I get on a plane at 8:30AM tomorrow and I haven't even touched my packing. I should probably get on that...

Here's what I am working on:

1. AGLS Conference Presentation: I'm jointly presenting a session on the scholarship of teaching and learning as it relates to general education. We did a brief run through of our session today and talked about where we would let the audience participate. I just need to finalize my bit of notes and make sure I've got everything printed out. Then I need to get ready to head to Austin.
2. Embedded Librarian: We're doing more embedded librarian work this semester. I'm in nine classes and we're starting to get into the meat of the semester. I'm conducting several reviews each week to stay on top of the classes to recommend material related to what the students are working on. I'm also meeting with professors to discuss the live library instruction I can offer. This is more instruction work than we've done for a few years, but it feels great to reach more students.
3. Database Trials: Our library is demoing three different vendor databases and tools right now. I've been sending a lot of messaging trying to get faculty to try them out and send us feedback. I've got one more week to get them to let me know what they think. Of the three, there is one that I think we should definitely make a permanent part of our collection... I just need to get the faculty backup to help make our case for funding.
   

This feels like the most random collection of titles. This is why I love getting lots of book newsletters. You never know what you'll find.

I love it when I discover that I don't have to do something anymore. Cancelled meetings? I'm a fan. Can skip an errand? Awesome. A work project is no longer a thing? Great! Husband takes care of something? Fantastic! I always have plenty to do, so when something gets knocked off my to do list, it's a plus.

One nagging item on my to do list was to figure out why we were paying for two condo insurance policies. About two years ago (that's how long I've been procrastinating this), I discovered a weird charge in our mortgage account. Through a chat with our bank, I learned that it was for insurance. That insurance name did not match the name of the policy I knew we had. So, I put "figure condo insurance out" on my to do list. 

All I would need to do is find both policies, compare them, decide which one to keep, and then cancel the extra one. But, I didn't want to. It just felt like too much adulting.

This week, while reviewing documents with my husband, we realized that the insurance charges in the mortgage account exactly matched the insurance we originally thought we had. The dates were the same; the charges were the same. The only thing that was different was the name. A quick dash to our insurance provider's website showed that the policy was "paid in full." A few more detective clicks and we realized that the "second" insurance we thought we were paying was actually just our only insurance which was directly paid out of our mortgage account. The way our mortgage account named it was different and that's why we thought we had two policies.

So, two years of procrastination and 15 minutes of work yielded a scary item getting knocked off my task list. Love it.

I love working from home when the weather is glorious. I've got the windows open and this room is a perfect 71 degrees and 52% humidity. Plus, I get to hear the birds sing and the breeze blow through the trees. It is the perfect way to end the work week.

Here's what else made me happy:

• "Hermie! Time to wake up!" - what our kiddo said as she started our robot vacuum
• Audibling dinner and making frozen pizza one night
• Having a good chat with my colleagues while we waited out a fire alarm in our building
• Discovering that hand sanitizer is a really good mosquito bite treatment
• Hot coffee
• Letting the kiddo scooter to the new cookie store in our neighborhood
• Talking to students at an orientation event
• Texting with friends 
• Booking my travel for the Library Marketing and Communications Conference

Radiant Sin
Katee Robert

I started reading book four in the Dark Olympus series a few days ago. By this point, I've learned that the series is fairly formulaic. The leads are forced to be together. Then each book has it's own spin on the kind of romance. Finally, all of that is set within a broader narrative of what is happening in the city of Olympus. It's entirely predictable but it works. I will read this series until the very last book.

*Books shared here may be affiliate links for Bookshop.org

Short one this week as our kiddo oh-so-lovingly passed along some common daycare crud to me... just one week before I have to travel for a conference.

Between sniffles, here's what I'm working on.

1. Faculty Promotion Portfolio - This is over (for now) but I spent 20 solid hours writing and gathering evidence for my faculty promotion portfolio. As I mentioned on Friday, it was a HUGE frustration but rewarding in the end.
2. Slide Decks - Never again will I host two webinar series in a semester. One series is about navigating the information landscape directed towards students. The other is our teaching research series for faculty. This is one of the outcomes of our research assignment design project. Faculty are already teaching research and we want to help them do it effectively while relieving some of their teaching burden. Between those sessions and my four conference presentations, I'm living in PowerPoint. I am getting really sick of stock photos.
3. Financial Advisor Prep - We're going to meet with a financial advisor this week. It's our first time so we're doing a lot of prep work. That includes gathering documents and statements, filling out some questionnaires, and trying to figure out what, exactly, we want our money to do. 

On Friday, I submitted my enormous portfolio to start the faculty promotion process. Academia is weird in that you have to apply to be promoted. The process is different at every University. At ours, we have to submit various forms along with a lot of supporting evidence as attachments.

The problem with this process is that all the forms - on top of not being updated in decades - are designed for teaching faculty. While we librarians teach, we are not teaching faculty. Therefore, the vast majority of our work products do not fit in this form. So, our workaround is to fill out as much of the form as we can PLUS add a narrative to cover everything else. The process of filling out the forms, writing the narrative, getting two letters of recommendation, updating my CV, and getting all the supporting evidence was frustrating and tedious. Plus, we had to do all of this while still doing our day-to-day jobs.

It was a HUGE pain in the ass and, this year, technology decided to throw one more hurdle in the way. Our packages were due on Friday BUT mid-Thursday, we lost access to all Microsoft products. Everything I needed resided in either OneDrive or my email... and I couldn't get to any of it. Luckily, we ended up back online by Friday and our (very kind) Director was open to a few days extension if we needed. I opted to put my nose to the grindstone and crank it out on Friday.

When I hit submit, I cheered and then got myself some chips and chocolate because it was too early for a beer.

As frustrating as the process is, all the aggravation is rewarding. I ended up with an 18 page narrative and over 150 pieces of sample evidence that showed everything I did since I was hired in 2018. Essentially, I have a portfolio of material literally stating how awesome I am. Plus, I got to see just how many students and faculty I've supported. 

This process was made a touch easier because I went through it with two of my library colleagues. Plus, this hilariously named playlist provided the perfect jam set while I typed and downloaded.

Now, I just wait to find out the results...

Normally, I share mostly small things in this post. Today, I want to lead with a big one.

​I just submitted my enormous portfolio to begin the faculty promotion process. It was frustrating, tedious, and a rather large PIA - BUT it showed me how awesome I am. There were 18 pages of narrative plus all the supporting material of all the work I completed in the past 4 years. I'm glad it's over but it was a satisfying thing to do. Plus, the two people who wrote me letters of recommendation made me tear up with happiness.

Here's what else was good this week:

• Hubby picked me up from work so I wouldn't melt in the heat wave
• Seeing some extended family I haven't seen in years
• Dinner out on a school night
• A night of really good, deep sleep
• This playlist
• Commiserating with colleagues
• Kiddo surprised me by sleeping in on Saturday
• Splurging for a hotel room to use their pool during the heat wave
• Had a fun question on the reference desk
• Snack bags of chips

I read a lot of books with my kiddo. Kid Reads is a biweekly look at what we've enjoyed recently. ​

This is the busiest week of my work life. Part of this is my own making. I said yes to a few things I probably should have said no to. The rest of September is busy but not like this week. I will be very glad to get to COB on Friday. Then, I am going to treat myself with a bottle of beer from my favorite brewery.

Here are just the top three things I'm focusing on:

1. Promotion Portfolio: Instead of going on a long rant, let me just say that the process of applying for promotion at our University is not designed for library faculty, requires a ton of unnecessary busy work, and uses antiquated means of submission. (Flash drives?!?!) As much as I'm frustrated at the tedious nature of this, I am also proud of everything I accomplished in the past few years. I've got 17 pages of narrative listing all of my outreach, reference, instruction, and research/presentation work. And I've only been focusing on the major items! I don't have time to include everything. So... hate the process, love the outcome.
2. Presentations/Webinars: In the month of September I have given or will give seven conference presentations or teaching webinars. All of them need decks and notes. A few require training sessions on the production platforms. My dreams now look like PowerPoint.
3. Content Prompt: My new newsletter launched on September 1 and I think it's off to a great start. While much of the content I can batch make, I do need to conduct daily reviews for some of the trending material. It only takes 30 minutes or so each night and I've been having fun with it.