“We often miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work”
― Thomas A. Edison

Another busy week, my possums. I’m so grateful to Ruth for getting me out of the house on Wednesday to go to a freelancing event (more on that later), but I was honestly worried I wouldn’t be able to go at first and spent the whole day at a frantic pace to carve out that evening. Ditto for pizza on Monday.

You wouldn’t think it, especially based on last week‘s theatre adventures, but January started off fast and hasn’t slowed down for me at all. I’ve been helping a client with a major rebrand project since mid-December and it’s basically eaten my life. I have tons of personal emails to catch up on that are just piling up, thank you notes still to send for Christmas gifts and letters, and even job hunting (while still very much an active project) has given way to it on the priority list. Since I’m so many hours ahead of the client I’m usually kept up quite late every night, and I’ve started obsessively checking my phone like one of those people I used to poke fun at. Because every time I step two feet away from my flat, a major and highly urgent project arrives in my inbox. Without fail.

It’s a bit stressful, but really rewarding at the same time. All of 2013 seemed to involve being thrown into situation after situation that was completely uncharted territory for me, which I loved even though it frequently intimidated the hell out of me, and 2014 looks to hold more of the same. I never thought I’d be working on some of the projects I am, or have the skills I’ve been able to acquire. I’m still figuring out how to balance competing demands and projects (and occasionally failing to find a balance at all, reduced to eating gummy candy for lunch and working until 2am), and there are still many things I can do much better than I’m currently doing. But I’m learning quick and working hard. So, even though I’m feeling pretty tuckered out from this week, I’m happy as a clam.

Here are your links, tell me what you’ve been up to lately in the comments!

Goodness knows the sports world has a long way to go in respecting and embracing social/gender/cultural inclusion across many groups of people, but I still think this is kind of a cool story.

Fascinating article on how and why people disbelieve what they do.

I’d read this in a heartbeat.

True fandom never dies, I guess. I was a Spice Girls fan myself, unabashedly, but this level of devotion is quite foreign to me. Then again, I’m currently on a Sherlock kick so perhaps I need to judge less harshly.

h/t to Jeff for this commercial about the less glamorous but wholly necessary side of paper. I have a kindle for convenience sake, and I enjoy its many uses, but you will have to pull printed books from my cold dead hands.

Medical science is really just a staggering thing. This will either make some really awful dystopian scenarios come true, or…honestly I’m not sure I can think of an alternative. And I’m the woman who’d be fine with sprinkling the various elements and chemicals into a jar, letting is sit for a few months, and popping the cork on a fully developed infant as a reproductive system.

Etsy shop find of the week. A bit odd, but frankly also a bit adorable.

h/t to my friend Annette who works with refugees in Salt Lake City, patterns of forced migrations since 1975.

How big is your vocabulary?

Kids write the darnedest things.

Photographs of a museum’s collection at night.

Loved this piece from Cup of Jo about living in small spaces. Our flat is bigger, but decorating it is a challenge and I found lots of this helpful.

Seriously. It took a fictional character being denied inheritance rather than actual people?

Speaking of fictional characters…in defense of Ron Weasley! (h/t Savvy)