A lot going on

My apologies for not posting in so long. I’ve had a lot going on, as you will see.

The new job is going well. It’s fun and exciting that I finally get to do all the cool librarian things that I never got to do as a sub. I’m buying new books, creating displays and brochures, and working at the reference desk (nothing new there). Soon, I’ll be helping with the web site and teaching computer classes. Plus lots of other odds and ends. Everyone in the library is getting new computers this week. Mine was set up on Tuesday. It’s pretty snazzy, with a bluetooth mouse and keyboard and a HUGE monitor!! It’s way cool. I’ve also been decorating and personalizing my office. It’s so cool that I HAVE an office! I share it with another librarian, but it is a room with a door and a lock and everything, not just a cubicle. Very exciting!

The new schedule is tiring right now. I work 32 hours a week, which ends up translating to two four-hour days and three eight-hour days. The eight-hour days will take some getting used to. But it’s going to be so nice to have a regular two-day weekend. It’s a Friday-Saturday weekend, but a weekend nonetheless.

The other big thing going on is that I’ve started dating a wonderful guy, the fellow photographer who I was hiking with during late summer and fall. After our final hike in October, we started going out. The timing was great since I was starting to get REALLY disillusioned with the online dating thing. I had it pretty streamlined. I created RSS feeds of the searches I did on Craiglist, so all I had to do was log into Google Reader and read the ads that were fed to me there. The ones I liked I e-mailed to myself, then I replied to the poster with a pre-written response (everybody got the same response). Despite the streamlining, it was still very exhausting and disheartening and going nowhere fast. I’ve been glad to abandon it this month.

Anyway, Greg and I have a lot in common and he’s incredibly sweet and romantic. He sometimes talks to me in fluent French (I have no clue what he’s saying, but who cares, it’s French!), he plays the piano for me (he’s very good!), he’s a cat-lover, he gives awesome massages, and he even brought me a peach-colored rose (remember, I’m “just peachy”!) when I wasn’t feeling well last week. It’s going really well and I’m very happy.

All this plus the wedding and the Thanksgiving holiday has made this a pretty interesting month! I hardly know where the time has gone!

Exhausted

I got back from Phoenix yesterday, where one of my dearest friends got married on Sunday. Being the maid of honor, I flew down on Wednesday to help with stuff, which I was more than happy to do. Fortunately, we didn’t have to run around with our heads cut off, since most things had been taken care of. Nevertheless, I felt groggy nearly the entire time. Phoenix is in the desert, and it is very dry there. Plus, they were having a November heat wave. It was above 90 on Wednesday and Thursday. My body kind of went into shock, coming from cool damp Portland.

Anyway, everything went wonderfully and it was a beautiful ceremony and a fun reception. I ate so much I nearly burst out of my dress, and I danced so hard I was sore the next day. And now begins the recovery! Fortunately, I have pretty mellow days today and tomorrow before I start my new job on Thursday!

“I love lamp”

I went to the new Ikea today for the first time. It opened months ago, but I know from past experience that Ikea is a very dangerous place for me. I go in to buy a shower curtain and come home with a trunk full of stuff I don’t need. That’s what happened when I lived in Vancouver. There were TWO Ikeas there, and I went to the nearest one about four separate times the first few months after I moved there, plus many more times over the course of my two years in Vancouver. I spent, jeez, like hundreds and hundreds of dollars. And now, I can only bring to mind about a dozen of the many different things I bought there.

So I know I have an Ikea addiction, which is why I haven’t been there yet. But I did need a shower curtain, and I wanted to see the new store, so I went today. God, I love that store! Walking through the showroom is like walking through my dream house. My apartment is great, as apartments go. But I can’t wait to own a house someday, and I want to decorate it all cozy and homey like the Ikea showroom models. Oh, that’d be nice.

I managed to leave with less than $60 worth of stuff, most of which I didn’t technically need. I got my shower curtain, plus a picture frame, a candle snuffer (I’ve always wanted a candle snuffer!), a set of pillar candles in various sizes, a lamp, and a lovely purple throw blanket. These last two are problems for me. I appear to have a blanket addiction. I always want to buy blankets. I have a closet full of blankets, most of which don’t get much use except during the coldest days of the year, or when company stays over. You’d think I live in Alaksa or something! But no, for all our rain and gray in the wintertime, it’s comparatively mild here. So I have no idea why I love blankets so much.

I also don’t know why I love buying lamps so much. Well, that’s not true. I think it’s because I really like light. The long sunny days of summer are when I’m happiest, and the short dark days of winter are hard on me. I’m great at running up the electric bill by having a ton of lights on when I’m home in the winter. The problem is that I love buying lamps, but I don’t need any more than I already have. There are only so many place to put lamps, only so many outlets, only so much need for extra light. But Ikea has SUCH cool lamps! I want to buy them all! The one I got today is a tabletop lamp. Do you think I have any tabletop space in this apartment for another lamp? Nope. Something else will have to go, because “I love lamp.” (hee hee…a little Brick Tamland quote there)

How to be happy

I have several boxes of unread books in storage. They’re mostly books I bought back in 2003 when I had a job that gave me a significant discount on books. Then I went off to library school and didn’t have time for reading anymore. Then I started working in libraries and found all sorts of new books to read, and forgot about all the “old” ones I still hadn’t read.

Well this week I pawed through those boxes to see what was in there. Lots of good books that I want to read! But I also discovered something a little sobering: all my “how to be happy” books. The period of time between college and library school was an extremely unhappy time for me. I was depressed, living with my parents, missing my friends, having no social life, and not particularly liking my job. I tried to fix it with these books, a fact which now just makes me shake my head. A sample:

• 14,000 Things to be Happy About
• Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…And it’s all Small Stuff
• The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People
• Minding the Body, Mending the Mind
• The Power of Positive Thinking
• Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
• Shyness: A Bold New Approach
• How to Start a Conversation and Make Friends
• A Big New Free Happy Unusual Life

I can’t tell you how good it feels to not need or want these books anymore. I’m in such a better place in my life right now, and it’s awesome. I don’t ever want to be that unhappy again.

Big job news!

I finished library school nearly two years ago. I think I turned in my last paper on December 2nd, 2005. I’ve been looking for a permanent job ever since. I’ve been fortunate to acquire enough work as an on-call librarian that I’ve been able to make a living and gain experience, but the quest for the full-time permanent job has continued.

So I am thrilled to announce that after two years of hunting for a job, I finally have one! One of the libraries where I work as a sub is hiring me for a Librarian I position. I’ll be mostly working reference, doing collection development, and teaching computer classes, along with some other duties. I’ll be working 32 hours a week, and I’ll have full benefits. I can go to the eye doctor again!

So there’ll be no more bouncing around to five different libraries, often two in the same day. Of course, it’s a little bittersweet. I’ve met some wonderful people at all these libraries, many of whom I won’t see on a regular basis anymore. The staff at the first library that hired me on-call (way back in February 2006) has been particularly great, and I will miss them tremendously. They have been really supportive and wonderful during the long job search.

I start in two weeks. I will keep you updated!