Cinderella Lincoln

It was a little rainy last night and this morning, but it turned into a beautiful fall day! It was even a little too warm outside, but it was nice to have the sunshine. Today for my Material Culture class, we met out at the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site to get our 1845 period clothing for when we make brooms at the Fall Frolic on Saturday. We had so much fun out there today, so I'm sure it will be even more fun on Saturday! We learned all about Thomas Lincoln (Abe's dad) and the family's home there called Goosenest Prairie. Dr. Reid wanted us to be clear on all of our Lincoln facts in case visitors ask us questions about them this weekend. We also looked at some of the historic furniture on the farm and went out to the field where the broom corn is crowing. Broom corn is very different from regular corn. It's actually considered to be a type of sorghum, and it has really long stems full of seeds. I read yesterday that the seeds can be used for animal feed or can also be eaten by people (but they don't look like they'd taste very good). We saw what the brooms we'll be making will look like, but we won't learn the actual broom-making methods until Saturday morning before all of the guests come.

Later this afternoon we were given our clothes for this weekend based on our size. Unfortunately I was just the right size for the one dress that looks like it has been through the ringer a few too many times! Usually I don't mind being short, but the short dress was truly not in the best condition. :-) It's kind of funny--it has holes all over it, but they gave me a chemise to wear under it, and I'll probably throw on some basketball shorts too--just to be on the safe side. We also have to wear aprons, and Dr. Reid came across this funny, old apron covered with patches and stains. We decided that it kind of matched the condition of my dress, so I'm going to be the homeless servant girl making brooms on the farm :-) Everyone decided that a good name for my character this weekend would be Cinderella--because my clothes look like something Cinderella would have been forced to wear by her evil stepsisters before she made it big. I asked Dr. Reid if I should show up with dirt smeared on my face just to complete the persona, but she assured me that by the end of the day we'll all look a little ragged and dirty. Ha ha! I also have to wear a day cap because my hair is not long enough to be historically accurate. There will surely be some funny pictures taken this weekend!

I'm feeling a little better today than yesterday, but I've still been pretty congested. Being sick stinks! Last night we had a fun combination birthday party for Kristen and weekly meeting. Everyone brought different stir fry ingredients, and we made a gigantic pan of stir fry. We also had some yummy birthday cake. We had the meeting over at Angie's house, and she has such cute cats! Her big fat black cat, named Lil' Bits, fell in love with me, and he kept following me around wanting me to scratch his tummy. He's tooooo cute! Everyone seemed a little stressed out, but we're all keeping a positive attitude. Today Dr. Reid told us that she really appreciates the "good humor" we all have, despite the fact that we've got waaaay too much to do. Speaking of too much to do, I'd better go read about legal issues in historic preservation for tomorrow!

New Website!

Hi everyone! This morning Dr. Barnhardt had to go fulfill his jury duty obligation, so we didn't have class. I was going to go into campus and do some work, but when my alarm went off, I rolled over, realized I still wasn't feeling well, and went back to sleep. I've just been getting some things done here since finally waking up. Maybe what I needed was a morning to rest a bit. I feel a little better now. While trying to be productive here at home today, I got the new Historical Administration website up! You can check it out at http://www.eiu.edu/~history/ha/2008.htm. That job has been hanging over my head for a while now, so it was good to have a few hours to just get it done. It still needs a lot of work, but at least everything is in place. I was never able to get in touch with the web guy to tell me how he wanted me to do things, so I just figured it out by myself and did it my own way. If that makes the web guy mad, he'll just have to deal with it because he's the one who never called me back! There are a few kinks that still need to be worked out, and I still need to make our official exhibit website, but other than that, we're in pretty good shape.

Now I need to get ready and actually head to campus for real. I'm scheduled to help Dr. Hardeman grade tests this afternoon, and hopefully both he and I can stay awake! Today is Kristin's birthday, so tonight for our weekly class meeting we are going to make stir fry and eat while we talk, and talk, and talk, and talk. :-) It's a beautiful fall day here in Charleston, so I'd better get on my way before it's over!

First Choice

Yay! The History Department (thanks to the Historical Administration component) was awarded Eastern Illinois University's First Choice Award. The university got a new president this year, and he has set a goal of making EIU the best graduate-degree-offering middle-sized university in the country. He decided to go through all of the grad. programs and see which ones have the best national recognition at this point. Yep, we're #1! The HA program is "the crowning jewel of the university." That made us all feel good inside.

I'm sad because Mom left for home today, but I'm glad that she made it back all right and that we had sooooooo much fun while she was here. We really did have a great time, and her visit helped the semester not feel as long as it was feeling before. Alyson's mom was happy that my mom brought some Halloween decorations for the apartment because for some reason she thought that Mormons didn't celebrate Halloween. Don't know where that came from! She said she's going to send us some Halloween candy.

Back in the day, a few years ago, I was majoring in Business Education at Utah Valley State College. I completed my Associate's degree before realizing that my heart was in history instead of business. But my time in Business Ed. has not gone to waste! I now have a whole set of skills that give me a bit of an advantage over my history peers when it comes to technical stuff. My good friend and neighbor at home, Carolyn Kuehne, was my Access database course instructor at UVSC, and she taught me many wonderful things that have been useful to me many times. Today was one of those times. I was in my Digital Applications class this afternoon, trying not to pass out or fall asleep (we'll blame it on the cold). I had my Mentholatum, pack of Kleenex, Vitamin C drops, hand sanitizer, and schoolbooks all spread out across my table and was zoning out as our teacher Mr. Riccio was talking about the assignment we having coming up. He said that we needed to complete some metadata descriptions of photographs in Micorsoft Access. I was about ready to kick out and fall asleep when I heard Mr. Riccio, say, "Has anyone ever worked with Microsoft Access?" Everyone was giving him blank stares, shaking their heads, and saying, "No. What is that?" Then he looked at me, and I said, "Well, I took an Access class one time." Everything went silent, and everyone turned and looked at me as if I had just gotten back from the moon. Mr. Riccio hadn't ever worked with Access, so he asked if I would come up to the front of the classroom and instruct everyone on how to use Access. I think it's funny that we have a class assignment that needs to be completed in Access, but even Mr. Riccio doesn't quite know the in's and out's of the program. :-) So I went up to the front and hooked the computer into the projector so everyone could see what I was doing on the big screen. We had a quick 20-minute version of Access 101 and got the framework for our assignment laid out. The other students were grateful that they didn't have to go and figure out how to use Access by themselves, and they thanked me profusely for knowing how to use the program.

Speaking of being grateful, I am grateful that I left "early" from our 3:00 meeting yesterday afternoon. I don't really consider leaving a meeting five hours after it starts as leaving early, but when one considers the fact that the meeting didn't end until 10:00 P.M., I really did leave quite early. A seven-hour meeting??????? Oh dear, what am I going to do with these guys? The whole point of the meeting was to complete the museum exhibit design brief that was due this morning, but there was truly nothing brief about the document. Mr. Riccio said it was the largest design brief he'd ever seen. Yes, I thought to myself, because it took seven hours to write!! We have our weekly class meeting tomorrow night, and I am really, really, really hoping that everyone is getting at least a little tired of meeting with each other so that it can hopefully be a short and sweet meeting. Well, I'm off to bed to see if I can recover from the cold.

Five Hours and Counting

Yikes! It's 8:00 p.m., and I just barely left a school meeting that started at 3:00 this afternoon!!! And the scary thing is, I left early--they're still there talking in circles. The students in my program were meeting to discuss a museum exhibit assignment that is due tomorrow, but everyone is so analytical and over-achieving that it was seriously taking an hour to get through each section of the assignment. There are 10 sections to the assignment! I still love everyone in the program, but they think and talk waaaaay too much about everything. This was one of those occasions where you're actually glad to have a cold--because it's a good excuse to leave a never-ending meeting early. As I sat there blowing my nose, it was pretty obvious that I needed to leave and take some more cold medicine. When I realized that this was not going to be a short meeting, I called Mom and she came over to eat some pizza with us. She thought it was quite funny that our meeting was never going to end. She was nice enough to stay there with me until I was able to escape. I think her presence also contributed to making my exit easier. Finally we are back at home, I have taken some cold meds, and am much happier.

Mom and I had a fun time at church today. Everyone there was very happy to meet her. I accidentally fell asleep during sacrament meeting (we'll blame it on the cold), but luckily I had Mom there to catch me up on what happened :-) After church today, Mom and I went over to the Small/Riccio farm to return the house key and so that Mom could meet more of my professors. They loved meeting Mom, and she loved meeting them. They took us on a tour of their house, and we got to sit out on the front porch and chat in the cool fall breeze. We had a great time out there!

Mom and I are going to go eat one of the delicious pumpkin cookies we bought at the Great Pumpkin Patch yesterday--they are the best things we've ever eaten! Unfortunately Mom has to go home tomorrow :-( I told her that I wish she could stay for the rest of the semester, but I know that everyone at home would miss her too much. I'm glad she's been able to come for a visit though!

Mom in the Mums

Mom and I were having so much fun yesterday that I forgot to write on my blog! And today we were having so much fun that I didn't get to the blog until now. Before I catch up on yesterday, here are some pictures from today's adventures. First you'll see Mom and me in front of a giant blue covered wagon at the Lincoln Log Cabin. Next, what is that? A used car lot? No, it's a used buggy lot! Must be Amish country. Mom and I went up to Arthur today and went to the Great Pumpkin Patch. There we took pictures of Mom in the mum patch, and me with the scarecrows. Wait, which one isn't a scarecrow? They all look equally scary!

So, I have a bit of catching up to do. Let's see--Thursday night was a little rough because I wasn't feeling very well. I think I'm either getting a cold or have become highly allergic to corn. :-( So it was a little hard to wake up yesterday, but once we got up and going, Mom and I drove out to Dr. Small's house to take care of her kitties while she and Mr. Riccio are away for the weekend (they both go by "Riccio" usually, but Dr. Small's academic name is Dr. Small because that is how she's known in the published world). Then we went shopping for EIU souvenirs at the campus bookstore, and had lunch at Jitters and Bliss. After lunch I had to go back to campus to work with Dr. Hardeman, but when I got there, he wasn't feeling well, and he knew he would have a really hard time staying awake while reading his students' papers (that would make two of us who would fall asleep!), so he decided to not have me stay for the afternoon. So, Mom and I went for a drive over to Mattoon. We hit a couple of book stores downtown, and we went to the ORIGINAL Burger King. The original Burger King was started in Mattoon even before the Burger King chain started down in Florida. Supposedly the two started independently, but the one here in Illinois started first. Problem was, the Florida people had more money, so they got to call the shots. The Mattoon people got to keep the name, but they never got any money for coming up with the idea. We had a tasty cherry-vanilla Coke there! After Mattoon, we went back to Charleston and took my buddy Kristen to dinner at the Thai restaurant for an early birthday dinner (her birthday is on Tuesday). Then we hung out at the apartment for the remainder of the evening.

This morning Mom and I went out to take care of the kitties again, and then we went on over to the Lincoln Log Cabin which is only a couple of miles from the Riccio's house. The Lincoln Log Cabin is an Illinois State Park, and they've done a pretty good job with it considering that they don't have any of the original Lincoln structures left standing. The cabin that today represents the home of Abe Lincoln's father and stepmother, is a reproduction built back in the 1930s. Supposedly the original cabin was shipped to Chicago for the World's Fair back in the 1890s, but it mysteriously disappeared. They have people out there acting as if they are working on the farm in 1845. So it's a pretty fun place. I'll be out there next weekend making brooms out of corn for the Fall Frolic. That reminds me, I need to learn how to make brooms out of corn this week.

After Lincoln Log, as it is known around here, Mom and I stopped at the Moore Home State Historic Site just down the street. That is the house where Abe Lincoln stopped when he swung by Charleston on his way to Washington to become President. Here he supposedly dined with his step mom and the Moore family before going to visit his dad's grave at the Shiloh Cemetery about a mile away. Of course, the next stop on today's Lincoln pilgrimage was the cemetery where Thomas Lincoln and later Sarah Bush Lincoln were buried.

After the Lincoln stops, Mom and I took off for Amish country. First we went up to Tuscola to have lunch at Flesor's Candy--the fun place where Alyson and I had lunch not long after we started school. Mom and I had the BEST Reuben sandwiches ever!!! They were made with red cabbage--delicious. We also had some tasty fresh peach ice cream. After the best lunch ever, we of course had to stop at Amishland--the big red barn that says AMISHLAND on the roof. Mom thought that was a fun place, and we were able to purchase more apple butter. One of our favorite shops there at Amishland featured Halloween costumes for geese--seriously! They had all kinds of goose costumes, including witches, draculas, and pumpkins. My personal favorite was the scarecrow costume--but I imagine that would be a goose's least favorite, because their wings would have to be stuffed inside the sleeves of a shirt.

After Amishland, we headed south to Arcola--another Amish town. We hit the Arcola Antique Mall, which was totally awesome. I could have stayed there all day, but we wanted to head to Arthur to visit the Great Pumpkin Patch. It was the coolest place ever!!! There were giant pumpkin people made out of hay bales, giant mountains of squash, and more pumpkins than one could ever imagine. Of course we had to eat some pumpkin ice cream and pumpkin cookies! It was so much fun--very fall-ish. What could be more fall-ish than the Great Pumpkin Patch out in the middle of the cornfields of Arthur, Illinois? I think nothing. On our way back through town, we passed a bunch of Amish people in their buggies heading home for the day. They can pretty much cruise at high speeds in those buggies. Those horses mean business.

After the Great Pumpkin Patch, Mom and I came back home and watched the General Relief Society Meeting online. It's pretty handy to be able to watch BYU TV anytime from anywhere. Well, I'm off to bed. Unfortunately my body is giving out and succumbing to whatever it is I managed to catch from somebody (probably a cold).