Categories:
Archives:
My Library Thing:
Not blogging, concentrating on my thesis
I’m concentrating on my thesis.
So, I am writing in the New Year. Just not on my blog.
Back to concentrating on my thesis.
Posted by Laurie on January 26th, 2010 under Laurie speaks! | Comment now »I know, I’ve been a lameo blogger
I don’t know why I haven’t been blogging. Some of it is just being burned out after the last year. And some of it I just haven’t felt like I have anything to say.
But after 3 weeks down south for the holidays, I do feel that I’ve come back home and back to work refreshed and re-energized.
I promise to be a better blogger in 2010!
Posted by Laurie on January 11th, 2010 under Laurie speaks! | Comment now »One of the things I’m looking forward to while being at McGill — open lectures
I’m serious, I can’t wait to go to open lectures once I’m at McGill.
Take for example Lorie Kloda’s upcoming talk about qualitative research in information behaviour. Doesn’t that sound fabulous?
Hey, no snickering from the non-librarian readers. I’m serious, it sounds great!
10 months feels like such a long time to wait!
Posted by Laurie on November 1st, 2009 under Laurie speaks! | 2 Comments »Time to do some streamlining of my life
Look at this, I’m still not blogging regularly. Time to streamline my life!
I love this list to get my started: Ten Ways to Get More from the Hours in Your Day
Posted by Laurie on October 31st, 2009 under Laurie speaks! | Comment now »So, I say I’m back and then what?
An extremely busy week at work happened! I’ve heard that enrollment is up and I totally believe it. Yowser!
I was getting so behind on things that I had to come in early and stay late. By Friday, I was bone tired.
But I rested up this weekend and even went for a long walk last night to get energized for this coming week!
And I feel it in my bones that this time, it’s going to be a good week!
Posted by Laurie on October 26th, 2009 under Laurie speaks! | Comment now »Hello!!
So, you’re probably wondering why the long silence.
Phew! What a time I had for the start of Fall!
I caught the flu and it turned out to be the worst flu of my life! Interestingly, the first day I woke up feeling sick was the first day I had free since starting all the major projects of the past year. If you believe that stress causes sickness, no wonder I was sick for practically the entire month of September!
Things I accomplished in the last year:
- Planned a wedding where almost everyone was from out of town, meaning I had extra hosting and planning duties that would have normally be taken care of by family members, if they had to be done at all.
- Had the wedding
- Rebuilt my library’s website onto a new platform
- Re-took a class from my MEd that was my lowest mark, as suggested by one university as a way of improving my chances of getting into a PhD program. My mark was 91%, up from 60% at the first attempt.
- Worked two jobs, 65 hours a week, for 7 months
Looking at that list, it doesn’t sound like much, huh? Well, let me tell you, I’m extremely proud of myself ’cause I know how hard it was!
So, thanks for waiting as I recuperated!
Don’t worry, I’m back to blogging.
Posted by Laurie on October 17th, 2009 under Laurie speaks! | 2 Comments »Writing break
I’m finding that I’m so busy catching up with the rest of my life that has been on hold since, probably, October because of the wedding that I’m finding it impossible to find time to blog. So, I’m going to take a break from writing until the first week of September.
Until then dear friends!
Posted by Laurie on August 3rd, 2009 under Laurie speaks! | Comment now »Inconsistent Internet makes doing an online course tough
For those of you not in the North, you may be surprised to hear we’re having serious connectivity issues. Constant power surges and power outages and the Internet keeps going down. It’s happening so much that it’s become a normal part of life here.
I went to a well-known hardware store twice last week for supplies and both times they had signs up saying that their Interac and credit card machines may be down.
“May be down.”
In other words, the Internet keeps going down so we can’t guarantee that these systems will be working by the time you get to the till so make sure you have lots of cash on you.
Trying to do an online course has turned into a real headache. Several times I’ve been in the middle of writing a post and everything goes down. This past Friday, the power and Internet went down 4 times while I was trying to do my schoolwork. It’s making it really hard for me to remember whether or not I’ve commented on classmates’ posts or posted enough myself.
I picked a bad summer to do an online course, huh?
Posted by Laurie on July 15th, 2009 under Laurie speaks!, Other | Comment now »What a ride!
You hear how intense getting married is, you watch it happen to your friends, you see it in television shows, but until it’s your turn, you really can have no idea the kind of ride you’ve signed up for. It’s INTENSE!
Of course, ours was probably more intense because the majority of our guests were out-of-towners and needed more help enjoying their visit than is normal. So, we were hosts, the bridal couple, the wedding planners, the bakers and chefs, and the tour guides all wrapped into just two people in a span of two weeks.
We were also working with a much smaller budget than most of the bridal couples I know of, certainly less than those weddings you see on TV. So, we had to rely on people for help, which didn’t fully work out as planned over the course of the weekend (let’s just say that not everyone has the same idea of what helping out looks like). Which, unfortunately, left Brad and I working harder than I ever imagined not to mention relying on the assistance of some key people without whom the whole event wouldn’t have gone so smoothly.
I was up until 1am the night before my wedding, up until 3:30am the night of my wedding, and was so tired by the third night that I forgot to look at the clock when we finally crashed for the night. As one of my grandmas said, she’s never seen a bride work so hard at her own wedding! Insightful but I think it was unavoidable the minute we chose to get married where we live, not where our families live, and not to spend beyond what money we had in hand.
Everyone says that they had a great time, everything was beautiful, and we’re married. Plus, both bridal showers were a blast and beautiful memories in their own right. What’s there to complain about? I wear those late nights doing dishes and cleaning like a badge of honour because it meant that other people could relax and have a good weekend.
The other grandma says that she thought the event felt like a low-key, family event, which is all we ever wanted. I look back on all of that work and I’m immensely proud of how happy we made all of our guests, particularly those who spent so much of their yearly budget to come all this way to celebrate with us. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all those who came, just typing it makes me tear up… literally.
Some of those who couldn’t attend, sent gifts, cards, emails, and even photographs that my Mom put together in an album of all these family and friends toasting our event that went on display at the reception. This in addition to all the quilt blocks she put out for each guest to sign their name or write a message to be made into a memory quilt (my idea, I think those signature books you see at weddings are useless).
We are lucky people to have so many people who did what they could to share in this event and send their congratulations despite the distances. Yes, email may be free to send, but they felt priceless to me when I received them on a day important to me.
The entire time was awesome. I giggled through the entire church service, did silly things like practically sprinted down the aisle when I saw Brad, and couldn’t stop smiling the entire day. I’ve heard that not every bride is so happy on her wedding day so I’m aware of how lucky I am that I enjoyed it so much.
What also kept the event as a positive experience for me was that we managed to keep within our budget, which was extremely important to us because we had only reached debt-free status the month before. I had worked hard to reach this point and there was no way I was going to let a wedding ruin it.
What I learned out of this event was just how much fun I really have cooking and baking for family and friends. I loved handling all the baking myself and I heard from several guests who also can’t eat wheat how much they appreciated our almost-gluten-free and dairy-free menu. High praise!
A lot of the success of the dinner is due to a friend of my sister, with whom Brad and I made a trade — free accommodations for the week at our house in exchange for her working free as our chef. That meant a lot to me that she worked so hard to make it happen and so many people loved all the food we served!
With all our lovely new gifts of dishes, glasses, and bakeware, we are all set to finally host a big family event. And with this experience under my belt, I can’t wait! I’ve got some ideas on how I could do it better next time (hosting a family event, I don’t mean getting married again, lol) 
A few days after the event, while we still had lots of family in town, I spent two days canning blueberry jam to give to all the lovely people who lent us all the things we needed to pull off the event such as slow cookers (poor woman’s chafing dish), dressmakers’ form (to display my Mom’s wedding dress), etc. It’s just a little token to show how much we appreciated their assistance since we didn’t have family nearby to borrow things from.
And to those amazing people who really stepped up and worked their butts off to make the event happen (above and beyond their fair share), we gave them the table runners my Mom had quilted for the event. I wish I could say or do more to show them how much I appreciate all they did, but I’m not so sure it’s possible.
My parents have an old cross-stitch up in their kitchen that says “They are Rich Who Have True Friends” and that phrase popped into my head several times over the weekend.
I’m a very rich person.
Posted by Laurie on July 14th, 2009 under Other | 3 Comments »Blogging Silence until July 13th
Who knows, I may find to time to blog before July 13th, but I have to be realistic. I’m on vacation for the next two weeks because of the wedding and other than my course at MUN, I don’t think I’ll be online much.
Yes, I’ll put pictures online as soon as I can.
Yes, I’m taking a break from facebook right now. Don’t worry, I haven’t de-friended anyone.
Yes, we have a website for the wedding, if you’re curious… http://wedding.electrified.ca/
Okay, until then everyone! Have a great Canada Day and play safe in the beautiful weather.
Laurie 
Search:
My Calendar:
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jan | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
My Google Reader:
My Custom Search Engine:
Free Academic Databases
