Delivery

Thursday last week my father removed the water access in my kitchen. Things became a little complicated. There is water in the bathroom, thankfully. There is only the microwave oven and the fridge left in the kitchen now. The options for dinner are limited, with no stove available. My father has painted the ceiling and laid the new floor. His girlfriend is helping out most days. Yesterday I took leave from work to be at home when the delivery from Ikea came. I had paid for delivery into the apartment and that I was grateful for. There were lots of boxes and my apartment is on the third floor. We started assembling one cabinet but needed to do more plastering of the walls so it got delayed.

Over the past weekend I ran errands and attended to some correspondence. I did actually manage to decide on a wallpaper also.

Monday we got yet another colleague. He will do a project we never have time for. The problem was that I have never worked with this project but I was the only one there to give instructions that day.  I hope I said the correct things.

Last week I attended a lecture at the Archive center. The lecturer was a woman who had written a book about part of her family history. It was a terrible story about a tyrannic grandfather and the consequences of his actions towards his son. The author raised questions you face as a family historian. How much can you tell? To what degree can you expose people even though they are dead? How can you relieve yourself from the guilt you feel for bad things your ancestors have done? How do you distance yourself from the subject you write about? Very important questions. Very interesting lecture. Heartbreaking and shocking, but very interesting.

Kitchen details

Thursday last week I went to see a local revue in the evening. I had been given a ticket and went with a friend. A revue is a sort of comedy cabaret show, where there are both talk acts and singing acts. This one is very local and completely impossible to explain in English. It was very fun. Several times the artists had to wait for the audience to stop laughing before continuing.

Saturday I made another visit to Ikea in Malmö. After about two hours of changing the kitchen layout and making many decisions about cabinet formats and other things, I placed the big order. The pieces will be delivered later. While I was there anyway, I bought some small things like interiors for the drawers and a wall shelf.

Sunday I went to work, intending to get some chores done. It did not happen. I have been asked to contribute to the yearly historical society publication  and for this had to translate an old document from 1627. Back then this area belonged to Denmark. It was very difficult to decipher the document and I had to ask a colleague for help. He had managed to read most of it, so I spent the Sunday translating the Danish text into Swedish.

Monday I got a hair cut. I usually ask to have it cut as short as possible, and she really did. I hardly need to use any shampoo now. I have also been to the dentist. After going to the publicly funded dentist service for a few years I gave that up and have chosen a private practitioner. It's expensive but the quality is higher. February is flu season. Several colleagues are sick. I have a cold but I'm at work anyway. It's not that bad.

My father is busy working in my kitchen most weekdays. Right now he is sanding the ceiling and scraping off old paint from the wooden details. The stove, fridge and water is still there but will have to be removed soon. It's difficult to do any cooking. Though yesterday I managed to make a pizza which my father praised quite a lot.

Kitchen renovation

My work computer was exchanged for a brand new one and it will take time to get used to it. There are new features and all my bookmarks were lost so I have spent some time getting acquainted with the new situation.

Thursday last week I overslept by quite a lot. This made some people nervous but they didn't call me. I made it there by 8.30 and rushed to get the requests processed. That same day I went to another storage for a study visit. The ephemera collection is housed at a remote storage. This is a collection of about 4000-5000 shelf meters, nothing of it is catalogued. It was interesting to see their call number system and how they work. They let me wander off into the stacks on my own. At the same time as I was there as a staff member I was also there as a patron. I searched for material about my birth parish Norra Strö. In the church newsletter from 1978 I found a photo of the church sewing club - my grandmother was on this photo! There was also some material from the local bank and statutes for an insurance institute that was started to help poor people in 1914. Very useful finds.

The weekend was spent looking at the offers of kitchen supplies. I might have changed my mind about the tiles. I'm thinking now that it's better with a black variant. Monday afternoon I went to Ikea and got help to draw a plan of the kitchen cabinets. It's an old apartment where the measures are not even. The wall is 2.52 m at the window but only 2.48 m at the door, for instance. If this plan will work out, it's with a margin of 4 millimeters... Tuesday my father and his girlfriend came and started tearing out the kitchen cabinets from 1953. It was very well built with massive wooden panels and long nails, so my father had to use a lot of force to get it out. I think there have been about five trips to the dump so far, and there will be more. I have to work so I can't help much but I took yesterday afternoon off because I had to buy new flooring. I managed this, and also got paint for the ceiling. I still have the fridge and the stove available and the water is still turned on. Though it's not easy to do any cooking and we really don't. Yesterday evening we went out to eat at a restaurant.

Wallpaper

Last week at work contained a large number of meetings. One of them lasted 2 and 1/2 hours. It was challenging. One other meeting meant that the library didn't open until 1 in the afternoon. An architect held a presentation for us, where he showed a couple of suggestions for a complete remake of our open space in the library. We approved of his ideas, and he seems to have really engaged himself in this matter. Now, getting money from the university to do this is a different thing. It will be costly.

Friday we got a new staff member. I gave a short introduction. She will mostly work at the information desk but will help us in the stacks in the mornings. 

Wednesday I received my Christmas present from work. You had to choose an item from a website. I opted for two designer mugs.

I have been looking for new wallpaper and tiles for my kitchen. It's not easy to make a decision about these things. I have more or less decided on cabinets and some other things, I will get that from Ikea. The doors will be white, and I'm thinking blue tiles and pink (sort of) wallpaper. We'll see what happens.

Sunday I went on a road trip to the north. I made a stop at one large thrift store in the countryside and then drove through forests with frosty trees. There was some snow but it was not a problem to drive. I ended up in Höör, where I got some groceries and looked through another thrift store.  

Monday this week it was time for yet another education session. There were some students and new employees that needed information about the library catalog.

First week of the semester

Last week was the first of the semester. We noticed this very much. There were incredible amounts of requests. At the same time the system we use for processing call slips decided to break down. The printer also. When I finally managed to get the right call slips printed, several of them lacked both title and author. Those details are quite important when you search for books. I'm glad I have strong nerves. Getting the call slips printed and sorted is my most important task at the library. If that fails, the consequences are quite serious. Most books did get out to the pick-up shelves but a few hours later than normal. We missed the noon deadline most days but that's understandable.

The weekend was spent at home. The weather wasn't that good, it snowed and rained. I had things to do in the kitchen. Both some cooking and moving items from there to the attic.

Archive open house

This Saturday some archives had open houses with lectures, book sales and information booths. I drove to Malmö City Archive to attend a lecture on old photographs. The archive was very crowded, it's incredible how this particular place attracts visitors. There were so many people that I didn't get a seat for the lecture. I had to stand outside the room and look at the presentation through a window.

While I was in that area anyway, I did a tour of the thrift stores. Again, I bought books for the library. This shopping has meant that I have been able to fill gaps at the Royal Library in Stockholm also. After the visit to central Malmö I went for lunch at Ikea and in their food store I got a jar of cloudberry jam. It's very tasty.

Over the weekend I removed all the Christmas ornaments and did some cleaning. In preparing for that big renovating project mentioned earlier, I started to get the kitchen items into storage in the attic. At the same time I tried to weed a little. It's amazing how much stuff you gather in cupboards and drawers.

Start of new year

The beginning of the work year was pretty much like expected. I have had time to do a few minor projects and the number of requests have been rather low. It picked up this Monday and of course that's also when the system for handling these requests decided to break down. After some TLC from the technician it started again. He couldn't explain why it went down. We have the two extra workers another two weeks so I try to make the most of it now. Last week I attended a course in advanced Excel for librarians. I use Excel some in my job for statistics and collection lists. The teacher was a 22-year old guy and I have rarely had such a good teacher. We were all amazed. It was a very useful course and we all discovered new aspects to the system.

Sunday a week and a half ago my father came to visit again. We had lunch at a local restaurant and then watched sports on TV. We also discussed a large renovating project in my apartment.

This Saturday I went on an extensive fleamarket round in Malmö. It was daring of me because I can't really find my way in that city. It's large with lots of traffic. It turned out to be no problems at all driving there. Not even finding parking spaces proved difficult. I visited five second hand stores to buy books for the library. Also went shopping at a mall and had lunch at a burger place.

The weather is rather rainy and windy. There were some traffic problems this Monday morning, when it snowed, but apart from that it's not really a typically Swedish winter yet.