That doesn’t sound right. I should say this is the last day I’m going the “day in a librarian life” for now. Still thinking about coming back to it in the fall when things are very different around here with instruction and whatnot.

Anyway, I worked the desk first thing this morning. But even before that, I was doing stuff to get ready to head home for the weekend. Fridays are probably my favorite day of the week, because by the evening I’m back with DH and the dogs. (You might wonder why I’m applying for the job in AK if I miss my family over a week. The answer is because this is a dream that can’t be passed up. We’ll figure it out if I actually get the job…and that’s a huge long shot.)

The rest of the day has been spent mostly at my desk. Still doing little things for the Summer Institute. A couple of last minute registrations have trickled in and one cancellation. I’ll need to do a couple of updates to the catering order next week to make sure we have enough drinks for everyone for the day. And there is a bit of supply shopping I’m going to do tomorrow. I keep feeling like I’m forgetting something major because this has went so smoothly.

There were a couple of other small things that I had to do today, but those were quickly taken care of. Mostly preliminary discussions/planning about some events for the fall. And I worked on my advance for an upcoming conference. Hopefully that will be waiting for me when I get back from vacation. It will help cover the hotel, so I don’t have so much initially out of pocket.

I’ve been doing some internal debate about attending Internet Librarian this fall. It’s a great conference, but it will more than blow the rest of my travel budget. At least Mountain Plains Library Association is in Kansas next year. But ACRL is in Seattle and that’s going to be an expensive one. It’s interesting to figure out how to stretch dollars until they scream. I think librarians have to do this with so many things – travel budgets, book budgets, electronic resource budgets.

Which reminds me that we’ll be starting some of those discussions early next month in Collection Development. Flat budgets and increasing costs do not equal happy librarians at all. But I work with good people and we’ll figure it out.

Even though I’m on vacation next week, I’ll probably do a bit of work from home. The main reason is because we do have a couple of things in the works and I don’t want to entirely lose momentum right now. And if I think of something that might work or have some brilliant flash of inspiration, I don’t want to forget it before I get back on July 28. Still I do intend to enjoy the in-laws visit and get some relaxing, knitting, and reading in.