Welcome to the tundra...again

It doesn't exactly inspire a person to want to get out of bed when you find out it's 16 below zero outside. It even is starting to look like the tundra, with much bigger trees, of course. Our street is packed snow, as are most of the side streets in the city. It sure is slippery out there. I heard on the news that car repair shops are doing a booming business because of all the accidents out there. I saw one on my way to work this morning. The weird thing is when I went outside to come to work, my thought was, "It's not bad out here this morning". It was minus 11F at the time. Apparently I'm getting used to it.

This is my office in the Music Library:

Messy desk, I know. Don't look at that. I made the quilt on the wall. It's a Mariner's Compass block in the center with Delectable Mountains blocks for a border. I named it "Mountains in all Directions". I was inspired to make it when I was staying on vacation a few years ago in my friend Jim's cabin in Eldora, Colorado. It's up in the mountains from Boulder, just up the road from Nederland. There was a quilt store in Nederland.

The red books on top of the file cabinet on the left in the photo are the always exciting "Library of Congress Subject Headings", 24th Edition, 2001. Ooooooo, eeeeeee. I actually do like it when I get to use them. I'm a library geek.

Here are views of the Music Library:

Yup, that's an actual card catalog in the picture on the left. I still type cards for everything I catalog and my student and I file them. It's so much fun (not)! When I started working in the Music Library, people were still signing their names on book cards to check stuff out. As we all know, people's penmanship isn't getting any better. I started keeping track of checkouts using MS Excel and making spreadsheets for every month of the year and one to keep track of patron information. It works so far and has really improved recordkeeping around here. So far, no innovations are in sight for the card catalog, except I do use MS Word to type cards and print them on my inkjet printer.

But, on to all things yarny. We had a good group knitting last night. There was Gail, Paulette, Margaret, Keri, me, Mel, and Alison. We kept going outside to look at the lunar eclipse. It was pretty cool. Margaret got there late. It was pretty funny that when she went to get coffee, we all decided to go outside to look at the eclipse. When she came back, all of the chairs were empty. I helped Alison get started on her very first sock. She was moving right along on the ribbing by the end of the evening. I also helped Mel with the lace shawl she is making. Keri fixed the edge of an afghan that Mel brought from work. Fun was had by all. I didn't get much done on my scarf, but that's okay.

I am taking an hour of vacation at the end of today to go up to Iris Fine Yarns in Appleton. Must. Buy. More. Yarn. Like I really need more. What I'm going up there for is to see if they have one more skein of Noro Silk Garden to make a hat with. And DPNs to make mittens. Wish me luck that they have 1 more skein in color no. 233.