Hobby Quest! Adventures in fine dining

If you know me in real life, you know that currently, my biggest problem is the town we are stuck in.  Lebanon is.... well, it's a lot of things, and not a lot of them are positive.  Since living here we have experienced a breed of conservative redneck that is terrifying in its ignorance but does provide us with a bit of humor from time to time.  Take, for instance, this homemade bumper sticker that Matt recently spotted before accidentally stumbling into a giant tea party rally at the local public library:

Matt thankfully survived this whole encounter unscathed.

The main attractions in town are smoky bars - including restaurants that still only have a partition in between the smoking and non-smoking sections - bad karaoke, the worst Mexican food I've ever tried to eat and a 4th of July parade that is so overhyped people start staking out their spots a full 24 hours in advance.  Incidentally, I love bad karaoke, so hey, plus one for craptown.

Anyway.  There is this one very random, very out of place fancy French restaurant in Lebanon, Bijou. It's like a beacon of civility and culture in the midst of a sea of tea-partiers and confederate sympathizers (you only wish i was exaggerating**).  Not shockingly, the owners and most of the diners do not actually live in Lebanon.  We've wandered by Bijou and had it recommended by co-workers, but it's the sort of expensive that we middle-class folk reserve for special occasions only.  So as a Valentine's Day hobby quest, we made reservations.

Our adventure in fine dining was very fun.  We dressed up, and Matt finally had an excuse to wear his new jacket.  Aren't we spiffy?

Fine dining: Hobby grade: B+

Remarks:
- Fun!

- Food was delicious, and different.  When you're used to eating at the same two restaurants in town over and over again, different is good.  Matt had lamb, and I had a fish, Char, that I had never heard of but was awesome. Us with food:

- We enjoyed the excuse to get dressed up. In our town, appropriate going out attire is flannel pajama pants, and there's really not a lot of reasons to venture out of the house in anything else (unless we're going to work, i guess).

- Eating fancy style is a very fun hobby.  The obvious, very serious downside is the cost.  One fancy meal was almost equal to our entire dining out budget for the entire month!  Unfortunately, while fun and enjoyable, it will not make a good hobby until we are rich.

- Matt is not here to comment, but I imagine his remark would be "yum."

- While this isn't an official restaurant review, I will add that we also enjoyed the wait staff and the random drop-bys from the owner.  If you're in the Indy area and looking for a fancy feast, I recommend!

So sadly, while we both would enjoy making fine dining a hobby, at this point it really isn't feasible unless we choose hobbies over future goals like owning a home.  Though since there's no way we will be buying a house in a town with more karaoke bars than Democrats, maybe we can afford to eat there a few more times after all.




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**I feel like I'm being mean.  I am very fine with many aspects of "redneck culture," and as I did grow up in the middle of nowhere Iowa, am well acquainted with the joys of crappy beer, country music, and driving big trucks.  I even have a bizarre and random appreciation for NASCAR. However... I am not at all fine with racism, nativity scenes in front of courthouses, and tea party rallies everywhere we go.  The particular incident mentioned in text was at the 4th of July parade where two teenagers on horses waved confederate flags. Cool!  NOT. 

Can I get your cabbage roll? (oh oh. cabbage roll).

First off, who is on a mega regular blogging streak? this girl!  What what?  Ride it while it's hot folks.  Side note: Hobby quest didn't happen this past weekend due to the Super Bowl.  It will return next week, I hope.

Secondly, you're probably wondering who on earth eats cabbage.  I'm here to say, "give cabbage a chance!"  It's ridiculously healthy, cheap (the head of cabbage for this project cost 40 cents), currently in season, and if you cook it right, I swear to you it's delicious.

I love cabbage rolls.  They are this semi-bland, cabbage-licious Mennonite comfort food that is great to eat in winter.  HOWEVER, they take FOREVER to make, because you have to stuff and roll leaves of boiled cabbage like little cabbage burritos.  So when I came upon a recipe for cabbage roll casserole I got pretty excited. Could it be that I could enjoy the amazingness of cabbage rolls without spending hours burning my hands on hot cabbage leaves? YES.

I more or less followed this recipe from Cooks.com, with a couple variations that I'll note as I go.

Also, i should warn you that while making cabbage roll casserole is way less effort than cabbage rolls, you still need to give yourself a lot of time with this one - it has to bake for 2 hours.

Be sure to prepare yourself.... I recommend wine.

Brown 1 lb of ground beef - I used ground turkey.

While the meat is cooking, in a smallish bowl, combine 2 cans diced tomato (the recipe calls for tomato sauce, but I prefer chunks), 1/4 cup cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, and 1 tablespoon dry mustard.  I only had ground mustard, which I assumed was the same?




















When the meat is done cooking, turn off the heat and add 1 cup uncooked rice, 1 chopped onion, 2 cloves minced garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and a few grinds worth of pepper.  Stir together.

















then CHOP that cabbage.  It said to chop "coarsely" which i took to mean "not too small".
FYI, you won't need the whole cabbage... You may only need half.  I used about 2/3rds, but as you'll see in a minute, I ended up needing two containers.

In a 3 quart dish - or, if you're like me and you don't have a 3 quarter pan, a 2 1/2 quart dish and another one you have on hand -  layer as follows: 1/3rd of your chopped cabbage on the bottom, then 1/2 the meat, another 1/3rd of the cabbage, the rest of the meat, the rest of the cabbage, and top with the tomato yummyness.

I had a bit too much but oh well!  More = better!

Let it sit for a bit before putting in the oven - The recipe says 20 minutes, I probably did 10.

Bake for 2 hours at 325, covered.

Eat! mmmm.

I thought it was delicious and a perfect substitute for cabbage rolls. In fact, I may even like it BETTER than cabbage rolls - the cider vinegar gives the whole dish a great zippy flavor.  So give cabbage a chance! This whole recipe will cost you about $5 to make assuming you already have rice and spices on hand, feed you for a week, and if you don't like it, I'll gladly eat your leftovers. 

Thing 16: Advocacy

Advocacy... you know, fighting for stuff... this is thing 16 for CPD 23

So, I had pretty much given up on finishing this program, but I'm finding a lot of librarians still working on it, so I guess I will too?  Plus, I have discovered that blogging is like working out: the more I do it, the more I like it, but as soon as I stop I don't really miss it.  So might as well keep writing while i'm on a streak.

I honestly don't have much to say about advocacy.  I feel like 60% of my daily job is advocacy... making sure I stay relevant and useful to a campus that before I came on, didn't have a librarian. Outside of my job, I advocate by using the local public library, being a Friend of the Library, and general lazy things like that.

The other piece of this, according to the CPD23 description, is being engaged in research and publishing. Well let me tell you, this crap is a bi$ch.  I have a few presentations on my CV, but have been trying to get published for about a year now.  An article I wrote with my mentor has been submitted and rejected by... 3?... 4? journals? So that's fun.  And I'm currently working with a former colleague on a new article.  I do think research is important and plan to keep trying - but the process is very frustrating.

I know this was a short post, but I still have like 7 things to go, and this one isn't anything particularly exciting for me.

Hobby Quest will return early next week :D 

Libday 8

An abrupt shift from Hobby Quest! :)

Libday is a project meant to answer the question that I think certain people on my campus ask themselves regularly:  "what on earth does a librarian do all day?"  Ok, not just people on my campus.  Pretty much everytime I tell someone I'm a librarian, the response is one of four statements:
1. Oh, so you like to read?
2. Oh, we still have those?
3. Really?  You don't.... seem.... like a librarian.
4. Oh? My mother/grandmother/cousin is/was a librarian.

And, you know, I can think of a lot of professions that I am ignorant about, so I can excuse and laugh about this.  However, it becomes a problem when the people who control you budget and job security don't understand or know what you do.  If it's misunderstood, it probably gets slashed. 

So Libday is meant to counteract this problem.  What does a librarian do all day?  Well, it depends entirely on what type of library he/she is working in, and what sort of role that librarian fills.  Being in a solo position means I fill about 15 different roles.  Just today I played reference librarian, instruction librarian, IT librarian, cataloging librarian, tech services librarian, and emerging technologies librarian.

So yesterday, I chronicled my day for the masses, in hopes that the list of what I do all day might save some library somewhere from budget slashing.  After the break, yo:

Bore-igami

This past weekend we actually had a fair amount of stuff going on, so the hobby adventure needed to be short, relatively easy, and preferably cost-free.  So, Sunday, after our weekly trip to the grocery store, and before our weekly ritual of avoiding cleaning the kitchen, I forced Matt into 30 minutes of Origami.

I've never been particularly partial to the art of paper folding, beyond entertaining myself in church as a kid by making paper boats, and at one point being proficient in making cute little boxes out of old greeting cards.  However, when it came to finding a hobby, it seemed kind of ideal.  We could become paper masters! Creating art where once was a boring piece of paper! Astonishing small children by turning napkins into cranes!  Except that it turns out I suck at origami.

To begin our hobby-tivity for the week, I dug out an origami book that was given to me for Christmas as some point in the past few years, and bonus! there were still pieces of paper tucked inside.

Matt wanted to jump right into making cranes, I suppose assuming that folding paper really shouldn't be difficult.  Oh but it is... we were quickly frustrated by the vague two-dimensional images in the book, so supplemented our learning with YouTube videos.

In the end, Matt ended up with a crane, and I ended up with some sort of paper blob.  Thankfully the true sadness of my crane-like creature is camouflaged by the tablecloth. :

And then... we were done.  I made a swan by myself to gain back some self-respect after the crane disaster, but that's it.  I guess it takes a long time to become an paper wielding origami master artist, and we just didn't have the patience or skill.

Hobby grade: D-

Remarks:
- Well. I wasn't very good at it, and my crane kind of looked like a piece of trash.

- You end up with a tangible product, which is nice.  But it's a lame fake paper animal.  Bonus for being recyclable!

- Over too quickly.  The puzzle was too long, the crane-making too short.

- Can you really imagine a couple doing this as a hobby?  "Oh Matty, let's turn off the TV for awhile and focus on our latest paper craft."  "yes dearest, that sounds lovely." Though i do suppose that receiving a bouquet of paper roses would be nice?

- It really wasn't very fun. In fact, it was frustrating.  Maybe we would have enjoyed in more if we had gone to a class or something.

- Matt's comments: "too much folding." and "G.D. CREASES." I must agree.  You can't just fold a crane.  You have to fold and unfold in about more directions than you even realized paper COULD fold before you even start creating something.

So Borigami is not the answer to our search for a shared activity.  I, for one, am still holding out for basket weaving.



More pics!

Matt folds.  He's better at this than me, but he still doesn't like it.

I am sad that I suck at origami. 

A close up of the sad, sad crane. 

Hobby Quest!

Holy crapolies people. Not exactly sure why I haven't blogged a decent blog since, oh September, but I can guess it has a lot to do with being pretty busy at work and teaching a whole lot of classes on the side. My brain works for so much each day that when I get home I basically want to do nothing but sleep and watch television. I "only" have two classes this quarter (though have the same amount to students as I did last quarter, with 3 classes, but I'll leave that rant for another time), so I'm hoping that magical fountains of extra time and inspiration will spring forth from the floor of the apartment and I'll blog again. In odd semi-related news, my blog had 70 hits the other day? I seem to get more traffic to my blog when I don't write than when I do...

So, Hobby Quest.

You see, Matt and I lead a fairly boring life these days. Our boring routine isn't so much a problem during the week when we're so shell-shocked from work that doing nothing sounds great, but on the weekends this boredom leads to bickering, annoyance, and general anger toward the town we live in and it's utter lameness. During winter, this frustration is even more pronounced since so little can be done outside of the apartment. Last weekend, I decided that we need more hobbies.

Why? Well. Because Netflix and wine cannot be considered hobbies, and because I read somewhere that the key to a successful marriage is lots of shared interests. The shared interests part remains a bit of a problem, because you can't really force a hobby onto someone. That said, Matt has (so far) been a willing participant in Hobby Quest 2012.

This idea came to me Sunday morning, and I spent some time researching hobby ideas. In the end, I created a fairly lengthy list, from which Matt nixed basket weaving and candle making. I'm hoping to persuade him that basket weaving would be totally worth our time, because HELLO, you end up with a basket at the end.

Since it was already Sunday, which left only hours to try out our newly chosen weekend hobby, we went with something easy: puzzles. I grew up doing puzzles. Lots of puzzles. As an awkward adolescent I had this one puzzle that I would do over and over again in the basement while listening to Billy Joel records. I would time myself to see how fast I could do it. Seriously.

And, it is a family proverb that a successful marriage can be predicted by the ability of the couple to complete a puzzle together. (I'm really not kidding - I can't tell you how many times I heard this growing up. Am I the only one?).

As part of our Sunday grocery shopping, Matt and I chose a puzzle together, and got to work. I am pleased to report that we did not fight once during the assembly of the puzzle, so I assume we passed the family test in that regard.

Puzzles. Overall hobby grade: C

Remarks:
- No suitable surface area. We were forced to do puzzle on coffee table, which was too tall for floor sitting, but too short for chair sitting. Back pain became a problem.

- Improper lighting. We actually used a headlamp thingy for extra light.

- Length of hobby. You can work on a puzzle for like 2 hours and not even be halfway done! Needs more in the way of instant gratification.

- One problem is that we didn't really work on the puzzle together. While I worked on the edges, Matt put a bunch of pieces on a cookie sheet and sat on the side of the room. Thus lessening the whole SHARED part of the shared hobby.

- Matt also quit after assembling one figure in the middle of the puzzle. I really didn't mind doing 75% of the puzzle... I like puzzles... but apparently, Matt doesn't, at least not to the same extent.

- Post-completion disappointment. Unless you put together a puzzle that is also a work of art, all you can do when you're done with the puzzles is... take it apart. Let's compare that to basket weaving, where you end up with a sweetass basket that you can use forever. Basket weaving for the win!

- When asked for his opinion of puzzling as a hobby, the best Matt could conjure was "eh."

So, puzzling will be turned to in dark hours of boredom and desperation, like snowstorms and broken legs. Though I won't lie, part of me wants to find that old puzzle from my youth and see how fast I can put it together.


Matt is so pumped for Puzzles! And Hobbies!

My back hurts from working on the puzzle too long

Done! Hobby success!

Not coincidentally, my last blog post was the week before the start of fall quarter at the school where i work. I'm teaching 3 classes this quarter, and while this is totally manageable, it means that things like lesson planning and grading have replaced hobbies like blogging and having a life for the time being. The quarter ends soon! Maybe i'll get back on track with blogging soon....

Thing 15: Conferences

Thing 15 in my CPD 23 things is conferences -- attending, speaking at, and organizing conferences.

Attending:
I haven't done as much of this as I would like. I have attended only 2 professional conferences, the Public Library Association (PLA) conference last spring in Portland, and the Indiana Library Federation (ILF) annual conference last November. This year, the ILF is the only one I will make it to.

PLA was kind of a fluke... I mostly went because I had funding and wanted to go to Portland! but it was still an awesome experience.

ILF is, for me, a good thing to be involved with right now. As someone just getting started in my career, it's easier to get presentation proposals accepted and to get involved with ILF than a national conference right now. Plus, the school I work for will only fund the local conferences at this point.

In the very near future the ALA conference will be in Chicago, and ACRL will be in Indy. And while I might have to pay out of my own pocket to attend 1 or both of these, i WILL be there, because if they are that close, how can I say no?

Speaking:
My first professional presentation was at ILF last fall, as part of a larger group presenting on a project. I really didn't have to do anything but get up and present my 6 slides. This year I will be speaking again, with my colleague Rebecca, and we completed the whole process -- writing and submitting a proposal, being accepted, and now, putting together a presentation. It's been fun... and nervous making.

I do a lot of public speaking, even though I can't say it's something I ever really enjoy. I see the value in it, though, and know that I'm getting better at it, so I will keep on doing it! Maybe I can get my college to fund my fees to attend to ACRL in Indy if I can get a proposal accepted? Hmmm...

Organizing:
I don't really feel skilled in this area, but again have somehow managed to do a fair amount of it. As impromptu president of the SLIS student association at IUPUI I planned events, some successful, some not. I'm working with Nicole and Annie on an October Tweet-up for librarians in our area. And, my campus loves events, so I find myself planning lots of random things for my LRC.

I am really excited about the future when it comes to presenting and attending and being involved with conferences. As I've mentioned in several posts, I have a very awesome group of librarians that I work with - albeit remotely - and we have some great ideas for research that can hopefully turn into some cool opportunities.

Thing 14: Reference Thingamabobs

Thing 14 for CPD is open source citation management programs Zotero, Citeulike, and Mendeley.

I graduated with my MLS last May, and i think this past year or so can be considered a nice little break from too much academia. Not that I haven't done any research-y things in the past year... i most definitely have.. but I'm not digging for articles in databases every other day like I was in school, and when I find articles that are interesting, I usually just print them out, read them, and take notes. I'm old fashioned like that. This is starting to change somewhat as my mentor pushes me to revise and submit articles for publication, and I've developed a cohort of colleagues that is interested in researching and presenting. We need a way to easily share articles, and email is clunky - people forget to save the attachment, delete the email, it goes to spam, etc. A citation management system with quality sharing features is a much better option.

Zotero
I have a love hate relationship with Zotero, stemming from a frustrating experience as a class Zotero trouble shooter over a year ago now. You can read some more about this in a blog I wrote called Zotero makes me want to poke my eyes out. That said, I really do think it's the best free citation software out there. Diigo might give it a run for it's money (or... non-money, since it's open source...) but I haven't had time to explore Diigo like I need to. I've started using Zotero again recently as I work with colleagues on various research projects, and I think the tools, especially the collaborative features, have finally gotten some kinks worked out. So, I still have and still occasionally use Zotero, and have been using it more regularly as some projects get off the ground.

Mendeley Looks... interesting. I like the share and collaborate features, but i don't see anything that inspires me to down load it.

Citeulike. Again.... looks interesting, but reminds me a lot of Evernote. I created an account but didn't really find anything I hadn't already found an bookmarked elsewhere.

I don't hate citation management tools, but I often forget to use them. I also don't know that there is much need for more than 1. So while Zotero might make me want to scream sometimes, I also have a lot of stuff stored there that I won't be transferring anywhere else any time soon. I think Zotero actively improving, and am hopeful those screaming fits will be reduced to a bare minimum in the near future.

Thing 13: Google Doc, Wikis, Dropbox

Collaboration! WOO!

A true millennial, I love collaborating. Helps that I have really awesome collaborators in the form of librarian colleagues. Collaboration tools are awesome these days - thanks interwebs - though I honestly don't use them as much as I should. Email, Instant messaging, sharepoint.... old habits are hard to break, though I have used all three of the tools for CPD thing 13, to a varying extent.

Google Docs:
I love it's ease of use, that it feels like you're using Word and Excel, and the sharing features. However... the one project I worked on that relied on sharing docs via Google Docs, we had some issues with being able to edit and share like we wanted to. This was 2 years ago, and I haven't spent much time with Google Docs since. I know it's capable of a lot more, and when I have a clone, I will spend some time figuring out how I can use it more and use it better.

Wikis:
Least amount of experience with this one. I've used them, but mostly to set up basic websites, not to collaborate. I like other tools better.

DropBox:
Dropbox is one of my new favorite things. It has been a lifesaver for the documents i need for teaching my online class. It would be amazing for students, since it's basically a cloud-based network drive. Instead of emailing myself the current version of a document, or carrying around a flash drive, I just save things to dropbox and access them from anywhere. I haven't used the collaboration features much. We flirted with using it to share documents for an Information Literacy collaborative group, but decided on other means instead (though come to think of it "other means" has yet to come to fruition....). The space limit is an issue, but I think there are lots of awesome possibilities with dropbox.

I like all these tools, but still end up using old fashioned email for most collaborating. Why? Well, in someways it's easier. There's a message in my inbox reminding me it's my turn to work on things - and man do I need that reminder! With email, you always have the most current version of a document instead of being uncertain whether your collaborators are in the midst of updating at the same time. Don't get me wrong, I think the tools for this week are fantastic. I just think the best collaboration tools are yet to come.

Thing 12: On Being Social

Ok, this is a real quick catch up post for CPD.

Topic: Social networking.

Me: Pretty good at it. Making friends and connecting with people has always been something that comes naturally for me. My myer-briggs has me as an almost off-the-charts extrovert; my biggest strength according to the Strengths Assessment is Woo - and communication and includer were in my top 5 (though oddly, my current place of work uses the DiSC assessment, and by this logic, I should have shown up as an I, but I didn't, I showed up as an S). In other words, I am totally that person chatting with strangers in the grocery line.

Social networking though, adds an interesting element to the whole being social and making friends thing. I still find it easier to make friends in the real world, as opposed to online. I think a lot of introverts... and lets be honest here, A LOT of librarians are introverts... use the internet to create networks because they are more comfortable behind a computer, but I'm really not -- and I have enough of a life that I sometimes go days without even thinking to check my social media online (or if I am tweeting/facebooking/etc, i'm posting about whatever party or funtivity i am involved with).

All that said, I have loved the connectivity that social networking has brought me in the world of librarianship. I have yet to meet librarians in real life that I only know via twitter or google plus, but that's lack of funds to attend professional conferences not lack of desire. I love being able to post a question on twitter and getting 10 responses -- really saved me one day at work when I had an Info Lit class to teach on evaluating websites and NO INTERNET. Got some great feedback thanks to some stellar librarians and my smart phone.

To me, the pros of social networking far outweigh the cons. However, there are downsides... for one, I like getting to know people... I also don't like being 100% professional. On social networks you get people from all across the spectrum. People follow me who could care less about the librarian things I post, and I'm sure half the librarians that follow me could care less about what I cook for dinner, watch on tv, and do on the weekends. On the flip side, I get annoyed hearing about break ups or singledom or worst of all KNITTING. Really? Must we constantly live up to that stereotype? But, I figure, I can ignore your knitting posts if you can ignore my random tweets about the Iowa Hawkeyes, mennonites, and food.

Anyway... I am about 7 posts behind on CPD right now, so keeping this one short and sweet.

Budgeting Rockstars #1: Couponing

Matt and I have the perhaps over ambitious goal of paying off all our debt in the next 3-4 years. While all the debt we have is "good" debt, in that it is relatively low interest rate student loans, we still have a lot of it. Like 2 masters degrees and a private college undergrad's worth, and we pay out as much in student loan repayment a month as we do in rent. At the rates we're at, we won't have it paid off until 2025, or something like that. Frust-to-the-rating.

In an attempt to make it seem more surmountable, I will brag on us for a bit, and highlight the fact we've paid off 2 car loans and a sizeable personal loan in the last year. But the total of those three loans, while impressive, isn't even a 5th of what we owe for our educations.

Thankfully, my parents taught me the value of hard work and frugality. And even more thankfully, my husband was raised similarly. We aren't as crazy as some of the people i've read about, who do everything short of selling kidneys to pay off debt as fast as possible. In fact, we've decided to keep our iphones, and while we did just downgrade our cable, still have internet, netflix, and 11 network channels to entertain us. So it's not like we're living some horrible forced-poverty sort of life.

Budget secret #1: Couponing

I am by no means an extreme couponer. Who has time for that? But i have started paying more attention to ads and sales. I hate shopping for food and toiletries. My preferred mode of shopping for these items is to do it once every 3 months just so i don't have to venture inside a gawd awful grocery store. I have tricked myself into liking my new way of shopping -- weekly -- by making it a fun game of "how much can i get for the least amount."

Instead of going one place for everything, because it's easier, I now sit down with the weekly ads and compare what's for sale at each place and go there for that item. I also started a notebook where I list prices of items we always buy, like laundry detergent, so that I can actually tell when looking at the ads if a sale price somewhere is a good deal or not.

This might sound like a lot of work, but it probably takes a total of an hour or less a week, and we save a lot. Like last week, I got two bottles of herbal essences shampoo, a giant thing of honey, and a jar of green olives. Retail price: $19. On sale: $16. After coupons: $5 -- and I got a $1 off anything coupon back on the purchase, so $4. Not too shabby for a novice.

The trick is doing at least 2 of the 3 parts. You won't save money if you JUST read the ads or JUST clip coupons or JUST keep a list of prices. But combine even 2, and you'll start to see results. Buy or subscribe to the sunday paper, or be lucky and have access to a free one like I do! If you buy only the Sunday paper the total cost, per month, is about $6. I save a heck of a lot more than that on the coupons and ads it comes with - plus, you get to read news and do a crossword puzzle.

The other trick is not needing things. Do you need a huge room full of stockpiled materials like on tv? No. But if you do get in the habit of buying things when they are on sale, rather than when you need them, you will save a lot. I don't intend to ever pay more than 50 cents for a tube of toothpaste ever again - seriously.

The danger of couponing is that it actually becomes a bit addictive. This week, I was going to buy Matt more body wash. He pointed out that he had about 6 bottles yet to be used. I replied, "but I have a buy 1 get one free coupon!" His apt response? "Honey, we don't save any money until you actually stop buying things." You need to toe the line between not needing things, and buying things just because they are a good deal.

Anyway. Save money. Clip a coupon. Budget rockstars magical tip #1.

Thing 11: Mentoring

Thing 11 for CPD is mentoring. I'm a pretty independent person. I hate asking for help, and I don't like to receive it unless i've asked...I think my parents and husband can attest to this. But yet, I have a mentor, and a fabulous one at that. It all happened completely accidentally, which is maybe why I works for me.

I applied for and was offered an assistantship my 2nd year of grad school. I was extremely excited about the opportunity, because I was working for my favorite professor. On the day she offered me the job, she mentioned I'd also be working for a new professor too. New professor, Andrea, moved to Indy from the east coast, and didn't know anyone. New professor became my mentor.

I still don't know exactly how the transition occurred. All i know is that I **thought** I was getting a good education and tons of experience before Andrea joined the faculty. But the projects she brought me in on -- presenting to classes, collecting data for her research, working with a public library to create a digital repository (which also gave me the chance to be on a panel for my first professional presentation), oh, and making me president of the student association -- opened my eyes a bit. The education I was receiving was good, but I needed more of these projects, ideas, and opportunities if I was going to actually get a job when I was done with my degree.

At some point, I began referring to her as my mentor. It's more than that though; we are also good friends, and work together on projects. She never treats me as though I am uncapable -- rather, I am an equal part of everything we do. She just kind of pushes me along and leads/encourages/forces me into to opportunities.

I don't know that I would have a mentor if not for this accidental mentor/mentee relationship that developed in my life -- but i hope something similar evolves for those of you without a mentor! I wouldn't have a clue how to get started with trying to get published, or even how to develop research ideas into actual projects, presentations and papers if it hadn't been for her guidance.

I have other, unofficial mentors too, those people I look up and seek advice from but without ever discussing what their role is in my life. For example, there is a co-worker on my campus who has been teaching 13 years and recently got promoted. Whenever i have questions, concerns, or just need help with something regarding teaching, I turn to this person for advice, and the feedback I get is a huge help. And I started teaching a class 4 weeks after starting my job and had ZERO teaching experience... so yeah, I needed guidance!

So those of you, like me, who are a bit too stubborn and independent to ask for help... figure out that area where you know you need help -- for me, it's learning about how to be a better instructor and navigating the treacherous waters of scholarly publication -- and suck it up and ask for advice. People really do want to help, and you'll end up learning and strengthening relationships at the same time. Someday, when I've figured out some things in this life :), I hope I can be as good a mentor as the ones I've found.

Thing 10: Route to Librarianship

Looking back, being a librarian should have been a really obvious choice.

Early signs:
- My favorite chores involved organizing things, like the family piano music collection
- Volunteering at the local public library for fun (and because they had air conditioning and we didn't)
- Devouring books like it was my job (though when you're 8 you don't have much else to do...)
- Library "class" was the best. thing. ever. (do elementary kids still get to do that?)

This is a true story. Once, in about 4th or 5th grade, I received a book as a birthday or christmas gift, and it came with a pre-printed call number spine label. I was very excited about this, and immediately put it on the book. If that's not a sign, I don't know what is.

I was never a kid who thought too much about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I believe i wanted to be an olympic gymnast at one point, a travel agent, a speech therapist, and a lawyer. Librarian never once crossed my mind.

I went to college and still couldn't make up my mind. I seriously only declared a major because I was offered a job and had to declare. So I majored in history, with a minor in peace & conflict studies -- about as useful a degree as one can get these days. I spent a lot of time in the college library, but never worked there. Being a librarian still hadn't crossed my mind.

After college, I moved to Indiana... because that's what the cool kids do? I was kind of lost. No idea what to do with myself and my useless degree. Was tired of school but not in the mood for volunteer work. So, i moved in with my best friend and got a job at a liquor store, fully intending to be applying to grad school and law school and moving away before the end of the summer.

3 months later I got a job in a library. I applied not because it was a library, but because it was a historical library, and I love history. They knew I was fresh out of college, partied a bit too much, and had no idea what working in a library was like, but they hired me anyway. Two years into the job, I was still considering grad school -- in history or theology.

Three years in, I finally got the memo. What I loved about my job was the library parts. Part of me is still shocked I ever figured this out. Four years in, I made the difficult decision to leave the job I loved -- and changed my life -- to go to grad school in library science.

Grad school was fun. I found it relatively easy -- but as a recovering perfectionist, I also made it a goal to enjoy learning for learning's sake and not spend a bajillion hours of my life studying. Though they pushed us to decide on a "track", academic, school media, public, children's, etc., I reverted to my old ways and refused to make up my mind about what kind of librarian I wanted to be. I took a reader's advisory class for fun the same semester I took a course in bibliographic instruction, and mostly just took whatever classes I found interesting.

Thankfully, despite my refusal to commit to a grad school track, I was able to land a job soon after graduating -- and I have now been at said job a year! But... more on that in a later post :)

Ghost Stories: Review of Spook

At the PLA conference in Portland a year or so ago I met Mary Roach. I hadn't read any of her books, but one of them, Stiff, had been on my to read list for awhile. Since meeting her, I've read all three of her released books, most recently finishing Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife.

Like Roach, I definitely fall into the skeptical category when it comes to things like ghosts and spirits and mediums, though when I lived at one particular location in Goshen, I was about one creepy encounter away from being a true believer. The first creepy moment was soon after I moved in. Two friends came over while we were out, and being the responsible young ladies we were, we hadn't locked the door. The friends came in, hollered up the stairs for us, and heard a reply of "come on up!" They were more then a little freaked out when they came upstairs and found nobody home. There were other stories like this from the time I lived there, and also times where objects we thought were lost -- earrings and money and other random things -- would just show up in perfectly obvious places, like the coffee table.

Only one incident happened to me personally. I had stayed home to work on a paper while my friends went out, and was alone in the house. At least 4 times, I distinctly heard the door open and close, and people coming up the stairs. Each time I said "hey guys! you're home!" and each time, there was no one there. It actually sounds much creepier written out than I remember it being at the time. And we drank a heck of a lot back then, so that's what I blame most of these moments on.

In her book, Roach sets out to find scientific proof of souls, reincarnation, and the afterlife. Were those eerie moments at our house in Goshen really the result of something supernatural? Or were we just near a high concentration of radio waves (which, in high exposure, can lead to hallucinations. who knew?).

She begins in India, with a reincarnation specialist and researcher, interviewing young children who recount details of other peoples lives. From there, she moves on to the soul. What is the soul? If it is a physical part of one's body, then shouldn't it have some sort of tangible properties? Shouldn't it, if it departs from the body at the time of death, be weighable? Believe it or not, such research has been done, and sometimes published in reputable scientific journals. She meets with mediums (even takes a Become a Medium! class), goes ghost-hunting and visits researchers chronicling near-death experiences.

Does Roach convince herself? Not exactly. Turns out, proving that ghosts exist is a pretty difficult task. For every beyond-coincidence supernatural story there is an often equally far-fetched logical explanation -- is it really more plausible to think those creepy moments are caused by radio waves, electrical frequencies, random odd brain stimulations, anesthesia, drugs, psychological disorders or overactive imaginations than actual ghosts?

This book is an entertaining read for both the skeptic and the ghost-hunter. Roach weaves historical context into her narrative expertly, and is just so darn funny that I want to find a way to be her friend. Her books are always dense and full of facts, so definitely not something to pick up when in the mood for something fast-moving and easy. There were perhaps a few too many chapters on the Soul, or maybe I just found the parts about ghosts more interesting.

I still have no idea what caused the weird moments at that house in Goshen... but at least now I can speak knowledgeably on the physical properties of ectoplasm.