I'm going to try to keep this short

because it's been an exhausting day, and I'm ready to turn in for bed.

Yesterday evening I:

1. Watched Frozen, the DVD, with YKWIA, who enjoyed it a lot and was very happy when he realised the DVD was a present for him
2. Watched several YouTube videos with him
3. Stayed up late requesting free credit reports

Today:

1. I managed to get to work on time despite waking up a half-hour before I was supposed to be there
2. I spent three hours at the dentist, only to find out that:
   • My partials weren't going in because they were off, and rocking when they were put in (it wasn't user error)
   • I have to have a root canal, to the tune of 400 more dollars, in addition to the two crowns I'd already had in my treatment plan
   • After the temporary crowns were put on, my partials went in snugly
   • But after I took them out later, I couldn't get them back in again, which is very frustrating
3. The colour copier at work was fixed by a technician, who had to replace a drum, but the moment he left it said it needed toner but refused to load the toner, even trying two different bottles, so that it would print maybe 10 pages and then quit, saying the toner was depleted, when the bottle was obviously full
4. And of course, while dealing with this and trying to get my other work done, I suddenly had all these calls with information requests; don't get me wrong, I don't mind that--I want them to call me--but it was very frustrating in terms of timing
5. I had a co-worker for whom I've been picking up the slack who according to reports is apparently spending quite some time at her desk playing games online, so another co-worker and I came up with a strategy to track my work vs. hers so that it's more apparent who does what
6. At least my 'check engine' light finally went out after a quarter of a tank of gas with STP fuel injector cleaners in it
7. I went and got a friend from work
8. I picked up some fish sandwiches for us
9. I watched 'Star Wars: Clone Wars' with YKWIA, along with some YouTube videos
10. We watched the premiere of 'The 100', which I've been wanting to see since it was announced last summer. I liked it quite a lot. It's already got more depth and interest than the remake of 'The Tomorrow People'

Now I'm home, and I'm going to go to bed. Spending time with friends perked me up for a little bit, but I'm quickly getting tired. Good night. Oh, and while it's 50 degrees, the wind is howling appropriately for the last night of winter. But according to the calendar, at least, tomorrow spring arrives. Yay!

So apparently

If you do a whole computer scan with my antivirus software, then you need to restart the computer, and there may be difficulties. The laptop needed to be restarted; it refused to open the Chrome browser without doing so. The desktop not only did the same thing, but then got hung up on the restart and then it took forever for the mouse settings to revert to a left-handed mouse. This is not my day for technology.

I decided to listen to some music, then I napped for about an hour, so a lot of the tension went away (although perhaps a bit of it is creeping back in due to the computer issues). Then I texted with a friend for awhile. Now I've worked on the kitchen some and am doing a load in the dishwasher. I really need to do some laundry, but it's too late tonight to expect it to dry by the morning, I think, even though I have a drying rack for hand-washables. I think I have a couple of outfits left, anyway. I would do some regular laundry over at a friend's tomorrow, but I think that's one of his laundry days. But if I can get to the weekend, I should be able to get it done.

Oh, Vanessa Irvin Morris shared this on Facebook today, and I had to laugh. It's 30 Things Librarians Love, and I have to admit, it's mostly true. Number 1? Pointing out that you have to have a master's degree to do your job. This is especially difficult when someone with a PhD is standing there waiting for you to wrestle a copier into submission. Copier wrangling is not on my job description, exactly, but it is actually something I deal with every day, as I have two that are used by the whole hospital.

Tomorrow promises to be fairly busy as well, but hopefully things will slow down a little by Friday. At least I get paid tonight and Friday is jeans day. So the rest of the week has its positives.

I had thought about going to Meijer and getting something for a friend once I get paid, but I'm rapidly getting sleepy, so it will have to be tomorrow. He uses a certain product that was discontinued by Kroger, so we can't get it during the great grocery run on Saturdays. I was hoping to avoid afternoon traffic, but I may just go tomorrow. We'll see. I had my little burst of energy with the kitchen; now I'm fading. If I can get up early I'll go then, but the problem with that is it's nearly impossible for me to do so. My alarms are all set around 5:30 and that gets me up by about 7:40. Really. And that's with four alarms. I only heard one this morning, the Gentle Alarm that goes on for awhile, finally goes into a 'safe' alarm where it buzzes in case you didn't get up with the gentle music, and forces you to solve a puzzle to turn it off. That's really the only one that works, even though I have three other alarms that go off at intervals normally. Of course, my blood sugar has not been doing great lately, despite my attempts to rein it in. It's been pretty high every morning this week, so that might have something to do with it.

The biggest blessing today, other than being alive, is that I didn't have to go cross-town anywhere in rush hour traffic

I've had a long, stressful day, most of which involved wrestling with a copier drawer that is continually mis-feeding to the point where, for now, it has won. I'll call it in tomorrow morning, but in the meantime we won't use it and I'll just have to be vigilant about filling the drawer that is working, which doesn't hold a whole ream of paper. Such are the daily annoyances of a librarian. Yes, for this I went to graduate school and took out student loans. :(

I have quite a bit to do at home (the kitchen is an absolute disaster), but I really want to do something fun and relaxing, like maybe going back in the pool. It's a bit cooler but I think the water should still be warm. Or I could watch one of the videos that I need to catch up on. Or maybe read. I haven't decided. I think I'll finish eating, take off my shoes, and get my contacts out, and then figure it out from there. But for now, I don't really want to be on the computer, as I've been on one all day and I'm just not happy with machines at the moment. Besides, mine is running a full viral scan at the moment, so I think I'll leave it be. I'll try to write later. Have a good evening.

I am having some trouble with the time change

It doesn't help that it's been raining heavily nearly all day today. Yesterday I ran late to my friends' house for the game preparations. Today I managed to get to work on time but didn't get up till 7:50 (I have to be there at 8:30).

Almost immediately, Monday happened. The copier ran out of toner five minutes after I put my stuff down, but before I'd grabbed anything from the cafeteria or put my stuff away. I went to put some toner in, and it turns out someone had done so in the past, and instead of leaving me a note or putting the empty bottle on my desk, he or she put the empty bottle back where it the supplies are kept so it looked like a full bottle was still there. I check the supplies about twice a week to make sure there's enough, and as soon as I put the last toner in, I order another couple. But unfortunately, there was no toner, but rather an empty bottle masquerading as toner. So I put a sign on the copier, sent out an e-mail, and ordered toner, which will take 3-5 business days to get here. Did I mention that it was the day the board met, when there are all these directors giving reports? Fortunately, most people seemed to have done their copying and printing on Friday. As it is, the machine will scan to PDF but not produce any pages from the document server, printer, or copier. :(

But I wasn't irritated too long; I was able to get breakfast even though technically they normally take things off the heat table by the time I got there. Then there was the fact that I'd brought an orchid and a sun star plant (Ornithogalum dubium, a plant from South Africa that is very showy and orange--I've included a picture to the left.) to work to cheer things up, potted up my big African violet, used the old pot to hold a baby plant that had grown from a broken leaf and gave it to one of my co-workers, and put another couple of leaves into a tiny pot of soil to root. So I kept calm and carried on, and breathed and looked at pretty flowers. :) Life got better.

I got my work done, came home, and now I'm contemplating a short nap (maybe a half-hour or 45 minutes; anything else and I tend to go into a deeper sleep and not wake up till morning. :) Then I have a few things to do around the house. I'll try to write later.

A very productive day

I actually got up early today. No yoga, but I did have a nice bath that put me in a good mood. I'd cooked macaroni and cheese last night and saved some for today, so I packed a lunch, made the bed, and did a few things around the house. So far it's staying very neat. I just finished doing a few dishes. I need to fold some laundry, but that's it.

I submitted a book review to a medical library journal today, five days before the deadline, yay. On the work front, there were several questions about equipment and I showed someone how to go through our annual computer-based training. I filled a couple of rush interlibrary loans. I was somewhat frustrated because one of the copiers needed its waste toner receptacle changed and when I checked the one bottle I thought I had was mislabelled and it turned out I had three of the one I didn't need, but none of the one I did. So I ordered some and it'll be here tomorrow morning, but in the meantime no one can make colour copies. :( On the other hand, it did scan, so I was able to fill the rush requests.

My mom and stepfather are stopping by in a little while. They're helping me out with my rent. Then I'll go get a money order and then to the leasing office to pay them. After that, at five, is work until ten tonight, and it's truck night with only two people. But afterwards I have a little time to work on my own projects--I don't go anywhere until I go pick a friend up from work at midnight. I put the laundry on the bed so I couldn't go to sleep without doing it. Of course, at this point it's probably moot. I did laundry during 'Heroes' on Monday and didn't really have a good place to fold clothes at the time.

Anyway, it's been a busy day and I haven't been sleepy as is my wont, even with a gloomy sky and cold. Here's hoping the rest of the day goes well.

My library has exploded

We have inherited a colour copier from another department. That is great, although it is apparently very slow. But it's displaced a whole mass of stuff that I'll have to store somewhere, or get rid of. That won't be easy. I can obviously offer up issues of old journals to other libraries, but there are usually just one or two takers for single issue. It's frustrating to weed materials.

So in the meantime I have boxes of books, CDs, magazines, an old printer on my library tables. And I have to get it cleared by tomorrow afternoon, when a nursing class comes in to use the meeting space.

Well, at least it should be interesting tomorrow. I hope they've taken the carrel upstairs. I need to store a lot under and on it.