Brazoria

I am currently working in Brazoria, Texas on removing African-American burials that fall underneath a road in the city. It is a fun project with good co-workers and it is sunny and warm. It may sound gruesome or weird to excavate burials but it is pretty interesting. These burials date to the 19th and early 20th century and have to be moved so they won't be destroyed. MOre are probably under the houses in the area, but we may never know. A cemetery is just east of the road and was established in the mid 20th century, but more than likely burials in this area date much much earlier. A plantation is nearby and it may be this first started out as a slave cemetery.

Each coffin is different - some are shaped like count dracula's, an irregular diamond shape others taper toward the feet or are rectangular. Some coffins were placed within outer boxes but some just had planks across the top. When we remove the wood we find screws that held the lid down - these are sometimes ornate and sometimes very plain caps. We also find handles associated with the coffins. Within the coffins we find the human remains, in varying degrees of decomposition but only consisting of bones - some bones are severly fragmented, some are fairly well intact. All of them have been disturbed by the ground water and the natural forces of the earth - sometimes leg bones are under the head or vertebrae are down by the feet.

It is interesting work.

Winter Holiday

This was really fun holiday for me.

I had a really great time at our office party in Austin on the 19th - we had secret santa presents and Threadgills catered turkey and stuffing and all the works lunch and lots of wine and beer. Afterwards, a few of us sat around at a bar that had just about everything to drink (Opal Devines) and had a delightful time talking and drinking.

Shortly thereafter I was back in Lubbock and my parents, my husband, and I celebrated the Winter Solstice with a pork crown roast (a wonderful invention) which was really tasty and opened our presents to each other.

Then my husband and I flew up to Boise Idaho and celebrate Christmas with his sister Bridgette, her husband and son and with Sean and Bridgette's mom, Michele. We stayed there for six days. We had many wonderful meals with leftovers that lasted for days. Opened many presents (although the ones we had shipped to them were stuck in Portland due to the crazy weather they had there) and played rummikub, uno, scrabble, "left, right, center" and Route 66 games. It was also very snowy there and very beautiful since they live on the outskirts, in the foothills, with their backdoor to the hills leading up to the mountains. Our travel was uneventful, which was unexpected.

For New Years eve, my husband andI were back in Lubbock recovered from the trip and enjoyed each others company with a bit of champagne and tapneades and bruschetes followed by steaks on New Years day.

I am really not ready to go back to work.