Check it out, it's my shiny new life!

Ok, ok, ok, I know, it's been more than a month since my last post.  Now that I am finally caught up on work projects, personal projects, podcast segments, RuPaul's Drag Race, Salem, laundry, FaceOff, Devious Maids, Cosmos, Dexter (OMG that ending! AUGH! I'm so upset!), and garden planning, I suppose I'm prepared to sit down and finally write this damn blog entry.  I am prepared to regale whomever may be reading with my laundry list of explanations as to what the hell happened to me and where in the hell I have been, exactly.  So, without further adieu, here is the whirlwind tour of my last month's existence:

Professional Update

For the last month, I have been steadily working away on writing a chapter entitled "Digitizing the Humanities: A Future for Libraries" for an upcoming digital humanities textbook for librarians and library science students.  It has been an exciting process, and it has taught me many things (above all, the importance of having an intact comma key on your keyboard while writing in APA style) about writing and the educational process.  I have never considered myself a writer, nor have I ever desired such a title as a career option.  It has, however, been something that I have enjoyed immensely, in that grown up homework kind of way.  It's also weirdly empowering and self-assuring that someone else is interested in what I'm doing outside of the institutions that I do it for.  I feel like a valid, real-life librarian, doing real people things that will eventually educate others, and that gives me a real purpose for the first time that I can ever really recall.

Speaking of people being interested in me and my professional offerings, I have also been offered a new job!  The Marion Skidmore Library of the Lily Dale Assembly has offered me a position as a Librarian, which I have graciously accepted.  I'm pretty excited, they have a very wonderful special collections facility there, and lots of cataloging to do and possibilities for digital projects.  Best of all, they have an interested committee of awesome people and a desire to partake in the wonderful world of 2.0 technologies!  Expect weekly updates on my life as a paranormal librarian, I'm very excited to document the whole process and put myself and my ideas out there.

Personal Things

The podcast that I have been co-hosting, The Thirteenth Four, recently posted our Star Wars Day Episode (which can be found here), in celebration of May the Fourth.  We've had some formatting changes in terms of how we record the episode itself  (taking a break in the middle to get up and stretch and get new drinks instead of sitting and talking for three hours straight until we're so tired and out of focus) as well as how we present it to the listener (adding music between segments, taking a break in the middle for plugging other podcasts and services), and I'm pretty pleased with how these changes have gone.  I feel that we've put together an increasingly professional podcast, and thanks to Pat we'll be getting new microphones soon to further improve our sound quality.  Now if we can just get Chris to speak at a reasonable volume, we'll be golden.

Next week is our musical episode featuring our first guests, Mark and Pat S., and I believe that this summer we will be starting a more grassroots and broader advertising campaign.  Let's see how far we can get with this, everyone!  How much do YOU like learning things about things, and making others learn things about things?  Support us, and help educate society about the stranger things in life.

Life Stuff!

Thank you, springtime, for making my allergies worse this year than ever before.  Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of going to the hospital for a combination of reasons, primarily because my sinuses decided to drain out of my eyes.  It was horrifying, and I looked like a total monster for a few days, and needless to say, it put me way behind my usual productive schedule of things.  This is primarily what the hell happened to my blogging, the delightful duo of overworking and being really damn sick.  Happily, I think that the worst is behind me, and I should be on task for the remainder of the year.

Next on my agenda is traveling to South Bend, Indiana this weekend for a Shepp family wedding and get-together, something that I'm looking forward to.  I don't get to see this side of my new family much, and I think some time to get to know them is definitely in order.  Also some road trips, those are absolutely in order.  I haven't had nearly enough time to check out all of these awesome new travel apps on my phone, and I really wanna see what they have to offer.  So, look for that post after this weekend,  I plan on trying out a few and reviewing them and all that good stuff.  Maybe that will be a regular part of upcoming blog entries, I'm supposed to be some sort of tech-savvy person who does this kind of thing for a living, and I do have a personal attachment to the concept of technology enriching my life.  So yeah, there's that.

The rest of this week is going to be busy and somewhat helter skelter, but eh, I can roll with it.  Gotta spruce up my face, dye my hairs, and paint my nails before making an impression on my husband's family in a more casual setting than my own wedding reception (having a large family is new to me and weird, but it's definitely growing on me)!  Pictures and travelogues (new direction of travel, Chris and I were getting so bored with the drive down to Richmond/Maryland, so this will be new and interesting and really fun) will be posted, so expect some fun and shenanigans to come up soon.

For now, off to finish catching up on Bates Motel and create a giant to-do list!  Huzzah for grown up stuff!