librarysarie

Balance

I started my new job back in January, and it feels like life has been a big blur since then.  Life changes are often a mix of good and bad things, and this move was no different.  The job itself is WONDERFUL.  I'm the Head of Reference at my new library (I was previously Head of Technical Services) and I think it's a much better fit for me.  While I've always enjoyed reference work I thought that being a reference librarian would be too much "people time" for me, being the introvert I am, but I'm actually only on desk 10-12 hours a week, with the rest of the time spent doing the behind-the-scenes things that I enjoy so much; it's a mix that works really well for me.  I supervise a GREAT staff and really enjoy my other coworkers as well, and professionally it's proven to be a nice step up for me -- in particular, supervising a pretty sizeable staff is an excellent learning experience for me.

But, yes, there's bad too -- and in this case, the bad is the reduction in my personal time.  My old job was 35 hours a week, and was only a 10-minute drive from home.  This one is 40 hours a week, plus it's a 30-40 minute commute each way.  I have to leave the house an hour earlier than I used to (more if I'm dropping Ian off on my way, though Jim usually takes care of morning dropoff) which, for a non-morning person like me, has taken some getting used to.  I don't get home a whole lot later than I did before -- maybe about 20 minutes -- but boy, the earlier mornings are taking their toll on me.  I've always been a night owl, but now, with these earlier mornings, I find myself falling asleep on the couch nearly every night.  And it's showing -- I should have read 18 books so far this year (to keep pace with my goal of a book a week); I've only managed nine.  And knitting?  Forget it.  (And, as you've noticed if you read my blog...blogging doesn't happen much, either.)

It's hard to not spend a lot of time thinking about how much more I used to get done -- both necessary housework-type things and leisure activities -- with those few hours each week that I've now lost to work.  I feel like my work-life balance is, currently, tipped more toward the "work" side than I really want it to be.  Still, though, it's only four months into the new gig, and so I know I will continue to adjust.  I hold out hope that I'll manage to get into a rhythm that works for me.  

At least now summer is upon us and the daylight hours are long -- it's been making it easier to wake up in the morning, if nothing else!  I've started working through lunch and then using my "lunch" break to take a walk instead -- we have a lovely trail loop right behind the library -- and that break in the day is doing me a world of good.  I'm trying to figure out how I can work running back into my schedule as well...but one thing at a time.  One thing at a time.  

BOOK REVIEW: Eighty Days

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5 stars.

When I was a child, I had a brief children's biography of Nellie Bly. While it didn't go into great detail about her life, it did talk about how she got herself committed to the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island and, especially, her later trip around the world. I read it over and over again and, when I got older, I was always surprised that there wasn't much written about her -- I never really sought anything out, to be fair, but a lot of books cross my path on a daily basis and I never saw one about her. I was thrilled when I saw the announcement for Eighty Days and the book shot right to the top of my to-read list.

Eighty Days not only tells the story of Nellie Bly, it also introduces us to Elizabeth Bisland -- while I knew about Bly's trip around the world for Joseph Pulitzer's World newspaper, I'd never known that Cosmopolitan (a much different magazine in those days), upon hearing of the stunt, sent Bisland, their own reporter, around the world in the opposite direction in the hopes that she would beat Bly.

Bly and Bisland were very different women, but both were largely self-made and well-known in their day, and the intersection of their stories is fascinating. Sections of the book detail the increasingly sensational stunts that the New York newspapers of the day attempted to pull off in an attempt to win readers; other sections; other parts read like a travelogue, as seen through the eyes of two women who were not seasoned travelers and yet set out to beat Phileas Fogg's fictional record for a circumnavigation of the globe. They traveled on the fastest steamships of their day, traversed the newly-built Suez Canal, took rickshaw rides in the Orient, and survived harrowingly fast trips through the Rockies on the newly-completed Transcontinental Railroad.

Following their return to New York, Bly found her life changed drastically, and never again found the fame and public adulation that she enjoyed during her trip. Bisland's star did not fall as far, but she, too, fell into relative obscurity.

I found Eighty Days to be a fascinating and absorbing read. At times it fell into some repetitiveness (due, no doubt, to the nature of Bly and Bisland's dueling trips) so it did drag a bit in places, but the content more than made up for its shortcomings.

Review copy received from the publisher via NetGalley.

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: Crochet One-Skein Wonders

Crochet One-Skein Wonders by Judith Durant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As someone who often doesn't have the attention span for larger projects, I have long been a fan of the "One-Skein Wonders" series, edited by Judith Durant and published by Storey. We all have those single skeins of yarn kicking around -- leftovers from another project, perhaps, or expensive yarns we could only justify buying one of -- and these books contain patterns for dozens of items using these small amounts of yarn.

While the other "One-Skein" books have included crochet projects, this is the first one devoted entirely to crochet. The book contains 101 patterns for all kinds of projects -- there are the scarves and hats one would expect, of course, but also pouches and other bags of various sizes; felted items; fingerless gloves; doll clothes; baby items; household items such as pillows, doilies, and tea cozies; toys; jewelry; and even a couple of adult-sized shrugs (obviously, with only a single skein of yarn, adult-sized garments are, largely, out of the question!). The patterns do not fall into crochet stereotypes, either -- while they obviously build on traditional motifs, there is much more here than just granny squares and shell stitch. There are many items here that I would LOVE to make and own; one of my favorites is the Sunflower Pillow (pictured on the upper left corner of the cover), which takes advantage of a gradient yarn to create a striking design. I also am in love with the various toys in the book, especially the adorable Sam the Big-Bottomed Bunny.

As with the others titles in the series, this book is arranged by yarn weight, from thread all the way up through bulky. While some patterns call for expensive or otherwise hard-to-find yarns, plenty of patterns are crocheted using craft-store brands such as Caron, Red Heart, and Lion Brand, as well as yarn store staples like Berroco and Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride; the arrangement of the book by yarn weight makes it easy to substitute yarns.

I have only rudimentary crochet skills, and while many of the patterns in the book are far beyond my skills, there are a few that I could make easily. In general, though, the book seems to be aimed at people who are at least at an advanced-beginner level; I would recommend that a beginner consult a different book for instruction before tackling any of the projects here. There is a brief, illustrated glossary of terms in the back, but this is a pattern book, not a technique book.

While I am not a skilled crocheter, this book makes me want to be one, and it certainly deserves space on the shelf of any crocheter looking for fun, quick projects.

Review copy received from Storey via NetGalley.

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: The Movement of Stars

The Movement of Stars: A Novel by Amy Brill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The year is 1845, and 24-year-old Hannah Price spends her nights watching the stars from the widow's walk of her modest Nantucket home. She has spent her life in the company of her father and her twin brother, fixing chronometers and scanning the heavens; what she dreams of is to discover a comet and thus win the King of Denmark's Prize. But in this mid-nineteenth century Quaker community, there is no room for a woman to pursue her scientific dreams. When her brother and father leave the island, Hannah is faced with the prospect of abandoning her studies and her dreams.

In Hannah, debut novelist Amy Brill has created a thoughtful, plucky heroine based on the real-life "lady astronomer" Maria Mitchell. Hannah does, eventually, make her long-anticipated discovery and earn her way into the astronomical community, but not before sullying her reputation due to a relationship with Isaac Martin, a black sailor, and cutting her ties with the Quakers. The Movement of Stars reminded me very much of Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures, another based-on-a-true-story novel about a self-taught female scientist struggling to find her way in a male-dominated profession in a time when women did not even have the vote. In both books, I appreciated the glimpse into the lives of these great female thinkers, and seeing how difficult it was not only to make their voices heard, but simply to be able to pursue their intellectual goals at all -- something many of us take for granted today, I think. For me, though, where Brill's novel lost some of its strength was in its predictable, somewhat trite romance between Hannah and Isaac; using it as a plot device to drive Hannah's Path to Self-Discovery seemed, to me, to be the easy way out.

Still, though, I found the book to be absorbing and enjoyable; in addition to the main plot, I also appreciated the look at Nantucket society at a time when it was very much in flux, changing from an old whaling port to the seaside summertime haven it is today.

ARC received as part of First Flights, the Penguin Debut Author Program. Expected publication date April 18, 2013 from Riverhead Books.

View all my reviews

Mail and booze

I am the queen of stress dreams...which is interesting, since I am not someone who generally lets stress get to me.  Once upon a time, I had the classic at-school-wearing-only-underwear dreams, but in recent years, they've changed.  The setting is still school, and I'm clothed, but I have a math test coming up and I need to pass it to graduate, but I haven't been to class all year and can't even remember where the classroom is.  Or I have a concert but have forgotten my band uniform.  Or there's a marching band performance but I don't remember the flag routine.  Stuff like that.

Twice, though, in the last couple of months, I've had a completely new version of the dream -- and maybe it's just a sign of my age, but now the setting is college rather than high school.  I'm wandering around campus, and I'm still a student even though it's been YEARS since I was there.  Nothing is where I remember it being.  I remember which dorm I live in, but I don't remember which room, and I don't have any kind of ID to show my RA so she can let me in (and, of course, she doesn't remember me, since I haven't been there in more than a decade.)  And then I go to Todd Union, where the post office was, and I remember my box number and everything, but I don't have a key and I just KNOW there is many years' worth of mail in there, and for some reason it's just really stressful.

And now, apparently, I'm subconsciously worrying about the future of the postal service, because last night I had that same dream, with going to get my mail but not having my key.  The mailboxes were all still there, but in place of the postal window, there was a bar. 

But at least I've got my clothes on, I guess?

House's House

I'm always impressed by gingerbread houses.  Every year around the holidays, images of amazingly detailed masterpieces start doing the rounds.  I don't have much in the way of architectural or construction skills, so something like that is well beyond my expertise.  

Basic little houses, though?  THAT I can handle.  I had thought about doing a gingerbread house with Ian this year, and had spent some time idly looking up recipes and things.  But one day we were at Michael's getting some craft supplies and I saw the Wilton gingerbread house kits on sale for $8.  Can't beat that price!  It came with everything necessary (I was especially happy to not have to make icing!), including gumdrops and some little round fruity candy things.  We augmented with several Hershey's kisses, green sugar sprinkles, a peanut butter cup, a couple of candy canes and two Ghirardelli squares for the front door.

It was a fun way to spend an afternoon during that week between Christmas and New Years.  The grownups did the hard parts; Ian stuck on the embellishments.  The result was adorable.

Ian decided that "it's House's house."  House, you'll remember, is what he calls his grandma; I assure you that her house doesn't really resemble this at all, but he's insistent.  :-)

The question now is, how long do we keep this thing around until we throw it out?  I hate to do it, but I also know we can't keep it forever.  It's well-documented in photographs, though!

My Year in Books

And now, the annual book round-up!

My haul from Book Expo America, back in June.

Books read: 52

Pages read: 16,585 (including only books I finished, not ones in progress at the end of the year. The number would be well over 17,000 if I included things in progress...but they'll count towards the 2013 stats!)

Fiction/nonfiction split: 25 fiction/27 nonfiction (Very unusual! I generally read WAY more nonfiction.)

Kindle/paper: 30 Kindle/22 paper

Ratings: 
5 stars: 14
4 stars: 26
3 stars: 10
2 stars: 1
1 star: 1 

My favorites of the year: Alice Bliss, Destiny of the Republic, The Night Circus, Mrs. Kennedy And Me.  Honorable mention: The Last Policeman.

Biggest disappointment: An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, which I just finished last night.  It's the lone 1-star ranking above.  It had such a great title, and such a quirky premise, and I SO wanted to like it.  But I cannot think of a single redeeming thing about it.  (Normally I wouldn't bother finishing a book like that -- hence my relative lack of low-ranked books -- but I kept hoping it would get better, and eventually I was far enough in where I wanted to see how it would end even though I knew there was no hope that I'd come to like it.)

Having just tallied up all of these stats, I'm shocked to see just how many books I read on the Kindle.  I knew that I was reading more because of it; I just didn't realize how much more!  I really do attribute my huge jump in reading (last year I read 41 books, but didn't even hit 10,000 pages) to the Kindle: I have it in my bag all the time, whereas I don't always have room for print books. And even when I do have room to carry a book, it takes more effort to remember to grab the one I'm reading, for some reason.  I used to flip through magazines on my lunch break at work; now instead I always have a book on hand.  Clearly it's paying off!

I'm quite pleased, too, to see my fiction/nonfiction numbers closer together this year.  I do love my nonfiction, but in recent years I've really been ignoring novels, and I guess I must have missed them.  I still blame Anita Shreve for turning me off them for some time.  Stupid A Wedding in December.  

My goal for the year was 52 books -- a book a week -- and I did it!  I had a few little slumps where I didn't read much of anything, but made up for it with several binges, like my Ian McEwan mini-marathon of several weeks ago, not to mention all the books I managed to read while on vacation.  Part of me wanted to set a higher goal for 2013, but the other part kept admonishing that first part to keep it reasonable. So 52 it is, once again.

One change coming up in my life this year: a commute, which is something I've never really had before!  So I may need to enter the world of audiobooks.  We'll see.  I've never been a huge fan of them, but I'll have an hour and a half in the car each day now.  NPR may not be enough amusement!

In which an entire month just disappears before our very eyes

December really got away from me this year.  For the last few months, I've been involved with a committee for our library consortium -- we've been researching a potential new vendor for our integrated library system software.  December was crunch-time -- we had to read literally thousands of pages of system proposals from various vendors, and had bunches of meetings culminating in an intense two-day meeting the week before Christmas where we decided on our top two choices.  And in the midst of all of that, I interviewed for, was offered, and accepted a new job (!).  My last day at my now-former job was December 21, and so in the midst of all that committee work, I was also trying to wrap things up at my job and get things in order for my eventual replacement.  WAY too much going on.

So, yeah, December basically disappeared in the blink of an eye.  I swear, one day I was thinking "Christmas is more than a month away..." and then all of a sudden it was December 22 and most of the things I'd hoped to do in the lead-up to Christmas just hadn't happened.  We did get our tree and some other decorations up mid-month, and Santa arrived on time, and we managed to watch The Grinch and A Charlie Brown Christmas, so the important things were in place.  

As a result, this year I am fully embracing the Twelve Days of Christmas idea.  I am still in Christmas mode until January 6 (and I start my new job on January 7, so the timing is excellent).  Today Ian and I did a couple of the little projects I'd hoped to do before Christmas.  Tomorrow we'll bake some cookies before ringing in the new year.  I still plan to do handprint ornaments with him at some point.  I bought more eggnog at the grocery store today.  And I'll be posting some more about Christmas in the next few days (assuming I keep myself motivated) -- so those of you for whom the holiday is OVER on December 26, consider yourselves warned!

Decoupage Everything

As suggested in my book review in my last post, I am currently obsessed with decoupage.  I can't remember the last time I did this, but after I read through Mod Podge Rocks! I really did run right out to Michaels to buy some Mod Podge and assorted other supplies that I didn't already have on hand.  (I often threaten to do things like that, but I usually don't actually do it.)  I already wrote about my first project; I did a couple of other little things after that, plus I helped with a BIG project that I'll write about someday after I get some pictures.  Then I decided that I really needed some fun autumn decor.  My inspiration was a project in Mod Podge Rocks!, but it had a Halloween theme and I decided to just go for something generically autumnal.

Here are my materials: an ugly, cheapo foam pumpkin from the dollar spot at Target; Mod Podge (satin formula and glitter formula -- not pictured here); glitter paint (which I ended up not using, in the end -- see below); a foam brush; scissors and an x-acto knife; the Mod Podge squeegie thingie; and a discarded library book (the Federalist Papers, if you must know (and if you're like me, you must)).

I started out by removing some pages from the book and cutting them into roughly 2-by-2-inch squares 

Then came the decoupaging.  I used the Mod Podge a bit too liberally -- next time I'll wipe off more of the excess.  Live and learn.  I did this in two phases -- I did the top half, let it dry, and then did the bottom half.

And this is where I stopped taking progress pictures.  Oops.  :-)  After everything was dry, I went to add glitter to the stem.  I had bought glitter paint for this, expecting that it would be like regular acrylic paint with some glitter in it.  Instead, though, it was more like a tinted glaze with glitter, rather than being opaque, so it didn't cover the ugly green of the stem.  So instead, I coated the stem with mod podge and then gave it a good layer of regular old glitter.  (In retrospect, I should have gone with brown glitter rather than rust, but, well, too late now.)  Last, I gave the whole pumpkin a coat of glitter Mod Podge, and for good measure I gave the top half a little hit with the glitter paint.  (You can kind of see in the picture below how the top part has a bit of an orange sheen to it; it's pretty subtle in real life too.) 

The pumpkin, along with some glittered votive holders (another decoupage project!), became our Thanksgiving centerpiece.  It's nearly impossible to get a good picture of it, but with candlelight it had just the right amound of subtle shimmer.

(The votive holders were super-easy: coat clear glass votive holder with Mod Podge, coat with glitter and shake off excess, let dry. I plan to do some in red for Christmas.)

I had some other decoupage-y ideas for Thanksgiving (involving handprints and turkeys and baby food jars) but I ran out of time to make them happen.  So, we move onto Christmas: a holiday that was made for glitter.  I can't wait!

BOOK REVIEW: Craft Roundup

I've gotten a bunch of new craft books for the library in recent weeks and have really been enjoying flipping through them.  I swear, if I spent as much time crafting as I do reading about crafting, I would get SO MANY projects done!  

Mod Podge Rocks!: Decoupage Your World by Amy Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After reading this book, I want to decoupage everything in sight (confession: I did indeed run out and buy several different kinds of Mod Podge and started working toward that goal!).

Where Mod Podge Rocks! really shines is in its description of basic decoupage techniques and, especially, the explanations of the different formulas of Mod Podge -- I'm sure I'm not the only person who didn't know there were so many kinds, or that you could decoupage on, and with, so many different types of materials.

There are more than forty projects in the book, divided into three categories: home decor, jewelry and other wearables, and holiday projects. The holiday section was what appealed to me the most: there's something about seasonal decor that just always makes me want to haul out the glue gun and other craft supplies. There is a Christmas-themed glass block project that I really want to make, and an adorable Halloween countdown calendar that would be easily adaptable for use as an Advent calendar. The biggest surprise? A decoupaged bike helmet. It would never have occurred to me, not in a million years, to do this, but I hate my boring black bike helmet (I have a mens'-sized head, though, so there aren't cute helmets that fit me!) and I am really going to have to try this.

Some of the projects themselves as presented in the book are not to my taste, but the ideas are solid and there is a lot of crafty inspiration to be found in these pages.

Will I decoupage my world after reading through this book? You bet. Watch out, animals and small children.

Shrink! Shrank! Shrunk!: Make Stylish Shrink Plastic Jewelry by Kathy Sheldon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I was a child, I had two favorite crafts: those "stained glass" suncatchers that one makes by filling a frame with small plastic pieces and then baking, and Shrinky Dinks. With both, there was just something so cool about the transformation of plain old plastic into something shiny and pretty.

I'm an adult now, and I am STILL fascinated by Shrinky Dinks, so I was delighted when this book crossed my path. I honestly had no idea that one could buy shrink plastic outside of the little kits we had as kids (nor did it occur to me that one could use #6 plastics from the recycling bin!), and the very idea of inkjet-printable shrink plastic makes me positively giddy with excitement.

Shrink! Shrank! Shrunk! (one of my favorite book titles in a long time, incidentally) contains more than thirty designs for shrink plastic jewelry projects, plus an extensive section detailing needed materials and instructions. The projects run the gamut from cute and whimsical to simply elegant (I am particularly fond of the circular pendant in the large picture on the front cover), so there's something for everyone. There are a number of templates in the back of the book that can be traced or scanned (for inkjet printing) but the designs and instructions are such that one could easily substitute their own patterns and inspirations. The patterns are all for jewelry, but with the upcoming holidays I have Christmas decor on my mind, and I am envisioning some festive ornaments for our tree...

To my mind, this book is the perfect marriage of childhood nostalgia and adult design taste (not that there aren't things in the book that would be very appealing to kids!), and I am really looking forward to shrinking some plastic in the very near future!

View all my reviews