The move to the new library building was stressful at times and made for very long work days, but it was well worth all the extra effort. I have only one staff member so we appreciated all the volunteers for both of the book moves. August 23rd all the children at the elementary school next door to our new place lined up down the hallways through the building out the back door and right through the back door to our new building, we are that close! All our children's books were passed hand to hand down the line until they came to the child that would place the book on a bookshelf in the "children's area" of the new library. It was the sweetest thing to see all those little kids lined up passing those books. The Knoxville News Sentinel did an article on it. There were students from UT there that day too. They got right in line with all those kids and helped out too, it was great to see. My favorite part was near the end of the line was the Pre-K class and when one little boy was handed a book and the teacher tried to get him to give it to the next child he didn't want to give up his book. (he just got it!) too cute! The next day on August 24th volunteers from all over came to form a "human chain" and they passed books from the old library location to our brand new building down the road. What amazing people to come out and help us that way. We are moved in and had a beautiful open house reception and dignitaries came and the community. We can now offer the public 4 computers plus one for genealogy research. That is a huge improvement because before patrons waited in line to use our 2 public computers. This sound wonderful right? Well it would be, if we had internet!!! They shall remain nameless here but our provider would not move our service to the new location! We have been in our new beautiful, huge, modern building since early August WITHOUT internet! I sincerely hope no other library has to ever go through this. We lose customers everyday. I'm hoping things change soon and life can begin to be normal again.

For my husband's 43 birthday we went to Chili's this weekend. Two out of three of my kids don't like their food so this is the first strike against this trip. Second we place our food and drink orders at the same time, we are ready to eat. At least 15 minutes goes by before our chips and salsa arrive! After a long wait, and a trip to the restroom our food begins to arrive. My husband's soup comes and mine too. I decide to wait on everyone else to get their food before I start to dig in. Okay here we go, burgers show up my youngest son gets his chicken and fries, everyone has food placed in front of them everything smells great! The waitress walks away! I didn't get my food! Uh, HELLO?! I'm starting to get mad, and frustrated but trying to keep my cool because I'm with my in-laws. Finally here comes my food, at least it's hot. It's hotter than husband's was when it came! Oh well the food tasted great and all well that ends well.

Busy week, we are preparing for the move to the new building. Lots to do and never enough time to do it all. Book move with the elementary school kids on Friday and the "Human Chain" book move on Saturday. Wish us Luck!

Well here I am back at the library, and so much to do! I just got off the phone with AT&T to transfer service to our NEW building. I also put in the order to have our internet service moved. This is getting real people!! I'm so excited to be starting this adventure in the new library building. We will be having our book move on the 24th of this month. With the help of volunteers, we will form a "human chain" and start at this building and pass books along the "chain" to the new building. We need about 175 volunteers for this. We can't wait, we've started packing some things already. I hope that the communtity is as excited as we are about the larger library. I have lots of program ideas that I can't wait to try. I will keep you posted on this. Until next time......

Yay!! Day 4 at PLMI! Today was a much better day than yesterday. I believe I had more fun and I spoke up more often. There were some frustrating moments while working in group but that's my problem, I'm used to being in charge at home and at work. Good learning experience for me. I will take the tools I've learned here and apply them like crazy to my life back in the Clinch River area. What I learned about my own teaching topic today was: How important it is to sit down and think out and plan for each aspect of your vision and goals that you set for yourself and the library. It seems like a daunting task but I will take a deep breath and go for it. What I learned about someone else's topic was: Having control over staff, and projects and any topic or subject is a good thing. I can control without being controlling. I should work on this. Control without controlling. Hmmmm.....something to think about. Can "I" do this? Sure. to be continued....

Well here it is "Hump Day"! Which makes this Day 3 of PLMI and today's assignment is: "What surprised me about this day?" That after a really rough start to the day it ended on a good, fun note. A few ladies noticed that I was having a "moment" and were concerned enough to ask me. "What touched me about this experience?" That was great to know that they cared enough about a stranger's well being to ask if she was okay. They must be great librarians for their communities. "What inspired me about this experience?" I was inspired to get over my personal problem and focus on the task before me.

Day 2 of PLMI we discussed changes that we can make in ourselves and our libraries. I would like to improve my professional image by smiling more and informing my staff on policies for our library. I've learned a lot today about how we are library directors all the time. While at the local grocery store a little girl that frequents the library with her mom saw me there and she just could not understand why I was there and not at the library. It was cute but even adults think we should always be at the library and they get frustrated when we dare to leave and not be there when they need us! I love it but I still need to buy groceries!

Today we met a great speaker Kia Jarmon and she taught us how to "brand" ourselves and our libraries. She showed us how to empower ourselves with an "I am" statement. Here's mine. I am a caring, informed leader in my community.

I met a new person today, her name was Jill Rael and she is the new library director of Fayetteville-Lincoln County Public Library. She tells me that Fayetteville is in southern-middle Tennessee. Interesting, when people ask me where I'm from I can say East Tennessee. It was very cool to interview Jill, she seems to be very talented and eager to live her life. I think I like her, she was friendly and open and didn't mind answering my questions. Jill tells me that she has been married for 10 years and has a 9 month old little boy. She has a dog and hates cats. I think it's important to know where people stand on the cat/dog issue don't you? (just kidding)! Something I found pretty awesome about Jill, she has written a book called "Around Lynchburg". It is a pictorial history of the town of Lynchburg. She has a BA in Art History with a minor in Photography. She says she is a semi-professional photographer. Not only does she take pictures but she likes to paint using mixed media. Jill is now half-way through her masters in Southern History. Someday she would love to be a college professor teaching one of her passions. Jill loves to travel and she grew up moving around a lot because her dad was in the military. Now she likes to move every 2 years because it feels right. Some of her favorite things to do while she travels is to explore/visit old homes and museums. I enjoyed meeting Jill today, we were very different in many ways yet similar in others. Cool.

Everyone who I know who has been here before me would say "it takes you out of your comfort zone".  Yea well no kidding!  Well here I am at PLMI in the middle of  nowhere.  In case you didn't know yes the middle of  nowhere is in Tennessee!  No, I Love Tennessee.  Everything is beautiful here, here being Fall Creek Falls State Park.  Wish I could have brought my boys.

I didn't think I would make it to PLMI this year but here I am.  I'm tired it's dark outside and anyone who knows me if it's dark outside I think I should be in bed.  They gave us homework on the first day, and I've never "blogged" in my life and never "followed" a blog.  So hear goes, let's get blogging!

I love to read.  I will read most any genre of book and I'm usually reading more than one book, depends on what room I'm in.  I love to read so much that I don't understand people that don't love it too.  What do they do?  How do they not read?  That would be like telling me to stop breathing.  Can't do it.

Does anyone else do this?  I drive myself crazy when I discover a new author to me and I will read everything they have, just devour whatever they have written and then I come to the end and I have to wait for them to write the next book!  What?!

For example  Steven James.  Love his FBI series.  His Patrick Bowers character rocks!  These books are so suspenseful, he doesn't hunt serial killers by motive but geographically.  This was new to me and makes for very intense, gripping, fast moving, nail biting, toe crunching good read.  I would recommend these books to everyone over the age of 16.