Mubarak has stepped down.
Through peaceful, patient & persistant demonstrations, the people have won.
I can’t beging to express how moved I am.
Egypt’s path forward won’t be simple or easy, but I trust this is the first of many positive steps towards a peaceful & free future.
He’s gone, alhamdulillah, he’s gone.
Although SNOWPOCOLYPSE didn’t really turn out to be too terrible, it still gave both Joel & I a snowday [aka a restful break from reality] & it’s been near perfect.
We rolled out of bed at 9am, made a delicious pancake breakfast & drank our coffee while catching up on email & Google Reader.
Around noon we headed outside to do some shoveling. We only have one shovel, but we have a good system where one person shovels & the other rests & plays with Wes. Wes loooooves deep snow, anything he can bound through, really.
After the deck, side walk, front steps & driveway were clear, we headed inside to cups of chipotle hot chocolate [try adding chipotle to your favorite hot chocolate - it's amazing, I swear]. I got a lot of knitting done while we watched Groundhog Day for my first time ever!
Joel headed out for band practice shortly after & I began baking. Today I made mini mocha cupcakes with cream cheese frosting & spinach and feta stuffed bread bowls.
Now we’ve finished eating & are about to watch some Parks & Recreation.
As Joel remarked earlier, I wouldn’t mind reliving this day over & over.
Happy 2011 everyone!
Our housewarming/birthday/New Years party was a HUGE success last night! A house full of friends, laughter & love – there’s no better way to ring in a new year, especially one that’s guaranteed to be the best yet.
Last year, while on semester break, I made the goal of reading 50 books in 2010.
Final stats:
Books started – 50
Books finished – 44
After taking into account being a full-time grad student, working part-time, buying & renovating a house & spending the summer in Egypt, I’m pretty pleased with the results.
For 2011, I’m going to try & read 11,000 pages. Setting a page goal as opposed to a book goal will allow me to pick up some big books that have been on my list, but got put off for fear of getting too behind [American Gods, Infinite Jest, etc].
I’ll be using the same twitter account as last year to do short reviews, but I’ve changed the handle from 50booksin2010 to 11thousandin11.
Below the cut is the full list of what I read last year, with my top 5 in bold.
I really don’t have a very clever way to start this post except to say:
That house we bought? We love it.
All of my time? Spent either doing school stuff or house stuff.
Now I’m going to show you a lot of pictures because I’m really dang proud of all the work we’ve done in 2 weeks.
Follow the cut for a ton of before & after pictures [or hop straight to Flickr to see them all].
I have been so, so, so incredibly busy lately and I couldn’t be more thankful.
So, since Thanksgiving is tomorrow & I don’t express my gratitude often enough, here are a few things I’m thankful for.
Our house.
This is what has been dominating all of my life lately. We are there every day, working as hard as we can & it’s really paying off.
Here’s a photo from the real estate listing:
Here’s a photo I took with my cell phone right before leaving tonight:
Literally every inch of this house has been sanded, painted, cleaned, stained or polyurethaned. It’s been so intense, but so rewarding. We plan to move on Saturday & I can’t wait to settle into our new home.
A new job.
Remember when I said I was interviewing for my dream job as Curator of Collections at the Arab American National Musuem???
I GOT IT!
I start part-time in January while I finish school and I am beyond grateful, excited, nervous & so, so pumped. I can’t wait to get started!
Joel.
This man is seriously incredible. And he’s mine. And he likes me. And he’s stuck with me through so much. And we have so much fun together. I could write pages & pages about how lucky I am and how much I love my husband but, take my word – he’s the best.
Our families.
I’m so thankful we have such an incredible support system. They’re always there, always ready to help, always full of love & advice & I can’t say how much I appreciate them. We couldn’t have gotten this house & accomplished as much as we have without them.
My dog & cat.
Their constant tolerance of my non-stop cuddles means a lot when life is tough.
Sleep.
I love it so much, I’m going to do it right now!!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!
PS – I’ve obviously failed miserably at the whole post-once-a-day-for-a-month thing & I’m totally ok with that.
