First Snow of the Year (2024 Edition)

Nice and late this year!

Music Monday – “With your feet on the air and your head on the ground/Try this trick and spin it, yeah/Your head will collapse, if there’s nothing in it/And you’ll ask yourself/Where is my mind”

Where Is My Mind” – The Pixies

Secular Sunday – Hiding Anne Frank in Trump’s America?

Saturday Snap – Baby Librarian Hammond? Young Man Hammond?

It’s an unofficial tradition (does two people doing it so far equal a “tradition”?) that when a colleague is at one of the branches I work at – either for a meeting or redeployed due to illness or whatever – they leave a doodle of some kind as a “thanks” for using my desk.

The younger librarians I work with like to call me “Old Man Hammond” (probably should talk to HR about the harassment I suffer) so one colleague recently left me here interpretation of a favourite photo I have on my desk from when I was “Young Man Hammond” – even before I became a librarian.

This was during a free Engagement Photo Shoot that Shea and I “won” at a Bridal Fair in Calgary then spent a couple hundred bucks on prints.

Most pics were pretty traditional and serious but this one right at the end of the shoot is one the photographer snapped as we joked around and has become a constant reminder to not take things too seriously and always try to have fun – no matter what.

Friday Fun Link – This Is Mother Fucking Web Site

I remember learning the basics of HTML in 1997 and still joke that some of my first web design jobs were because I could “get a picture to show up on a web page.”

Times have changed but I love this site as it brings back so many memories of the core web site design principles I learned back then (this site is pretty minimalist but I don’t have the time to keep up with the knowledge to keep it truly minimal and optimized in a way that I might have cared about years ago.)

Ironically, I had trouble getting the picture below uploaded though – a PNG screenshot of the web site wouldn’t display when uploaded so I had to convert it to JPG to show up!

Screenshot

Throwback Thursday – #tbt – Prom Grand March (May 1991)

So I joined the Prom Planning Committee for Pace’s graduating class.

Kids today are much more environmentally conscious but in 1991 when I graduated, I do believe high school proms was a Top 10 contributor to the hole in the ozone layer!

Wisdom Wednesday – What Is Compassionate Leadership?

@upeace_centre

Leading with empathy builds trust and connection! ?? Let’s inspire and uplift each other! Link in Bio #motivation #leadershiptips #trendingvideo

? original sound – UPEACE Centre – UPEACE Centre

I know farewell messages are like eulogies and tend to be overly kind to the dearly departed.

But if we’re being honest, “compassionate leadership” can be many things but here are some things I’m pretty sure it’s not:

* making staff cry in meetings
* berating people
* trying to be intimidating instead of kind
* starting from a position of distrust instead of trust
* being dismissive of staff concerns or requests
* making excuses
* acting like a Tiger Mother
* having double standards where one person can “get away” with certain behaviours/language/tone that are called out with others
* (allegedly) flipping over tables in meetings
* bending rules/making up rules when it suits you.
* grilling staff like you’re a lawyer trying to prosecute a case instead of taking a solution-oriented approach
* never simply asking “Are you okay?” or “What do you need?”
* treating the workplace as more important than a person’s personal life/treating people only as employees instead of holistic human beings

Anyhow, preview of next week’s topic: “Conversations Are Where The Real Work Happens”

And apropos of nothing, here’s a recipe for delicious perogies which are a Saskatchewan staple as (almost) everyone knows!

@by.nay.a

Loaded creamy cheesy perogies #recipe #easyrecipe #cooking #food #tiktokrecipe #dinner #dinnerideas

? original sound – By Nay A

I’m Hoping To Sneak Up On Shea This Year…

Music Monday – “The winds have blown over the ocean/The winds have blown over the sea/The winds have blown over the ocean/And brought back my Bonnie to me”

My Bonnie” – John McDermott

(Fun Fact – we don’t get many celebrity sightings in Regina but I saw John McDermott in the lobby of the Hotel Sask in Regina one year around Christmas when he was in town for a concert!)

Secular Sunday – Bible vs. Quoran