With a glass of Chianti on my desk

Feeling a little like a lush since I'm finishing off the rest of the Chianti I didn't use in tonight's recipe, Drunken Tuscan Pasta from Rachael Ray's Express Lane Meals. I modify the recipe a bit to suit our household tastes, and will post the modified recipe shortly, but right now I've got a full stomach and need to be out the door soon for a birthday party tonight at the Book & Bean Café (Calvary Chapel's coffee shop outreach here in this fair city).

Got to hang out with my cousin Simon a bit today, as he had business to conduct with the vehicle inspection site in Royalton (where I worked one Saturday a month at the library for a year!) and tabs to acquire at the local DMV. Ah, small towns. Simon lives in the cities but they weren't able to get him in promptly, and the man needs to be able to drive his car, so he drove up here and called me for coffee this afternoon once he was free. It's been a while since I've seen him, so it was excellent to catch up and know that he needs some prayers and that S and I are informally invited for a non-specific dinner party with Simon and Eve sometime in February. Sweet!

In library school news, I am currently now very excited about my reference class, since Tuesday's assignment of partners for our project(25% of my grade—yeesh!). Me and another girl got our hands in the air to volunteer to present first, so we'll have that out of the way by the end of class on January 30th. This means I've started research on reference interviews and will need to gather some information from some current reference librarians and creatively, intelligently, coherently synthesize my ideas into a 3-4 page paper and collaboration with my classmate. It should be pretty great, actually. I am thankful for this blessing, since for a portion of my trip to St. Paul on Tuesday night for class, I just prayed for discernment about which topic to sign up for, and I prayed for some enthusiasm for this class, since I haven't been "feelin' it" this semester. Praise the Lord, because I'm now pretty jazzed about my topic and my ability to cover it.

Probably no reason to be afraid

I'm about to head to Calvary Chapel for this morning's service. I've really slacked off the last couple months and had wonderful excuses (I'm sure) for each Sunday I didn't attend, but I set my alarm and I woke up and got ready. Preparing myself for the barrage of questions about S, and since he flies back tomorrow, it's inevitable that people will ask, "Are you excited?" or other such things. I can't exactly use my honest response in this situation. "Excited? Well, yes, and also... scared shitless."

It ain't necessarily so

Along with the upcoming class on library collection development policies, I am working on an assignment to gague trends for librarians. We're to choose a serial publication from a list and then read/scan all its archives from 2005. I thought I might choose the magazine Public Libraries, but I've often said that if I ever find that magazine to be remotely interesting, I would appreciate it if somebody kill me, please. So I went on a search for a more interesting source, and I think I found it in the magazine, Online, which seems to be about trends in online technologies and resources. One of the articles I read was on Open Access, so I find it greatly congruent that anyone can read back issues of Online, well, online!

Apparently there was some sort of party which the chapel crew were going to after church, and someone asked if I was going. "No, I have homework," I replied. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, somehow starting a masters in the summer seemed like a good idea... It's lots of really nerdy library stuff. My coworkers at the library don't seem to mind it, though, and S says it's interesting."

"Wow, he must really love you!"