Another Moving Day

Today we began the process of transferring the contents of the Ora Sprague Library to the B Thomas Golisano library building. Crews from the moving company were there before I arrived, sizing up the job, organizing their workflow, scoping out the entrances. They are pros at this, traveling around the country moving libraries to new buildings.

Their carts are rough hewn plywood tall boxes on wheels made to take a beating. They work together as teams, knowing who is doing what, one pair in the old building loading carts, one pair wheeling carts on and off trucks, and one pair in the new building, unloading carts. Every cart numbered, every cart targeted for sections of new shelving - a perfect plan.

Until the first rack of compact shelving began to buckle under the weight of the bound journals and listed at a crazy and dangerous angle. The shelving company was called, they will come tomorrow. But that didn't stop the crews. They continued loading journals on shelves as if nothing were amiss. I am fearful that they will have to offload all those materials to fix the shelving. Not their problem.

They have a contract with a deadline. They plan to meet it regardless of some inadequate shelving. They have to get things done in the prescribed order, there is no time to rewrite the plan. So just keep going.

Sometimes I feel like we treat life that way. Just keep going, be tough, get the job done, ignore the little problems that take time to fix. Somehow one hopes it will work out OK. And if the shelves collapse, we will deal with it then. Maybe. If it doesn't fall on our heads and kill us in the process.

Well, tomorrow we shall see.

Room Service

Finally! I found the time and energy to clean my room. Not that I haven't wanted to, but what with chasing after stuff we needed and seeing to the boys needs and getting a doctor lined up and learning the new job, dealing with such a myriad of details, by the end of the day I hadn't touched my room, nor did I have the energy left. Certain things have been priorities for me, like getting furniture replaced before Kiel leaves (I left old stuff in CT and have been slowly replacing tables, chairs, curtains etc.) and exercising while the weather is cooperative and before winter gets here (I know, its still a long way off, but if I don't start a good habit, I won't get it going later).

I know Sunday is meant as a day of rest, and honestly, I didn't start out with the intention of organizing my room. It was more like self defense. I couldn't find anything, and I needed to make sure I had taken care of everything I was supposed to take care of. So I thought I would just get the piles back in the boxes to separate like entities. But once I got started, things just went together well and before I knew it, everything was neat and orderly!

A bonus! Even Drew told me my room looked nice, in spite of the fact that I get to put household things like suitcases and Christmas decorations in my space. Amazing what one new storage unit and doing laundry can do for you. And it turned out to be more restful sleeping with things organized. Who knew?

Ice Cream

Rochester seems to be the soft ice cream capital of the world. Drew was all achatter about visiting Lugia's even before we arrived. It was one of the first places we went and was better than I remembered. You get practically an entire pint in your small cone, and I remembered that you have to ask for a dish because the ice cream won't stay on the cone.

Then we discovered Byrne dairy - their cones, while smaller (but not by much) are smooth and creamy. We have already visited there twice (blush). Then there are multiple Abbotts Custard stands, which so far I have been able to resist - especially high calorie and rich. And I haven't even begun to list the numerous ice cream parlors in the malls like Friendly's and Baskin Robbins. Not to mention the irresistible sales in the grocery stores - 2 half gallons for $5, and $1.99 a half gallon, and even less. The boys have ice cream sale radar!

If the hot weather keeps up and Drew keeps finding new reasons to convince me to stop ( but Mom, dairy is necessary for calcium and I need strong bones to play soccer), I will add on more pounds than I want to think about. I remember when I visited my Gram in the summer, she always had fudgsicles and creamsicles in her freezer, and every night after we came in from 'settin' in the yard' we would have a small dish of ice cream. Such fond memories of good times. These are indeed good times, not thinking about bad things, looking forward with such happiness to a normal fall semester. Perhaps I can deal with a few extra pounds this summer. After all, I am walking at least a mile a day and trying to swim twice a week. So maybe the two will cancel each other out (can you tell I am grasping at straws here?).

Well, I have to go. There's a carton of chocolate marshmallow ice cream in the freezer calling my name . . .