Oh Yeah. I have a Blog.

This week has been a good one. I started my new job, and it is wonderful. I'm being paid to look at and make pictures. Sweet. There are some catches/difficulties--I can't just draw whatever I want, of course--but thinking of ideas to fit the assignment is kind of fun in its own way. Challenging, yes. But enjoyable.

Though I did make a rather stupid mistake yesterday. Or this week, I guess.

You see, I've stayed On Call at the bookstore--not because I wouldn't want to work my other job full time, but because they asked me to. And I rather like the bookstore's employee discount. And having access to ARCs. And books in general.

So anyway, my bookstore supervisor asked me to help in the bookstore Friday evening because of Womens Conference. So I tried to calculate the hours I worked that week so that I could work that evening without going over 40 hours. Unfortunately, I didn't count the hours correctly. I was thinking of the week as starting on Monday... forgetting the fact that I worked Saturday, and Fridays are pay days. So Saturday was part of this work week.

Fortunately before clocking in at the bookstore I went and asked how many hours I had, just to make sure--and I found that I'd already worked all my hours, because the hours I thought I'd kept free to work that evening I'd worked on Saturday. Ugh.

So I went and told the General Book people what had happened, feeling immensely stupid and apologetic. Then I walked home to eat.

As I walked I was thinking, now what am I going to do? I feel stupid and guilty and just plain bad for letting my supervisor down, I didn't plan anything for this evening because I was going to be working.... I guess I could just read... thats it!

I hurried and ate at home and headed back to the bookstore. I told the people at the general book desk that I wouldnt be shelving or anything and wouldn't be technically working, but I would be reading against the back wall in case anyone needed help finding stuff in the Childrens Section.

I had brought Dandelion Wine and The Poisonwood Bible with me, but I decided to read something else. Shelves of books were at my disposal. Having talked to my mom about the book The Perilous Gard the night before, I had that book on my mind, so I went and grabbed Elizabeth Marie Pope's other novel, the Sherwood Ring, which I read 2/3s of while I was not-really-working-but-avaliable-to-help at the bookstore (I only ended up helping one person, but I felt less stupid by being able to slightly make up for my stupid mistake) and I finished it when I got home afterward.

But sitting in a bookstore not as an employee for a few hours is not really such a good idea for me, or at least my bank account if you know what I mean. I went home not only with a shiny new copy of the Sherwood Ring, but also a pretty copy of Jane Eyre (There are four or five editions in the bookstore, I chose the one that didn't have an ugly painting on the front. I'm one of those shallow people that judges books by their covers) and a hardback copy of The Princess Academy from the bargain table (one that they forgot to put the Newbery sticker on. I was looking for one that had a less-rumpled sticker, and I was very happy to find one with no sticker at all.)

I've got to take advantage of my employee discount while I still have it, eh?

Speaking of books, Emily and I are starting a Book Review Blog. We're still in the process of getting it up and running, but we've both got a book review up. Predictably, mine is much more rambly and much less to the point than Em's, but what can I say? When it comes to books, I get pretty rambly.