Her-Story Merit Badge, Intermediate Level

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 7,387 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—10,656 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! ~MaryJane 

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life   

For this week’s Each Other/Her-Story Intermediate Level Merit Badge, I got to pick another woman who was influential and powerful and inspiring (this time, living or dead) in my country. I had so many to choose from, it was hard to pick! It was like being in the line at the ice cream parlor … how to choose, how to choose? Which explains why I usually get three scoops. Which explains why my pants don’t button. Ahem.

But back to the badge, Madge!

I decided to go with someone I’d admired all my live-long days, and who I had originally thought of back during my Beginner Level badge earning: Audrey Hepburn.

Screenshot of William Holden and Audrey Hepburn from the trailer for the film w:en:Sabrina (1954 film) via Wikimedia Commons

After all, she seemed a practically perfect woman in every way (much like Mary Poppins, only, you know, real). She had style and grace, charm and wit, sure, but she did so much more!

screenshot of Audrey Hepburn from the trailer for the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s via Wikimedia Commons

In particular order, here are the most amazing things I found out about my dear Audrey:

  • Audrey spoke fluently Dutch, Italian, Spanish, German, French, and English. I, myself, speak three languages: English, sarcasm, and whale.
  • She is one of the few people who are a true EGOT, winning Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards.
  • She was sent away to boarding school at the ripe old age of 5.
  • Once the Germans invaded the Netherlands where Audrey lived, she became a member of the Dutch Resistance, where she delivered messages and packages and performed in clandestine performances of ballet for fundraising.
  • During the Occupation, Audrey would make cakes and breads out of ground tulip bulbs. This affected her health and she developed anemia, and also had a hard time gaining weight for the rest of her life. She was told she would not be strong enough to continue with ballet dancing, and began to concentrate more on acting.
  • Despite her father being a Nazi sympathizer and having left their family when Audrey was a child, she reached out to him in the sixties and supported him financially until his death.
  • The dress she wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is considered the most iconic dress of all time, and is the inspiration behind the term ‘little black dress.’
  • Cary Grant was quoted as saying, ‘All I want for Christmas is to be in another picture with Audrey Hepburn.’ Incidentally, I’ve been quoted as saying, ‘All I want for Christmas is Cary Grant.’
  • She was appointed Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF and United States President George H. W. Bush presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work with UNICEF.
  • The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences posthumously awarded her the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her contribution to humanity, with her son accepting on her behalf. Grateful for her own good fortune after enduring the German occupation as a child, she dedicated the remainder of her life to helping impoverished children in the poorest nations. Though she had done work for UNICEF in the 1950s, starting in 1954 with radio presentations, this was a much higher level of dedication. Her family said that the thoughts of dying, helpless children consumed her for the rest of her life.
  • In 2002, at the United Nations Special Session on Children, UNICEF honored Hepburn’s legacy of humanitarian work by unveiling a statue, “The Spirit of Audrey”, at UNICEF’s New York headquarters. Her service for children is also recognized through the U.S. Fund for UNICEF’s Audrey Hepburn Society.

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  1. Cindi says:

    You have chosen well ~ very, very well! I have always been a huge fan of hers and I think my mother was as well. Every Halloween Mom would sew up an elaborate costume for me (the most elaborate being Martha Washington, complete with itch wig, ugh). Then she would carefully open up a flat piece of printed cardboard and fold along the lines to create a little box with UNICEF written on it and send me out into the neighborhood to “trick-of-treat for UNICEF”. I had to say those exact words. Audrey clearly brought to the forefront a cause that might have gotten swept under the rug without her. Now I need to dig out some Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn movies. And ice cream.

  2. Karlyne says:

    Beautiful!

  3. BB king says:

    Audrey was like no other actress, a shining example to us all. My favorite movie was her early ” Roman Holiday” – just delightful.

  4. Winnie Nielsen says:

    Audrey Hepburn has always been one of my favorite actresses. I never knew about her connection with UNICEF but I am so happy to learn this. Collecting for UNICEF was a tradition that I remember participating in every Halloween. Kids helping Kids makes for a Halloween that feels special in addition to all of the fun that comes along with the holiday. Thanks for this interesting post today.

  5. Krista says:

    I knew very little about Audrey Hepburn before now. She sounds like a very strong and empowering woman. I love all the work she did for children in need. We need more people like her in the world.

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Hear Ye!

Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Kari Workman!

Kari Workman (Kari22, #4322) has received a certificate of achievement in Garden Gate for earning a Beginner Level Bee Good to Your Mother Earth Merit Badge!

“I’ve been growing a vegetable garden for years and have always done so without chemicals. I have several seed starts ready to be planted after the snow goes away. For pest control, I try to pick off squash bugs and stay on top of weeds that get into the gardens. I’d like to start using some other types of control, all chemical-free, of course. I just finished reading Montrose: Life in a Garden and particularly enjoyed the bits and pieces about the cats and the day-to-day life in the garden. The illustrations were beautiful!

It turned out great. I love gardening and feeding my family fresh produce!”

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  1. Winnie Nielsen says:

    Kari, sounds like you are on the way to lots of healthy and delicious garden additions to your family meals. Congratulations on getting started on expanding your knowledge base about gardening in general so that you can do more and enjoy a true Farm to Table backyard!

  2. BB king says:

    congrats kari, your life will be so much better now.

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Young Cultivators Merit Badge: Big Kid Now, Intermediate Level

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 7,387 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—10,656 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! ~MaryJane 

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life

For this week’s Each Other/Big Kid Now Intermediate Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge, Piper, Andy, Nora, and Yours Truly buckled down. When we earned our Beginner Level Merit Badge, we had checked out most of the Non-Fiction section of the local library, and now we were settling in for a long winter’s nap. I mean, a long afternoon of reading. Also, it’s fall. I really gotta work on my analogies.

Is there a badge for that?

We had so many books we spent an hour organizing them, which caused some issues. Pipes likes organizing things by color (you should see her nail polish collection), Nora recently learned how to alphabetize and wanted to show her skillz, and Andy, well, Andy is Andy and mostly he wants to do the opposite of what the girls want to do. He just wanted to stack his books up high and play a game of Jenga with them.

photo by Guma89 via Wikimedia Commons

I had to pull out my Auntie card and show ‘em I meant business. I mean, this was the easy part: finding a career they could really sink their teeth into. After that, the hard part came: putting together costumes for their said career and presenting it to their loved ones. I had stage fright already.

We spent some time looking through our tomes of inspiration and organizing them according to our own personal preferences. We also did some swapping between one another. Evidently, Andy lost interest in deep-sea diving for treasure and sunken ships because … well, sharks. But Nora decided sharks were merely misunderstood creatures and she snagged the book on deep-sea diving. Then Pipes decided she wasn’t interested in hair and cosmetology after all because fumes give her a headache, but Andy was kinda into the idea of styling coiffures. So, at the end of a day, they had chosen their professions (liable to change eleventy-seven times, plus four):

  • Piper decided there was nothing better in life than being a pastry chef. Which, honestly, who’s gonna argue with that kind of logic? Also, the fumes would be buttery, sugary, and delightful, so I thought she was really onto something. We fashioned her a chef’s hat and coat and to accompany her presentation, she made everyone homemade snickerdoodles.

photo by petempich via Wikimedia Commons

  • Nora decided she wanted to combine two of her loves: writing notes down in a notebook like a journalist, and traveling the world. The result? Travel writer! We had a little fun with her costume: we pulled together as many geographically diverse costume props we could come up with (like a French beret, an Indian sari, and Native American moccasins), and she had a blast.
  • Andy, after a shockingly long time of deliberation, came up with his dream career: he wanted more than anything to be a  … dad. We were all surprised he left off his dream of world domination, super spy, and rocket ship pilot, but we were pleased. Turns out he said, you could have ALL those things when you become a dad, because playing with your kids was a full time and important job. He dressed in his own dad’s clothes, which hung off him quite hilariously but got the job done. He ended his presentation with his claims that he would have so many kids they would always have a basketball team at the ready, and he only planned on having boys because girls have cooties. On a completely unrelated note, the position of Andy’s wife is currently open.

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  1. Karlyne says:

    Aw, Andy! I’ll be sending pix and bios of my grandgirls because you should be in our family.

  2. Winnie Nielsen says:

    I think the best thing we can do for our kids is to let them know that there are many many ways to have a career. They just need to know that the skills of hard work, accountability, integrity, and openness to change and new ideas must always be a part of the mix. As parents, I think we can cultivate these values in our everyday experiences so that when they are grown, they are not afraid of hard work, failure, disappointment, and determination to get right back in the game in the face of difficulty. For me, these were the hardest things to do because we want our kids to succeed, be happy, and we have to be strong in the face of their tears and rants. For softies like myself, tears of failure and disappointment always pulled on my heart strings to make it all better for them. Lessons learned on both sides.

  3. Krista says:

    This is a fun way to get kids involved with picking careers for the future and learning what they really involve. I have changed my mind many times. Most of them actually happened as an adult. I love Pipers choice! For about 2 years now I have been wanting to go to culinary school. I still plan to. I am just waiting until my boys are in school. Cooking has always been a favorite thing of mine and I would love to branch out and learn new things, especially foods from other countries.

    • Karlyne says:

      I love to watch cooking shows, but, Oh! The pressure! If you love feeding people, it’s such a great career and you should go for it!

  4. Karlyne says:

    Those are my favorite! I’m in awe of the talent & work ethic of those kids!

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Hear Ye!

Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Teresa Roberson!

Teresa Roberson (carolinacateyes, #7386) has received a certificate of achievement in Each Other for earning a Beginner Level Plant It Forward Merit Badge!

“I wish I had taken a picture of my small but beautiful garden! I purposely planted more than I can use to give to the elderly lady next door. When I was raising my children on a limited income, she and her husband always gave me vegetables out of their garden. Now it is my turn to return the giving. I delivered extra zucchini and yellow crookneck squash to her yesterday. Next week, I will share the first of the tomatoes and soon there will be fresh corn, onions, and green beans.

Although I plan to can some of the extras out of my garden, I have to remember my next door neighbor, Ruby. She is a widow now in her late eighties and not in good health. After several strokes, she is unable to tend a garden. She is so very excited every time I share produce with her. She knows there will eventually be canned homemade vegetable soup for the winter. I prefer to give back to her; I know where my produce is going and she is in need this time of her life.”

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  1. Winnie Nielsen says:

    More beautiful flowers this morning to enjoy. Are they a member of the Lily family?

    Happy Mother’s Day , MaryJane!!

    • MaryJane says:

      It’s commonly called a Fawn Lily or Glacier Lily or Avalanche Lily. We have them all over in the woods this time of year, especially in our plum pit. I call it a Fawn Lily because our favorite botanist from Mtn. Rose Herbs has a business called Fawn Lily and I swear by her products.
      http://www.fawnlilybotanica.com/

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythronium_grandiflorum

      • Winnie Nielsen says:

        Thanks MaryJane! I just looked up both links. Your wooden areas must be gorgeous with these Fawn Lily’s about everywhere.I can just imagine the Plum Pit dressed out in it’s May Day finest!
        I am going to take a careful look at the Fawn Lily product site as it sounds very interesting with many useful and lovely products.

        Hope you are having a wonderful Mother’s Day. Oh and I wanted to congratulate you on the new Cast Iron skillet cookbook!! Oh my, I can’t wait to get a copy and carefully read every page. I know it is going to be wonderful just like all of your other books!

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Hear Ye!

Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Dana Manchan!!!

Dana Manchan (tevschic, #562) has received a certificate of achievement in Each Other for earning a Beginner & Intermediate Level Families Forever Merit Badge!

“My children and I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling together as part of our homeschool day. Also, we started playing board games during our weekly Family Home Evenings. Some of the games included Operation, Mouse Trap, and Monopoly. Our favorite was a game called Camp which tests our knowledge of plants and wildlife as we move around the board trying to get back to the “campfire.”

This was a very fun merit badge to work on. I had forgotten how much fun our family has when we play games together. We will definitely hold on to this tradition!

I typed up a chart to keep track of our TV viewing habits for one week, did some extraordinary math to figure out what 20% less would be (the new goal was 47 hours and 40 minutes), and then tracked our habits for the next week.

I grew up on TV, so it was no surprise to me that in the first week, we had watched almost 59 hours, but seeing that number was a slap in the face. So, the next week, we spent a little more time reading or playing outside, and reduced the number to 45.5 hours. We already were careful about what types of shows we watch, so we didn’t adjust anything about what we watched; we just watched less.”

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  1. Winnie Nielsen says:

    Congratulations, Dana, on tackling the problem of too much TV with a family love of Happy Potter and board games! It sounds like everyone has benefitted and rediscovered some old favorites too.

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  1. Winnie Nielsen says:

    Such delicate flowers and I am in love with that lilac color.

  2. Diana Shelton says:

    Flowers with blue hues, lilac color are my all time favorite colors. They brighten any yard or container planting. Just beautiful!

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Young Cultivator Merit Badge: Energize Me, Beginner Level

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 7,387 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—10,656 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! ~MaryJane 

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life   

For this week’s Cleaning Up/Energize Me Beginner Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge, Andy and I went on a tour of his house, pen and paper at the ready. We were List-maker Extraordinaires already, and now we were putting our skillz to good use: counting everything around the house that uses energy, how our food is kept cold, how the car starts, even how we need and collect energy and keep warm ourselves.

We started off by counting the things that plug in. In five minutes, we had run out of fingers and toes to keep track of our counting, and had to rely on tally marks in our notebook. Guess how many things we found plugged in (not counting other things that use electricity but weren’t plugged in at the moment, like the blender in the cupboard or the hair dryer in the bathroom)?

29!!

It was fairly shocking. Get it? Shocking? Hahaha, just a little electricity humor for ya. Back to the show. Ahem.

Next, we lovingly gave the hardworking refrigerator a hug (and snacked on some cheese slices to keep our own energy levels up) and lowered the thermostat a degree for conservations sake. Then we flipped over to the next page of our notebook and began noticing and counting the lightbulbs in the house.

Guess how many? No, really, go ahead and guess. I’ll wait.

If you said 32, you would be frighteningly good at this. Or perhaps your electrician wired your house as well as Andy’s. Of course, eight of those were in the dining room chandelier, but still. That’s a lot of bulbs! Then we remembered the garage … more bulbs, not to mention the electric garage door opener and the two cars themselves.

I was starting to get a bit bummed out at the carbon footprint we were leaving, so we ate some more cheese while we lowered the thermostat one more degree. We turned the topic of discussion to our own energy levels and degrees of warm fuzzies.

What do we need, as people, to keep our energy up?

Jane’s List of Must Haves for Healthy Energy Levels:

  • Coffee and/or tea. Preferably organic and fresh. Hot in the winter, icy cold in the summer.
  • A good slice of sharp Cheddar.
  • A hand-knit sweater.
  • A high protein and fiber breakfast.
  • Snacks.
  • Brisk walks in the cool air.
  • A seaside trip each year.
  • Snowball fights.
  • Pets.
  • Walking instead of driving when possible.
  • Writing letters to friends.
  • Holiday traditions.
  • Good books.
  • Baking bread.
  • Hobbies.
  • Occasional naps (I like mine on Sundays).
  • Fresh air.
  • Dates with Mr. Wonderful.

 

Andy’s Must Haves for High Energy Levels:

  • Soccer practices.
  • Lots of sleep.
  • Smoothies with fresh fruit and honey and whipped cream.
  • Headstands.
  • Somersaults.
  • Spaghetti with meatballs at least once per week.
  • Pizza with extra cheese.
  • Trail mix.
  • Ninja practice.
  • Bugging and pestering little sisters.
  • Homework.
  • Bedtime stories.
  • Kick the can, basketball, and street hockey with neighbor kids.
  • Climbing trees.
  • Fort building.
  • Arm wrestling.
  • More spaghetti and meatballs.
  • Midnight snacks.

This wasn’t part of the badge earning, but we decided to swap lists for the next week.

After all, who couldn’t use a bit more somersaulting and headstands in their lives?

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  1. Karlyne says:

    Love your list swapping!

  2. BB king says:

    Here is my answer to your list MaryJane:
    Coffee and/or tea. Preferably organic and fresh. Hot in the winter, icy cold in the summer.- yep cant live without them.
    A good slice of sharp Cheddar.-yep, or any good cheese, i love brie too
    A hand-knit sweater.- wear them all the time, mostly from Ireland and Iceland, im always cold
    A high protein and fiber breakfast.- have a spinach omelet every morn, high fiber muffins
    Snacks.- i eat small amounts all day not sit down meals except b’fast
    Brisk walks in the cool air.- make that warm air
    A seaside trip each year.- dont I wish!
    Snowball fights.- not a big snow person
    Pets.- my most wonderful thing in life: Earl, BB King and Frankie ( really want a bunny too and ducks)
    Walking instead of driving when possible.- not possible around here in the hinterlands
    Writing letters to friends.- you know I send cards and notes all the time to like everyone, snail mail is special
    Holiday traditions.-huge fan of holidays, decorate for all of them -celebrate them alot
    Good books.- cant live without reading , whole LR is bookshelves floor to ceiling-plus elsewhere
    Baking bread.- not so much , I once did it for a living- havent done much since
    Hobbies.- uh hobbies?, its all my life and busineess but I do what I love
    Occasional naps (I like mine on Sundays).- check- I have that luxury working for myself
    Fresh air.- Im outdoors 12-14 hours a day at this time of year, gardening based biz
    Dates with Mr. Wonderful.- uh well not really- scarce pickings around here

  3. Krista says:

    I never put much thought into how many light bulbs we have. Or to how many things plug in. It’s a crazy how much energy we use on a daily basis that we aren’t consciously thinking about. We love this time of year because windows are used instead of our thermostat. Now I want to count how many light bulbs we have!

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Calligraphy Merit Badge, Beginner Level

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 7,387 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—10,656 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! ~MaryJane 

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life  

For this week’s Each Other/Calligraphy Beginner Level Merit Badge, I bought myself a brand, spankin’ new notebook journal. I also invested in a nifty calligraphy pen. Then I tackled a skill my third-grade teacher wished I had applied myself to tackling quite a long time ago …

Penmanship.

In other words, I should’ve been a doctor. My autograph is a thing of legend. And by legend, of course I mean, unintelligible and incomprehensible scrawling. My handwritten letters to my Irish pen pal look as though perhaps my hen, Miss Toile, scratched them out with her toes. While balancing on one wing. Intoxicated. And upside down.

But, as I always say, go big or go home. In other words, learn calligraphy if you can’t print well.

I was able to read through—and get inspired by—Modern Calligraphy: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started in Script Calligraphy by Molly Suber Thorpe. (The book required for this badge is available on loan from MaryJanesFarm; contact library@maryjanesfarm.org.)

It was all so pretty and soothing to the eye. But appreciating it and actually learning it are two different things. (Ask me how I know. Go ahead. Because I have earned a badge or two in my time, that’s how.)

I’ve always had a thing for markers and pens and pencils and Sharpies. Ahhh, Sharpies, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways …

sharpies

  1. Decorating pumpkins for Halloween when I can’t find my good carving knife.
  2. Addressing envelopes in a colorful manner.
  3. Labeling personal items when vacationing or camping in a group.
  4. Labeling my lunch at work (get away from my Chicken Burrito Bowl, this means you!).
  5. Coloring in those neato coloring books they make for grown-ups.
  6. Hiding a scuff in my good black pumps.
  7. Countless arts and crafts projects.

I knew I would learn to love my new calligraphy pen at least as much as my collection of Sharpies. We just had to get to know one another …

… she said, as she put the first stroke to paper …

Well, it wasn’t love at first sight, me and calligraphy, but all new relationships must survive a little test of fire, right? Ours wasn’t fire per se, but more like smudging, errors, creases, and one spilt beverage. That’s okay, I turned the page (literally), and began again.

I moved at approximately the speed of turtles after a turkey and pasta dinner, but I did manage to get through the whole alphabet.

photo by .angels. via Flickr.com

And, I must say, my calligraphy was rather lovely to look upon! I mean, I’m no Niels Shoe Meulman (inventor of Calligraphiti, the merging of calligraphy with graffiti), or Yazan Halwani (one of the youngest Arabic calligraphers around), or Edward Johnston (the father of modern calligraphy), or Wen Zhengming (Ming dynasty painter and calligrapher).

But, hey, I am Jane, Farmgirl Extraordinaire, Merit Badge earner, and the best calligrapher in my house!

Miss Toile notwithstanding.

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  1. Karlyne says:

    I was thinking the other day about how distinctive handwriting used to be – I could pick out my folks’ handwriting in any kind of lineup, e.g. But I don’t see enough examples, anymore, so except for my nearest and dearest, I don’t feel that I know anyone by their writing these days. Hmmm. Must be a good time to be an anonymous letter writer…

  2. Krista says:

    This merit badge really fascinates me. I have been itching to give it a try. Calligraphy is so beautiful and it would be so fun to use it when I write letters. All I need now is to invest is a calligraphy pen and borrow the book so I can learn how.

  3. darlene ricotta says:

    Calligraphy is a beautiful art, I haven’t done any Merit Badges but I would like to try this one.
    I appreciate you being there and having the Mary Janes Farm.
    Thank you.

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