7 Quick Takes Friday, vol. 46

~1~

I still cannot believe what I saw on my way home from work Thursday evening. I stupidly took a wrong turn out of the boys' daycare and ended up circling around the nearby park to get back around to where I really wanted to be. This meant driving down a section of road that I'm not usually on. It's a nice area, lots of brick townhomes, several cottage style old houses, and plenty of big trees. It's pretty close to downtown, probably in walking distance to things on the east side of town. So as I turned onto this road, up ahead I could see what looked like a very large dog on a lease. It caught my attention because I thought it might be a Great Dane but wasn't quite sure. As I got closer I realized it wasn't a dog at all. No, it was either a small pony or a miniature horse. On a lease. Out for a walk. Um, what? I know this is KY, but who keeps a pet horse in downtown where there are tiny yards, if you even have a yard? I'm still stunned. And find it hilarious at the same time.

~2~

Okay, I had to go do some internet searching and apparently having miniature horses as pets is not that unusual. Who knew! There is even a book about owning these cool pets.

~3~

Dexterity game on a pendant

We have a very interesting collection of materials at my library. They are called Artists' books. They are works of art, but also considered books. In some cases the definition of book is rather loose. I've been working on cataloging these which gives me the opportunity to see them. I worked on one Thursday that is actually a dexterity game. You know those little plastic containers that had some sort of picture inside with little holes in it and some tiny little copper balls rolling around inside? The objective was to get all the balls into the various holes. This book opened up to show 12 of these little tiny dexterity games lined up together. Each had three balls inside to get into the little holes. Definitely doesn't look like a book, but very cool nonetheless. I love discovering these unique items. It's one of those things that makes my job cool.

~4~

And speaking of my job, something else that makes my job cool is seeing how very divergent fields can intersect with each other. I received a phone call Thursday from a librarian over in our Medical Center Library. Someone over in the College of Medicine was looking for a speaker for something they were doing who could speak on the healing powers of art and music as influenced by nature, or some such thing. She couldn't get hold of the music librarian, so she called me. We talked for a bit and then I was able to finally come up with a name of someone she could contact. [Surprised myself that I actually could even name someone on campus that could speak on that topic.] Got an email from her later in the day that the person I suggested was on board and was getting someone to speak with her about the art side of things. How cool is that! I love seeing how something like music and medicine can actually work well together. They seem so different, but they have much to learn from each other.

~5~

I don't know what was up with my drive home Thursday evening (see #1) but as I pulled into my neighborhood an ice cream truck pulled in just in front of me. He turned towards my street and proceeded to drive about 5 mph with me tailing behind him. I prayed that he would pass by my street and felt pretty confident that he didn't have a reason to turn down into my little cul-de-sac of 5 houses. But alas, he turned and I followed him at a painfully slow pace. And then he stopped, right in front of my driveway! Seriously?? I had to honk my horn to get him to move. And why is he even in my neighborhood? I think he'd get a bit more business in a neighborhood that had more children in it, which is currently not the case in my neighborhood.

~6~

We went to visit my family last weekend. It was so nice and the boys did well on the 6 hour drive down and back. They are still hesitant around strangers (and anyone they haven't seen in a long time is basically a stranger) but getting better. A few pictures from the weekend:

Cousin Caroline shows Peter how it's done

Ethan likes listening to his brother and cousins play the piano

Anna gets to meet her aunt for the first time

Ethan learns that Papa is a little crazy

~7~

Walking is in our future! I can see it. My boys are so funny! Peter took a couple steps at my parent's house this weekend. We got all excited and then that was it. He tried to walk a few more times but was so excited about doing it that he couldn't balance himself and kept falling forward. Ethan apparently had no interest. But once we were home, Peter tried a few more times, got a couple steps in once or twice, and then went back to falling over each time from over excitement. Silly boy! Then the other night, he tried again and Hubby and I burst into applause to encourage him. Ethan started clapping with us. After a few times of this I think Ethan realized why we were clapping so he started trying to stand up on his own. He didn't try taking any steps, it was just the standing up part that excited him. And oh my, the excitement on his face as he slowly balanced himself on those two little feet! Precious!

Finally, Thursday night Ethan actually took a few steps towards me. We clapped for him and he LOVED it! He immediately crawled back to where dad was sitting in the rocking chair, climbed up to a standing position, turned himself around to face me, and took a few steps before falling into my arms. We had such a good time cheering him on and he repeated the process a few more times. By the end his excitement had grown so much he couldn't even steady himself enough to stand up without falling over. 

Yes, walking is just around the corner! Any day now. 

For more Quick Takes posts, visit Jen at Conversion Diary.

Just a Cataloger

My first week back at work went really well.

I had only one meeting that ended up being only about 20 minutes, probably because it was a meeting I was in charge of and I had nothing to to talk about. Two people in my unit were also out last week so there were only three of us in the meeting.

I also made a couple decisions on some big projects and got quick agreement from others involved. I think the decisions came from a fresh perspective after being away for 6 months. I didn't have any of the every day stuff weighing on my mind and could more clearly see the problem and how to best tackle it. It felt good too. I need to do that more often with big decisions.

I also just did a lot of cataloging and not much else. My job is divided up into several components: x% for this, y% for that, z% for this other thing and so on. My percentages include things like professional development, research, administration, and primary assignment. [That's four, there should be five, but I can't think of the fifth right now.] My primary assignment is as a cataloger and my percentage is somewhere around 60% of my time. It's pretty high, but in reality I probably spend less than that on actual cataloging tasks. That percentage is more of an ideal than a reality. Sadly.

So yeah ... why do we have a backlog? Um, yeah.

Anyway, I spent the majority of my time during my first week back just cataloging. It felt good to be just a cataloger. That is the work I like. No meetings, no timesheets, no statistics, no reports to write, and no training, teaching, or reviewing other's work; just cataloging.

It was the best way to get back into the swing of things. Already on Monday of week two I spent my entire morning in a meeting, gathering timesheets, and tracking down statistics sheets. I only spent my last hour and a half, maybe two hours, doing any cataloging.

But I'm glad my first week was the way it was. And it is a good reminder of why I really do like my job. Even if I spend a lot of time doing other things. I like those times when I am just a cataloger.

Image source morgueFile