“A good half of the art of living is resilience.”
― Alain de Botton

Woof, this week. The training wheels are off, kittens. Development, project management, and construction planning is such an interesting industry because there are so many moving parts going on at any given moment. Our project managers conduct architects, artists, constructions workers, heritage societies, politicians, contractors, suppliers, and truly heroic amounts of paperwork. Though slightly less harrowing, working on marketing means that I don’t get to focus on just one project. I’m on all of them, all the time. It’s a lot of fun and the good kind of hard work, but there inevitably comes a moment each week where I feel like I’ve put together a really solid timeline or project and got all the moving pieces into a beautiful line…only to have one tiny thing that no one can control because it’s a provider or external system fall out of the row and take my meticulously laid plans down with it. I knew I’d “arrived” last week when a major timeline was pretty significantly impacted by months and my reaction was not to panic but to sigh, make a cup of tea, and just crack on with some solution options. Britishisation is almost complete.

Here are your links, tell me what you’re up to this weekend in the comments!

Perhaps telling you that Katarina and i have legitimately speculated on turning a good portion of 15th century British history into a totally fictitious web series, set loosely in a modern day high school or some place correctly hormone charged and overly-dramatic…will explain why I found this hilarious. No?

And while we’re on Buzzfeed, apparently I’m “West London Posh.” Ha. I’m a quarter WASP, a quarter Slovak, and half who knows, thank you very much!

Very much behind all of these.

Tumblr find of the week.

Downton Abbey has little redeeming value anymore besides being a well-costumed soap opera. So here’s an interview with the costumer! I make no apologies for my continued plan on turning into the Dowager Countess in my old age.

There’s historical treasure everywhere. One of my favorite memories of the PD was being told to bin a ton of paperwork only to discover it was an unintentional archive of information about my alma mater from the perspective of its resident law enforcement office going straight back to the 50s.

Disney has it’s value, but I maintain it’s largely terrible at modeling life choices.

Interesting idea. I think I still have far too many bad American habits that likely set me back this side of the pond.

I have said it before, and I shall say it again. How do you lose something like this?!

This headline stands alone. Also, penguins.

A bit of a downer, but there’s this from the world of Mormon news. Whether you agree or disagree with the actions, this has been an interesting year for excommunications in the community and it’s worth having a conversation about why. You know, if you’re into that sort of conversation. If not, just ignore it.

Long live London.

“There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time.”
― Coco Chanel

Better late than never, kittens. A slammed week ended with my first ever proper British holiday work party, the stuff of stereotypes and pop culture memes. It ended up being a lot of fun and quite festive. The company I’m working with is chock full of interesting and driven people with amazing stories–such as a managing director who nearly joined the Household Cavalry regiment at one point, and had to participate in a hazing event where he and other recruits were hunted…on horseback! Or a project manager who, as it turns out, is also an Olympian silver medalist for Australia. I have to be careful not to feel quite dinky in comparison!

This weekend it’s freelance reports, Christmas shopping, and general meandering with Jeff, trying to take in as much of the city during the holidays as we can. Let me know what you’re getting up to, and share anything else worth reading in the comments.

Interesting. Apparently I’m pretty resilient, though I could improve in some ways that I find useful to think about.

This is not a drill! Opinions, please?

Read fiction.

Er, thanks for clearing that up, legal system?

I see your Christmas jumpers and I raise you these!

Incredibly relevant to my current interests and obligations.

Learn about something new every day, darlings.

More things to read. My US library card recently expired leaving me in a terrible conundrum! I usually have about five books going at once and quite suddenly I shot down to zero on my kindle, and I still don’t have a London library card–due to the ongoing and deeply annoying problem of trying to get a bank account, and thus bills, information, and credit in my own name to open a library account. I cannot imagine how women lived without a legal identity, and in the not too distant past. I simply can’t.

Someday I shall open a business called…Bantam and Frost.

Minor warning for pearl clutchers, but this is a really fascinating article about what historically could be put on tiny photos.