Change is the only constant. And other stuff.

Yeah, and we might not like it, but that's the way it is.

I've been wondering if I should start taking things more personally here at work. It's been an, um, interesting past few months.

It started when one faculty member retired.  That was cool.  We were all happy for Randy, and he'd worked here longer than ANY one else in the library.  Almost anywhere on campus, actually.  Good guy.  So, with his retirement, a position opened up, and a part-time library faculty person applied and was accepted.  That was Loralyn and she used to be in Acquisions.  So that left Acquisitions open.  My Tuesday/Thursday night person applied for that job and was hired.  My Tuesday/Thursday night position was now opened, so we advertised.  We also advertised for a new part-time daytime circulation position.  We filled both.

But wait!  There's more!  THEN the Monday/Wednesday evening person decided, after many years of being our constant night time person, decided to retire.  Like in a day. No notice.  It was so weird.  She went into to Human Resources to just discuss retirement possibilities and ended up with her exit interview completed and keys turned in.  Luckily, it was summer and she doesn't work in the summer time.  But it was more complicated than that to replace that position.  But we did it.

Then, the cataloger (one of two that we have here ) decided that it was time for her to retire after all.  This summer.  We will miss her.  She is and was a sweetheart and just loved her job.  But it was time for her to do something else, so it's OK.  That position wasn't advertised.  Until recently.  Until  after I'd mostly completed training my new hires at Circulation--all three of them!!  Well, guess what?  One of the new hires decided that the cataloging job would be better, so he applied for that one, has been hired and now I have to find a new Tues/Thurs/alternating weekends night shift person. Really?  Again???  Didn't we just do this?  Should I be taking this personally?  Do people really hate working with me that much?  [granted, they don't actually work with me, as they work nights and I work days.]

But wait!  There's more!! Monday evening, the library department chair sent out an email stating that our office secretary is retiring.  Like yesterday.  That's right...no notice, no nothin'!  And we're three weeks out from the huge Library Gala!!  Poor people upstairs now have to handle more and more and more as that approaches.  It's really a big thing.  They're coping. I checked with the other dean's assistant up there. She's doing OK.  I, on the other hand, am quite grateful that mental health care is included in my insurance.  Period.

Search committees will be formed, we'll advertise the night position again.    Oh My Goodness.
Can I just say, however, that my new staff person that we put in the afternoon position has been a delight?  I work with her daily (unlike the night position people who come when I go) and it's been great.  Part of the reasoning with that and some other changes was to enable people like me who work at a service desk can actually go away and take our leave so it doesn't stack up drastically.  And I can.

Yesterday, Gail had to be in Salt Lake for jury duty selection.  She wasn't selected, but I did take care of J all day for them.  I took Caroline to school, too.  J and I did dishes at Gail's and general straightening and folding laundry at her house, then we came to MY house and picked vegetables in the garden for a while.  Then I fed him lunch and then I TOOK him to lunch with me and my co-workers at the Pizza Factory. It was a surprise send-off luncheon for our departing secretary.  J was pretty good and I'm glad my friend from work called me and let me know about this last-minute excursion.  Plus, since J had already eaten, I didn't have to worry about whether or not I could find anything for him to eat.  (He even used the potty there and stayed dry!)  It was a fun little party.  We then dropped off a box of tomatoes to my library for those folks to enjoy.  I'm done doing tomatoes, I think.  I plan to give away the rest, or at least most of them.  They sure are good.  Maybe I'll bottle some more, but honestly--I don't even LIKE bottled tomatoes.

Tonight Gail and I are going to see a USF production.  It's not Shakespeare.   "Stones in His Pockets." I've never seen it, but it sounds delightful.

I have a ticket to attend (in my stake center) the dedication of the Brigham City Temple on Sunday.  That will be nice.

Mike and I were given (thanks to his mom) Music Arts tickets for the season of music stuff in town this coming season and that begins in a couple of weeks with the Utah Symphony.

Mike and I celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary on Monday.  We celebrated on Saturday and went out to eat (with Eric) on Saturday for lunch. That was kind of Eric's birthday lunch out, too.  Sunday/Monday, Mike was sick in bed with a cold/sore throat, etc.  Yucky stuff just keeps on coming.  His mom is really ill today with a serious cough/bronchial infection.  HOWEVER, Mike was not so ill that he couldn't get out of the house and he did get out and he brought me GORGEOUS flowers to the library.    I guess he really does love me. ;-)  We've all been enjoying the gorgeous yellow and white  roses, daisies.  I think I try to take a picture and attach it later.

I obtained tickets for all the home football games this year.  Haven't been to one yet, but homecoming is approaching with lots of fun stuff, so maybe I can get to at least one.

I went to the temple on Saturday morning.  Just me, myself and I.  That was a very nice little respite.  Then I tended Jonathan and Caroline while Gail went to a shower.  (I bottled tomatotes )  Still haven't cleaned my house.  It's gettin' kind of deep around here...ugh.  But the laundry is fairly caught up, so that's good.

I'm pretty much over my cold from last week, but have been avoiding walking the required 10,000 steps daily or other exercise.  Next week for sure!

I'm tempted to take the night position at the library.  If I didn't like my paycheck so much, I'd apply and "retire" from the circulation coordinator position.  Not really.  But after these months, just working 2 nights a week sounds pretty tempting.  Just every-other weekend?  piece of cake.

Oooh, speaking of cake... we've had lots at our house, thanks to Eric's very kind and generous friends who made him TWO of them and celebrated his birthday for days. We helped him eat a lot of chocolate cake. Mmmm, cake.  We also had zuchinni for his Birthday dinner on Sunday.  I told him we'd have zuchinni.  I asked what he wanted, and he sweetly replied, "Anything.  I like everything you make, Mommy. Well, except corned beef and cabbage."  So I said we'd have zucchini.  I had just picked up a bunch from our back-door neighbors.  I made grilled zucchini on the outside BBQ, I made sautee'd zucchini with summer squash and onions, AND I made breaded and fried Big Slices of Zucchini rounds. Yummy.  we also had chicken and tomato slices. And apple pie!  Happy 22nd birthday, Eric !  He got a ticket packet for music arts, too.

Oh, and since Eric hasn't been blogging lately, you will be happy to know that he has a part -time job! The athletic dept hired him to be a ticket taker at games. He worked last Saturday's football game and last night's volleyball game.  Good for him!  I hope he can still keep up with everything.

Every heard of "The Librarian" movies from TNT?  fun stuff.  I love being a librarian.

MmmmmMMM...fresh-baked apple pies.  We ate two of them and gave one away.
The only thing lacking was the ice cream.

Remember that green pumpkin that decided to grow through the slats of our back fence?   (looking down from inside the fence)

Well, I'd say it's doing rather well.  Weeds are doing better, but that's OK.  We  have just been letting them grow simply because we haven't had the time to properly take care of all those weeds.  Oh well.  The pumpkins don't seem to  mind.  We have 9 orange ones.  Jonathan and I counted them on Saturday.  

Aren't they lovely?