I'm not sure whether I want to rejoice that it's Friday already, or moan that it's already Friday... I am looking forward to quite a few free days over the holidays and end of the year, spent together with friends and family, so I'm happy for every day that brings me closer to that - but on the other hand there's things that have to be taken care of before year's end (or will make the start of next year very, very busy and probably stressful).

So... hooray or oops? I can't decide.

At least the presents-for-the-folks-that-get-presents are almost all done. Just like in computer programming, this year it seems as if 90% of it (deciding and getting) took about 10% of the time, while the last ten percent... well, you know. But it's almost done, including a group effort for a bigger present from one of our friends.

Just a few batches of baking to be done, a few decisions on when to go to the market on Saturday, a few phone calls, a bit of organising for our time with friends, ah... the usual seasonal stuff.
And to be honest? I love it. I wouldn't want to miss any of it, it is a brilliant opportunity to meet people that you don't meet very often during the year and spend some time with them. And that alone would be enough reason for me to love this time of year.

It seems that the season is not only bad for my speed (slowing me down), but also for my sense of time (I totally forgot that I had not yet blogged for today) and for my inventiveness (since I don't have a good idea what to blog about).

Today's earmarked for a visit at the library in Bamberg, and possibly also for a short stroll over the market there, followed by a cup of coffee or similar nice hot drink. It's cold but sunny outside, and everything still has a snow cover - it's almost picture-perfect!

"Picture", however, reminds me that I have a paper to outline and a presentation to prepare and a demonstration to plan. So with that and the other things to take care of, there's enough work for the rest of the week. Good thing that I have a sizeable part of the presentation already prepared from another occasion - I only need to adjust and update it for the next one.

And now... gratuitous cat picture.



She's watching. Remember that.

And I fear the something making it slow is contagious - at least I feel quite slow too these days! At least yesterday evening was successful in terms of cookie baking. Something productive done, yay!

Now for your content of today:
Registration for the Experimental Archaeology conference in Cardiff in January is still open, and will be until December 22. So if you are inclined to visit Cardiff on January 11 and 12 (or a bit longer, even), this would be a perfect excuse.

And I'm already looking forward very, very much to this - it will mean meeting nice colleagues again and hanging out in Cardiff. (I will not bore you with Dr. Who and Torchwood fanpersoning now... but if you would like to join me in saying "Cardiff!" in an excited way, feel free.)

I have about a thousand tabs open in my browser at the moment - because I tend to leave one open to remind me of something I should do, or of something I could blog about, or both. Or it's something I want to read, but had no time for. Or something that I'm thinking about (such like conference call-for-paper pages - they are often open for more than one week while I decide if I want to go there and if so, if I want to offer a paper, and if so, what).

And there are times when there are so many tabs open it gets on my nerves. This is one of these times... so now I will give you links. Random links. Only linked by the fact that they have been open in tabs for a while now...

The always interesting TechKnitter is de-kinking yarn with a steam iron. (Post before that? Grafting sock toes while avoiding those dog-ear corners.)

I had not known Ben Caplan nor Katzenjammer before that - but here's a video from those two covering "Fairytale of New York". Very Xmassy!

There's a new page with 18th and 19th century flea-market finds on the Textile Group page of Uni Innsbruck. They are textile-related, of course.

There's a Science article on a 30 000 year old flax find .

An interesting article about the plaster casts from Pompeii dead.

An info-page about "Fashioning Change" by Andrea Denny-Brown, with the possibility to download excerpts from the book. If I understand correctly, it can be ordered as electronic copy as well, for a very fair price of about 15 USD.

That's it. Now my browser is feeling much slimmer!

There is snow outside (the cat mistrusts the snow, but it's getting a little better). There is the smell of baking, and the promise of cookies galore to come. There is meeting with friends for an evening out, a christmas market, or a nice evening spent together at home, and planning get-togethers with family. There is fruit tea and gingerbread and advent calendar opening and sugar and spice and everything nice...

... in short, I am getting more and more festive-season-minded. This is not helped by the prospect that the Most Patient Husband will have to take some of his remaining days off from work during this year (which is not very long anymore), so he will be at home during the day with me in just a few more days.

And since I am happy to share some German Christmas weirdness with you - here is a link to a video (in English) about the giant Stollen at the Striezelmarkt in Dresden. (The speaker calls it a cake. Well. Technically, yes, it could be called a cake... but it's usually not. It is Stollen. That is not the same as cake. Not at all! And a well-made Stollen is really delicious, by the way.)

This year, I actually managed to look into my calendar in time, and did not forget to do so until after the blogiversary*. This year, however, the blogiversary day is tomorrow - and that's a Saturday.

Well, I do not have many hard and fast rules for this blog, but one of them is "I post Monday to Friday." Which, by inference, means that I do not post Saturday or Sunday. (Technically, since this is my blog and I am allowed to not post on weekdays if I announce it beforehand, it would be perfectly possible to post tomorrow. But... somehow, I don't want to. It's weekend, after all.)

So today is the day for some blog-related navel gazing. I started this blog on December 8, 2008, and it has been running all weekdays ever since. Well, except for when I'm on holidays. Or on a conference. Or need some time off. Or am on a medieval event. Or... well, you know what I mean.

On average, I did about 200 blog posts per year - in a wild mix of links from the Internets, hints to resources like databases, programmes and other websites, conference calls for papers, some unashamed plugging of my own stuff (though speaking as my vaguely entrepreneur-like self, I'm probably not doing enough of that by far), and telling about past and future events that I am taking part in.

The little blog has grown to have more than 160 followers, racked up 150 500 page views in its days, and has the healthy number of a bit more than 320 rss feed subscribers (on average, as Feedburner is quick to tell me).

But there is something much, much more important than these bare numbers. This little blog is, and means, so much more - and has done a lot for me. It gives my work day a bit of structure (which is not bad for a freelancer to have). It means I practise my English and get to roam the Internet a bit each day (I have to find something to blog!). It is immensely gratifying for me to hear that the blog is amusing, entertaining and - best of all - helping others. And it has opened some new avenues for me as well... for instance, I would never have gone to the Leeds blogger meet without it, and thus never met this weird Australian that is now my partner in a project.

So... happy blogiversary, little corner of the Internet! May you go on to prosper...


* I was late to catch on in both 2009 and 2010 and did a belated blogiversary post. In 2011, I completely forgot to do one.

I have managed to enter a few more of my books into my book database yesterday, and now I have the reordering problem - the bookshelf is, technically, full. If I am taking out individual books from here and there, then re-order them into the new order in some other bit of the shelf, said last other bit is not spacious enough because the gaps in the size of the books are somewhere else.

So what I would really love to have now is a magic extra shelf in some magic box or something that is bigger on the inside and can hold all the newly ordered books until my shelf is all cleared out and I can put them back in.

Bonus points for automatic shelving in order if I just toss in the book.

Apart from that, it's getting more and more wintery here, and the festive season is starting properly now - there will be the first pre-Xmas-dinner tonight. And cookie baking has started, with the first two batches already finished and the dough for the next one waiting in the fridge.