Today is the last day of vacation. It turned out to be a pretty good one. Granted, I didn't do everything that I wanted to do ... I would have liked to do a little more reading or a little more playing of World of Warcraft. I did get a lot of time to relax. That is the most important thing, particularly with the Summer Reading Program at work kicking off in two weeks!

Interestingly enough, a lot has gone down with work while I was away. Thanks to emailed memos and other forms of modern communication, I am up to speed on most, if not all, of them.

The first of the news came via telephone. It actually started while I was at work the last day before vacation. Ray called from home to let me know that I had received a phone call from the state department I had applied for a position with. He wanted me to call them back right away, but that just seemed wrong considering the fact that I was on the clock. So, I waited a couple of hours and called from the parking lot at the end of my shift.

Most of you know this already, but the department decided to go with one of the other candidates. On a bright note, it seems like I was one of the finalists. The woman who called, who is a friend as well as a professional colleague, made feel very good about how well I did during the process. I guess it was pretty close.

I have to say that I am happy with the choice they made. I didn't know who was applying other than the person who was awarded the position, and that is only because of being told who it was given to. One of the concerns I had about the position was that it would be difficult for the person to balance continued good service for children's services while also helping to expand similar services for tweens and teens. I think the person who was selected will be able to do that with ease.

I also received so many supportive emails during the application/interview process that I cannot help but not feel good about myself professionally. It is nice to know that so many people think positively of me. For example, my boss sent me an email after I told him the results of the application telling me that he was not sure whether to tell me he was sorry about my not getting the job or to say how happy he was that I was staying with the library. It is hard to not feel good after reading something like that.

I also received an email from the library director about the status of the health insurance confusion. It seems that the library board voted to continue trying to get our insurance through the town. The good news is that it means we will definitely be secure in our coverage, but it sort of kills any chances of bringing in Ray under a family plan. When asked before, the town officials said they don't have any intention of providing such benefits for gay or lesbian employees.

On a brighter note, the town in which I worked was finalizing its budget. It looks like the library had its budget proposal approved. It included a very small increase with the budget line for payroll level funded. I mentioned before that we are really a private corporation that was actually "subcontracted" to be a public library. We were founded in 1882. It sounds weird, but it is common in New England. Anyway, the library had some savings, and the board voted to approve the transfer of some of that money as well as some money for general supplies to be used to give the staff a 3% raise.

That was really a big surprise. I feel really fortunate. So many people are struggling, us included, that I had not at all expected any chance of a raise. We were actually mostly hoping for no major cuts leading to weeding out services and laying off staff or shorter hours.

We are gearing up for the craziness and fun that is the summer reading program. We have all of our programming locked in. we are just finishing up with some of the marketing materials and finalizing some of the tiny details such as the reading records and such. I can't wait for the fun to kick off!

So, it seems all-in-all, things are going pretty well for the library.