Every year the local libraries in the KC Metro area participate in the Metro Youth Services Librarian’s Read Challenge. Our library is participating and I’ve been reading a ton of juvenile and teen books lately, not that it’s really anything new for me. While the challenge is to get more people to read juvenile and teen books, I’ve been challenging myself to read more period. When I come home at night, the TV is staying off and I’m reading a lot. The days I’ve been sick with strep throat, I’ve been on the couch reading. It’s amazing how much you can read in a weekend afternoon or an evening. So far I’m at six books with a little over 1050 pages since January 1.

I’m keeping a book log over on my reading blog, Reading Up a Storm.

Last night I had the privilege of participating in a Mock Caldecott Award at the Johnson County Library. Librarians from the metro area and the public were invited to participate.

At the Mock Caldecott, the winner was:
Alphabeasties by Sharon Werner
with honors going to:
The Lion & the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
Coretta Scott by Ntozake Shange, illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem by Mac Barnett
Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Rosenthal

(book images from Goodreads)

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

At my library, I’ve been running a teen writing group. It’s been quite successful and the teens that have come each month have been really enthusiastic. At last night’s meeting, we had a video conference with Sarah Darer Littman, an author of teen novels. It was a really great experience and afterward the kids kept saying how “awesome” it was to talk to a real writer. I think she made an impact on them.

As part of each writing group meeting, the kids have an opportunity to read some of their own writing. It varies from what they’re working on on their own or what they wrote during our writing sessions that day. The first meeting, I didn’t have anything to read and the kids let me know that they fully expected me to participate in the group reading time. Thankfully, the second meeting, we read from what we’d written during the writing session that day.

A few weeks ago, I attended two different conferences in a week, one for young adult/teen librarians and another was on reader’s advisory. At both, I was struck by people who were participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). They were regular people, like me, trying to write a novel in a month. I’ve also been listening to a lot of audiobooks during my commute to and from work each day. Earlier this week, I had ideas swirling in my head (something that hasn’t happened to me since high school) and I decided to sit down and write. So I’ve set a writing goal for myself for each day and we’ll see how far I get. I’m not writing a novel in one month, I’m just setting a goal of writing 500 words each night. I guess it’s a job hazard when you’re running a writing group for teens.

Life in the little homestead is treating us well. Besides the garden we’re definitely in that full-time job mode where most things only get done on the weekends. I’ve been doing a lot of reading, some to prepare for my first class visit to the library. The perception of a librarian getting to read all the time at work is definitely only that, a perception. Last week, we had eighty third graders visit the library, where I told them a story, book talked four books and then they received a tour of our new library.

The garden has been feeding us quiet well. Just over a month ago the cherry tomatoes started to ripen. I had no idea how many cherry tomatoes we would receive from five plants. In all I think we’ve picked over 9.5 pounds (4.3 kg) of cherry tomatoes. A pound of cherry tomatoes is a lot since they are so small. At one point we made pasta sauce, kept a container for ourselves, gave a container to my parents and donated over a pound of tomatoes to the local food bank through their Plant an Extra Row program.

With so many tomatoes we had to use them. We set out to find a good pasta sauce recipe for cherry tomatoes, which we found. Through combining and borrowing different ingredients from several different recipes, we had our own pasta sauce. It was extra gourmet. It was better than any pasta sauce I’ve had in a fancy restaurant. It was bursting with flavor and we made a special meal out of it.

The cherry tomatoes are winding down and have fallen victim to what I think is the tomato worm along with with some other little flying bugs. We’ve managed to rescue about another half pound of cherry tomatoes from doom.

In August, there was talk around our area about the great Midwest Tomato “Famine” of 2009. Everyone had a gazillion green tomatoes for weeks and no red ones. As an experiment, we brought a few green ones inside to see if we could get them to ripen.

About three days later as the ones inside were starting to ripen the ones outside started to ripen too. So we’ve been inundated with brandywine and moonglow (orange tomato – back row, center) tomatoes. We can’t use them fast enough so we’ve been sharing those too.

Then to add to the harvest, the peppers became extremely generous about the same time the tomatoes did. At one time there were over 30 jalapeño peppers on one plant.

Needless to say, the first year garden has been a huge success and we’ve been spoiled. Over Labor Day weekend, I planted several fall crops – lettuce, peas, carrots and beets. We’re also planning the flower gardens for the front yard for the spring. Who says fall isn’t a gardening season? What with bulbs for next spring and planning for next summer! :)

I haven’t blogged in just over a month because I honestly have only knit about 10 rows since moving to Kansas. Considering this is a knitting blog I tend to not think about blogging. Life in the new homestead is great. It’s definitely beginning to feel like home. My new job as a youth/teen librarian is wonderful. This week we’re moving from our old library building to a brand new one that’s four times the size of the old one. A couple of my library school friends and I recently started a librarian blog of our own to write about our experiences as new librarians.

(phone camera not so great)
Kansas City is treating us well. We see my parents at least once a week. A couple of weeks ago we both had a weekend off and were able to get out and see a bit of the city. Being librarians we headed to the Kansas City (Missouri) Library’s Central Library. It was amazing and so much fun to explore.

One of the major advantages to living in a house that’s been in our family is the massive yard. The house has a yard that’s half an acre which is great for a garden. (All of the houses in our neighborhood have huge yards.)

Our 30 foot by 10 foot garden looked like a postage stamp in the backyard when we were preparing the garden for planting but now that it’s growing it looks a bit larger.
We’ve decided that we’re going to expand the garden next year and also put in more flower gardens in the front and the back. Bryan and I are all for more gardens because it’s less to mow.

Speaking of mowing, we bought ourselves a great new mower that we couldn’t be more pleased with. We had read about how polluting a gas mower is and that to run the mower for an hour is as polluting as driving your car a hundred miles. So we set out to find a good electric mower and my dad just happened to stumble on an ad for the Neuton. It’s so cool, electric and cordless. We just drop in the battery, plug in the key, flip the switch and off we go. It’s so light I’ve been able to mow the lawn and it’s not even self-propelled. Mowing our lawn has also become a form of exercise for me so I’m working it into my workout schedule.

It’s been a crazy few weeks but things are starting to settle.

A week and a half ago, I received my MSLIS (Master in Library and Information Science). Graduation was an exciting day but also a day of saying goodbye to some very good friends. I miss them all so much but I know we’ll see them again.

The day after graduation we moved the rest of our stuff from the apartment in Illinois to our house in Kansas. It was probably the least stressful move I’ve ever experienced. (I’ve only moved six times in the last 13 years.) We’ve begun to settle into the house with some boxes still remaining in the downstairs. The upstairs attic (future craft area and spare bedroom) is still full of boxes and needs some serious work. One of the challenges of moving into this house has been going through my aunt’s belongings and making room for our own.

Two days after our move, I started my new job as the Teen/Youth Coordinator at one of the local libraries. I love my new job and it still doesn’t seem real that I’m an honest to goodness librarian. I’ve been planning activities to go along with our summer reading program which has been a lot of fun. Today literally flew by.

Over Memorial Day weekend, I worked a lot in the garden. It’s now 95% planted with peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, peas, butternut squash, onions, herbs and we’ll soon be adding peanuts. We also put in two raspberry bushes in the backyard with one more to add later this week. The gardening has been so fulfilling and I can’t wait to find out how plentiful our harvest will be. I think we’ll probably have lettuce in the next couple of weeks.

Wow, 500 posts. It’s hard to believe this ol’ blog has been a part of my life for almost seven years. (April 18 will mark exactly seven years.)

This weekend was the Fairy Tale Ball at one of the local libraries. I volunteered to read stories and several friends and classmates volunteered to do other things at the Ball. It was a lot of fun and the fortune teller, who I happen to know was fabulous.

I’d spent a good part of Spring Break wondering if I would find a dress that was perfect. The first store my mom and I walked into and the second dress I tried on was perfect. I didn’t even need to hem it.

Friday afternoon, I whipped together my head garland in about an hour. I bought several stems of “silk” daisies and leaves at Hobby Lobby and twisted them around a bridal headband that I bought. It truly turned out better than I expected.

A couple of classmates said we should wear our Fairy Tale outfits more often. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a plan to wear them to one of our upcoming classes. Oh the joys of being a future children’s librarian! Now to just get the degree and a job.

This weekend I also started peppers, tomato, herbs, dahlia and echinacea seeds for our future garden. It’s a small portion of what we have planned for the garden. Bryan is working on getting the garden prepared for planting. We’ve found out that soil in Kansas City has a lot of heavy clay in it. Poor Bryan found that out the hard way yesterday after trying to pull up the sod. Looks like we’ll be paying someone to till up the soil for us.

pattern: Martha from Rowan Magazine 28
yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed, Crush (color 144)
started: January 8, 2007
completed: April 11, 2008

This month at the library I work at we’re doing a Pedometer Challenge. There are different teams around the library competing for the highest weekly average. My average last week wasn’t great but this week is definitely going to be better. Biking can be converted to steps, so we dusted off our bikes this weekend. I’ve already biked over nine miles these last two days. My new walking shoes will be a huge help in motivating me to continue walking to work on those days that my seat is too sore to ride my bike.

pattern modified from Tweedy Vest by Mona Schmidt from Knitscene, Fall/Winter 2005
yarn: Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed, color: 20008
started: November 22, 2007
completed: February 10, 2008

The semester is winding down and there is still so much to be done. I’m looking forward to summer and growing vegetables again. Today I noticed the hostas we planted last year are coming up. They’re in a pot that we buried in the ground that we can dig up and put on our front porch. I just hope the apartment people don’t come by and chop them off thinking that they are weeds. My summer schedule is going to be a bit less crazy than this semester. I have two classes – Non-Fiction for Children and Adult Popular Literature. There will be a lot of reading but I loved reading for my Children’s Lit class last semester.

pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann from The Knitting Workshop
yarn: Berocco Cotton 100 in Blue (9198) and Lime (9225)
started: March 18, 2008
finished: March 28, 2008

Lately, I’ve been knitting washcloths. I’m nearly finished with my third in as many weeks. Maybe it’s spring fever, maybe it’s finally finishing the Martha sweater, maybe it’s feeling too pressed for time.

Six years ago on April 18, 2002 I started my lowly little blog. Last year, I noted all of the projects I’d worked on since April 2002. It’s been sort of a slow knitting year for me with school and all of the sewing that I did last summer. Since last April: I’ve started Library School, knitted two baby sweaters, finished the pair of Go with the Flow socks, completed a pair of Anniversary socks, and knitted one Waving Lace sock. I also finished the Moderne Baby Blanket. For myself, the Tweedy vest was knitted in a matter of a few months and the biggest accomplishment was finishing the Martha sweater. In the sewing department, I made six skirts for myself, several bags, two adorable bunnies, made my first quilt and started another quilt (which is a surprise).