God hold Everest, God Heal Everest, God give him peace.

For almost a year my friend's son has been battling a rare form of cancer, Neuroblastoma. He has been through chemo, radiation, surgeries and stem-cell transplantation. Although he has been successful in beating this rare yet deadly cancer, he still has a long way to go.
Now, he has to endure 5 rounds of immunotherapy, which has been very successful in cases of Neuroblastoma. He's had 2 rounds already, and it has not been easy for him.
Here is an article about the disease and it's treatments (and the little boy in the picture is Everest, our friend).
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20100930_Children_s_Hospital_helps_develop_technique_to_improve_survival_from_neuroblastoma.html

I'm not sure if anyone even looks at my blog, but please, say a prayer for this little boy, he's been through too much already. And say a prayer for his family too.

So far so good

I believe I've mentioned in a prior post about my apprehensions with our eldest son starting middle school. In the past he has had troubles transitioning into a new school year, trouble with time management, trouble with turning in homework on time, etc. After attending Camp MS in mid-August, he felt confident that he was going to do well and that has transferred over into the new school year. He still struggles with time management, but he's getting a better handle on it. As for homework, the middle school has some strict policies about late assignments, and he is VERY aware of those requirements, and has worked extremely hard (although he hasn't had too many timely assignments,yet)to get them in on time. He likes to flow of his schedule, he enjoys transitioning from one class room to another instead of being in one classroom all day. He is enjoying all of his classes and teachers, especially Math and Band--funny how those two go together.
All-in-all, I think he's coming into his own, and that has put my mind, heart and soul at ease.

Missing...has anyone seen my library mojo?

I've been working in this field for over 12 years now and am discovering that I've completely lost focus. I could whine on about lack of funding for professional development, which impacts my ability to network, or how isolated I feel in my current work environment (and my previous job, too), BUT I cannot place blame there or anywhere, for that matter. The blame is mine. I've spent too many years just surviving life that I haven't pushed myself to actually do something about my being lost. I've focused on my spouse/children needs and have overlooked my own. This too is my fault. My husband, also a professional librarian, has tried to encourage me to go/do/join, etc, but I've been too afraid to try. To try means that I might fail, and we cannot have that, says that little voice in my head. Of course, we can, how else do we learn, but I'm so afraid of failure that I just don't do...anything. I know, it's pathetic. BUT
I'm taking the reins again. I've been accepted the Michigan Library Association's Leadership Academy. I have many thoughts about the future of libraries and our leadership. (Okay, that's one thing) I am attending the Michigan Library Assoc. Annual Meeting (kinda have to w/ academy). Plus, am thinking about going to ACRL & ALA next year, but going depends on many things. First of all, I have no funding for professional development, which is an obstacle. Not sure I could afford to pay out of my own pocket, but not saying, no.
I've been reading professional journals and publications trying to keep abreast. The difficult part of this is that I work/live in a remote area and don't have many opportunities to talk or meet with others. The few other librarians in the area have a different skill set than I do, working in more specialized areas of academic librarianship.
In addition, to feeling lost, my last 2 jobs have been in places where there is a small (or not at all) staff and the need for doing many different aspects of librarianship at the same time. Thus, making it hard for me to have a specialty in any one area. I am aware of trends in all areas, but not allowed to time to efficiently explore trends in more detail. I experience a vagueness in all areas of librarianship. A jill-of-all-trades is not necessarily the best thing, in my opinion. If I had to pinpoint my specialties, it would have to be in the areas of information literacy/instruction, collection development, access services and cataloging. But, then again, not to a point where I could walk into a managing role in a bigger institution and feel confident. Not to say that I wouldn't know how to do the job, I could, I do, but, again, in my opinion, I wouldn't be a specialist. And hoenstly, is specializing in one aspect that much of an advantage?
Maybe I need to rethink of this.
Wow, this just popped into my head. And that is where I'll end my blog for today.