Month: April 2011

Getting Back in the Swing

I’ve been monogramming some bath sheets as a wedding present for some friends of mine since last summer. This has been an ongoing saga of mishaps and learning experiences, but I am finally making some real progress so I’m sharing the the hope that it will save others some trouble with similar projects.

The original plan was to have the embroidery completed by the end of August 2010 since the wedding was Labour Day weekend. Even with the best of intentions and making some major progress over the summer, the towels were not finished in time for the wedding.

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Immune System Fail

The last couple of weeks I could feel some sort of illness lurking about trying to find its way in. This was not a surprise, as various colds were making their way through the library staff. Besides working directly with 3 people who were sick, I was also performing updates on every public library computer in the city. It was only a matter of time before the germs won.

At first it seemed like a mild cold, but progressed to an ear infection which I cured with the aid of an ear syringe and some drops. All seemed fine. I was feeling great for the first time in weeks and could get back to being productive. The next day it hit me. Over the course of a few hours I felt progressively worse. By the next morning it was obvious that I’d caught the flu. Bugger.

The reason it’s bothering me enough to blog about is because my parents are visiting this weekend for the first time in 8 years. If I can’t shake this in the next 24 hours the weekend is going to be, “Hi guys, so glad you could come! Don’t come near me or touch anything I’ve touched until I wash it, or you’ll get sick….No, I can’t do that with you. I’m too tired and sore….Let’s not go there, there’ll be too many people and I don’t want to infect everyone.” Sounds fun, right?


Back to Life

Or at least, life as it’s been for me for the last couple of years. I spend my time at home, mostly: applying for jobs; reading books that get me ruminating on one thing or another; reading about computers and design on the internet; dealing with whatever comes through my inbox; knitting, spinning, or embroidering depending on the project. My days are various combinations of all of these activities.

The preceding three months, however, were a deviation from what has come to be my normal routine. I was hired on contract to be an intern in the IT department of the local library. This meant that my job was to support the IT staff and do whatever needed doing, and hopefully learn something along the way. The work ranged from simple software and hardware upgrades all the way up to a major marketing project. I did end up learning some things here and there about computers, but mostly I made new friends and learned a lot more about my library.