spring is in the air!

It's that time of year again...so long Winter, hello Spring!

Even though it wasn't technically Spring yet, our wonderful little town held its annual Easter Egg Hunt. It was a chilly day, but the sight of the Easter Bunny and all those eggs still made us feel like Spring was right around the corner!

The Smiddleton Middlewartzes are all bundled up for the annual Easter Egg Hunt!

Out back, our garden is growing, quite literally, from the few cinder block planters we used several years back to a fenced in area that runs the entire length of our yard! With Spring comes the promise of delicious, extremely local veggies for our meals (kale, spinach, tomatoes, parsnips, carrots, corn, squash, and herbs...to name just a few!) For the record, Ryan gets all the cred for the garden. He is the mastermind behind it all, and does most of the tending as well.

Planting the seeds.

And covering them with soil.

Veggies are already starting to sprout!

At the library, the snow is thawing and flowers are appearing! (Yep, I'm still hanging onto that tree!)

The library tree is starting to grow flower buds!

My patrons made colorful butterflies to decorate the bulletin board (more have been added since this picture.)

Happy Spring, friends!

a little teen space love!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that jazz! In honor of the changing of the seasons, I figured it was about time to take down my Hunger Games inspired bulletin board (sob) and replace it with this winter-themed dude:

Nice & simple! I especially like the mug of coffee (or hot cocoa) with cotton "steam." Just warms up my soul!

Yesterday I got busy on a makeshift TEENS sign to stake claim to the area (which is now where my desk and I reside!) I cut out huge letters from some leftover scrapbook paper and glue-dotted them to the post by the YA section. My only hangup was originally making a backwards S. Kind of brightens up the place, no? I also made that little "Librarian" sign so patrons would know who they're dealing with!

And there's the old Mockingjay symbol peeking out. Didn't have the heart to trash it!

bulletin board repurpose

Remember this guy?

Today, to usher in our library system's Winter session, I transitioned him to this:

And in the Spring, he will come alive with lovely buds! I just don't have the heart to chop down my tree just yet. Plus, we have quite a few bulletin boards to deal with at our branch, and this little trick saved me some time and effort. Now to figure something out for the Teen board...

library miscellany

If you are into The Hunger Games, then you know that Mockingjay - Part 2, will soon hit theaters! I had to get my library in on the action, of course. I stole this idea from a few similar bulletin boards floating around on the web, and made it my own. I was all sorts of impressed with myself for free-handing that Mockingjay emblem there. See it? Right there in the middle there? Yep, I drew that!

The final installment of the "Hunger Games" movies comes out in November!

In other library news, I've been offering Take & Makes for Teens, where I put out a different craft each month for my patrons to take and...you guessed it...make. If they bring back their finished masterpiece to show us, they get a Dum-Dum! I've had really good luck with Flextangles and my all-time favorite craft project, glass marble magnets, but my latest offering is just so darn cute that I had to share it. Plus, it came out of my very own brain (not saying these haven't been done before, but this little incarnation is all mine, at least as far as I'm aware.) They are flying off the shelf like spooky little hotcakes, people!

I love that the guy on the left looks a bit like a mummy minion!

a woman of leisure

I am now officially a "woman of leisure." I can hear all you stay-at-home moms snickering now. Leisure? OK, not quite. But I sure feel much more relaxed than I did trying to juggle a full-time, fast-paced career with raising an infant.

Yesterday was my last day at the library, after 3 years and 3 months on the job. I feel so happy to be at home with my daughter, and am certainly at peace with my decision, but I can't deny a certain sadness and emptiness at leaving my library family. They are such great people, and I'm lucky I had the chance to work with and befriend them. The wonderful thing is that I live only a few blocks away, so Ellie and I will be back to bug everyone on a very frequent basis!

A few members of the marvelous youth services staff,
at my goodbye party (10/29)

Here's the part where I fondly reminisce about the good times I had whilst working at the library (cue any song by The Fray for some appropriately emotional yet uplifting background music.)

Hosting the coolest Harry Potter book release party
in all the land! (July, 2007)

My "host puppet" Mo - once a celebrity among local kids -
at the Storytelling Festival. (October 2008)

One of the puppet shows I produced - Golditeeth! (Summer 2008)

Green screen fun! (March, 2009)

One of my last days on the ref desk (10/30)

Ahhh, the memories! If anyone from work is reading this, tell everyone I said hello! And I will be by this Wednesday...