Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

We did it! ChicagoBoy and I did our first 5K together this weekend with his sister. Neither of us are runners--ChicagoBoy is an open water swimmer and way more athletic than I am--so our goal was just to finish in under our time goals. My goal was 55 minutes. I finished in 54.50!! And ChicagoBoy's goal was 30 minutes. He finished in 27-something. WE. DID. IT.  These are the outfits I cooked up for our Turkey Trot (pun intended). Turkey feet and turkey faces, and turkey feathers too. ChicagoBoy was such a good sport for wearing these. I love this guy. 

Let's not pretend we're celebrating some wonderful shared meal between new-found friends. Let's just focus on the fact that we have a holiday rooted in us feeling grateful (and overeating)and just be thankful for everyone and everything that has made this year better. And don't mention the election, please God, just don't. This year I'm thankful for my youngest nephew, Alex, talking in sentences; that I've been an aunt for 12 years! I'm thankful for this beautiful, long fall, and for the cold late November nights too. I'm thankful for my family and my friends, especially L, who died and came back to us this spring. I am thankful for ChicagoBoy, who makes me feel so loved, and who made my Grinch heart grow 3 times this year. I'm thankful for each breath and every step, and for the sunrises and sunsets. Thankful for a job I love. I am so blessed. I hope you all count many blessings this day too. Happiest of happy Thanksgivings.

I am so glad to have today off. I worked a couple hours on Sunday, a 13 hour day Monday--covering vacations and with an extra long Board meeting tacked on to the end of my day--and worked a 12 hour day on Tuesday. I own you, Wednesday!  Doing grownup stuff this morning:  Oil change Buying some last minute groceries to take to ChicagoBoy's Packing the car Then I am heading out to ChicagoBoy's later this morning, so I can hopefully beat the traffic, and start roasting the pumpkins for my pies. I just had a super domesticated fantasy-moment where I imagined him coming home, opening the door, smelling the deliciousness of roasting pumpkin, and smiling with satisfaction that he's nabbed such a resourceful woman. NO WAY! I mean that's great too, but I love that this boy loves my brains AND my cooking.  Can't wait to see my sweetheart. It's been 2 weeks and that is too long these days! How did we used to only see each other once every month - 6 weeks. Y...

I'm at my brother A3's house with Mom, A1 and her family, A2's family sans A2 who's working, A3's family, and a couple of my sis-in-law Dayna's family for Thanksgiving. Feeling extremely grateful for many blessings this year: Bestie K's baby born on my birthday, Chris & Kate's baby born yesterday, for the many babies to be born in 2014, good friends, good family, a great job, and so many other things!  I am wishing you all a very wonderful Thanksgiving! I hope you find yourself surrounded by good friends, family, and a sense of gratitude for the many wonderful things in your life!

Anyone who's worked with me long enough has heard my bitter diatribe about how there are no GOOD Thanksgiving picture books to read with the K-2 grade crowd...yeah, there are a bunch out there, but for a variety of reasons--too long, too hokey, too boring--there are few that I actually enjoy sharing with the kids, and my philosophy is if I don't enjoy them the kids won't either, because I won't be putting my full gusto into the reading! So, getting down from my Thanksgiving book soap box, I'll share those books and be THANKFUL that they're out there! The first is obviously silly and geared toward the eating aspect, but the other two share a little more about the Indians and Pilgrims side of things--the best of both worlds! Based on I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly , Alison Jackson The kids LOVE this book. The rhymes are silly, but the pictures are downright RIDICULOUS! I laughed out loud at the picture of the kids bouncing on the old lady like a t...

At work we're preparing for our 2nd Annual Silent Auction, where local businesses and individuals donate items to the Library, which we then auction off to the highest bidder, with the funds going toward Sticks Library programs in 2014. Last year we raised over $1,300, so this years goal is $1,500 as I've hit up more businesses than last year! Wish us luck!! We're also working with Sticks College to fundraise clothing items for local families in need, in lieu of fines, we're taking said items. I know a lot of libraries do food for fines at this time of year, but our local food pantry gets so many donations at this time of year, we hit them during their drier spells, spring and fall, hence why we do a clothing drive. Busy time for libraries is definitely during summer reading, and for us at Sticks, things are slowing down with programming--aside from the normal monthly activities like storytimes and school visits, etc., we only really have a visit from Santa and ...

I'm thankful for friends and family who've seen me through a lot and helped let me become who I am. I'm thankful for my 5 little monkeys--nieces and nephews who've taught me so much about love and patience. I'm thankful for all of the babies that have arrived to friends this year, and for the babies to come this winter, especially A3 and Dayna's 2nd, my 6th niece or nephew! I'm thankful for an awesome job where I have free reign, a loving and encouraging Board, and staff who can run the place with their eyes closed. I'm thankful for Prairie Dawn's hard work and enthusiasm with the kiddos of Sticks. I'm thankful for my furball, Hemmy. And on a capitalist note, I'm thankful for these rocking boots, which I will be wearing when I see the Chicago Boy soon! I didn't know how else to share my excitement in a blog! Forgive me!

Hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving! Mummy Dearest, Big Fish, and Little Fish made it safe and sound, and we shared a delicious meal and time at the playground, and a walk around town. Thought I would share my favorite Thanksgiving quotes and some photos of our dinner: I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land. --Jon Stewart Thanksgiving is a magical time of year when families across the country join together to raise America's obesity statistics. Personally, I love Thanksgiving traditions: watching football, making pumpkin pie, and saying the magic phrase that sends your aunt storming out of the dining room to sit in her car. --Stephen Colbert   I don't do cranberry sauce, it came from a can... Homemade mashed taters with garlic butter, baked ham. Sourdough and ham. Homemade stuffing--so good, so full of butter! ...

GOOD NEWS!!! Upon checking my email this morning I got the word that Mummy Dearest and her kiddos Big Fish and Little Fish will be coming to Sticks for THANKSGIVING!! Sadly Hubby (Mummy Dearest's husband) won't be able to make it for Thanksgiving, but fortunately, I will be heading down south to see them for my birthday in October, so I will get to see the whole family then!  Hope it's not weird if I answer the door in this! I am so excited to hang out with my bestie, Mummy Dearest, and see her kiddos; can't wait to show them around Sticks and my new library! Because of my move last year and us missing each other on our visits to New England this year, it will be nearly a year since we've seen each other by the time I get to them in North Carolina!

I will now take this opportunity to answer the questions I've been asked about the Farm's ENORMOUS Thanksgiving feast (previously mentioned in this blog.) The final number was somewhere around 160 people. Everyone fit in the Farm's dining room and the room connected to it. We DIDN'T wind up spilling into the living room, which was a damn miracle. :) Yes, we did have leftovers. In the days since Thanksgiving, on the menu: turkey noodle soup, turkey pot pie and turkey chili. I am not a turkey fan, so the days following Thanksgiving are torture. What was the secret to my stuffing?!--I've gotten this question about a dozen times. Answer is BUTTER!! Butter makes everything better. If we slathered butter on the world's problems, then things would just seem so much better! No? The recipe I used is Mark Bittman's How to cook Everything . The recipe is below: Mark Bittman's Favorite Bread Stuffing: 1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter 1 cup chopped onion 1/2 cup ...

16 turkeys cooked, soon to be carved 50 pounds of potatoes, mashed 50 pounds of Farm butternut squash, pureed and seasoned 40 pounds of Farm Brussels sprouts over 225 cups of home-made bread stuffing with sage and veggies rivers of gravy a heaping helping of lentils (for the vegetarians) 300 dinner rolls, heaping plates of butter huge side salad a mound of Farm cheddar, surrounded by grapes and clementines Farm cider and water coffee and tea and 36 pies and tarts This is how we try and feed over 160 people. Remember last week when I said we had a count of 96? Yep, not anymore. Holy cats! Where are we going to put all these people!? The Kitchen team's harvest report--the reports which each team presents on Thanksgiving, giving all of our visitors an idea of what each team does/"harvest"-- is nearly done. All is well. Now off to bed, in need of some pre-Turkey Day zzzs. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

" Each day offers us the gift of being a special occasion if we can simply learn that as well as giving, it is blessed to receive with grace and a grateful heart." ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach I am grateful this morning. Grateful for the day off (having worked Saturday this weekend). Grateful to be clean and warm and laying on a soft bed. Grateful for Edith Piaf softly crooning and the cat napping next to me. Grateful for the gloomy, slightly drizzly day, so I can lay in bed and read and not feel like I am wasting a gorgeous fall day. Grateful for my family and friends. Grateful for a job where I have input and can feel like I am making a difference. Grateful. Just grateful.  Today is one of those mornings where nearly everything I look at causes me to be thankful. I glance at my cork board and see the photos of my family; now inspired to a sense of gratitude for my beautiful nieces and nephews, my loving siblings and parents, my friends. I am thankful and excited for a wed...

I love the fall. And I love the way our old Farm house seems to change in the fall. With the cooler weather comes wonderful things like sweaters and sweatshirts; a huge stack of wood on our back porch, meaning more fires at our house; raked up piles of leaves and the smell of burning dead foliage; the look of the mountains around, as they've shed their spring/summer skins for the sleepy looking, muted hues of grays and musty browns. I love the northeast winds that blow at the house and rattle it a little in the night's darkest moments, occasionally stirring me from sleep, reassuring me that I am safe and warm inside. I even like Daylight Savings, which seems to layer upon us all a sense of tiredness. Tiredness because it is darker earlier; tiredness because it is getting cooler outside; tiredness from the work I see in the Kitchen's near future when we will produce a huge, spectacular meal. The Thanksgiving count for the Farm, as of 11am this morning, was 95 peopl...

I am hibernating, or at least that's what I feel like when I wake up in the morning and rumble and roll out of bed, freaking out the cat in the process. I paw at my hair to get it to stay under my work hat; paw at my face as I wash it, splashing cold water everywhere; fumble with my toothbrush. Mornings are rough these days. It is like our bodies know that the days of light are getting shorter and shorter,  and are working against our rise-and-shine-urges. I am sure that the cold outside vs. the warmth under layers of blankets might have something to do with it too. Dragging myself out of bed and begrudgingly going to work this morning made me think that the day was going to all be for crap. But, it turned out to be this really good, good day which ends now with me laying before a fire thankful for so many things. After TSO's and my unsuccessful search yesterday I felt like going out during lunch today and searching for the perfect tree. I drove all around the Farm, staring h...

People always ask how much food/what kind of food we make, so here are the Farm's Thanksgiving stats: 12 turkeys, which equaled roughly 108 pounds of meat 176 dinner rolls (made by our baking/pastry program) 50 lbs mashed potatoes 40 lbs Farm Brussels sprouts 40 lbs Farm squash (butternut) 224 cups (I estimate this wound up being about 40/50 lbs) of stuffing **this is what I made for the meal** 2 gravies: 1 turkey, one vegetarian (mushroom) 12+ lbs of white bean stew Quinoa with walnuts and raisins Cranberry sauce 6 + lbs of Farm applesauce Gallons and gallons of Farm apple cider Water, coffee and tea 40 pies/tarts: 9 Blueberry Pies, 9 Pumpkin Pies, 9 Chocolate Pies, 9 Lemon Curd Tarts and 4 Cranberry Tarts (made by our baking/pastry program) About 2 dozen pairs of hands went into making the meal; 6 people carved turkeys Thanksgiving morning; 134 people enjoyed the Thanksgiving meal. It was a busy day which began at 6:30 for me, opening the Kitchen, and which di...

Holy cats! 2009 is the year for anniversaries and 40 is the number : Sesame Street Monty Python the Internet Abbey Road, The Beatles Woodstock Walking on the Moon -Apollo 11 on the Moon This year is also the 40th Anniversary of when the Norman Rockwell Museum opened, and that is a good segue into where I found myself yesterday; hanging out with TSO's family. TSO's Mom, Dad and two sisters A & A were here for the weekend, staying with us at the Farm. Thanks to the Museum pass program-- library shout out !--TSO's family of 5 and I were able to get into the Norman Rockwell Museum for free. I was ambiguous as to whether or not I wanted to go the museum, as I have been many times, but wound up going because TSO forgot the free tickets on the coffee table. As always, I was pleased with the quiet solitude I can find for myself in a museum, and also found the new exhibit to be of some interest ("Behind the Camera," an exhibit documenting Rockwell's use of pho...