And time passes

Crazy how time flies when you're doing too much... again I find myself in that place where for days ~ weeks even ~ I've been thinking about blogging, even rehearsing the words in my head. I've been moved to tears and flights of (mentally at least) rhetorical fancy over the words, "President Obama." Just can't hear that enough. Wow. After eight long years of snarling every time I saw or heard the president, after six plus years of feeling downright ashamed of the man, and of what he was doing in my name, finally I feel like I can breathe again and be proud. Perhaps we have turned that corner and are heading back to being our better selves.

I also was sick for a week or so ~ nothing serious, just a cold that wouldn't get bad enough that I felt I could just crawl into bed and ignore the world, and neither would it go away so that I had energy or enthusiasm for the days. Instead, it was just a sore-throated gray in-between that sapped all my creativity and spark. Didn't even cook beyond making some tom yum soup ~ and that, at least in our house, is a staple during colds.

Also, when I have had the energy, I've been working on our cookbook ~ for those who don't know, instead of writing the "holiday letter" like many folks, we put together a small collection of the year's favorite recipes along with anecdotes and stories to go with them. It's always fun, but admittedly takes much longer than a letter would take. That is why we rarely ever get them mailed before mid-January. I'm shooting for this weekend. Last year, I think we just barely got them out before Valentines day.

And... over the last couple of weeks we did lots of research about new computers. Ours was showing its age more and more, and we didn't want to wait for it to crash completely. So, Sunday we took the plunge and bought... a lovely new IMac. Joy, joy, joy. I am loving it. Even though I've been a life-long PC'er, I am so thrilled with the Mac. I'm even enjoying the learning curve of figuring out how to do things with Mac vs. Windows. When I do get stuck, I've found that if I just pause and remind myself that some very smart person worked very hard to come up with a way for me to do this particular thing easily, somehow the fog lifts and I figure it out. The Help Menus for Mac are awesome as well.

Lastly, I am very, very happy to say that More Things on a Stick* has started, which means that I'll be making more technical entries for a while. For my faithful readers in Texas, Switzerland, Nevada and elsewhere, I hope that you enjoy the info. I'm looking forward to writing about Web 2.0 gizmos, widgets and whatnots in a way that will (hopefully at least) be interesting for you as well as other geeky-gadget library folk. 

So, onward! 

*More Things on a Stick is  continuation of the Web 2.0 Library Learning Program that began last January with 23 Things on a Stick. It's a web-based, individually-paced training program that helps participants explore the many amazing things available through web-based technologies. Some is productive, some silly, some more trouble than it's worth. But it's all interesting.