This is a continuing series on the You Can Do It! The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown-Up Girls.
This is the second badge listed in the book that I earned, which is the fourth one to earn. I already covered the first one here. But moving on…
Tag Archives: university
Getting Back To Business
My computer went kaput a few weeks ago, and today I’m the proud owner of a newer model. It’s quite untraditional, but I think that it suits me rather well.
I have an iPad that I inherited, and was able to find a bluetooth keyboard, with rather good ratings, over at Best Buy today… on super sale! It’s really nice. Sort of like a futuristic typewriter, rather than a desktop or laptop. I’m really pleased.
More importantly, I’m really pleased to be able to write again; to type. Pretty ecstatic, actually, so, prepare for some blog posts in the coming weeks.
So, what have I been doing with my time? Let’s take a quick look, right?
Stomping Grounds
Though only one city has ever been my home, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t grow up, so to speak, in other places. My family never strayed far from the tried and true, so places were visited over and over again. Those places ended up feeling like an extension of our home. We’d explored them so much that after a relatively short amount of time, we knew these places like the back of our hands.
There were one time ventures to various other places like Disney World, St. Augustine, Colonial Williamsburg, San Antonio, Savannah, Sanibel Island, Destin, etc. However, those weren’t our typical excursions, whether to visit family or to stay on holiday. So, I thought I’d talk a little about all of the places where I grew up. But, first I’ll talk about my hometown.
Tasha Tudor: Around The Year
The uni library partnered with the main downtown art gallery to display the work of Tasha Tudor. She was primarily known for her miniatures, her details, her greeting cards and the borders that accompanied her illustrations in various children’s books. We did not know who she was, but were nonetheless interested in seeing the collection.
I was especially thrilled with her tiny, miniature drawings, her borders and not that I’m a fan of dolls, but she made things in miniature for her children’s dolls to play with.
One of her early works that inspired her mature work. This illustration was only about 2 or 3 inches in size. To draw so tiny is amazing to me. I also like the border work and the subject detail of Colonial America.
An adorable, and miniature, doll size Christmas card. It was so cute, in fact, that I used this as my happy picture of the day for the #100HappyDays project I’m working on.
She created a tiny post box, which she named Sparrow Post, so that her kids dolls could send letters to each other. She even created a catalog with fabric swatches and patterns, so that her kids could place orders for doll clothes. They would send their orders through the Sparrow Post, and she would make the clothes and send the parcels back through the Sparrow Post. Seriously, too adorable! This was also about only 2 inches in size.
A lot of her greeting cards were really great, with tiny details or borders, but this one was my absolute favourite. This is the one that I would have sent to people.
Besides illustrating for other people’s children’s books, she did come up with some of her own. Miniature books that were hand written and bound with tiny illustrations. My favourite, however, was her tale of Edgar Allan Crow for several reasons. First, Edgar Allan Poe. The fact that she also thought his name was spelled Allen. Crows, I love crows & she did too which is really cool. Plus, it’s just adorable. I also like knowing that they would put a hand crafted crow on top of their Christmas tree every year. I want to do that!
On a similar note, my town is putting Little Free Libraries up all over the place. I love them. I think they are a great idea. Oddfellows crafted theirs to look exactly like their 1907 neoclassical building & it is right at the entryway.
Edgar Allan Poe… Part I
The Sister surmised our relationship with Edgar Allan Poe quite nicely the other day. “He’s like a relative. He’s not our favourite relative, but we keep him close, ya know. He’s just part of the family.” I do not know if most Americans feel this way. It seems that everyone knows of him, but most people either seem completely obsessed by him, like they’re his little fan girls, or either can’t be too sussed about him. My sister and I are somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.
To be perfectly honest, while I grew up reading his work and am sort of fond of him, it was only recently that I realized his middle name wasn’t spelled with like Allen with an E. I know, I need to pay attention to details… I’m working on that, but I’m definitely not fan girling over the guy if I don’t even properly (until) recently know his name!
However, I do dig the guy and his work. Besides growing up reading his works, I named my cat after him a few years ago.
Everyone… meet Jupiter Poe. Named for the character Jupiter in The Gold-Bug from 1843, and Poe’s surname. He knows his full name, but he’s generally referred to by a myriad of names such as simply Poe, as well as Poepy (poe-pee), Poepavitch (poe pah vitch), Poepy the Terrible. You get the idea.
Then there was the trip to Baltimore where I traversed a million miles of that city on foot just to visit Westminster Cemetery to view Poe’s grave sites.
It was not something on my life list of things to see. I did not travel to Baltimore for this purpose. We were there on other business, but since we were there, it just seemed like the type of thing that you don’t miss out on seeing.
Nor was the place that Poe was last seen alive. Might as well visit that as well, right? Which all of this leads me into my city. Our uni received a grant with The Big Read, and they chose Edgar Allan Poe.
My city is doing twelve different Poe events between 06. October and 03. December. Different departments of the university and the public library will host the events not just on campus or at the library but a few other places in town. The Sister and I were pretty excited. It seems cool.
Though our town is like a black void for events. One might only hear about it after it’s happened, or else not at all. We follow our local library on Facebook and receive their monthly newsletter, however, we did not know about this until the day of. That was only because we happened to be at the library to check books out and there was a huge poster about the opening event. The next event we are interested in isn’t until 28. October; Exquisite Dreams: Edgar Allan Poe Illustrated, but until then, here’s the opening reception that we attended.
The opening reception was basically, “here’s some free swag and we’ll give you hints about what’s going to happen in the next few months.” So, I got a poster for the October events, a magnet featuring the opening line from The Raven, a brand new copy of Great Tales & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, and a Big Read bookmark.
When it was all said and done, The Sister was super excited to have her photo taken next to the life-size cardboard photo of Poe.
She had a vision; a grand plan man. She wanted to be serious and do it in black and white. I like how she’s so close that it looks like they’re holding hands and are possibly a couple. Haha, anyways… then she suggested I pose next to it.
And you get me, completely uncomfortable with the whole affair. It wasn’t that I was afraid of what people would think of me, it was just a bit unsettling to me. On the eve of his 166th death anniversary I’m standing next to a life-size photo of a real man. Someone who used to be alive. Who lived in a world so far removed from ours; a man who’s been dead for 166 years! Yeah, I’m trying to say it was really weird.
At least there’s a bit of consolation here. I’m not the only one who couldn’t be bothered to learn his name… and this woman was famous.
Alien Tea Shoppe 