Anana is home!

Oops... I forgot to write a farewell post for Clyde. But I sent him home, and he made it there safely with all of his souvenirs intact. And now Anana is home as well! Look at all the awesome stuff Miss M sent back with him!

Postcards! A patch and a bottle with prehistoric shark teeth from the Florida Aquarium! Gummi sea creatures (and other gummi candy)! A mug from the Sunken Garden! A pineapple glass! A Disney lollipop! Magnets! The decoupaged ampersand (with a page from an old French book, I might add)! A sketchbook from the Pier! A bag (totally obscured by other stuff) and pin from Busch Gardens! A shell keychain and some seashells! And of course the photo album, which is beautiful!

And... perhaps my favorite... my very own tree pendant! She makes these in all sorts of styles and I love them all and now I have one of my very own!!! Obviously I will be wearing it to work tomorrow... and the day after that... and the day after that... and basically forever.

Preparing for NaNoWriMo

I do NaNoWriMo every year, and this year I have my story idea already picked out. I can't start writing until 12:01am on November 1, but I don't want to worry about forgetting any of my ideas, so I dedicated a notebook to keeping track of them:

Happy Birthday to Me!

My birthday was on Labor Day, so I'm a little late catching up with photos, but here we go!

It seems Clyde may have had a bit to drink...

Birthday cake! It's lemon with chocolate frosting, which everyone
said sounds weird, but they also said it was good.

Clyde hangs out in the middle of the table, among the peanuts.

Presents!

It was a very fun birthday! And I think Clyde had a lot of fun too. We don't have much time left together, so we'll have to have a lot of fun for the next couple of weeks!

New Library!

So, after the grand opening events and a week of being open, I finally got a bunch of photos of Clyde in the new library! To explain a little bit, we're now a joint-use library, meaning the community college collection (and reference desk and classrooms) is upstairs and the public collection (with the children's room) is downstairs.

This is in the children's room... this installation is SO MUCH FUN!

At my spot at the reference desk, ready to answer questions!

Self-check-out station (which might work better if you had some books, Clyde!)

This booth seating may look like a restaurant, but it's part of
our downstairs computer lab (you can see the computers in the back)

The upstairs computer lab (what I see from the desk)

Some of our comfy new seating

We've had lots of people literally walk in, their jaws drop, and they go "wowwww..." I love going to work!!!

Finishing Touches

Well, the new library is open, and I couldn't take photos at any of the big events, because I was working. But even though we're open, any new building has finishing touches to add for a while.

We discovered that people standing at the self-check-out stations were mistaking the slots for trash (like unwanted receipts, etc) for book returns. So I offered to add decals to make it clearer, and Clyde helped!

It looks a little crooked there, Clyde... might need to fix that...

Tonight, I'm teaching the FIRST library instruction class in the building! (I plan to make a big deal out of that when I retire someday.) Lots more fun things coming up soon...

Back to the Aquarium

We visited the Aquarium again! This time, we met with the wedding photographer, but then we actually visited the Aquarium, with my friend Thomas!

My favorite thing ever: the ray petting tank! You can see both of the main kinds
of rays in the tank: the littler, darker one is a cownose ray, and the larger, pale one
is an Atlantic ray... they like to come up the side of the wall and splash people!

Auuuugh, Clyde is being eaten! Eeeek!

This is part of an exhibit that is a scaled-up model of the marsh!
The grass goes up into the ceiling.

New Office!

The library has successfully made the move into the new building, which means... I have my own office! I've never had my own office before. It's very exciting.

I'm also particularly excited about the standing desk (adjustable) in the back

I chose the LotR desktop to inspire my greens-and-browns color scheme (forthcoming)

I also have my own book cart!!!

We are going to have SO MUCH FUN with my new office!