weekends are for relaxing?

Well, I hate to admit that it's been over two months since my last post. The fact that it's been so long made it so much easier to keep letting it go. So for that one individual (you know who you are!) who kept on me to keep posting, this one's for you . . .

A quick recap of events these past two months:


I didn't get either of the jobs mentioned in my last post.

I'm now working full-time between three departments (circulation, cataloging and inter-library loan) at the Simmons library.

I had an interview yesterday afternoon at a public library that went well.

I went to the Book Expo America (the largest book publisher convention in the U.S.) in NYC.

I got to stay with Sam and I's friends Alex and Ally while in NYC. YAY!

Sam and I drove to Philly for Father's Day/Larry & Ilene's 40th wedding anniversary in June.

Big Larry (Sam's father), Little Larry (Sam's brother-in-law), William (another of Sam's brother-in-laws) and I saw a Phillies game.

The Phillies lost. Miserably.

While driving back from Philly the car broke down on the Garden State Parkway.

I got to stay with William & Alana (Sam's sister) in South Orange for two days while the car was being repaired (thanks guys!).

Sam and I drove to Indiana to stay with my parents during the week of the 4th of July.

It was a very relaxing week but we did so much! Got to see friends and family, toured a pickle factory, had our engagement photos taken (I'll post one of them to my flickr page soon), did lake stuff (fished, swam, etc.), ate with my grandparents at Ft. Wayne's Famous Coney Island, toured the new Allen County Public Library (check out my flickr page to see photos!), got a new car (thanks Mom & Dad!), and all sorts of other great stuff that I won't go into.

the land of cheese steak and brew pubs

Samantha and I are down in New Jersey for the weekend to visit her parents and talk about preparations for the wedding. We've come up with some great ideas so far--we're kicking around the idea of each table having its own "Dewey" theme, with a subject taken from the Dewey Decimal Classification system being the theme of the table.

Being at Sam's parents in New Jersey means that we're about 15 minutes from Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. Imagine my joy when I found out that it's also the city of brew pubs! We went to one of them on Thursday, when we had dinner with a friend of Sam's. The name was Nodding Head, the name coming from the hundreds of bobblehead dolls they had in their case. I got to try almost all of their beers. The one that stood out was named Grog, their take on an English brown beer. An interesting beer was brewed using hops, engineered by the Sapporo brewery in Japan--can't remember the name for it, and it's not listed on their webpage.

I've also been able to indulge myself in the cheese steak, of which I've had two. I can't stop myself!