Moving On

Sometimes you find you cannot change circumstances and have to adapt or move on. We have had some major water quality concerns in our retirement condo. The water comes from a well, not the city system. Discolored/rusty water would show up sometimes in the middle of doing laundry and permanently stain clothes and linens. Or I would see the rust-colored water as I filled the washing machine tub and have to forgo doing the laundry that day. We were encouraged to report the problem to maintenance; it would be worked on and be OK for a week or 10 days and then recur. I am happy to report that a third water processing unit was completely replaced in early January, and the problem seems to be gone. I am a much happier resident.

 

Awhile back, Digiorno pizza changed its sauce. I did not like it at all. This was my go-to frozen pizza brand. I have since tried several brands and settled for a Kroger brand. I don’t like it as well as the old Digiorno, but it is cheaper and slightly smaller which may be a good thing for somebody trying to watch how much they eat. Thursday when I did my grocery shopping, I received a coupon for a Digiorno pizza with a large banner across the coupon stating “Rising Crust Original Sauce is Back!”. I guess I wasn’t the only one who disliked the change and stopped buying that brand. I had moved on. Maybe I’ll buy it again, maybe not.

 

I have left the world of Obamacare behind as I am now on Medicare. There is going to be a lot more paperwork since I have traditional Medicare, a supplement policy, and Medicare Part D. 2 companies and 1 government to deal with. Certainly not easier, but once you reach the age of 65 you can no longer buy insurance through the Healthcare Market Exchange. I have to move on.

 

Recently several of our condo neighbors have moved into the retirement apartments or are getting ready to move. It made me think of how much downsizing might be ahead for us. I think I will work on getting rid of more stuff now. Running through my mind is a list of parting candidates, especially framed prints and some furniturer, that will be necessary to get rid of when we live in smaller quarters. This is kind of silly since we may not need to move for 10 years or more; but it doesn’t hurt to think ahead in case we have a sudden change in circumstances.

 

Sometimes change is for the better, sometimes not. However, change is inevitable. What kind of changes have you experienced recently?

My Domain

In February I will have been overseeing the Grace Village library for 3 years. I started out on the library committee of 5 people in August 2011, then my husband and I were asked 6 months later if we would supervise the library as the person doing that wanted to step down. My husband has decided he doesn’t want to be actively

involved so for the past year it has been mostly me. I have a 92-year-old lady who helps to shelve books and infrequently I ask her 

       to type labels for the new books.

 We are situated at a main passageway that residents pass by often on the way to the dining room or front lobby and mail boxes. The library gets a fair amount of use from the apartment residents and the condo residents. A few assisted-living residents and nursing facility residents have relatives who take books to them or wheel them over to select books. Staff also take books to nursing facility residents who are interested.

The previous librarian had moved some of the non-fiction books into categories with shelf labels ignoring what it said on the spine label. It concerned him that books on prayer, for example, did not sit together on the shelf. This was the result of the Dewey Decimal schedule making a major change at one point, creating a new number for prayer leaving earlier books behind in the old number. This is always a problem in libraries that have existed a long time and do not have the manpower and time to relabel books. Dewey Decimal Classification is not static.

When we first served on the committee, it was decided that a computer listing/inventory program would be helpful. What we ended up with is more than that as we went with LibraryThing. This would not only provided a record of books owned but suggested a Dewey number and provided subject headings often. It had keyword searching which meant one could try to find a book by author, title, subject, series even only knowing a few words of the title for example. Now one could search for the books on prayer and find all of them even though they did not sit next to each other. It was internet-based so one could search it on any computer anywhere with internet access.

Before inputting books into LibraryThing, the committee decided to shelve the non-fiction by the Dewey number again. 4 committee people started adding books to the online system, but that fizzled out, leaving me and my husband. The end is in sight, but it has taken over 3 years of inputting data. Sometime in the first half of 2015 the project will be complete. There are approximately 4000 books in the library. The titles on the Kindle e-readers are also represented in the data base.

The previous librarian had been campaigning to get more room by knocking out a wall and taking over the vacant apartment next to the library. That had been vetoed by the administration.

Fiction section as of January 14th, 2015

 When I became librarian with my husband, the fiction shelves of the library were totally full. To add a book, one had to discard a book. The library committee had done a survey of the residents. The main “want” was for large-print books. There were 3 shelves at the end of the fiction where some large-print books sat. We set about weeding the fiction of duplicates and older books we thought people were not reading. The library is totally dependent on donated books (and more recently funds) so we did not know how fast it would fill up.

 When we received a donation of over 100 large-print fiction books, and the lady who had started donating her large-print Love Inspired books was bringing in 6-8 books a month, we knew there would have to be some changes. We hurriedly finished weeding the fiction, removed the large-print books from the hard-to-access corner next to the wall and behind the typing desk, shifted all of the fiction toward the windows, and then processed the donated books and shelved all of the large-print books next to the door. Several of the people needing large print also had mobility impairments and used canes, walkers, wheelchairs.

Those reading the Love Inspired books asked that they be shelved by date, not by author as the other fiction was. They wanted to be able to locate the new books quickly. We did that and put them near the bottom of the large-print fiction. One day my husband came into the library and found a lady sitting on the floor. She had bent down to get a Love Inspired book and found she could not get back up so sat down. He helped her up; she had not been there long. Because the Love Inspired books were multiplying like rabbits, we had been discussing moving them to the counter space. This incident was an impetus to do that quickly. However, these books continue to grow in number and have taken over the counter and the shelves above which had Reader’s Digest condensed books which nobody seemed to use so we got rid of them.

I would love to discard the older Love Inspired books to make more room, but I find the older ones read as much as the new ones. They are the most-circulated items in the library.

We have made many changes besides trying to keep up with the space crisis. In the photo above, you will see under the counter pull-out drawers full of paperback books. The tight quarters and the fact that the chairs because of arms will not scoot under the table meant that people had to maneuver around open cupboard doors to access these books if they could even remember they existed. By removing the doors, people can get to them more easily and the books are fully visible.

People rarely stayed in the library to read because the wooden chairs were not comfortable. Despite the limited space, we did add 2 armchairs to the library. They were cast-offs from the lobby. They are sat in often, sometimes by people using the library as a meeting point or as a resting spot during the long walk to their apartments or by readers. I would like a smaller table and different chairs around them; that probably isn’t going to happen. The room is used for meetings, was used for a reading group though that has ended, by people with projects or for playing games when the usual game playing spots are busy.

We discovered the library had a wireless connection to the internet that nobody used because nobody thought one was there. We posted that information and the password at the end of the desk; now family and visitors often bring in laptops and tablets.

I posted earlier about the free Telikin computer we received after I applied with Telkin Cares. I wish more people would use it, but maybe when the library “catalog” is done, I can push accessing it on the touch-screen computer more.

The library is my bailiwick. I sort through donations, weed and shift to make space, troubleshoot the computers, answer questions about the resources, continue to create the data base, advocate for more space or equipment (right now compatible printer for Telkin), try to round up money for purchasing books, go to library booksales and Half Price Books to use the limited funds I have to the most purpose, search for free books for the Kindles (which are not really part of the library but I inherited when the activities director retired), monitor supplies, process the new books, update and print the existing list of fiction, and decorate the bulletin board.

 A lot of unanticipated duties so to speak but it is a place for me to serve and to be a good steward. For the most part, I enjoy it and people are very appreciative.

 

Yum

During this freezing snowy period, it is always nice to have some surprises to brighten the day. Today I took some jigsaw puzzles to the Give and Take table in my retirement complex. My husband had added an additional shelf to our storage closet and in the process of moving things around, we decided to sort through the puzzles and put some on the giveaway table. I went to the library to work for about 1 1/2 hours; since the table is near where choir practices, I took a peek to see if some had been taken when I came back to that part of the complex. Yes, 4 of the 8 puzzles were already gone. But now there were some items that interested me. A small jar of dark fudge topping and a jar of boysenberry preserves. I had never heard of this hot fudge sauce Best Boy and Co. It is located in Roanoke, Indiana and gives some of its profits to charities. Unopened and not expired, now both jars sit in my kitchen cupboard.

This morning as I started a load of laundry, my husband who had gone to Grace College to return a library book came home and told me we should go back for the library book sale that was taking place. He said there were Christian fiction books which might interest me. I had just been thinking last night that now that I had the Zamperini book money, I had no practical place to spend it as my favorite book sale by the North Webster Friends of the Library was only going to take place 2 times this year, not 4, and the next one isn’t until May 21st. I didn’t expect much to be useful to me at the college library. I was wrong. I ended up buying 25 books, about half of which fill in gaps in series in the retirement library. I could have bought 10-12 more, but decided either I didn’t know the author or I didn’t have shelf space. God provided books in an unexpected way. I told the library clerk this was like Christmas in January to get desired books at bargain prices. I told my neighbor who is in charge of her church library, and she bought 26 books.

Then tonight as I searched the free Kindle books website, I not only added books to the Grace Village Kindles, but I decided to add 3 to my ipad as well. I am anxious to start reading them.

God filled up my bowl with yumminess today. How is He brightening your winter days?

Gliding Into 2015

New chair

Sleigh design re the tag; sort of like a sleigh bed I guess, with scrolls and a side panel.

Last Friday my husband and I drove to Weaver’s Furniture Barn in Nappanee. We have purchased a few items there before. We had earlier in the week looked at two furniture stores having year-end sales in Warsaw. I have been interested in having a glider chair to use in the den. But the main factor for me was comfort, and none of the chairs I sat in felt comfortable. At Weaver’s we sat in several chairs. A few were OK, but they were not on sale. However, Weaver’s has a bargain room. There were 3 gliders marked down. One was horribly stiff; one was passable; but one was just right. We bought it and were able to fit it into our Prius. This is an early 65th birthday gift for me. So I am gliding into 2015 in comfort.

 

When I undecorated on December 30th, I could not find my 3 carved birds. They were not where I usually put them while Christmas décor sits in their spot. I had this vague recollection of putting them inside some kind of container, but I went through the drawers and cupboards where I normally put them and could not find them. I searched some other spots; birds were still missing. Last night, I prayed for help in finding them. Suddenly, I thought about the basket I put on top of the bookcase/display unit for Christmas. I had already moved it back to the guest bedroom on top of the storage unit. This morning I stood on the step stool, brought the basket down, and peered inside. There sat the birds. God is so good. The birds are back where they belong. 

 

I signed up back in October for a Medigap policy to start January 1st. The company was to auto-draft my checking account. As of today, they had not taken payment, and I had no communication from them. I called the insurance agent. He checked on the status of my application and called me back. There had been a hiccup as he put it, but the coverage would be retroactive to January 1st and the payment should take place within 10 days. So nice to have an agent to troubleshoot for me, somebody who could smooth out the bumps. Unlike my experience with the Healthcare Market Exchange where nobody seemed able to help or resolve issues. My Medicare Part D (prescription coverage) did start as expected, and I will be getting a shingles shot in a few weeks I hope. I am waiting to completely recover from the flu. My ears feel slightly plugged up.

 

Gasoline is down to $1.86 a gallon in Warsaw right now. Hoping it stays down as we head for Alabama and warmer weather in February. This morning when I got up it was minus .5 degrees. We had icy rain Saturday, snow yesterday, and more snow expected tonight and tomorrow. So far, only about an inch. Some sanding of streets but no plowing needed yet. Very different from last year. Still, it looks and feels like winter.

 

How is your 2015 starting out? What “lost birds” do you need to pray about? God does care about you.