{"id":56489,"date":"2015-09-12T00:09:58","date_gmt":"2015-09-12T07:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=56489"},"modified":"2015-09-12T00:09:58","modified_gmt":"2015-09-12T07:09:58","slug":"get-er-done-merit-badge-expert-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/56489","title":{"rendered":"Get ‘er Done Merit Badge, Expert Level"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tThe adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our<\/span> Sisterhood Merit Badge program<\/span><\/span><\/a>, now with\u00a06,629 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20149,365 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Wondering who I am? I\u2019m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my<\/span> former life<\/span><\/span><\/a> \u2026\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For this week\u2019s Get ‘er Done Expert Level Merit Badge<\/u><\/a>, I was already sore and in the swing of things from helping my farmgirl friend move houses (and thereby earning my Intermediate Level Badge), so I decided to go with the flow and earn my Expert Level Merit Badge next. A house built by Habitat for Humanity was going up right down the street from me, and it was just the thing.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo, Navy Visual News Service via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

Twelve hours required for this badge, and I was rip roarin\u2019 ready to go.<\/p>\n

It took a while to prepare. I mean, I couldn\u2019t just show up with a hammer and call it good. No, siree! They would know I was a novice. I knew exactly what to do: after all, I have watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers<\/em> often enough.<\/p>\n

I knew how to raise a barn\u2014how could building a house be any different?<\/p>\n

I made several pies (rhubarb, raisin and sour cream, egg custard, and good old-fashioned apple), ironed my best country dancing dress, practiced my DoSeDo Flutterwheel Reverse Square dance moves, and headed out.<\/p>\n

I would have hitched the horses up to the buggy and arrived that way, all proper style and all, but I don\u2019t have a horse.<\/p>\n

Or a buggy.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by dee & tula via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

I plan to remedy that eventually, though. They\u2019re on my grocery list, right before buckwheat flour and right after tropical fish food.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I was surprised and kind of disappointed that none of the other volunteers were as prepared as me. It\u2019s a good thing I brought so many pies, because evidently all the others forgot. At least I\u2019ll win the blue ribbon, so all was not lost.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They also seemed a little under-dressed for the occasion, but I let that one slide.<\/p>\n

They also were a shy bunch. Why, it took me at least an hour to get a dance going! Part of that time was trying to roll the nearest felled tree over to the dancing area, though. That was tough. But I made it, and when everyone quit staring (they really weren\u2019t the most self-motivated group, I gotta say), I demonstrated a little quickstep atop it. Of course, I knew my limits and I didn\u2019t do any backflips or add in any ax swings at the same time, but I must say, I have feet like lightening!<\/p>\n

After that, I kind of expected a fight to break out over which girls wanted to marry which guys, but the volunteers were sort of a focused bunch, and instead we put up some walls.<\/p>\n

I guess walls are good, too.<\/p>\n

I kept my eyes out for a batch of good-looking, single brothers (you know \u2026 for my single, good-looking girlfriends, of course) but no one seemed related. Or single. Or good looking.<\/p>\n

All in all, I had a nice time and earned my badge, but the whole experience was a little strange.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost like people don\u2019t know how to properly do these things. They did appreciate my pies, though.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with\u00a06,629 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20149,365 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ\u00a0 Wondering who … 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":[],"class_list":["post-56489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gladsome_sisters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56489","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=56489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}