Bucket List

Today Greg and I went and saw a fun movie called "The Bucket List" starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. It was kind of sad, but very funny and very good. The basic premise of the movie was these two men who found out that they had cancer and only had a few months to live. Morgan Freeman's character, Carter, had started writing something called the "Bucket List"--which was a list of all the things he hoped to do before he "kicked the bucket." :-) I think if I made a bucket list, it would be really, really long. Here are a few things that would be on it: make people happy, spend as much time as possible with my family, finish my master's degree, visit Washington D.C., visit Abe Lincoln's birthplace, use my talents to help other people, go to the top of the Sears Tower, and ride in a helicopter. Visiting Gettysburg would be on the list too--but I could cross that one off now! Going up to the top of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis would also be on the list--but I crossed that one off back in 2004. I think I also want to visit the Alamo someday. Oh, and I want to go to a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game too :-)

Anyway, today was a very fun day. Greg came down to C-town, and he was nice enough to just hang out while I did some school stuff, then we were able to have some fun together. We went and had lunch at Cracker Barrel in Mattoon before the movie, and then later tonight I made some Jambalaya (thank goodness for Zatarain's!) and cornbread (thank you Mom and Lehi Roller Mills!). Thankfully it seems to be warming up a bit here. I totally don't understand the weather. The other day it's -15 degrees windchill, and then on Monday it's supposed to get up to 50 degrees! Very strange--but I will not complain. Anytime it wants to be unseasonably warm, I will not object.

Yesterday it was frigid outside. I didn't have classes, but it turned into a busy day anyway. I worked with Dr. Hardeman in the afternoon and practiced employing my new strategy of skipping to the ends of paragraphs when I'm reading to him so that he will wake up. It's funny that when I start reading he falls asleep, and when I stop he wakes up. Yesterday evening all of the HA compadres gathered at Catherine's house to watch this hilarious movie called "The Washingtonians." It's supposed to be part of a series of horror films, but in my opinion it's too funny to be considered a horror movie. The basic plot in the movie is that George Washington was a cannibal who ate children and made forks out of their bones, and there was a group of people who would dress in colonial garb and eat people to honor the tradition of the founder of our country. :-) Maybe it's so funny because the plot is so ridiculous. We thoroughly enjoyed several lines that were dropped into the movie about historians. Our favorite was: "Historians are nothing but PR people for the past! Everything they say is a lie!" I also liked the quote: "George Washington chopped up cherry trees, not people!" Ha ha ha. He actually technically didn't chop up cherry trees either, but it's okay to say he did--because then we have a reason to eat cherry pie on President's Day. Well, I'm off to bed and am looking forward to Sunday!

Big 'n' Fluffy

Today was a "big 'n' fluffy" day--meaning it was necessary to break out my big 'n' fluffy red coat for the treacherously cold weather outside. It was FREEZING all day today!! This morning when we went to class, it was one degree outside, but the wind was blowing, so it felt like it was well below zero. My big 'n' fluffy keeps the bulk of my body warm, but my hands, legs, feet, and head freeze--even if I wear gloves, scarves, hats, etc. The sun was out, but as Aly and I were walking from the parking lot to Coleman Hall, we felt like our faces were going to fall off! I think this is the coldest it has been here all winter. I checked weather.com, and it said that the low tonight will be ZERO degrees. I don't think I'll be going outside anymore this evening! Luckily tomorrow it will warm up to a balmy 27 degrees.

Today was kind of a long day of classes and meetings, but we got a lot done. It was a little hard to stay awake in Dr. Barnhart's archives management class this morning--after being outside in the cold and then coming in to the warm building. I think I've said this before--but it's amazing how much he can talk! :-) This afternoon for Mr. Riccio's Digital Applications class, we had the university web guy come meet with us and work out a way to do the Tilford Dudley website. That was a good way to do it--then we were all able to give our input, and it wasn't like I was in charge of the whole thing. I threw out the idea that instead of uploading the pictures of the Dudley collection to our own website, we should upload the pictures to e-bay and sell the Dudley family artifacts to raise money for our spring field trip, but Mr. Riccio and Dr. Small weren't agreeable to that :-) Speaking of our mandatory spring field trip, it will probably take place during the first week of May--after we finish finals. We had hoped to go to New Orleans or Washington D.C., but we don't have enough money or time to do that, so Dr. Barnhart and Dr. Reid are going to take us to Cincinnati, Ohio to see, among other things, the Underground Railroad Museum. That should be pretty cool.

I was supposed to go visiting teaching this afternoon, but after Mr. Riccio's class, we all met with Dr. Small and the Tarble Arts Center lady to discuss the script for the upcoming museum exhibit. They thought what we had was pretty good overall, so thankfully there isn't too much we need to change on that. We will, however, have to change the floor plan of our exhibit so that we can fit everything in, but hopefully that won't be too bad. Dan and I have been given the assignment to go take pictures of random transportation corridors and gas stations throughout the area, so hopefully it will warm up a little one of these days and we can get that done. I've been trying to be nicer to Dan, so he's been a little nicer to me, although he still makes random derogatory comments about Mitt Romney. He can't say too much though, because he's one of the classmates who is from Michigan, and we all remember what happened with the Michigan primaries! I'm pretty tired tonight, so I'm glad that tomorrow is Friday. It will still be a busy day, but at least I won't have any classes. It's cool that I have a three-day weekend every weekend, but unfortunately it always kind of turns into a zero-day weekend because of all the stuff we have to do :-)

The latest news from Coles County is that a group called Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Farm are going to try to sell deeds to square-inch property plots from a four acre tract of land that used to be owned by Abraham Lincoln. The funny thing is that Abe never farmed the land--he just purchased it so that his dad, who owned the adjacent land, could use it for growing crops. I don't think that the city is going to allow the Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Farm to divide the land up into such small sections, but we'll see what happens. You can imagine though, that if the deeds go up for sale, people will be jumping to buy some Abe Lincoln land! As I said yesterday, you know you're famous when mice found in the walls of your house are mummified and put into a museum collection. And, I might add, you know you're famous when people want to use your name to sell souvenir land plots of farmland you never farmed!

Three Mummified Mice

You know you're famous when . . . mice found in the walls of your home are mummified and put in a museum collection. Abraham Lincoln was indeed famous. :-) Today we had a really fun day going up to Springfield again for our Collections Care class. We got to go on a behind-the-scenes tour of Abe Lincoln's house, and the curator there even showed us the special collections stored out behind the home. It was here that we saw the three mummified mice: Abe, Mary, and Eddie. The mice were discovered in a nest in the walls of the Lincoln home back in 1874 and, since by that time Abraham Lincoln had become a national icon, the mice had to be saved--because anything and everything having to do with him was important. Honestly, the three mice didn't look like mice anymore, but that's okay--it was still funny. It was really cool to see where they store everything and to see all of the cleaning and artifact care procedures they use there at the park. We also got to go on a special tour of the Old State Capitol building (where we cataloged artifacts last week), as well as the Vachel Lindsay Home State Historic Site. None of us knew who Vachel Lindsay was, but we learned that he was one of those famous poets from the early 1900s. Our main topic of discussion today was "agents of deterioration." We learned about all of the different things that can damage collections and how to prevent that from happening. It was all very interesting. Did you know that dust particles are sharp and can actually scratch the surface of things? I didn't realize that dust particles were all that complex. My classmate Angie and I loved seeing the park rangers at Abe's house today. We both miss being park rangers! Well, I'm off to do some homework. I love our field trips to Springfield!

Happy Tiffy

I have decided to make an addendum to some of my recent blog entries that, I now realize, have been kind of negative towards school and my classmates. I think I've had the Happy Bunny attitude you see here of, "Whatever. Can I have an A?" I think some of my negativity has just come from frustration with having too much to do, not enough time to do it, and having too much to think about. But I'm going to do better at looking for positive things to be happy about. I really am lucky to be at school here, and it's amazing to think that I only have one more semester of classes and an internship before I'll have a master's degree! And, I get a sweet deal here at EIU with my graduate assistantship and monthly stipend. So, I really am grateful for a good setup. I am also grateful to have Alyson as my roommate. She is very nice, and having a great roommate makes all of the difference. She and I share a lot of the same interests, and she's a lot of fun to be around. All of my other classmates are very nice, and I'm going to try to get along better with Dan--though I will still stick up for myself, I need to not be mean to him even if he's kind of mean to me. Even though everybody loves meetings, it's okay because it just means they're trying to stay on top of things, so I'll be grateful that people are on-the-ball rather than lazy. And, even though I don't see eye-to-eye with all of my teachers, they are very nice people, and I absolutely love Dr. Small and Dr. Reid. In short, life is good, and I'm sorry if I've made it sound like I'm not happy--because I am--but it's just been a little stressful. I'll try to be more positive though, and when things get hard, I can just remember the good times I've had recently at home and in Pennsylvania, and I can look for things to be happy about here.

Four Score and Seven Years Ago . . .

I just had the BEST, most fun trip ever!!! On Thursday, January 17, I flew to Baltimore, Maryland to visit my best friend Angie in Pennsylvania. Angie was one of the park rangers in Natchez, and she and I became best buds when I worked there. She is currently working in Pennsylvania and expecting a baby! Her husband Matt is still in Mississippi, but they're looking for a job for him up in Pennsylvania. I got to stay with Angie at her parents' house, and we had SO MUCH FUN. Before I jump into an everything, I'll give you a quick explanation of the pictures. The top picture is of Angie and me at the Dobbin House in Gettysburg, the second picture is of us on top of Little Round Top, and the third and fourth pictures are from the Gettysburg Battlefield. Picture number five is of Angie and me at Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania, picture six is of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, picture seven is of me at the Hampton House National Historic Site just outside of Baltimore, and the last picture is of me with Angie's cute mom, Chris.

So, on Thursday morning I took the train up to Chicago and flew from there to BWI. That day it snowed in Baltimore for the first time in a few weeks, and the roads were a little crazy, so Angie's dad, who works in Baltimore, picked me up at the airport on his way home. The Lurz homestead is near Jefferson, Pennsylvania, and it took us about an hour and a half to get from the airport up to the house. Angie's dad is really nice, and we had a great time chatting. It was fun to see Angie when we arrived at the house, and I got to meet her mom for the first time. Her parents are so nice--now I see where she gets it from! We ate pizza that night, chatted, and then went to bed to prepare for the good times to come.

On Friday, all of my Civil War dreams came true . . . I got to go to Gettysburg!!! I have always wanted to go to Gettysburg. I would say that it and Vicksburg are two of the most important battles of the Civil War--and both battles ended on the same day: July 4, 1863. When Angie and I got to Gettysburg, we started out at the National Park Service visitor center where she used to work. We then ate lunch at the coolest place in the whole world: the Dobbin House (see first picture up at the top)! The Dobbin House was built in 1776 and, four score and seven years later, in 1863, served as a hospital during the Battle of Gettysburg. It was also a stop on the Underground Railroad. They have a really cool restaurant set up in the cellar called the Springhouse Tavern. I had a delicious crab cake sandwich and some warm gingerbread with lemon sauce on top. After lunch Angie took me on a tour of the battlefield and we saw all of the places I'd only dreamed about or seen in movies before :-) The second picture you see up at the top is of Angie and me at the top of the New York memorial on Little Round Top--the famous spot from which the Union troops held off the Confederates and ultimately won the battle. As you can see, it was a little chilly. We saw the place where Pickett's Charge took place--when Confederate troops marched across a mile of open fields into Union cannon fire. This is also known as the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy" because it was as far north as the Confederate troops ever got and, while they had been winning battles for the previous two years, it was here at Gettysburg that things kind of started to go downhill for them. Angie also showed me the new visitor center that is scheduled to open in April, and then we headed downtown. The town of Gettysburg is cool too--it has a lot of historic houses, including the hotel where Abe Lincoln stayed and wrote his final draft of the Gettysburg Address. We also saw Jennie Wade's house--she was the only civilian casualty of the Battle of Gettysburg. She was baking bread in her house when a stray bullet went through the window and killed her. We went to some AWESOME shops there in town--including this one called The Horse Soldier, which has a whole bunch of old books, real Civil War uniforms, guns, and photographs for sale. I thought about buying a musket (just kidding). Even though it was cold outside, it was still nice and sunny--a perfect day in Gettysburg! The best thing about being there in the winter was that there weren't any crowds. I guess that in the summer it gets pretty crazy there--especially during the anniversary of the battle from July 1-4. Gettysburg is definitely a Civil War lover's paradise. After Gettysburg, Angie and I drove back to her house where her mom and dad had fixed a delicious dinner of steak, potatoes, and salad.

On Saturday, Angie and I shifted from cannons to chocolate! First we had to go to a notary in the little town of New Freedom so Angie could get some documents notarized. It was pretty funny--the sign out in front of the house said "Notary and Magic Shop." We wondered what that went, but when we went inside, it was very clear. The lady who was the notary also sold magic stuff--like disappearing tables. We wondered how much of a market there was for that in New Freedom, PA. After the notary and magic shop, we headed up to HERSHEY!! The whole town is a giant chocolate wonderland. Even the lamp posts along the street are shaped like Hershey's kisses. We went down Chocolate Avenue to the famous amusement park: Chocolate World (you can tell by the name that it was a great place). At Chocolate World, we went on a ride that showed us how Hershey's chocolate is made--I felt like I was in the movie "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!" It was totally cool. After the tour was over, they of course gave us a candy bar. Then we got to go to the Hershey's shop where they sell all of the latest candy. We tried some delicious dark chocolate strawberry kisses and the latest invention: cheesecake-filled kisses. We ate lunch there at Chocolate World. You would think that we had chocolate for lunch, but we actually ate pasta. We decided that eating pasta a Chocolate World was kind of like eating steak at a Chinese restaurant--it's not what they're known for, but it's still good. We did have some ice cream topped with Hershey's candy for dessert. After a day in Civil War lover's paradise, we spent the morning in Chocolate lover's paradise!

After Hershey, we took off for Amish country. We went over to Lancaster County which is famous for all of its Amish towns. There are some wacky town names like Intercourse, Virginville, Blue Ball, and Paradise. Supposedly all of these town names have very innocent origins, but I think somebody (or perhaps a group of people) was trying to be funny. In Intercourse, we went to this cool little place called Kitchen Kettle Village. It was a whole little village of shops. My personal favorite was the jams and jellies company--where they had all kinds of salsa, jam, syrup, soup, and fruit prepared right there in Amish country. They let you sample whatever you wanted. My favorite was the raspberry salsa and the pepper jelly. There were also a lot of shops that sold t-shirts and magnets that said "I Love Intercourse"--which, if you ask me, seems a little scandalous for the Amish people! After hitting the shops, Angie and I went to this place called the Amish Farmhouse. It is an 1805 stone farmhouse that is now owned by a private organization. They give tours of the home and explain some things about the Amish people. It was a very interesting tour--we even saw an old Amish casket! We walked around outside on the farm for a little while. They had some funny farm animals. My favorite was this cutest little black lamb that was born on December 26. Angie and I were standing outside its little stall talking to it, and when it saw us, it perked up its ears and started coming over towards us. Just then, Momma Sheep made a funny noise to the baby like she was saying, "Don't even think about it." The little lamb obediently stopped coming towards us and immediately went back to playing in the straw :-) It was soooooooooo cute! After spending time at the Amish Farmhouse, we headed back to Angie's house and had "breakfast night" with her mom and dad--they fixed some great pancakes, sausage, eggs, and bacon. I told them that this was quite a different eating experience from my usual "I don't have time to fix any food" diet of granola bars and bowls of cereal. Angie's parents have a gigantic TV, so that evening we watched a movie about Alaska, and it looked really cool on the huge screen--it almost felt like we were in Alaska!

On Sunday morning, Angie and I headed for Baltimore. I had never seen the harbor before, and it was so pretty! Angie thought it was funny that I thought it was the ocean :-) I learned that the harbor goes into Chesapeake Bay, which then goes into the ocean--so I was a little off. Our first stop was Fort McHenry--another National Park Service site. You may recognize the origin of its fame in the words "O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light . . ." It was at Fort McHenry that the "Star-Spangled Banner" was written by Francis Scott Key in 1814 when the harbor was being attacked by the British. It was neat to see the American flag flying there over the fort and to think that it was a scene much like that which inspired the words to what was to become the national anthem. One thing I found ironic was that Francis Scott Key's grandson was held as a prisoner at the fort during the Civil War. In the 1860s, the fort was used as a prison for captured Confederate soldiers and Southern sympathizers from Baltimore. Key's grandson fell into the latter category, and one of his journal entries was very interesting. He said that he found it ironic that the scene he saw from his prison window--the stars and stripes flying over Fort McHenry--was the same scene that his grandpa had seen only a few decades before. To his grandpa, the scene had been one of freedom, but to him it was one of captivity. Angie and I wanted to do some walking around at the fort, but it was SO COLD with the wind blowing off the harbor. We were frozen to the bone, so we ran back to her car and decided to continue our journey. I had another crab cake for lunch--Baltimore is famous for crabs--when we ate at a cool restaurant called the Green Turtle. After lunch we went to yet another National Park Site (I love traveling with Angie because she loves National Parks as much--or more--than I do!): the historic Hampton House in Towson, Maryland--just outside Baltimore. The mansion was awesome!! It was similar to Melrose in Natchez in many ways. It was the home of the Ridgely family--prominent Baltimorians--and was constructed in the late 1700s. They had tons of really neat furniture, artifacts, paintings, and stories. I especially loved it after having taken my Material Culture class last semester. After visiting the Hampton mansion, we headed out and went back to Angie's house. Her parents wanted to take us to a fun little Italian restaurant in a closeby town called Glen Rock, Pennsylvania. After dinner we went back and watched the Giants beat the Packers, then headed to bed.

Yesterday morning, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we had a famous Pennsylvania breakfast (or dessert) item: Tasty Cakes! I had never eaten Tasty Cakes before. They're kind of similar to Hostess treat--only much tastier. Yummm! Then, unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to Angie's parents, and she and I took off for the airport. We stopped at a grocery store to get some Berger Cookies, which Angie has been telling me about for months. These are a famous Baltimore creation, and you can only get them there in the greater Baltimore area. They are SOOOO GOOD!! They consist mostly of fudge with a little cookie underneath to hold everything together. :-) Angie and I had a good time chatting on the way to the airport, but it was REALLY, REALLY hard to say goodbye--especially to think of what I was returning to: the crazy people at school! Angie is a great friend, and I feel very, very lucky to have met her in Natchez. We had such a great time together, and I found that I love Pennsylvania. All of the little towns are so cool! There are bunches of old houses and cemeteries, and the architecture in all of the towns is very neat. The people are very nice too, and I love the winding country roads. I also really like Baltimore. This was one of the most fun trips ever, and it was a welcome and much-needed reprieve from the craziness of Illinois.

I flew from BWI back to Chicago Midway, and then I took the CTA train downtown to Union Station. There are some pretty nutty people in Chicago. When I was on the CTA train last Thursday, this giant black man stood up in the train car and announced to everyone that he was recently released from five years in prison and was in need of money to help him start a new life. If you're looking for money, the whole "recently released from prison" bit probably isn't the best tactic to use. The funny thing is that when I was on the CTA train back to Union Station yesterday, the same guy was on there with the same story!! Creepy. I just kind of pulled my snow hat down over my eyes and pretended like I wasn't there. (And it was okay because there were a lot of people on the train.) I ate dinner at Union Station and then caught the 8:00 p.m. train City of New Orleans back to Mattoon. The City of New Orleans runs all the way from Chicago to New Orleans, and I was tempted to just stay on the train to escape my school troubles, but I realized that running away from things probably isn't the best way to deal with them. The train was very nice--I could even stretch my legs clear out in front of me and fall asleep. It was supposed to be snowy in Mattoon, but luckily the snow held off until I drove back to Charleston and was safely back in my warm apartment. Aly had made some chocolate chip cookies for me, which was very nice of her. I did find, however, upon checking my e-mail last night, that Dan hates me even more than before (because I sent him an e-mail telling him that it was lame to be worrying about the exhibit website right now--since we don't have anything to put on it), and that all heck broke loose in all of my classes while I was away. Welcome back to Charleston! Oh well, at least I was able to have a few GREAT days when I didn't have to worry about anything. Now I guess I'll try to buckle down and deal with everything--but I am going to stick to my new resolution to not let my classmates--especially Dan--affect me in any way. Tomorrow we're going up to Springfield again to do more collections management stuff, so we'll all be spending more quality time together, but I'm just going to sit quietly and think of the good times I had in Pennsylvania!