Where's the scouting badge for this one?

I know that it has got to be happy hour somewhere! Sheesh! Today is the last day of my daughter's Girl Scout troop for the school year. And every meeting day is the same for me as the leader of the troop. It looks a little something like this:

Step 1: Wake up.
Step 2: Volunteer at the school
Step 3: Run around prepping for the afternoon scouts meeting
Step 4: Meet
Step 5: Breathe
Step 6: Carry on with other runs for my daughter

And today was no different. The only thing was adding work at the library into the mix. Can a sistah catch a break?!

I spent the morning hovering over the reference desk while sorting out Girl Scout cookie sale incentives. Talk about multi-tasking! Tomorrow is the free movie day for the girls who sold more than 300 boxes of cookies and I cannot wait. Maybe that's because it will signal the end of the scouting year. Just in time, too, because I am exhausted!!!

Keep calm and carry on

It's been a hell of a few months. Adjusting to my new life has been rather daunting.

One day, my mom was here then next she was gone. Then my job turned into a free all expenses paid trip aboard the Titanic. The media is onto their every move, which happens to include bad financial judgments and pending layoffs.

What's a librarian to do?

Then you bundle that with the fact that this passed weekend, my goal was to forget Mother's Day. Well, mission accomplished.

They broke into my home. There's nothing like trying to secure your place with plywood to help take your mind off of the rest of your life. Or not...

I'm not sure who ordered up the black cloud that hovers over my life, but I would really like a reprieve. Please and thank you.

It has to get better. There's simply no way to go but up from here.

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the fall of the public library

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

if we listen closely, we can hear the sound of yet another public institution crumbling. sadly, i work at a place that i have pretty accurately nicknamed The Titanic. i love working here. i love my customers. i love the library.

i've been in love with the library for a lifetime. i was a little girl checking out books with my mother in the 80s. we went to every program that the branch by our modest two-family flat offered. i celebrated halloween there making paiper-mache pumpkins and seeing the headless horseman for myself. the library was a wondrous place.

that wondrous place hired me to shelve the books. those books that i shelved led me to find buddhism, which offers me a place of solace. those same shelves called out to me one fall afternoon to try my hand at a Master's in librarianship. so i listened.

i found that librarianship merged my need for community service with my desire for a regular paycheck. nothing lavish, but a paycheck nonetheless. years have passed since that time. i've moved up the food chain to manage my own little corner of the library world and now the ass has fallen out of even that.

allegations of administrative corruption and misspent funding abound and staff members are faced with layoffs. what happened to that community hub that was so beloved to me? i feel like i am on the outside looking in as i see newspaper articles surface about my employer by the day. all i can do is wait and hope that enough people create enough fuss to say that we refuse to be asleep at the wheel when the library comes to a grinding halt.

Off to a Rough Start

Some mornings are harder than others. This morning was that morning for me. I awoke at 7 a.m. looking at my watch wishing it were 7 p.m. I got my hostile daughter up from her slumber only to discover that she was feeling much grumpier than usual. :( Then I -- pretty unskillfully I must admit -- got her dressed and fed.

It was rainy. Cold. Overall yucky, but we headed on to school and work. We listened to our favorite classical station along the way and somehow, the morning shifted. She confided that she just didn't feel like going because it was rainy. I confessed that I felt her pain, but reminded her that rainy days are good days, too. She laughed and we made our way into the school. She was so relieved to find her class playing inside this morning. :)

I headed away in search of coffee and to pay a much avoided bill and somehow, the combination of these two lifted my spirits, even in the rain. I made it to work and saw two classes of children and entertained them with dog stories. Somehow, the rain broke and once I made it to my first class of kids, I was rolling.

So remember the rain is just that: rain. There are still good days that happen to be rainy.