Past Week - Personal Stuff
As a recap, I've been pretty busy. I finally landed myself a job, and it's a full-time one. I ended my third week there last week. I'm the Admin Assistant who is also the Receptionist at Children's Home Society. At first I was worried I would have to answer the phones too much and not have another of other stuff to do - I don't like pure Receptionist work. However, that turned out not the case. I have a lot of invoicing and billing to do, many projects and am kept busy and happy. It was difficult to get used to working full-time again after being unemployed so long, I'll admit, and also getting up early as I'm a night owl by nature. My previous jobs didn't require too much early waking. I'm starting the get the hang of the rhythm more now.
Apparently it has been since January since I did one of these. Yes, JANUARY. The time has flown and for some reason I kept missing the deadline or initiative to make a Sunday Salon post.
As a recap, I've been pretty busy. I finally landed myself a job, and it's a full-time one. I ended my third week there last week. I'm the Admin Assistant who is also the Receptionist at Children's Home Society. At first I was worried I would have to answer the phones too much and not have another of other stuff to do - I don't like pure Receptionist work. However, that turned out not the case. I have a lot of invoicing and billing to do, many projects and am kept busy and happy. It was difficult to get used to working full-time again after being unemployed so long, I'll admit, and also getting up early as I'm a night owl by nature. My previous jobs didn't require too much early waking. I'm starting the get the hang of the rhythm more now.
Throwing up for giggles, here is my work smurf.
My semester at school ended two weeks ago and worked out well. I was lucky to have easy classes to return with after 10 years of not being in school. Doing online only worked well for me, and I ended up getting A's in both the classes, which was a huge relief and soother to me. I'm taking the summer off to get used to work, for financial reasons, and because Summer classes are much more hectic.
I also spent several weeks renovating the book room "closet." This was prompted primarily because my cat, Malz, urinated on the carpet in there a long time ago when he had a urinary tract infection. I didn't notice it for awhile because he did it through a bag I had in there, and it was able to settle into the carpet, and apparently I didn't go into the book room much that week. I have shampooed the floor, etc., but nothing worked to get rid of the smell effectively.
I was finally annoyed enough to decide I needed to rip up all the carpet in the book closet and put down that stick-on tile. Not knowing how to lay down porcelain tile and being short of funds, this seemed like my best bet. Since I would have to remove the bookshelves and take everything out of there to do this, and since all that would be such a pain, I decided that while I was at it I may as well also do the walls.
This kept me busy for a few weeks - 1. Because I'm a bit lazy and despite my best efforts, get things done slowly. My best friend came over two days for moral support and to keep me company but I did almost everything myself.
From the book room I moved out one large bookshelf, two other large black bookshelves, two medium bookshelves, and one small bookshelf. I also took down the shelf hooked to the wall and moved out the unusual bookshelf stand. In addition to this I had to move and make room to store almost 2000 books. I kept them by genre to avoid confusion so ended up storing them all in the kitchen table, the kitchen chairs, the hallway stand, and different spots in the floor of the bedroom. This was actually a lot of work (to me), as much of this was accessible with the ladder like the romance books, and moving things around the house for room was annoying. Two of the bookshelves were put in the hall and the rest stayed in the bedroom taking up room. I used tubs and baskets to move the books around for easier.
Then took four trips to Home Depot. You'd think I could do it all in one trip but at first I wanted to do the floor and bought how much tile I "thought" Id' need. I was way off. The second trip for more tile bought the rest of the stock out; however, I ended up being three tiles short and when I returned again the next week bought those up. There was something wrong with the tile and this made extra work. A few of the pieces unstuck properly, but for the most part little tiny pieces tore and not all of it would come off, making something that should take twenty minutes take about six hours.
Then, the walls. They were in bad shape with holes and such. Before we moved in the room had at one time been a laundry room, then was a computer room. The wallpaper material is hideous as well, and I HATE wallpapering. I also didn't want to paint. So what I did was buy some wall material (can't remember the name right now, but it's a type of wall plaster) and did what my mom and I have been doing for years - applying the plaster in a texture. It looks a bit too white but later will paint it. This ended up being a two day project. The first tub ran out fast, and the second tub (which was the last there) didn't cover all the walls either. The first tub was older and it dried quicker. Let's just say when I do this again I know different tips to try.
Finally I put back up all the bookshelves, then the shelf, and tried to rearrange the artwork and the books. I started my new job so this took awhile.
Reading
I started re-reading the second book of the Kim Harrison Hollows series as my goal is to re-read the series this year. I re-read the first at the beginning of the year. I'm also reading Book Lust: Recommended Reading for every Mood, Moment and Reason. For my anthology (where my goal has fallen very short this year), I need to start the Urban Fantasy Anthology Many Bloody Returns.
I have been trying to keep my reading up with work but it hasn't worked too well yet as I'm still figuring out scheduling. I finished Tall, Dark & Restless by Heather MacAllister earlier this week.
According to Goodreads, I'm six books behind my reading goal of the year. UGH.
Website Progress
Website site, I put up a BookWorld weekend post this week finally (been a long time) and a Top Ten Tuesday post.
I put up a review for Graveminder by Melissa Marr.
I also put up the announcement for the Summer 2013 Reading themes from the ALA being made available.
Happy Children's Book Week everyone!
