Practically Perfect In Every Way...Or Not

For some reason some people are under the impression that I’m a bit like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way.  And I can sort of see why.

You come here every day and read about my menu planning, my cooking prowess, how I’m such a great librarian, own a house, and have such an amazing social life that I actually complain about being too busy. 

Yeah, I could see where you might hate me.  If I was really like that, I would hate me too.

So I’m here to correct all those misunderstandings and clear the air.  I am not perfect.  Not in any way, shape, form, or fashion.  Nor will I ever be.   

Attempting to be perfect was something I worked incredibly hard at growing up.  I would look around school or dance class and see these girls who looked as if everything they did was effortless; that being so together and so good at everything came naturally.  They seemed like they had it all right, all together, and were just so perfect.  I tried and I tried to be like that and failed every time. 

But then I learned that I don’t have to be perfect.  And I especially don’t have to be perfect at things I’m not good at.  Which is probably why I (and this blog) sometimes give off the impression that I am perfect.  I only write about things that I do well; I only post recipes that are successful (or that at least turned out successful even though I messed up the recipe); I generally only share the happy parts of my life.  I have a very bad habit of only talking about the good and the things that go right.

I used to be much more forward about the crappy parts of life, admitting to things like being bullied as a teen, lacking in motivation, or struggling with depression, but, after taking a quick pass through my more recent blog posts, I noticed that I’ve stopped doing that.  Not for any particular reason, but it’s probably not a good thing as it has led to several emails, tweets, and comments as to how I manage to do it all.  How do I keep myself together, run a blog, own a home, work full time, and still have a great social life?

The answer is I don’t. 

At any given time, my house is a complete disaster from all the cat litter Caty tracks around and from the fact that I haven’t done laundry in two weeks.  I haven’t, despite my very best intentions, worked out in almost two weeks but I have baked several wonderful treats that I have no intentions of sharing.  I often ignore phone calls when I don’t feel like talking.  I abandon my meal plan (and my budget) at the slightest sign of a better opportunity such as grocery store sushi or an entire pint of Turtle Tracks ice cream.  I shut out everything and everyone for days at a time so I can do nothing but lay around, read, and watch way too much TV.  I oversleep every day and am almost always late for work.  I have OCD to the point that it occasionally interferes with everyday life.  I gossip and talk too much.  I complain, often to the point of ridiculous.  I procrastinate more than you could ever imagine. 

I don’t do it all.  I can’t do it all.  I never will.  And I will never be perfect, not in a million years.  Neither are you.  And that’s okay.

Do you struggle with perfection or feeling unequal to some of the bloggers you read?

What I've Been Up To Lately

Several of my seriously awesome blogging friends have emailed me to make sure I'm okay since I haven't blogged since last Friday.  It wasn't intentional, this blogging absence of mine, but life (as it often does) got in the way.  I thought you might like to see what I've been up to since I didn't share my menu plan or any super tasty recipes this week.

Making more than one huge mess in my kitchen.

Successfully making heart-shaped whoopie pies for a girls-only Valentines Day party I threw.  I also made spinach dip and my favorite sliders in case you were interested.

Making plans to go wedding shopping with my best friend this weekend.

Being overwhelmed with literature searches on a daily basis.  The residents have research projects due in March and they've been using the library more than ever.  I've had more lit searches in February than I had in my first three months on the job combined! And the month isn't even through yet.  I'm exhausted and my brain hurts.

Reorganizing my files.  They've been a wreck ever since my library moved and I just finally buckled down and redid them.  Now I know where everything is and it is all labeled very clearly.  It does this mildly OCD heart good.

Reading. 

Playing with Caty.  She's so cute; I just can't get enough of her.  She does this adorable thing where she sort of rolls/slides her way down the stairs in attempt to get my attention.  I need to video it because it's hilarious.  And really cute. 

Planning my trip to Minneapolis for the Medical Library Association conference.

Vegging out on the couch with my mom watching some of our favorite shows.

So clearly, I've been incredibly busy.  I can't express how insane work has been and how much it's made me value the quiet times when I can actually get something productive done.  Or do unproductive, yet way more fun tasks like read blogs. 

Are you super busy too?  Or is it just me who feels like life is spiraling out of control?

Snow!

When I woke up this morning, I was greeted by this site outside my house.

Now, living in Alabama, snow is a pretty rare occurrence so I get really excited when I see white stuff falling from the sky.  I get even more excited when it starts to stick on the roofs and the grass.

If you aren't from the south, you probably think this is nothing to get excited about.  And if you aren't from the deep south, you have no clue how much panic snow causes.  Around here, the words snow, and especially, ice, cause people to immediately run out and stock up on milk and bread.  Schools cancel classes way before the clouds have even moved in on the off chance the roads might be impassable.  Our local weather man goes on the air and broadcasts the impending storm live.  In short, snow is a big deal. 

Except for this year.  This year, I've seen snow six times, including our incredible pseudo-white Christmas, where it snowed all day but didn't stick.  Snow falling 6 times in one winter seems to be enough to ease some of the panic and impending doom (y'all think I'm kidding but I'm not).  I didn't have to go into work until 10 today and that wasn't even announced until early this morning when some icing reports came it. I remember days. not so long ago, when everyone got so panicked at the idea of snow that they closed school all day without even waiting to see how much we got.  We usually only ended up with a 1/2 inch on those occasions. 

By the time I took these pictures, the snow had already started to melt, but it looks like we got about an inch.  Enough to cover the cars, roofs, and mailboxes.  It was really beautiful to watch coming down last night and very pretty this morning, but frankly I'm a little tired of winter.  It's time for spring. 

Are you enjoying the winter or are you ready for spring?  Did you get any snow this week?

"Where is the Love?"

When the Black Eyed Peas performed during the halftime show of the Super Bowl on Sunday it took me back to an old memory, that for no reason other than I feel like it, I'm sharing it with you today.

During the summer of 2004, I spent some time with my cousins who live in Georgia.  I was babysitting the two older girls, then 9 and 7 (they're high school now - ouch I feel old), and we were dancing around the kitchen to the new, recently released Black Eyed Peas's song, "Where is the Love".

The song ended and I was about to break into another dance, when the 7 year old stopped and asked me "what's terrorism?".  Before I could even process where she got that question (from the 5th line of the song, or the news for that matter) and form an age-appropriate response, the 9 year old jumped in with the answer.

"Remember those bad guys who flew those planes into those buildings?  That's terrorism."

Y'all, I look at those words now and I want to curl up in a ball and cry.  Even then, in my 18-year-old-fresh-out-of-high-school brain, I knew that no 9 year old should be able to answer the question with such a straight up honest answer.  And no 7 year old should even be asking that question.  

As I sit here and look at the pictures I just rearranged in my living room of my younger cousins (ages 9 months to 9 years), my heart bleeds for them.  What sort of world are they growing up in?  When I was little my biggest concerns were who was coming to my birthday party and what color my dance costumes were going to be.  Not real life bad guys who like to blow things up to make statements.

Maybe I'm idealizing my own childhood a little (hey who doesn't?), but I look at the world, what's on tv, what's being said in public, and I wonder where's the love for these little kids?  When I was little I thought the world was awesome.  Is anyone still telling today's kids that the world is awesome?  Or are we scaring them with talk of global warming, drug cartels, and terrorism? 

As I watched that Super Bowl performance, I remembered that innocent question, how I felt then, and how I feel now.  I hope that I carry this feeling with me the next time I see my sweet, innocent cousins.  Because someone has to tell them the world is awesome.  Someone has to pass along the love I had for the world as a kid.  And the love I have for the world now. 

Because no serious blog post is complete without a picture of my cat.  And because Caty would like to remind us all that my love (and yours) should be focused on her and scratching her tummy. 

I Don't Really Have Anything To Say...

So far it's just been one of those weeks. 

Work is really busy - the residents are working on their research projects and keeping me busy doing searches and pulling articles. 

The weather is super gross.  I'm sure many of you are snowed in or are dealing with some terrible winter weather.  Down here in Alabama we aren't getting any of that, just a lot of rain.  My office doesn't have any windows so I didn't realize it was raining when I left to meet my coworker for lunch.  Needless to say I was quite damp and irritated much of the day.

I think, along with the rest of the world, that I'm getting sick.  It may have something to do with the fact it was 73 degrees on Saturday and the high for tomorrow is barely getting out of the 30s. 

So, yeah.  It hasn't been the greatest week.  Nothing terrible has happened, but all of this has made me feel rather blah.  And very unmotivated.  Which may be why I scratched my dinner plans and made boxed mac and cheese and chicken nuggets.  :)  Sometimes we all need some easy-to-make comfort food.

On a slightly different and very random note: I think that flash mobs are awesome.  How amazing would it be part of one?  I've seen this one a few times and thought that I would share it in case you haven't seen it.  Enjoy!

Library Day in the Life

Every so often, us librarians get bored and like to share our (super exciting) days with other librarians. It's called Library Day in the Life and it happens about twice a year. I shared my day with you this past summer, and I'm sharing what my yesterday was like with you again now.

Yesterday was actually a very non-typical day for me because I was at our sister library helping with a project. I'm actually glad that we scheduled our project for yesterday because it gives me the opportunity to share a difference side of librarianship from the day-to-day reference and management stuff.

So, in chronological order, here is how my day went:

8:30 – arrive at the library, chat with the librarian there, catch up on our weekends, the latest gossip, etc (we're friends which makes working together so much easier).

8:45 – Greet our library assistant (she goes back and forth between libraries) and we go over the plan for the day

9:00 – Check my own email, facebook, and twitter. Realize it's #libday6 and what a great day it is for that. So naturally I tweet about it. Our boss comes in with some news and inquires about our project.

9:15 – The library's phone starts ringing and suddenly we all have work to do. I print out a few of the ILL articles that came in over the weekend and put them in the doctor's box for her to pick up later.

9:30 – The other librarian gives me a list of citations to confirm, which I do and then I print and/or order the articles. The phone rings again with yet another search and two more doctors make appearances with requests.

9:45 – I wonder if we are ever going to get started on our project or if we are going to be busy with reference work all day

10:00 – I reach into my librarian's bag of tricks and find some articles for a doctor on seasonal affective disorder. She's given a talk about it (on TV!!) today and she forgot to ask for research help later. Grr…I hate when they wait until the last minute. I give the citations I find to our assistant to track down.

10:30 – My colleague is still working on several other searches, so I go ahead and get started on our weeding project. Her journal collection is quickly overwhelming her space so we need to decide what needs to go and what stays. Unfortunately, our catalog isn't the best kept up (thanks to the former overworked librarian, us being overworked, and just not wanting to deal with it), so we can't just print out a shelf list and go from there. I start at the beginning of the alphabet and work my way through the stacks, noting the title and the date ranges on my trusty notepad. I run back and forth to the computer to check what I have in my library (we did this same project last spring so my part of the catalog is up to date – the journal part at least. The books leave a lot to be desired.). At this point, I wish out loud for an iPad. My colleague begins checking grant options to see if we can get one.

11:45 – The other librarian finishes up her work and starts working with me to make it through the journal collection. It's slow going.

12:00 – We break for lunch and I'm reminded yet again how this hospital's food is so much better (and cheaper!) than mine.

1:15 – We are slow to get back to work, but we do. We finish going through the shelves.

2:00 – It's time to make some decisions. We use the catalog and our statistics to decide what needs to go and we come up with a good sized list.

2:45 – We move on to discussing the budget, what journals to buy, what to cut (we have to make a 2% cut this year), how we are going to pay for the MLA conference, and discuss a few new products we want to try. We are really interested in eBooks, but no ideas on whether or not they will get used and should we spend the money? Money. It always circles back to money.

3:45 – The other librarian goes back to work on some more searches while I type up a list of what is to be discarded because I'm the only person who can read my handwriting. Oops. I also type up some different cut/keep options with prices to see how much money she can save.

4:40 – It's finally time to go. I'm exhausted.

Clearly, this wasn't an ordinary day since I wasn't in my own library and we worked on some not-every day projects. Collection maintenance isn't my favorite part of the job; I would much rather develop the collection than make cuts, but it's a huge part of ours. We both have such small spaces to work with so we have to make the best decisions possible for our librarians, our users, and our budgets. Making cuts and throwing things away isn't glamorous, but someone's got to do it.

What do you think about my day? Did you learn anything? If you're a librarian, how does my day differ from yours?

Counting Down to 2011

Can you believe that 2011 is 4 days away?  This year has simply flown by.  I’ve had a HUGE year.  Highlights of my year include

-Going to England, getting stuck in London, and almost missing the BCS championship

-Alabama actually winning the national championship – ROLL TIDE!

-Being unemployed

-Starting this blog – what an amazing journey this has been!

-Getting my first real job

-My cousin having her third baby

-My best friend from high school getting married

-Moving my library

-Two of my best friends getting engaged

-Making a huge life decision (check back tomorrow for more details!)

Food has also played a huge role in my 2010.  From cooking for my parents to baking my own bread to eliminating food waste, food has consumed a great deal of my time. 

That said, SnoWhite of Finding Joy in My Kitchen is hosting a blog roundup this week highlighting her favorite recipes from 2010 and has invited her fellow bloggers to join her.  I’ve been linking up all week, but in case you missed it, I’m also going to share my favorite recipes of 2010. 

Breakfasts:

Blueberry Almond Coffee Cake

Buttermilk Banana Bread

Breads:

Wheat Sandwich Bread

Applesauce Bread

Golden Butter Pull-Apart Rolls (I didn’t link these up because I haven’t blogged about them yet, but they are my absolute number one favorite food discovery of 2010!!)

Soups and Stews:

Beef Stew

Chicken Provencal Soup

Meatless Main Dishes:

Mushroom and Spinach Pasta

Pasta and Vegetables in Lemon-Parmesan Sauce

Main Dishes:

Horseradish Meatloaf

Roasted Chicken

Desserts:

Chocolate Bon-Bon Drops

Pumpkin Cobbler

Don’t forget to jump over to Finding Joy in Kitchen check out everyone else’s favorite recipes.  There sure are some great ones!  And as always, you can also check out my recipe index for my full list of recipes.

Was your 2010 a big year?  What are some of your favorite recipes from 2010?

Merry Christmas!

I will be taking this weekend off from blogging to celebrate Christmas with my family. I'll be spending the next few days with my family, opening gifts, eating (and eating again!), and generally celebrating the miracle that is our Savior's birth.

Whatever you are celebrating this weekend, I wish you a safe and blessed holiday. Merry Christmas! 

Our Tree!