

I also finished my Christmas shopping today!! Finally done and I didn't do any of it online this year which amazes me! Now just have to wrap everything, but at least that can be done at home. I can avoid all the stores now.

I've been enjoying getting Christmas cards from everyone!! I'm starting mine tonight. I'm a little behind, but I haven't forgotten.

Wedding update: a DJ is now booked, I started looking for wedding dresses, and I'm starting to investigate photographers. The church and priest, reception, and the Marriage Prep class are already on the calendar. Oh, and I got the info on the other class we have to take as well: God's Plan for a Joy-filled Marriage. Looking at the schedule is may be June (possibly July) before we can take that. Everything is slowly coming together.

Hope everyone enjoys their last few days of work. If you're already done working for the year ... well, good for you. :) It's back to work for me: 2007 projects list for my unit, my 2006 evaluation and my 2007 goals await. Ugh!

Friday, December 15, 2006

End of the week

Thank goodness it is Friday! This has been a very busy week.

I gave my final exam on Tuesday evening and had everything graded by Wednesday afternoon!! I'm done!!

Wednesday night was the Christmas Party for the Young Adult Group at my church. It was hosted at Chris' house which meant a lot of work for him and some work for me. But now that's over too.

Work the past two days has also been very busy!! But I have to say that I am finally caught up typing minutes from several meetings, calculating statistics from November, and preparing things for future meetings. I even had a meeting with one of my staff today on her yearly evaluation. Two more next week and then those are done! (Then I have to do my self-evaluation ... ugh!)

I love this time of year! It's busy, there is a lot to do, but you see a lot of things wrapping up. Tonight: dinner and bowling with friends. A great way to relax after a long week.

Tomorrow: wedding dress shopping! Please pray for me!

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

New Computers and all that jazz

Monday at work my library got new computers for all the staff. I now have a 19-inch flat screen and a very tiny computer box. We've also reverted to only having USB ports and a DVD-Rom/CD-RW drive. No floppy of zip drive to speak of!

The computer is very small and takes up much less space on my desk. Unfortunately, that means you can now see all the dust that had accumulated around the old computer. Now I am just trying to get used to the new mouse, which doesn't seem to be shaped well for small hands. I may be having tendenitis issues again if I'm not careful. Thankfully I found out today that they have a bunch of old mouses and i can get one of those if necessary. I want to give it a little time before I do that, but I'm keepign that as an option.

In other news: I almost ended up with a trip to Quebec City in early February this coming year. The organization that I am the Secretary/Newsletter Editor for was considering sending a rep to an international meeting taking place up there and I was the only one on the board with the potential of going. Fortunately we decided that the program wasn't that important and we could wait for the May meeting, in Columbus, OH. At least with Columbus I can drive and it'll be cheaper for the organization. Although Quebec seems like a cool place to visit, I'm not sure that early February would be the best time.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Busy Weekend

Well, it was a very busy weekend.

Friday I went to Georgetown for a day-long meeting and gave my presentation during the afternoon session. There were three afternoon sessions and mine was the one with the largest registered attendance. It was cool to be the presenter in the "Big Room" while the other two sessions went off to smaller rooms after lunch. Also, I was talking to some librarians from other institutions before we started and they were commenting on how they like going to presentations I have done in the past. One remembered a presentation I gave at a national meeting when I was still kind of a newbie librarian and the other said I was great at a pre-conference workshop I ran a few years ago and she recommended me to others as a great presenter. Hearing comments like that certainly made it easy to give my presentation.

The presentation was two hours on the topic of cataloging in a changing environment. Basically I spent an hour discussing where we've been, the impact of our past on us today, and then gave a snapshot of the multitude of things we are seeing today. I even mentioned blogs and was surprised at how few people really used blogs beyond reading a few every now and then.

The rest of Friday we met with the DJ for our wedding and firmed things up with him. Then we went and grabbed a quick dinner before heading to Church for Mass. We were so worried about getting to Church on time that we actually got there 30 minutes early. So we talked with the organist some (discussed a few wedding ceremony pieces) and then headed for the pews. Friday was a Holy Day of Obligation: the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.

Saturday was a dress rehearsal, which was exhausting! Sunday the concert was at 7:30pm. We usually do 3pm performances, but it looks like we are going to try the later start time for our December concert for a while. It was very late getting out of there. Concert program: Festive Overture (Shostakovich), Salvation is Created (Tschechnkov-or something like that), March of the Three Oranges (Prokofiev), Russlan und Ludmilla Overture (Glinka), Dance of the Jesters (Tchaikovsky), Nutcracker Suite, 4 movements (Tchaikovsky), Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas with Sax solo, Pictures at an Exhibition, 2 movements (Mussorsgy, yes, spelling is wrong here too), and the encore (like every December concert) Sleigh Ride. Anyone see a theme? The concert was titled To Russia with Love. It was an exhausting concert, especially for the clarinet section. On top of it, there were some solos that I had to do also.

That was about it for this weekend. I also made an appointment at a bridal shop in Covington, KY and will be taking two friends with me. That'll be next Saturday. So wedding plans are also slowly coming together.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Friday's Presentation

Friday of this week, December 8, I am speaking at a state conference. It's not far away, thank goodness, just about 30 minutes north in Georgetown, KY. I went to this conference once and decided there was no reason for me to ever go back.

However, I was invited to speak and I do need to keep my CV up for that last promotion in about 5 years, so I agreed. It's nice to be invited to speak at a conference. It makes you feel important even if you aren't. I think they just needed to fill out the program and they asked me to do something.

So I have a two-hour time slot in which I am running a session called "Cataloging in a Changing Environment." I am going to speak for an hour about developments in the field and then open the last hour up for general discussion. We'll also take a ten minute (maybe 15 minute) break in between. Anything to eat up those two hours!

Wish me luck!!

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Last Teaching Class Done!!

I am back in my office and my students are upstairs in the classroom filling out course evaluation forms. Tonight was our last class meeting before the final exam!!

Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!

The only thing left is to administer the test and then grade it. I am so excited to be done! It has been a long fifteen weeks.

Now I just need to worry about my presentation for Friday. Ugh! I think I'll enjoy tonight and worry about that tomorrow. Good night all!!

Monday, December 04, 2006

Happy New Year

Okay, I'm a day late, but Happy New Year anyway!! Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent and in the Catholic Church that means the start of a new year ... that is, a new liturgical year.

Happy Advent to everyone!! May your preparations for Christmas be fun and joyful!

Friday, December 01, 2006

Windy and cold ... finally!

It's been close to 70 for the past week, since about Thanksgiving. Kind of strange to have it that warm this time of year. But then today the cold hit. It was warmer when i woke up this morning than it was at noon! It's now about 31 degrees and it's only 2:30pm. The wind today is brutal! Welcome to winter!

Hope everyone has a great weekend. I'm going to be spending what ever time I can this weekend grading papers and putting together a presentation I have to do at a local conference next Friday. Nothing like waiting until the last minute.