Happy Halloween + books

 Two children this year. One knock at our door. We gave away only two pieces of candy. Had we known our first group was also our last, we could have said "Take two!" or even "Take three!" We had very little candy to give because we were not expecting very many, but this was a very small Halloween showing.

The Ofrenda and its changes throughout the week:

They put this notice up by the big coloring page that Anna designed:

Wanting to search for her name in each panel of the mural, I took pictures of each. One day when I have time, I will look for Anna's name. Or ask her to tell me where they are!!

I remember when Anna was drawing this next one. Holy doodle! It was hard, with all the detail on the tiles.

This one (below) is a lower down panel, and you can see that some children helped to color this one! Some creative blue lines as only children can do them...

The what would you say to your ancestors board is completely full, and they had to bring another white board. I took this picture this morning; by the afternoon, the second white board was almost full of comments from library patrons.

The map is full of pins indicating so many places around the world where ancestors came from.

Sharolyn and Matt were "watching" the booth when I took the pictures. I took pictures of them separately because their costumes for Halloween didn't really go together! Both great costumes, just very different vibes!

For Matt, an action shot:

And last of all, this plant arrangement thing was also added to the Dia de los muertos sometime this week:

Usually, this is just a greenery thing to bring oxygen into the library, but for this week, some orange.

Also, this video!

And now for books read in October 2025: Six again this month.

1. The Night Garden (2017) by Polly Horvath. I really liked this book about the unusual family of Franny, and her parents Sina and Old Tom. Set on Vancouver Island during WW2. Very interesting.

2. I had not read anything by Polly Horvath before, so I read next Pine Island Home (2020) set on a small BC coastal island, about soe orphaned children and how they work to stay together, even though their great aunt, who is to be their guardian, died while they were traveling to get to her. 

3. Latter-day Sikh (2025) by James Goldberg & Nicole Wilkes Goldberg. The biography of Janice's dad, by her nephew and niece-in-law. I went with Janice to the book launch. Very cool to finally read it. 

4. Three Times Lucky (2012) by Sheila Turnage. Lovely story of a girl names Moses and her unusual family. After she was orphaned as a baby during a hurricane. And how she learns to appreciate what she has instead of pining for her upstream mother.

5. The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion vol.4 (2019? 2022 for the hardback) What can I say? Her journals are addictive, once you learn to love the characters that Beth Brower has created.

6. Library girl (2024) by Polly Horvath. This one does not take place in BC, somewhere in the US. Essie grows up literally in the library. This seems unsustainable, and it is not! Where did she come from, and where will this all lead when Essie makes her way out into the world.

And that is my reading for the month!

2025 Ofrenda

 This year, our HBLL Ofrenda got to go up extra early so we could enjoy it for longer, and also because it is the BYU 150, so that was one of our things to do for it.

The students at all the help desks spent the summer making each desk's tapeta, and they all went up on display. Our Humanities student Lindsay Becker drew all the patterns, one for each desk, that also is associated with what they do.  Another of our students, Anna Adams, from our Music desk, designed the coloring poster. This morning, they didn't have her name up beside it, and now they do. I will have to take a picture of that later. Also, Teresa Gomez told me that Anna hid her name all around the poster in Easter eggs. (Interesting choice for Dia de los muertos.)

Also I understand that Rachel Heiss helped put up the ofrenda on Friday. I know that Janice was working on it, and Rachel works for Janice, so it makes sense that they both would work on it.

So this morning, I started at the south entrance and worked my way north taking pictures as I went.

After I took all those pictures, I went to a meeting. After the meeting, when I went to get into the elevator on level two near the science desk, there were two students also waiting for the elevator. They were taking the skeletongs upstairs to join the Ofrenda.

So when I could, I went back to take their picture, and Matt was working there, as a guide to what to do and just talk to people, so since the Dia de los Muertos originated with him and Teri Gomez because they are both of Mexican heritage, I took a picture of Matt with the skeletons. When I saw them in the elevator they were naked, but they got dressed up before I snapped their photo.

And later in the day, when I happened by again, there was a table that I didn't remember seeing earlier. They were adding to it all day! So I took a picture of Rachel W., Teri, and Barbie, who were tending the Ofrenda at that point in time. 

I will take more pictures over the week, because the students (and faculty) can add to several of the things, as well as coloring Anna's huge coloring poster. It will be fun to see all the changes and additions!

Meanwhile, in our house, Josie is busy making a pet ofrenda, because apparently October 27 is the day for animal ofrendas. She has gathered photos of Winter and Lakhi and picked some marigolds. I hope she will send me a picture of it, and I will put it here.

And this is the best! Kitten is going to drink the water offering!

Josie loved her old kitties, and she loves her new kitties, too.

Like the ofrenda at work, she keeps adding to it:

Busy busy busy

 I feel like I am way busy, and I feel like everyone else on campus is, too! I can't figure out why. Well, I guess I can. I am covering for another librarian who changed positions--but so are all of my department! And I feel like I started doing library instruction really early, and that it has been pretty steady.

Also I had to write four entries for a book about women at BYU. Initially three, but then they asked me to do one more, so I did. And I am working on a Scholarly Editing micro edition, and that is way out of my comfort zone. And I am trying to get ready to present at a conference on Nov.8, and the time slot is one hour 10 minutes!! That is more than twice as long as I usually present for. And Rachel Wadham asked me to write another book with her--no rush. But that is something I need to do. And I had to do my travel application for next year--which reminds me, that I proposed a plenary session for MLA 2026 which is in February, so I have to get myself ready for that, and make sure everyone else is ready, too. And all of my department have to do their travel plans, and I have to help make decisions about them. And they are changing how they fund computers at BYU, so I have to finish a paper about computers in our department by Tuesday. And I have a performer in Germany looking for some particular compositions and the professor who has them FINALLY got back to me...and she has just been swamped with work this semester, too. And we are trying to get the LPs organized. And I just had to meet with the NASM reviewers. And I met with my department to decide how to handle the vacancy in our department, and I have to write up the job description and defense for why we need to fill it, and make sure to do it soon, because BYU is also changing hiring protocols. And. And. And. Busy.

But I did take time to run over to the RB to listen to Cheryll Treu speak a week ago. I took a picture of her speaking, but it is not as good as one her husband posted, so I am going to borrow his.

And she was really happy to see me (as I was to see her) so that was fun. And Carli her daughter was happy to see me (as I was to see her) and Casey came over and talked to me for a long time. He is so nice. Especially for a world champion; like, no arrogance in him. And then I also talked to Ben, Carli's husband. And both of those guys were happy to see me (as I was to see them!) I did not see Blair up close, or Casey's wife Kaycie--I just saw them from afar.

Here is their family. Well, the six who were there. Missing are oldest daughter Krista and her husband and three kids (Krista worked for me and is also pretty good friends with Patrick, because they shared some book repair time) and Kyle (who is Patrick's age, but not as good as friends as his sister is) and also Carli's daughter and Casey's son. But this is the rest of them, our good friends and neighbors from Northridge.

I will also quote what Blair said about the event: "Last Thursday, Cheryll was recognized for her achievements at the BYU Sesquicentennial (150th) anniversary. Now in their 20th year, Danzinskule Education Foundation has served over 10 thousand students and counting. Cheryll shared a beautiful presentation about her life and the team-effort required to make this a success. Family, friends and co-workers at Danzinskule were there to celebrate with her!"

Cheryll's presentation, which included some very touching video clips that Kyle helped her with (because of course Blair is a motion picture guy, and Kyle has been working with his dad some) which were very well done. And Cheryll just did the best job speaking. It was so great. 

In other news, and in response to Nancy's blog post here, for your viewing pleasure I give you: STEVE RICKS and RICK STEVES! Do not confuse them. They both wear glasses, but I think that Rick Steves is older than Steve Ricks, and that Steve Ricks has less hair than Rick Steves. Also Steve Ricks writes music, while Rick Steves writes books. The only book Steve Ricks has written was his PhD dissertation, with the alluring title of Angled responses : structural pairing in Mario Davidovsky's Quartetto but he has also got 13 scores and 16 sound recordings listed in WorldCat. While Rick Steves is the author of many books. He has thousands of WorldCat entries. He has recordings, too, but they are recorded books, total of 17. He is definitely the WorldCat point leader of the two! But he got a head start (1955) vs. Steve Ricks, who has only been around since 1969. Also, Steve doesn't know the two of them, he and Rick, are in competition with each other, and I am pretty sure he would not care. So I won't tell him. Since I actually do know one of the two--Steve--and could have a conversation with him about Rick.

In other things I might do--I feel too busy, but I have presented at the Play Again Virtual Symposium when it was about MMOVG Music, and I presented about MapleStory, and that got me into the Video Game Music crowd. (Which is actually still a small crowd in the Music Library world.) So they know me and might think that this year, when the topic is about music of simulations, that I might submit a proposal. (Last year the topic was horror, and I am just not a horror person. No horror movies, or books, or video games for me, thank you very much. Because if I take in horror, then I have horrifying nightmares. No thanks.) But I didn't have a simulation idea. But Josie did! She talked to me about Singing in Simlish, and as far as I can tell, Academia has not glommed onto much examination of Simlish, and definitely nobody else has looked at Singing in Simlish. Doesn't that sound a little bit fascinating, and like maybe I should do it? And also, I submitted my same poster that I made for IAML last year to present at MLA in 2026, because I have already made it, so why not? 

If I am too busy, I might just be doing it to myself...

Yard work

 Yesterday it was so beautiful outside! It had rained at nights for the few days leading up to Saturday, so the ground was moist, and the temperature was glorious.

Here is what I accomplished:

It doesn't seem too wondrous, because I did not take a "before" picture, but there was a lot of grass taking over this garden spot, and the pipes for the "underground" sprinkler system were all quite exposed, so this is much better! Thanks to Bruce for picking up the cedar mulch, and Josie for hefting those heavy bags and spreading the mulch. 

On the other side, I have left the "ground cover" that has kind of taken over. (Google images suggests Creeping Fig Ivy?)

I don't remember if I blogged about the Saturday that some young married couples from a BYU Stake came to our area to do yard work projects for people? One thing we had them do was take out the rose bush which Bruce didn't like because it set off the motion detector on the camera all the time, and also it would grow into the garage door on the side. I didn't like it because I had to trim it and it was prickly. So, with it gone, there were bare spots where the sheeting was exposed, so I moved rocks from the back yard to make it look at least intentional? if not better?