Meghan Kowalski
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  • Resume
  • Presentations & Publications
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  • Blog
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The Weekly Wrap: February 28, 2021

2/28/2021

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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!

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  • A short and sweet list of easy wine and cheese pairings. Good for a night in. [Real Simple]
  • Words with no great English translation. [Ella Frances Sanders]
  • A look at history's deadliest pandemics. [WaPo]
  • What the inside of everyday objects looks like. [Buzzfeed]
  • Five cool things about the new Mars rover. [The Oatmeal]
  • A look inside DC's secret Covid morgue. [Washingtonian]
  • Lego sets worth putting on display. (We actually have the ship in a bottle on our bookcase.) [Apartment Therapy]
  • This delivery driver couldn't get out of their icy driveway. They took her in for 5 days. [WaPo]
  • Egg beaters and those who love them. [WaPo]
  • I, too, love snacking on croutons. [NYT]
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  • Printers are the worst. [Planet Money]
  • For some, credit cards points are a way of life. [The Daily] 
  • I wrote several papers on the Rwandan genocide. Paul Rusesabagina, of Hotel Rwanda fame, is now awaiting trial on trumped up terrorism charges. [The Daily]
  • Anyone can be or have a mentor. [Life Kit]
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  • NASA released a video called How to Land on Mars. It's just incredible. [NASA - YouTube]
  • We are almost done watching season 3 of The Crown. I am very excited for season 4. I am here for the Diana years.
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  • The Kid is not a fan of scrambled eggs. We've tried to get her to eat them many times. We have, however, learned that she will eat them if they are included in this spicy srirarcha shrimp and zucchini lo mein. We're fans too, so I add an extra egg.
  • We tried a new recipe this week - Creamy Beef and Shells. We didn't think The Kid would eat a ton of it. To our surprise, we kept having to give her more. I made a few changes to the recipe - I reduced the cream by half, skipped the cheddar and just topped with shredded mozzarella, and added about a cup of peas. Next time, I will try the cheddar... maybe not two cups worth, but I bet the cheddar flavor is amazing.
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  • I dare you to only do this once. Draw an iceberg and see how it will float. [Iceberger]
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The Look Up: This and That

2/26/2021

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Here's what I found myself looking up this week.
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  • 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.
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Now Reading: Food and Stuff

2/25/2021

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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?

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The Now: February 24, 2021

2/24/2021

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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?

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10 Board Books to Read Again and Again and Again

2/23/2021

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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.
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The Weekly Wrap: February 21, 2021

2/21/2021

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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. 

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  • The a quick look at controversy behind The 1619 Project. [K-12 Dive]
  • How to keep your bouquets alive longer. As someone who loves buying fresh flowers, I needed these tips. [Pure Wow]
  • How we're spending all our time now. [WaPo]
  • A report on the state of remote work. [Buffer]
  • This is a post with different ways to organize books, but I just like seeing all the pretty covers. [Pure Wow]
  • It's not just reading all day. There are health hazards in librarianship. [Public Libraries Online]
  • French bakers seek UNESCO "intangible heritage" status for the baguette. [CNN]
  • A thread on a child mastermind. [Twitter]
  • Texans can't win. Now many are facing exorbitant power bills. [The Daily Beast]
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  • A look at scam calls and the people making them. [The Daily]
  • Popov versus Grey Goose. Is there a difference? [Planet Money]
  • Gold mining on public land. How has it not changed since the Gold Rush? [Planet Money]
  • I will be binging this new podcast. If you like Ear Hustle, I think you'll be a fan. [Suave]
  • The origins, racist history, sexist response, and future of tipping. [Gastropod]
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  • The Crown on Netflix. We haven't watched this since before I was pregnant. We went a few episodes back into season two to remember everything that was going on. Now we are a few episodes in to season three. I am a bit of a royal watcher in general so I am excited to get to the Diana episodes.
  • One evening this week, we turned on the TV and the show To Catch a Smuggler happened to be on. I thought we would be switching to The Crown but we got sucked in to a few episodes. If was kind of fascinating to see all the procedures and methods. I was very intrigued by the science of the machines that test for drugs.
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  • Need to get away? Try WindowSwap. It's a chance to look out windows around the world. Highly recommend popping one open onto your second screen if you have a dual monitor set up for WFH.
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The Look Up: Watching Out

2/19/2021

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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.
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The Now: February 17, 2021

2/17/2021

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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.

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Now on My TBR

2/15/2021

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I will forever want to read books related to minimizing and having less stuff.
You can see my complete TBR list on Pinterest.
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The Weekly Wrap: February 14, 2021

2/14/2021

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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.

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  • Instagram has the power to change an entire town. [CNN]
  • The not tasty looking foods trend. [The Atlantic]
  • I should probably replace my hairbrush... [Real Simple]
  • An interesting look at the financial histories of those who stormed The Capitol. [WaPo]
  • A very special book club guest. [WUSA9]
  • Nature is amazing. [CNN]
  • Rebecca Black - ten years later. [The Lily]
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  • The endurance and meaning of Whitey Houston's national anthem. [Throughline]
  • Romance novels and black history. [Code Switch]
  • The importance of historical sea-level records. [Short Wave]
  • Savor the chocolate. [Life Kit]
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  • It was a looooooong week having The Kid home while we both worked. After she went to bed, we - really I - turned to rewatching The Office. It will forever be my comfort show.
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  • For meatless Monday, I made one of our favorites - vegetarian French dip sandwiches. These are so darn tasty. I like to eat the leftover filling like soup.
  • I don't cook with ground chicken all that often. This week, I tried a new one pan orange chicken dish. It was tasty! We served it over cauliflower rice and had a side of steamed sugar snap peas. I did make a few changes to the sauce for our taste - only 3 tablespoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of white vinegar... I also zested more citrus because I love citrus.
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  • Playing around with Random Street View. It's amazing how many of the views are just empty roads and countryside. Although, I did meet a dog in Mexico.
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