Good to hear! Insomnia is miserable!
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Last night, it snowed- and I was perfectly happy snuggled up beneath my blankets against the chill. Today, the snow persists: and it looks like we might have a snowy Christmas after all, instead of the usual dismally damp soggy sort!
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After being closed for two months for rearrangement and refurbishing, the public library reopened this week. My son and I had a great time pointing out all the things that changed. And picking out books and films.
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I made it in to teach class today, for the first time in a week. And while being at work isn’t the most fun, being free of pain is.
ETA: some kind of nasty pharyngitis, but not chronic pain.
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Aww, how fun! I’m glad you two had a great time- I have so many fond memories of the library as a kid. (Do they still do reading logs with sticker prizes…?)
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Um… Are those a thing in [insert country where Sophia lives]?
I haven’t a clue what you’re on about… Some kind of speedreading contest while balancing on a ten-foot pole and chopping firewood with the other hand?
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Like a booklet where the child writes down what books they’ve read, and wins prizes for reading a lot.
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Although I’d like to see this. Is this a sport in [insert country where Rovarsson lives]?
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Ah! I’m Canadian, but had assumed they were a universal thing.
Basically, you kept a written record of all the books you read- the date too, usually, a comment or two and a star rating- and if you read enough books in a given amount of time, or filled out a certain number of pages in your little booklet, you got a sticker or some sort of silly little prize as incentive for young readers.
They had different stickers for stuff like reading a particular genre of book, or a book without pictures, and other little mini “quests” like that to broaden your horizons too.
I had so much fun with it as a kid, since I was already a voracious reader and getting prizes was thrilling. We used to stick the stickers into our folders or like onto our hands or shirt and walk around showing off which ones we had collected!
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We had that kind of thing here in the US when I was a kid in the 70s/80s.
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Ooooh I had that in my first year of elementary school in France! They tried to encourage kids to continue to read at home/outside of class (it’s the year you learn how to read). But it was just that year 
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That sounds really cool! Libraries don’t do that in Belgium, at least not as a general thing. Perhaps some motivated head-librarians organize this on their own.
I do remember my teacher assembling a prize pool by asking parents for second hand toys and letting us choose from the bag whenever we finished a book. My love of reading overruled my cunning plan to only read 30-page “books”.
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Yes. Yes it is.
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That was a thing here when I was a kid (United States).
On an unrelated note, I have a new idea for how to get more ratings in comps here.
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??? 
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I think it’s stickers 
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Exactly! Keep a written record of all the books games you read- the date too, usually, a comment or two and a star rating- and if you read enough books games in a given amount of time, or fill out a certain number of pages in your little booklet, you get a sticker!
We saw how well it worked for voting in the recent elections, after all.
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When I was a child, our local library had an unusually robust “library of things” they kept in the basement. It worked just like a library, lending out to library patrons for a set period of time, but instead focused on all sorts of stuff. I remember kitchen appliances, gadgets, and accessories of every possible kind, tools from simple hand tools to 2-ton jacks and even a single engine hoist that could be lent out with a return deposit. They had yard maintenance and gardening tools and implements, toys and gaming consoles, scientific instruments (I was often on the waiting list for one of the two telescopes, well during the summer anyway. No one seemed to want them during the winter, so I had pretty much free reign then.), and musical instruments of all sorts, including a sound board and speaker system that was often booked out for months for weddings on a budget. They also had a pretty respectable set of folding chairs and tables they kept in a garage off-site that were often highly sought after for similar reasons. They also had a killer collection of board games and ttrpg game books. It was one of several things that made the library a very important place to me growing up.
I haven’t seen anything like it since (Although, I’ve encountered other cool things, like open-access 3D-Printers or book clubs paired with cooking classes), but I’ve heard of it being a thing in other libraries. Sadly, the last time I visited my hometown’s library, not only had they liquidated their entire “library of things,” but they were no longer a public library, as voters had chosen not to continue the millage funding them. Patrons must now pay an annual fee to borrow items from their collection, making them a privatized library.
What kind of community doesn’t vote to support their only public library? 
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I just reached the 25k mark for NaNoWriMo 
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Congratulations! That’s huge! I bowed inelegantly out of Nano this year, (because I had been looking at academic responsibilities and saw how they all piled up horrifically in this month, so I hardly needed the extra stress, or distress at not meeting a self imposed goal), but my hats off to those who were able to squeeze it into their schedules! Woo! You’re halfway there!
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