Several weeks ago we took a trip to Charlotte for furniture. We had a blast, with a pit stop in Hickory and a few hours at Ikea. Tomorrow we're doing it again. We'll be stopping off in Hickory to pick up this fabulous bottle of wine that I bought last time at a wine shop downtown, and picking up an early birthday present for David. (He's getting a new pair of shades because he'll be leaving me next week for 2 weeks of field work. Boo.) Then we're trucking on to Charlotte for another trip to Ikea to get my desk (please do not EVEN ask me why we didn't come home with it last time) and a few other odds and ends. Basically it will be a fun day together before he leaves for his trip.

But before my office is finally finished and I do a share-day of that, I'd like to finally show you the result of those bookcases that I was so excited about. I am a complete bookworm and we have some items that really needed to be showcased, so we decided to fill this big wall in our dining room with bookcases. As you can see, it's a great mish-mosh of books and academic journals, with lots of keepsakes, and still some room to grow. 



The most exciting thing about these shelves was that we'd finally have a place for all our "treasures". As geographers, David and I have amassed a fun collection of items from around the world, be it items collected by ourselves, or items our friends and colleagues knew we would appreciate.

  • Stuffed turtle from Guatamala, brought back from our friend and former professor and neighbor
  • World Map from a 19th century atlas - Eastern hemisphere is on the reverse
  • Jade elephant from Thailand, brought back from my dear besty, Laura
  • My Cookbooks. Hands down the most used shelf of them all. I have books from all over. And I use them too.
  • Wooden frogs from Costa Rica, brought back from David's summer abroad
  • Abalone shell from San Francisco Bay, given to us by the former prof. and neighbor's father, who dove for it himself
  • Mini pyramids from Egypt, given to us from another former neighbor, who was Egyptian
The case also holds a French version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerers stone that I picked in Paris several years ago, a soon-to-be-signed copy of Wine by Harm de Blij (met him at last year's Association of American Geographers Conference in Las Vegas, he told me if I'd send it, he'd sign it), and a 19th century geography textbook, which is the most politically incorrect textbook I've ever seen. It is a very funny conversation starter.

So, those are the bookcases. Soon we will get ourselves that hand-crafted log table we've been drooling over in the gallery downtown and we'll be able to enjoy the cases even more. But until then, we're perfectly content eating on our covered porch, as the weather here is perfect.

Ciao!