Grrrrr

Well, it's that time of the year. You know, the IRS time of the year. Did my taxes on Saturday and found out that Uncle Sam still wants more of my money, lots more!

I will be good at work, but I might just have to give some of the library patrons ( I use the word patron very loosely) the ol' stink eye! These are the ones that are on SIS and come in for hours at a time and get on facebook, watch youtube, play computer games, use their cell phones to text and talk to their friends, in other words, do all kinds of things but look for work! Some of these patrons have in the past complained to me that they don't get enough money on SIS.

Last week one of the patrons had 25 bucks in fines as she did not return a lot of movies on time (She lives less then a block away from the library) and tried to get me to feel sorry for her and waive the fines. I didn't and now I'm glad that I didn't! Glad I tell ya!

Changes.

Life always changes. Some are big and some are small. One of the smaller changes is that I have decided to sell my goat milk business. By that I mean, I will still make small batches of soap for home use but I'm not going to make it for sale. There are a few reasons that I decided to to this.

One is that I'm not really the type that can do one on one sales. I can do it, but I don't enjoy doing it. I kind of have the attitude, buy the soap or don't. I got tired of making the "pitch"

I did not like being committed to having to go to summer farmers market every Saturday for six hours. Some parts I will miss, like the fellow market people that have become friends. I wont miss the hot humid weather or the rainy days and on the same note, there are some fellow market people that I wont miss.

I do not like the paperwork side of owning a small business. For such a small return on my business I had a lot of stuff to keep track of. From what I bought to what I sold. That is not my skill set!

I already have someone buying all my supplies. The milk, the oils and the scents and to everything in between has been sold. Maybe later on in life I will get back to it on a commercial level. I did like having goats. I did and still do enjoy making soap, kind of like blending cooking and chemistry.

Getting Cranky!

Well, I just spent about 30 minutes online with the State of WI paying the Sales Tax that I had to collect for all the soap that I sold for 2011. Once I figured out how to get into the system then it was pretty fast. But up to that point? Not a pretty picture.

Why can't they have a tab/button that says " Don't keep track of all that passwords/ID/numbers/Login for the past year? The click here" That button would be so helpful!

Did you ever stop to think just how many passwords, login ID's that you have out there?

I now have a headache!

Work Rant!

Okay, you all know that I love love working at the library! Best job ever, and I do mean that. My rant is about some of the patrons that come in, and by some, I mean the young adults, and by young adults, I mean the high school kids that come in when school gets out.

These are the kids that aren't readers, they come in to kill time. They are loud, they take books and "hide" them. I find young adult books stuffed inside other books. Books are taken off the shelf and then put back in upside down or backwards! ( Little heathens!) I found a book that has been missing for a few weeks tucked inside the "Girls Life" magazine box holder. That book did not accidentally get put there!

If I owned a library? I would have the young adult section up front and center so I could give them the stink eye!

On the plus side, we do have a nice group of young adults that stick around in the library, they come in to do school work, use the computers, and get books. I like them.

P.S.
I got one of the "bad" young adults in trouble last night! Her dad called up at around six pm and wanted to talk to her, Um, golly gee, she left a few hours ago! Boy, do I feel bad or what?

How did it go?

I worked five hours at the Village office on Monday. It went pretty well. I filled out a bunch of deposit slips and went to the bank (Yes, I double checked my numbers!) and went to the post Office. I also had to walk around town an put up notices of Village Board meetings. That was nice and it will be nicer when it's more warm outside!

I also scanned a bunch of stuff. The current village administrator is trying to go paperless. I say current because she is just filling in till the village can find and hire someone full time. The administrator that we had passed away last year, and they have not found anyone yet. The one that I work for comes down a few days a week to take care of stuff.

Being that, I'm working all by myself on Thursday! I hope no one calls!

I forgot to tell you all

I have another job! Oh, never fear. I still work at the best job ever at the local library, but with the economy is going, I was able to pick up a part time job at the village office. I'm now also a office clerk? Something like that.

I will do some filing, running to the post office and bank and stuff like that. It's only 10 hours a week but with the price of gas this will help. One really nice thing is that it's in the same building that the library is in. I will only work on Mondays and Thursday and those are the days that I work late at the library so I just leave one job and walk over the the other job. Sweet!

And this is the last week of school! I'm trying to get it all done so that on Wednesday I can take all my books back and sale them back to the book store.

Library people

A most of you know, I work at a small public library. I have been there for over two years now and we have some "regulars" that come in that are a little bit "odd' I don't know their names as they don't check out books, they just come in to use the computers.

1. Top Knot Lady - She has long hair and wears it in a top knot, hence the name. She is a flake. She wears very dark (black) sunglasses and only comes to the library at night time. Also wears a fake fur coat and white vinyl plastic boots that have a fake fur ruff on them. She sometimes will engage in conversation. Just a few nights ago she told me that she has a weak immune system and was there a flu going around? I told her yes there was, she then asked me what is the flu and what are the systems of a flu. I told her and she then went on to tell me again about her weak system.

2. Talkie boy - He's new. And he talks, a lot. He will engage you until you just have to walk away form him. I try and avoid eye contact with him. The very fist day he came in I heard all about how he ended up here, his online girlfriend that is no more, he car problems, his apartment problems and his money problems.

3. Lips - He's a young man that is a bum and always has a sulky, pouty look about him. He flops in the chair, spreads his legs and then looks at YouTube music, we sometimes have to to tell him to shhhhhh! as he sings out loud, and it's rap with all the bad words!

4. The mumbler - He's a young kid, I don't mind him so much other then he mumbles really bad, and he's a soft talker. That is not good for me as I'm hard of hearing. I kind of feel for him, he's about 11 or 12 and he gets Nancy Drew books and other girl type books. He also has a sparkley heart key chain. I think that he's going to have a hard time at school when he gets into high school.

But you know what? I love my job! My co-workers and I get some laughs out of our patrons but just so you know, if you're a regular at a library, you might have a nick name too!

This and That

Update on Maggie, she did really good yesterday. No nervous panting, settled in well. I had to leave her for a few hours when I went to work. When I came home she was all happy to see me, nothing had been chewed, all looked well, other then I think she ate the bowl of kitty crunchies. I forgot to put that up, I'm pretty sure it was her as the cats were outside. (I'm smart like that)

Speaking of cats, they have been hiding from Maggie and last night they pussy footed around and kept an eye out for the evil dog but they did come out from under the bed.

Someone asked what kind of dog Maggie is, she is a Airedale Terrier mix.

Pet peeve about library patrons, yes, it's a library but you can TALK, you can use a NORMAL speaking VOICE when you are asking questions. DO NOT mouth the words. I can't hear you and I don't read lips that well! GRRRRR

My bad.

I should have moved more south! I was wrong though, I thought that it was -28 this morning and it was only -26, what was I crying about? -26, that's okay, -28, no way! Too cold for me When I got to work today i was sent home. The furnace at work went out over the night and the building was filled with gas and also very cold. When it got fixed I went back to work at noon.

Also, I only have two more days of class! Then school will be over for the semester! Yippee Skippy!

I'm going to take a road trip in January to CO to go help my friend Linda pack up stuff. And you all know, Krissy loves a road trip. But I think that this time I will go get a cell phone. there are some long stretches that towns are far and few in between and in the winter I think that a cell phone might come in handy. Just for the what if factor.

Grrr

I'm posting a picture of my cute and sweet kitties. Normally they aren't sweet. The one with the white socks likes to bite my feet when I'm in bed. The all black one, he likes to sleep on my chest.

But my grr is about work. I love my job and it's the best job ever. I have never been really cranky at work. Well, sure sometimes you get a dweeb library patron but they don't make me want to come over the counter and bitch slap them and tell them to f off. Like I did tonight!

(But I didn't!)

I think it was when the patron said that the library was "underhanded" and "shoddy" is when I got ticked. He was ticked off cause he had requested a book, the book came in, he didn't pick it up in 10 days and it got sent back. It's a book for crying out loud! A BOOK! This is not life and death that we are talking about.

He said that he had not been advised that the book was in and ready for pick up, but then he also said that he was here to pick up a book that came in. So how did he know that it was in?

Oh well, a bad five minutes at the library is not that bad at all. I will still go to work tomorrow looking forward to all the fun that I will have and all the books that I will see, touch and maybe read the front flap as I check in and out books.

Dreams

Feel free to pass on this post. It's about my dream I had the other night

I worked for the same airline for over 21 years. During all that time I never ever had a "work" dream. Sometimes people from work would appear in my dreams but the job never did. Last night I had a "work" dream. I was back in Alaska working for the airline and we were getting ready for the A season (A very very busy three week period with lots of stress) and the copy machine broke. The purchasing manager (C.M.) said that it would take six months to repair it. I suggested that maybe all it needed was more paper. C.M. then told me that I did not know what I was talking about, that this was all over my head, and then to prove the point, she pulled out the paper tray and guess what? It was out of paper!

We got the paper put back in, and the machine started spitting out the name list of passengers that needed to got from Dutch Harbor to Akutan. The company sending the employees kept sending list with 30 names on it and insisting that all 30 passengers must travel together. We kept trying to explain to them that the plane was a goose (Amphibious aircraft) and that it only held eight passengers at a time. Then the president of the airline (D.S.) came in and told us "Whatever C.B. wants C.B. gets"

Then I woke up. Glad that I was living here in WI and not getting geared up for the A season!

I wonder when or if I will ever dream about the library?

and proud of it!

I raise my right hand and proclaim,"I'm a doofus" This morning I got up at my usual time. Feed the goats, and the chickens. I did my normal routine and I found myself with an extra half hour. Wow! I must be doing real good on the goat/chicken routine I thought. I went to work and because I had a few minutes to spare I went to the local store and got a banana for breakfast. While there I saw the big clock, it said it was 10am. I asked the cashier if the clock was right. Yep, sure is. CRAP! I'm an half hour late for work! I am to be at work at 9.30am. That's why I had an spare half hour. Doofus!



At work last night I had a patron that wanted to get a library card. I asked if he had one already in the system (We belong to a consortium that has 47 libraries in it) he said no. I started to build his account and low and behold, he does have an account with another library, and has a $124.00 fine! I inform him that I can't give him a card until he takes care of the fine. He claims that there is no way that could be him. That account that has his name has not been used since 2005 and he just moved there two years ago. I tell him that I think that he really needs to look into this because his drivers licence, address and name are a match to the old account.

It was him, he just didn't want to pay that large fine. He thought that I would fall for it. I should have told him that we should go to the cop shop just across the hallway and report this as identity theft. I would have liked to have seen his face if I had suggested that!



For those that think just maybe he really was a victim of identity theft, he was not. I could tell by the way he was acting that he knew he had a fine. He just didn't know that all 47 libraries share information. I gave him a copy of the account and he just shoved it in his pocket. If you were the victim of identity theft, wouldn't you look at what's on your account? Maybe be a little outraged that this has happened to you?

Eggs!

I now have 4 doz eggs in the fridge. Well, I lied, I made a Pound cake that used 8 eggs! Did you see that? 8 eggs! (Yippee Skippy!) I think for church potluck I will bring two quiches. Also I will bring eggs to the Farmers Market and see if I can sell them there.

Topic change.

Yesterday at the library I had two polar opposite patrons.

Patron one was upset that she was paying over 100.00 for checks through her bank and she wanted to order them online. But she had no clue on how to do it, who to trust, would I please do it for her? I told her that I could show her how to search for companies that have checks but that she would have to make the choice. I typed checks in the goggle search engine and a bunch of them showed up. I walked away, then realized that she had no idea how to look at them. I came back, helped her look at a few and showed her how to look at others.

Patron two. Man walks in and asked if he could use a computer without a library card. "Yes you can" I told him. He signed in, stuck in a flash drive, printed up 10 pages, paid and walked out.

Topic change.

Milk update. Still only about one cup of milk. I stared to hold back the grain today. Maggie did not eat hers while on the stand, when done milking I put the grain back and just fed them hay tonight. (Okay, I lied, Juju got a handful of grain. I didn't want her to go cold turkey) Maggie fights going to the stand, but once in front of it and I have pulled her head up, she will get up on the stand. Then she nibbles at the grain, stops that, then tries to pull her head out. She gets all her weight on her back legs. That makes it hard to milk! Tonight I again tied her head to the stand ( Up high) While milking, she leans on me. I don't want to pull away fast as she has fallen off the stand two times but her leaning on me makes it hard to milk. We will get if figured out sooner or later. I just breath deep and remind myself that it's just milking a goat, not life or death.

Sugar Overload

Tonight at the library we had a family come and perform for us. They play Celtic music, very toe tapping music. For the shindig, the library served pie. We had a lot of left over pie. I don't know what it is about certain types of people, but some people can actually say NO to pie?! It goes against my religion to not eat pie. Now I can feel the sugar humming in my system. I have an urge to eat carrots or celery sticks. But those are things that are not in my fridge.

We did have a small turn out and I believe that it was due to the rain that we have been having for the past two days and also, the add in the paper said that the group was playing at a different library! I hope that not to many people went to the wrong one!

On the homework front.
I have two of the four papers done for the Written Comm class. I have the outline done for the third paper, just need to turn that into a rough draft. The forth project? I'm not sure about it. I will have to go back to the teachers online lectures and see if I can find instructions on what she wants us to do. I do not like hybrid classes!

I am going to be in another craft fair this Saturday. I think that it's going to be a dud. The person that is the coordinator now is just getting back to me with questions that I had. I have not seen any advertisement in any local papers. I don't think that I will bring all the soap, maybe six bars of each scent. That will be enough to fill the table.

Shy guy.

Remember last week I told you about the guy I like that's in the book club and we sat next to each other? While we were talking ( At book club) I mentioned/asked why the store carries fresh cilantro but not fresh rosemary or basil? He said that this area that we live in has a large Mexican population so that's why there was cilantro. I told him that I was bummed as I use those 2 herbs often. That's all that was said about that. He came in on Friday and let me know that he ordered fresh rosemary and basil and it's now in. Is he really a good produce manager or just maybe, he might like me? Until he ask me out I wont know for sure.


I made lasagna tonight using fresh basil. It smells really good in the house right now.

Public apology.

I'm a good sister. I want to say that first. But I can be a mean sister. Not mean in a mean way but mean in a loving sister way. ( Does that make sense?)

My sister Patty and I used to share an apartment together with another person. It was a 2 bedroom so Patty and I shared a room. While Patty was dating her soon to be husband, I would have to listen to her go on and on and on about Tim! ( You get the picture right? ) One of the things that Patty would talk to death about was, other then how cute he was, was "Did Tim like her?" You need to know that Tim was a shy, quite guy.

I, being the loving sister that I am would flat out tell her "No! he does not like you. You are pushy, the only reason that he sits next to you is cause you make it so that he has to. The only reason that he talks to you (not that he talked) is that you wont shut up!" When the church young adults would get together to do a group thing we all knew that we needed to work it so that Tim would sit by Patty in the car. ( What we wouldn't do for young love?) Poor Patty, Tim was just shy enough that he didn't give a clear signal to her that, yes he did like her. This went on for about a month. They then figured it out that he did ( Patty had a mean dog that did not like men. Tim would come by when we were all gone and made friends with the dog on the side. He knew that the way to Patty's heart was to get that dog to like him)

So that's where the public apology comes in. At work a man comes in that I think is cute and I am kind of interested in him. He's in my book club group. He's very shy, wont talk in the group unless you ask him a direct question. But he does talk to me a little bit. ( This is after I have put in the time to draw him out!) He now comes in the evening and will stay and talk to me ( I talk, he smiles and might say something ) while I close the library. He then walks me out to where I turn to go to the employee parking lot. Does he like me? Or am I being pushy? Other then wearing a flashing sign that says " I like you" I don't know what more to do. (No, I wont ask him out. A man needs to have enough courage to do the asking or he's not man enough for me.)

So it comes down to I really have no idea if he does or doesn't and I really feel for my sister while she was dating Tim. Patty, I'm sorry that I was such a brat to you! ( But it was fun and I would do it all over again!)

P.S. To my friends at work ( This goes for Kellie too ) DO NOT SAY ANYTHING TO HIM! We are not in Jr High school.

P.P.S. Yes Mom and Dad, he has a job. He works full time, 6 days a week.

My girls are back.

The goat lady brought my girls back today late this afternoon. I was happy to see them. They, on the other hand just went "meh" and put their noses into the grain. I worry that they might get cold as this morning at 7am it was -22F at the house ( -30c ) The goat lady assured me that I had a good set up for them and not to worry. She said as long as they can get out of the wind they will do fine.
I am going to go get more straw and put down another layer of bedding.

I think that the Church I go to it going to stop having a potluck each Sunday. Maybe go to just once a month. I like that idea. It's hard to make something every week. Today I made duck. Our preacher gave me 4 duck breast a few weeks ago as he likes to hunt but does not like duck. I cooked them in the crock pot with onions and apples and a few garlic cloves. I then de-boned the duck, took out the apple and onion stuff and then made a rue and thickened up the liquid to make a nice gravy. It turned out real good. The preacher liked my duck. ( He's a preacher, he wouldn't lie would he?)

On Monday ( Tomorrow ) I'm going to go to the collage that I applied at and see what's going on. They have not sent me anything via mail or e-mail. I can't register for class online as I can't see what days and hours the classes are being offered. I need to make sure they don't conflict with my dream job at the library.

Which, speaking of work. A shout out to all my friends at the old job in Alaska. I see that "A season" is upon you. I'm sorry but I'm also glad that I'm not there! I will pray for good weather on the chain for you all. And no MX and no sick Capt's and FO and F/A.

This evening I cut up 3 batch's of soap. I need to make some more soap soon. I would like to have a bunch made up for the summer. I am going to sign up to have a table at one of the local farmers market.

Well, that's all for know. I fell asleep watching a movie on NetFlix as I didn't sleep that well last night. Go ask Harvey, the black kitten why.

A day at the office.

I had a fun day at work. I have been working on a project for the past week. My boss made a list off all the books that are listed as missing from the library. It was about 180 books long ( I think)

What I do is go search for that missing book. I look for where is supposed to be, pull out the books on the shelf, just in case is got pushed behind other books. If not there them go look in corresponding area in the Young Adult, Juvenile and Kid section. I have found quite a few. Maybe about 40 or so? I know, that doesn't sound like many but really that's a lot.

I get a little zippy zap of happiness when I find a book. I think some of the missing books might not really and truly be lost. I think that they are just in the wrong spot. Today I found 5 books that did not belong where they were at. I think that sometimes patrons ( or their kids) pull out a book and then decide that they don't want it and just put it back where they now happen to be at.

When I'm done with my other projects I'm going to start with a shelf and look at the books and make sure that the right books are there and re shelve the books that don't belong there. That will keep me busy for a month or so.

My only problem. I can get distracted and find myself reading a book! I do believe that the library life is for me.

I hope all you out there love or like your job as much as I do mine. I know what it's like not to and am so glad that I have found one. Life is really to short to be unhappy at a job. You spend a lot of your life at the job so if your not happy? Work out a plan and set a goal and work that plan. It took me 2 years to get out of the old one.

OK OK, enough of the pep talk. Good Night!

Long Day.

Just right off the bat I want you all to know that I'm not complaining in anyway shape or form. But today I worked from 9.30a to 7.30p. That's a 10 hour day. I have not done that in a long time. At the old job I was schd for 10 hour days ( No break as we didn't want them) and often worked more then that. I was to clean the library from 5pm to 5.30p but I took that as a break to eat my apple for dinner. ( Don't feel bad, I'm eating ice cream now) I thought about cleaning but tomorrow it's the children's reading time and you know that the little precious kiddies are going to spill, drop and make a mess anyways.

It was not a slow day but just steady with patrons. I had the high pitched mumbler in this evening so that was about 1/2 hour of just fun times for me.

Oh, and the other day I woke up with the Mount McKinley of a zit on my neck. Why? ( Just think, now you can sleep better tonight cause you now know all )

Well, off to the basement for me so that I can wrap more soap. It takes time to wrap and cut and tie bows all all that jazz.

P.S. I should have my soap site up by Sunday and will be open to take orders for soap.

This and that.

Today was the first day back to work for me. I didn't forget how to do stuff. This week is Teen Reading Week. The library is encouraging teens to read. I say "Off with their heads!" ( Just so you know, I helped teach Sunday School with my sister many many years ago. It was acknowledged that I don't have a "heart" for kids unless I know them and love them.) They spilled popcorn all over and left cups in the stacks and one girl spilled her hot coco all over the computer table. Lucky for us it did not get into the keyboards, just under it all and made a mess.

It was cool in the library. The temp got up to 60. That is 2 degrees colder then my house so I though that it was OK. I was glad that I did not wear the short sleeve shirt.

I think that on Wednesday I am going to give my truck a good inside and outside scrub. A wall of stench hit me tonight when I got into it heading for home. I might have dragged in some horse poop and not realized it. ( And the dog vomit smell ) But just so you know. This is not as bad when my dog ate dead,washed up crab on the beach and up-chucked that on the back seat! Talk about a bad smell!

Linda, enjoy the jalapeno stuff olives and also the hot peach salsa. I think I left them in the back of your truck.