sallysetsforth

Oh how I heart thee, Book Depository!

• Your prices are so cheap, even after converting them into Australian dollars
• Your postage is free worldwide, yes *FREE*
• You have a wide selection of books that I would have great difficulty finding in Australia
• You include a free bookmark with every order
• Your books always arrive in Australia, all the way from the UK, within a week or two of ordering
• You politely say "Thank you ever so much for placing an order with us" :)

This is not a sponsored testimonial, but simply a personal tribute to my favourite online bookshop.

Over the past year I've ordered 41 books from the Book Depository. And I know this number will continue to grow :)

An absolute flurry of tweets erupted today, with many of my library friends and colleagues from Australia and New Zealand committing to blogging every day in June. Thanks to @stephmcg and @flexnib for starting the ball rolling! :)

I've "signed up" to the challenge, partly to enjoy and participate in the community spirit of it, and partly to re-energise my blog. I found the experience of blogging every day of the Advent calendar in December to be both challenging (thinking of things to write about) and liberating (shedding perfectionism and long periods of pondering in favour of writing posts to a deadline!).

Here are some of the other bloggers from library-world that are planning to post every day this month:

There she goes
Ruminations
Haikugirloz
Justgirlwithshoes
virtually a librarian
Librarians Matter
Strawberries of Integrity
Batgirl's Book Blog / Choc Bytes / Theatre Mad / 2010
FromMelbin
Walking Upside Down
snail
Feral Librarian Tales
moonflowerdragon
Suelibrarian
ADHD Librarian
CreativeCirc
SkinniBitch
Bonito Club
LiberryDwarf
Opinions from an OPL
Rien d'important
a Public Librarian
Connecting Librarian
Jenelle.net
Miss Sophie Mac
season creep
sardonicsmile
Librarian with different hats
Bun-toting Librarian
Info Geek Grrl
Sea of Memes
Iwojima2010

I'll add any other bloggers to this list as I become aware of them :)

I also like the variation on this challenge that's been suggested by Kathryn at Libraries Interact, which encourages those who don't have blogs, or who don't have time to blog every day, to try to make 30 comments on other people's blogs in the month of June. What a great idea for building and strengthening online connections! :)

P.S. The title of this blog post - #blogeverydayofjune - is the Twitter hashtag for this blogging challenge.

Edited to add: In recent years, the Twitter hashtag changed to #blogjune (shorter!) and this is also the tag that I'm now using to identify #blogjune posts on the blog.

A couple of weeks ago, I went along to the Stitches & Craft Show in Melbourne. I went on a bit of a shopping spree, but I also took the opportunity to go along to a class on Japanese braiding, run by Trish of TrishAlan Designs.

I'd never even heard of Japanese braiding (known as kumihimo) before doing the class. It's a bit like friendship bracelet making - which I never got the hang of in my school years - but there is a lot more variety to it. There are many different ways of making the braids, using different patterns, colours and threads. You can use the braids to make cords for jewellery, bag straps, cushion piping, Chinese knotting, headbands, and *ooh* all kinds of pretty things!

Here's a pic of my first attempt at making round braids (two different types) using a kumihimo disk.



They look pretty simple, but they are really robust. And I can see a lot of potential for experimentation with different media.

Since I enjoyed my first taste of kumihimo, I went ahead and bought myself some supplies to get started. As well as a round disk, I got a square board too, for making flat braids. I also got some bobbins for helping to keep the threads organised.



I like the portability of kumihimo - it's easy to pick up and take with you anywhere. So hopefully it shouldn't be too hard to find the time and opportunity to play around with this interesting craft. I'll post some photos of completed projects in the not-too-distant future :)

Man, oh man, oh man! It really has been ages since I last blogged!

Whilst I won't go into all the reasons why I've been a bit quiet online lately (let's just say I tend to withdraw from the world when I'm under stress), there have been a few changes in my life lately ...

Our long-anticipated move north is on hold (again), this time due to family circumstances. We may still be looking at moving in July/August, but it will very much depend on what else is happening at the time. We'll just have to go with the flow.

And I'm back at work! A week after my last blog post I started working again at my former place of employment. Just a short-term position, until the end of the financial year. Well, two positions actually, which add up to full-time work. I know that having a full-time job is not exactly unusual, but it has been a big change for me after 9 months away, and I'm just now getting the hang of the changed rhythm. I took a leave of absence from my Masters for this semester. I'll get back into it next semester when things are less crazy (Ha! As if that's ever going to happen!).

My morning online catch-up with what's going on has been replaced by the frantic, have-a-shower-get-dressed-eat-breakfast-catch-train routine of the commuting worker. And when I get home, I'm not always so interested in turning the computer on again for a while. I've also been living slightly more intensely in my evening hours and weekends. You know what I mean, time is always more precious when there's less of it. So that also accounts somewhat for my reduced time online.

Um, what else... I'm doing a bit of crafting. Mostly for myself right now, after doing several projects for other people. I'm exploring a whole bunch of new craft techniques too (not that I have any time for more crafts!). Speaking of which, I've had a draft webpage about crafting in the works forever now - getting that online soon is on my to-do list.

Oh, I also went crazy at the closing down book sale at City Basement Books, and undid all the good work I'd done in culling books beforehand!

And I just realised that my one-year blog anniversary came and went without any fanfare. I'm not really fussed about marking these kind of goalposts, but it's kind of nice to keep track of how long I've had this online presence for. Which would be one year and 16 days now :)

P.S. I owe a lot of people a bunch of emails - I'm getting there, I promise!

The last month has very been stressful for me and my family, especially this last week. This isn't the place to go into further detail, so I'll just leave it at that. But perhaps it will explain the lack of blog posts - my mind has most decidedly been somewhere else!

I've got a backlog of half-complete posts waiting to be finished about VALA2010, the Tour Down Under, decluttering, and an assortment of topics inspired by Twitter conversations. Hopefully they will appear soon. In the meantime, though, here are some thoughts about things that bring comfort in times of stress...

Over the last few weeks, I've found comfort in the forms of:

• using my Nan's brand of talcum powder
• good quality chocolate
• reading short stories rather than novels
• giving myself permission to watch TV or a DVD
• new book deliveries
• playing Boggle on the computer
• watching Roxy doing cat stuff

Surprisingly, I haven't felt the need to turn to:

• retail therapy - too easy to make bad financial decisions when stressed
• cups of tea - this seems strange to me, I've drunk lots of water instead
• junk food - well, not much!
• alcohol - surely the worst thing you can add on top of a bad day?
• crafting - bereft of inspiration
• study - okay, this one's not really surprising!

If you have received a bunch of random bizarro stuff from my blog's RSS feed - I am so sorry!!!

I don't know what's causing the problem. I'm only getting the strange posts in my Google Reader (not in Netvibes or My Yahoo! or anywhere else). It's affecting the direct feed as well as the Feedburner feed. The blog itself has not been affected, just the RSS feed. I don't know yet whether it will affect email subscriptions.

I've changed my passwords - this seems to have stopped the rubbish in the Feedburner feed. I'm not sure yet whether this is the case for the direct feed.

I'm at a loss. I don't know what to do or even who to get angry with!

Hopefully the problem will be resolved soon, but in the meantime I really do feel awful about the gunk in your RSS reader :(

I've been working my way through boxes of "stuff" that migrated from my parents' garage into our spare room many years ago, never to be looked at again. Until now, that is. In preparation for our move, I have been busily sorting and culling. It's amazing how much paperwork can build up over the years!

I'll write a blog post some other day on the treasures and embarrassments that I've uncovered along the way, but today I thought I'd share with you some poetry that I wrote 20 years ago in high school :)

Thinking.

Looking out the window
    At the clouds all passing by;
I wonder if another world
    Exists beyond the sky.

Pretty deep, hey? ;) But mostly I was a silly child, so these next two poems are more in character!

Mr Monster.

Purple monster of the park,
    In the shadows, where it's dark;
Hiding underneath the bench,
    Looking for his monkey wrench.

Vegemite.

Tommy Brown eats Vegemite
    Every day and every night.
He sticks his fingers in the jar
    Of goo, that looks like sticky tar.

He gets it on his nose and face,
    And every other open space.
It travels east, west, north and south,
    And sometimes gets into his mouth.

His mother says "You are a grub!,
    And gives his face a thorough scrub.
"I wish you'd change to peanut butter",
    She has oft been heard to mutter.

But Tommy loves his Vegemite,
    He says it makes his teeth more bright.
He'll eat it till the day he dies,
    On buttered bread and cold meat pies.

P.S. I was a total swot at high school - especially in English - so it would be remiss of me not to mention that I got a mark of A+++ for this collection of poems ;)

I'm really looking forward to attending VALA2010. It will be my first major library conference apart from the New Librarians Symposium in 2008.

And although I'm looking forward to the presentations immensely, I'm also very much looking forward to meeting in person some of the amazing librarians that I've met via Twitter over the last year. And some new people too :)

I won't be attending the official VALA dinner on Wednesday night (I'm self-funding my conference attendance). But happily, this is also the case for some of my favourite twitterers - so we've arranged to meet up for an alternative, informal dinner that night.

If you would like to come along to this alternative dinner, please let me know by either leaving a comment on this blog post, emailing me at sallysetsforth at gmail.com or sending me a direct message on Twitter. The dinner is open to anyone who would like to share an informal meal and conversation with other VALA attendees. Just make sure to let me know if you'd like to attend so that I can adjust the booking as necessary :)

I've booked an outdoor non-smoking table at Automatic Cafe (website requires Flash player). It's close to the conference venue and Southern Cross train station. We can either meet there, or meet at the end of Wednesday's conference proceedings and head to dinner together.

Here are the details -

Time:     6.30pm, Wednesday 10 February 2010
Place:    Automatic Cafe, ground level of Crown Entertainment Complex, Southbank
RSVP:   Monday 8 February (comment on this post, email me at sallysetsforth at gmail.com or send me a direct message on Twitter)

Well here we are in 2010 :)

It's going to be a very busy year for me and Tim, at least for the first few months. We're doing repairs and renovations around the house, doing a major cull of our possessions, moving interstate, looking for work - and who knows what will come after that!

Since Christmas we've had three large trees removed, a new toilet installed and other plumbing work done, new roof insulation put in, and we've thrown out or recycled several large bins full of 'stuff'. We've also had quotes for a new kitchen and bathroom, which will continue to keep us busy around the house for a while. Oh, and it's harvest time in the garden - so there's lots of cooking and preserving going on too!

I'm sure there will be lots more posts forthcoming on all this activity and upheaval - I just need to find some time to write them!

This afternoon Tim and I are heading off to Adelaide to catch the last couple of stages of the Tour Down Under. We almost decided not to go, what with all the activity going on here, but once the buzz started and the world-class cyclists started arriving ... well, I just couldn't stay away!

My sister will be house-sitting for us while we're away, and it will be interesting to hear how Roxy copes with a different person in the house - or will she even notice?

I'll blog again when we're back home :)

P.S. I posted a new recipe for an easy beetroot risotto on my Recipe Box page.

Merry Christmas!!!