Frozen February

February has certainly gotten off to a cold and snowy start here in C-town, Illinois, as it sounds like it has back in Utah too! It was wonderful to have a free day today when I could sleep in and get everything done here at the apartment that I've needed to do for the last few weeks. It was also really nice that I didn't have to be anywhere today--because the snow kept coming all night, and we ended up with about eight inches outside. I decided to venture over to Wal Mart for a minute earlier today, but I found that this time I had to enter my car from the passenger side because the snow drift on the driver's side was too high :-) Luckily Stryder drives well in snow, so we made it there and back safely. Other than the quick trip out, I've just been doing homework, cleaning, writing book reports, writing paper proposals, doing finances, vacuuming, and cooking veggies to go with Aly's pasta this evening. I have a whole heap of work due on Monday, so I've been trying to get most of it out-of-the-way so that I can have a fun weekend with Greg. Tomorrow we'll be going to St. Louis to celebrate his birthday (but we'll have to watch out for the Mardi Gras crowd--supposedly there is going to be a big parade tomorrow), and then on Sunday after church I'll go up to Athens with him for a Super Bowl party at the home of his boss.

One of the assignments that is due on Monday is a paper proposal for Dr. Barnhart's 19th Century Social and Cultural History in America Class. He has assigned us to write a 20-page research paper on a topic of our choice, but it seems a little overwhelming with all of the other 20-page research papers we have to write this semester! So, I am taking the advice of many of my past teachers who have said that in grad. school you have to find ways to double-dip--in other words, find ways to make assignments count for more than one class. Back in the day when I was in Dr. Richard's American Slavery class at BYU, I wrote a paper (which I thought was really good) about an abolitionist named Elijah Lovejoy who was killed in Illinois in 1837. It just so happens that one of the topics we're discussing in Dr. Barnhart's class is the abolitionist movement, and so I think I'm going to adapt and add to my Elijah Lovejoy paper for this class. I figure that when you write a 28-page paper for something, you might as well use it for something else too :-) Elijah Lovejoy is going to save me--if it weren't for the paper about him, I don't think I would survive this semester!

Movie Star

I am going to be a movie star. But, before that happens, Charleston needs to thaw-out! Winter blew in this afternoon. It snowed a few inches, and the wind has been blowing really hard all evening, so the snow drifts are piling up. Aly and I had to go get some things at Wal Mart this evening, and as we were driving over there it looked like we were driving in the clouds becaue the snow on the road was very whispy--it was kind of a weird sensation. I also went over to Institute class this evening, but I am planning to stay inside for the rest of the night and all day tomorrow. Thankfully I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow, so I can stay out of the snow and get stuff done here. It's supposed to clear up tomorrow afternoon, so the weather should be good for Saturday when Greg and I are planning to go to St. Louis to celebrate his birthday. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I accidentally said "St. Louis" in a conversation with him tonight--my bad! So, what remains the surprise now is where we will be going once we actually get to St. Louis--I'm not going to give that one away.

About being a movie star . . . . Well, Mr. Riccio decided that we didn't have enough to do, so we should enter an Apple I-Movie competition that is being held here on campus (I think there is money involved for the winner, so that is a good thing). Luckily he's letting us incorporate the movie into one of our class assignments, so it's not a completely frivolous idea. Catherine, Sarah, and Kristen are in charge of the movie, and they e-mailed everybody the script this evening. Since I have become somewhat of the class clown (because I live by the truth that if you don't laugh, you'll cry), I get to be the funny one in the movie. Unfortunately the entire movie will only be 3-5 minutes, so my time in the spotlight will be very short :-)

Today in between classes, I fell asleep on the floor in the middle of the graduate lab. I was actually quite comfortable, but it was pretty cold in there, so Catherine covered me up with her coat. When I woke up, Alisha was sleeping on the floor next to me :-) I guess we sleep whenever (and wherever) we can! Thursday is my funny school day with classes from Dr. Barnhart and Mr. Riccio. Today Dr. Barnhart spent the entire archives class talking about Guatemala. Maybe he should be the funny one in the movie!

Frozen Doors and Historic Floors

It's not every day that you get to crawl around on your stomach on a floor that Abraham Lincoln may or may not have walked upon! It's also not every day that you can't get into your car because the doors are frozen solidly shut--but today was a day for both of these momentous events! :-) After last night's nasty storm which dropped the temperature more than 50 degrees and caused sub-zero conditions last night and this morning, it's no surprise that this morning Stryder was frozen shut. When Aly and I finally left for school, she had to sit in the back because there was no way the passenger-side doors were going to open. It was hard enough to get the driver-side doors open, but for some reasons they were quite as stuck as the other doors. Even though central Illinois was frozen over this morning, the sun was out, so Dr. Reid determined we'd be fine heading up to Bement for the day. It ended up being a very long but very fun day--and we learned a lot and accomplished a lot at the Bryant Cottage State Historic Site. Up above, you can see an artist's depiction of what it would have looked like if Abraham Lincoln had visited Stephen Douglas at the Bryant Cottage in Bement back in 1858 on his way back from a political meeting in Monticello. It's funny that they have made a state historic site from pure hearsay, but legend has it that it was at the Bryant Cottage where Abe and Steve made their final plans for their big debates throughout Illinois. As I mentioned yesterday, there is no proof that this is true, but it might be. So, today when I found myself crawling around on the original floors in the kitchen trying to get back behind the stove to the butter churn for inventory purposes (I was the only one small enough to get back there), I was happy to think that perhaps some of the dirt that was getting all over my clothes had been there since Abe purportedly walked on that very floor. It was kind of exciting--to be climbing around the house, looking for object numbers, and handling ceramics from the 1850s.

One of the coolest things they have at the Bryant Cottage is an original "Stephen Douglas for President" ribbon from, I believe, 1858. It is very cool, and I got to be in charge of cataloging it today. Linda, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency director, who is very funny and nice, met us there and helped us out today. The director of the Bryant Cottage site was there as well, and she is also very nice, so we had a good time with them. One of the last things we did there this afternoon was take pictures of the objects we were cataloging. Of course, just as we were about to take the last picture, the camera batteries ran out. Everyone started to panic, but I said, "Wait a second, I think I have some AA's out in my backpack." When I walked back inside with a pack of AA batteries, everyone was quite shocked. They wondered what else I had in my backpack. I told them that I have everything in there--just like I have everything in the trunk of my car!

After we left Bryant Cottage, we drove down to the little town of Atwood, Illinois to stop at a wood shop run by two of Dr. Reid's Amish friends. They were really nice and they showed us some cool furniture they are making that looks kind of like Frank Lloyd Wright designs. It's kind of funny that Nauvoo keeps coming up in conversation everywhere we go. Last week when we were at the Vachel Lindsay House in Springfield, the lady there was saying that the reproduction carpets in the house were done by the same company that had done the carpets in the Nauvoo Temple. Then today, the Amish furniture guys were talking about how they had made some furniture for a Catholic monastery, and they mentioned that the original monastery had been in Nauvoo, but when the Mormon had built the temple, they bought up everything in Nauvoo, so the monastery had to move. Then they started talking about how the temple had been open to everyone for a while, but now it was closed to the Catholics. Everyone looked at me, and Angie (the world's most devout Catholic) gave me a very angry glare (but she was just kidding). Speaking of Mormons, I'm very sad that Mitt lost in Florida. All of my classmates enjoyed teasing me about that today, but I told them that they can't count him out yet.

After we got back from Bement, Dr. Reid, who had walked to school today (COLD!!) needed a ride to her chiropractor appointment, so I took her over there. The chiropractor popped her back, and then she was ready to go, so the whole thing only took about five minutes. She said she felt a little loopy though, after having her back popped, so I don't know if that's a good thing. She is a very cool lady and is one of my favorite professors. I finally got home tonight at about 7:30, and was about ready to get into my pajamas, when I remembered that I needed to go visiting teaching at 8:00, so I hurried over to Angel's house, and we went to see Sister Benson. We had a good visit, but I just barely got home from that, and I have a whole truckload of reading to do tonight! It never ends!! :-) Hopefully tomorrow won't be so cold, but we are supposed to get quite a snowstorm, so we'll see.

You Know It's Bad Weather When . . .

. . . THE WEEKLY MEETING GETS CANCELLED!!! Yes, it's true--the Tuesday night meeting has been cancelled due to the fact that everything is covered with a layer of ice (including the roads and cars) and it is only 19 degrees with a windchill that feels like ZERO degrees. It is super nasty outside. The wind is blowing like crazy, and earlier this afternoon some pretty bad thunderstorms blew through. Just as I left Coleman Hall to go get my car to pick up Dr. Hardeman, the freezing rain started. Now, before today I had never actually driven in freezing rain before. I had seen the results of it back in December when Stryder was covered with a layer of ice, but I didn't have to go anywhere that day. Driving in freezing rain is a whole different story! From the time it took me to get into the car to when I tried to leave the parking lot (about 1 minute), all of the car windows became iced over, so I kicked the defrost up to super high, then I jumped out and scraped my windows off. I had my windshield wipers going, but that wasn't doing much good because the frozen rain (which is kind of like hail, but smaller and stickier) would freeze to the windshield. Even though I scraped the windows off, I still couldn't see out of the side ones, so I had to roll down the front windows to avoid hitting or being hit by a car as I went from the student parking lot over to pick up Dr. Hardeman back at Coleman Hall. Luckily by this time the defrost started working wonderfully, and I could finally see out the windows. By the time I got back to the apartment, everything outside was covered in a sheet of ice, and I thought that the last thing I wanted to do was go back out in it to go to our class meeting. Thankfully the others felt the same way, and the meeting was officially cancelled. The wind is blowing SO hard outside right now, and all of our apartment windows have a layer of ice frozen to them. Hmmmm, tomorrow for Collections Care we're supposed to be going up to Bement, Illinois to the Bryant Cottage State Historic Site to do inventories of artifacts. I wonder if we'll actually be able to go because of the weather. I guess it will depend on what happens tonight, although Dr. Reid doesn't seem to mind driving in really bad, icy weather, so we'll see if she decides to brave the roads in the morning. So, within four days, there has basically been a fluctuation of about 50 degrees. The other day it was zero degrees, then it was in the 40s and 50s, and now it's back down to the single digits. This morning the temperature was supposedly in the 50s, but it certainly didn't feel like it with the wind. It sounds like everybody at home in Utah is getting their share of cold weather too--and snow! January weather has never been my favorite :-) I know I already posted my President Hinckley movie today, but I thought I'd better write another post to tell you about the crazy Illinois weather.

If we do end up going to Bement tomorrow, it should be quite fun. We joke about the Bryant Cottage site being a "fake" Lincoln site because it is where Lincoln and Douglas supposedly met to discuss the possibility of having a series of debates throughout Illinois, but there is no concrete proof that this meeting ever took place there. But you know how Illinois is, if Lincoln might have done something in a particular spot, then the spot deserves a historical marker :-) I don't know what kind of artifacts they have in Bement--maybe chairs that Lincoln may have used, or top hats that could have been worn by him? Just kidding :-) If we end up going there tomorrow, I'll let you know what kinds of things we find. I hope that Mitt Romney wins Florida tonight!!

Tribute to President Hinckley

I'm still feeling pretty sad about President Hinckley, so I decided to make this video for him, which helped me feel a bit better. He will be greatly missed! I was happy to see that today "Gordon B. Hinckley" is in the top 10 searches on Yahoo.com, and it is cool that all of the national news stations have been saying nice things about him. I uploaded this video to www.youtube.com, so people everywhere can see it :-)

Gray Day

Today was supposed to be warm and sunny, but instead it was cold, gray, rainy, and windy. The weather men lied to us! :-) I still felt sad today about President Hinckley passing away, so I guess it kind of matched my mood. That was nice that President Bush issued a statement about President Hinckley and that Mitt Romney will try to attend the funeral--he truly was someone who deserves to be honored. I've been thinking, I bet that if President Hinckley wants to, he'll get clearance to take a short trip down to see Thomas Ford in you know where, and tell him to his face how he feels about Ford's time as governor of Illinois. He would probably have a few words for Lilburn Boggs to . . . and Sterling Price. Just kidding! :-)

To add to the sadness of the day, Greg found out that his funeral home is going to be responsible for taking care of the body of a 22-year-old girl who was found dead in her apartment the other day and had been mangled by two pitbulls. Police are trying to figure out how she died, and there is a possibility that the pitbulls were just a cover-up for a murder or something. But then I read somewhere that the pitbulls maybe belonged to her, so it sounds like kind of a crazy situation. I feel bad for Greg that he's going to have to deal with a body that was literally thrown to the dogs. :-( It's a pretty big story on the news around here, so he'll probably have to deal with the media too.

This afternoon I worked with Dr. Hardeman for a while, and then he had to go to a judicial affairs hearing, so I walked him over to the student union. He didn't think that the hearing would take very long, so he wanted me to just wait there. So, I got some hot chocolate and a muffin, sat on the comfy couches, thought about doing some reading, but ended up falling asleep instead. I woke up just before he finished, so that worked out splendidly. Then tonight I had Dr. Barnhart's class. It is so funny because he just talks and talks and talks, and he's all over the place with subject matter, so we all just smile at each other and try to follow his train of thought as much as we can. We had started out talking about the Second Great Awakening, but then somehow he started talking about George Washington. I couldn't resist looking at Catherine and making a motion like I was eating something--like George Washington ate children in the movie "The Washingtonians." This was almost too much for Catherine to handle, and she very nearly broke out in laughter, but she was able to suppress it until after class. :-)

President Hinckley

I was really, really sad to hear tonight that President Hinckley died. I knew this day would come--because I guess he couldn't live forever--but it always seemed like he would. I remember President Benson and President Hunter, but President Hinckley has been the prophet for most of my life, and it's pretty amazing to think of everything he accomplished during that time. He has done so much good all over the world and has helped the Church grow and develop in many respects--especially with the building of temples. It's just hard to imagine General Conference without hearing him speak. His death is a great loss to the Church and to the world, but it's good to know that now he can be with Sister Hinckley again. I bet he had a wonderful reunion with her. And I also like to think about what it must have been like for him to meet Joseph Smith. I had the opportunity several times to be in attendance when President Hinckley was speaking either in Salt Lake or at BYU, and I am grateful to have been at the Conference Center when he gave one of my favorite talks of all time: "Becoming the Woman of Whom You Dream." He is a great example of having a positive outlook on life and of working hard at doing good things. I guess that you can't blame his body for giving out after 97 years of helping people! I truly feel grateful to have been on the earth during the time that President Hinckley was the prophet. I was feeling pretty sad tonight, so Aly fixed me some hot chocolate to help me feel better :-) She thinks President Hinckley sounds like a pretty extraordinary person.

Other than tonight's sad news, today was a good day. Greg was able to go to church with me, and once again all of the Relief Society ladies were making a big fuss about the engagement :-) Since the end of the month is approaching, today was a pretty busy home and visiting teaching day. My home teachers came by, and then I went visiting teaching tonight. Aly thinks it's funny (but cool) that church people are always coming over to check on me. Well, I'm off to bed to try to get some rest for what will surely be a busy week ahead!