 My COVID test just came up negative. Hopefully that remains the case over the next few days. I'm supposed to fly out to California for a conference on Monday and I'm convinced, for some reason, that I'm going to test positive right before I need to leave. So, keeping my fingers cross, but happy this one came out negative.
Here's what else was good in my week:
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 The Cheese Chronicles: A Journey Through the Making and Selling of Cheese in America, from Field to Farm to Table
Liz Thorpe I’m getting on a plane on Monday and I needed a book that could travel well. I perused my shelves and opted to pick up this one. I enjoy a good cheese and am looking forward to learning more about it as a food culture. So far, this book just makes me want to enjoy a lot of charcuterie boards. *Books shared here are affiliate links for Bookshop.org  This week is the most jam packed schedule I've had in a long time. It's partly due to my going out of town for a conference next week. Mostly, however, it's all the self-imposed deadlines I have for projects. I know that I can drop some balls and it, ultimately, won't matter. That doesn't mean I want that to happen. I keep telling myself that, if I make it through this week, the rest of the semester will be a breeze. *scoffs at self*
Here's what I'm focusing on:
 Taking a break from my roundup of keyboard shortcuts to share one of my favorite librarian tricks: read the footnotes.
When it comes to finding resources, the easiest way to find more sources is to read the footnotes. Start with an article, book, whatever that you think is great, and then read the footnotes (or works cited or bibliography or hyperlinks). That will give you a ton of additional information to look at for your work. Formally, this is called citation chaining. You are essentially going backwards and forewords in the scholarship to see what people are writing and thinking about a topic.  Early Friday morning, I had - what I like to think of as - a guilt free hour. My body woke me up just before 6am to use the restroom. Since I've been nursing a mildly tweaked back, I was more awake than I wanted. I climbed into bed thinking I might sneak 30 more minutes of sleep. I opted not because, on mornings like these, I usually end up more tired than if I had just gotten up. That began my guilt free hour. This was early morning time where, since I should not be awake, I could enjoy the quiet and not do anything productive. Should I have exercised. Maybe. Should I have gotten a jump start on work since our kiddo was home for a planned daycare closure. Probably. Should I have done one of the ninety other things on my to-do list that are easier done uninterrupted. Perhaps. But I didn't. Because this was a guilt free hour. Instead, I cozied under a blanket on our couch, relished an actual hot cup of coffee, and read the news. I can't remember the last time I perused the entire front page of both CNN and the Washington Post. This is the most informed I've been in months. (Honestly... not sure I like that.) What do you do when you have an unplanned early morning? 
I want to shout out to the babysitting CPR course I took in high school. It's 20 years later and things I learned then still come in handy.
Today, our daycare was closed for parent-teacher conferences. Our kiddo, who normally doesn't do these things, stuck a small bead up her nose. I was able to save us a trip to urgent care by doing the close the other nostril, blow in the mouth trick I learned. What could have been an awful few hours was over in five seconds with no pain or tears for anyone. My husband was all, "Where the heck did you learn that?!?!!?" Here's what else has made this week good:
October was the month I scheduled everything that I would get to "later." Now that "later" is here, I'm crying because my calendar is so full. It wouldn't be all that bad except I lose an entire week to a conference and a couple of days to holidays and daycare closures. Next time, I'm going to be more cognizant of myself when I say I will get to something "later."
Here are the to three things I am focusing on.
I was reminded this week of how weird the U.S. education system is. When I was in elementary school, we lived in Florida. As a part of science class, we learned how to track hurricanes. We used pencils, rulers, and paper maps to draw cones of uncertainty and eye paths. We tracked every hurricane that hit the state of Florida that year - including Hurricane Andrew. This assignment not only taught us meteorology and a little math but also provided local learning. We moved from Florida to upstate New York in 1995. Up there, I learned about all the Native American tribes who lived there along with a lot of local revolutionary war history. The local Alachua county history I learned in Florida was no help here. Instead, we focused on Otsego county and New York. The U.S. is HUGE. It's important to not only learn national and international history, but state and local history as well. While most of my county history is lost to time, I appreciate that I was given the chance to explore it. This does make me wonder, however, how much is lost in our state by state system. I moved to four different states before I went to college. My K-12 educational experience was jumpy. Since each state has different rules, moving from one to the other means I got some stuff twice and missed other things entirely. I had the privilege of parents who filled in the gaps with books, trips, and conversations. Not everyone is so lucky. Now, with all the book bans and curriculum conditions (looking at you CRT scare tactics) I know that students in many states are being short changed. It's not fair that some students get broad and informed exposure to topics and skills while others are kept in the dark. Also, update from last week, my husband could, in fact, be bothered enough by the cobwebs. He took one for the team and cleared them out.
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