Thoughts of the Lady in the Tower

2004-05-17 - 2:12 p.m.

I have a bunch of news to share from this past week, but the biggest is that Richard has an actual, real job (the previous one was a low-wage holdover)! Woot! We won't have to eat ramen noodles when we move into our house!

What boggles my mind, though, is that in late Jan/early Feb, I'll get a raise and our combined income will be 6 figures. Ack! Good ack, but still ack.

This is all good news, considering that our house is $0.25 million. Ack!

Richard and I visited the house on Friday. They've finished the tile, cabinets, countertops, and most of the appliances. They've still got drywall damage to repair, carpet, and small finishing touches (switch plates and such). Mom thinks they've painted, but I don't think so (why would you paint without fixing the holes in the drywall?). I didn't think to check the wall color with the chip they gave me when I was there.

Just 40 more days until settlement!

In other news... before I left for Rhode Island I had my mid-term performance review (mid-way through from when I started to when performance reviews will be). They were very, very pleased! Yay me!

Rhode Island... My first trip to New England was interesting. I went for a class ("Introduction to Explosives"). I stayed in Newport, which was a cute town I got to explore some on Monday with Christie, a coworker, after we got checked in at the hotel. Tuesday evening was a dinner with the rest of the class (yeah, a bunch of explosive and rocket geeks, can you imagine how that went? :-). Wednesday I was invited to Boston for Carolingia's dance practice (which I already wrote about). Thursday evening I vegged in the hotel room, and Friday I went home.

I saved a bunch of cute anecdotes about the trip, but now I don't have the energy to remember and/or write them. Blah.

There was a cute used bookstore with nice books and GOOD prices. I found a copy of Mary of Burgundy's Book of Hours in leather (maybe fake leather, leather ish, anyway) with gold (colored) decoration. It was the same size as her book of hours and everything!

It was interesting; I told Amalia about it and later she asked Richard to see "his" new book. We looked at each other, and then I realized she meant this book. I've been thinking of it in terms of "something a lady would have" (and the fact that it matches my persona so well is part of the appeal). When I described it, she thought of it as "source material for calligraphy and illuminations" and so, of course, it would be Richard's book.

I haven't written about Challenge of the Heart yet, still need to do that, perhaps later this week I'll get to it.