2011 has been kind of a bust when it comes to blogging. This year has been incredibly difficult and I just haven’t had the time or energy to devote to maintaining this blog the way I used to. In March, I left my casual youth services librarian position in a multi-library system for a new and more challenging full-time job as a children’s services librarian at a smaller town library. The position was newly created—they’d never had a dedicated children’s librarian on staff before. It’s been…er… interesting… carving out my role there over the last few months. One of my biggest challenges has been convincing fellow staff (and occasionally management) that I am a professional Librarian. I’m often referred to as “just the children’s librarian” in an almost derogatory way, as if I’m less qualified than the other reference staff. That really irks me. Does this happen to anyone else? *sigh*
With the new job, came a hour+ long daily commute. If you know me, you know how much I hate driving, so you can guess what I cranky person I was for those first few months. Fortunately, the new job meant that I could finally move out of my apartment of horrors. Unfortunately, finding a place close enough to work was more difficult than I thought. I eventually found a place, but it’s another basement (ick) and it’s a lot more money than I wanted to spend (double ick), but at least my new landlords are nice, reasonable people, the apartment is legit, and it takes me only 15 minutes to get to work.
I had every intention of getting back to blogging once I was settled into my new place. But the day after I moved in, life threw me a major curveball when my Mom underwent an emergency cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal). It was a major, high risk surgery for her. She went into septic shock. She did not wake up for eight days. Then we learned that there had been complications…Her lungs were severely damaged. She was being kept alive by mechanical ventilation. The infection was raging through body, attacking her other organs and systems.
This is the nightmare I have been living for three months now. I have been spending all of my spare time driving back and forth to the city my parents live in to visit my Mom in the ICU. This ordeal has brought me such emotional and physical strain. I’ve never been so exhausted in my entire life. Finally, this week, some good news: the infection is under control—no more fevers. She is regaining a bit of strength and is alert. And, they’ve even been able to reduce her dependency on the ventilator slightly. The road to recovery will be very, very long, but at least it seems she’s on her way. A couple of weeks ago, it sounded like her medical team was ready to give up on her. I’m grateful for small improvements like these.
I want to get back to blogging, but it will be a gradual return. I’ve also changed the focus of this blog. While previously, I focused on Young Adult literature and library services, I will now write about broader aspects of life and librarianship (though there will still be an emphasis on services and materials for children and teens).
Canadian Libraries Are Serving Youth (CLASY) is hosting a pre-conference event May 25th at the CLA national conference in Halifax. For details please see the 
Corsets & Clockwork
