I find it highly unlikely that the portrait about to go up for auction at Christie's is in fact a painting of Jane Austen, commissioned by her wealthy uncle to improve her chances at marriage. Why would the uncle have insisted that the younger sister be painted? Between 1788 and 1790, Cassandra Austen was still three to five years away from ( Read more... )

Some days after reading the newspaper and looking at BBC I want never, ever, ever, ever to read the news again. Today is one of those days. After being thoroughly depressed by reading brief bios of the poor kids and professors who died in Virginia, I simply turn on my computer to print out a grocery list so that I can go buy food and I discover, ( Read more... )

The dude's eyes have always been an undefinable colour, so we have debated back and forth what to call them. But the other day I looked at him, and for whatever reason--maybe the light or the shirt he was wearing--they were as green as . . . army fatigues, I'd have to say. So I've been watching them. Sometimes they seem to be more hazel, but in ( Read more... )

So the bear and I watched TV last night, which is highly unusual for us! A friend lent us the first season of Battlestar Galatica, a show which I had never seen and knew nothing about. But last night, lacking anything better to do and in a mood to chill, we decided to start watching it ( Read more... )

My labour of love:


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Let me start by saying that I think the selection and quality of children's picture books has improved vastly since the 1940s. However, out of the amazing selection of interactive type baby books that the dude has between his own collection and the collection of his cousin (who is very kindly lending toys and books right now), the dude has decided ( Read more... )

So I took this quiz in Baby Whisperer for Toddlers to try to determine what type of child I have: angel, textbook, spirited, grouchy, or touchy (I assume the names are self-explanatory). I think I came to the profound conclusion that the dude is a textbook toddler who is sometimes an angel and sometimes grouchy. Ha!

I had a shrimp po boy for lunch and it was delicious!

Whew. I had to completely change the furniture configuration of our bedroom after our queen size mattress was delivered today. We had a full size mattress on the bed, so first I had to fix the bed frame so that it would be queen sized. After that was done, I had to rearrange our furniture because unfortunately we have to store the old mattress ( Read more... )

Oof.  The bear and I channeled our buying urges into a slightly less expensive purchase:  we are now the proud owners (pending delivery) of a new Simmons Beautyrest queen size pillowtop mattress set.  YAY!  We went on a walk this afternoon and we came home a whole lot poorer, but think of the hours of blissful sleep we have ahead of us!  Or, rather ( Read more... )