Week's End: November 20th

Part of what makes this little blog so therapeutic and soothing for me is that it's a tool to keep track of what's been rolling through my mind. I was a bit of a scrapbooker as a kid and I'm obsessed with Pinterest and Polyvore now, so I suppose this is kind of my adult version of a journal.

So, what's been going on this week...

1) This morning I scooped up 6 books at Goodwill that included some rare ones that I've had on the mind. I wasn't having a great morning, so it felt like a little consolation prize from the universe.

2) I had way too much fun going down the Google X rabbit hole and looking into Project Loon. Bringing internet to remote patches of the world using a series of high altitude balloons floating in the stratosphere is pretty dang cool and the kind of earth-shaking progress that makes me hopeful. Seriously, check it out. 

3) I've gotten back into using the Memrise app to practice my Latin and advanced to level 6. It's weirdly comforting to see how quickly it all comes back, and I'm unnecessarily proud of having officially re-mastered 125 words. I'd also forgotten how murderous Latin is. A dozen expressions for war, and I haven't exactly hit vocab yet to describe beautiful florals. It calls to mind that (inaccurate) old adage about First Nations tribes having a hundred words for snow. 

4) Excited about the 4 new Gilmore Girls episodes airing over Thanksgiving on Netflix. There's something reassuring about the idea that Rory, who was my teenage hero, might be having a rough time of this whole adulting thing, too. Plus, Alexis Bledel is going to be our FCF this week in honor of the re-launch. 

5) As I've already mentioned, I've had floor plans and architecture on the mind lately as I imagine what our first home might look like. I did a bit of poking around and found that MIT has an entire chunk of classes available from their School of Architecture in their OpenCourseWare initiative. I know that a career change is unlikely, but as I'm still searching for some sort of real path, architecture seems like a thing to try. Also, does anyone always think of Ariadne from Inception when they think of architecture? Or am I just weirdly over-associating?

Source: Varcien on DeviantArt

6) The Crackling Fireplace "show" on Netflix is my obsession. I play that thing on repeat for hours. There is something really weird, and dare I say pathetic, about airing a fake cracking fireplace with audio in your home, but I enjoy it way too much to stop. And now I'm going to go throw it on while I try digging out the Christmas decorations.