{"id":27473,"date":"2012-11-17T00:07:21","date_gmt":"2012-11-17T08:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=27473"},"modified":"2012-11-17T00:07:21","modified_gmt":"2012-11-17T08:07:21","slug":"outstepping-mba-jane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/27473","title":{"rendered":"Outstepping Merit Badge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tThe adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0now with 4,649 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of\u00a0merit badges\u00a0so far\u20145,730 total! Take it away MBA Jane!!! MJ<\/span><\/p>\n

Wondering who I am? I\u2019m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life<\/span><\/a> \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

This last weekend was the last weekend I felt good about hiking. After all, winter is coming, and though I have First Aid Kits ready in my car, I have no desire to be eaten by bears (or are they hibernating?) or get stuck in a snow drift, or miss my favorite holiday movie on the Hallmark Channel. So, I dusted off my best flannel shirt, laced up my boots, and set off on an adventure of the hiking and exploring and Merit Badge-ing type!<\/p>\n

I was on the lookout for three things for this badge: my state tree, my state flower, and my state bird …<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The tree was easy. Found that Western White Pine without hardly trying! Booyah! Of course, it helps that I had learned how to identify it back in my Girl Scout days, and I purposely went hiking in a spot where I knew they grew. Never mind. I was still feeling proud of myself. I snapped a photo of my prize, gave it a little kiss on the bark, and moved along.<\/p>\n

The flower was not as easy. Probably should have tried for this badge at a time of year when, oh I don\u2019t know, flowers bloom. <\/em>Yeah, hadn\u2019t thought that one through. Ah well, in for a penny, in for a pound, as Gradma Barbie used to say. I kept scouring. I had brought along my handy dandy and well-loved flower identifying book, and the author was sweet enough to include photos of every stage of the Syringa\u2019s development.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I wasn\u2019t getting anywhere, though I found a lovely patch of Poison Ivy I don\u2019t want to talk about.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Can I get half a badge maybe? Is that possible? A badge for trying? I have itchy ankles to prove it.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I moved along to the state bird: the Mountain Bluebird. I was in the mountains, after all, how hard could it be?<\/p>\n

I swear, that bird has it in for me. I found Ravens, Hawks, Sparrows, Turkeys, and I\u2019m pretty certain a Bald Eagle, but no Mountain Bluebird. Were they hibernating with the bears? Were they building nests made entirely out of Syringa flowers? What gives?<\/p>\n

Dejected and rejected, hopeless and helpless, I trudged back to my car. I ate a granola bar in silence, the only sound, my tears dripping down my nose. I was really taking it hard, this failure of the Merit Badge sort. I had had a nice hike, yes (my sore legs and itchy ankles were a testament to that), but I still felt discouraged.<\/p>\n

The only thing to do when you\u2019re feeling that way is build a campfire in your backyard and roast marshmallows! Lucky for me, that was exactly Step II of the Out Stepping Badge. I set up camp in my yard and had a roaring fire going in just a few minutes. I invited Mr. Wonderful and the chickens, of course (not to mention a bottle of Calamine lotion) and we had a great, sticky time. I could hardly believe it when I looked up and saw Guess Who? perched on my stack of firewood …<\/p>\n

a\u00a0Mountain Bluebird! It would have been even better if he had had a Syringa branch in his beak, but ah well, you can\u2019t have everything.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program,\u00a0now with 4,649 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of\u00a0merit badges\u00a0so far\u20145,730 total! Take it away MBA Jane!!! MJ Wondering who I am? … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[363,548,566,574,638],"class_list":["post-27473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gladsome_sisters","tag-gladsome-sisters","tag-maryjanesfarm-farmgirl-sisterhood","tag-mba-jane","tag-merit-badge-awardees","tag-new-sisters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}