The Post-Thanksgiving Update
For the first time in my 31 years of life, my family decided to eat Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant this year. Among the many and varied reasons for the change were my grandmother's increasing age and decreasing health, lack of adequate space for entertaining at anyone's home, travel distance required for us all to visit my parent's home, and the reluctance of anyone else to assume the responsibility and burden of cooking the meal. My aunt took control of the situation and made the reservations at one of the nicer local hotels in town for 2:00 in the afternoon. Unfortunately, this meant that Jim and I had to spend the day apart as his mother decided to cook this year. So, ten of us showed up for the buffet-style dinner. The food was adequate and mostly traditional. I was disappointed in the turkey, but the pork was quite tasty. The dessert fair was pretty slim if you weren't partial to pumpkin pie. It was nice to be waited on for a change, and I will admit I didn't miss the after-dinner clean-up; but all-in-all it seemed a rather lackluster way to spend the holiday. Of course, when the waiter brought the check and I saw just how much it had cost us, I decided I would volunteer to cook the turkey next year myself before we do that again. In my humble opinion, it was way too much money for a meal that didn't satisfy. Not to mention all the guilt I felt (and still feel), because my uncle paid for everything.
On the plus side, I actually woke up early and remembered to set the DVR to record the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. This made Jodi very happy when she woke up, because she didn't want to miss seeing the Dunbar band march. She and I have always been big parade watchers. We like the Macy's parade, but our favorite is the Tournament of Roses parade on New Year's Day. I'll have to remember to record that one, too.
The house is really clean right now, so Jim and I started putting up the Christmas decorations this past Sunday. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with us, and we were forced to concentrate on the interior decorations only. The tree is up; all the bric-a-brac is placed. There is still one tote in the building to sort through, and we still have to decorate the exterior of the house; but we are mostly finished. All that remains is a couple hours work outside this weekend assuming the weather permits. Personally, I don't mind working with Christmas lights in the cold, but I draw the line at decorating in the rain.
We took advantage of Jodi's presence at home over the Thanksgiving holiday to get a jump on the Christmas shopping. I'm not one to brave the traffic and crowds on Black Friday - too many years of living near the mall and working retail have soured me against it. However, I enjoy getting out during the week when possible, so we opted to hit the stores on Wednesday. Mom and Dad even drove down that morning to go with us, although they left by early afternoon to avoid the thunderstorms predicted by the meteorologists for the evening. Jodi and I took a break after they left to nap before heading out again that night. I was pretty pleased with the amount we accomplished, and Mom informed me tonight she'll be down again on December 5 to finish up. This means it's entirely possible we might have 90% of our shopping done before December 10 this year.
Work has been going well. My supervisor hasn't scheduled me as much lately. I think he's afraid of burning me out. I've noticed that when I have to work 5-6 days out of the week, even though my shifts are usually shorter than 8 hours, I still tend to be crankier and less patient with the patrons. I know this is perfectly normal behavior, but it makes for a much nicer day when you don't find yourself wanting to reach across the counter to strangle every third person.
I was surprised by how busy we were the day after Thanksgiving. I really thought most people would be too busy with their families and shopping to do more than return materials or perhaps rent a movie to watch. It would seem, however, that most people just couldn't go without checking their email and surfing the Web for longer than one day. My prediction for Friday was realized on Saturday when the minutes dragged by like hours between patrons. The downtime turned out to be a blessing in disguise, though, because it gave us time to rest up and prepare for Sunday, which turned out to be crazy busy. We're only open for a grand total of four hours on Sundays, but you would be surprised by the number of patrons who visit us each week. I grew up in a small town where the public library closed at 1:00 PM on Saturday and never even opened its doors on Sunday, so it boggles my mind we're open at all. It completely floors me to see the amount of traffic we do in just those four hours. It also amazes me each time I open the doors and see the line of people waiting to enter. One Sunday, I counted 35 heads when I unlocked the front doors. I'm fairly certain, too, that 30 of those heads made a beeline for the computer area.
On a positive note, it does make me proud to be a part of providing such a beneficial service to the public, and as my husband so often reminds me: "Honey, at least, these people are coming to the library." Truer words were never spoken.
On the plus side, I actually woke up early and remembered to set the DVR to record the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. This made Jodi very happy when she woke up, because she didn't want to miss seeing the Dunbar band march. She and I have always been big parade watchers. We like the Macy's parade, but our favorite is the Tournament of Roses parade on New Year's Day. I'll have to remember to record that one, too.
The house is really clean right now, so Jim and I started putting up the Christmas decorations this past Sunday. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with us, and we were forced to concentrate on the interior decorations only. The tree is up; all the bric-a-brac is placed. There is still one tote in the building to sort through, and we still have to decorate the exterior of the house; but we are mostly finished. All that remains is a couple hours work outside this weekend assuming the weather permits. Personally, I don't mind working with Christmas lights in the cold, but I draw the line at decorating in the rain.
We took advantage of Jodi's presence at home over the Thanksgiving holiday to get a jump on the Christmas shopping. I'm not one to brave the traffic and crowds on Black Friday - too many years of living near the mall and working retail have soured me against it. However, I enjoy getting out during the week when possible, so we opted to hit the stores on Wednesday. Mom and Dad even drove down that morning to go with us, although they left by early afternoon to avoid the thunderstorms predicted by the meteorologists for the evening. Jodi and I took a break after they left to nap before heading out again that night. I was pretty pleased with the amount we accomplished, and Mom informed me tonight she'll be down again on December 5 to finish up. This means it's entirely possible we might have 90% of our shopping done before December 10 this year.
Work has been going well. My supervisor hasn't scheduled me as much lately. I think he's afraid of burning me out. I've noticed that when I have to work 5-6 days out of the week, even though my shifts are usually shorter than 8 hours, I still tend to be crankier and less patient with the patrons. I know this is perfectly normal behavior, but it makes for a much nicer day when you don't find yourself wanting to reach across the counter to strangle every third person.
I was surprised by how busy we were the day after Thanksgiving. I really thought most people would be too busy with their families and shopping to do more than return materials or perhaps rent a movie to watch. It would seem, however, that most people just couldn't go without checking their email and surfing the Web for longer than one day. My prediction for Friday was realized on Saturday when the minutes dragged by like hours between patrons. The downtime turned out to be a blessing in disguise, though, because it gave us time to rest up and prepare for Sunday, which turned out to be crazy busy. We're only open for a grand total of four hours on Sundays, but you would be surprised by the number of patrons who visit us each week. I grew up in a small town where the public library closed at 1:00 PM on Saturday and never even opened its doors on Sunday, so it boggles my mind we're open at all. It completely floors me to see the amount of traffic we do in just those four hours. It also amazes me each time I open the doors and see the line of people waiting to enter. One Sunday, I counted 35 heads when I unlocked the front doors. I'm fairly certain, too, that 30 of those heads made a beeline for the computer area.
On a positive note, it does make me proud to be a part of providing such a beneficial service to the public, and as my husband so often reminds me: "Honey, at least, these people are coming to the library." Truer words were never spoken.