Family fun.

This house is somehow very conducive me to being a complete night owl. My sister too. It's good for catching up on "The Office," but bad for managing to drag oneself out of bed at an archive-going appropriate hour. Sigh. All of which is to say that yesterday I went to the bank, took the dog for a walk, and helped unpack boxes of books in the basement, but that's about it. Today was a little more productive and exciting, but not terribly. Allow me to explain. I was at the archives today just after 12pm (noon). Plenty of time to photograph documents in 8 folders already ready for me to look at, since I would have until 4:45pm when the staff leave for the day. Or so I thought. (Ready for it?) The archivists left at 1pm today . . . because it's the "day before" New Year's. Huh? I don't get it. Whatever. Nice job, though, eh? Not only do you get the stat holiday (on Monday), but you get half the day before it! Sigh. Well, serves me right for not double checking . . . though I had no idea about this.

Anyways, so I took pics for 50 minutes. And I got halfway through the folders. Not bad, I guess. (Stupid, stupid, stupid me.) What this means is that I'll have to come visit my mom/parents in the spring! They can't complain too much about this.

At the archives I ran into a prof. friend of mine from Carleton. I never had a class with her or anything, but she works on similarish stuff to me, so I lectured in her class when I was in the first year of my PhD, and we were on a panel together at the SHAFR conference in June. It was nice to see her again, and here what she's been up to. She said the British Red Cross archives was really nice and easy to navigate, so that's good news!

After that, I hung out in the lobby reading my new favourite self-help book (ha!): Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day. It's seriously useful, PhDers. I read that until the rest of my family (sans brother and dog) came by to pick me up . . . and head over to the casino! Yes, you read me right. My dad's xmas present to us all was a trip to the casino, $20 in spending money each, and dinner at the buffet there.

We had a good time! My mom and I spent $20 between the two of us, on slot machines we mostly didn't understand. "Just press the button and see what happens!" My dad and sister went off for their own one-armed-bandit adventures. We then hooked up again for---you guessed it---more slot machine playing. At one point, I was up to $10.20 from a start of $2.50. But then . . . my dad came over and was all like, "Guess what I just won?" (Grinning.) "What?!" "I put in $5.00, and I just won $92.50!" My mom would not let him spend it, and so that's what paid for (most of) dinner. Fun times. My sister ended the evening with $5 more than what she started with; my dad with about $75; and my mom and I lost everthing. Not bad for a nice family outing, eh? It's a nice casino, methinks, not that I have vast experience with such things. (Clearly.) And dinner was very, very yummy.

Tomorrow is more organizing off jun . . . I mean, stuff, in the basement, and then I head back to TO on Sunday afternoon. Have a good weekend, all!