kareina

I have signed up for a short course next month, which has an on-line component, and the course has a forum discussion section, with an "introduce yourself and your research section".  I posted a short intro of myself, which said:

*************************************
I wound up choosing geology as my major because I enjoyed rock-climbing and loved mountains and wanted to know more about both.  This path led me to Oregon for the Bachelor's degree, back to Alaska for my Master's, and to Tasmania for my PhD. Years later I settled in Luleå Sweden, where I first did a post-doc in geology, and then, when that funding ran out became the laboratory for a Laser-ablation ICP-MS lab here.  Since that was a half-time position, and I have also always been interested in archaeology, when I saw the ad for a "geoarchaeology" half-time PhD position in Durham I applied, suggesting that I could use my laser lab for doing the analyses.  I was delighted to find out that once one has that first PhD it is possible to enrol in another without having really taken undergraduate classes in the new subject, at least if there is some overlap in the skill sets needed. 
*************************************

Which got a reply that said:

"Your research sounds super interesting! May I ask what caused you to decide to study soapstone? Did you have any particular encounters with it during your rockclimbing expeditions? Or did you perhaps encounter it in a museum, or was it a particular use the type of stone was used for that fascinated you? When you mentioned Viking Age, my mind immediately connected the era and stones to runestones. Was soapstone used for rune inscriptions?"

Having taken the time to answer her there, I thought I may as well share here, too, as someone else might be interested in the answers:

*************************************


Thanks, I am enjoying the research so far.  As to how I finally settled on soapstone, it wasn't easy. When I first saw the ad for the half-time PhD position I sent an email explaining that I was interested in aarchaeology, had a degree in geology, and a half-time job managing a LA-ICP-MS lab. I mentioned that I had read some papers that used Raman to measure composition in garnets in Merovingian jewelery to determine where the stones came from, and thus say something about trade routes, and that I would enjoy doing a similar project with my lab. This led to a number of different emails being exchanged back and forth, during which the list of potential projects just kept growing. However, it isn't feasible to do multiple projects on lots of different materials (the list included garnet, glass beads, spindle whorls, and many more), so we needed to narrow it down to just one. Therefore we switched to a skype conversation, and two hours later finally settled on soapstone, for a number of reasons:

• While garnets are very near and dear to my heart (there is SO MUCH information recorded in garnet about the changes in temperature and pressure at which the mineral was growing, and garnet analysis was a big component of my first PhD research), and they appear often in lots of pretty objects from a variety of cultures, usually said objects are so nice I wasn't certain we could convince a museum to let us do laser-ablation on them, since it does leave a mark (unlike the Raman used in the articles I had mentioned)
• Another mineral that featured in my PhD research, and in my first post doc, is talc, which is the main component of soapstone, and I am nearly as fond of it as garnet
• Soapstone in the Viking Age was used for every-day household objects, including cooking pots, spindle whorls, and more. Being less fancy than jewelery, the odds of being permitted to actually analyze it goes up. It is also so soft that it is possible to leave a scratch mark on it with a finger nail, which means that the very minor damage left by a laser wouldn't really be noticeable in addition to all of the other wear and tear the object has received over the years.
• In the course of the conversations and background reading I was doing I found out that the Vikings used soapstone, but not ceramics, for their cooking, with the result that in some places they settled where there had been a tradition of ceramics, the pottery shards completelydisappear from the archaeological record, only to re-appear after the Viking occupation of the area. Furthermore, it was so important to their lifestyle, they took it with them to their settlements which have no available soapstone quarries (like Iceland--it simply isn't possible, geologically speaking, to find soapstone on that island, other than what the people brought with them, and they did).
• Finding out that it was so common to cook with made me realize that in all of my years of historical re-enactment camping events I had never once seen anyone cooking with a soapstone pot, and I wondered why not? (Though I did once see a flat piece of soapstone being used as a bakestone for flatbread cooked over an open fire. yum!)

I don't happen to know of any examples of soapstone being used as runestones off the top of my head. However, I do know of an example here in northern Sweden of a soapstone cliff face which has rock art dating back to the the stone age, and continuing off an on over time, including Viking age drawings of ships, right up to modern graffiti. (To be fair I didn't know about that one till I stumbled upon the paper about it, after I started this project.) However, I do know of a runic inscription on a spindle-world that is in the collection of the Swedish Historical Museum.
*************************************

Inspired by frualeydis's post about her challenge, I have finally made the time to post the below suggestion to the Golden Egg Web page:

I propose the following as a Golden Egg Challenge:

Make and cook with a soapstone pot and then use it for science.

I am somewhat late in getting around to posting this, I have been thinking of this on and off since January, and begun real steps towards this goal in May. Is it still allowed to be a Golden Egg challenge anyway?

I begun researching Viking Age cooking vessels in soapstone in January, as part of my 2nd PhD project, which seeks to determine the source quarries for various archaeological soapstone objects based on the composition of the objects.

The first thing I noticed when I started researching this topic was the contrast between the fact that most Viking Age families were cooking with soapstone, and most Viking Age reenactors I have met aren’t, and I thought it would be cool to give it a try.

Then I wondered if cooking with soapstone would cause any changes in the composition of the stone (either due to the repeated heating and cooling, or due to the food, or some combination thereof) that might complicate my goal to figure out where the stone was quarried? This also inspired me to try it: Make a pot, measure its composition, cook with it for a year or two, measure its composition again. Has it changed? If so, is there a pattern to the change?

Therefore I have started the first steps towards this goal:

* reading about Viking Age Soapstone Vessels (see below)
* reading about Viking Age food stuff
* searching the Swedish Historical Museum’s database for soapstone objects
* travel to the Nidaros Cathedral Restoration workshop to learn the basis of soapstone and obtain a piece to make a pot
* started carving (see profile photo)

It will take time (realistically months, given how little time I have available for the carving) to make the pot. Once it is done I need to learn to cook with it (the woman who taught me says that once one gets water to a boil in her pot one can take it off the fire and it will keep boiling for 10 minutes more).

What more do I need to do for the “Golden Egg” part of this project? Is this even an appropriate sort of project for this group?

Partial reading list for Soapstone artifacts and the composition thereof:

Allen, R.O., and Pennell, S.E., 1978, Rare Earth Element Distribution Patterns to Characterize Soapstone Artifacts, in Archaeological Chemistry—II, AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, Advances in Chemistry 171, v. 171, p. 230–257, doi: 10.1021/ba-1978-0171.ch014.

Torsten DuRietz (1935) Peridotites, Serpentines, and Soapstones of Northern Sweden, with special reference to some occurences in Northern Jämtland, Geologiska Föreningen I Stockholm Förhandlingar, 57:2, 133-260, DOI: 10.1080/11035893509445975

Erwin, J.C., 2001, A prehistoric soapstone quarry in Fleur de Lys, Newfoundland: PhD Thesis, University of Calgary.

Forster 2005, The Soapstone trade in the North Atlantic: Preliminary research of Viking and Norse period soapstone imports in Iceland In: Current Issues in Nordic Archaeology: Proceedings of the 21st Conference of Nordic Archaeologist 6-9 September 2001, Akureyri Iceland Ed: Garðar Guðmundsson • 2005 Publisher: Society of Icelandic Archaeologists. ISBN: 9789979609445

Forster, A., Jones, R., 2017. From Homeland to Home; Using Soapstone to Map Migration and Settlement in the North Atlantic, In: Hansen, G., Storemyr, P. (Eds.), Soapstone in the North. Quarries, Products and People 7000 BC - AD 1700. University of Bergen, pp. 225-248.

Forster, A. K. and Turner, V. E. (Eds.). Kleber: Shetland's Oldest Industry. Shetland Soapstone Since Prehistory. Lerwick: Shetland Amenity Trust, 133 pages ISBN-10: 0954324692

Hansen et al 2017, Soapstone in the North. Quarries, Products and People 7000 BC - AD 1700. University of Bergen.

Hubbard, M.J., 2006, Soapstone vessels in the Ohio River Valley and determining their source of origin using visible/near-infrared reflectance spectrometry [PhD Thesis]: Kent State University.

Rogers, M., Allen, R., Nagle, C., and Fitzhugh, W., 1983, The Utilization of Rare Earth Element Concentrations for the Characterization of Soapstone Quarries: Archaeometry, v. 25, p. 186–195, doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4754.1983.tb00675.x.

Stavsøien 2012, Fra fast fjell til gryte: Å arbeide med kleberstein, - hva skjuler seg i prosessen? (From solid rock to cooking pot: Working with soapstone, - what is hiding in the process?). Bachelor's thesis, BACHELOROPPGAVE BYG819T
Prosjektnr. 13-2012 Eva Stavsøien.

Val G. Steele, Report on the analysis of residues from steatite and ceramic vessels from the site of Belmont, Shetland

Turnbaugh, W., Turnbaugh, S., and Keifer, T., 1984, Characterization of selected soapstone sources in southern New England (Chapter 12) - Prehistoric Quarries and Lithic Production, in Prehistoric Quarries and Lithic Production (New Directions in Archaeology), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511753244.013, p. 129–138.

Edward W. Wells III, Sarah C. Sherwood, and Kandace D. Hollenbach. Soapstone Vessel Chronology and Function in the Southern Appalachians of Eastern Tennessee: The Apple Barn Site (40bt90) Assemblage. Southeastern Archaeology 33:153–167

Wikki, H.B., 1953. Composition and origin of soapstone: , Bulletin de la Commission Geologique de Finland. Geologinen Tutkimuslaitos, p. 57.

Food Additives and Contaminants Volume 19, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 134-143 Soapstone (steatite) cookware as a source of minerals(Article) Quintaes, K.D., Amaya-Farfan, J., Morgano, M.A., Mantovani, D.M.B.

2018-07-01

No idea if they actually broke any...

I had a delightful weekend at the Frostheim Broken Arrow event. As the name might imply, the theme for the weekend was archery, and it is the first event run by the Frostheim archers (all of whom joined the shire a couple of years ago as a group, and who got their AoA's as a group this spring).

They had asked me if I would be willing to cook the breakfasts at the event. Since I did that for both Norrskensfests I ran *in addition* to running the event and entering in the Bardic competition, I thought that doing *only* breakfast at an event sounded easy, so I said yes. It turned out to be even easier than I though, since I didn't even have to do the grocery shopping, the archers took care of that part when they were getting the other food for the event.

Styx has been due for a service since when I did the Trondheim trip last month, and, as I forgot to mentioned in my post-trip report, two different sorts of “check breaks lights” had been glowing since soon after leaving the workshop in Sollefteå. (Having just spent 10,000 SEK on fixing breaks in Sollefteå, and another 7,000 for a different problem with the breaks in Luleå the week before, we chose to ignore those lights for the rest of the trip, and some time thereafter, too.) ‘But Cudgel War is coming, and we want a working car for that, therefore we took the car in for service a week ago, and asked them to see if they could figure out what was wrong with the breaks this time.

The figured out the problem, which involved a sensor connection rusting away, but they needed to order the parts. So we booked a time for the following week, and they day they had available was Friday, so we took it. So I dropped it off in the morning, went to the lab ran an experiment, then went home, read for a bit (which counts as studying Swedish, since I was also listening to the audio book) and finished off the last of the event packing (most had been done on Thursday evening). The shop didn’t call till 16:00, at which point David was able to drive me in to pick it up (I had tossed my trike into the car and pedalled home from the shop that morning). This time the combined service and repairs cost 8,000 SEK, and I am really hoping that it is now done needing any work for a couple three years, since I don’t expect to have a budget to replace it till then (given what we have spent in the past couple of months on it, this counts as having replaced it this year—next time something major goes wrong we had probably better replace it with something newer instead of trying to prolong its life again).

Given that I didn’t get home from picking it up till after 16:30, at which point I needed to eat and then do all of the car loading myself (David returned to work to finish up what needed to be done before the weekend), it was no surprise that I wasn’t on site till after 18:00, by which point the Archers were relaxing next to the Frostheim grill set up, all of their pavilions and the archery range already set up. They had kindly saved a place next to the grill for our sunshade it is worth clicking that link if you haven’t already seen it on FB—it is a 360 degree photo taken from inside the sunshade, so you can rotate the image and look in any direction (including up and down). You can even see my stone carving in progress in its tray).

I managed to get both the sunshade (with the help of a couple of Archers, Alfálrin and Mågne, the Norrskensbågskytt) and the pavilion up and had started unloading the car into the pavilion when David and Caroline arrive, and with their help the inside of the tent was soon in order. They hurried out to join others at the evening meal, but I wasn’t hungry, so I started working on my stone carving. This was my first chance to do so since the Trondheim trip You can see the post from after that trip for a photo of how the cooking pot in progress looked after one day in the workshop there), which also shows the wooden trough filled with sand/soapstone powder to hold the stone while working on it. Part of the reason I hadn’t made any progress on the project since getting home on 13 May (besides being flat-out busy) is that I didn’t have such a trough here (though I did have a bag of sand/soapstone powder to put into it). David, wonderful man that he is, made me the trough during the week before the event, so that I would be able to do carving for the event. I am really happy with how it came out:



It was 23:30 when I started carving Friday evening (I love living far enough north that sunset isn’t a problem in the summer), and I could have happily worked on the project for quite a bit longer. But I knew that I needed to get up to make breakfast, so I put it down at at 00:15 and was in bed by 01:00. I managed to get up by 06:20 and went to the kitchen, where I set a bread sponge then whipped cream to make butter. The buttermilk went into the bowl with the yeast, flour and water and I put a pot onto the stove to boil eggs and started some oatmeal cooking in the rice cooker. By that time Ragnhild was also up so she chopped the tomato and cucumber, made coffee, took over the eggs and porridge and setting stuff out onto the serving table while I mixed up and kneaded the bread dough and baked it.

After I was done cleaning up the baking mess I took a much needed 1.5 hour nap, and then got up and spent the day working on stone carving and visiting with people (most of whom were curious as to what I was making and why). I only made it to the archery range once to wave hi to the people who were there, but everyone else on site seemed to be enjoying the shooting. One thing that made the carving possible is that David has invested in a couple of gadgets to repel mosquitoes. I am not clear as to how or why they work, but one puts a tiny fuel cannister in one end, and a chunk of something blue in the other. When you turn it on it ignites a very tiny flame under the blue stuff, and something about what it emits (which I can’t smell at all when it is burning outside) keeps the mosquitoes away. When I started carving Saturday morning the mosquitoes found me right away and started trying to “help” (themselves, to my blood), so I went and got one of the gadgets and they promptly disappeared, so I could concentrate on what I was doing.


One of the nicest things about being in the SCA is the useful skills one picks up. In addition to archery and stone carving this event also had an open smithy. So I asked Keldor (who was in charge of the smithy) if he could make me a tool for my stone work, and he agreed. I gave him photos of the one I had used in Trondheim, and in an hour or three he had completed the tool, and David attached a handle out of a chunk of tree we found lying on the ground in the forest.

That evening was a bit colder, so put on my wool. I have a rule: no stone carving wearing my nice wool clothes. Therefore I joined some of the others at the camp fire on the beach for conversation and singing. While I would have enjoyed staying up later, I was aware that breakfast comes early, so I went to bed around 01:00.

This morning I got up at 6:10. Ragnhild and I worked more efficiently, so I had the cooking mess cleaned up and was laying back down for a nap by 08:50, after which I woke up and we broke camp. By the time my pavilion and sunshade were down many others had already left, and the archers were finishing loading the Frostheim gear into the trailer. I gave them my thanks for the event, apologised for leaving before the site was spotless (and they thanked me for doing breakfast so they (except for Ragnhild) didn’t have to) and went on my way. I had just enough time to get the stuff that goes into the basement unloaded through the shop door and into the places where they belong when David and Caroline got home, so after I drove the car around to the upper driveway he helped me carry in the chests. I delayed long enough to empty the ice chest, and then curled up on the couch with a book for a bit (they ate their food on the couch swing on the porch) before he and I sat down to discuss what needs to happen before we leave for Cudgel next weekend, and then we started to make some of it so.

We added wood glue to the pavilion hub that started to split a bit, and he cut a board into a double-Y shape to be a better holder for the rope for the rope bed than the stick we have been using. I wrapped the rope on it, determined that it needed a wider handle, so he cut a slot in a round pole segment and glued it to the rope holder. I am very happy with the result—it will be ever so much easier to set up and take down the rope bed with this tool. After he went over to the apartment I caught up on email, then did the mending on one of his and two of my tunics that we noticed needs doing. Between now and when we leave on Friday we need to make a bag for the new poles for the sunshade, do the laundry (plus check to see if anything else needs mending, and if it does, do it), re-pack the SCA stuff (and I need to pack stuff for the Durham trip and finish the poster for the conference), and make food for the trip. It would also be nice to make better, medieval looking, holders for the mosquito things, acquire two more poles, so that I can have my pavilion awning up even when the sun shade is in use, buy one of those LED fake candles to keep in the candle holder at the event (Cudgel is so far south that the sun actually really sets instead of just flirting with going behind the horizon to the north briefly).

Today I worked nearly eight hours (of the five I am meant to work), then went to practice acroyoga with Johan (this was session # 23 in the six weeks since we started practising together, bringing us to a total of 22.8 hours so far). Then I biked home, and had a brief visit with David before settling in to the computer to finish typing up my notes from Monday’s meeting with Karen (my supervisor at Durham), plus the meeting we had had before the Trondheim trip, plus typing up my summaries of the past three weeks of work accomplishments and totals of my work hours. Once that was done, and posted to my “supervision blog” on the Durham web page I put the computer down, with the plan of doing yoga and going to bed. Instead I got the clean dishes put away, emptied my lunch bag and washed and put away those dishes, went outside (at 22:05 and cleaned the old dead raspberry canes out of the raspberry patch and harvested some nettles. After washing the nettles I tossed them into the rice cooker with a couple of cups of rice, one grated carrot, some chopped pumpkin seeds, a handful of baby lentils, some garlic and onion powder, grains of paradise, chives, rosemary, basil, marjoram, thyme, and a chunk of butter and left it to cook while I did my yoga. After yoga I unplugged the rice cooker, stirred in some roasted and salted sunflower seeds, and returned to the computer, where I got my acroyoga log up to date, and am now typing this. As soon as I post it I get to go to bed.

I had had plans for what to do at work today. Instead there was an email from Lydia, my Master's student and SCA friend who moved back to the States in the autumn (missing Norrskensfesten so that she could be at her brother's wedding). She has finally gotten her thesis pretty much written and sent it to me for comment. It turned out to be so well written and organized that I am actually reading it (and making comments, of course), and learning all kinds of things I never knew about orogenic gold deposits. This ate all of the time between arriving at the office around 11:00 (these things happen when one stays up till 03:00) and time to head to Parkour.

This was my first time back at Parkour in three weeks, and this time there were only three of us. Therefore, while I did try some of the vaults and jumps that were the day's official plan, I also got help on technique for handstands, cartwheels, backwards somersaults, etc. It felt good to move again after not much all week (well, other than short yoga sessions and pedaling to and from work). Yes, indeed, it is bikeable weather here in the north. While the snow is still waist deep in the yard, they had done a good job on plowing the bike paths, and we have had 16 days in a row where it was above freezing during the day (and below freezing at night), so the bike path is totally clear. Well, there is some gravel, but it was such a good snow year, and so little above zero temps (until the past two weeks) that they didn't need to put much gravel on the path at all, so it is easy to pedal. Of course, the street in my neighbourhood, being a dirt road, is rather muddy, but that is why they invented rain-pants.

When I sat down to the computer this evening, again with a plan of what to do for thesis work, I discovered a letter from my colleague at the Nidaros Cathedral restoration project in Trondheim. He has now packaged up a number of samples from different quarries they work with, and is sending them to me so that I can analyze them and compare the composition with the archaeological objects I will also analyze. He emailed me the list of quarries, so I spent this evening happily playing with google maps to see if I could find the quarries just from their names and looking for quarry like features in that area. I managed to find five of the eight, and have sent photos to him to have my guesses confirmed or denied. He also reiterated his invitation to come visit their workshop, so I asked on FB to see if anyone wants to join me.

 This was my first week that I managed to meet my goals for both Durham and LTU hours. I also met my exercise goals, and goals for everything else save music (choir didn't happen this week as our conductor was on holiday, and I haven't tuned my dulcimer since getting back from Durham, so haven't been playing) and sleep (8 hours sleep a day was never a reasonable goal, but better to leave it that high and thus have somewhere the extra hours needed elsewhere can come from, than to set other things higher than achievable).

Goal:	56	25	20	20	20	15	10	2
	sleep	useful tasks	Durham	LTU	social	exercise	entertainment	make music
Week 10	46	31	21	20	22	17	12	0

My focus for this week 10 Durham work has been writing the section of the introduction on the steatite objects listed in the Swedish Historical Museum's database,starting in the north, and working my way south. So far I have finished the sections for:

• Lappland (5)
• Norrbotten (1)
• Västerbotten (0)
• Jämtland (3)

These were fairly quick and easy compared to what some of the southern provinces will be (*cough*Birka*cough*) as they had so few steatite objects, which makes this a good choice in work flow, since it has given me a chance to get used to how the database functions, what information can be obtained by pushing which button, and how I want to organise the information in the thesis.  As I go I am putting in entries onto GoogleEarth, so I will be able to present a map for all of the locations.

I am adding keywords to every entry in the research section, and linking the written text to both the figure caption list and the original note card for each (which has a photo of the object, if available).

It is worth noting at this stage that while most of the objects with photos so far are a pinkish brown colour, and, at least from the photo look likely could have come from the same source, two are dark green, and most certainly came from somewhere else.  It will be interesting to see if any other different colours appear as I work my way further south. I would like to wait and decide which objects to analyse until after this section of the background research is done.  However, I am also worried about how long this part of the project may take and the resultant delays if I am not analysing anything yet.

I did do my first spot analyses of a random bit of soapstone we had laying around the house on Tuesday (2018-03-06), however, I didn't have time to do the data processing last week while in the office, and didn't bother to VPN to that computer from home but instead kept plugging away at the database. Therefore this week's goal for office time includes looking at those results.

 I just heard from Karen, I won the stipend, and she has turned in the paperwork to the admissions office. Fairly soon I should receive the official notification.  So looking forward to being a student again.

(which means I will not be applying for that job I mentioned earlier today)

I spent 1 hour and 40 minutes this afternoon in a skype call with my potential supervisor for my second PhD project. She really wants me to apply, and tells me that I am the best candidate for the position. We finally decided that I will be studying Viking Age Soapstone Vessels for my project, and I have till Friday to complete the project proposal and turn in my application. We also agreed that, assuming all goes well with this project then we can apply for funding for the other projects, in turn. We are both thinking in terms of long term collaboration, with me based in Luleå. Needless to say, I am pretty excited about all this.

Just after she and I said goodbye my apprentice arrived, and we bounced together about this, and then she tuned the moraharpa and I tuned the dulcimer, and then we packed up both instruments, loaded them into the car, and went and picked up my other Masters student and my acroyoga partner and went to Nyckleharpa night (David couldn't make it this time, he had a work meeting that went till 19:00, and was followed by a company provided restaurant meal and yet more work related conversation). I played along on the few tunes I know, looked at the sheet music I have painted, but haven't yet tried playing for a couple of others, and the rest of the time worked on the hood in progress for the Norrskensbågskytt (Northern light's archer)--now most of the northern-lights patterned tablet weaving has been sewn to the hood. After music Siv showed me her progress on her viking costume for Norrskensfesten, it will be beautiful, and Birger showed me the tablet weaving he has been doing, which is also beautiful. I am so delighted that they are joining us for the full event this year. They are such delightful people.

I am making tiny progress on preparing my application for a 2nd PhD through the University of Durham. Today I actually started filling in the on-line application form, so that the basics are ready when I finally have my project proposal and budget ready to attach. I have exchanged a number of letters with my potential advisor, who has written to various people in her network and forwarded me their replies. She sent me a copy of a very interesting PhD thesis by one of her colleagues who studied "war booty" from the Roman Iron Age, using LA-ICP-MS to study the weapons that had been deposited in a heap in a lake. What really amazed me about his thesis is that he did his data processing by hand, in a spreadsheet, since his department didn't have a licence for a program like iolite, which is what I use for my LA-ICP-MS data processing.

I also looked at the web page for the Swedish student financial aid people. It looks like it is possible for me to get a stipend from them to study in the UK, but only until I am 57, so I had better do it now and not wait. The stipend isn't huge, but it will make a difference in paying for lab work and possibly even getting to Durham now and then to actually see my advisor in person.

The only reason I don't already have a project proposal is that there are too many cool project ideas that we have been tossing back and forth at one another. The good news is that I will enjoy whatever project we settle on, the bad news is that I can only pick one. garnets? glass? soapstone? beads? cooking toys? Something Viking Age, anyway, and using Swedish artifacts. That much we know.

Some of you who have been reading this since I first got hired to run the LA-ICP-MS lab might remember that while waiting for the delivery of the machines I had contacted some archaeologists in Uppsala wondering if they might be interested in doing some collaborative research on some garnet-bearing sword hilts etc. It turns out that my potential advisor knows them, and is good friends with one of them.

The more letters we exchange, the more convinced I am that this is a chance of a lifetime, and I should go for it.

And, to make things even better, AMT was fun tonight, as always! I love the gymnastics training. Never mind that I am the worst kid in the class, I am showing improvement every week, and enjoying it.

I stopped by an open house today--one of the houses in our neighbourhood is for sale--the third since we bought our place (if you count ours). That house is slightly older than ours (1964 vs '66), not as big, weirdly laid out (who sets it up so that one has to go through the kitchen into and then through a bedroom to get to the garage and laundry area? Why did they take off the back door? They also have much, much, much less land than we have--just a small yard suitable for little kids to play in. I am so happy we got the house we did. The highlight of the house was a wall mounted can-opener in the kitchen, that, from the look of it, must have been put up when the house was brand new. but probably hasn't been used in years, since most "canned" food in Sweden comes in cardboard boxes, and those few items that are in metal cans have a self-opening lid.