TBR

Whoa, December already? 
Let's not talk about the gap in posts, let's get right into the swing of things. As I was reading one of the many blogs I subscribe to (and constantly question where they get the time to constantly blog as well as wondering how they get so many subscribers, seeing as how i have possibly a negative number at this point, ha) I read about the TBD double dare. It lasts from January 1 to April 1, i think? Basically just a New Year's resolution ("I WILL read more books this year") but I'm going to do it. I have about 60 - 70 books at home silently begging to be read. So it's happening. Everything from the medicinal uses of leeches to the rise of American film to Irish folk stories to Nero Wolfe mysteries. And it's all going to be read. Well, most of it will be read. Well, a lot of it. Well....some of it. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love to read. There just aren't enough hours in the day. ::sigh::


W

New work!

Today is a cruddy rainy day. I have the day off. I was able to sleep in (and I definitely needed it, because I'm getting over a cold and I've been keeping myself up all night coughing) and generally just bummed around. It feels good.

 

I figure I'd finally post these three new beauties. I've been holding onto them for a bit and have just gotten around to taking their pictures. I have Common Foxglove (for those of you who remember that 'Eve' episode of The X-files, two of the Eve clones poison their father with this. I remember learning that Foxglove is also known as digitalis. It's definitely one of my earlier tv memories.)

I also have Hippeastrum. It's greek for Horseman's star, or knight's star. It's commonly known as the Amaryllis, but that seems to be a misnomer. If you buy an Amaryllis around Christmastime, chances are you've got yourself a Hippeastrum. No matter, it's a beautiful flower. Oh yeah, it's also poisonous. Well, the bulb is. 

And then I have Hellebore. I think I base most of my life off of television, because when I think of Hellebore, I think of an episode of Bones, The Devil in the Details. You know, the Christmas rose? It's also known as black hellebore. This one is also, you guessed it, poisonous!

I like poisonous things. I enjoyed making these. I got to experiment with different colors schemes and I think they all turned out really awesome.

W

Education never ends, Watson.

So I've been saying forever that I'm going to post pictures of things that I'm working on, and I'm not going to disappoint today. Please ignore how bad the pictures are, it's a crummy day outside and my kitchen is filled with smoke.

My driving rabbit and nautilus. You can see my two embroidery hoops, a 7 inch and a 4 inch. The 4 inch hoop is so tiny but I find it really easy to use.

Here is a close-up of my driving rabbit. I love his little paws.

And a close-up of the nautilus. He proved to be more difficult as I lost my reference drawing for a few days. I ended up filling in an entire section of his shell in black and when I found my sketch I had to undo it all. I haven't decided what to do next or what colors to use. I also have yet to read the book I wanted to read, but I guess that's acceptable, considering the debacle with the turkey today. Plus I finished a puzzle. A Norman Rockwell dual cover puzzle, no less. Having Wednesdays off is awesome.

W

boom boom boom...muffins

It's not that I'm crazy, so much, as it is that this quote is just too catchy, and I have it stuck in my head constantly. I haven't even watched that episode in weeks. I guess Shawn really would make catchy commercial jingles. So, job well done.
I've determined that most people have the ability to keep up a regular pace when blogging. I can't say the same. I finished reading a book this week, and I've started another. So at least I'm not completely slacking!  I finally finished reading Sarah Vowell's Unfamiliar Fishes. I love her books. I found out about her through my printmaking professor, who remarked once (after a particularly snarky comment by me) that I reminded him of her. We (and by we, I mean, my entire printmaking class) listened to an excerpt of her on NPR's This American Life. It was amazing. There I was, laughing OUT LOUD in class while she lamented over marching band. Meanwhile everyone else tried hard not to listen. They smirked at some parts, but mostly just didn't find it funny. Weirdos.

So I decided to learn more about her work. I've read Assassination Vacation and The Wordy Shipmates (thank you, public library!). During one of my staggeringly numerous trips to Borders in the past few weeks, I saw this one.

Here, a picture for you.
And it was a total 'yep'. It was interesting and informative and I laughed out loud way too much. I kept trying to explain the funny parts to my mom, who wasn't there, and you just had to be there, I guess. Whatever, it was good. She's definitely got a life-long reader in me.

My next challenge will be Great Sea Stories, which I could not find a picture of (at least, not the copy I have) but it is proving to be a good read. I still have several thousand squares to crochet, and I have yet to figure out what to do with my embroidery. I finished the rabbit and the nautilus, and am now going to venture into using color (with disastrous results, no doubt), but what do I do with them? Of course, once I can, I'll post a picture of them. They're cool.

adventures in embroidery

So, I've been feeling like my creativity is... well, stifled isn't exactly the right word. I feel like I've put my creativity in a box because I'm too busy to find a place for it, and the box is slowly making its way up the stairs and is almost in the attic, where it will no doubt come to rest and begin collecting dust. I've been working on some embroidery for a while and I think I'm going to finish it or come very close to finishing it tonight. I also have a lot of yarn and need to crochet a few more squares for a quilt. I'm not going to make the quilt, I'm just making the squares. My mom works with a girl who is going to crochet them together, so I'm going to be helping out the homeless, rediscover some creativity (or at least, some artistic motivation) and get rid of my extra yarn. I'm killing three birds with one stone. So that's good.

North Avenue Irregulars/The Picture of Dorian Gray

I watched two amazing movies in the past week. Do you love screwball Disney comedies? Cause I know I do!
      North Avenue Irregulars (1979) is one of the best movies pretty much of all time. To keep it short and sweet, a new minister in town enlists 6 churchwomen and one reluctant male churchgoer to help fight their town's gambling problem. Yeah, it's as crazy as it sounds! This movie is about as campy as it gets, including a 60's-ish band called Strawberry Shortcake and hi-jinks that lead to an off road derby type car crashing spectacular. It's the best thing ever. Ever. EVER.
       It's so the best movie ever, because it has Edward Herrmann (pastor Michael Hill) in it. And he's so young! Cloris Leachman (Claire) is also in it, and she's pretty much as hilarious as ever. Look out for Carmel, the pastor's daughter - it's Melora Harden!! She's got to be, like, 9!
       Clearly I have some free time.

I also watched "Picture of Dorian Gray" with Hurd Hatfield, Donna Reed, and ANGELA LANSBURY. It's so beautiful, Hurd Hatfield plays Dorian Gray so well that you'd never know he wasn't like that in real life. The role really type-cast him forever, which is unfortunate, but the other surprising thing is he's not British.  He's from NYC. Never would have guessed that. I guess that's awesome acting for you. The other fabulous thing about this movie is that it has a commentary by a film historian, who gives you great tidbits about the movie, filming, and the actors, but also, ANGELA LANSBURY is on the commentary.  I loves it.

Peter and the Wolf

Remember that Walt Disney special where Sterling Holloway narrated Peter and the Wolf? No? Just me then? Ok well, it's pretty much the most amazing thing to happen involving Prokofiev EVER. If you haven't seen it, you should. If you haven't heard Peter and the Wolf, might I suggest listening to Claudio Addabo's version (narrated by Sting)? There are two parts (out of three) on Youtube and I'm kinda perturbed the third is nowhere to be seen, as I got nearly 15 minutes in and then realized I was very soon going to be angry....because I couldn't listen to the end... NEVER FEAR! I have interlibrary-loaned it.
           Interlibrary loan? What's that? If you were one of the people who got their MLIS degree online, you might not know what interlibrary loan is (and clearly I'm not saying this to the general MLIS online degree'd public,  but one person - and you know who you are). To clarify, let's imagine your library doesn't have an item you want. Your library may be part of a larger library system (like my county's M.A.I.N. library catalog) and can request that item from another library in its system. Colleges and universities use the same type of system, but they can request from all over the freaking place. Btw, I've decided that interlibrary loan is now a verb. You may have been saying it for years, and to that I say Woot! but now I've stated it, it's on the internet(s, kara) and it's real now.
         Also, apropos of libraries, Wil Wheaton just wrote the most super-amazing thing about librarians ever and it seriously warmed my heart. I'm not a *real* librarian with a degree and all, but I work in a library and I do catalog and reference and all other types of librarian related things... and I'm glad to have him on our side. Plus, he just got cooler, if that was possible. 

Wendi

The cataloging fiend

is what I have become. I learned how to catalog DVDs on Friday and have so far cataloged 50, which I think is pretty good. It takes me about an hour to completely catalog 8 books, but DVDs take longer, I think. DVDs are a lot tougher, too because they have so many more steps (well, it feels like they do). Finding the Dewey numbers sometimes takes forever! I have about 50 more DVDs sitting on my desk, ready to be cataloged, and I will tackle them tomorrow - unless we have a snow day...again. I'm still that kid who gets excited about snow days, but really, all I'm thinking about now is that I'm the dork thinking about all the work I need to do and how a stupid snow day would totally throw off my plan of finishing the DVD cataloging tomorrow.
        
        Cataloging a DVD is very boring, would you like me to tell you? Ok non-existent people reading my blog, here it is. First you have to find the call number. Easier said than done. Some you find on OCLC (Online Computer Library Catalog (or Center, depends on who you ask)), or on the internets somewhere, or compare it to your catalog, or create it using the DDS (Dewey Decimal System, for those of you not in the know). Then you find the MARC record on OCLC (basically, the universal book/media record for that item). Some DVDs have ISBNs that you can search and find a record. Some don't. Those that don't - and even some that do - must then be searched by title, year, material blah blah blah. Oh wait, sometimes you get hundreds of search results, too. Then you scream and your head spins around, and when it comes back around to the front and your eyes focus, you see the correct choice and click it... or you search for a while, give up and ask Maryanne for help (that's usually what I end up doing, she's so good at this stuff!)
         Ok, so you've found your MARC record. You put in the call number and take out several fields of junk and useless information. You click some buttons to make it official, create a card (::sigh::, yes, my library still prints cards for the card catalog that sits in our office and does nothing except look cool)... You print your labels (one for the side, one for...the same side, because in our library DVD labels both face out), making sure to add DVD before the call number. You label the disc TML (for Taylor Memorial Library, where I work....duh) and you put a TML sticker on the back of the case and a copyright infringement sticker on the front. You put a barcode on the back (which is actually really fun, love those barcodes) and then you import all the records into Workflows. We use a version of Workflows that came out around the same time that fire started becoming popular, but it's what we have and it's gray, so I like it.
        Add the labels to the DVD case, putting plastic protective stickers over the labels. Import the records into Workflows and add the barcode and put DVD in front of the call number....again. Make a list of each DVD you catalog, including title, year, time, and call number to give to Carol. Then, line up all the DVDs you've just cataloged and pat yourself on the back. That was hard work. You deserve an ice cream cone. Get me one too, while you're at it.

Wendi

Well, it's been a while. What can I say? I've been busy (and maybe a little bit lazy). I've been thinking a lot on which direction I should take this blog. If I'm my cranky, sarcastic self, people are going to start thinking that all I am is a Debbie Downer (and we all know that's only 80-90% true). But I don't want to be all life-affirming and inspirational either. Cause, you know, ick. Nobody reads this anyway, so I'm not all that concerned. Also, I can't exactly complain (or brag, for that matter) TOO much about work or anything because people don't really like that. So what good is this blog, anyway? To recap, I can't be too happy or too sad, I can't complain, and I can't brag.

I got a new laptop over the holidays and I have to say, it's pretty much amazing. I find I carry it around and keep it on so that when I see something I want to know more about, I just search it. I told my mom that, like any little kid, at some point I'll lose interest in it because I'm a kid and it's basically a toy. She looked over at my dad, who was still playing with the police scanner he bought two weeks ago and said, "yeah, exactly when does that happen?" We're all looking forward to the day when we don't have to strain to hear the tv over the sound of the scanner. Although, it's sort of like listening to an old-time radio show. Last night we listened to a riveting 'program', if you will, regarding a robbery, IN MY TOWN, at a bank next to the Taco Bell at the same time my mother was at Taco Bell getting dinner. And she didn't see anything. I don't know if the guy got away. That's the problem with the police scanner. It always ends on a cliff-hanger.