CONCERT WAS FUCKING AWESOME.

Can die happy woman.

I'm looking for book recs. In particular, I'd like to read:
1) a historical piece of fiction taking place in Ancient Egypt!
2) a good nonfiction book about ancient egypt that would encompass religion, politics, and social dynamics.

Any takers? I started bumping around on amazon, but figured that I'd canvas my learned friends!

WOOOT :D

...sunny inside!

Happy 2010!!

Well, as anticipated, I have a future sis-in-law! My brother proposed on NYE and was happily accepted. The happy couple celebrated with family and friends and when they called me to tell me I was just so beyond happy for them. The wedding will be Spring/summer 2011 :)

There's snow outside! And it's pretty!! I'm sure it'll get brown and disgusting soon enough, but still, it's beautiful for now :)

New Mexico was fun, but a little wearying; I had crazy allergies and so was stuffy, runny, or sleepy the entire time :( Still, I had a great time with Dr J and his family and came back from NM well-rested.

We got back the day after Christmas, and I spent the following week working on my year end report. It was painful, but it was submitted at 4 pm on NYE, and I got to celebrate the coming of 2010 with no clouds hanging over my head. We had some friends over for a small dinner party and laughed our asses off into the New Year.

I had planned to be productive this weekend but...well plans change and it's much more fun to hang out with florabellee :) And...well, lots of snow! After shoveling it and trudging through it through most of the long weekend, Sunday was nice and lazy. I curled up with romance novels, my cat, and hot cocoa.

and so now here we are at Monday and people are coming back to lab and I'm happy again. I hope that you're happy too, wherever you are :)

"The virtues, she once explained to me, are like bonnets: the very ones that look best on other people may not happen to suit one's own particular style; and, she added, with a slight deflection of metaphor, that none of the ready-made virtues ever had fitted her: they all pinched somewhere, and she'd given up trying to wear them."
-Edith Wharton, "The Rembrandt"

~6.5 months later...

( Pics of projectCollapse )

For Dr. J's sister, Christmas 2009 :D

Now onto socks for my brother!

...escape was not long enough...

They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. To-day, wrapped in the complacent armour of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one but lightly and are soon forgotten, but then--how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal. A denial heralded the thrice crowing of a cock, and an insincerity was like the kiss of Judas. The adult mind can lie with untroubled conscience and a gay composure, but in those days even a small deception scoured the tongue, lashing one against the stake itself.

~ Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

Because I've whined and whined about funding apps, I figured I HAD to say it here, and never mind the fact that I haven't updated in forever: I GOT A FELLOWSHIP!

Well, the phrase Dr J used was "not the brightest bulb in the barn".

Barn?! My immediate reaction was, "But there aren't that many lights in a barn."

Now this is what I think went on in that darling brain of his: I think he mixed up "sharpest tool in the shed" with "brightest bulb in blah blah blah" And for some reason shed == barn.

I don't know how I know this, but I will bet you, 10 to 1, that this is exactly what went down in this brain.

Now that the mystery has been given a rather anticlimactic resolution, I will say that I very much enjoyed all the replies to my poll. While I never stopped to think about it, Christmas tree makes sense and evokes quite lovely memories of the restful holidays.