Starting Fresh in September: I'm Ready for Fall!

Well. August 2020 certainly is a month I will never forget. My city of Cedar Rapids and the surrounding communities are still digging out from the derecho that hit on August 10th. The National Weather Service categorized it as a level 3 hurricane. It struck fast, lasted for a little over an hour, and unleashed destruction everywhere you look. 

In the past few weeks, I've been busy in a few different places: work and home. Work (the Marion Public Library) is keeping me feeling just a bit off-kilter. Our library sustained extensive water damage, and we have had to move the entire collection out of the building and into a facility where I'll be working for the next 14 or so months while our new library is being built. Our staff is scattered across Marion in a few different spots. The good news is that we have a rock star director and deputy director, and they have been working very hard to secure a temporary library location, which will open in a few weeks. It's small, and will house our newest additions to our collection for our patrons, along with computers, a printer, and wi-fi. Our staff has been working through a nasty heat wave unboxing, shelving, shifting books, getting organized so we can begin operations again and continue to serve our community. Thankfully, we have a break in the heat (fall temps can show up anytime!). I also took a break from working out at the gym for the past three weeks, and I hope to return tomorrow. Little things that help reframe daily life and keep me calm. 

My house--I am so lucky. With the help of my partner, and a great group called 8 Days of Hope, my big tree is now gone. Only a very large stump remains. My backyard has been transformed from one with a bit of shade, to one with no shade at all. It's hard to step outside and look at it. It's still a bit of a mess with a whole lot of sawdust around, dead grass (No rain & hot temps for weeks), and all my plants and flowers are dead. My partner's skid loader tore up my yard as he worked to get the largest and heaviest bits of the tree out to the curb. I've kept one piece of the tree, but haven't figured out just what I'll make from it. Next Spring I'll have a whole new yard to work on...replacing shade plants with full sun plants. So yes. I'm so lucky and grateful for whatever higher powers protected my home during the storm. 

Today I'm finally grocery shopping to replace some of what I lost during the 12 days I had no power. Keeping it light! And yesterday, I visited a few bookstores. As I've said before, books are my ultimate comfort go-to. Some people watch movies or tv to escape; I read books. It's been a very hard year reading-wise. I've struggled so much, more than I think I've ever struggled to read in my life! Between being physically tired and mentally fried, I spent a lot of nights just staring at the TV, watching Food Network. Couldn't land on any one of the many books I've got at home. Nothing clicked. But I certainly wanted to buy a few things this weekend, and hope it kick starts my reading flow again. 

Here's what I'm reading in September: 

I've been waiting for this book all summer!  I loved the Iron Druid Chronicles. A magical man with a terrible curse, and a mystery to solve. And he likes craft cocktails. Win win! 

This series has been around for a few years, and I never read it. Now it's going to be on Netflix and I can't wait! Found this at the Swamp Fox Bookstore in Marion, Iowa during a fundraiser for the library. Enola is the sister of Sherlock Holmes, and a mystery solver herself. Young adult. 

Another book I've been waiting to be released. I'm a big Susanna Kearsley fan, so this one was a no brainer. Each author writes a novella, with a cursed watch as the theme. Historical, mysterious, and a little bit of the unknown. I figured this would be a good way to return to reading--novellas are a bit longer than a short story, but not as long as a novel. 

Historical fiction by one of the best. This is about two women who are transported to penal colony Australia, and an aboriginal woman who has been displaced from her family and society. 

I've had an advanced reader's copy of this novel on my bookshelf for a few months. A young adult fantasy novel about a young woman who wants to belong, but may become a pawn to higher powers if she chooses the wrong path.

I hope you are all safe, well, and taking care of yourself while Covid-19 still rages. Iowa, unfortunately, has numbers that just keep going up. I plan on keeping myself safe with limited shopping trips, and lots of at home reading. I've had pumpkin everything on my mind lately, so I think today is a great day to make a pumpkin dessert of some kind, and I'm bringing out the crockpot for a tasty meal tonight. 

Take care and I'll be back soon with reviews! 

The Bookalicious Babe

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Starting Fresh in September: I'm Ready for Fall!

Derecho Update from Cedar Rapids

I've got a few moments this morning so I thought I'd update everyone on what's been happening here in Cedar Rapids, Iowa since I last posted. 

We continue to clean up. The National Weather Service has determined that we had a category 3 hurricane blow through Iowa. Cedar Rapids was the hardest hit area, along with Marion, which is a small city that borders Cedar Rapids. It's part of our Metro area, and where I work at the Marion Public Library as the Collection Development Manager. 

Tree debris is everywhere. The National Guard arrived in town about a week ago and has been working to clean up the debris. It's hard to imagine, but literally every block of Cedar Rapids and Marion (and all the surrounding small towns) have damage and trees down. Every. single. home. No one escaped without some kind of damage to their property. The City of CR is working block by block to pick up tree debris, and plans on making three trips around the city to collect it all. 

I finally had power come back on last Friday. I was without power for 12 days. I spent the first week at my house at night, but ended up staying at my partner's home for the next week. He borrowed a generator from a friend so at least we had some lights and a fan! We managed to save a good amount of our food, but ended up having to throw away a lot of defrosted meat and fish, along with other groceries. I consider myself very lucky. My home sustained minimal damage, and what food was spoiled we can replace. So many are not so lucky. 

I did lose a few trees in my back yard. One tree was a Japanese maple that my friends at Barnes & Noble gifted me when my dad passed away in 2004. It was snapped by another tree falling on it. That made me cry more than anything. My big old tree is coming down; today is the last day the crew will be here to finish up cutting it down. I've cried about that, too, even though it was a tree that caused me lots of aggravation over the years-it dropped branches and bits and pieces continuously! But it also suffered a lot of damage and was best to take it down. My partner and I measured the trunk yesterday and with some calculations, figured it was about 100 years old. Which fits in with my home, which was built in 1927. My yard already looks completely bare. I can say with 100% certainty that I will never have a tree planted close to any future home I live in ever again. I've seen so much destruction from trees falling on homes, cars, garages. Homes split in two by trees crashing down on them. Cars crushed. 

I've been busy helping haul tree debris, and working with my fellow library staffers moving our collection out of our damaged library and getting it set up in a temporary space. Lots of organizing to make it easier for us to find materials when we are ready to open again in our new, temporary spaces. We've been serving the community by volunteering where help was needed, and having a tech space set up at a nearby park for people to recharge phones and personal devices. 

Clean up and getting back to "normal" will be a very long process. 

I haven't been reading much; I've been so tired at night I can't focus long enough to read more than a few pages. But a new month is not far away, and I plan on getting back to it and diving into the books I've got waiting here at home. 

I am healthy, I have food and a home, a job, and good people around me. I am lucky. 

My tree after the Derecho. 

My tree after the crew has worked on taking it down. August 24th, 2020. 

Measured the trunk of the tree for posterity. 

The debris behind my house. This it what every home is like on every block of Cedar Rapids. 

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Derecho Update from Cedar Rapids