So many changes

But good ones at least. It's hard to know where to start sometimes. Being in school makes me use those brain muscles I'm not used to using so I spend a lot of time thinking about everything. When I made the decision to change careers, I have to admit, I was nervous. As everyone knows, it takes a lot of money to go to school. I wondered, what if the benefits don't outweigh the costs? What if I regret this decision? What if it was a huge mistake to quit my job during a time in our country when it's very hard to find work and the economy is so poor? Of course the answers to these questions still remain to be seen to a certain extent but I can say this: I absolutely LOVE what I'm doing. I am pouring myself into what I'm learning and while I find plenty of things to complain about (which J will attest to), I am still ecstatic about all the knowledge I am soaking up. Teaching is going to be hard. I have no delusions about this. It is grueling, often thankless and not the most lucrative of careers. However I believe that this program is preparing me as much as anything can to be a teacher.

It's odd, I'm actually truly applying myself in school for the first time. I wasn't the great student as a kid all the way through college. I enjoyed some things but mostly I would've rather been on my bike or playing with dogs or just about anything else. I still have problems with motivation when it's 10pm at night and I still have work to do followed by a 6:30am shift at work the next day, but here's the thing: I get it done. I actually DO it. I guess there's hope for me after all.

As for wedding planning, as of tomorrow we are exactly 6 months away from the party of the century! Both J and I are so excited and still enjoying the planning part of it. A couple of big things still to do but we're getting closer to being able to focus on the details. Nothing very exciting to report specifically.

Now for some much needed lounging before heading back to work. TGIF!

A quick update

So it's 5:50am and I have to leave for work in about 15 minutes but I wanted to make the first step at getting back on the blogging bandwagon.

School update:

• The entire program I am in focuses on collaboration and group work. It is quite a mixed bag. It is always a pleasure to work with new and diverse ideas but it is also a challenge in practicing patience.
• I am starting to get nervous at the amount of work I am going to have once I start in the actual Transition to Teaching program. Whoa.

Wedding update:

• Completed tasks include flowers, rehearsal dinner venue, photographer, block of hotel rooms, bridesmaids dresses, flower girl dresses.
• Next task is to decide on our officiant.

Dog update:

• Received this text from J yesterday: "on the bright side, Oscar came in [from outside] looking like he was wearing black socks. except they weren't socks. they were black mud." Awesome.

I'm baaaaaaaaack!

So my amazing fiance (pictured here with me as a fellow zombie hunter for Halloween this year) has started an equally amazing blog and in turn has inspired me to start mine back up (be sure to follow his! It's very entertaining to see what he finds on the interwebs!). I've re-vamped the look and new topics will be forthcoming!

Specific topics include:

• Education (both my own as well as my future career in)
• Wedding planning (that's right, I'm gettin' married!)
• Entirely too ornery (and redonkulously cute) animules
• Good books, music, movies, etc.
• Random observations and thoughts that probably I get more enjoyment out of than any potential readers do but I'll share anyway.

Hopefully I'll get back to regular posting. It's a fantastic way to procrastinate! (which, btw, wedding planning is as well. If you need to avoid something you don't really want to do, plan a wedding. It can easily suck up hours of your day).

Random smatterings of stuff and things

The pattern I created from the logo on the website.

Some recent progress on the design.

Monkey adores Lyra when she's not chasing him.

The next step

I'm going to try my darndest to keep up with this blog because it is a good exercise for me to keep my thoughts in order. So much has happened, which is why I have not posted as frequently as I'd like to be posting.

First off, advocacy update: we will be presenting to the higher-ups some ideas for staffing models in terms of teen services. After gathering a ton of data regarding teens in our county, I am putting together a proposal draft which will then be sent to another committee to be considered.

This is somewhat perfect timing because due to the decreased property tax and local option income taxes, we are in an absolute budget crisis meaning we are now discussing a total re-structuring of our system. It's a massive challenge for us as an organization. There has been lots of talk of challenging the "sacred cows" and figuring out what the core values are for the system. A true challenge.

I have the honor of serving on this committee as requested by the director so I will have a unique insight into how exactly a large library system is funded and managed and how these hard decisions are made.

It's such an interesting era to be a librarian. So many libraries across the country are already at bare bones services and struggle just to keep the doors open to the public. In this day and age of technological innovation, our society changes on a day to day basis and it's hard to keep up and meet the needs of our patrons.

Okay, back to taking care of business.