Happy Moving Day Eve!

So, the big moving day is tomorrow. I wish I could say I was already ready to go, but I'm not. I still have a lot to do before I hit the road. I'm only taking what fits in my car. I am sad about leaving some items behind (my piano and my bed -- I love them both), but I look forward to getting all new stuff.

I still have to drag my stuff out of Anna's crawl space and sort through it all to decide what to take and what to sell at a garage sale.

Today is also my last day at work here at OSU. My co-workers took me out for a big, fancy dinner last night at Cap City Diner. It was really nice, and the food was so yummy. I had this rosemary balsamic chicken that was to die for, and the pecan pie I had for dessert was even better! As a going away present, I recieved a rather large gift card to DSW (large in value, not in size). Those who know me at all know that shopping for shoes is one of my favorite activities. Hi, I'm Tracy, and I'm a shoe-aholic.

Good News!!

I went to Florida last week for a job interview as a Children's Librarian. I got the job! I'm really excited about it. It actually sounds way too good to be true; I'm waiting for some weird stipulation to be dropped on me. My main focus will be on the teen literature and programming (which was my specialty for my degree). I will supervise 2 assistant librarians, and the three of us will run the children's department. It's a great job, and I feel really blessed to have found it.

Of course, while I was in Florida, I visited all of my family which lives down there. (Except for Drew & Marquesas. They came down to Tampa the week before for Mother's Day.) I created another montage of the photos I took while I was down there. (I'm a montage-creating fool! It's just the best way to show all of the pictures rather than just a small selection of them.) There are a couple of funny stories that go along with the pictures. There are 2 or 3 pictures of Evan "dancing." These are the pictures that are really grainy and poor quality. I had my camera on the wrong setting, but his "dancing" was spontaneous and didn't last long, so I worked with what I had. Anyway, the very first day I was there, we went to Chili's for lunch. Val told Evan to put his shoes on, so he did. He put them on and then announced, "Now I can dance." That's when the dancing started, which was mostly spinning, jumping, and doing "handstands."

There are also some pictures of Kyle with a measuring tape. This is because my parents are getting their house ready to sell, so everyone has been doing lots of work like painting all the walls from their colorful hues my Mom likes back to boring white. There's new doors all over the place (that's why one of the door frames in the background is only half painted.) Also, there are no countertops in her kitchen. They got all new cabinets, and the countertops have to be ordered after the cabinets are installed. These pictures were taken in between the cabinet installation and the counter top installation. Anyway, Kyle decided to measure the walls. Then he moved on the measuring the people. (I measure "2".)

There are many pictures taken in the pool. We will definitely miss not having such a convenient pool when my parents move.

So here's the montage. I hope you enjoy! (Sorry for those of you who are not related to me. It probably gets a little boring.)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Meet Devyn

I finally got to meet Devyn. I came to Florida for a visit. I had my 2nd interview for a library job. While I was here, I got to meet my niece Devyn. Devyn is my older sister Jill's first baby. She is about 4 months old. I took this short video of her laughing. The hands you see and the voice you hear are those of my other sister Valarie, who was showing me how to get Devyn to laugh. I did manage to make her laugh at me, but it was not in this way. She laughed at me when I held her high up over my head and let her drip drool on my face. Hey, it's all worth it for the cute laugh!

Graduation

Yesterday was the big day. Karen, Anna, and I drove up to Kent, Ohio to go to my commencement ceremony. We had a fun trip. It was nice to just get away on even a short little road trip.

The plan was for me to go home after work, pick up Anna, and then head to the east side to get Karen. By the time we got to Karen's it was 5:30, and traffic was really bad. We decided to stop and eat dinner at Texas Rodehouse before we fought the traffic to get out of town. That was a good choice. It used an hour, and by that time traffic was not nearly so bad.

We stopped to get gas in some little town and decided to get a couple of scratch off lottery tickets. We ended up winning $11 (which paid for junk food for the hotel later).

We got the hotel around 9:00, and they had a hard time finding our reservation. When they did find it, they realized that they had given our room away to someone who had come earlier in the day with the same last name. At that point, they didn't have a room with 2 double beds left. So we ended up getting 2 rooms (one was free of charge, of course). That actually worked out well because it made getting ready in the morning a lot easier since we had two bathrooms. One of the rooms had a king sized bed, which Karen and Anna shared. I got my own room with a double bed. It was also a handicapped accessible room, which means it was a little bigger than the other rooms. Plus it had a cool shower!

We hung out at the hotel. We were hoping to go swimming a little, but the pool was closed for renovations. So we watched cable (a luxury that Anna and I don't usually have) and just talked for a while. We walked across the street to a gas station and bought some Twix ice cream bars. I had never had one before, and it was delicious! (This is what our $11 in winnings went for.)

The next morning, we got up and headed up to Kent State for graduation. How ironic is it that the very first time I set foot on campus is for my graduation? I was running a little late, and so I had Anna and Karen drop me off at the doors. I had to go register, which was just telling them you were here and getting your number that determined your order in the processional line. (My number was 100.) Then I had to go line up with my fellow library science graduates. I don't know if it's just because we are the librarians, but I have to say our department was by far the most organized. We also had the most graduates present (for Masters degrees).

The ceremony went well for the most part. They pronounced my name wrong when they called it, but that doesn't really bother me that much. Nobody tripped and fell down or anything. The speaker was kind of interesting too. It was some entrepreneur business guy who made A LOT of money during his career and has a building or two named after him on campus.

I created a montage of the pictures from the road trip, the ceremony, and on campus. We actually would have had more pictures, but the batteries in my camera died, and I didn't have a spare set with me.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Holy Freakin' Lost!!!

Okay, so I am a big fan of the TV show Lost. I have been watching it from pretty much the very beginning ever since one of my co-workers told me about it and how cool it was. I started watching at about the 3rd episode and have been hooked ever since. Last night's episode was totally... well, I'm not sure what the right word is to describe it. I was watching it with Anna, and we just kept looking at each other going "Huh?" First of all, Ben is crazy! I guess we already kind of knew that. What's with this invisible Jacob guy? Only Ben can see him, but Locke can hear him call for help? Why is Jacob calling for help? Ben was totally acting like he was so scared of Jacob, but then Jacob is the one saying "Help me!" What's up with that?

And what about that Richard guy! He never ages? He's found the Fountain of Youth or something? Why isn't he sharing it with anyone else? We know that he is a "native" of the island, but we also know that he leaves the island occasionally. (He was in Juliet's flashback. He recruited her to move to the island in the first place.)

Now poor Locke is lying, bleeding to death, in a pit of skeletons. (I say "poor Locke" loosely, as he has kind of been freaking out lately -- he ruined their biggest chance to get off the island when he blew up the submarine, after all.)


Some of my favorite parts from last night's episode:

Roger "Workman" the work man -- We first saw his skeleton in the episode where Hurley, Sawyer, and Jin find the van (along with all the beer). Turns out he's Ben's dad. Also, when they found the car, wasn't it tipped on its side, and the body was found outside the car. When Ben left his Dad, dying of asphyxiation, he was inside the car, which was sitting upright. Hmmm...

I also really liked when Juliet was finally confronted and accused of being a spy for the Others. She's a tough one to figure out. Is she bad or good? She sure does have Jack wrapped around her little finger. When she's doing good things, I tend to think she's got evil motives; but when she's doing bad things, I think, "Gee, her heart's just not in all this evildoing stuff."

I'd like to say we'll get the answers to the puzzlements raised by last night's episode soon, but I doubt it. Every episode just puzzles me a little more than I was the week before. I enjoy it, though.



Here he is. It's creepy old Ben. I liked all the references to The Wizard of Oz in last night's episode, which was even called "The Man Behind the Curtain." When it comes to Ben, there have been many references to The Wizard of Oz ever since he first appeared. Does that mean he's just going to be the poor guy behind the curtain, who is creating the illusion that he is more powerful than he really is?

Some Lyrical Fun

I was laying on my bed last night listening to my MP3 player, and I was thinking about some great lines in songs. Just for fun, I will list a few, and you can try to guess what songs they're from. Some lines are poignant, some are, well, not at all...

1. "Up the stairs, to her apartment. She is balled up on the couch. Her Mom and Dad went down to Charlotte. They're not home to find us out. And we drive. Now that I have found someone I'm feeling more alone than I ever have before." (Maybe that's too many words. Does that make it too easy?)

2. "How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat. Some dance to remember; some dance to forget." (Mom, if you read this, you will get this right away. One time you told me this was your favorite line from this song that has many good lines in it.)

3. "The problem's plain to see: too much technology. Machines to save our lives. Machines dehumanize."

4. "You've got your dumb friends. I know what they say. They tell you I'm difficult, but so are they." (This one's just for you, Val. Well, it's actually for Mikaily. Ha ha. "My friends aren't dumb. What do they say?" Do you remember that?)

Happy guessing!

A Short Update...

Okay. I feel bad that I have not been posting as much as I think I should on my blog here. There's not really anything new to report. Graduation is coming up this Saturday. I'm going with Karen and Anna up to Kent on Friday. We're getting a hotel room. (The only thing they had left was a smoking room, so we'll smell like ash trays by the time we leave.) Graduation starts at 10:00 on Saturday morning. Afterwards we're going to a reception held by the School of Library & Information Science for its grads. I'm glad Karen and Anna are willing to come with me. I hope they're not too bored. I'm the one graduating, and I think it sounds really boring. I imagine we will take many pictures, so I will post some of those next week. I promise.