Little Unhappy Blog

My poor sad blog. I am horrible at posting. Again, it's not from lack of trying. I have four or five different entries I was going to post but didn't. Every effort at a coherent fails so they get saved and then I forget that they exist. So, here is a random series of thoughts for today to help me get back into the blogging swing of things.

1) It is blizzarding outside and I'm supposed to be driving home tonight. It seems that every time I've tried to drive back to my hometown in the past three months, there has been shitty weather trying to hold me back. Ice storms, fog, blizzards (oh my!) Half of me knows that I could easily stay home tonight and wait it out until morning. But the other irresponsible, stubborn, starved for human contact half of me knows if I drive back tonight, I will see friends, have fun, eat good food, drink drinks, etc. If I stay back at my apartment tonight, I will watch PBS (Rick Steves!) and starve (I have no food in my apartment) and think about all of the fun I could be having if I just acted like a normal Wisconsin person (please see #7) and drove through a few inches of snow.

2) A lot of people wake up dreading the fact that they have to go to work. I wake up dreading the fact that I have to wear dress pants to work. Currently my nice black work pants are full of static cling and are digging into my stomach. Also, the shoes that used to be really comfortable have suddenly become horribly horibly uncomfortable and I'd really like to take them off and wander around in my socks, which probably wouldn't be very professional.

3) Right now, I should be working on my storytime crafts. Our winter/spring storytime hour starts on January 17th and I should have 10 crafts ready to go. I have 8 and I am totally stuck. I've been looking at kids craft sites, library programming sites, weird old craft books I found in the storytime closet and I have found nothing. And instead of just sucking it up and doing it (have I mentioned storytime craft planning is my least favorite part of the job), I'm dwelling on my uncomfortable boots and obsessively checking the weather forecast. And then next week I will be scrambling to throw together two crafts which I will inevitably find lackluster.

I is for... (Reprise)

I haven't talked about my library's ex for a while, mainly because there's nothing much to talk about anymore. She's moved on (still sending pictures and emails) and I'm no longer getting asked "What happened to Miss Erika?" But, last night, something happened that's too good not to share, which is why I'm digging up the "I is for In the Hood" and reprising it (can reprise be a verb?)

Miss Erika is sending out holiday cards, the kind with pictures that you can get from Walmart or Walgreens. They have three pictures of her with various kids from the library (is that allowed!?) with the phrase "Happy Holidays from the Hood" below the pictures. This is crazy, right? In my mixed up mind, it's one thing to throw around the phrase "in the hood" obsessively. Lord knows I tend to pick up phrases and throw them around in excess (lately I've been saying 'Thanks man" a lot, which I picked up from one of the library kids). But to put it on a Christmas card, that's a whole new level. This idea popped into her head and instead of eschewing it, she took the idea, ran with it all the way over to Walgreens and placed an order. Who is she sending this card to? Her former employers, her relatives, her friends? Her coworkers!?!?!

Seriously, it's mind boggling. Even more mind boggling than the fact that it's a frickin blizzard, every other library in the area is closed and we are still open.