It is too damn hot! Even with air conditioning it is sticky and uncomfortable. I hate summer! It was 98 here with heat index of 103 and at 4 AM it is only 76 degrees...I may not make it (mentally) through the week which, of course, is one of my busiest of the summer. AHHHHHH the weather is conspiring against me!

Well I finally got my IPOD...I got a Nano and bought an IDOG for a speaker. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner...I LOVE it! I can put my ears in and tune out all the chatter at work...what a luxury. I think I may just make it to retirement!
It is interesting that it comes with no instructions as to how to use the unit...tells you how to load and plug it to external units, but not how to use the unit itself! So when I got it on French instead of English and tried everything to get it back to English, I gave in and called John Gatza and took it with me to their house (was going there for dinner)...of course he did it no sweat...seems you have to hold the center and menu together to get it back to set up! Anyway I love it..am loading music as I type!

I haven't bought the printer yet as Best Buy doesn't have high end printers so I have to order it on-line...will do that tomorrow. Then I can listen to only the tunes I want, print only the pictures I want and watch only the movies I want (joined Netflex!)...what a life.

Janet

I have a workman coming Mon. to install a closet organizer, make and repair thresholds, fix the leak damage in the bathroom and get it ready to paint and hang a few things. After my new blinds come, March 3rd, he'll come back and install them and paint the bathroom...then it is on to organizing the den and its closet. So soon I'll have home repair pictures to take and show off...of course I'm letting a workman do the easy stuff...I'm doing the hard part, working to pay for it all!

Susan is recovering....but it is tough. Talking to her brings back memories.....painful memories!
It is no fun recovering from being gut cut. Hopefully she will come home Sunday.

Been reading a book, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. It is a wonderful adventure of a china rabbit. It is reminiscent of the Velveten Rabbit, but not as sentimental and more complex and longer. I can't wait till the girls are old enough to read it to them. Since it is a novel of almost 200 pages I'll have a bit of a wait....like till they are in 1st or 2nd grade!

Nothing much else going on. Have a bit of a cold that is going around our dept., but nothing too bad. Just gives me a good excuse to lay low tomorrow and knit, wash and relax.

Woke up at 4:30 this morning. Couldn't get Susan off my mind. She is having a hysterectomy this morning. Her husband can't be down before the surgery and I'm feeling guilty that I can't cancel my booktalks this morning and be with her till she goes down. Hope everything works out ok. She has been in for over a week with an infection following a gyn procedure. Since it isn't clearing up they are doing the surgery. They have tried their best....Infection specialist and other specialist were called in but it appears the source of the infection just needs to be removed.

Work has been driving me crazy lately.....too much work and too little support!

Been working on the Judi Lloyd scrapbook. It has been sad and happy. Hope the end results will give her grandkids a sense of who she was.

Been knitting a prayer shaw for another friend who is having a hyserictomy which has a 50/50 chance of being cancer. Not a good month for friends and their guts!

Also knitting a small mini blanket for Austen's while she is sleeping. It is very simple, but cute due to its size.

Finally I am knitting something for myself! It is a dressy sweater that I bought the yarn for almost 2 years ago and it may take me 2 years to finish.....but at least I've started!

Maybe I'll do blogs more often....just so everyone can see what an exciting life I lead!

Janet

Went to Cape May recently with Heather, Susan Deeney and daughter Hannah and friend Chelsea. We had a great time eating
and shopping.

Oh yes, some people went to the beach too!

Janet

Well here I am at 3:00 AM up with yet another upset stomach.....seems to be my way of dealing with things lately! Work has been tense and stressful...too much to do and too many annoying people!

Been knitting lots....two sweaters and blankets for the new girls to come and outfits for the girls here for their birthdays...blanket for Zack for college and finally getting back to Mark's blanket! Mark, you will have it by the time you need it, I promise! Also been knitting headbands and belts for various people....they are easy and mindless and finish up quickly. Every knitter needs short, long and future projects to work on....we are very dependent on our moods, we knitters. Short projects for when we need instant gradification, long projects to give you the pleasure of seeing a challenge well done, and future projects to look forward to. The challenge is to get to the future projects before the wool rots!

Been reading lots of books for 3rd gr-middle school for this committe that I am on. It is amazing what gets published. If you have ever thought of writting a children's/youth book, go for it.....seems like the publishing work has gone the way of the rest of the world...pandering to the lowest or most popular level. So get your computers going and watch TV for a few nights. Put it down in sentences that sort of follow the English grammer rules and you'll get published!

Speaking of reading....have I read the new Harry Potter book? No, but a young friend confirmed what I was sure happened at the end! In hero tales, something has to happen to force the reluctant hero to do what they have to do to suceed. In a longer series it usually means someone close to the hero has to die. If that person stayed alive, the hero would still be under their influence or care and they would never move on....kind of like being pushed out of the nest. That is why so many of the writers for children (see Susan Cooper esp.) feel that the hero tale is the one essential tale type that children should read, be read to, often. We all need to know, and the sooner the better, that we can go out overcome something, survive and come back to make the world we live in better. Fantasy puts that in the context of good vs. evil which enhances the message and gives children realistic hope. Yes, you may loose someone in the process, but it is because you and life must more forward. (guess what is my favorite type of literature!) I still want to read the lates Potter book because in good fantasy is not what happens, but how it happens. However, since I have to read 4 books a week for my committee I'll be lucky to get to it by the winter!

Better go to bed....have a bad day tomorrow....lots of hrs on the ref. desk, then home to make my place at least passable for Heather and anyone else who may stop by!

Well I am finally getting back to blogging. Here are some thoughts.

While up the farm I found a box marked old Lloyd and some Famous memories. In it were old Lloyd family photos. I have been taking pictures of them and will organize and label them over the next year. They can be viewed, along with pictures I took at my father's sister's house, Olive Warner:http://famousfamily2.dnsalias.org/Janet/oldLloydPics/index.html
The drawing of a young girl done in pencils was done by my father and is of his sister. The black and white drawing of a baby was done by his mother. Until I saw that picture I never knew where my father's art ability came from. She died when my father was @12 and no one mentioned that she was an artist. They mentioned that she hated the city. That she died young, but not much about her as a person. That is something we all need to remember when we pass on stories....pass on the person, not just the facts!

I was really glad to find pictures of the shore place (Ship Bottom on Long Beach Island, NJ). My earliest memories are from that place and was glad to revisit it. It was sad as well because no one who when there, except maybe my Aunt Dot, is still alive to share those times with. I wish Judi had brought those out (they were not with her regular stash of albums) so we could have shared those times. I guess in a way, getting them out and in a place we could find them, was her way of doing that....but I would have liked to have done that in person. I have been thinking more and more about going to visit there sometime. It is still a quiet family resort I understand from a friend who has gone there. http://www.shipbottom.org/

I'll post some of my memories on Judi's family memories site.

Well my stomach, which was keeping me up at this hr., is doing better, so I'd better go to bed!

More later

Well I had my 6 mo. checkup with my oncologest on Wed. All is well and since I am almost 4 yrs cancer free he said we could take out my port. It is getting more difficult to access (happens after a few years...turns and is hard to find the opening) so he said we might as well take it out as he doesn't see it needing to be used anytime soon...yeah! Is not so much of a problem for me except I have to get it flushed every 6 weeks at $15 a visit, so this will give me two days off work (yeah) and save me money. I'll get it out May 13...believe it or not it is the first Thurs., Fri I don't have work or family things going on!

Work is easing up a bit...all the 4th 5th gr are done. They are fun to do but tiring. Now it is on to storytime. An odd thing has happened with that. Last fall the 2 storytimes on Fri. (ones I was scheduled to do) didn't fill up so I only had to do one. This time they both filled up right away and the ones on Tues. and Thurs. didn't fill up....go figure! That is why it is so hard to schedule. Guys at work are teasing me saying everyone wants mine, but we don't tell who is doing which so as much as my ego would like to believe that, it isn't so!

I've started knitting prayer shaws. They are basically long and wide and knitted for someone in need of a good prayerful hug. I am doing two right now. One for a friend's husband whose grandchild died at 7 mo. and one for a friend who is having a hard time at work. I also have in production a pillow for a friend (wedding present) a small blanket for Lucinda (fun, but hard!), sweater for Jen and Emma. Why so many projects? I get bored easily! I have started a knitting journal (records what is knitted for whom and with what and a picture) with an album Judi gave me. It is fun to look at what has been done.

Have book club tonight. Our book is Queen Noor's bio....I've listened to two disks and looked at the pictures......

A friend gave me a great photo album for Christmas. One where you make comment/notes with each picture. I am putting Grand's in it...Emma and whoever comes after her....so Tod and Holly, get going...you don't want the whole album taken up with Mark and Jen's progeny do you?....ha!

Boy will I be glad when 5:00 tomorrow comes....for being a short week it has taken a long time to get to Fri.!

I don't get some principals. We offer to do 1/2 hr booktalks in all the 4th and 5th grades on genres and/or subjects they are studying. In the schools we serve and most are very happy for us to come...esp. since we cater to what they are studying at the time. Well Fountain Green media specialist was all for us coming...then she talked to the principal who said we could come, but we couldn't take class time....it had to be during their reg. scheduled library time. When the media specialist explained that we would have to come at 10 AM and 1:30 PM 5 days a week to see all the classes, she said that was what we would have to do if we wanted to see them because class time could not be used for this purpose! Right...books and ref. information have no place in the classroom....it would be such a waste of precious class time...what an idiot. So we went Wed., Thurs and will go tomorrow to catch some of the kids (a pain, but it isn't the kids fault, so they shouldn't suffer). The down side to doing the presentations during their lib. time is the teacher is not there since it is their planning time. So none of the teachers heard about the on-line homework services we now have or any of the books. Fools and idiots...the world is made up of fools and idiots...