Hanukkah!

The Hebrew Festival of Lights started at sundown on Christmas Eve. To commemorate this occasion, our family had latkes for our dinner. (Bonus--these were potatoes we grew in our garden this year.) These are fried potato pancakes.  Only I actually cooked mine in the waffle iron instead of frying them in the oil.  The oil is the important part of the celebration, so I will remember to NOT leave that part out in the future (and potato pancakes just need to be fried.).  I was just trying to be healthy-er, and it looked interesting.  I've made fried "German Potato Pancakes" for years, so decided to try to be a bit more authentic for the holiday.  The blog I found the recipe on is written by a delightful woman who is a convert to Judaism. Tori Avey. Look her up, she's a lot of fun. We had applesauce with our latkes, too! I didn't happen to have any sour cream, so we didn't have that part of the traditional meal as well, but it was a start.

And who am I try to kid about being authentic ?  We had Spam to balance off the meal! After all, we are not Jewish, just Mormons enjoying a bit of Jewish culture. A very small bit. ;-)
All photos are from Tori Avey's blog.  http://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/2016/12/latke-waffles/

Access Services Conference

{A draft from 2014}

I work in the Access Services Dept. of the Sherratt Library at SUU. Last Summer, I was able to attend the American Library Association conference in Las Vegas, NV. It was great, it got some grant money to help pay for it, and while I was there, I learned about this conference in Atlanta. It is so specific to what I do in my library. There were about twenty or so programs or presentations and nearly every one of them were applicable to what I do--customer service, training students, electronic reserve, reserve book room, copyright, space management, etc. and it was being held in ATLANTA, GA on or around Veterans Day. How could I possibly not go?? I really wanted to, but had spent the available funding on ALA in the summer.  But I made a proposal and found a way. AND, Mike got to come, too. He didn't come for the conference, but we went out together and had a nice visit with Mom and Dad, ad you've already read about the fine time we had in Chattanooga.

This is the chapter of what happened in Atlanta. Donna included some in her blog, but, here's the rest of the story.

{And that's all I ever wrote about! Two years ago. Blogger is nice. They save everything. }

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Here is what happened in 2016--I got to attend the conference AGAIN!  Yay. The library and other funding paid for my transportation and hotel, AND I got to stay for AGW in Georgia with the gals in the family.  Mike did not come this time, but Robert was there (and David) to stay with Dad while Mom was away with us girls.

The Conference was really good. Again. I am glad my work will support me attending and I'm going to try to attend every other year, or send another of my staff. Another co-worker suggested that we present, but I don't know what we would present on.  It's not THAT big of a topic...or broad. But I'll think about it. She's faculty now; I'm merely staff, but we'd make a good team, I think.

One thing I did while I was in Atlanta was tour the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. That was an interesting little museum. I had to run back to the hotel to get my photo ID--it was required and I had just walked over with a hotel key and some cash in my pocket. The Bank and Museum was right around the corner from my Hotel one way and the Conference Center down the block and over one block the other way from where I stayed. I got my 10,000 steps in on that day between that little jaunt AND walking to and from the Conference and my hotel AND walking around in the Airport(s).

It was warm in Atlanta this time. Two years ago it was really cold. I brought cold-weather clothes this time.   I ate way too much food, but that conference does really good with the food--and they know it!  Lunches both days (Thursday and Friday ) are provided; the Wednesday night reception is full of lots of good food, like a chocolate fondue bar and really cool pupu-type hor'douerves or how ever  that is spelled. I cannot even find that word in SPELLCHECK!! Anyway, the food was good.   The opening Reception on Wednesday night was in a ball room area, so on Thursday morning, that's where I stopped to pick up some breakfast from the buffet and selection they had out in that hallway.  Only it wasn't OUR food!  Yikes. I stole another Conference's food. I felt so silly and embarrassed. I was chatting with another lady from my conference while she used the table to stop and sort through papers before walking on to OUR conference, which was way down the hall and around the corner in a whole other part of the building. I did stop by the other conference registration table later that day and apologized for accidentally eating their food. They were very gracious and polite about it.  And actually the ladies I ended up eating my [stolen] food with (and they had the proper food on their plates!) said, "Hey, it's the same place, same caterers, same everything. It doesn't matter." That's probably true. Our food was different than theirs. We had eggs. They had baby spinach quiche. But our snacks are really great because you can choose from a myriad of things--healthy or not healthy. It's so fun.

You must be thinking, "What? Conferences are about food? Huh?" Well, they are that and more. I learned about Copyright, about Project Based Learning, About Trendspotting in Library Land, a really cool radio show done by LIBRARIANS!  And I learned about inventory taking in libraries, use of space and resources and outreach and all things Access Services!  Yeah. I'm way smarter now.
Let me know if you would care to read my submitted Travel Report. I'd be happy to share the Google Doc with you. :-)

The only pictures I took while in Atlanta at the conference was of my hotel room ... It was a suite with a baby kitchen that I never even got to use.  Because, you know, they fed us really well! Ha.