It’s been a long day. I spent most of it cleaning/organizing my office. I haven’t been able to use it for a couple of years, because rather than keep the space organized, I would just dump stuff in there with the intent of getting to it later.

Well, later finally arrived, and I spent this afternoon sorting and organizing old bank statements, credit card bills, and the like. Not exactly my idea of a good time, but I put my computer’s music playlist on shuffle and set to work.

Now, instead of a disorganized morass of papers, I have a dozen or so neatly organized file folders, and a grocery bag full of old stuff to be shredded. Now all I need to do is keep them that way, and I can use my office as an office again, instead of as a glorified storage closet.

This is part of the preparation for two things — NaNoWriMo in November and my plans for what I’ve been calling “The Great Culling”. You may have seen the pictures I posted of my RPG collection… well, there are a significant number of those books that I haven’t pulled off the shelf in years, and will probably never play. I also need some extra money, so I’m going to be going through the collection and sorting it into 3 categories:

(1) Things I need.
(2) Things I probably don’t need… but I really like them and don’t want to get rid of them just yet.
(3) Things I definately don’t need, and can dump to clear up shelf space and get a little extra money.

If you’re interested in acquiring any pieces from my collection, watch this space. When The Great Culling is done, I will post an announcement here, and accept offers. Anything on the list that doesn’t get snagged right off will go up on ebay to find a good home.

One final update — Mary had an appointment with her OB on Monday, and we had another set of utrasound pictures taken. This set was espectially cool, because they took the data from the ultrasound and rendered it out into a 3-D real-time image. Here’s a look at the “standard” ultrasound:

Here are some of the 3-D renders. The tech can set the ‘depth’ of the render at any point, and so you can get some different views. The first one is set at a “standard” depth — you can see the left arm and the outside of the head, but the features are obscured by the haze of amniotic fluid. The second is set a little deeper — the left arm is partly cut off (you can sort of see the left hand up against the head), and a little bit of the skin is removed from the abdomen, revealing the early formation of the ribs. The facial features (such as they are at this stage of development) are clearer, though.

In the third image, the depth is set down even further — we are actually ignoring the top of the skin and skull (in relation to how we’re looking, at any rate) and are looking at the developing brain. The kid is looking away from us, so we don’t get a look at his (or her) face.

This last one is the best of the lot, I think. Nice profile of the face, and a good view of the right hand.

That’s all for now! Stay tuned for further updates!