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This magical librarian story powered me through a tiring week back at work after vacation.

My new favorite thing to check each morning: Beautiful News Daily.

A good reminder that libraries (and the materials/resources inside them) aren't free - they're important investments. And also you should use them, because you've already paid for them (usually pennies or a few dollars, but still).

I need a party so I can test out this recipe!

"Art is everywhere, if you say so."

Happy (Almost) End of Summer

Welcome back (to me and you) from my planned/unplanned vacation from blogging! I was flirting with the idea of taking the summer off, and then life said "Yep, you definitely need a break," so I logged out and worked on all sorts of personal and professional endeavors. Now I'm ready to share what's new in Rachel's book/travel/food world and resume some recommendations and reviews. First, here's a bit of what's been going on since May, the media I've consumed + would recommend, and what I'm looking forward to this fall:

BOOKS

• I finished Scythe (and later, Thunderhead) and I'm now eagerly awaiting the conclusion to this trilogy.
• I listened to Sadie, which might be the only way to consume that book - it's part podcast, part quest for justice.
• Now I'm settling into my second trimester and reading all the books. I've perused pregnancy books, but lately I've been feeling the heavy emotional reads: Good Talk is a graphic novel memoir about a woman discussing race and racism with her young son; A Heart in a Body in the World is a young adult novel about the violence of control and how we can run away from our past while also running toward a new future; The 57 Bus is a nonfiction book about events that occurred on a public bus in Oakland, California in 2013. All three made me cry.

MOVIES

• We started off the summer of Disney remakes & sequels with Aladdin, then saw Toy Story 4 and The Lion King. Now this mermaid eagerly awaits the live action The Little Mermaid and wonders if Disney's streaming service will be worth it...
• Besides remakes, my favorite movie of the summer was Rocketman. Now we just need to catch up on Bohemian Rhapsody and Yesterday!

OTHER INTERESTING THINGS

• I don't follow basketball, but I did enjoy this story about Giannis Antetokounmpo from The Ringer.
• And a related story that should shock no one - "Experts Say Storytime Can Help Children Recover From Trauma" - but what the article doesn't say is that reading, listening, and engaging with stories helps us all, no matter what age we are.

LIFE

• In early May, I *officially* graduated from Dominican University with my MLIS. While I'm certainly proud of my high school and undergrad diplomas as well, this one means the most to me. I'm so glad I get to put it to use regularly, and I'm forever grateful to friends and family who supported me during my studies.
• In late May, my husband and I found out we are pregnant! So far my favorite pregnancy book is Lucy Knisley's Kid Gloves. It's real and relatable, plus I learned so much about the history of pregnancy and prenatal care.
• My first trimester was filled with naps, soup, and trying to drink as much water as I could. I shouldn't have been surprised that I was also in a massive reading slump. Nothing interested me, mostly because I was exhausted. I was also a bit anxious - as much "fun" as it seemed to have a secret shared only with my husband, it was also hard to not tell people when I really needed their support. Revisiting this piece by Neil Gaiman helped my brain. So did mysteries and thrillers like Your Name, We Were Liars, and Sea Witch.
• By July, I felt much better. My husband and I traveled to Baraboo, Wisconsin to visit Circus World (this has been on his bucket list for a while), and we joined the rest of my family for a reunion/camping trip. While there, we surprised everyone with something we had found out a few weeks prior: we're pregnant with TWINS!

LOOKING FORWARD

• The end of summer brings a wedding, a trip to DC, and the return of school year programming at work.
• My stack of TBR books includes a few contemporary young adult novels that have gotten a lot of buzz (some great, some not good at all), a highly rated young adult crime novel, and a spooky retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses.
• It's almost Halloween! I'm excited to celebrate by watching Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, IT Chapter Two, and a few classic horror movies. I also need a good costume to show off my growing belly...

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Somehow April never truly feels "cruel" until right at the end of the month. Only then do I realize what an exhausting month this is. Whew. Here's what's been keeping me going until the sun comes back again:

"Pockets mean no purses, and that's more freedom."

Thoughts on various reactions to the Notre Dame fire.

Why do we (I) love retellings? (You know I'm a sucker for almost all of them.)

We learned about Simba during our (free) tour of Milwaukee Public Museum on our last MKE trip!

Yes, I'm a librarian. I'm also a person with hobbies and a social life that aren't related to work.

This is an old article, but every now and then I dig it up for a reread: "I believe we have an obligation to read for pleasure, in private and in public places. If we read for pleasure, if others see us reading, then we learn, we exercise our imaginations. We show others that reading is a good thing."

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Here's what's been on my radar in March:

This literal flowchart is mesmerizing.

I love the idea of picking one thing/theme/concept to look out for at a museum, and "reading" is a great one for me!

Funding for libraries should be guaranteed - but for the third year in a row, the IMLS is in danger of elimination. Call, email, and tweet your reps/senators!

Give this podcast a listen to hear about some practical benefits of libraries in communities. Social infrastructure is imperative for civic life.

Blockbuster season is almost here - I'm excited to see many of these adaptations! (I discussed Children of Blood and Bone just last week, but I've been waiting for Artemis Fowl for 18 years. !!)

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A bit of what I've been reading (online, anyways) this past month:

My neighborhood finally has a library!

I'm saving this list of 50 + 11 YA nonfiction books for a rainy day. And this list of 46 books by women of color (from last year) to keep working on.

How many books can I read in a year? (A lot. How many can I read + enjoy (+ remember)? Not as many. Because I need sleep.)

I hope I can make an escape room happen at my library at some point.

Love this map of authors!

This online volunteering platform looks interesting.

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It has certainly been a January. I use Feedly to follow all my favorite bloggers, news outlets, and to see what's going on in the library and book worlds specifically. Here are a few of my favorite articles from this month:

I love this "wild and weird" YA librarian resume!

I've never thought of cheese as immortal milk, and I can't decide if I love that phrase or hate it.

I would add The Princess Bride, How to Train Your Dragon, The Shining, and Blade Runner to this list of "unfaithful" movie adaptations.

I'm an unashamed movie weeper & can say no fewer than 3 of these sad movies have made me cry while watching.

Drag Queens Have Rights Too. Thinking about this article and its implications a lot as I plan similar events at my library.

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Okay, it's been a long minute since I've shared a list of links here (like, a year)...but I've been saving these up for this exact Friday. My very last Friday as a 20-something. !

As if my to-read list wasn't long enough...48 books to read in my 30s. (I've already read #s 19, 20, 43, & 46...so make that 44 (more) books to read in my 30s.)

How 30 YO feels around the world.

Thirty from another blogger's perspective: "I want my thirties to be about having less, in the best possible way."

What's a birthday without a few charts? 30 in charts and graphs.

Wiki to Sites Reflection

The closing of Wikispaces has put pressure on groups to move their online content elsewhere, this class being no different. Since I've worked with Google Sites in previous classes, creating my own resources for traveling on a budget and YA adaptations of "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen, I was happy to use it for a larger scale project.

Our first task, organizing the current wikis and their links, helped the project feel much more manageable. Once broken or outdated links were discarded and "like" topics were grouped together, there were much clearer parameters of the amount of information we were working with. The broader topics gave us more flexibility to group items, and since there are only six of us in the class, it was easy to divide and conquer.

Next came the testing of various curation tools, previewing how they might look live on the site, and working through what we wanted our final product to look like. We decided early on to use only a few curation tools, though we eventually landed on using just Pearltrees with a few modifications here and there. That made it easy to keep everyone on the same page and troubleshoot as we went along collecting our links, embedding into the site, and organizing collections.

The final organization of the page was a bit trickier to decide on, but after throwing around a few ideas - even broader categories, one mega page, random groups - matching each Pearltree collection to one of the class modules made the most sense. I learned a lot about how the embedding works on Google Sites, and how to group/ungroup items, which will be helpful in future uses of the platform.

Altogether, the process of creating a class site was simple - it helped that as a class we were willing to try things out, suggest ideas, and stay flexible - and the collaborative capabilities and intuitive controls of Google Sites ensured a quick transfer of class resources.

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We've made it - I'm officially 29, that magical age that so many women claim to be. (Is that still a thing? It definitely was when I was younger.) When I turned 28, I committed to following my curiosity, and I think we can all agree I did just that. The end of my teaching fellowship brought on lots of questions about my future plans, but a few of the biggest (for me) were "Do I want to be a librarian?" and "How do I become a librarian?"

If I'm being honest with myself, that's been my dream for a while now, and going back to school became step one in the process. Taking a step away from blogging to focus on schoolwork was step two. I'm figuring out the rest of the steps as I go, and stocking up on some wisdom for the journey. Here's where my attention is these days:

I'm truly hoping that this article rings true this year. I think I can feel a glimmer of it.

I've got a year to actually get into the habit of flossing, I guess.

Things a 31 yr old is learning...and things a 29 year old could take to heart.

Feeling similarly at 29...I think I know what I want to be, now I just have to get an employer to agree.

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I'm one grad school class down, with 11 left to go. Class readings, discussions, and papers don't leave a lot of time for reading (or writing) for pleasure, which is a bit ironic, but at least homework assignments are interesting. Here are a few resources that I found were pretty legit substitutes for my typical reading:

I definitely had Library Anxiety my freshman year of college.

This is a lengthy survey, but I enjoyed reading the descriptions of different types of library users.

I learned a lot about teen services by reading about what goes into creating it from scratch.

Who knew? Full-time school librarians boost student achievement. (Librarians, that's who.)

Advocacy matters. All librarians have a responsibility to tell the story of what libraries do.

Especially in times of cuts to funding almost everywhere, what libraries do is important to our most vulnerable citizens.

March Madness

The real madness of this month:

• The 5-10 inches of snow that got dumped on Chicago from Monday to Tuesday
• Trump's second attempt to ban Muslims
• Seven new planets (three habitable) in a uniquely named system
• We have to wait until May for the next season of House of Cards?!
• I haven't had a Shamrock Shake yet

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We're going to get through the next four years together or not at all:

For anyone who wants to do something (anything) to help our planet, county, or your neighborhood, from the very simple (give up paper towels!) to the more complex (volunteering with refugee rescue organizations): actions.

For anyone who needs some information (then check out #5 for the action): Post-Election Sanity Guide.

For all my readers: fight hate with books.

For anyone who needs a plan: 8 steps to surviving the next four years.

Whatever you are doing today and the next and the next, do it with love for your fellow human. Be kind to others. If you can't be kind, be quiet.

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Much like 2016, my "goals" for 2017 aren't what most people would deem "SMART" - they're not so much a culmination of specific tasks I can cross off while on my way to a grand conclusion as they are feelings I want to feel this coming year (mostly healthy and content). I've essentially given up on goals, because (in their most popular and oft-advertised form) they don't work how they should.

Here's the evidence, and different ways of thinking about accomplishments:

First, this article on "staying happy" when things are not going well. I'll have more to say about Burkeman's book tomorrow, but this article is a nice intro to the idea of positivity in the face of negative news: "Paradoxically, it’s through taking action, despite not feeling happy about the situation, that a deeper kind of happiness can arise."

The above leads nicely into this manifesto, a re-imagining of the news from the stable and positive side and a reminder that most humans are good (normal, boring) people.

Same message, put a little more bluntly: "The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience." Pursuing things - goals, happiness, whatever - simply highlights the fact that you don't have those things. Sometimes you "get happy" by giving up and living with the struggle. [Warning: adult language ahead.]

This information is all great if you have a direction you want to struggle in, but for all of us with a "passionless unknown," here are three simple steps to keep going until we stumble upon it...

...and permission - encouragement even - to not love what you do.

Another echo of the same message: "I just worked at whatever I was working on and ended up wherever I am. I continue to approach work and life that same way today."

Followers of this blog know what's coming next...my favorite Elizabeth Gilbert video, the final word on how to think about goals/passions/life choices (it's my top bookmark, y'all):

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True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

 Jesus and I went to the Veterans Art Museum this morning to see the new Vonnegut exhibit. Vonnegut was a writer, veteran, activist, and artist. His political leanings were more socialist than left v right, so his take on this election would have been interesting. He combated death and the absurdity of the human experience with dry humor and pessimistic satire, and refused to romanticize war. His art is accessible to veterans and civilians alike, and reminds us that our time on Earth is short and weird. A lot of things don't make sense, and c'est la vie - but we still have the task of loving "whoever is around to be loved."

So, here is my love - in the form of things to read and ways to take action.

Read:

This letter from a writer to his wife. The election was never Democrat v Republican for many of us. It was validation v dehumanization.

This letter from Aaron Sorkin to his wife and daughter. What do we do now? We get out of bed and go back to work.

Any of these books to inform, educate, and inspire you to act.

Do:

Know your rights. And the rights of those more vulnerable than you.

Volunteer - teach others, feed others, make your corner of the globe a better place.

Speaking of teaching others - tolerance.org has great election resources for teachers and anyone who works with youth.

"Elections have endpoints. Social progress does not."

Donate to or volunteer with these human rights organizations (many Chicago-based). There are also links to articles about white privilege and racism, for those of us who need refreshers.

Another collection of Chicago-based organizations to support in the next four years (and beyond).

And a more general list of ways and resources to get involved in local politics - because the presidency is one thing, but our everyday lives are more affected by our local and state governments.

These resources are as much for me as they are for any readers - both as reminders that I'm not alone in how I feel and I'm also not powerless to act. As I've heard many people say this week, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Now we need to make sure that bend happens.

The Future is Female

"I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday, someone will, and hopefully sooner than we might think right now." -Hillary Clinton

It was hard to face my students today. (Since there was no school yesterday, today was the first day we were all together since the election.) "Trump won," a student said in Second Hour, her eyes wide behind her glasses. I nodded. "I'm not happy about it." I agreed that few people around us were. We're lucky - we live in a very blue city, one that now feels safer for me and my black, brown, LGBTQ, Muslim, and disabled students than my home state does - but that doesn't mean we're off the hook for making changes in our communities.

Tomorrow, I'll start sharing the resources I've been collecting to help anyone else who refuses to sit back and let our country erase years of progress. Today, small victories and reasons why the future is female.

First, some good news. Six women who DID shatter the glass ceiling when they were elected on Tuesday. Hopefully one or more of them make a presidential run some day. 2020 wouldn't be too soon.

"Sitting on the sidelines and not participating is not an option, even when you’re afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing."  As a white woman, I have to own up to the fact that white women are a part of the problem - especially in the mess of this election. We're not above reproach just because we're still fighting for our own rights. In fact, it's even more important for us (white women) to be allies to people of color while recognizing they've been fighting for women and minorities longer and harder than we have.

Watching this history of women running for president first made me tear up. Then it made me angry. Then it made me want to do something. Like write this. And encourage every qualified woman I know to run for office.

Someday this Milennial map might become the norm, but first young voters need to show up. I'm heartened by the fact that many of the 8th grade students I work with will be old enough to vote in our next election. And while it was hard to see all of their confused and angry and disappointed faces today, I know they're counting down to 2020 right along with me.

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A few fun things:

Three episodes in, Jesus and I are HOOKED on Westworld.

Are you a Bad Hombre or a Nasty Woman? (Either way....VOTE.)

What would you trade for a cubs ticket?

Nice sweater, Aaron.

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Because there's not much else on the internet these days (exaggeration, but you know what I mean), a few political links for your perusal. And if you missed it, check out the articles I linked before Monday's debate.

Obama's time is dwindling, but he leaves behind a food legacy like no other President before him.

Laughter is the best medicine, and it may be the last weapon we have to take down Trump.

This article takes some time to get there, but echoes my sentiments from Monday: we can't afford to vote for a third party candidate in this election.

"There's no weakness in asking for help:" POTUS on service members seeking treatment for PTSD.

Very interesting breakdown of the specific phrases Clinton used during the debate to discuss race.

Let's Get Political

It's Debate Night, people. Watch on almost any channel. Drink if you must. Be nice online and informed at the proverbial water cooler tomorrow.

For those who are undecided: Really?

For those of you who already know who you're voting for (myself included): watch to stay informed, or at least for a laugh.

For those who think their 3rd party vote will enact change at a federal level: start smaller, my friends. Get 3rd party politicians into local and state offices first, then go for Congress. "This is not the time for a protest vote."

For those of you who aren't voting: please rethink your decision!

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The 2016 Rio Olympics come to a close this Sunday, ending a Games filled with victories big and small, and defeats memorable and ripe for redemption at Tokyo 2020. NBC has been criticized for its US-centric and commercial-saturated coverage, but luckily it's 2016 and viewers can easily turn to the internet for a wider variety of Olympics news. Here are just a few:

The Olympics are supposed to transcend politics, but sometimes they influence them and are in turn influenced by them in unforeseen ways.

Before the Olympics begin (and long after they are over), the Games have an effect on the host city's most vulnerable citizens. (One of the reasons why I was cool with Chicago losing the 2016 bid.)

For all the winners at the Games, there have to be some losers as well.

It's not all bad - for US athletes, just being part of Team USA has benefits, regardless of medals.

And because we run the world, 18 golden moments of feminism.

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I've been spending almost zero time in the kitchen this month, thanks to the heat, but that doesn't mean I can't read about food from the comfort of anywhere directly in front of all the fans.

The economy of (fast) food is fascinating.

One of my coworkers asked me if I eat "healthy" and I said no, but mostly because I don't like the word healthy. I just eat food. Even so, I do tend to follow these rules.

It's never too late to learn a few (or 57) cooking tips.

I haven't had biscuits inna minute. I'm thinking I'll be pushing this vegan recipe to the top of my to try list once I can turn on my oven again.

Reducing waste is one area of the food world I need to improve in. I'm just not a hoarder of anything, especially food scraps (and to be honest, I don't have enough room to save things in my freezer). At least I'm pretty good at eating leftovers and turning bits and pieces of things into complete meals.