Not having classes or work that I have to attend definitely help make for a better day.  Other good ingredients include:

• sleeping in till 9:30am (about the latest I can do these days)
• making pancakes for breakfast and eating them with my younger brother
• drizzly trips to downtown Chicago with same brother
• sea salt caramel hot cocoa
• Christmas lights
• perfect timing when meeting the other brother at fancy cheese shop
• buying amazing Rosemary Mantechego cheese and garlic marinated olives
• catching a ride back north with my parents who happened to be arriving at the perfect moment
• starting a puzzle with my Mom and Penny
• Rooibus tea with sweetened condensed milk (which I have associated together ever since traveling with the Holsopples
• making yummy if odd meal out of Apple Curry Lentil Salad and leftover lasagna
• playing games with the family, while eating peanut butter popcorn

I am not sure what is making November go by so fast, maybe it is all the blogging I’ve been doing, or maybe it is just the way my life seems to be continually accelerating these day.  Either way, it is more than a bit crazy to realize that today is my last day of work before Thanksgiving Break (hallelujah for working in a school), but of course I still have class tonight which is a bit anti-climatic to say the least.

Oh and that also means that I only have a week left of this NaBloPoMo thing, which I have to say I have really really enjoyed, even the running back to my house at 11:50pm on a Saturday night so I could blog part.  For one, it seems to have brought out more commenting, but then again that probably has a lot to do with the fact that November has had about 17 times as many posts as the past few months.  But whatever the cause, I have to say I have really enjoyed having people stop by and read and say hello, it does make this whole blogging thing seem slightly less bizarro.

Oh in other news, my younger brother arrives tonight, although time and place haven’t been completely confirmed I am tickled pink by this.  However considering my inability to make myself go to bed at a decent hour for the last week*, my welcome will probably consist of “hey, welcome home booger! Here is the couch and……szzzzzzzzzzzzz”

*Seriously last night I was all like “Okay Abby, you can read till 10:15pm and then off to bed” and then I ended up blearily reading my novel until 11:45pm came along and punched me in the face.

Yesterday while driving home from class I heard a story on NPR all about polar bears, who are apparently quite doomed.  The expert was talking about how the melting of the ice caps was unrepairable at this point and that it was only a matter of time before all the polar bears starved to death.  Kind of a depressing thought, you have to admit, but what it really made me think about is how I am, in my Midwestern little cocoon, upset by this idea.  How much time do I spend thinking about polar bears on a daily basis?  Not a lot.  How much does it actually effect me, who has never seen a polar bear and am unlikely to do so, if polar bears cease to exist?  Not a lot.*  But because I was sitting in my car, listening to NPR, I know about this and it makes me sad.

It is pretty easy to go on and on about the ways that the globalization of information is radically changed our perception of the world over the past 100 or even 50 years ago.  For instance, this weekend I spent around 6 hours researching a very old book.  I found journal articles, read biographies, examined old maps, all through the wireless connection of my laptop.  In other words I did research that would have required numerous letters, trips to libraries, and possibly even travel to do only 100 years ago.  But in the end, it was the part of the research where I held the book in my hand and looked at its strange, but very cool, illustrations that really connected me to story of one book and the many hands that helped produce it.

Friday night I had rather bizarre experience when I ended up entertaining both a young homeless woman with mental issues and a volunteer recruiting for ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).  The young woman, Mary, is a known person to the neighborhood.  She used to come around more frequently, but this is only the second time I have interacted with her since moving into Cana.  There is something about sitting there drinking tea with a young woman who spends nights on the streets and a man explaining the difficult work of helping animals after natural disasters and bringing down dog-fighting rings to make one think a little more seriously about issues.  Normally would I think to offer tea to the homeless or sign up to give money to help pet animals? Probably not, but when someone comes to your home, or to the radio in your car, it makes those big national/global issues seem more important to my tiny little life.

*It should be noted that I understand the huge issue of global warming and how that will indeed effect me, but this one small part of it probably really won’t effect me at all.

Well I did indeed have all day class today.  It was my second to last one of the semester, but the final class starts in 9 short hours.  So even this longer story will need to be short.

Class went well we learned about the history of science books for children and then talked for a while about the future of “history of the book”.  How classes like this will be taught in 50 years?  Will books survive the huge shifts in technology (considering we were a roomful of librarians we tended to answer this one with a resounding YES!)? Thankfully it as a nice day which made having class at the Chicago Botanic Garden almost a treat.  Plus I got to spend the second half of my lunch hour warming my back in the sun and chatting with Steph.

Then after class I hurried home to finish rereading the new version of The President’s Daughter by Ellen Emerson White.  Originally published in the 80s, the books is about the first female President of the US as told through the eyes of her daughter.  I don’t think I have ever read an updated version of a novel that I had read previously, so it was interesting to hear new references to the green movement and the Internet bantered about.

Becca gettin ready for dinner

Finally I pulled myself away from my book and put on some nicer clothes (and high heels, which only becomes relevant later in the evening) to meet up with Erini, Jess and Becca for dinner.  Our original plan was to go to the new trendy (for Evanston) pizza restaurant, however we didn’t factor in the newness of the restaurant and the Saturday night factor, so the wait time was too long.  Our next pick was Dave’s Italian Kitchen, which also had a wait time, but shorter.  So we entertained ourselves by being goofy and taking pictures in the glowy restaurant light.

Eventually we got our seats and had an incredible meal (pasta truly makes the world go round) and then decided that we definitely did want to go to the almost sold out, 9pm showing of that crazy teenage movie about a vampire on opening weekend.  Because how else do mature people spend their saturday nights?  We got there just a few minutes before it started so we got to sit in the very front row which made things like Jacob the Werewolf look like he had gorilla hands and Edward look like an even more gaunt old man.  But in all honesty it was kind of a hoot to sit there and make smart ass comments to Becca and actually maybe enjoy it a little bit.

By the time the movie ended, it was 11:20pm and I realized I was in serious jeopardy of not making it home in time to post for the day.  We hurried to the L stop only to watch a purple line train leave the station right as we got there, which meant a 15 minute wait.  So we waited and I tapped my feet a lot, but finally a train came and we got on, said our fond farewells to Erini (who was taking the train down into the city) and hoped off at main street.  This is where the high heels I was wearing earlier in the evening come back into the story.  Because, not only had we walked downtown and around, I was now running (yes, I may be taking this NaBloPoMo thing a little too seriously) to my house.  Oddly enough I found that running in heels was not as hard as I had imagined, maybe because you are already on tip-top, either way I rushed inside, turned on my computer and posted with only 5 minute left in the day.  So there you have it the longer story and now I get to go to sleep content that my post is already taken care of for Sunday.

Despite all day class, a fabulous dinner with the girls, vampires, moody teens, werewolves, a late CTA train and running in heels, I posted today!

This week has been one of those times where I spend entirely too many hours daydreaming about elsewhere.  Sometimes that elsewhere is at home in bed reading a book, preferably with some tea nearby.  Othertimes elsewhere is with friends who aren’t here or in relationships that don’t exist yet.  And sometimes, elsewhere is that place where I have no responsibilities and plenty of entertainment and can completely check out.

From past experiences with weeks like this, I have a pretty good idea that this has a lot to do with a) not nearly enough sleep b) being close, but not close enough to the end of the semester c) hormonal influences or d) random and ever changing mystery factors.  But the really annoying part of feeling like this is knowing that a) I am the only one who can change my attitude b) as appealing as a life spent reading books and drinking tea is, I would miss out on more than a few awesome things if I chose to spend my life like that.

So like Bilbo* I am feeling stretched and tired, in need of sleep, some quiet, some quality time with family and friends and a good long walk in the sun.  How about you?  How are you all surviving your fridays?

*although I am currently carrying no evil rings of doom and am not actually a hobbit

Today I

- overslept and therefore skipped my shower, which warranted the messy bun with headband look

- went to work and had a very usual if somewhat checked out day

- finished reading the amazing, disturbing, ghostly and spectacular Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

- had a very yummy and generally wonderful small group reunion time

- called my parents

- wrote this post

First, after several support chats with Tim, my web developer guru of an older brother, I finally have my own domain.  Which is spectacularly unimpressive in that I am not currently hosting my own site.  But if you want to see it for yourself, go to http://mennogirl.org and there you will be automatically redirected to my ole’ blog here.  I am sure this will bring in loads of new readers now that no one needs to remember that extra wordpress.com part

Second, today at work we had a professional development session in the afternoon. Which, for me, consisted of giving tours to groups of freshmen ranging in number from 10 to 60.  While this did mean that spent around an hour repeating the same 4 minutes spiel about the library, a few times it was actually down right fun.  One group, the largest we had, came in and two guys were so enthusiastic about being in Central Library that they wanted to do the tour.  So I had them stand up with me in front of the group and I asked them various questions about the library.  This was both a lot more fun for me and the larger group of students seemed to enjoy watching their fellow students guess facts about the library.  It is these rare moments at school that make me really hopeful and excited about my future in education.

Apparently  I can be a bit clueless when it comes to connecting how I am actually feeling to preset medical diagnosis.  For example I would often get really irritable and moody for around a week before certain monthly events.  I would grumble and decide that all my friends secretly hated me, in essence I was a joy to be around.  Eventually (and I won’t disclose exactly how old I was when this happened, but lets just say I may or may not have already graduated from high school) I made the huge leap that this condition was actually already discovered by the medical community and known most the world round as PMS.

Other lightening bolt moments of revelation include the time I discovered that those itchy watery eyes I got in September, might be related to my childhood diagnosis of dustmite allergies.  Or today when I finally figured out that the odd slight burning in my chest, possibly located near my heart, may actually be what some people (silly doctors) have already heard about and call heart burn.  Also have you guys heard of these radical pills called pain relievers, apparently they, get this, take away pain, will wonders never cease!

So approximately 9 days ago I received one of those amazing, but slightly dreaded bags of dough that promises to in 10 days time transform itself into loaves of friendship bread and 4 wonderfully contagious starters to pass on to your friends.  Here in illustrated form is the story of the friendship dough and how it became bread:

This lovely dough bag sat on my counter waiting patiently every day for me to "mush it" and generally persuade it to produce more bubbly things. Its favorite day was when I fed it.

The dough really likes food, so I gave it one and a half cups of milk, sugar and flour. This is also the point at which I decided screw the friendship bread tradition, I would rather double the recipe than find 4 willing souls to pass the bread on to.

Counter dough meets its long awaited food, it is very happy.

Next up, six eggs and a cup of oil, join in the fun.

But first the eggs and oil have a little party all on their own.

But it takes more than eggs, oil, flour and milk to make a true friendship bread. You also need these fine folks, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

In order to fully sate the dough, I added more flour, because hey, who doesn't like a little flour now and then.

My pyrex bread loaf pans - aren't they pretty!

Like loaves for the slaughter, the little dough lumps accept their fate and prepare to face the fires.

The dough bids a proper adieu to its viscous state and prepares to take solid form.

I ended up baking the 4 loaves for 55 minutes at 325 degrees. Then I let them cool for around 10 minutes before popping them out of their pans. Man, I love cooking spray and pyrex, much less sticking!

The final product, pre tasting, but post baking.

There I hope you enjoyed this edition of baking with Abby.  Tomorrow I will have to let you know how the bread actually tasted, but now I need to get myself to bed.