My Evil Clone

Do you love the Christmas tree decorations? I put Aly's and my favorite things on the ornaments: BYU, New York (that's where Aly is from), the St. Louis Cardinals, the Boston Red Sox (that's Aly's favorite baseball team--I don't like them), Salve Regina (Aly's alma mater), and the Utah Jazz. It's hard to see in the picture, but on the star atop the tree we have Abe Lincoln himself. It now feels kind of Christmas-y here at the apartment. I even practiced some adaptive reuse techniques, as historic preservationists call it, in putting a Christmas wreathe on our door. We had a nice fall wreathe with fall leaves on it, and it's so pretty that I thought it would be a shame to take it down, so today I wired some holly berries onto it, put a big red bow at the bottom, and voila--we now have a Christmas wreathe!

So, remember how I talked about my arch nemesis Stanley Thayne yesterday? Well, my sister Lindy sent me the funniest picture she found online of Stanley. You can see him here (he's the one on the left) standing next to Dr. Alex Baugh, one of the BYU Church History professors. This photo was taken after Stanley Thayne won the Mormon History Association undergraduate student paper competition--the competition I was supposed to win with my paper about Confederate General Sterling Price and the Mormons! :-) But you see--I'm cool too--I can hang out with BYU Church History professors like Susan Easton Black, and I have cute nieces! :-) I'm just kidding about all of this, but it's kind of funny. As Lindy pointed out, in this particular picture of Stanley, he bears a strange resemblance to me. Lindy thinks that Stanley is my clone gone terribly wrong. Maybe he's my evil clone? So now he's living the life I thought I would have, and I'm living the one I'm supposed to have--it all makes sense now.

Today has been a good day so far. I had Historic Preservation this morning, which is one of my favorite classes, and we talked about preservation in the Western United States, which I especially enjoyed. After class Dan and I went over to the Tarble Arts Center (awkward few moments there) to speak with their director about the website we're going to be doing for next spring's exhibit. She is really nice, and I think the website won't be too terribly difficult, but what that we do here isn't difficult? :-) I am so excited for the exhibit opening next April because one of my all-time favorite BYU professors, Dr. Rugh, is coming out here to be our guest speaker!!! Our class was offered some grant money if we could find some visiting scholars to come speak to the public here about our exhibit topic--transportation history in the Midwest. I suggested Dr. Rugh, since she did her graduate work in Illinois, and she is the world's best travel and tourism guru/scholar. She agreed to come, and I am so excited to be able to show her around Charleston next year!

I've just been decorating for Christmas and doing homework this afternoon, and then later today I'll be going over to the Bauman's for dinner with the missionaries, then Angel and I are going to go visiting teaching. No rest for the weary!