On Friday, I was lucky enough to receive my first COVID vaccine shot. My dose was given at a FEMA mass vaccination site in Maryland. It was a highly efficient operation. Only 20 minutes elapsed from the moment I arrived until the moment I left - that included the 15-minutes "let's make sure you don't have an awful allergic reaction" timeout. The entire tent complex was abuzz with organized activity and you could just sense the joy under people's masks.

What has stuck with my most about the whole systematic operation is the people. During my visit, I interacted with 10 individuals - some for only a few seconds. All of them are strangers to me and all of them will remain strangers to me. But each of these people has had a profound impact on my life. They made it possible for me to receive this vaccine. Without their hard work, I would not be rubbing this sore spot on my arm. 

This vaccination site is a living reminder of the amount of unnamed individuals throughout the world who have gotten us to this point. All the scientists. All the nurses, doctors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals. All the contact tracers. All the people actually putting shots in other people's arms. All the people doing what I can only imagine is a mountain of paperwork and administrative activity (someone has to design, print, and distribute all those COVID vaccination cards).

So... many... people. 

Thank you. Thank you each and every one of you.

In college, I had a roommate who kept a small paperback dictionary on her bookcase. Whenever she looked up a word, she would put a dot next to it. I think about her every time I look up a word, because I thought her method was just so cool. It was visual representation of learning in action. 

Here's a sample of what I looked up this week.
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• da da da da dadadada song  - Our kiddo likes to sing along to this song where part of the chorus is "da das." I couldn't remember the name of the song. Luckily, Google is very good with weird searches like this. It led me to the correct song - Jason Derulo's "Take You Dancing."
• What does Apoplexy mean? - Asked Alexa this while watching an episode of The Office. I still don't know what Oscar was getting at.
• Trepidation - I wanted to confirm I was using this word correctly in a presentation proposal.

Forbidden
Beverly Jenkins

After watching the first six episodes of Bridgerton, I was in the mood to jump into a romance novel. I picked up this title which had been chilling on my bookcase for a few months. I’ve always loved a good Western but this one has something extra. The hero is a multiracial, formerly enslaved man who is successful in business by passing for white. Our heroine is a Black woman who longs to run her own restaurant. So, this has all the regular tropes of a good romance, but a lot more substance than you sometimes see.

Today is my first day back at work this week (use your vacation time!) which is why this post is late and the intro is short.

Priorities!
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Here is where my attention is going at the moment.

WORK

• We wrapped up the interviews for the librarian position last week. Now we get the difficult decision of selecting our preferred and back up candidates. This is going to be hard. All the candidates could work, but they could all work in VERY different ways. 
• Since I took two days off, my inbox overfloweth with email. I spent much of today doing triage with a lot of follow-up to go. 
• I got wrapped up in redesigning a flyer for our University's upcoming Research Week. It's one of those projects I really enjoy so I just get sucked into it. I was nearly late leaving to pick up our daughter from daycare on afternoon because I was lost in getting some of the finer details looking just right.
• It's National Library Week and I had a lot of fun taking pictures for our social media. This year's theme is "Welcome to the Library." Since we're not really open, I took that theme a different route and made it more "welcome the library wherever you are." I got shots of the logo in various, non-library places to show that your library goes with you.

PERSONAL

• I spent Monday super cleaning our entire home. I'm talking the nooks and crannies kind of scrubbing. Our place now shines but man are my hands dried out. I should just leave them in a bucket of moisturizer.
• As much as I love spring, the change in weather does mean a change in nature. We've had a small incursion of tiny black ants in to our kitchen. We think they're climbing up the brick wall and coming in through a minute crack between the floor and moulding. Our building's exterminator is dropping by later this week to deal with this, but I have been killing lots of ants and washing our floors and counters more often.
• During the ant killing, I discovered a few mouse droppings under the stove. Our building was built in the early 1900s so this is to be expected. We moved the stove to see how bad it was. The problem was worse than we wanted, but not like an infestation - particularly considering that this is the only place we've seen droppings. BUT I discovered that when they patched the hole behind our oven some time ago (because of a gas inspection thing - that's its own story) they left a nice gap where said mice are clearly coming in. On a lunch break, I ran to the hardware store for steel wool and filled the heck outta that gap. I also, scrubbed the floor under the stove because ew. 
• In very happy news, I did some vaccine hunting and was able to schedule my arm jabs. First shot is on Friday!
• In spring, I rejoice at the blooming flowers. Flowers are one of my favorite small joys. Every time I go outside right now, I am on the hunt for beautiful blooms to share on my Instagram.

​The pandemic has caused the oddest things to bring me joy. Right now, it’s the deck construction happening out my kitchen window. The Husband and I (luckily) purchased a new condo in December - right before all of this *gesticulates wildly* popped off. After we moved in, we noticed the house across the alley behind us had a lot going on. Since February 2020 we’ve seen:
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• New windows being installed.
• New kitchen appliances arriving.
• New furniture being delivered.
• The installment of solar panels on the roof.
• The old, scarily leaning brick staircase from their tiny backyard taken down and replaced with gorgeous stone. This involved the use of a concrete mixing truck… and that was my morning coffee break entertainment.
• The newish but rather ugly fence around their tiny background taken down and replaced with a pergola looking style.
• The old porch and staircase from the house taken down.

Right now, they are in the process of replacing said porch and staircase. They even moved where the staircase is located which completely changed the look of everything.

I am highly invested in this house now. It’s my own HGTV show.

Current events, twitter, and household chores comprise quite a bit of what I research. Here are the things I looked up this week.

• CVS Covid Vaccine - DC is having some... how shall I be nice about this... "issues" getting shots in arms. I heard local CVSes might have some, so I tried to track that down. Still not eligible. Bummer.
• How to Insert a Chart in Canva - This week, I need to redesign an event flyer/phamplet. I made it in Canva because I think the results are nicer to look at. One problem I ran into is that I need to recreate a Word table for the schedule of events. Luckily, I learned how to cut and paste something that is graphically more pleasing.
• Rome Atia - I recognized an actress in Bridgerton as someone I have seen before but could not quite place. IMDB led me discover that she played Atia in the TV show Rome. I did a quick Google to get images from the series.
• Carrot Muffins - I want to bake a new kind of muffin this weekend. I want something that is isn't just a cupcake without cream cheese frosting. Then again, aren't all muffins just cupcakes without frosting?
• Raclette Machine - A nearby embassy was visited by the cops for a "suspicious package." A local reporter tweeted a joke about it being a raclette machine. I learned a new way to enjoy cheese.
• Grout Cleaners - Our bathroom floor grout is looking rather dingy. I want to clean it and needed to learn the various options and methods.

Recently, I decided to turn my regular Sunday post, The Weekly Wrap, into a newsletter over on Substack.

I greatly enjoy putting it together each week and I want to share it more broadly. I add some new content to the newsletter so you will get new material different from the blog post if you choose to subscribe.

The Weekly Wrap shares anything that piques my curiosity. You can expect highlights from things I’ve read, watched, heard, found, did, or made. If it makes me go, “Ooo! That’s interesting!” it’s going to show up. Daily life has constant moments of learning which we can share to grow both personally and professionally.

If you're interested, head on over to my substack page and click subscribe. Like this blog, the newsletter is totally free. 

As I type this, the heavens have opened up outside. The rain is pouring down in sheets turning the alley behind our building into a rather fast moving stream. I did not know it was supposed to rain today. Glad I got my lunch walk in before this happened. 
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Aside from being distracted by the rain, here's where my attention is going at the moment.

WORK

• This week, we're conducting interviews for an open position at our library. It's a lot of Zoom. A lot. This is my second round of doing interviews remotely and, I gotta say, I don't like it. It's just weird trying to hire a colleague when we're not in the same space. The candidates are doing great, but I wish we got to see each other in person.
• I attended and presented at the Computers in Libraries conference last week. Since all the session were recorded I am slowly making my way through the archives to check out the ones I could not attend live.
• We held another session in our Faculty Webinar Series this week. Just two more to go! I'm already making plans with my colleagues to bring back this series in the fall. We're going to spend time this summer assessing this semester's events and thinking up what we want the next events to look like.
• One of our interns is working on LibGuides for our community college programs. I've been handling my end of the review and edits. This week, I was able to hit publish on three more guides.
• The monthly staff newsletter I write goes out tomorrow. I spent today drafting up content and tracking down appropriate GIFs.
• Last week, I cohosted a webinar with DCPL introducing our students to what the public library offers them. We recorded it so I'm using that in our post-event marketing.

PERSONAL

• My newsletter launched this past weekend. I am doing some marketing and sharing of the first issue to grow my audience a little bit. I don't expect this to be one of those viral newsletters, but I am proud of it and want to share it widely. 
• April kicks off tomorrow. (How?!?) I'm drawing up the new slate of monthly pages in my bullet journal. I will also spend time reviewing how I think March went.
• I'm in week 2 of my 5K training program. Still don't like running but there is one upside - I run back from daycare drop-off which means I get home earlier than I used to. Not much earlier but still earlier. I'm hoping I can get most of the training program done before the DC summer kicks into gear. Also, I think I need new shoes. Mine are over a year old and not as cushy as they once were.

The ALA catalog showed up in my mailbox last week. I spent 15 minutes flipping through it and adding items to my professional TBR list

You can see my complete TBR list on Pinterest. You can also find my professional TBR list here.

First, I have some (possibly exciting) information. I've decided to turn this weekly post into a newsletter over on Substack. I greatly enjoy putting it together each week and I want to share it more broadly. While the links and all that will be the same, I do plan to add some new content to the newsletter in case you want to subscribe. If you're interested, head on over to my substack page and click subscribe. Like this blog, the newsletter is totally free. 

Second, the local Capital Weather Gang declared winter officially over in the DC area. Good. I am done with the cold and am very excited to talk lunchtime walks in the sunshine.