how i spent my day

I was summoned to report for jury duty today, so naturally I spent all day reading a book. Not going to bore you with the details of the jury selection. But I will highly recommend the book, especially if you're a fan of all things Chinese like I am.

Obviously, it's the story of an American who goes to the Shaolin temple to, among other things, learn kungfu. D liked it okay, but I absolutely loved it. I finished the book today and I was actually sad that it was over.

Tomorrow at the courthouse I will have to continue reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. This is another great book. However, I stopped reading it to read Shaolin because it was getting a bit depressing. I'm one of those people who the more she knows the more she thinks and worries about the things she knows. I swear I was so much more carefree in my twenties when I didn't know anything. No wonder I'm getting more wrinkles.

So Bill goes through humans' quest for knowledge of all things (chemistry, physics, astronomy, geography, among others). He did tons of research and is very good and dumbing it all down for the reader. He actually makes learning fun. What is so depressing is that he also talks about global warming, threatening earthquakes, deadly meterorites, and how Yellowstone is actually one humongous supervolcano waiting to blow and kill everyone.

Looks like I have more to worry about than whether or not I'm selected for jury duty.

Yeay! It's Christmastime.

It's so much fun to decorate our house. I love our house, and I love making it beautiful and festive for different occasions. I try not to go overboard; D and I both like the 'less is more' or minimalist look.

Today we finished putting ornaments on the tree and I put some other Christmas decorations around the family room.

We didn't have a tree last year because we just moved into the house in December and it was too much trouble. About half of the ornaments we opened I would ask "is that new?" like I never saw it before. I guess that's part of the fun of decorating the tree; you forget where some of the ornaments came from and each one has a story (if you can remember it).

We do have a minor complaint. For some reason our frasier fur tree doesn't smell. Nothing. Even going right up to it and sniffing the branches gets you nothing. Why is that?