Another not so stellar week. That has to change soon, right? Let’s see if I can find the good.

1. My son came home Sunday night. We grilled steak and watched Detective Pikachu.
2. A friend gave a CD to listen to and I really liked it. It’s good to find new music you like.
3. I went to the Ravens game Thursday night. It was good to get out of the routine and it was a nice night to be at the stadium.
4. My boss is on vacation.
5. I worked half my day at another branch on Friday. Working two locations and traveling in between made the day go faster.
6. I had enough reward points at Royal Farms to get a free lunch on the way from branch to branch.
7. I worked on Friday, so I have two days off in a row this weekend.
8. My son came home again last night for dinner and he and my wife finally say End Game.

I think that’s it for the week.

I’ve realized while thinking about this week that I don’t really remember much about this week at all. I guess it was boring and/or I’m getting old. I guess boring is better than having a long list of bad things that happened. So, what was good? Let’s see what I remember.

1. Drew Magary’s Why Your Team Sucks 2019 series started Monday.
2. I had a meeting Tuesday afternoon out of the branch. I decided to take personal leave after the meeting and spent time at my old branch talking to friends.
3. My wife had a free pastry at Panera and told me to use it so I spent some time Wednesday morning reading, eating a pastry and drinking coffee at Panera.
4. I had another meeting out of the branch Thursday afternoon. I once again decided to take leave after the meeting and spent time talking to friends and then made it home before traffic got really bad.
5. The weather was really nice for a few days and I had my coffee and read the paper on the deck a couple of mornings.
6. BOGO entrees at Newk’s for dinner Thursday night.
7. I was able to mow on Friday while the grass was short and dry enough to do the entire yard on one battery charge.
8. This meant that I was done with the yard work pretty quick and had the rest of the day to relax.
9. I finished reading my almost 800-page book faster than I expected.
10. The Braves has stretched their lead back to 6.5 games over the Nationals.

It was my first week back at work after vacation. The week started with news at work that will make my life there even more stressful for a while. The week ended with extremely hot temperatures. Was there any good? Let’s see.

1. We had a BOGO thing from Red Robin to use. A free burger is always a good thing.
2. My daughter made it home from Kentucky Monday morning.
3. I got to eat outside a couple of times at work before the temperatures got really bad.
4. I had a meeting out of branch Wednesday afternoon. Meetings out of branch help sometimes.
5. I had plenty of time to catch up on Stranger Things.
6. I finally have the ability to watch Prime and other streaming apps on my TV in the family room. All we could do before was Netflix.
7. My son came home for dinner last night so we had a good night of dinner and a movie with all four of us at home.
8. I have one more day off before I have to go back to work.

That’s all I can think of for this week. Here’s hoping I can hit ten next week.

I’m going to cheat on this one since I didn’t write one last week and use a lot of stuff from the conference I attended last weekend. I probably won’t write one next week since I will be on vacation. I might not post at all July 6-10. So, here’s the good from the last week or so.

1. I was able to attend the American Library Conference in DC this past weekend. It was a good conference with a lot of good speakers. I also just enjoyed taking a train instead of driving every day.
2. Some of the speakers I got to hear – Jason Reynolds, Sonia Sotomayor, George Takei, Frank Miller, and Tomi Adeyemi.
3. I not only heard Frank Miller speak but got to meet him and have him sign a book.
4. I met Henry Winkler.
5. I picked up a lot of ARCS of upcoming books, including the sequel to Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith.
6. I went to a lot of good sessions about issues in libraries.
7. We went to see my favorite baseball team, the Braves, play in DC Saturday night and they won.
8. I went to see my favorite band, Bowling For Soup, in concert on Tuesday night.
9. I was able to get the yard mowed Friday before noon so I wasn’t out during the extremely hot part of the day.
10. We were able to get our broken AC fixed quickly yesterday before I got extremely hot.
11. We went to the local park within walking distance of our house to watch fireworks last night.

I was back to a relatively normal schedule this week. No trips. No school visits. No change in my hours. Just an ordinary week of work and not much else. Was there any good? Let’s find out.

1. My wife and son made it home from Portland safely.
2. It was a long wait at the cell phone lot because BWI sucks at luggage handling, but that gave me time to read more of my book.
3. The Braves took sole possession of first place in the NL East.
4. I was finally able to start watching Good Omens.
5. We bought tickets to see the Braves play in DC this Saturday.
6. The weather was really nice this week so I had multiple lunches outside.
7. Free coffee at Panera gave me an excuse to go sit and read there for a while before work on Friday.
8. My son got his official job offer and will start a real full-time with benefits job after his fellowship is over.
9. We went out to lunch at our favorite restaurant yesterday to celebrate my son’s birthday.
10. For once schedule issues at work worked in my favor so I was home to go to that lunch instead of being at work.

It was harder to get to ten this week. It was an ordinary week with a lot of little annoyances with the work part of it. It will be easier the next few weeks as I go to a conference and then to Kentucky to visit family. It’s good to have things to look forward to when you are depressed about going to work.

It was my first full week back to work after my trip. My schedule was weird. I didn’t sleep well. Let’s see if I can find some good.

1. I did book promotions at a high school all day on Monday. I worked 7-3 instead of 9-5 so I got to avoid rush hour and have a longer afternoon at home. I prefer the early schedule to the 9-5.
2. While I don’t think I’m very good at book promotions, a few kids did seem interested in a couple of the books I talked about, so maybe someone will read a book this summer because of me.
3. The early schedule worked out well with y daughter’s car being repaired. We got the call that it was fixed and ready to be picked up right after I got home so we were able to get it and be home before traffic was terrible.
4. My son presented his research at a poster session at a professional conference in Portland this week.
5. My daughter got her job back at the local library for the summer.
6. I had a meeting out of the branch on Tuesday(can you tell I like being out of the branch) with my grant group. I’ the most useless member of the group, but don’t act like I am.
7. People came to the class on medical cannabis at my branch Wednesday afternoon and I had no complaints about the topic.
8. I had free breakfast food or drink at three different places this week so I skipped my normal granola bar/bowl of cereal and had better food prepared by others. Krispy Kreme gave me two free donuts instead of one Friday.
9. I was able to get stuff done around the house yesterday and still have time to relax and go to the local street festival with my daughter.
10. I have no obligations today besides driving to the airport later.

It’s been two weeks since I did one of these due to travel. I could cheat and only do ten things from my trip, but I think that would kind of defeat the purpose of these posts. So, I will condense the trip part and also find good in my week after we returned.

1. My son made it home from work(he was housesitting while we were gone) before we left for the airport, so we had a chance to see him before we left.
2. All of the travel parts of the trip went smoothly, Flights were on time. We made it to all of our gates with ease. No running through the airport this time. I slept more on the trip over than usual.
3. I enjoyed every day in Baku. It was a nice change from the last two trips where I was bored a lot.
4. Istanbul was fun and our trip to and from the airport worked out great. A 24-hour layover to see the city was a good idea.
5. I came back to a week of three days at work, one day off, and then an event out of the branch on Saturday.
6. Friday was a frustrating day, but at least at the end of the day we got my daughter’s car to the repair place and it will be in working order soon.
7. Ryan Hamilton and the Harlequin Ghosts’ new album we released Friday.
8. I had book club Friday night, so I got to spend time with friends.
9. Saturday I spent the day outside at a local festival at the library table. I also got to eat tacos and dessert from the strawberry festival at the church next door.
10. My son made it to Portland safely last night.

It was a good couple of weeks. Let’s hope this keeps up now that I’m back to regular life.