A quiet night, a stack of books, a tuna melt on rye

Whoo! The first Christmas card has arrived! Thanks wagrobanite.

The package my mother told me expect also came today. I would appear that I have officially aged out of the care package (which fair enough) since everything in it was already mine. And all of them were Chirstmas decorations that I hadn't moved across the country because I wasn't particularly attached to them in the first place. At least now I actually have a decoration out since prior to this I was being too lazy to actually get any of the decorations I do have out of the storage cupboard. Along those lines I think I will need to get one of the Rosemary bushes shaped like a little tree this weekend at put all of my miniature ornaments on it.

I've been very much not realizing that it was December since December started. It just occurred to me today that our big choir concert is this weekend. It seems like we just started with the Hodie; though equally surprisingly, despite feeling like we've spent no time with the music I also feel relatively well prepared on it. Unlike the Magnificat last year. That was kind of dire (although I guess not too dire since we did win an award -- or was that for the spring concert?)

But over all with the December-type stuff, I haven't listened to any CDs -- not even the Christmas Survival Guide which is my favorite -- I haven't watched any horribly cheesy made-for-tv movies (holiday based guilty pleasure #1) and I haven't broken out any of the Regency romance novellas (holiday based guilty pleasure #2 -- what can I say, I like being emotionally manipulated around Christmas). What am I doing with myself?

I don't think I have appropriately expressed my excitement over the Les Mis movie, so let me do that now.

I am so excited! The OBC recording was more or less the sountrack to my childhood (at least when in my Mom's car where it was that or the Mermaids soundtrack; in my Dad's car was the mix tap of Jimmy Buffet, Jim Croce and Natalie Cole where the tape cuts off halfway through Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown). I even distinctly have the memory of having the discussion with my mother one morning before Kindergarten that "Some songs are okay to sing along with Les Mis in the car, but it was inappropriate to sing those songs at school". Five/six year old me was possibly a little too attached to "Lovely Ladies," particularly the "Come on Captain ..." bit. Yeah.

Does anyone know of a live stream for election coverage tonight? I no longer get real time television at my house.

I think I just got talked into trowing together a "Hipster Snow White" costume tonight. Thinking White shirt with blue tank over, yellow skirt (really a dress, see Quinn in the "Walking on Sunshine" number, and big red felt bow attached to a headband. Any thoughts on making this better?

There is a person down the street from me who consistently goes all out with their Halloween display. Every time I go past, someone is taking pictures and since this Hogsmeade's theme is festival of the dead I thought I would join them with an eye toward making tags out of said pictures. So now I am here asking for your favorites.

( Lots of Skeletons )

Ugg. I've been ridiculously tired all day today and I don't know why. I got plenty of sleep last night and the rest of the week for that matter, but I was all I could do today to keep my eyes open. Bleck.

I also came home from work today to find a post-it note on my door inviting me to the girls across the hall's bible study. I'm going to end up being super amused if this is some sort bid to ~save~ my well churched-member of the choir-Presbyterian self. I mean, I'm all for being invited if you think that I will have some differing insight to add, but I'm not sure how they would have gathered that from our one conversation of any length which involved me asking if they could move their car so I could get mine in the driveway for the duration of the Hurricane so that it wouldn't flood if the pumps got backed up. Also speaking in person might have been preferable to a post-it note.

Well, Broadway night went off pretty well. Only one instance of someone coming in too early on a song, and that was apparently the new guy, so we'll give him a break. Even better I never have to do Ching-A-Ring or Polly-Wally again!

I need to start getting together music now for the normally scheduled one in the Spring. I have a bit of a crusade to convince people that worthwhile musical theater pieces are still being written. Tonights most modern piece was the Les Miserables medley and as much as I might love the show, it is still nearly 30 years old. Other things have happened since. Also, in general, we needed more funny.


Finally, with regards to yesterday's LJ problem with moderation queues, it appears to have been fixed today. YAY! and fingers crossed.

The new term of Nerd Wars started today. For those that don't know, Nerd Wars is a competition community on Ravelry where participants are divided into teams based on fandoms and complete needlework projects to prompts for points. I've been assigned to Team Jazz Hands (Musical Theater) which was my first choice, so yay. Now I just have to decide what costume piece to knit for the costume challenge. Or figure out a challenge to fit a baby sweater for my Cousin's new little girl into. Hmmmmm.

I made ( this )today when I was supposed to be working. My graphic ~skills~ continue to be in demand among the other analysts for making facebook graphics. Frankly that is a little scary.

I even have some artifact pictures that I took over a week ago that I should be posting. They were all sorts of informative about the different types of ceramics but alas I'm still feeling rather lazy so I guess that will wait until tomorrow.

Things which I have learned today at work: Wrigley's introduced Doublemint gum in 1914 and the doublemint twins advertising campaign in 1936. Also, I would appreciate it if field crew would not bring back gum wrappers. I guarantee you that the gum wrapper will biodegrade in the ground before it becomes archaeologically significant. The same goes for the plume from a Hersey's kiss. Thanks.

In other things, Today was the first night of Handbell choir in addition to regular choir, as well as our handbell director's last night since he got a job at a church in Lafayette. Sad day (for us, not for him). I managed to move myself back down to D and E(5) from E and F(5) which seems like it wouldn't be that difficult of a change reading wise, but I was constantly forgetting which hand my line note and space note were in and music doesn't usually sound so good if you play your two notes in exact reverse order. Trust me. Apparently the main choir direct will be taking over handbells starting next week.

Sometimes I love how nerdy my office is. Every month, I have the other lab-ies look for weird (and normal) holidays and I illustrate the calendar. This month we had cheese pizza day, defy superstition day, and of course for today, talk like a pirate day. Not only did I talk like a pirate, but Dena pulled out the bandana's that she and her mother had gotten on a pirate tour of the quarter so I tied up my ponytail with the scull and cross bones bandana. I may have looked like an early 1960's pirate.

The calendar also includes Hobbit Day (which is Saturday) and some sort of second breakfast event that I found on facebook for 11:00 on Friday. So, today we also finalized our plans of who was going to bring what food to our second breakfast celebration. I'm in charge of something savory and egg-based.

So I love when my random fandom related skills become useful in non-fandom contexts. The other girls in the lab now thing that I am a Photoshop Genius because I have done such things as animating two pictures together so it looks like one of them is smashing a rock, grafted another's head onto a piece of fan art of Bilbo meeting the guy from ghost hunters (don't ask) and put a dramatic monkey in the background, and most recently fixed a third one's facebook-timeline header so that it wasn't all stretched out. Oh, the wonders of aspect ratio.