This week at the library; or, IT'S FINALLY OVER

The last week. Will I make it through?

Sunday. Having run out of budget money, I dragooned several staff members into baking cookies for our final events and spent most of Sunday baking my own contributions.

Monday
8:45 Arrive at work
9-1:00 Desk time (A lot of weird stuff happened, but it pretty much does every Monday and I've forgotten specifics)
1:15 Lunch
1:30-3:00 Staff meeting (Why does our library have so many items destroyed by dogs? Where are the missing inventory lists? And other such fun topics)
3:00 Set up Storyroom for movie - move tables, bring out chairs, bring down screen from upstairs, set up AV cart *mutter mutter*
3:30 Opened the doors and immediately had 8 boys solemnly lined up in the chairs and surreptitiously poking each other. Ended up with about 20 people total for our showing of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules. No problems with the food this time; nobody touched it. Asked the boys afterward why they didn't eat the cookies "Oh man, we can EAT those? Cool!" and 25 cookies disappeared in less than a minute.
5:00 Take down AV equipment, reset room for storytime the next morning.

Tuesday
12:00 Arrive at work, desk time. Realize I still don't have that night's movie, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, beg neighboring librarian to bring it over.
3:00 Desk time over, work on publicity for fall, set up room for movie, bring down AV cart, you get the idea
5:00 Go home for dinner. Walk back
6:45 Sara the librarian arrives with the movie. Unfortunately, there are no teens.
6:55 A teen comes.
7:00 Her friend shows up, we decide we'd rather watch Beastly (which Sara has in her magic bag) and the movie begins. I work on publicity in my office, through which I can see the Storyroom.
8:00 The computer shuts itself down and the library closes. I restart the computer and make sure everyone is ok staying late.
8:30 Movie ends, I reset the room, take down the AV cart, etc. etc. hang around outside with the girls to make sure they get picked up, and walk home.

Wednesday
9:00-1:00 Desk time. I cleverly traded with another staff member so I wouldn't be working too many nights this week, forgetting that I had to be here tonight anyways because I'm setting up the Scholastic Bookfair, so I just got myself an additional 4 hours at work, on the desk. Grarph. Change all fall teen programs to 6:00 instead of 6:30 to hopefully obviate any more unscheduled after hours programs, which has happened twice this summer now. Talk to Miss P after baby storytime about potential programming.
1:00-2:00 Setup for Lego Building Club, publicity, supervise volunteer.
2:00 Go home for lunch (I can't seem to remember or find anything to take with me to eat, but I live half a mile down the street so whatever)
3:00-5:00 Lego Building Club, very small group, just 20 kids, chat with parents, have an exasperated conversation with tweens we kicked out of the library that morning for being noisy who want to come back "Why don't you go to the park?"
"We went there. We got sweaty and there's no drinking fountain"
"What are you going to DO in the library?"
"Just read! ... and talk with our friends. Quietly! Just hang out"
"Why don't you hang out at home"
"There's no one there and we're not allowed to go home when there's no one there."
"Where do your parents expect you to be?"
"Here"
ARGH!
5:00-7:30 Set up bookfair

Thursday
8:00 Conference call sort of at home. Not really work-related, but thrown in there to show how CRAZY my life is this week.
8:45-10:00 Set up bookfair, move tables, figure out the register, set up Preschool Interactive, show volunteer how register works
10:00-11:30 We had a really good group for my last Preschool Interactive of the summer. Of course, all but about 3 of the kids are going into 4k/daycare/kindergarten and those 3 are going to be doing something else on my PI days. Sigh.
11:30-1:30 My turn to run the bookfair! Not a ton of people buying, but quite a few and I think it's worth the time and effort - although I might try not to schedule it concurrently with my busiest week next year!
1:30-2:00 I grab some lunch
2:00-5:00 Desk time, with some breaks for helping with the bookfair
5:00-5:30 Move tables, total receipts, etc. from bookfair.

Friday
8:15-9:00 I come in to set up the bookfair (because of our theft problem, I have to partially take down the fair every night and reset it in the morning) Then I go run errands and go home to bake cupcakes for tomorrow.
1:00-5:45 Back to work, cleaning piles of stuff off desk, help with bookfair, my wonderful summer intern showed up, but we sent her back home after an hour because I think she was going into labor!! set up stat project for aide, realize I don't have enough materials for craft project tomorrow, more bookfair stuff, worked on summer reading report, bring up Wii and stuff for teen program
5:45-7:30 Teen end of summer reading pizza party! Five girls came, only one of which was actually signed up for the duration of the program, another signed up two weeks ago, and the last three said they hadn't read this summer, although they assured me that they 1. usually read over the summer, 2. read, but only during school 3. read sometimes. They played some Wii and, disdaining my beading supplies requested thread for friendship bracelets, which I supplied. Then we had pizza and soda (and an unofficial burping contest) and finished up with library hide and seek, which is basically hiding in the dark library, waiting for the librarian (me) to find you, then screaming and running away. It helps if several people are asking "what are we doing?" throughout and some people are hiding while others are wandering around and running. But everyone had fun and several said they'd come to teen programs in the fall if I just did fun stuff and there was food (they requested a weekly lock-in and promised to bring more friends, but I don't think I can do that)
7:30-8:00 Some of the parents were late, so we hung out in front of the library and waited. I didn't want to leave them, although it wasn't dark, because it's pretty isolated there.
*Current teen culture trends I gathered: It is now cool to pretend to be a baby. No, really. Two of the girls had pacifiers, not the candy pacifiers I thought they were but REAL pacifiers. They informed me "it's cool to pretend to be a baby" and said one of their friends had a baby bottle. Okaaay. Also, glow-in-the-dark hair dye is potentially cool (only one of them had been allowed to use it) and "Squinkies" are not exactly cool (their younger siblings are really into them) they are marginally cute and might be cool if their younger sisters didn't really like them.*
I realize when I get home that the pinata, which I paid a local to make, isn't here! She was going to drop it off on Friday! Where is it? Aghhh!

Saturday
9:00-10:30 I run to the store to get paper bags for our kite craft, then set up the bookfair for the day, print fall calendars for distribution, call to find out where my pinata is, call to find out where my cookies are, volunteers come in, set up for face painting, fill pinatas, set up for program.
10:30-11:30 Party! We made kites, die cut puppets, masks, frosted and ate cookies and cupcakes and fruit, went through two pinatas, face painting, and the bookfair was running. My bookfair volunteer needed more instruction on the register than I had time to give, so she came in and helped with the program with my teen volunteer and my aide ran the register. About 80 happy kids and parents, $16 in donations in addition to our bookfair totals (I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but each dollar represents a happy parent!). Handing out tickets for the face painting didn't work as well as I'd hoped and everything was very chaotic but fun!
11:30-1:00 Last people waiting for face painting, they hung out in the library until we called them. Lots of clean up - tissue and bits of stuff from pinatas, glitter from crafts, frosting, etc. and everything had to be moved back to the library. Vacuuming, scrubbing tables, we finally finished! My second bookfair volunteer came at 12 and things calmed down a little.
1:00-2:00 Sort money and start totalling bookfair receipts, go through books for repair, break down summer reading stuff, basically a little breathing space.
2:00-2:40 Take down bookfair - I had several volunteers so it went fast!
2:40-3:30 Final financial forms and I'll just get the check from the Friends on Monday and we're done! We made about $500 in Scholastic Dollars, which is GREAT!

Hard to believe, but the week is OVER! I am looking forward to going back to working 40 hour weeks, having lunch, and two weeks of no programs to plan the fall!