I’ve fallen behind and I can’t catch up!!!  The older I get the faster the time goes!  Maybe time really did drag back when I was in school.  I don’t get nearly as much done in a day as I used to.  Cleaning my home, doing laundry or yard work.  Doesn’t matter what chore I tackle – it takes longer!  I’m sure that means that time is moving at an increased rate of speed during the daylight hours!

On the other hand – while I’m looking forward to having my children and grandsons visit this summer, the weeks seems to drag by rather slowly.  They love coming ‘to Grandpa’s farm’ and helping Grandpa ‘work’.  They almost forget that Grandma’s here until they get hungry.  It’s a good thing I love to cook.   It’s also a good thing that my ‘girls’ enjoy helping out so I can just be Grandma for the day!  When they’ve all gone home, I’ll probably be exhausted.  But, it will be a good kind of exhausted.  And, the next day I’ll start looking forward all over again to the next time I get to see them.

While I’m waiting for my family to get here in July I’ll try to concentrate on just enjoying life each day, counting my blessings, working, digging in my flower garden, and thanking the Lord for my husband of 40 years.  I mustn’t yearn for the future in such a way that I miss the blessings of the present.

One of the blessings I enjoy is being able to immerse myself in a good book.  And, we have a great selection of books new to the library thanks to donations and great sales!  Don’t forget to come in and Check It Out. . .

It’s wet in Hayes County!!!   It really is!!!  We’ve got snow and it’s still coming down!  Now if it will just stay where it has fallen and melt there, it will be of some help to this dry area of Nebraska.  The wind has produced some scenic snow patterns on roof overhangs and on window screens.  No doubt the snowfall is more attractive to those who don’t have to do the scooping, but I haven’t heard any complaints so far.  Remember the four day blizzards we used to get forty years ago?  Snow drifts over the barns and one way traffic over the hills for weeks once the roads were finally opened.  We’d have monopoly tournaments and hot cookies from the oven as soon as the electricity was restored.  Several days of no school!  No cell phones or i-pads to entertain us.  We had to actually talk to each other.  Oh, those were the days!

Life has changed in many ways since then, but one thing that hasn’t changed is my love of reading historical novels of romance or intrigue.  I will be forever indebted to my parents and teachers for opening up the world of imagination using the words of writers everywhere.  I give no apologies for my voracious reading habit.  And I also take great pleasure in witnessing my grandsons visit their library and enjoying the children’s books.  One thing they do that I don’t like to do is read a book twice, or three times or as many times as they can get Grandpa or Grandma to read it to them!  By the time the books go back to the library they can recite some of them verbatim.  Not me.  When I finish a book it goes back immediately so I can start another one.  Too many books and too little time left to need to read a book over again.

If you want to curl up with a book and a cup of your favorite beverage while you wait for the spring work to begin, come in, search the shelves and Check It Out. . .

It’s wet in Hayes County!!!  Well, not really.  I’m just so tired of saying “it’s dry” that I decided to change it up a bit.  The power of positive thinking?  If that actually worked, it would have rained many weeks ago.  We’re all in the same boat – so to speak.  Except this boat needs waders for dust.

All summer we have had critters come up and stand under the sprinklers on the lawn.  Pheasant, quail, deer.  The deer decimated my garden by taking big chunks out of the cucumbers and tomatoes and eating the blooms and tops out of the beans.  They could have had better pickens if they hadn’t tromped it all to pieces before the first frost.   I tried yelling and waving my arms only to find they were back twenty minutes later.  Then we pulled out the pellet gun.  It didn’t motivate them to move on either.  Now that the garden has frozen they have taken to eating the flowers out of the hanging baskets at my back door and standing on their back legs to reach the berries on the cedar tree.  Maybe it’s time to double the hunting permits in Hayes County!

If you have more time now that the gardening is over and before you think about Christmas shopping you might want to come in and look over all the new books we’ve added since spring.  Several nice boxes of donations and a purchase of large print books has the shelves overflowing.  I’ve discovered many new and interesting authors if you need a change of pace.  Or, we have lots of the old standbys as well.  Come on in and CHECK  IT  OUT.  .  .

Have you kept that New Year’s Resolution, or has it gone by the wayside already?  It’s never too late to start something you really want to do.  Never too late for self-improvement.  Never too late to do something you should have done a long time ago.  Unfortunately, good intentions just doesn’t get it done.  It takes action.  That’s my problem.  I make a plan to do it later, and then later slips away.

What is it that you want to do?  Start a diet?  Write a letter?  Draw up a will?  Clean out the garage?  If you answered ‘Read a good book’, your local library can help you with that!  We have over seven thousand items in the Hayes Center Public Library to choose from.  And, if we don’t have it we can get it for you.  All you do is pay the postage back to the lender library which adds up to only a couple of dollars per book.  Pretty good deal!

We all have our preferences of brands on food, clothing, vehicles, etc.  Some of us stay with the old proven brands and others (like me) enjoy trying something new.  Do you have a favorite author?  Is there a new author you want to try?  Call or stop in and let your voice be heard.  I’m always looking for new ideas.  And, I love hearing from the patrons of this community.

We’ve added new books lately to the children’s and youth sections, the western, non-fiction and mystery sections, and the Christian and large print sections.  We’ve also had some very generous gifts from Hayes Countians which will allow for additional new items in the future.  Why not come in and Check It Out. . .