Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Medieval March II, and Some Other Books

I've gotten a bit bogged down in my medieval books.  I'm only about 20% through A Distant Mirror and a quarter through Pillars.  What happened is I realized Daughter of Smoke and Bone was due very, very soon.  As in, that day.  So I started that and read it in a few days.  It was worth the $1.25 fine.  Then I realized Midnight in Austenland is due in a few days, so now I'm almost done with that one.  I'm lacking motivation, even though both of my medieval books are fascinating.  They're just so long.  Haha

Baby C finally learned to sit up.  I'd like to pause her at this stage for six months please.  Love the sitting-but-can't-crawl stage.  A couple of my friends had babies at the same time I had Baby C - both their babies are crawling and they are on constant baby duty.  Turn your back for a second and the baby is trying to kill themselves eating their sibling's tiny toy, or some paper, or whatever.

Ace pleaded with us to please please please let him sleep in underwear.  I told him to wear a pullup that night and if it was still dry in the morning, he could wear underwear to bed.  Dry!  And dry underwear the next morning!  I am really liking this!  Hopefully it keeps up.

Friday I chopped my hair off and added bangs.  I have about three minutes a day to style my hair and that just doesn't cut it when your hair hits your bra band.  Plus I wanted something a little more fashionable.  I went from this:


 to this:

I was going for serious-model-face, but at the moment this expression is saying to me, "I don't like this hair."  Haha



At first honestly I wasn't sure about it.  But now I like it.  Especially since it can actually be styled in three minutes.  A little bumble & bumble and a little flatiron.  Looking at my long hair picture, well it does look nice.  But it didn't feel that nice on my head.  It felt unmanageable.  Underneath the shiny top layer it was getting really ratty in the back, with lots of split ends.  All the splits are gone and just lovely healthy hair is left.

Dh doesn't like my new 'do.  He thinks it is way too short.  I told him if he is such a fan of long hair he should have done something about my long hair.  He would tell me (twice a year) that he liked my hair, but he never touched it.  I'm not keeping a mane of wild hair for biannual compliments.  He told me he will endeavor to improve.  That is totally a paraphrase.  I'm sure Dh has never said "endeavor."  That word must be indicative of the influence from Midnight in Austenland (which is lovely so far, by the way).

Thursday, March 08, 2012

Medieval March

Medieval March is proceeding swimmingly.  I am almost 100 pages in to A Distant Mirror.  The actual text of the book is about 550 pages, so I think I'm okay there.  I am almost 200 pages in to The Pillars of the Earth.  That puppy is almost 1,000 pages long, so I think I'm on track for that as well.

The books are intersecting neatly.  More than once I have read about something in one book to find it referenced in the other book later that day.  Chimneys came into use in the early 1000's, did you know?  And Flanders was the primary source of high-quality woven fabric.  Flanders being in modern Belgium.

Source

I do get a...weird...vibe from A Distant Mirror.  Tuchman was a writer first and historian second, so perhaps that accounts for her style.  It's not very post-modern.  Social scientists are so steeped in post-modernism; it changes the ways in which they insert commentary into their works.  Perhaps this is why her commentary seems odd.  It's hard to explain.