An Affectionate Farewell

Yesterday marked the 150th anniversary of the day Abraham Lincoln left Springfield to head off to Washington, D.C. It also served as the kick-off for all of the Civil War Sesquicentennial events throughout the country, so it was a pretty big day. When I left the Lincoln Home in November, I swore that I wasn't going to do any Living History volunteering there, since I was mad about the new Living History Coordinator Kyle, but somehow my friend Susan got stuck trying to find volunteers to dress up for the festivities. So, I did it for Susan. It was so cold!!! I was wearing my thermals, but they didn't help very much. Here I am in front of the house with the horse drawn carriage that would take Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln to the Great Western Depot.

And here I am with my buddy Beth at the Depot, awaiting Lincoln's farewell speech. Did I mention that we were cold? :-) Someone somewhere decided that it would be a good idea to use this occasion to try to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most people reciting the same words at the same time. It's kind of cheesy if you ask me! The previous record was set in 2006 when 224,000 people simultaneously recited passages from Charlotte's Web, so they were hoping to have 226,000 people recite Lincoln's Farewell Address yesterday.

There were only about 400 people there at the Depot yesterday, but they did have webcasts hooked up to classrooms and libraries throughout the country to try to break the record. They still haven't gotten in the final count of everyone who participated, so we're still not sure if we broke the record or not. But it was interesting to be a part of it. Here is Lincoln leading the crowd in giving his Farewell Address, where he bids an "affectionate farewell" to Springfield. It was pretty neat to be there for the 150th anniversary of this occasion. And today is Lincoln's #202 birthday! Now for the next five years (starting in April) there will be events throughout the country commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

The National Park Service has given the sesquicentennial celebrations a name: "Civil War to Civil Rights," so you can guess what the focus of all the events will be--slavery and the struggles of African Americans. I have a bit of a beef with this theme. Now don't get me wrong--slavery was REALLY BAD, and it was a central cause of the Civil War. But that's not all that the Civil War was about. What about the dirt-poor farmer from Mississippi who didn't own any slaves but enlisted in the Confederate Army simply to protect his home and family? When does his story get told? In my opinion, the main purpose of the Civil War was to preserve our country. If Lincoln had let the Southern states secede, then what would keep other states from seceding? The whole country could have fallen apart, and the "great experiment" that our Founding Fathers established would have failed. The "Emancipation Proclamation" and the freeing of the slaves was a very important byproduct of the Civil War, but I wish that people would focus on telling the whole story of the Civil War, not just part of it. You have to tell both sides--Union and Confederate--because even though they were fighting against each other, they were all Americans, and they all helped shape our country into the free democracy that it is today. Anyway, that's my soap box rant for the day. This rant was brought on by the fact that the powers that be at the Lincoln Home invited Douglas King to speak there today for Lincoln's birthday. You may remember Mr. King from an angry blog post of mine a few months ago. Yes, he's the crazy guy that came and told the entire Lincoln Home staff that we were all racist. It makes me wonder, is the Civil War Sesquicentennial just going to be one big platform for people like Mr. King to tell America what a horrible, racist place it is?

This cartoon about Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton applies to people like Mr. King. Maybe they're the problem . . . but anyway, I usually like to be at the Lincoln Home on Lincoln's Birthday, but today I am staying away. Yesterday was a nice celebration of his life and the events that led up to the most defining moments in American history.

30!

Yesterday was Greg's big #30 birthday! He is getting old; just kidding. I wanted to make a special cake to commemorate this big milestone, so I decided on a football cake. It literally took me all day to make, mostly because the icing I used to make the laces on top wouldn't cooperate, so I had to keep re-frosting the cake :-) But I finished it just in time for when Greg arrived home from work.

Little Spike even dressed up in his football outfit for the occasion. He will don the football again on Sunday for the Super Bowl.









Lily didn't care much about the presents Greg received, but she was excited to make a bed out of the tissue paper. After opening presents, Greg and I went for a delicious birthday dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Before we left, Greg had given me strict instructions to not tell the restaurant people that it was his birthday, so I didn't. But just as we were finishing, our waitress brought out a piece of cheesecake. Greg's eyes got wide and he looked at me. I said, "I didn't tell!" But it turned out they were bringing us a piece of cheesecake because they had cooked Greg's prime rib wrong (although they fixed it). So it was perfect--we got free cake, but Greg didn't have to be embarrassed by people singing to him at the restaurant. :-)

Since we're talking about Greg, I realized that I haven't put up the pictures of our third bathroom, which Greg expertly finished before Christmas! Here it is--complete with a kitty next to the toilet. This is just a 1/2 bath located on the first floor next to the living room. It is quite small, but it's handy for when we have visitors over. Greg totally re-did this bathroom. I don't have any "before" pictures of it because it was too hideous :-) But let me paint a picture for you: the toilet was old and leaky, there was a large, dirty vanity/sink/cabinet/mirror thing that took up most of the room, and there were rubber ducky stickers all over the walls and the door. The worst part was the floor--it looked like the person who laid the tile must have been drunk when they did it.

I couldn't get any good pictures with the floor in them, but Greg put down some nice white porcelain tile, installed a new toilet, a pedestal sink (which makes the room fill bigger than when it had the ginormous sink in it), a new mirror, and a new light fixture. Then he painted it blue, and I decorated it with Route 66 motifs (my favorite touch is the gas pump on the back of the toilet). I'm especially glad to have the rubber ducky stickers out of there.

It looks great! With the completion of the bathroom, our house fix-up projects are complete, so now we can just enjoy our wonderful home. Greg is a good handyman to have around.

Funniest Video Ever

Greg found this video online last night, and it cracked us up!

Snowed In

Yes, I'm wearing my pajamas with a coat. But, we've been stuck at home during Snowpocalypse, so it's okay to just wear your pj's all day, right? After an entire day of snow and wind yesterday, the sun finally came out. Unfortunately the sun isn't warming up anything--the temperature tonight is going to be -8 degrees (without windchill), but at least it stopped snowing. I couldn't resist venturing out this morning to take some pictures. The snow was up to my knees!

The snow drifts almost come up to the windows! The poor dogs hate going outside. If there wasn't a layer of frozen snow beneath the fresh snow, I'm afraid we would've lost Little Spike in the snow. Thankfully our condo people shoveled the walks, so we can at least get out of the front door. Getting out of the parking lot, however, will be a different story, I'm afraid :-) And I don't think we'll be able to get out of our neighborhood for a few days either.

Here are our little chairs on the back patio. It's a good thing I brought in some firewood the other day, because I don't think we could open the door to our storage shed today! Everything in town is closed, so we can just hang out here and stay nice and warm. Greg made some sweet potato pancakes this morning, and we have loads of hot chocolate, so today is the perfect day to read books, watch TV, and take a nap. Being snowed in isn't so bad.

Snowpocalypse

My friend Melissa appropriately named this winter storm we are having: Snowpocalypse. And it is just beginning! As you can see, it's quite the blizzard outside, and we're supposed to get 10-20 more inches of snow tonight. Greg went to let the dogs outside to use the bathroom, and there was already a six-inch snow drift at the back door. Photo #2 here is of the quickest doggy potty session ever. Little Spike took a little more time than Big. If you look up at the top of the photo you can see a black blur--that's Big Spike running back to the house at full speed. He literally ran outside and ran back in :-) But we can't blame him for that. Everything in Springfield is closed, and tomorrow the temps are going to drop below zero, so anything on the ground will turn to solid ice. We're hoping our power doesn't go out, but it might. Good thing we have a fireplace--I think we're going to need it!