Kristine: Vox Style

my library branch may close

nobody@vox.com(Kristine) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 18:49:51 -0800

This was a week with some bad news. The library system in our town is awesome and has a lot of branches. But with the economy the way it is, and less income (property taxes, timber tax, etc.), they have a hard decision to make.

Lease demands weigh on mall library - Columbian.com

http://columbian....

From left, four-year-old Dominick Rose, Grace Rose, 8, and Carson Rose, 7, of Vancouver, listen to an audio story at the Vancouver Mall Community Library. Officials might be forced to close the popular branch early next year. (TROY WAYRYNEN/The Columbian)

The linked story from the Columbian does a pretty good job of telling the story.

From my personal perspective, this is MY library. We live directly behind the mall. I found that I could easily walk and use this as the library where I got my books - a lot of times, I use the request service to queue up the books I want to read, and then have them delivered to a library to pick up.

So back in March of 2007, I read in the library newsletter that there was a knitting group. Even though I was super nervous, I joined in. And it was a wonderful decision to reach out of my comfort zone. It not only improved my knitting, but my social skills thrived with new participants each time AND I gained a great group of regular friends. A few months later, the ladies introduced me to the Friends of the Library, and I joined up. I was asked to become the secretary for the Friends group when another girl had to leave. After that, I became an official leader for the knitting group, which was great fun to get to help people out.

In my time on the Friends of the library group, I've helped gather collections and put together charity baskets to help raise money two years in a row. I've also assisted with 2 library sales where we sell donated books to raise money for the library (and helped with the scheduling for staffing them). I got to volunteer at a childrens storytime/craft time, and will do that again this month. The members are so kind and a great group, they really make me feel like a useful member of the group.

I go to the library about once a week, sometimes more. It's great because there are so many books in the overall system, and I can request them and they put them on the reserve shelf for me to pick up in that next week. This has given me a chance to not only read a lot of the Historical Christian Fiction I love, but tons of non-fiction like Knitting and Health books. I feel like my knowledge grows every time I check out another set of books. And plus, it's a good reason for me to get some walking time in, whether it's just there and back, or around the mall once I get in, or one way walk to a library get-together with a ride home after dark.

If this branch of the library closes, I am going to miss out on a lot. There are other branches not too far away, but since I'm partially housebound and don't drive, this certainly was the ideal situation for me. I have tried to tell myself that "when God closes one door, he opens another"; it's hard not to be down about it. There's still a bit of a chance we'll have some miracle and get to stay open, this coming week we will find out more. Until then, I'm going to take some of what I wrote here and put it in a letter to the board of trustees who will be making the decision.

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Book sale

nobody@vox.com(Kristine) — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 11:26:41 -0800

My view of the books from the money table. At the mall book sale for the library friends. Tons more books on all sides of of too!

Book sale

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2007 recap: knitting

nobody@vox.com(Kristine) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:52:42 -0800

Note: This is the fourth in a series of posts looking back at 2007, in some key areas of my life that were important to me.

I knitted this year.

kristine knits pink socks

Everything I finished my first year of knitting (2006) was very basic. I'm ending out 2007 with a ton more knowledge and skill under my belt. I well exceeded my goals, which I found were setting the bar pretty low in the grand scheme of things!

Knit Picks

http://www.knitpi...

Knit Picks is an online store with "Knitting Yarn, Books, Patterns, Needles & Accessories". They...

I learned what to look for when purchasing yarn and how to substitute. There were 3 different online stores (KnitPicks on many occasions, TheLoopyEwe, and Little Knits) that I've ordered from, as well as the local craft stores, branching out from only really knowing about Lion Brand and Lily's Sugar 'N Cream at the beginning of the year. I'm starting to learn about combining colors, with some success and some turning out less than what I expected (Leah's pinwheel sweater was a success, but my in-process heart socks aren't as perfectly color coordinated as I hoped).

In mid-January when Vox introduced Groups, I created the Knitting group. Even though I'm not as active in adding content as I wish, the great thing about this is that you don't have to do much to make your content part of the group, and there are a lot of people who are members (around 375 right now), so it's really a fun way to browse people who are knitting on Vox. (I still like to zoom through people who tag things as "knitting" and invite them to the group whenever I can!)

Starting in March, I began going to the library's knit-in every 2 weeks. I tried to bring easy projects I was working on at the time and found myself enjoying the company even when the discussion was not usually about knitting. I became known as someone who had a basic grasp on knitting and towards the end of the year when I joined the Friends of the Library (the group that puts this on), they made me a leader of the group as well. I've helped people who didn't know how to knit yet, and contributed to knitting discussions as well. It feels good to be part of this!

doll sweater dress front

The roundup: 4 pairs of socks (and almost a 5th), 2 sweaters, a doll with a full wardrobe (among my very favorite thing I knit this year), a turtle, booties, 2 bibs, 2 hats, 3 scarfs, 2 shawl-like scarfs, 10-15 dishclothes, a potholder, 2 different pairs of slippers, armwarmers and legwarmers, mittens, part of two afghans, border and several squares of a patchwork afghan, and probably some other small things.

Ravelry - a knit and crochet community

http://www.ravelr...

Ravelry is a wonderful organizational site for knitters and crocheters that has social networking...

Ravelry: I did some tracking of my progress on my blog, but many of my knitting projects were gifts, and needed more privacy. Enter Raverly (my profile, if you have an account), a new site this year for tracking projects, stashes, and more. For the first few months they were around, I helped on the forums quite a bit and helped with bug tracking. I'm still watching a few groups, but mainly I'm using it to track my projects and my queue, as well as inspiration for new projects! Super awesome site, if you aren't on the waiting list, get your name on there!

Pink socks

Media: I've read a lot of books about knitting, above my skill level to try and start absorbing what's out there. I've purchased books about knitting for reference and patterns. Watched Knitty Gritty on HGTV for as long as they had it, and this was so helpful to see visually how things were held. Listened to knitting podcasts inspired me to think about knitting too.

Techniques: My colorwork experience has grown, attempting fair isle, multiple colored slip stitch patterns, stripes, and a little intarsia, as well as plenty of projects that used multiple colors and were seamed together. I've also tried entrelac, and short rows, and plenty of different shaped pieces. Some i-cords, but not as neat as I'd like them to look yet. I've adjusted patterns, and come up with my own and even written them out in a readable fashion. Different bind offs and castons, and plenty of increases and decreases. I've used straight needles, circular needles (interchangable), and double pointed needles. I'm still not an expert at all of these things, but I feel great for having tried so many things that I can work to improve!

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2007 recap: reading

nobody@vox.com(Kristine) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:58:57 -0800

Note: This is the first in a series of posts looking back at 2007, in some key areas of my life that were important to me.

I read this year.

This was a year of rediscovery of books, something I started on last year, but really took it up to another level this year. In previous years, I did a lot of rereading. This year, I took advantage of our library and learning more authors. Although I primarily read Christian fiction, I also got in a lot of instructional books, like knitting and crafting books.

This allowed me to try out interlibrary loan to get some that weren't in our system. I expanded on my knowledge by creating wikipedia pages or enhancing existing ones for some of the most prolific Christian authors out there (my wikipedia profile lists the most important pages I've worked on). I have been so helped by having comprehensive lists of the books that any given author writes, and so this is a super thing for me to participate in improving to help others who can't easily find this info elsewhere.

Because of my reading, I helped out other aspects of my life (craftyness) and started to give of myself as a Library volunteer for the first time since I was a teenager. This opened new doors for me as a knitter (building my confidence and becoming a help to others), and as a library volunteer, accepting a role for the Friends of the Library group (I'm now the secretary).

Recap: 232 books (plus a few more on my nightstand not yet recorded), with 139 Christian Fiction and 73 knitting (and other ones of other random categories) There were a few I reread and couldn't reenter into Vox from my personal collection at home, too.

Pictured: My favorite writer this year was Lauraine Snelling, because of reading several series she wrote, but primarily the Dakotah Treasures. Tracie Peterson's A Slender Thread was probably my favorite standalone book. Besides those two, I read just about everything Lori Wiki and Beverly Lewis have written this year as well. The most outstanding knitting book I read this year was Big Girl Knits because it had such valuable information about sizing, and I plan to buy it.

Bonus, a Vox Tip: You can add the year into any URL of tagged items to see just the items for that year with that tag. For example, if you are looking at books tagged knitting, the URL shows http://kristine.vox.com/library/books/tags/knitting/. Put 2007 after the item type as follows: http://kristine.vox.com/library/books/2007/tags/knitting/. Voila!

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busy girl

nobody@vox.com(Kristine) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 09:53:31 -0800

I'm always a bit busy, it seems, but this week has been a compartmentalized kind of busy!

On last Friday afternoon, I slept the entire afternoon away. E had the afternoon off, and I was just exhausted, so I laid down for a short nap. I didn't mean for it to turn into a 4 hour nap! But it was good, we ended up babysitting Leah and (for the first time) baby Leonard. They are such fun. Funny thing, my bookshelves that store my decorative things and china in the dining room only have stuff on the top 2 shelves now, that's how tall he is! We kept moving stuff up as he noticed he could reach it :D

On Saturday, I finished a knitting project, we went out for lunch, stopped at Jo-Ann's to get me some yarn, and then had a meet up with an old friend from college. That was really nice. On Sunday, we had dinner with my family, everybody but Matthew was there, and we played with the kids and played San Juan with Sarah, and planned Thanksgiving , and had delicious baked potatoes.

On Monday afternoon, I worked on meal planning. We hadn't shopped for 2 weeks, and so a lot of staples were low, and we were out of real meal ideas. Plus there was a HUGE pile of coupons from the papers to go through. I like to go hrough the ads and coupons and try to come up with meal ideas based on what I can get a good deal on. And it paid off, I had $7.35 of coupons off this time!

On Tuesday afternoon, I sorted mail and did laundry. Both projects had been waiting for too long, and it took 4 loads of laundry to finish it all up. It is nice to have everything I want to wear actually clean. :)

On Wednesday afternoon, I recorded books and worked on more knitting. The knit-in was again this week because we ended up with weird weeks in November. I was hoping to start on some new projects, but the yarn didn't get here until 4:15, too late to swatch and finalize the plans. But I did figure out the basic pattern on one with existing yarn, so I got closer to being ready for that new yarn! I had a giant pile of books to put into Vox, and I finished one I had in process so I could take it back. I could see from the library's online display that I had a lot waiting for me (sometimes, my requests come a lot quicker than scheduled), so I wanted to have as many to bring back as possible!

And that's been the fun of late. :) I'm still reading and knitting and watching TV and working and cooking every day, as normal, but these were the other outstanding things. :)

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So many books

nobody@vox.com(Kristine) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:38:11 -0800

I reserve books and have them delivered to the mall library. Picked up my pile at the knit-in this week and so many came in at the same time they didn't all fit in my bag!

So many books

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Library blanket and squares

nobody@vox.com(Kristine) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:27:11 -0700

One of my recent knitting/crafty projects was for the Library. I've talked a little bit over the last month or so about joining the Friends of the Library group - it's a group of people who do things to support our local library system. One of the first projects I participated on was as a coordinator for baskets full of donated goods that were going to be auctioned off for fund raising. I made a pair of slippers to donate before I joined, and then worked on a doll blanket, and turning everything into pretty cohesive baskets.

squares all attached

We took practice squares from the Knit-in and turned them into a doll blanket for one of the basket. They were a wide variety of sizes, which added a little bit more difficulty! But I wanted to put a border on each of them, so I just did some of them with a wider border than others. Oh the joy of circular needles, I just picked up stitches all the way around the square, with some extras in the corners, and then went around and around and bound off loosely. I did the same after sewing the squares to put a border on the very outside too.

slippers full

All together, there were 4 baskets, and 2 of them had knitted goods in them (doll blanket and pig that one of the other ladies knitted in the "Fun at Grandma's House" basket, and my slippers and a crocheted blanket from one of the other ladies in the "Relaxation" basket). So many people donated stuff for them that they were really a labor of love from the whole group. And plus, they turned out really pretty, and I'm hoping they will raise a nice amount of money for the library. :)

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Library

nobody@vox.com(Kristine) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 15:03:08 -0700

I've never been to this one before. We went to the book sale and i found some great stuff.

Library

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tracking books.

nobody@vox.com(Kristine) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:07:04 -0700

Goodreads | recent updates from your friends

http://www.goodre...

Combination book tracker and social networking tool. Recommended by Rina.

One of the things that I enjoy the most about reading again is actually having a good way of tracking what it is that I'm reading. I've been using Vox to enter in each book on the date that I read it with a short review.

In a recent post, rina mentioned Good Reads. It seems like a really cool concept because not only can you track books you are reading, but you can also track ones you want to read, and currently reading, and there's a social aspect because you can see what other people are reading. As I've said in the past, because I don't read books that other people in my circle of friends read, it's hard to have a social aspect here on Vox. When you look at the christian fiction tag here on explore, it's pretty much just me. But on Good Reads, there are actually people reading the same books as me, and that's kinda cool!

I'm torn though. I really have enjoyed keeping all of my media consumptions (mostly books from the library and movies from netflix) here on Vox, and entering them in two places is really not a great option. I do like on Vox that I can pick a specific date; on Good Reads, it looks like I can just pick a month, which isn't as exact as I'd like with how many books I'm reading. Neither place seems to handle tracking re-reads, which I do enjoy doing and would like to track that.

So I set up a good reads account (my profile is here), but it only has my one testing book (the newest one I added to Vox that I finished on Tuesday). I guess I'll explore a little more before I make a good choice, or maybe even enter books in both places for a little while to give it a chance.

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Nice weekend

nobody@vox.com(Kristine) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:38:52 -0700

I had a very nice weekend.

It started out with E having a half-day on friday, giving him a chance to work on a web project for much of the afternoon while I did menu planning and knitting and tv watching. He's got a small contract with a friend to do updates to an existing site, and it seems like it's a fun challenge for him.

Saturday, I had good plans, and they all worked out, and that's always nice. When I was at the library on Wednesda for the knit in, there were some projects in the work for knitting donations to benefit the library. They mentioned needing someone to put together baskets for this auction, and I said I was good at making things look pretty (yes, I'm crafty!) and they were excited for that and suggested I should just join the Friends group to make it official that I was helping out.

Side note: The Friends of the Library are a group of people who help in fundraising for the library and assist in book sales and do other activities to promote the library. I always figured that when I got older, I'd be most excited about helping the library if there ever was a chance. I mean, hello, it comes full circle because I was the youngest volunteer in the system when I helped in Washougal (from ages 12-15). :)

So the first monthly meeting was going to be on Saturday morning, so I planned on that. It was a nice meeting, even though 2 of the 4 people I knew in the group weren't there. I got to take home all the current basket auction stuff they had so far, and it was really nice to meet all the other people who were involved in the Friends group. I was the youngest there this time, but I didn't feel out of place, people made me feel comfortable right away.

After that, I was excited about going to the Farmer's Market again - the last time we went, we didn't see many fruits or vegetables we really had to have, and this time, I planned it so we'd go here before the grocery store, and that was much smarter. We walked all the way through and then decided what to get. A beautifully shaped butternut squash, a couple ears of corn to eat that day, fresh from the garden red peppers, a nectarine, and some apples. There were so many other things we could get, but it's definitely a case where we didn't want to get them and have them go bad, with just two of us to eat produce. It was very successful!

Then we drove up Main street, where E thought he'd seen some restaurants. We went to an area of the city I don't think I've ever been to, they call it Uptown Village. There were a lot of interesting shops and a Subway, so we parked and figured if we didn't see anything else, we could always go there. We ended up finding La Bottega, which was a wine store with a deli/cafe in it. The garlic smell was really good, with a small but interesting menu, so we decided to try it out. That's where the Strawberry Coke was from. :) We had fun looking in the windows of other shops, too.

While at the restaurant, we finished our grocery list and went off to Safeway to finish off the plans for the day. We went home and rested and relaxed and cooked dinner and watched TV and it was a nice finish to a day full of great things.

On Sunday, we went to a double birthday party for my sister Megan and her husband Andrew. Their birthdays are 2 days apart, so we are destined to always have joint parties! It was a delicious birthday dinner my dad cooked, steaks and barbeque chicken and my favorite pasta salad and veges in cheese sauce, and of course, a cheese cake for desert (this is the sister who had cheesecake for her wedding!) We played with Leah and Leonard and sat and chatted, and it was a nice afternoon.

Today, I'm a little sore still from all the activities, but it was a great weekend, so I can't complain!

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