to baby with love x

A craft book review YCate

To Baby with Love

35 gorgeous gifts to make for babies and toddlers

by Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell

One of the major perks of my job is the hundreds of beautiful books that pass through my hands. 

"To Baby with Love" is gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous.

I want to make nearly EVERYTHING from this book. Mostly though it's a toss up between the yo-yo nursery decoration, the plump wise owl door stop or the wash cloths bound with vintage fabric.

Hope your day is filled with some beauty therapy too x 

Y Cate

p.s. If you HAVE to have it - find it here.

Otherwise visit your local library Y

flower for the library princess

I psyched myself up for work today...
A cup of fluffy coffee (you may call it cappuccino) with my school-Mummy friends before heading off helped.


You may or may not know I work in libraries.
I may or may not personally relate to this quote:

"But you want murderous feelings? Hang around librarians," confided Gamache. "All that silence. Gives them ideas.” 
Louise Penny, A Rule Against Murder

I was saved from my work-induced-funk by a miniature prince. A little boy came up to me in the Picture Book section and held out a bruised camellia that he'd been cuddling with both hands. Precious, precious, precious.
He'd picked it just for me Y.


So today I turned into the library princess under the spell of a kind hearted boy. Or to use Holly's terminology: He facilitated my beautiful paradigm shift. 




Y Cate




images
coffee bean heart
bruised camellia 

Sunshine in gloomsville

“One can never had too many librarian friends.” 

Jennifer Chiaverini, The Wedding Quilt

Work makes me mad. It also takes an enormous amount of willpower to go there. And that makes me sad...

After dragging through my list of excuses and realising that none of them would cut it - I turned up for work the other day. A colleague experiencing similar work-related feelings to mine explained her coping strategy: a three point gratitude list to re-frame her mind set at work. The first two ideas are hers alone to share but the third one was about me. She is grateful for work because that's where she met me. 

I am amazed at the amount of 'gratitude accounting' that seems to be going around at the moment. One particular fb friend regularly posts her one line of gratitude. Just simple things. Fresh raspberries that taste like the smell of roses. Things that make me think: Oh yes - I am grateful for that too!

Thank you friends {long list} for that timely little burst of sunshine into my gloomsville.  

Y Cate

librarians are evil cultists

Not all librarians are evil cultists. Some librarians are instead vengeful undead who want to suck your soul.
Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

I am glad I have a job to go to.

I am grateful for my brother who drove an hour and a half to come and mind my sick children so that I could go to work.

I am sincerely sorry to the lovely lady that I sent to the Erotica section. I know you asked for Christian Romance. No one told me that the location had been moved around. Truly I am not an evil cultist. The white flag's for you...

Y Cate

<a href='http://www.123rf.com/#catesunshine'>123RF Stock Photo</a>

Sunday: a little research

While shelving books with a young colleague of  mine, I had to stifle a loud laugh (frowned upon, very frowned upon in my work environment) when he mentioned that he never takes his work home with him! You see we work in a library and he doesn't borrow books. My mirth was also mixed with disbelief and a little head shaking on my part.

I love to read and I am on the opposite end of the borrowing spectrum to him. I borrow until I have teetering piles of fascinating, alluring books on all flat surfaces of my home.

Sometimes I even get to read some of them.

I did today. At work we call any book-reading: research. Sounds so productive.

 Y Cate

Ironic Wink

Yes, librarians use punctuation marks to make little emoticons, smiley and frowny faces in their correspondence, but if there were one for an ironic wink, or a sarcastic lip curl, they'd wear it out.” Marilyn Johnson, This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All

More shifts than usual this week. Lots of chances to practise my ironic wink, haven't mastered the sarcastic lip curl. Thank goodnes I don't have to grown an ironic moustache!

What's an Ironic Moustache you ask? Sounds scary, and it is my friends, it is! 

The urban dictionary .com tells me that an ironic moustache is:

Generally adorned by a HIPSTER: an ugly moustache grown initially as a joke and to impress one's friends with the level of commitment necessary to maintain it. These moustaches often remain with the wearer far longer than they are funny and become a part of the person's ‘look’.

Jameson: Dude, Steve looks pretty gross these days. I don't think he's washed his denim jacket in a long time and his hair is awful!  Marc: No doubt - and his ironic moustache really isn't helping.

 Y Cate 

Madge a Librarian?

 http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/09/13/article-0-0B2BC7AA000005DC-894_468x521.jpg

Now you may have gotten the impression that there are absolutely no uses for Librarians. I'm sorry if I implied that. Librarians are very useful. For instance, they are useful if you are fishing for sharks and need some bait. They're also useful for throwing out windows to test the effects of concrete impact on horn-rimmed glasses. If you have enough Librarians, you can build bridges out of them. (Just like witches.) And, unfortunately, they are also useful for organizing things. 

Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia

  
*sigh* Another day of work down. 
Books organised? check
  
Y Cate 

Sense-of-Humour Suit

“Don't mark up the Library's copy, you fool! Librarians are Un-prankable. They'll track you down! They have skills!”   Charles Ogden

Off to work I go this bright and sunshiny Saturday - wearing my sense-of-humour suit. Just going to shake things up a little and kick that cranky un-prankable librarian clichéd image right out my library door. Watch me smile all day!


Hmm, now if I owned that Christian Dior suit and that body I could just go for that sense-of-humour hair .....


Y Cate