smalltownlibrarian

little girl gift

Adminstrator — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 22:44:37 +0000

kiki and coco in paris, cutest rag doll I’ve seen ever.

Interesting Quotes

Adminstrator — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:45:38 +0000

Jeff Bezos in Wired article, “We’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details.” Really interesting article all around.

Changes

Adminstrator — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:44:31 +0000

Change is always difficult for me. Even good change. Next week will be my last at the public library. I’ve poured a lot of my time, energy, and passion into things here for the last 5 years. The patrons have been fabulous and things have run pretty smoothly here for this time. But the rest of my life has been taken over by it. Add to that constant friction and criticism from some of the library trustees, and it just stops being worth it.

So, I am moving on. As of the end of next week I am part-time Library Serials Assistant at the Vermont Law School, and part-time Library Assistant at the South Royalton School. I’m still in the library world, still working in the town where I live, both important to me.

To new beginnings.

Sunday Walks

Adminstrator — Fri, 27 May 2011 14:24:14 +0000

I’ve been making a concerted effort this past year to improve my physical fitness. Part of that has been a long walk, about 6 miles, which I’ve been doing most Sundays now that the weather is somewhat reasonable (reasonable being a relative term). Now this doesn’t sound that remarkable in a state that is known for its peoples’ bent toward the outdoors – skiing, snowboarding, hiking, kayaking, etc. What gets me some raised eyebrows is that I take this walk on the road leading down from my house to town, and I just head to church. I’m trying to make my fitness routine just be part of the routine of my regular life. We don’t think anything of “hiking” a mountain trail, but my walking down my lovely back-road hill to church has a lot of my neighbors shaking their heads. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that they stop in their cars or trucks and check to make sure I don’t need a ride. I thank them genuinely and express that I am walking by choice, for pleasure and exercise and not because my car is broken down somewhere. But I also know that they think I’m nuts. So, to try to reassure everyone, and myself, how pleasant this walk actually is, I took some pictures on my way down. One caveat, these are taken using my ipod, which I’m still working to master.

You can’t see them very well, but this is the Sheep Farm just down the road. The lambs this time of year are so cute, you tend to stop your car just to watch them cavort around a little during your ride down in the morning.

Some of the local flora, a Jack in the Pulpit on the side of the road.

Newts in the road. I’d love to know what they think.

Here’s the White River. The last part of the road before I get to the village of South Royalton runs along this river. Gorgeous, eh?

This is the statuary section of Standing Stone Perennial Farm, which is at the bottom of Johnson Hill. It’s an absolutely beautiful place. If you have the chance to stop there, do it. This is their last year in business and the place is just amazing.

And finally, my destination for this fine Sunday. I can’t think of a better way to spend my Sunday morning. A nice long walk in beautiful weather and scenery, followed by time with friends and God singing praises for all my blessings and asking for comfort in the hardships. Physical exercise and spiritual exercise all rolled up together!

Broadband in Vermont

Adminstrator — Mon, 23 May 2011 21:38:54 +0000

I had a lovely lunch and enjoyed some great company Saturday at the Citizen Leadership in a Connected Age Broadband Conference at VTC. The speakers were engaging and the workshops interesting, but I left feeling not much closer to a narrowing of the digital divide on a personal level. The more I hear from the cable people, whether it’s conventional or fiber, the more I think that I’m not going to see broadband at my house anytime soon. Okay so maybe the anchor institutions will get faster service, which isn’t a bad thing. We do want business to come/stay in Vermont. We do want our young people to have a chance for good jobs here, and for our (Vermont’s) economy to thrive; faster broadband is a piece of that. But if you live on the outskirts, I didn’t hear much that was encouraging for getting access to any broadband via cable or fiber. I’m thinking that I might have been better off to go to the mobile web part of the workshops. From the sounds of things my best chance for internet at home is going to come from AT&T or Verizon via cell reception rather than cable or fiber infrastructure. And if enough people are in that boat, I wonder what that means ultimately for cable/fiber. Are we working to shore up an already sinking ship? Are we focusing our efforts on the wrong infrastructure?

New Year’s Resolution

Adminstrator — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 22:59:23 +0000

Find Joy. That’s it. That’s my whole focus this year.

Kudos…

Adminstrator — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 15:43:08 +0000

Along the same lines as my last post, here is an alum of our local high school who is doing amazing things with mushrooms (not the hallucinogenic kind)!

Eben Bayer talking about the product his company makes and why it’s a better option than plastic.

http://www.ted.com/talks/eben_bayer_are_mushrooms_the_new_plastic.html

The concept and the product, so awesomely amazing! Our new addition at our school uses insulation “grown” from this product. It really is just amazing!

Food, Inc.

Adminstrator — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 22:00:11 +0000

Reading Food, Inc., a companion book to the movie. I love this quote from page 48 “…organic isn’t just about food. It’s a much more expansive way of thinking that embraces cyclical, nonlinear resource use, where waste from one activity becomes food for another.” Awesome.

Friday

Adminstrator — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:11:50 +0000

Hello bloggy friends. Here’s a project from Destri at the Mother Huddle that I’d like to do, if I can manage to unearth my sewing table from the pile that has become my life.

I can picture rows of these hanging across the windows on one side of my sewing table.

Since my sewing table is in my bedroom and also serves as my office and the place for my professional records, there is a lot that needs to happen in a pretty small space. Right now all that’s happening is that everything is getting lost in the pile of stuff, so creating some organization in there is a definite priority. It’s even more important as I am adding a part-time position to my work this fall and it requires that I get back to work on my school library/media certification. Buried in that pile of stuff is my portfolio information with what I’ve done so far. Unearth it I must, and write up a transcript review to be sent in and analyzed. Sigh. But these pretty pretty organizers might make the process more fun!

Trying To Start Anew

Adminstrator — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 21:09:23 +0000

So much to do, so much to do. Life is good here in Murphy-ville, but good sometimes still feels crazy. For some reason I feel like writing down some of it will make it less crazy. But since I still live on the wrong side of the digital divide, with no internet at my house, it’s tricky to figure out how to fit in regular posts. But tricky doesn’t mean impossible, and I’m going to try again. I think perhaps writing the posts offline, and then uploading at a wifi spot at first opportunity will be my “fix” for now. We’ll see how it works!