The day before the day before a day off...

Ahhh.... (Did you hear that? That was me breathing a sigh of relief.) Today was a L.O.N.G. day and I am relieved that it is over!

We (or I - the royal "we") are trying something new at the library and offering a teen summer reading program this year, which has never been done in our town. So far, everyone has been really pleased with it. It's called Book Bingo, where the kids get a bingo sheet that has different book genres in each of the various squares and they have to read five squares in a row to get a bingo. It is great because it is seriously low maintenance and it gets the kids to read different kind of books to get a prize. So far, I've signed up over 60 kids in just a week (it started last Monday)! I'm really happy with that.

Anywho, today was the official kick-off party for the teen summer reading game and I had 35 ACTUAL teens show up! Now that number may not sound so impressive to the untrained ear, but let me just say that getting 35 teens to come to a program at a library, when they could be doing anything else, like watching TV or being a mall rat, is basically down-right incredible. (Especially since they are not used to coming to us for anything else - other than books.) So, not to toot my own horn or anything, but this is one for the library's history book.

The party was a Harry Potter Magic Show. We had a great magician, Terry Parrett, who kept the kids attention for a whole hour with demonstrating and then training the kids how to do magic tricks. He was completely fantastic. He even gave the kids tricks to take home with them, like double-sided cards, a wand, and this freaky fish thing. After the show, I gave out raffle prizes and best Harry Potter Costume prizes. The party was a huge success! I plan on making it even bigger next year.

(BTW - that very cool drawing of Hermione, Harry, & Ron was done by this chick named Sarah - she really is an artist. I love this rendition of the trio because this is totally how I would picture them (movie aside). Check her blog. She is crazy talented.)

So now, I am wiped. I'm headed to my bathroom where I will proceed to spend the next hour soaking in my bathtub.

Before I go though, I just want to say that I hate yellow polo shirts on men. I know this sounds completely random - and it is - but please folks, don't let your fella dress like an Easter egg. I swear to you that this past Saturday night, Tim and I went to the movies and saw not one, but SIX DIFFERENT men wearing yellow polos, all within four hours and at the same place (and two of them were on a double date together... yikes). Just don't let your man do this. And if you are a man reading this and you wear yellow polos, shame shame you know your name. I am still having nightmares about these tacky shirts, I just didn't feel it worthy to dedicate an entire post to writing about it. But now you know how I feel.