Bookshelf of a Bibliophile

     Wandering around the San Marco Bookstore today, my heart leapt out of my chest and I called out to Taylor; there, in the middle of a seemingly average shelf of old books, was one with the title British Flora. Blue, musty smelling as all good books become, I grabbed it at random hoping for a glimpse of a vintage drawing. Something much, much better awarded itself to me -actual flowers, nestled between the pages like hidden secrets meant for only my eyes to discover. I'm pretty sure I stopped breathing for a minute.

George Bentham and Joseph D. Hooker were two prominent botanists of the Victorian Era. Hooker was Darwin's BFF, and Bentham was an older colleague. Quite fascinating gentlemen.

The original came out in 1858, but my copy is from 1947, almost one hundred years later.

Oh Elizabeth, who could you have been?

The first flower is placed on a page about preserving and collecting "specimens".

Was she studying, perhaps?

     It's finds like these that make my English-major mind dream up all sorts of stories surrounding the artifact. Was the previous owner a botanist? Are the markings on the page meant as signals of which blooms she has seen in person or are they just her favorites? Are the clippings she saved significant, or are they simply from her backyard? Did she have a secret garden with a crippled cousin and parents who died in India?
     Okay, that last one was a stretch, but you get where I'm coming from. Though I admit I am selfish and would like to hoard all of these beautiful finds to myself, I decided that I should share these pretties with my darling readers. I'll feature a book every so often and the reasons I adore it, with photographs of all the best parts. You're welcome. XO.

Week Six of the "52 Dates of 2012"

Visit the MOSH Planetarium. 

     This week and last week got a little messed up. We were supposed to do something else Week Five but switched it with "Eat at Maggiano's". Week Six started as "Go to the zoo", but with the frigid cold front that came through Jacksonville, we decided last minute to re-pick a date. The Museum of Science and History (MOSH) is so great, especially when you want something warm yet exciting to do. They're open 7 days a week, so Sunday early afternoon we headed downtown to see what it was all about.

      We arrived, purchased our Planetarium show tickets to see "Black Holes" at 3pm, and started wandering the first floor. There, we saw live animals, replicas of sea creatures, inside the human body, and where our water comes from, along with a dinosaur!

     We headed  up to the second floor and explored the hands-on learning section. Taylor especially loved the physics and music ones, and I liked looking through all of the microscopes. It was close to 3pm by that point, so we walked over to the Planetarium to present our tickets and get seated. You can imagine our sadness when we discovered that a private party had booked the entire Planetarium for a show about sea life, and the front desk people hadn't known when they sold us our tickets. It turned out for the better in the end though, because they gave us complimentary tickets to come back to the museum another day and see the Black Hole show at another time. Don't you love when things work like that? It always pays to be calm and grateful.

Thank you wonderful MOSH staff! This kind of made our day.

     The free time slot in our afternoon allowed us to take a look around the history sections, which explored Jacksonville and North Florida in particular. It was so fascinating, it's always exciting to learn new things about the place you live I think. The Victorian and Mid-Century sections were my very favorite, I kept asking Taylor "Can I just live here, please?"

So cute! I wanted to move right in. Why yes, I'll take that pink telephone please. Of course I'll have that bar on wheels in the corner. What do you mean I'm not allowed to jump over the glass and start moving my clothes into the closet?

This skirt needed to parseltongue its way out of the glass and get into my closet. The strawberries! The flowers and leaves! The creamy color!  It was just perfection.

     Taylor's favorite part was seeing the owls hoot and move their big eyes in the ecology section. I loved the above mentioned lifestyles of the late 1800's and mid 1900's. After a long day of venturing through the MOSH, we were both hungry and needed to get home to our puppy. We ended a lovely Sunday with another trip to Maggiano's as an early Valentine's dinner (so delicious) and snuggling up to watch the Grammy's and stay warm. We haven't chosen this weeks date yet, but he's got a home game and won't be traveling all weekend so it should be a good one. XO.

P.S. This also crosses off a 21 Before 21 list item! Yay!

Going Medieval...

... in the best way ever. Last Saturday, my Aunt and Uncle and cousins and I piled into a minivan and drove down from their home in the 10-Acre Woods to Gainseville and the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire. If you've never been to a Faire, well... I suggest you go immediately. It truly is wonderful, so many great crafts, so much superb people watching, so very much good fair food. Deep fried twinkies and creative types? Count me in.

Riding in the car. Clockwise from top left- Me, Auntie Mer, Uncle Dan, Bella, Sam's friend Alora and Sam.

     This was moments before we saw the line for parking. Yes. There was a line. For parking. And then once you parked? There was another line to get on a bus to drive to the fair grounds to get into a line to buy your tickets to wait in a line to... yeah, you get the idea. It was worth it to see the little one's face when she saw the elephant though -so precious.

      Go right now and look at the Faire website, it really is amazing how many talented people join in on the festivities. There are booths for homemade sodas, booths for crowns woven from copper, booths for every type of leather work you could imagine. Musical instruments, clothiers, weapons and places to test them out. There are musicians who dance, fire breathers, acrobats, and people who are just there to make your experience better, like the King and Queen. My mom and I have this elaborate plan where we're going to set up a booth at one of these one day and travel the country. How delightful would that be? Fair warning to history buffs- ignore all of the period dressing that is from the wrong period. Some people just like to dress up. This is a place where they can do that, whether historically accurate or not. (Never mind that I definitely shook my own head at the people in Steampunk. Really guys? That's a little too inaccurate, even for me, ha!)

King, Me with Bella on my lap, Samantha, and the Queen. I'd like that throne in my future home, please and thank you. Also, don't I have the cutest cousins? Then again, I could be just slightly biased...

Getting knighted/crowned. Princess Skye of the Scottish Isles. The name suits me, no?

Why yes, I am a Star Throwing Champion -if you count throwing five stars and having only one stick into the wall. Ah well, it's the effort behind it I suppose.

The girl elephant we rode. I love her freckles.

     A little more on that crown you can see in the pictures. I made it myself Thursday night. All by myself. For less than 20 dollars. One day I suppose I'll do a tutorial for making them, but unfortunately I only took a few pictures that night and the lighting wasn't the best, so it will have to come another time.
     I started out heading to Michael's and buying on-sale flowers and four or five different types of ribbon. The lacy one was the most expensive item at 5.99$ but I had a coupon and saved a few dollars, keeping me under my 20$ budget. I won't go into specifics, but I basically deconstructed the flowers and reconstructed them as a wreath and then added more ribbon than necessary. Pippa slept by my side the entire time, and the process only took me a couple hours. I also had enough leftovers to make a second, smaller wreath. Hooray!

All of my pieces. The sequins are being saved for another project, they were just too much. On an unrelated-ish note, I do everything on my bed. I write, I craft, I read, I eat snacks, I play my ukulele. I've always loved desks but never use them, my bed is way more comfortable. Maybe it's just another one of my many quirks.

Finally, the finished product! Those super adorable doilies you see there? One. Dollar. Yes sirry, in the dollar section of Michael's, oh how I love that place.

     That is all of my medieval travels, for now at least. I was sad that Taylor didn't get to tag along this year, so we'll definitely be returning again next Winter. Speaking of him, we're supposed to go to the zoo for our date this week, so keep a look out for that. Also, if you're reading I would love for you to comment! I can see how many people view each page, but I'm not psychic and don't know what all of you lovely people think about it. So ask me questions, tell me heartfelt anecdotes, leave funny comments about how silly the King looks, whatever! XO.

Pretending to be a Journalist

     As you've probably seen, UNF is hosting the Florida Republican Presidential Debate tonight. I, as a concerned citizen, decided it was my duty to act like a total tourist and take pictures as I walked back from my class, which was sadly not canceled. I'll admit I never even saw a single famous person and I could be there right now but would rather stay home with Pip, but still... don't burst my excited-about-UNF bubble. Swoop!

CNN sign on our Student Union, where they were doing interviews and (as I heard on CNN) the candidates makeup.

Press area, and behind this sign was the security and metal detectors. As Taylor and I walked away we heard two officers discussing protesters and students, saying they needed to keep everything tightly under control because there were already groups of both forming.

News news news!

Being a goober and getting my face in the picture. You've gotta have some proof right? I wanted to see the big CNN bus, but we had to get home to let out Miss Pippa.

Fourth floor view of the press vans and the Boathouse, where they're doing more interviews.

Well, back to watching the debate on TV, doing homework, and cuddling with my puppy. Please, no commenting about politics- I'd rather talk about tea and cookies and what you're doing this weekend. XO.