Music

A snapshot of today:

I am tapping my bare feet to the beat of the Flobots while capturing the pages of a 100+ year old church hymnal to a digital camera. Turning the brittle, yellowed pages carefully to take pictures of each one, I take satisfaction in knowing that I am helping someone's music and faith live past their time on this earth.

I freaking love my job.



Music in the Movement of the Day

When left to my own devices, I tend to forget about the joy of music. On road trips I usually leave the radio off in favor of thinking much too much. I cannot listen to lyrical music when reading, which is how I spend a big portion of my time these days. It seems that music is always an afterthought to me. But when I do listen, it stirs my emotions unlike anything else.

Derek brings music to my life. Without his influence, I would forever be in a land void of melody. From the start of our courtship when he restrung my mother's guitar and taught me how to play notes for my birthday, to my current birthday when I discovered four new music CD's from him in the mail. For our wedding, he gave me an iPod - which has been a critical motivator for me while training & running in this damned southern heat. He has written me songs from his heart, and braved playing them in front of me. He is the music in my life.

Birthday Weekend

This past weekend was my birthday (sooo ooooold), and my mama came down for a four-day gettaway. We had a fabulous time relaxing and touring Tuscaloosa. On Friday, I showed her around campus including the Health Sciences Library, the UA Recreation Center, and the School of Library and Information Studies. Saturday we went up to Tannehill and hiked in the woods (it only counts as getting lost if we couldn't find our way back, right?). That evening we went to the Olive Garden for a birthday dinner. Pretty sure the waitress hit on me. Watch out Derek, you have some competition! On Sunday we worked out, shopped, drove through downtown Northport (didn't know they'd be closed on Sunday), and spent the evening at home.

All in all, it was much needed time away from library land and much desired together time with my mama. Now I'm back in the action, trying to wrap up my summer semester. Only 16 days until Derek is home!

(PS - have a couple of pictures on a different computer; will upload in a bit)

Total Immersion

Many folks find that total immersion in a foreign language accelerates the learning of that language. I think the same is true for anything you may learn. Right now I am in total immersion of library land. This is week two of taking night classes while working, and I've started noticing threads of conversation that carry across multiple contexts during my days & nights. For example, we may discuss one topic in my class, Academic Libraries and then it will pop up in Intro to Libraries and then something will happen at work where I have to apply the conversation to real life. I could be wrong (and a total dummy) but I think this is helping me learn things more quickly and more permanently. I certainly hope so at least!

Random aside, here is a 'pleasantly plucky' NPR story:
"Why the next big pop-culture wave after cupcakes might be libraries." by Linda Holmes

Shoot me now...

I just sent out a question on a professional library list-serve (OCLC Cataloging listserv)... to three-thousand-nine-hundred-thirty-four recipients... dear lord I hope I didn't sound too dumb...

Summer School - 2010 Update

School has been amazing! It is so challenging and satisfying. It is also insanely exhausting and time consuming. For the rest of July I have classes every Monday through Thursday from 6:00PM until (M&W) 9:15 or (T&TH) 10:15PM. Aaaand I have an assignment or project due every single class session for the rest of the summer. I do have my regular work schedule as well Monday thru Friday. Thankfully I have an awesome boss lady and coworkers, who put up with my sleep deprived stressed out state and support my education efforts. It has also been crazy fun being able to take what I'm learning in class and apply it at work. Life is good!

COLORADO!!!

So clearly, I have lost some of my blog posting momentum.... here is the skinny on my vacation:

I got to spend a glorious ten days with my love in Colorado!! I flew out to see Derek on July 3rd and came back on July 11th. We met up with Courtney and Chad to share a wonderful week of vacation. I'm sorry, there are no pictures - Derek's camera finally got fed up with being toted around the mountain tops and jumped itself into a creek where it promptly died. Poor thing didn't know how to swim. Anywho - the week in brief...

Saturday, July 3rd - flew in, arrived around 7:30; crashed with my love
Sunday, July 4th - Spent the day with Courtney and Chad - Climbed at Garden of the Gods, where strangers posted our pictures on facebook just because we were climbers. I also actually led a route. Insane, yes I know. I think we went out to eat at a local Brewery. Well, I know we did (we went to the Trinity Brewing Company), I just don't remember which day. Anyway - whenever we did that, it was awesome. My beer tasted like coffee. Sounds gross, but it was yummy. We also attempted to see fireworks at the Air Force Academy but decided to torture Derek by watching Eclipse instead. I know, he really, really loves me.

Monday, July 5th - Derek and I drove out to Rocky Mountain National Park and hiked in six + miles to sleep on a rock at the base of the north ridge of Spear Head... well, we didn't actually sleep much. Apparently it's really hard to sleep at altitude. Also, it never got really dark. The stars were super amazing though. Got to see them all night. Also, it was cold and windy. Snow and rocks. See why there was not much sleep?

Tuesday, July 6th - climbed Spearhead. FREAKING AWESOME. Scrambled back down the side of Spear Head. FREAKING SCARY. Imagine trying to skate down marbles with boulders that may move and crush your limbs while the nearest road is over six miles away with about 5,000 feet of altitude change and that's not even close to the hospital... but we did survive just fine. Went out to eat at the local climbers' Mexican food joint and be back in our tent before a rain storm hit. We stayed at a super sweet campground in the park. Slept through the storm.

Picture of Spearhead in the winter by Kane Photography

Wednesday, July 7th - Woke up to more rain. Climbing plans canceled. Drove in to Boulder and went to the coolest tea house ever. Drove back to Colorado Springs. Met up with Courtney and Chad. Took showers. I think this was the day when we went to eat at the Front Rage BBQ joint? Fairly positive we went salsa dancing on this day too. Again, I remember what we did, just not what day or what order. We did a lot!

Thursday, July 8th - Went for a hike. First half was beautiful, full of good conversation and easy walking on a glorious terrain. Second half... rain, hail, lightning, and four miles of running back to the car.

Friday, July 9th - Derek, Courtney, Chad & I got to play on the challenge course which was super duper fun. Giant swing, giant tower, lots of cute bunnies hopping about. Much fun. Then Chadly gave me an awesome haircut and we ran out of together time. Derek and I drove back up to Rocky Mountain National Park to camp out for our early start on Saturday...

Saturday, July 10th - Derek and I were supposed to get an alpine start to climb Hallett's Peak, but the park rangers did not approve of us sleeping in the car at the welcome center so we had to relocate in the middle of the night. We still managed to be up and moving at 3:30, made it to the climb on time to get started. But we kinda started on the wrong climb and had to bail. Since that failed, we tried to go climbing at Boulder Canyon but then the weather blew in and we had to bail. So then we tried to go back to the tea house, but there was no parking so we had to bail. So we just gave up and went home. We did have a nice dinner at the Olive Garden :)

Sunday, July 11th - Flew back to AL

That's the vacation! Sorry it took me a week and a half to post it. Post vacation life is insane. Will post about that later :)