I was scared of jinxing it but, this past week, we had a complete five days of daycare. The peasants rejoice! I can't begin to tell you how happy (and productive) that made me. Fingers crossed this trend continues.

This week, we also so glimmers of spring. The DC area hit temperatures in the high 50s this week and it was delightful. As pretty as snow is, I am not fan of the cold. Bring on sunny skies, warm breezes, and bird song!

Here's what I found myself looking up this week.
​

• The Crown - I immediately went to IMDB for this one. I recognized an actor but could not place where I know I knew him from. The actor, Ben Daniels, played Lord Snowden in Season 3. I had previously seen him in the American version of House of Cards. Mystery solved!
• ish - Went to Urban Dictionary to make sure I was still using this slang properly. Answer - yes. Caveat - the way I use it ages me.
• Local Fire - On Wednesday, I woke up to a text asking me if we were okay because of "the fire." I was very confused as I knew of no fires. So, I went to WTOP to find out that a house near our old apartment (which is still in our current neighborhood) was completely gutted by a fire overnight. We never even heard a siren. 
• Egusi Soup - Watching To Catch a Smuggler and learned that a prohibited items is egusi - a melon seed. The seed is ground up and used in a soup. I was curious about the soup. It looks more like a stew to me but now I want to try it. 
• Land Acknowledgment - Several webinars I attended this week had land acknowledgments at the beginning. I wanted to learn more to consider adding a land acknowledgment to the webinars we are running. There is a guide to land acknowledgments  and a map to help.
  

I'm a one book at a time sort of reader. That comes with a little bit of an exception. I only read one main book at a time. I sometimes have easier books going alongside my main read. 

My main read right now is The F*ck It Diet by Caroline Dooner. It's about intuitive eating and getting back to a place where we don't obsess about food. The book has a sassy tone and really takes the diet industry to task. I also like how the claims are backed up with science. That said, it still feels like a traditional diet book - albeit one that just tells you to eat and eat a lot more. Apparently, traditional diets just mess a lot with your metabolism which throws everyone's weight off.

My secondary reads are a nice stack of cookbooks from the library. These are all about one dish and one pan meals. Weeknights can be a bit chaotic for us trying to get dinner on the table (and in to our toddler) before her bedtime. I've only pulled a few recipes, but it's fun to learn all the many things you can actually cook in an oven. Rice! Who knew?

I am utter disbelief that Spring Break is just around the corner. How did that happen? At least I can spend that week working on my tenure portfolio for this year.

• We have now held three sessions in our Faculty Webinar Series and things are going really well. (You can watch the previous sessions here.) There are nine more sessions left in the series. I will continue to promote these sessions while also dealing with the logistics of confirming vendors, handling and sharing records, and sending out Certificates of Attendance.
• I'm still doing research on customer service as it relates to higher ed. Not gonna lie, I am trudging through this one. I would much rather be writing, but I know I need to include this material in a literature review section of the proposal.
• I've made a decent amount of progress putting together the reading list for this blog. I'm almost done with the list itself... then the time consuming part comes - adding links to everything.
• As a personal project, I am working on some journaling related to intuitive eating. I pulled the prompts from Pandora Paloma's book Intuitive Living. Doing this has been eye-opening and a little unsettling. 
• I am on the hunt for a new sofa console table. I want wood (preferably walnut toned) with two drawers and at least one shelf. Ideally, I want this beauty but at a much more affordable price. Sadly, everything I find that looks like this table is too short for what I need. 
• Fun side project - I am catching as many Pokémon as I can for PokémonGo Tour Kanto event. A few Pokémon I need are eluding me. Where are you Venonat?

We've got a toddler who is in to books. Yes! That also means we are reading the same books over and over and over and over again. And did I mention over and over again. While I have not resorted to hiding any books - yet - there are definitely some titles I prefer. There are a few books I even delight in reading over and over again.

Here are 10 board books I can't believe I'm not sick of yet.

When I was a kid, I loved snow days. Since I spent most of my school years in upstate New York, they were a rare treat. Yes, we had to shovel our massive driveway and sidewalk, but we got to sleep in, there was almost always hot cocoa, and I got to spend time reading. Heaven.

As a parent, I now get what a treat it was to have a mom who also worked at the school (until my brother and I were old enough to stay home alone). Every winter weather prediction leaves The Husband and I filtering through our schedules to balance childcare and work.

I did get to preserve one aspect of a snow day for our kiddo this week - sleeping in. She's a good sleeper already but, on our snow day, she gave me an extra 45 minutes. 45 minutes to triage my work email and enjoy a cup of coffee before I became the human play ground. 

My interests were piqued by random things this week. Here's what I've been looking up.

Pied-a-terre -  An announcement went out on a local list-serv I'm on stating that someone had a pied-a-terre to rent. As much as I love learning French, I never knew specifically what a pied-a-terre was. I headed to Google to find out what that was. Answer - fancy word for an apartment you don't live in full-time.

Jackie Kennedy Queen Elizabeth - We started watching The Crown again and I was intrigued if the tiff between the First Lady and Queen was real.

Profumo Scandal - Related to the last episode of season 2 of The Crown. I wanted to know more about the actual scandal and it's impact on British politics.

Perseverance Rover Landing - I was curious about the exact date the rover would touch down on Mars.

Spring semester is lighter on the library instruction sessions. That gives me more time to work on other projects. Here are the things I am focusing on right now.

• We held the first session in our Faculty Webinar Series last week and it went great! (Interested? Watch the recording here.) Session two is tomorrow. After this week, the sessions will be vendor led. I am hopeful that the rest of this series goes well and we can start offering more webinars more regularly. This is one upside of all the work from home.
• My major project for the semester is writing up a University customer service initiative. This is a self-imposed project with a self-imposed deadline, but I think it is necessary and useful for our institution. Right now, I am in the reading, listening, and outlining stage. I hope to have the research for the literature review done in the next few weeks. I am the type to spend the bulk of my time on research, reading, and outlining thereby making the actual writing a breeze. If you've got any insights into customer service in higher education, I would be happy to hear from you.
• I'll be speaking at Computers in Libraries in March. I'm starting to outline and develop content for my presentation on productivity and remote leadership.
• I am a member of our condo's Green Committee. This week, I drafted our first newsletter to share with all residents and owners. It focuses on ways to save water while washing dishes. Pro Tip: Be lazy. Use the dishwasher. Dishwashers use FAR less water than hand washing.
• One part of my old blog that I miss is the loooooong reading list of every book I've read. I am in the process of recreating that list for my website. Eventually, I will have a page listing every book I read and each title will link out to Bookshop.org (or the publisher) in case you are interested in the title yourself.

I will forever want to read books related to minimizing and having less stuff.

You can see my complete TBR list on Pinterest.

This was "a week." The Kiddo was home sick with us for three days while we waited for the results of her (third) COVID test. Negative. Then someone rolled into the back of our car at a stop light. It was the most minor of bumps but it somehow resulted in a flat front tire. Rest of the car is fine. That resulted in my hoofing it home a mile carrying our toddler. At least she got to yell "DOG!" at all the puppies out for their evening promenades. 

On the positive side, I hosted the first webinar in our faculty series and it went great! We had higher attendance than I thought we would and the recording already has several views. I've got one more of these to run this upcoming week before I hand off the hard work to some vendors who will explain their own systems.