New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music training

Early Monday morning, two staff members and one volunteer from Roseau County headed south to St.Paul for training on a Smithsonian Museum on Main Street New Harmonies exhibit we are hosting at the Roseau Co. Museum beginning November 12. This will be our third MOMS exhibit in 4 years. We are very excited about hosting this exhibit as it is all about music and almost everyone is interested in music.

Group sessions like this for training are always excellent.Ideas flow, creative juices mix, and we work with one another to make it the best exhibit each of us has presented.

Minnesota Humanities Center

Roseau County Historical Society crew

Rlou Specher,  Britt Dahl, and Charleen Haugen

Smithsonian and MN Humanities trainers

David Gabitske - Minnesota Historical Society, right

Nicollet County Historical Society

Drummers at the Anishinaabe Cultural Center

Dining out in Minneapolis

One of my favorite folk singers - Charlie Maguire entertaining us.

Rlou relaxing in the common area at the humanities center

Sweet, Sweet Success!

After all the hard work designing and installing exhibits this past month or so, then having a resident bring a beautiful restored 1930 Model A Ford in for exhibition, and putting together the traveling exhibit, Traveling Through Time in Minnesota's Historic NW, Britt and I had the joy of seeing others enjoy and comment positively on exhibits. One of the board members had put together a great program for the evening and the potluck dinner was delish. I can't say we feel the exhibits are totally done right now but they will be in a couple of weeks.
One of the trials of putting together the ship immigration exhibit was finding items that the people would have kept with them and not put into storage while on board the steamer. I have search the internet for this info and can't find anything. Tonight I decided to call one of our social study teachers, Arron Nelson, who incidentally is Roseau High School's Teacher of this Year. He and I brainstormed and now have some ideas. Museum staff will need to contact the schools around us and inform them that we have this traveling exhibit and invite them to bring in their students.We never run out of things to do.
Breanne called today and we visited a couple of times. She said Damen is now walking. Well walking about 4 steps just to get to the nearest thing to hang onto and walk around. I wish they had a camera so I could see him and talk to them.
I purchased a camera about a month ago but haven't used it yet. I am not sure how to but will know tomorrow. On Friday I am attending a Minnesota Humanities board of directors meeting via Skype so will need to be familiar enough with using the camera by then to be able to answer a few questions. This is all in conjunction with our last Smithsonian SITES exhibit, Key Ingredients: America by Food. We will be having another SITES exhibit, Between Borders in the spring of 2010. We are excited to be able to have these exhibits.
It seems we have several things coming up in the way of exhibits. Our wonderful volunteer Woman's History Month program committee has been organizing upcoming exhibits and programs for March 2009.
My tkr knee seems to be a little better today. Last night I woke up at 3 with a terrible back ache on that side. After an hour, I went upstairs and did several exercises and ended with about 15 Bridge exercises. That amazingly took care of the back pain and it hasn't bother since. I also had a massage this afternoon and that always helps.

Thought for the Day
The Christmas holidays have this high value:
that they remind Forgetters of the Forgotten,

& repair damaged relationships.
Mark Twain - letter to Carlotte Welles, 30 December 1907

Veteran's Day

I always think of my dad when Memorial or Veteran's Days roll around. My dad served during WWII and although he never spoke very much about his service time, the few times he did, left an impression. One of the times he would talk about was when he was in France on the front lines. One dark night, they were in their fox holes waiting out the night when one of the soldiers behind him lit a cigarette. This was like a flare going off for the enemy and suddenly they were under fire. My dad told of how he lost some of his best buddies that night. All because one person decided he had to have that crazy cigarette! Often in our lives, it is the things that we do without thinking of the consequences or outcome that are our downfall. That circumstance was one of those times.
Our prayers must be for the leaders of our young men and women who are serving in areas of dispute now, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. I was listening to a former military Lieutenant on CSPAN tell of his time serving in Iraq. He spoke of how they were unsure of how to handle Iraq following the initial attack and what looked like an immediate win and how it has taken years to get to the situation where we can actually now see some progress. I feel that we are progressing only because they are hoping to have us leave their country. Now that Obama is in what will the result be? How long will be remain and what will the end result really be like.
Shopping
Today I went to Grand Forks to look for a winter coat. I wanted a coat that would be long enough so that if I wanted to walk when it was 10 - 20 below F I wouldn't feeze too much. I found a down coat at Eddie Bauer. That of course, didn't end the shopping day. I went to Target and Bath and Body and stocked up on toiletries. Picked up some winter gloves and a head cover that will keep me warm during the walks I plan to take. Then I headed for the Jelly Belly section and stocked up on about 15 different flavors. Ardmore and I are going to the temple in Bismarck this week so I thought it would be fun to have a treat for the road.
Tomorrow
Busy day at the museum again tomorrow. The art class is coming in to check the painting job I hope they will do. We also need to paint a couple of the other display areas and get the bunk stained. We have taken several of the exhibits apart so now need to get them together again. I called a noted military artifact collector in hopes he would exhibit some of his wonderful collection. He has collected WWII items for many years and has a fine collection. We don't have long to get our act together so we best get hopping!
Total Hip and Knee Replacement
I was thinking of the many things that have improved since I have had the two surgeries 9 and 4 months ago.
1. It is much easier to climb in and out of the car.
2. My back pain is not as bad as it was, although now I seem to have more pain on the opposite side.
3. My stamina is improving daily.
4. I can sleep without the awful pain I had before the hip surgery.
5. The trip to Grand Forks went well. I was able to walk for about two and a half hours back and forth across the mall, many times as I went to at least 10 stores for one reason or another. Super Target, I decided, was too much for my knee to handle as I didn't know where things were and knew I would give up before I got everything I needed.
6. Driving long distances don't bother me as much as they did before, Bismarck will be a real trial run though.
7. Exercising gets easier each day.

What is so great about Today?

I thought it is 7:15 when I awoke this am but it was only 6:15. By the time I had checked the clock, I had already wandered upstairs and decided to boil eggs. Here I could have tried to sleep another hour. As it was I had a backache and decided I needed to take care of it so stayed home.

What do you do when you decide to stay home from work? After a couple hours of trying to take care of the back pain, it finally subsided so I took the laptop upstairs and baked a batch of monster cookies and worked on some exhibit things that were haunting me. It is so easy to work at home, no interruptions, no noise, and total devotion to the job at hand!

At one-thirty I was on my way back to work with cookies in hand for the Roseau HS shop class who have been putting up our exhibit platforms. We used a platform design method from the Wisconsin Historical Society that we were shown at a consortium workshop a couple of years ago. The platforms went together very well, and the shop teacher told me how we could improve them if we make more. It is wonderful to have such a great group of young people to work with. They are polite and conscientious and they are almost done with the project!

When I came home this evening Ardmore was in the field combining. It is such a slow business. I could see where he had gone into an area and had to back out as he almost was stuck. He was only able to take off about 200 bushels of soybeans, but that is 200 more than we had this morning. It is suppose to be warmer tomorrow so he should get some more off.

Today being the middle of the week I decided to put in a favorite childhood poem. When our children were young, like most parents, I derived a great deal of pleasure reading to them.
Because of their short attention spans and the rhyming and rhythm of poetry, it was the first reading material I introduced to them. I also liked to use poems that taught them something besides just reading learning to listen, although one must learn to listen before they can listen to learn.

A.A. Milne was one of our favorite authors so for this Wednesday I choose Vespers.

Vespers

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little golden head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

God bless Mummy. I know that's right.
Wasn't it fun in the bath tonight?
The cold's so cold, and the hot's so hot.
Oh! God bless Daddy -I quite forgot.

If I open my fingers a little bit more,
I can see Nanny's dressing-gown on the door,
it's a beautiful blue, but it hasn't a hood.
Oh! God bless Nanny and make her good.

Mine has a hood, and I lie in bed,
And pull the hood right hover my head,
And I shut my eyes, and I curl up small
And nobody knows that I'm there at all.

Oh! thank you, God, for a lovely day.
And what was the other I had to say?
I said "Bless Daddy," so what can it be?
Oh! Now remember. God bless me.

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little golden head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

-from When We Were Very Young

That is my thought for the day!