March Miscellany (Mess)
OK, friends, it's gonna be a ramble, but here I am. Still breathing.
I've realized for quite a while that I haven't been posting here because I think my messy self is too boring or, well, just too messy to expose. And it was all mess even before the pandemic, so you can imagine how it is after a solid year of pandemic.
I am full-time work from home these days, thanks to my boss who saw me struggling healthwise last fall when they re-opened the library for limited service and brought us all back on site after the initial six months of shutdown. I mostly staff the virtual library reference service on our online chat reference system. Work/life balance is a challenge when I basically never leave my one-room apartment and I pretty much am staffing alone, so have to take the service unavailable to take a break. Some tactics I use for sanity include using the clock timeout feature on the chat software so it chimes out HARD at quitting time and prompts me to log off. I also have taken to calling going to the bathroom for any purpose (yes, the usual purposes, but I also visit regularly to fill my water bottle) as "visiting the East Wing." Look, I have 331 sq ft total to worth with here; cut me some slack. My imagination is all I've got.
I've applied to take on an interesting new set of materials selection duties for my department, but it's unclear when I'll hear back about that. It's more work, but I think it could be a good challenge and of course, I think I'm the best person for the job...or, at least, I think the other equally good person already has too much on her plate so I hope she didn't put in for it. A mutual colleague agrees, so that's not just my sour grapes.
My apartment desperately needs to be straightened up, so that's a huge priority for the spring. Send good thoughts!!!
I have jammed a work laptop into my current mess and this week I got obsessed with a family photo identification project that a second cousin launched on social media and jumped the gun on my own family photo scanning project that's been sitting around for a decade. So tomorrow there's going to be an extra mess in here once I go pick up the new scanner I ordered last night at 3 AM for Best Buy curbside pick up, since I haven't seen my previous flatbed scanner since I moved in here a year and a half ago. It might be in my storage unit that I've lost the keys to. /o\ The proper timeline for this project is clean and rearrange the apt this spring and make a spot to set up a scanner to work with during a couple of upcoming staycations that I've scheduled for summer and fall. But maybe my crazy impulse buying will jumpstart something, who knows?
Mostly what I do other than work and think wild thoughts about my apartment and, newly, examine decades of family history, is watch a)hockey, and b)MCUverse shows on disney+. As one does.
My building had a temporary internet outage a few days ago that really shook me. I'm barely functional as a human being if I don't have five browser tabs and hot and cold running internet at all times -- even while I'm sleeping, because I need to stream soothing sleep music all night long. In a pinch I subscribed to Spotify Premium for a month so I could download (only one hit to the cell data bandwidth) and listen to the great Spotify sleep playlist I fell in love with when I had a Spotify Premium trial in Summer 2019. It's as good as I remember and I was grateful for it this week, but nothing is $10/month good when I have perfectly decent Youtube sleep channels that I can stream for free now that my internet is back. I still have to sort out my Chromecast access, but I can limp along without for a while. I'll add it to the Spring Cleaning agenda.
I know I promised mess and then I've been shying away from it. Multiple overlapping health struggles that I'm weathering as best I can. I need to be more pro-active about everything, but I don't wanna! Enh!
I have at least started getting the COVID-19 vaccine, so that's the really high-priority stuff nailed down. I got included in the public library employee eligibility.(Sure, I've been WFH for months, but if they needed me onsite I'd probably be there on a moment's notice working frontline with the public.) I'm scheduled for my second dose of Pfizer on Wednesday this week. You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth (
comments)
I've realized for quite a while that I haven't been posting here because I think my messy self is too boring or, well, just too messy to expose. And it was all mess even before the pandemic, so you can imagine how it is after a solid year of pandemic.
I am full-time work from home these days, thanks to my boss who saw me struggling healthwise last fall when they re-opened the library for limited service and brought us all back on site after the initial six months of shutdown. I mostly staff the virtual library reference service on our online chat reference system. Work/life balance is a challenge when I basically never leave my one-room apartment and I pretty much am staffing alone, so have to take the service unavailable to take a break. Some tactics I use for sanity include using the clock timeout feature on the chat software so it chimes out HARD at quitting time and prompts me to log off. I also have taken to calling going to the bathroom for any purpose (yes, the usual purposes, but I also visit regularly to fill my water bottle) as "visiting the East Wing." Look, I have 331 sq ft total to worth with here; cut me some slack. My imagination is all I've got.
I've applied to take on an interesting new set of materials selection duties for my department, but it's unclear when I'll hear back about that. It's more work, but I think it could be a good challenge and of course, I think I'm the best person for the job...or, at least, I think the other equally good person already has too much on her plate so I hope she didn't put in for it. A mutual colleague agrees, so that's not just my sour grapes.
My apartment desperately needs to be straightened up, so that's a huge priority for the spring. Send good thoughts!!!
I have jammed a work laptop into my current mess and this week I got obsessed with a family photo identification project that a second cousin launched on social media and jumped the gun on my own family photo scanning project that's been sitting around for a decade. So tomorrow there's going to be an extra mess in here once I go pick up the new scanner I ordered last night at 3 AM for Best Buy curbside pick up, since I haven't seen my previous flatbed scanner since I moved in here a year and a half ago. It might be in my storage unit that I've lost the keys to. /o\ The proper timeline for this project is clean and rearrange the apt this spring and make a spot to set up a scanner to work with during a couple of upcoming staycations that I've scheduled for summer and fall. But maybe my crazy impulse buying will jumpstart something, who knows?
Mostly what I do other than work and think wild thoughts about my apartment and, newly, examine decades of family history, is watch a)hockey, and b)MCUverse shows on disney+. As one does.
My building had a temporary internet outage a few days ago that really shook me. I'm barely functional as a human being if I don't have five browser tabs and hot and cold running internet at all times -- even while I'm sleeping, because I need to stream soothing sleep music all night long. In a pinch I subscribed to Spotify Premium for a month so I could download (only one hit to the cell data bandwidth) and listen to the great Spotify sleep playlist I fell in love with when I had a Spotify Premium trial in Summer 2019. It's as good as I remember and I was grateful for it this week, but nothing is $10/month good when I have perfectly decent Youtube sleep channels that I can stream for free now that my internet is back. I still have to sort out my Chromecast access, but I can limp along without for a while. I'll add it to the Spring Cleaning agenda.
I know I promised mess and then I've been shying away from it. Multiple overlapping health struggles that I'm weathering as best I can. I need to be more pro-active about everything, but I don't wanna! Enh!
I have at least started getting the COVID-19 vaccine, so that's the really high-priority stuff nailed down. I got included in the public library employee eligibility.(Sure, I've been WFH for months, but if they needed me onsite I'd probably be there on a moment's notice working frontline with the public.) I'm scheduled for my second dose of Pfizer on Wednesday this week. You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth (
comments)