Wow!! I can’t believe how crazy long it has been since I updated this blog!! After quarantine ended I got so caught up with returning to work, bible study, getting my new iPad and elimination dieting that this blog pretty much moved to the back of my priority list and got abandoned. But I am now ready to get this show back on the road and get this blog back up and moving again. So get ready for a variety of new life updates, Kidz Bop Reviews and funny childhood stories, it’s going to be epic!!
Let’s start off with a life update. After being quarantined for almost 4 months, I finally returned to work at the Library in early July. It was a definitely a way more crazy transition than I anticipated, let me tell you! I had to learn a variety of new safety procedures during the first week back, such as taking my temperature when I arrived for my shift and wiping down the computer keyboard and monitor after I used them to fill out my time card. I was also told that pages would need to wipe down high touch surfaces with Clorox spray and a special cloth every hour beginning at 10 am, unless the designated cleaning personnel is present in the branch. However, the most difficult new task to learn was emptying the book drop. Before the pandemic, the pages would just empty the outdoor book drop periodically throughout their shifts and then during closing we would replace the two wooden bins with the bin cloth bin and the opposite would be done at opening. Library customers were also allowed to return books through small slots near the main entrance and the clerks were just in charge of taking care of those items. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well now doing the book drop is quite the long step by step process. Here is what I have to do:
1. Check both the indoor cloth bin book drop near the entrance and the outdoor book drop to see if either of them are full.
2. If one or both book drops are full, go into the big meeting room and put on your rubber gloves, plastic gown and face shield. Take off your mask
3. Go to the back room and take out the empty cloth bin and replace the indoor bin with it
4. Wheel the indoor bin just by the door of the outside book drop and transfer books from outside drop into the indoor bin
5. Wheel the full indoor bin into the big meeting room and park it next to the next available empty table
6. Move books from bin onto the table and consolidate them into piles fairly high to take up as little room as possible
7. After bin is empty, take a yellow post it note and sharpie and write down the day of the week, date and time the book drop was emptied and initial it. Put the note in front of the books you just piled up on the table.
8. Wheel empty bin to back room
9. Go back to meeting room and take off face shield and gown. Hang them on hook. Put on mask
10. Spray down face shield and gown with Clorox spray
11. Throw away gloves and wash your hands
Whew! It is quite the big job and definitely took me a while to learn all the steps. It was also overwhelming at first to remember to clean every hour. I was so overwhelmed and stressed trying to remember everything that first week that I misplaced my locker key twice and even forgot the password I had set on my time card my first day back. But to be fair, I had also gotten my new iPad at the time and had to set lots of new passwords on that. So it was very hard to remember which password I set for each thing. After that first week, I definitely got used to being back at work and things started to go a lot smoother. However, there was one day earlier this month where I was spraying down my gown and face shield and as I was spraying, the top of the bottle came off. The bottle then fell to the floor and splattered all over. A small droplet got on the right side of my face and before I could even wipe it off, it dropped right into my eye. Of course my eye was burning like crazy and I had to run to the back to try to wipe it. Luckily as soon as I wiped my eye, the burning stopped and I was okay after that. After work that day, I notified my supervisor about what happened and she sent an email to all the staff describing my incident and reminding them to make sure the tops of the spray bottles are tight before spraying. The email did not specify who got Clorox spray in their eye. But I’m sure people probably figured it was me as I am known to be the clutz among the staff lol.
Other than working, I have also been experimenting with my eating habits and late last week, I officially became gluten free. For the past year I have been having lots of stomach issues. At first, it was just an occasional thing and I didn’t think much of it. But by the end of the summer, it got to the point where I was feeling sick several days a week and my stomach issues were starting to really interfere with my daily life. Sometimes it was hard to even leave my house without fearing being sick in public. So after Labor Day, I officially eliminated dairy from my diet to see if that would help my stomach. But after a month and a half, I still was not noticing a difference with my stomach. So I have recently cut out gluten in addition to the dairy, so we will see if that helps. My diet right now is definitely very strict and hard to manage at times. But I am staying strong and trusting in God to provide me with what I need to grow from this experience. So far I have found a variety of gluten free foods to try and some nice people from my church, who have food allergies even dropped off a nice bag of gluten free foods for me to try!! It is so awesome to be part of such a loving church community where people are constantly praying for each other and are so actively involved in each other’s lives. Seeing people being there for each other like this has really increased my faith and trust in God and his use of people in our lives. He is the reason I have gotten through COVID and my new dietary restrictions with so much courage, strength and a positive mind set.
“I can do all things through a Christ who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:13
