Sunday....Hot and Muggy

We've been babysitting since Wed. morning for our daughter's dog while they were on vacation. Did you know that babysitting dogs is much easier than little kids??

The grand-dog.

 And here are 600 HSTs all sewed together into rows and pressed, ready to be put into blocks.

And here they are sewed into the blocks. Fifteen finished and fifteen to go.

I don't know about anybody else, but I'm ready for Fall. This heat and humidity is getting old. Sunny Fall days with bright blue skies and NO humidity...YEAH!!!

Later.  Oopsie...do you see what I see?  The row of HSTs along the right side is sewed on backward...gonna need a do-over there.

CPD23 Week 5

Thing 6:   I found it interesting to read about the various online networking opportunities though quite a few of the examples given seemed to be more British than American. I joined Facebook last fall and have found it to be a good way to keep up with the far flung members of my and my husband's families. I especially enjoy the pictures some post of their family activites.  LinkedIn was one that I had heard of before and it looks like it would be a good one to join if your aim is to make many contacts in your profession and might be useful for job hunting and relocating. Since I'm not looking to do either I won't join. Somehow I just keep thinking about something I saw once that said, "On the Internet you can be anything you want to be."  While online contacts may be a starting point, I really think good old fashioned face-to-face networking is still the best. 

I've been reading quite a bit about Google+ and the favorite thing about it for most people seems to be the circles so you can post certain things to certain groups and not to others. I think the way Facebook does it gets people into trouble because everything posted goes to everybody on the friends list, or friends of friends depending upon how your privacy settings are set up. Google+ might be something to keep an eye on.

Thing 7:  I had never heard of the majority of these face-to-face networking opportunities. I think ALA was the only familiar one...one I have never joined because I don't work in a library that would pay for going to meetings and events or pick up the tab for dues.  Most of my personal networking is kept pretty local...the county library association and the library system events. Living where I do there would just be too much travel involved to participate at the state or national level and I'm not eager to pay for these things out of my meager small town library salary. I do see where it could be useful for MLS professionals who want to become better known and move up the ladder. I know I'm staying here and just want to keep on top of things enough to do the best job I can for my library and it's patrons.

Pressing Matters......

Working on pressing 600 HSTs. Not as much fun as you would think.

Updated later:

All done!! With one pressed the wrong way, I see. Oh well, at least it doesn't involve ripping.

We wished for warmer temps.......

....and now they're here. My thermometer is sitting on 98* and I just saw on AccuWeather that the forecast high for today is 103*. Whoever invented AC wasn't paid nearly enough!!!

Been doing some slicing & dicing of fabric lately:

Doesn't look like much yet.

Yesterday we went to my BIL's wedding....why do people get married in July when it's almost a sure thing the weather will be at it's hottest and most humid? Weather wise it was a repeat of our niece's wedding last year, only her's was outdoors and this was in a church with comfortable AC in the sanctuary.  Then we moved to the church basement for the meal and it was freezing cold down there, after which we moved on to the auditorium downtown where it started off fairly cool but got hotter as the evening progressed. I heard the happy couple is going to Arizona for their honeymoon. Who in their right mind goes to Arizona in July?? Oh well, it's a dry heat! :-) :-)  

Car Show

DH's car won 1st in it's class and Best Interior at O'Neill's Summerfest Car Show last weekend.

CPD23 Week 4.....Reflective Practice

Reflective Practice....writing about it isn't the easiest thing in the world. I'm looking back at the "Things" we've learned about so far. Some have been new, others were refreshers of what we learned in Nebr. 2.0.  I continue to blog, and enjoy it for the most part. I'm considering moving our library website to the blog format.

Twitter held no value for me. Maybe if I worked at a bigger library with lots and lots of activities going on and had a patron base that were heavy Twitter users, it might be different.  I still can't see that I would use Pushnote.

"Branding"  is the new buzzword for libraries and fodder for workshop presenters. I still don't think I have a "BRAND."  I'm wife, mother, grandmother, friend, quilter, genealogy researcher, computer fixer and on and on. At this point in my life I'm not really interested in establishing a "brand." I'm thinking more about retirement. For someone just starting out in a career, maybe establishing some sort of professional "brand." is important, but then again maybe it's just the latest fad and in a couple of years we'll leave the branding to the cowboys and the big corporations who are trying to sell us something.

Upon further reflection, the thing I need to concentrate on is keeping up with this project week by week so I keep it all straight. :-)

CPD Week 2--Update

OK, so I was a little confused when I did my previous post for Week 2. I had it in my head that BRANDING was Week 3. Oh well, I think I've got it straight now.

Being a country girl what branding means to me is marking cattle so we can identify which ones belong to us if they wander off into a neighbor's pasture.  More and more I see lots of chatter about "branding" as a marketing ploy, both for business and libraries.

It seems to me that public libraries have a perfectly good brand...."FREE."  As in free information, free books, magazines, movies, etc., free computer/Internet access, along with a multitude of other things depending on the library.

As for me, what should I "brand." The Wife/Mom/Grandma me?  The librarian me? The quilter me? The genealogy researcher me? The computer fixer me?  Do I even need or want a "brand"?  When I did my blog I knew I only wanted to maintain one blog so I rolled it all up into one ball of wax......all the parts of me.

This 'n That

It's getting late so I'll just post a few pictures and try to keep the commentary to a minimum. Grandson pics first:

With the bass he caught all by himself at Willow Lake last weekend. He was so proud.

Don't know what got into him here. It was plenty warm when he stayed with us.

Just quilted. Pieced by my 90 yr. old friend who has lost most of her vision to macular degeneration.  It will be a raffle quilt for the American Legion Auxiliary.

Gotta have a kitty picture once in a while. Isn't he sweet all curled up on the sofa pillow for a nap?

That's it.  Nighty-night, all.

Week 3....CPD23

This was originally posted as Week 2....sorry, I was a tad confused. Just goes to show that one should not do these things too late in the day.

Anyhow......I read through the material and found I'd already done some of it during the first Nebraska Learns 2.0.  I had signed up for a Twitter account and tweeted for a while but it didn't hold my interest or serve any purpose for me that I could see so I quit and can't remember my login or password anymore. I didn't get a new account because I just don't see it being any more relevant to me now......not all my life is spent on the computer.

I had also set up a Google Reader account during the previous session and still make use of it. I have quite a few blogs on it and keep up with reading  them.  I read some of the "favorite" blogs listed in the material and intend to get back to them though I haven't subscribed in Google Reader as yet.

Pushnote........what can I say?  I read the FAQs to find out what it's about but didn't sign up for an account or download the browser add-on.

So, what have I learned from this?  Well, I'm beginning to think I'm not really inclined to a lot of online sociability.   Strange for someone who spends a lot of time on the computer.  Just my hermit qualities I guess.