End of 2010

Ah, the silent sound of blogging neglect. Sorry! Between trying to write my first paper for publication (eugh), doing cool things, the holidays...blogging has been on my list, but not far up it. I have, however, almost caught myself up to date with regards to my photo albums, even putting in some scrapbooky stuff like ticket stubs and receipts that I've been meaning to do. Christmas break was wonderful for that, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

December started with our first snow, and the Lawrenceville cookie tour! Although the cookies were sometimes hit or miss, we've never been down Butler and it was a terrific excuse to wander around. We even learned about a small-scale ciderhouse not far from our apartment, which was a very welcome surprise. We will definitely have to check that area out again.


Scholastically I did pretty well this semester, and hung out with a bunch of great people in pittsburgh before we left for Peter's parent's party. We arrived with a car full of stuff and a front full of salt (it was so white that I mistook our car for someone else's after coming out of the rest stop, oops). It was great, and set the tone for the rest of 2010 - great parties! There was a cheg '09 reunion at Iron Hill and Kate's, a Maclary party with even Mr. Yonko, then Whale band of course and all the other typical festivities. I tried to be a little more responsible w.r.t. gift wrapping this year (and gift-sourcing, thank you etsy and little shops), using old boxes, spare bandanas (boy was that fun!) and extra comics to wrap my gifts. Of course, afterwards I found my stash of old holiday paper, but it was really fun to try the cloth wraps and I am sure I'll do more of it in the future.


Speaking of the holiday, our 1990 cereal box Sugar Bear is still going strong! As are the very clever folks from Bing's, who thought up this santa-on-the-rooftop layer cake that I could not bring myself to leave the store without.


I also spent a lot of time trying to clean up my room and the basement, taking advantage of the two weeks I was spending in DE. I donated two large boxes of books, made some extra space downstairs and definitely cleaned out a decent bit of my room. Some might say that's boring, but I enjoyed it. As a vamily we also sorted through a lot of pennies, culminating in the first time I have seen my parents stay up until 1am outside of new year's. And $15 in pennies isn't too shabby. There was some protesting about the cleaning, but mostly it was great fun. Peter seems pleased that he has infected me with a need to clean, vs the packrat I was a few years ago. I'm okay with this, i guess!

Then it was New year's eve! This was the first year that peter and I haven't had concrete plans, and boy did we wing it with Edwin and Jeff. There was nothing good on main street, so we escaped to a very tasty meal at the Bamboo House. Then it was off to Edwin's apartment, which is much cooler than it has any right to be and includes a host of high-tech, awesome nerf guns. We watched The Thin Man (finally found it! all this time I was too short to see it on top of the home TV cabinet. curses), drank fancy champagne with Snap, watched Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin, passed out, and overall had a good end of the year.


2010 was pretty interesting, full of academics and adventures in Pittsburgh and beyond. I hope to be a little healthier, a little more efficient, and a little more involved and/or interested in my research next year. Here's to 2011!