We have internet service now! It’s no longer dial-up, we’ve moved from the dark ages with cable internet. Wow, is it fast. Videos on YouTube now load up almost immediately. We don’t have to wait 1/2 an hour for a four-minute video to load. It’s amazing. I’ve had high-speed internet access at work before but this just seems to be so much better because it’s our own computer.

That being said, I’ve been extremely out of touch with my email, had to sift through over 200 emails from just a few days and, of course, the numerous junk comments. If you’re waiting to hear from me, please be patient. I’m also working quite a few hours this week with a special project and training for the half-time position I got. I have benefits again. My sister is coming for the weekend, so it’s been a busy week for both of us. With Bryan working and my working, I feel like we hardly see each other some days. Several days this week, we’ve only seen each other in the morning, for half an hour at dinner and then one of us is dashing off to where we need to be. It’s felt quite crazy.

Knitting news to follow soon.

Our dial-up access to the internet has been on the fritz and all email and internet access had to be done at the library, either on break or at the other library in town on my off time. It’s been a huge headache. You don’t realize how much you rely on the internet for small things, like phone numbers, until it’s gone. We’ve been researching high-speed internet but there are a few factors involved mainly the budget. We don’t want to switch our telephone provider to the local big behemoth for DSL, which will cost us more than we’re paying now for phone and internet, and cable which is a lot for our student budgets. If I get the half-time circulation position that I interviewed for last week (it’s basically the same job I have now at the circulation desk just more responsibilities, more pay and benefits), then we’ll be able to afford cable access.

In the meantime, it’s been so wonderful to be inundated with spam comments - over 150 since Sunday. I feel so popular with the spammers. Don’t they have anything better to do with their time and does anyone really follow their stupid links.

Until then, my email and posting are limited. It may be another week before I post again. You’re more than welcome to leave comments and offers of donation to the “Bryan and Erica internet fund.”

Time has really been flying. Thursday night when we went out for Thai, my fortune cookie seemed to know exactly what was going on. Tuesday, I started my new circulation job and Wednesday was my first day at the desk. It’s been a big change from shelving and I love it. I love the interaction with patrons, doing check-in, issuing library cards and everything else that goes with circulation. The first few days were quite tiring, it’s a different tired than I used to feel when I was shelving. Of course, being the overachiever I can be at times, I signed myself for six days straight and today is my first much-needed day off. It’s 11:15am and I’m still in my pajamas.

Besides the new job, it’s been an exciting week. Saturday, I received my Project Spectrum postcard from Amanda in the mail. It was coming from Canada and the post office took it’s sweet time getting it to me. I loved the foamy red leaves sticking out from all sides of the postcard. The outside of the postcard wasn’t purple but inside was a very cute little purple crocheted bag.

The other exciting news this week is that I finished the Log Cabin blanket. I finished knitting it last Sunday on our way up to Madison and then finished sewing in all of the ends Saturday evening about 9pm. Why is 9pm significant? Bryan’s sister woke us up Sunday morning to tell us that our new nephew (her son) was born at 6:24pm on Saturday. I can say that I finished the blanket just after he was born. The blanket is beautiful, if I have to brag a bit. I really love the way the red border turned out. Now I have to knit a little bear to go in the pocket of the blanket.

This was the weekend of the babies, a friend from my knitting group gave birth to a baby girl on Friday and a former co-worker’s wife had a little boy on Saturday about five minutes after Bryan’s sister’s son was born. With the Log Cabin blanket finished, I have to focus as much as I can on the project for the friend in the knitting group that the whole group has been working on. It’s going to be beautiful.

Our trip to Madison last weekend was very nice. It’s the first time I’ve ever been there and I was really impressed. We found some really great restaurants and having three lakes in the metro area are really nice. Who knows we may end up living there after school. I met with someone at the library school and realized I probably won’t apply there. It’s been a while since I was in school and I don’t have former professor’s recommendations in a file to use, plus they are for fields completely different from library work and they would be more than 10 years old. How I was as an undergrad definitely doesn’t reflect my abilities or my drive to do well now.

For Mrs. Tomato news: Mrs. Tomato’s baby tomatoes seem to be disappearing. One or two I think disappeared when the lawn mowing service moved the tomato pot but that doesn’t explain the five smaller plum-sized green tomatoes that have just been completely disappearing. At first, I thought one or two might have been broken off by creatures but little backyard creatures can’t reach three feet from the ground and break the stems off. Unless, the squirrels have suddenly become smart and are breaking the stems. So I guess we’re finished with tomatoes for the summer. It was good while it lasted but I was hoping that a lot of the recent smaller ones would have grown up to be big tomatoes, too. Mrs. Tomato tried to give us about 10 tomatoes but obviously it wasn’t meant to be for us to get more than three.

August 9 - I thought I had posted this on Saturday, but just realized that I forgot to publish it.

First of all, thank you all for the congrats on my job. I start on Tuesday after we make a quick trip up to Madison, Wisconsin tomorrow just check it out. I’m thinking of applying to U of Wisconsin for school, in addition to, some other schools and we both thought this would be the perfect time to get away before the craziness of school and work get us.

My oh my, my week went by like a flash. I worked a lot of hours this week, shelving, weeding books and newspapers, and squeezing in some circulation training in there too. It was also a week of a friend over for dinner, a knitbrarian package in the mail and a Georgie cat having some teeth pulled.

Monday evening, Bryan’s friend M from grad school was in town and we had him over for dinner. Tuesday was an interesting day. George went in for a dental treatment and they pulled two teeth. He lost his front right canine because of a nasty infection that was at the root. The vet said it was one of the grossest things she’d ever seen, considering she’s a vet it must have been really gross. George came home and was walking around like he was drunk all Tuesday evening. He was really sweet and sleepy that night. I spent part of the evening reading with him cuddled up on my chest. Fortunately, we now know the reason he may have been biting us a lot, I think I might bite too if my teeth hurt a lot and I couldn’t talk. Upon arriving home that afternoon, there was a package from knitbrarian for winning her haiku contest. This gorgeous Fleece Artist sock yarn that she sent has inspired me to dig out the “Go with the Flow” socks and work on them so that I can knit with the beautiful yarn she sent. When I was showing the yarn to Bryan he pointed out that the yarn is from Nova Scotia, a place special to us because we spent our honeymoon there.

When Friday came, I was exhausted but excited that it was my last day of shelving. When I got home Friday, I felt fully entitled to sit, catch up on Days of Our Lives and knit. While we watched one of my favorite movies, Party Girl, (the best librarian movie ever made) I finished a dishcloth that I started Thursday morning and had only knit two rows of, it’s for a co-worker who is moving.

Last night, we made a quick trip to the grocery store and Hobby Lobby. I needed a different color for another dishcloth for the co-worker who is leaving. As we were walking out of Hobby Lobby, I said, “I can’t believe I’m mostly buying yarn at Hobby Lobby now.” I used to be such a yarn snob and still am in some sense, but the fact that I have so much cheap cotton in my stash now is very amusing to me. It has given me an idea of a perfect project for my beginning knitting class that starts in September.

Today, I’ve spent part of the day reviewing blogs for the Midwest Knitters blog ring, checking the ring links and knitting while the sites load up. Amie mentioned it on her blog and I thought I should get part of it done today. Waiting for each site to load is so slow on dial-up. I long for the day when we can afford high-speed internet. It’s been weird to go through all of these blogs and not see links to my blog on blogs where I know there was once a link. Oh well, tastes change, I know I don’t read as many blogs as I used to.

Somewhere in all of this, I’ve also managed to finish yet another book - A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. I had originally checked out Rebel Angels by the same author only to find that it’s the sequel to A Great and Terrible Beauty. So I went and checked out A Great and Terrible Beauty from the library and finished it in about four days and then restarted Rebel Angels. I think the heat is not melting my brain but giving me the ability to read faster.

Now if I could just get myself to knit on some of the required knitting. The Log Cabin blanket has two border edges completed and another one is in progress. With the heat, the idea of handling that blanket makes me crazy. Then there is the knitting group project that needs to get done soon too. I’ve been so into baby bibs and washcloths lately that it feels weird to knit on something like a sock where I sort of have to pay attention.