Watching Weather and Counting Down

Although the winter started on the dry side, it's making up for lost time by sending wave after wave of warm and cold rainstorms across the Pacific through the "storm gate." Most rainstorms drop from a few hundredths to several tenths of an inch of rain. The current storm arriving tonight is expected to drop up to three inches!

The reason we are watching it so carefully is that the freeway sometimes floods between home and the airport, and we don't want to miss that nice Hawaiian Air Lines flight on Sunday morning! (The airline maintains a flight tracker: just plug "Sacramento" into the departure city slot.)

The Sacramento International Airport's "conditions" report is my new favorite web site; we're fortunate that, even if our flight is delayed, we have no connecting flights to worry about! Now, I need to find a similar web site that will report conditions on I-5. The California Highway Patrol maintains an Incident Report web site that is pretty-much real-time, so hope that will work for us. You may need to change the city to "Sacramento".

So far, the meteorologists are predicting a window between storms Saturday night - Sunday morning. I hope they're right! Weather information updated hourly or more often is available at the Weather Underground. Use the text box at the top of the screen to type in the zip code of the place you need information about. (For Hawaii, 96734 will work for Kailua, and 96814 for Honolulu. For Sacramento use 95831 or 95814.)

Haven't let any of this slow down my packing schedule ...

Sweet Distraction

The Sacramento Blood Source called to say they are critically short of blood this week, so I went in to donate a pint this afternoon. I try to do this every eight weeks, and I'm glad I picked today! This yard-high "gingerbread" house was standing on the donation floor, adding a touch of whimsy to an otherwise pretty sterile environment. My phlebotomist also decorated my elbow wrap with a "bow" made of contrasting wrap!

Blood donations immediately benefit those who need plasma or red blood cells. I began donating blood when I couldn't afford monetary contributions, and have continued pretty much every couple of months since then - I'm a 5-gallon donor now! Besides, they feed you pretty well afterward: today there was stew, doughnuts, cheese, fruit, and all the soft drinks and juice you could want! (Donors are required to spend at least ten minutes in the refreshment center before leaving!) They were also giving away Baskin-Robbins coupons today - "a pint for a pint." French Vanilla ice cream should go pretty well with the Christmas apple pie, I think.

Christmas 2005

Christmas Day. The family dynamic was very different this year, our first without Patrick in residence. So, do we put up a stocking for him? Do we wait to open gifts till he gets here? (Yes, and yes.)

All in all, this year's gifts reflected the kids' growing maturity and the trend toward giving gift cards instead of "stuff." As my sister-in-law once said, "you know it fits, and the color's always right."

This year, Christmas came in the midst of a rainstorm. Although it was merely overcast in the morning, by lunch time it had started to drizzle and it has continued all afternoon. It would have been the perfect day for a roaring fire because the rain would have washed the air pretty well, but it's not cold! Although the sun's been down for an hour, instead of being in the 40s , it's closer to 60 degrees, and we've been opening the windows off and on to release the heat from the kitchen.

We are grateful we were able to share the holiday together, and we look forward to the adventures that are in store for the New Year!

Perfect Little Pine Tree

Christmas Eve. This morning I went for a longer walk than usual, to work off those cookies I made a couple days ago. On the way back, I took a picture of this pine tree that sits in the middle of the bike path - the picture doesn't do it full justice, because in "person", it's a perfectly-shaped pine tree. However, in this photo, it almost looks like there's a Christmas star at the top ... and I promise my phone's camera has NO editing ability whatsoever!

Wrapped up the Christmas shopping today (comes from not having any days off this past week) and got an unexpected treat: after a solid week of rainy, foggy, overcast weather, the sun came out, and it felt like a spring day! We opened all the windows and the sliding patio door, and were comfortable in shorts and t-shirts for several hours. Sure doesn't feel like the middle of winter!

It's Cookie Time Again!

There's something about Christmas that begs for cookies. Yesterday I made chocolate chip cookies and date bars. This evening, I planned to make spritz cookies, but real life intervened: no lemon extract, and the amount of flour in the recipe was inaccurate. The dough was so stiff, I couldn't squeeze it through the holes in the cookie press. So, I activated "Plan B" and rolled the dough into little balls and smashed them flat with a glass dipped in sugar. Not exactly what I planned, but they taste ok...

The thing is, holidays are all about food! I joined Weight Watchers in May, and have disposed of 35 lbs so far. It's been difficult to pass up all the goodies, and I have not been entirely successful, but I'm proud that today I was able to sit across from the counter where staff placed mucho goodies at work and only take two cookies! Tomorrow is my weigh-in, so I've got to stay honest until lunchtime, at least! During the holidays, I'll be happy if I don't gain any weight, and after the holidays, I'll get back on track to lose the remaining 65 lbs I need to shed.

Christmas Timing

I think I outsmarted myself this year.

I always take the week after Thanksgiving off to do Christmas cards, prepare packages that need to be mailed, and make small gifts for library staff, and bake. This year, I took off the week before Thanksgiving. Not only was it too soon to be thinking about Christmas, but Fall was a long time coming and it was too warm! So, I didn't actually get around to any of the above, and went back to work with nothing done. And the weather changed on Thanksgiving Day, bringing freezing temperatures and a nice winter rain storm.

Now, since Christmas occurs on Sunday this year, and my work-week is Tuesday - Saturday, I am having to scramble on my lunch hours and after work to complete what should have been done weeks ago! I'm taking notes for next year.

Tropical Splendor

Received these gorgeous tropical exotics today from my brother's family. They arrived in mint condition, lovingly packed by the staff of The Picket Fence Florist in my home town of Kailua, Hawaii. I couldn't believe the size of the anthuriums, and the orchids and gingers survived the packing and unpacking without a blemish. Now, when I play my Hawaiian music albums, it will really feel like home!

It's been cold here (30s -50s) this past week, and although there's been no rain recently, we're supposed to have dense morning fog all week. Definitely room for a bright spot of flowers! Mahalo, Dave and Lea!

Desktop Self Defense

A couple of weeks ago, I attended an all-day workshop on computer safety and security called "Desktop Self Defense". It was sponsored by InfoPeople, an organization devoted to helping libraries with computer technology and training. The workshop covered things we could do to help defend our pcs from viruses and e-mail worms, information on how to recognize scams, spam and phishing, and also on how to create and use free "throwaway" e-mail accounts to spare our "real" account from becoming the recipient of too much spam.

Each InfoPeople course comes with "bookmarks" - a list of web resources used or featured in the workshop. This workshop provided us with a great collection of free web resources that I highly recommend for everyone who uses the Internet at home! Among its several dozen resources, it includes links to free programs you can download to protect your computer against spyware and adware, a free firewall, and a link to information about downloading and installing the Firefox browser.

Although I didn't learn too much that was totally new to me, it was very useful to hear the horror stories of the participants, and to be able to ask questions and hear tips and comparisons for the sites and downloads I'd only read about. I'm just glad we haven't yet (knock on wood) had any major run-ins with some of the malicious stuff that's out there. Now, armed with this new information, I have taken steps to secure my li'l pc.

O Christmas Tree

We drove to Davis Ranch again this year to get our tree, and we found a fat little Douglas fir we thought would work in the space we have. Here's the "before" picture...

... and here's the "after" picture, complete with decorated daughter. This year, she trimmed the trunk and bottom branches so it would fit in the stand, then lit and decorated the tree pretty much by herself!

The stage is set. All that's required now is for Santa to do his stuff!

My two kids, Patrick and Laurel - I'm proud of them both! It's difficult to re-think my parental role for kids old enought to make their own ways - I see now that I need to encourage them to learn to manage their own affairs before they fledge. 

Library Tourguide to Blogs and Technology

Saw a reference to this blog on the CALIX mailing list today, and thought it would be a perfect place to send people for a simple explanation of the new technologies that are appearing in conversations and in the libraries.

Sandra Stewart, Senior Librarian at the Tully Community Branch of the San Jose Library, says, "I wrote this for my colleagues who ask questions about blogs, plug-ins and things like that."

Wish I'd thought of it first!

Okay, it's cold!

On the news tonight, we heard there is a freeze warning for 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. in Sacramento, and the temperature is expected to dip into the upper 20s for the first time in years! We brought the lemon tree and ti plant indoors and wrapped the water pipe where it enters the house. The news guys also suggested we leave one faucet dripping a little, because moving water is harder to freeze. Marty filled big pots with water in case the pipe does freeze, so we can heat them on the stove and pour the warm water on the pipe to thaw it.

Here's a little weather sticker I keep on my home page, so I can keep track of what's going on. It is displaying the current weather conditions here, and updates every hour. If you click through to the Weather Underground, you can type in any city or zip code to get the current weather and forecast for that area.

Knitting Basket

This morning Sacramento Public Library had its annual all-staff holiday meeting, formerly known as the "Cookie Meeting." Staff from all 27 branches come to Central Library to recognize retirees and new staff, eat cookies, and raffle items as a fund-raiser for the local Salvation Army. This year, the raffle funds were split between the Salvation Army an a Katrina libraries' relief fund.

Last year, we instituted branch gift baskets instead of hundreds of individual raffle items as a way to expedite the raffle part of the meeting. It was so successful that they did it again this year - and I was the lucky winner of what seems to have been the most-coveted basket: the Knitting Basket. It contains a collection of luscious yarns which include several balls (some can be seen at the front of the basket) of yarn hand-spun by one of our bookmobile librarians. It also contains knitting needles and crochet hooks, instructions for same, a pattern book and a pattern-a-day calendar!

Nice additional touches include a scarf, a pair of doilies, a cute tape measure in a "sheep" skin, and knitting needle point protectors in the shape of Christmas stockings. I'm looking forward to a warm fuzzy winter of knitting pleasure!