A New CollaboRAtion for 2014

Be sure to stop by and give Gisbornes Boy lots of love for this amazing logo graphic!!

I am delighted to be collaborating with JazzBaby on the 2014 version of SpReAd the Love, a year long initiative to celebrate the wonderful generosity of this fandom in our local communities.  Charitable giving is something that is near and dear to my heart…to the hearts of millions really.  I often feel limited in what I am able to do financially, but I’ve come to realize that donations of money are not the only important contributions.  This is what I absolutely love about STL…check out the history here…giving comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

SpReAd the Love will look a little different in 2014.  For one, in addition to donations of blood and food, basically any act of generosity or kindness fits the bill.  Closet cleaning result in bags of outgrown clothes for the thrift store?  It counts.   Driving your carless neighbor to the store?  It counts.  Cleaning windows for shut ins?  You got it…it counts!   Tell us also if someone did something great for you…what seems like a small kindness can have a huge ripple effect.  You’ll be surprised, once you start tallying, how much you are already doing that is making a difference for someone!

How does this work?  STL will be a year long project.  You do what you do and then let us know about it…you can leave a comment here or at Jazz’s (anonymous if you like) or send me an email at: ancientarmitage at gmail dot com with the subject KINDNESS and I will keep your name and address strictly confidential if you prefer.  We’ll keep a log of all the goodness and tally it up.  Here’s the really great part…an anonymous third collaboRAtor has pledged to donate £1 to Armitage’s Just Giving Charities for each kindness tallied between now and the end of February (to a £200 max)!

Let’s SpReAd some Love!!

Graphic by GisbornesBoy

Καλά Χριστούγεννα ArmitageWorld!

The predawn stillness was broken by rapid footsteps descending wooden stairs, tearing paper, laughing children and the roar of the snowblower and the scrape of the shovel….??

Christmas morning was going along so well…I managed, with only a tiny exaggeration at 5:47, to keep Mini-me in bed until 7:00 before she couldn’t stand it anymore.  The kids were opening their offerings from Santa – bittersweet this year since I think it will be the last one that Mini-Me believes – when I looked outside.  Ergh…it snowed again overnight.  Ordinarily, we’d let it go a bit longer since we didn’t need to be out until later, but I also saw my elderly neighbor out shoveling her driveway.  We have an arrangement – in exchange for the use of her snowblower, we take care of her snow removal.  She’s expecting family today, so she decided to shovel it herself, I assume because she didn’t want to disturb our Christmas morning.  She was already done with most of the driveway when I walked out onto the porch (in barefeet and pajamas) to do a small town yell and let her know we’d be there shortly to blow out what the snow plow had left in the end of her driveway.

Nanook of the North…aka Obscurus. I had to beat a hasty retreat – that thing throws further than I thought!

Not exactly the idyllic Christmas morning I was expecting, but all in all, not so bad.  I had started to clean off the car that doesn’t fit in the garage (don’t ask) but then decided to grab my phone to snap some pictures while I was out there.  Trying not to track snow into the house, I called from the mudroom for one of the kids…no answer.  Strange – I left them knee deep in wrapping paper in front of the tree.  Leaving snow tracks, I went into the house to fetch my phone and found the wrapping paper all bagged up, and the kids…and their loot…no where in sight.  They had packed up their stuff and relocated to their rooms to get down to business.  A Christmas miracle!!  Usually, there needs to be an act of congress to get these kids to haul their stuff upstairs!

Back outside, I returned to assist with the snow removal.  Actually, my presence was pretty much de trop.  Although there was at least three inches of new snow, it is of the sparkly, fluffy variety –  I’m told the type of “powder” skiers love.  (I wouldn’t know – the one and only time I skied,  there were blue streaks all over the snow from where the butt of my new Levis slid down the slope.  I understand that is not the proper form!)  The snowblower makes pretty short work of this kind of snow, so I piddled around, cleaned off the front walk and the porch and took some pictures.

I find the “Life Cycle of a Snowman” painted window on my porch kind of irritating today 🙂

I really wish I had the resources to rent a crane to put lights in this tree!

So the snow has all been moved (for now…weather radar shows another storm moving across the state from the west!) and we will mobilize shortly to head over to my sister’s house for brunch.  Wherever today finds you, I wish you the very best of days…full of Joy, Hope, Love and Peace.

Happy Holidays from Ancient Armitage!!

I don’t wanna – do you Richard Armitage?

Yesterday I found myself wondering if Richard Armitage, industrious fellow that he is, ever finds things to do in order to avoid doing the one thing he really should be doing.  This was me the past few days.  The fall semester is over – all except the grading.  I graded two of my five classes on Tuesday (mild applause is fine 😉 ) and should have started the rest on Wednesday when I found that I had the house to myself.

I have the house to myself?!  Surely there is something better than grading to be done?  I thought to myself.  In truth, I will always look for something else to do when it comes to certain tasks…grading is one of them.  I would rather do just about anything rather than grade – ironic in that I keep assigning work that requires me to grade it!  Wednesday I decided to go through the boxes from the  bakers rack in my dining room that has been replaced an Art Deco buffet I found at a thrift store (lovingly refinished by Obscurus for my birthday)

My $40 investment..

While I was going through boxes, sorting, reorganizing, recycling and chucking, I was listening to music from a funk band I followed religiously from bar gig to bar gig (not an easy feat when one is dating a member of a different band!) when I was in college.   A college friend and I discovered that the band has posted a couple of their albums (they were never released on CD as far as I know) on soundcloud.com.  That music is an instant reminder of a time when life was a lot less complicated and unadulterated fun was pretty easy to come by.

Having found a task to divert me from actual work, and music to accompany it, I finished sorting the box of miscellaneous office supplies and dug into a box of books.  Among the textbooks, biographies and Little Golden Books I found, a photo album with pix documenting my first seasons of excavation.  In them I found a few pictures of a somewhat younger, tanner and blonder me in media res. Aha, proof positive that I am in fact an archaeologist!  (If you, by some wild coincidence, happen to recognize this site, and know who the RL me is, please do email me off blog so we can catch up without “blowing my cover”)

Position assumed…some dental pick type work…(note the extremely scientific dustpan to the right of my head)

For every hour spent digging, two are spent drawing and recording…(also a very technically advance plastic kitchen colander)

Ah, right…not me, but my very distracting trench mate. Dig romance – I cried the whole way home from Heathrow to O’Hare!  Parting is such sweet sorrow….

Sometimes the only way to get the job done is to get down in that hole…by the end of the season, that hole was so deep that no one could see me! (Yes, that is a red beach sand bucket)

It always surprises me how such a little thing, like finding some old pictures can have such a profound effect.  I really loved how, in his very welcome holiday letter to fans, Richard Armitage points out a similar idea – wishing those struggling simply, “a sense of peace for the day”.

Source: Guylty

Despite having developed a cold (I’m pretty sure the pharmacy clerk thinks I’m starting a meth lab) and still having a pile of grading to do (powers that be have extended deadline to Monday), I’m feeling pretty upbeat when I was in a bit of a funk.  So thanks Richard Armitage, for helping me “waste” some time that really needed to be wasted…and good luck with that gravy – it’s a personal nemesis of mine!

Virtutes Romanae: Industria et Salubritas per Richard Armitage

Yes, I’m still alive…up to my eyeballs in a backlog of THDOS premiere and press tour materials.  I’m tired from just watching the video of events – I can only imagine the energy it must take to be an integral part of a tour like this.   Promotion is a huge part of the overall film making process these days, and it is a part that Richard Armitage has been less than enthusiastic about in the past.  Nevertheless, he’s really stepped up to the plate again, thus embodying the Roman virtue of industria.  Hard work, diligence, industriousness – all characteristics that can be easily identified in Richard Armitage’s approach to his career.   Over the past two weeks he, joined by many fellow cast members, has walked the red carpet at premieres on two continents, met legions of fans, signed autographs and posed for seemingly thousands of cameras…smile, smile, smile.

Richard Armitage works the red carpet in Berlin
Source: Guylty!!

That’s just the tip of the iceberg…in addition to the premieres, he’s also done countless interviews, press conferences , promos, “Hangouts” and Q/A’s.  Maybe it’s my indulgent eye, but it seems to me that he makes an effort to offer a bit more info in answer to oft repeated questions that must feel like a single song on perpetual repeat to him by now. It would be really easy for us to shrug this all off and say, “It’s all part of the job.”  This is a true statement,  but by his own admission, it is not a part of his job that Richard Armitage particularly relishes.  However, despite the travel, the fatigue and the reality of being “on”, not as a character but as himself, for two solid weeks, he doesn’t just go through the motions, he does it to the best of his ability.  Industria. So how does salubritas (good health, wholesomeness) fit in here?  Just look at him! Movie boyfriend is in fine form bringin’ the industria!!

*sigh*
Source: Guylty

Bit of a dry spell…or, Real life intrudes on Armitageworld!

Regularly scheduled programming will resume soon…until then, keep on rollin’

😉

THDoS Premiere Live Stream…Chat anyone?

Since I have Luddite-like tendencies when it comes to Twitter, and I haven’t heard anything about this going on elsewhere, I have a chat room open on Chatzy if anyone would like to pop in during the live stream.  It’s open now, but don’t be alarmed if I’m not there…I have to go to class at 6pm (CST) but I’ll be back in time for the festivities.  Click here to enter.

I have tried this and it seems to be working…if not, drop me a comment and I’ll email you the link directly.

Richard Armitage Silent Auction! RASA for JustGiving 2013

I seem to do reblogs wrong everytime, so let’s see if this works…
Still time left to place your bids…

I Want to be a Pin Up

Welcome to the Richard Armitage Silent Auction.

You can read all about the rules of the auction here, so please do so before you bid.

All of the money raised will go to a Richard Armitage JustGiving charity, but which one will be determined based on the poll results, so please take a moment and vote.

To learn more about the charities, please click on the link above where (on the right hand side) you can read about the specific charities.

As way of thanking those who have contributed to the RA Silent Auction, either by donating and bidding, or commenting, reposting, retweeting, reblogging,  I have also prepared a giveaway where you can get your hands on this Thorin Bookmark.

Please click on the following link to take part in the bookmark giveaway: a Rafflecopter giveaway.

For those who will not be bidding on items but would like to contribute, please…

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