Not quite crochet

Things I blog about that don’t exactly have anything to do with crochet

Bring it on, 2018!

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And just like that, 2017 is gone.

Thanksgiving-3

Poof. I don’t think a year has gone by more quickly for me. I just finished reading my tribute to 2016 on Facebook, and it was a doozy.

“Well 2016 was oh so bitter, but oh so sweet as well. As much as I joke about 2016 being the absolute worst (just like everyone else!) it was also one of the best. It’s easy to dwell on the bad from 2016, so let’s all focus on the great of 2016. Here is my year in review, including some of the bitter points because they made 2016 what it is: We rang in the new year as an engaged couple. Matt and I found an awesome brewery close to home. We moved out of a crappy little apartment into our first home. We went to Wrestlemania and Matt cried when one of his idol wrestlers came out. He also cried when his Cubbies won the World Series. We made a million and two trips home to spend time with family and friends and celebrate all of our engagement milestones. We all lost our best Fred and had our worlds turned upside down within a matter of a month. Work treated me very well and I earned a hefty raise. Matt turned our home into DB&B with delicious bbq and beer. I visited Denver for the first time and was reunited with an old friend. We filled our home with family for Thanksgiving and gave daddy a Gulf Coast send off. And best of all I married my best friend and became a Wisniewski!! (Though not officially on paper yet.. Technically I’m still Harte. But soon that will change.) Please be gentle, 2017, and give us nothing but luck, love and happy memories we can reminisce on at this time next year 😊”

Well here I am, as it is already that time of year to reminisce on the memories of 2017. Honestly, we got very lucky this year, and I’m okay with that. Last year was a beast of a rollercoaster, so this year actually turned out to be a nice cool down from 2016. This was the first full year without my best Fred, and I’m heartbroken as ever. We began by ringing in the Irish New Year, and then went out for our first New Year celebration as a married couple. We celebrated Matt’s 29th birthday. We saw Willie at the Houston Rodeo. I visited San Antonio for the Texas Library Conference and jumped up on stage at Coyote Ugly more than one time… We explored more of what Houston has to offer and discovered a new favorite brewery. Matt quit his miserable job and opened up Dixie’s Home Maintenance! I got a rad new hair-do and Matt has never looked finer with his head of hair. Sister got engaged and we’re thrilled to welcome Paulie to the family! But he’s not the only one we welcomed to the family.. Luci Joy made her appearance and was hands down one of the highlights of the year. We smoked a LOT of meat at DB&B, and drank a lot of beer. I had an idea to “just build up a portion of that half wall and put in a sliding barn door to close off the bathroom from our bedroom.” We then began a complete bathroom remodel. That bathroom remodel was interrupted by a little storm called Harvey, and we saw a lot more water than we should ever see in some places.  We had no damage or flooding to the house and counted our blessings! We finally took our honeymoon/anniversary trip to Jamaica and it changed our lives. We had a lot of visitors to Texas (thanks, everyone, for coming!) I enjoyed a tata on the beach with dad one year after he passed. We finished said bathroom remodel. We made our annual ACL Fest trip. I had blue hair. Dixie saw snow for the first time! (And it was in Houston.. weird.) I decided to pick up where I left off with my crochet adventures. Matt decided to make a lot of changes for the better, and the end of the year has turned into a resolution of happiness. Oy.. what am I missing? We have a lot of high hopes and plans for 2018. 2017 was the year of “please be gentle” and it sorta was; but tomorrow begins the year of “don’t disappoint!” Bring it, 2018!

Happy New Year, friends! Cheers to a great year!

Jenna

Snow in Texas!

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Just kidding, it’s not really snowing in Texas.

I’m a little depressed about the lack of snowflakes down here. I figured I would be the happiest person on Earth to have a Winter without snow.

Wrong.

Surprisingly, I’m kind of sad I won’t have any snow. I love to see it falling from the sky! I turn into a little kid and say “ooooooooooooooooo.” It’s pretty when it first comes down, but then the day after a snowfall when it turns all gray and mushy, I’m all “Go home, snow, you’re ugly.”

Anyway, I’m trying to put together a Think Tank installation at the library to replace my current “Letters to Santa” room. Matt, Dixie and I are going home to Chicago on Saturday (hey, I might see some snow!) and won’t be here to disassemble the letters to Santa room after Christmas. I figured why not bring some snow to Texas! I’ve started prepping a Snowflake Creation Station that a co-worker can toss  in there until I get back =D. Not everyone knows how to make paper snowflakes, so I want to have simple instructions easy enough for anyone to follow. Who would have thought it would be nearly impossible to find simple, drawn instructions on how to make paper snowflakes?! I got fed up, and did what any good DIY’er would do.. Made my own.

So, here’s a PDF of my instructions which I drew out in Photoshop. Don’t hate on my artistic ability. I ran it by a few fellow librarians and the instructions seem comprehensive enough. Feel free to use them to your heart’s content! All I ask is that you let me know how your snowflakes turn out!

Download Snowflake Instructions PDF

Enjoy!

Jenna

The Big Move

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Woof. Have I got some news for you.. A lot has been happening in my life these last couple months. I’ve made some huge life decisions which have been panning out fairly well so far. Some people are happy staying on a streamlined path in life and going in the direction of mundane.. But my life has veered in a strange direction that brought me to a whole new world…. This Yankee has moved down South to the great country of Texas! That’s right. On March 30th I packed everything into my little coupe and moved myself 1,000 miles away from home. 1,106 miles to be exact.

So far, everything is turning out beyond great for Matt and I. We both landed excellent jobs making more money than either one of us has ever seen. We’re settled in a good sized trailer with an abundance of land to grow a summer harvest of veggies and herbs, and possibly soon, have a fur-ever friend runing around in the back yard. I’d say we’re happy for now and still figuring out how to live with each other — which is turning out to be a little too easy, as a matter of fact.

The weather is beautiful (for now) and the summer will take some getting used to. Especially the fact that we’re pretty much living in a vacation spot being so close to Galveston Island. Our simple lives are consisting of work, evenings on the front porch with dinner and an after-work ta-ta, weekends getting ourselves more settled in and figuring out this new life, and phone calls and texts home to let everyone know we’re still hanging in there!

I’ve been neglectful of keeping this updated and I always dreamed that one day when I made my own adventure and moved far far away I would document every step of the way, sharing every scene and moment with everyone buuuut that simply didn’t happen. There are dozens of pictures on my phone that haven’t been uploaded, and a big gap in posts on this blog. I said in one of my very first posts that I would make this blog an even balance of crochet and my life, but it’s all moving so fast that it’s hard to keep up with! So once again, here is a [hopefully not empty] promise I will make to share my Texas adventures on here every chance I get!

Stay tuned! What big adventures have you been on lately??

Jenna

Happy V-Day!

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Give lots and lots of hugs and kisses to all your Valentine’s today! My Valentine is living 1000 miles away (literally.. he made the move to Texas) so I have a date with my camera and my family at my Aunt’s wedding tonight.

Just wanted to spread the love to everyone on Valentine’s Day =)

EAT YOUR HEART OUT!

heart

xxooxxoo,

Jenna

I’m Still Here.

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So my email informed me that my domain name would be expiring in one month. And I thought, “Domain? What is this domain? I have a blog?” And then I remembered the old days when I had the time to sit around and make beautiful crochet things, and then write about crochet projects. And then I cried a bit because I miss those days. But they won’t be gone forever because I’ve only been getting my life in order and preparing for my career in Library and Information Silence. For the last 7 weeks I’ve been pulling 52-60 hour work weeks between student teaching and working (and only getting paid for 8 hrs!) so there hasn’t been much time for yarn and hooking! But I have been keeping myself busy outside of all that important stuff!

So here’s a recap of the last few months..

  • I went to Cancun with the boyfriend and friends
  • Sweated and danced my pants off at Lollapalooza all weekend
  • Got to see my sister who came home from Oregon for a week
  • Made lots of yummy treats from the garden
  • Been slowly filling a huge crochet order of 10 colorful headbands

And there’s more that’s been keeping me happy and stressed and busy.  But I have a few tricks up my sleeve for some future posts, including all of that yummy goodness that came out of my dad’s little garden this summer! I hope everyone’s Fall is turning out to be lovely and exploding with colors, while my friends in another hemisphere are enjoying their blooming Spring! What have I been missing in your world while I’ve been running around like a mad woman in mine? =)

Jenna

Regarding Summertime Resolutions

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Five things I resolve to do at the beginning of the summer, but don’t actually follow through on….

5. Wear more sun dresses, or just any dress or skirt for that matter

4. Work out and take regular walks with the dog

3. Plant an herb garden

2. Mass produce wintery crochet items so I can sell them when it starts getting chilly outside

1. Write more blog posts. WOOPS.

Jenna

Thinking Outside of the Professional Development Box

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Disclaimer: This post isn’t about crocheting.  I’m going to bore you with librarian stuff, so cover your ears or shut your eyes, or just go somewhere else — WAIT DON’T GO!  I was only kidding. Keep reading and see a snippet of my glamorous life as a library school student!  Enjoy.

As you may have noted from previous posts, I’m currently in grad school for my Master’s in Library and Information Science as well as a working librarian in youth services. I’m very passionate about my decision to become a librarian and believe it is important to incorporate my professional life with my personal life.  I love finding ways to bring together my love for literature and my hobbies as I’ve posted about here when I brought a popular children’s book character to life through crochet.  I have also taken on a small project begun through a class assignment.  Following blogs is a great way to keep up with all that is happening in the library field (or really any field for that matter!) and hone in on some concepts to develop professionally. I’m always thrilled to find new ways to think outside the box when it comes to professional development, so I’d like to share some funky blogs I have found from fellow librarians who are also passionate about bringing new life to this progressive career path:

The Unquiet Librarian is a blog by Buffy Hamilton which I have been following for over a year now.  Her insights into progressive school librarianship are great resources for those entering the field or established teacher-librarians who want to keep up on trending issues in the library field such as technology, best practices, and what’s new in her literally unquiet library.  I love following Buffy’s musings because she not only has great ideas, but because she is very down to Earth and makes her posts interesting and applicable to any aspect of librarianship, not only school libraries.

The Book Dork blog initially caught my eye because of the funky name, but after checking out the link I was amazed at the amount of YA Lit reviews it offers.  I wish I had more time to read YA and Children’s Lit, but since I’m bombarded with assigned and professional reading in my classes, I have to rely on reviewers like Aimee who are passionate enough to provide the other guys with quick and reliable tidbits.  My favorite part of her blog is obviously the reviews, but I like that she has her own visual rating system from “Waste of Time” to “Favorite”, making it easy to choose books for making suggestions.  This is definitely a blog I will keep coming back to!

And last, but of course not least, A Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette.  Simply, this blog cracks me up.  That’s really the only reason I picked it to share.  No, it doesn’t offer professional development.  No, it might not offer insights into emergent technology or best practices.  However, it is a breath of fresh air and shows that librarians do indeed have a sense of humor too!  Each post is a snarky comment on so-called library etiquette, but hilariously stated; for example “Librarians should encourage their patrons to have sex in the library. Any additional housekeeping costs can be paid for with the advertising revenues you get from the live stream to your library’s security cameras.”  Love it.  I guess it started out as a running joke but it soon became “the number one, most-trusted source for authoritative tongue-in-cheek librarian etiquette tips on the Internet” and consequently one of my favorite places to go for a bibliophile smile.

So there ya have it, folks.  Three blogs from the library field that you should probably check out.  I know this is a blog about my crocheting endeavors, but I’m a librarian by day (and night on Tuesdays and Thursdays) so deal with it!  I hope you find these blogs as helpful and entertaining as I do.  There are so many awesome resources out there that it was hard to pick only three, but that’s just because librarians are awesome. Simply put.  Where do you go to keep up on the latest and greatest in your career or hobby?

Jenna

Grow Up, Already!

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I’ve noticed a theme in my last few sporadic posts, and it makes me sound like a broken record. “Okay, Jenna, we get it, you’ve had a lot on your plate lately!” Honestly, I haven’t posted in a while because I know it’s going to contain a sentence or six about me being stressed and overwhelmed, and I haaaate writing about that. So this is the last one, I swear.
I want to extend a question to whoever is reading this: How do you find the time and energy to accomplish everything? It was beyond easy when all I was doing was going to school and doing the occasional photo shoot. I had time to browse Craftgawker in the morning, fulfill crochet orders at lightning speed, and still have time left over to worry about what trouble I’d be getting myself into on the weekend. I’d be able to do everything I needed with minimal stress.
Now I’ve taken on a part time job at the library, a huge workload for school, a giant crochet order (which I’m almost finished with! Applaud me, please), all while trying to balance time with my amazing friends, boyfriend and family. I’m finding the little things that kept me amused before are taking a back seat for now. I used to take for granted the days when I had no obligations to force me away from the house; now I’m craving a half day when I can lounge around with some hot tea in my mug adorning my coffee mug cozy and a book. Today is one of those days which I’m very excited about! Until I have to go to class this evening. I know I only have a little bit of school left and once that’s over have more time to focus on a career and myself. But for now it’s my time to be angsty and complain about the stresses of growing up.
Anyway, I extend the question one more time: How do you find/make time for all of your obligations? It can’t be any big secret!

Quarter of a Century

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So I hit a milestone last Wednesday, Sept 12.. That’s right, I’m a quarter of a century old. The big 2-5. I know, it’s not old, but I feel like the last 25 years have flown by so I can just imagine how the next 25 will hit me. Despite my realization that I’m actually an adult and have been for, what? ..6 years or so?.. I had an awesome birthday! It was so awesome in fact, that I dragged it out almost a whole week. That’s right, go big or go home. Even if it had nothing to do with my birthday, I made it about my birthday. White Sox game on 9/11? Birthday Sox game! Pedicure the day before my birthday? Birthday pedicure! Camping the weekend after my birthday? Birthday camping! Birthdays are kind of a big deal with my family so this is a normal thing with us.

Luckily I have so many awesome friends and family that everything we did was made special. My super cool man, his brother, my sister and I all went out in downtown Chicago for some yummy beers on my birthday and I could not have asked for a better way to spend my week night birthday. They all had work the next day but trooped it out for me =) Then over the weekend I spent some quality time with the boyfriend and my parents camping in Michigan which was beyond a pleasant weekend.  Spending hours on the beach with Matt and little miss Midge the puppy was the highlight of the weekend, as well as relaxing around the bonfire with some brews and listening to my dad chat about music. I wish I had taken more photos to document this leap into the second quarter of my life, but I’ve admittedly been pretty lax with my camera.

But take my word for it, Best. Birthday. Ever. Thank you everyone, my friends and family, for making my life so superb and enjoyable =)

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Summertime Blog Gaps

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My fellow Americans: I’m not sure if you’ve noticed or not, but it’s been HOT. This summer heat has struck with a vengeance, probably making up for the poopy June weather we had last year. Stupid heat. Don’t get me wrong; I looove Summer and the heat and sun that comes with it! But when the weather gets up to 103 degrees with humidity that can melt your face, I start longing for the chilly days of Fall.

Where am I going with this…? Well, I’m trying to justify my not keeping up with my crochet themed blog. I hate that I’m paying for a domain name and I haven’t posted in a month. But really, with the heat I just haven’t wanted to sit around with a ball of yarn on my sweaty lap. So, I’ve decided that since my crochet projects kind of wane during the summer months I’m going to fulfill your lives with bits of my life outside of my hobby. Maybe I’ll have a weekly series about what I’ve been doing lately, or some snapshots of my day to day. Gotta love social media.

Anywho, my summer has been awesome so far! With a spontaneous road trip to the East Coast and landing a new job in my profession I’m feeling like I’m in a happy place right now =)