The new job is going well, almost two weeks into it. I feel a little overwhelmed and under focused so I need to work on developing some "projects" or tangible exhibit goals I can work on.

I'm used to wearing jeans and t-shirts and work clothes to work so I had to go shopping on Saturday for some office job clothes. That was fun. I think it is tax deductible too! Speaking of taxes, Javers is thrilled to marry me so my comparably lower wage can bring him (us) down into a lower tax bracket and we don't have to pay so much every year. It's comforting to know I am such a valuable asset. Don't be fooled, this is a marriage of convenience, not love.

I don't really know what else to write about right now so here is just what's on my mind right now... I went for a bike ride tonight. I saw some more dead birds. This is probably normal to find on the side of a road so I'm not going to worry about it. During my ride, a nasty storm was brewing to my west and moving my way. I could see it in the distance when I was traveling west, but it looked pretty far away. Then I turned around and started heading east with the storm behind me. Thirty minutes later, when I turned around again, the storm had grown and was now spewing lightning. I raced home with the summer travel episode of the Fresh Air podcast as my theme song and inspiration (hardly inspiring, but I did learn that airfares are cheap this summer and we should all check out yapta.com). As I was nearing the four-way stop 0.5 miles from my house a lady in a minivan stuck her hand out the window and beckoned me. She just wanted to warn me that a terrible storm was coming our way. How nice. I think she was going to offer me a ride, but I told I just lived down the road and was headed home.

Big News

I got a new job! Starting on June 3 I will be working for the Museum of World Treasures in Wichita (MWOT). I will be the Curator of Exhibits and Research. I will be taking over the position vacated by someone else, but the job will change a little and I will be my own department.

The MWOT is a relatively new museum started by a collector in 2001. The staff has been trying to professionalize the museum in the last several years and now participating in the American Association of Museums' (AAM) accreditation process. It sounds like a challenging and exciting job. I will miss doing archaeology, but I enjoyed all the museum work I did before I became an archaeologist. In my new job, I could possibly still go on digs as part of my professional development. I am also looking foward to being with Jeremy again and living in one place.

Also big news is Nick graduating from college. Nice work. I'll miss you. I really mean that.

Another dead bird today. Just outside the gym in Abilene right next to the tree he/she purportedly fell from.

AND ... I totally cried during Survivor tonight. Seriously. Emily, do you still watch Survivor? Does anyone have my back here? I need someone to share my emotion with!

Invitations

So I ordered wedding invitations this weekend. I am not really sure why it did not dawn on me that I would have to have some important facts on hand to actually go ahead with ordering the invitations. I knew the date. I knew our names. What else is on an invitation? A lot of information.

I had to decide the time the wedding started, I had to call Reed to get the addresses for the church and the reception venue, and I had to figure out the deadline to RSVP. I forgot the wedding website address so hopefully I can add that when I get the proof. I hope I did not forget anything else.

If my sources are correct (and they might not be), the two people in Kansas who have/had swine flu live in Abilene. That is where I spend my weeks. That bag of blueberries I bought from the grocery store yesterday could have been handled by one of those swine flu sickies. Tine, you are so right, the CDC should hire me for surveillance. I have binoculars.

Some of my coworkers and I did CPR/First Aid training through the Red Cross today. Our trainer was talking about swine flu a little at the beginning of class and one of my coworkers thought it would be funny to wear one of those mouth masks around a very public place, like Wal-Mart, to see peoples' reactions. People would probably think he had swine flu. Talk of the masks got my other coworker all excited and she wanted to get a mask to wear around for real. She also got masks to send back to her family in Colorado. You know, just in case they run out of masks in Colorado.

I think a lot of people are totally overreacting about this. Seriously, only one person has died and not that many people have it when you consider the entire population.

Dead Birds

I think I have seen a lot of dead birds lately. Has anyone else noticed this? In the last two weeks I have spotted one dead bird in someone's yard and four dead birds on various sidewalks. It all seems weird to me because I cannot remember the last time I just saw a small dead bird on the ground. They all look like they died of natural causes. Is this a strange phenomenon or something that happens every year? Maybe mating season was especially fierce this year. Maybe it is global warming.

Ingrid, Chris, Tiffany and your favorite #68

The Biggest Surprise of My Day (29 March 2009)

Idris Elba, who played Stringer Bell in The Wire, is really British. Can you believe it? You might also know him as the new regional manager/boss/whatever from The Office. But it is more surprising if you first knew him from The Wire and American Gangster.

Stringer Bell with a British accent. Strange.

I'm back. Are you tired of checking my blog and seeing that same old March 4 post?

I have been very busy lately. A lot of it revolves around this wedding planning thing. I won't bore you with details, but we secured a date of August 22. I am done shopping around for reception venues and now I am in the midst of finding a wedding dress. I have had a good time dress shopping with my friends Tiffany and Trisha Thrasher, but I don't think I am enough of a romantic to really get swept away by it all.

Work has been very busy too. We are trying to be more efficient and speedy in our archaeological site evaluation process, which includes field work, lab work, and report generation. For the last two weeks, I have felt very exhausted by the time I get home from work.

My 28th birthday was last Friday (20 Mar). I am still excited about getting older. Actually, I would like to be retirement age. My birthday was a fun day. We finished up field work on a site, which felt good. After we got back from the site at 1:30, everyone in the office patiently waited to eat a delicious diner lunch out. Then one of my coworkers suggested we go out again for supper so she and I had some Italian and good conversation before I headed back to Kechi for the weekend. The next day was a fun, but exhausting day of wedding dress shopping around Wichita, happy hour drinks with chums Ingrid and Lindsay from my WSU days, and finally a long drawn out supper out with my lover. Ah, good times.

Javers started football. The first game was a tragic five-point loss to the Omaha Beef. It was an away game so I didn't see it and have no comments. I am looking foward to going to his first home game next weekend and waving my poster. If any of you KS people want to come, let me know and maybe I can score you some tickets in the new Hartman Arena. I hear there are chandeliers in the bathrooms. Sounds too classy for a football team and Alan Jackson concert venue.

Schmeckfest is this weekend. It is also my 10 year class reunion. I am pretty pumped. That said, I think most of my classmates who will be there are people I see fairly regularly anyway. Oh well. Polly is in the musical so I'm super pumped to see it.

More on Reading Because I'm Kind of Excited About it Right Now

Ah, now that I am done with One Hundred Years of Solitude I am totally into some page turner quick reads. I just finished the Kansas Humanities Council One Book Kansas. It is a mystery called Virgin of Small Plains. It was a good one. I am in the middle of The Road, which I believe won some award. It's a post-apocalyptic tale. My confusion about what's going on is what keeps me turning the pages. I think Mike D. read this for a book club. Am I right? Finally, I just bought, an Elizabeth Berg novel at the library sale - Open House. One of her other novels was a South Dakota Humanities Council One Book South Dakota a couple years ago. I think she is a good writer and a hoot in person (I saw her speak at the SoDak Book Festival). Even when I get a little bored with the book I think about how I liked enjoyed her lighthearted speech at the book festival and I decide to keep reading until it gets interesting again. The book is largely about a recent divorcee so I can't always relate to her.

Any way, I just wanted everyone to know that for some reason, I am really excited about books right now! That sounds corny, but it's true.

Something else exiciting

but not nearly as exciting as deciding to spend the rest of your life with someone named Jeremy Javers (Ahhhhhhhh!).

No, just kidding. No regrets at all.

I FINALLY finished reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The guy is a Nobel Prize winner and the writing is beautiful ... but it's not exactly a page turner. I read a few pages before bed almost every night and it took about four months for me to finish it. I had to read a couple page turners and listen to some audiobook mysteries to keep me going for the duration of Hundred Years. It is a marvelous story and a great study in magical realism, where the most absurd and phantasmagorical happenings are told with such a natural tone of voice. It is really interesting how he mixes reality and unreality in a way where you aren't really sure what really happened. Eventually you don't care anymore. I kind of reminded me of Toni Morrison novels. It also really reminded me of Latin American and South American stories and myths from my cultural anthropology studies. Marquez grew up in Colombia and spent a lot of time living in Mexico so it makes sense that he would be exposed to those hybrized indigenous-Spanish stories. I wonder if Marquez knows Shakira.

Good News

I guess this is as good a place as any to get the word out ... Jeremy and I are engaged! Pretty exciting stuff, folks.

Here are those before and after pics I promised

Here is a photo looking down the hallway before. The hallway is that dark mysterious area in the middle of the photo:




Here is the cheerier hallway looking down the other wall:




Here's a sample of the dining room/entry before:





And finally, the same dining room/entry now. This photo is looking 180 degrees around from the before picture, but now we have the table up against the window you see in the above photo and it's messy and I don't want to clean it off for a picture.

little o' this, little o' that

Okay, everyone needs to check out Erin's comment on my previous post. The T-rus is back in black. I am pretty tempted to have yet another Taurus in my life. Seriously though, if you watch the clip you will see that even the reporter discussing all the new features of the car is less than excited about it. He's trying, but he just can't get pumped up. Or maybe he's just hungover. It was the Detroit Auto Show after all.

Something lucky happened to me tonight. I made a phone call while I was on a stroll in town. I thought I put the phone back in my vest pocket. Apparently, I was mistaken. After my stroll I drove to the grocery store. When I got home, I realized my phone was missing. I had a moment of hopelessness because I couldn't even call myself to see if someone had found my phone. Does anyone remember the time I lost my car key while running in a violent thunderstorm? Flashes of that experience came to mind! I decided to retrace my steps and started at the grocery store. I asked a fruit stocker guy if he had seen my phone. He said no, but offered to call it for me. Very, very luckily a lady answered and said she had found it on the sidewalk near a school I walked by. Coincidently, she was on her way to the grocery store where I was. We met up and I got my phone back. It is missing the back cover, but it still works great. Kick-ass.

I promised y'all photos of the home improvement project. Well, I took my camera home over the weekend, but not my battery charger and of course the battery was dead. Hey, I can't be lucky all the time. I will attempt some photos again next weekend. It looks great. We put the finishing touches on - some new lights, new light switch and outlet covers and new vent covers. It looks all sparkly and new! I had to spray paint all the vent covers to match the light switch and outlet covers. The spray paint color that matched the best was called ICE CREAM. Mmmm ... my mind kept wandering to this scene where I spray the paint into my mouth and it tastes like ice cream. Rest assured, I was not stupid enough to try it.

The wood paneling removal project is going well. Javers finished painting the dining room Monday night. There might be a few more touch-ups to do and the light, outlet and vent covers need to be replaced. Besides that, it looks great. So much better than before. I will take pictures this weekend and post some for everyone to see.

I definitely appreciate the improvements, but it took a lot of work and time. I am realizing I'm not really a DIY person. I like to use my weekends to relax.

Eisenhower Book Talk

The Eisenhower Center in Abilene has a book discussion program. The local library gets copies of the books and then once a month or so during the winter the Eisenhower Center hosts a book discussion. All of the books are associated Eisenhower or events during his administration. For the most part, I am not really interested in spending a lot of time reading about Eisenhower, but I thought I would pick a couple that sounded the most interesting to attend.

The first one I went to was last week. The book was about Mamie Doud Eisenhower (Ike's wife) and written by a local historian, Marilyn Holt, so the author actually led the discussion. I realized that I knew practically nothing about Mamie and the book was a shorty (approx. 140 pgs.) so a few days before the event, I signed up to be in the audience and read the book ... well most of it. Before I go on, I should really stress those two things here - I singed up to be in the AUDIENCE (not discussion group) and I did NOT finish reading the book.

On the night of the book discussion, I had a pilates class at the fitness center that ended at 6:30. After it was over I quickly changed then hightailed it to Subway to get some supper. I got to the Eisenhower Center at 6:52, snarfed down my sandwhich and chips in the parking lot and raced into the auditorium. At 7:02, I made it into the auditorium as the event is being introduced by a librarian from the local Abilene library. I was trying to sneak in and sit with this lady from my pilates class near the back when all of a sudden the librarian intorducing the event stopped what she was saying and shouted out "AMBER!!!" I couldn't believe it. I froze. She went on and suggested I come sit up front at the discussion tables becuase I had read the book. Oh no. How could I refuse? She stopped the introduction to ask me to come up to the front of the room. How did this lady remember my name, much less my face!? It must have been my neon yellow Columbia coat. Damn that coat! However she remembered me I was impressed and horrified at the same time. Remember when I said I didn't quit finish the book? Now I was sitting up in the front of the room, right next to the author and I had to try saying something intelligent about the book at some point during the hour and a half discussion. It looked like it was going to be a nightmare.

Well, it ended up not being as bad as I thought it would be ... like usual. The author was really interesting and she ended up talking most of the time. I made two comments about Mamie Eisenhower and the book that didn't sound too stupid. However, when I read the rest of the book later last week I realized that I asked a question that I probably could have figured out had I read the last chapter before the discussion. At any rate, the whole thing went pretty well, except for right before I left. The librarian who remembered my name came over to chat. I had the book in my hand and she said she could just take it back to the library for me. I paused for a second and then tried to act like it was no big deal and told her I had 10 or so pages left. "10 or so pages" might have been a little too vague or just plain false - I really had about 30 pages left. I think my feigned confidence kept it from being too akward. But I finally finished the book and I learned all about Mamie Eisenhower.

Home Improvement Project

Jeremy and I officially started our first home improvement project. Can you guess what we are doing? We are removing the wood paneling!!! Neither of us is experienced in this so we are testing out the process in the hallway first. So far we have the wood paneling off, the gashes in the sheet rock filled and part of the wall textured.

We just started texturing the walls to cover up the unevenness caused by the stubborn glue bubbles that I could not scrape off with my trusty trowel (as an archaeologist I love the varying uses of the trowel - what an amazing tool). So far we have only had one potential mishap. I don't think we were using the texture brush correctly. I know, it sounds like something that is so common sense you'd have to be really dense to not catch on. We even called Javers' sister twice for directions. Oh well. We can sand off the part we already did if it looks too bad.

Probably the best part of the whole process is this video download Javers bought that instructs on how to paint over wood paneling (an option we might use in the living room). It just so happens the video was made in Aberdeen, SD so the guy's accent iss marvelous. The way he talks about what he is doing is extremely entertaining. I wish I could just link to it, but you would have to pay to watch it. The best part is when he is talking about filling in the wood paneling cracks with spackle he gets really excited and lets us know this is where we are really going to get 20 times our money's worth because he is going to impart this marvelous secret. It's a good secret, I won't spoil it for you.

We did just start this weekend, but all is well so far. Javers and I are working together really well on this project. Stuff like this does have the potential to drive a wedge between couples. I think one thing we really have going for us is that we are both a little clueless. Instead of fighting over what each other is doing wrong, we are both desparately hoping the other person has some insight on how to proceed.

Trip to Branson Update

I still don't think this whole thing is a scam. I did have to listen to a guy tell me all about the Rainbow vacuum cleaner/air purifier for an hour or so. That was a waste of my time, but not painful. The free trip is actually just two nights in a nice four star hotel (I am not sure what kind of star scale we are talking about here - hopefully not four out of ten). I found out I don't have to go to Branson. There are a number of other places throughout the country with cooperating hotels. The deal is I have to pay for all my other travel expenses. Bottom line: not a super prize, but hopefully something I can take advantage of this year.

Bowling Success

For my work Christmas party, people in my buildings went to the bowling alley on base. We ate some pizza and bowled some rounds. I got a score over 100 for both games I played (101 and 104). That might not sound spectacular, but it is the first time I have ever broke 100 so it is spectacular for me. I think it was the ball. I really connected with that 9 lb pink ball.

Retirees and Me

I think I won a weekend trip to Branson, MO. I must have signed up for a drawing at the Kansas State Fair this summer. Frank from Rainbows (some sort of air filtration system) called me yesterday to tell me the good news. Of course, he wants to tell me about all the wonderful benefits of Rainbows before he hands over the prize, but he did assure me it's not a time share and there are no gimmicks. I will need to read the fine print. We are meeting this Saturday. If this all pans out I could be enjoying a luxurious weekend in Branson. Are you jealous? You should be.