Hugh to the Rescue, Pleasant Hill Ponderings Blog, This Old House, Uncategorized

A new desk for a new semester

Ever since I moved into the old white house 8 years ago – has it really been that long? – I’ve had a desk crisis. My cousins, who had lived her before me, left their old corner desk behind – and being low on funds, I was more than happy to keep it.

Let me tell you though – that thing was awful. I grew to hate that desk more than any other piece of furniture that I owned. (Sorry guys – but if you had actually liked it, you would have taken it with you.)

Years down the road, Stephen’s parents found us this fantastic craftsman style desk that a member of their church was throwing away. Cool woodwork, warm color, made from real wood – the only drawback was that the top was really too small to work on.

After going back to school this year and feeling like I needed a really good work space – I called up Poppaw and said it was about time for another episode of Hugh to the Rescue – the desk edition.

Poppaw and I decided that the easiest way to enlarge the desk would be to put a new top on it. My mom suggested adding black metal trim around the sides to hide the fact that the new top was not the original one. The end result – perfection.

To complete the ensemble, I added in my first library desk chair from my student worker days at Wingate. A wood storage box that I found on the farm as a little girl and hid in my grandparents barn – rediscovered still in its hiding place 17 years later. And an homage to the old white house – with photographs of every owner throughout its family history.

So, as I wrap up this post of procrastination – I must say that the new desk is perfect and will continue to be a perfect place to read, write, and craft.

Now it’s time to get cozy reviewing chapters 1 – 3 of The Education Dissertation…what joy is mine.

Advertisement
Pleasant Hill Ponderings Blog, Uncategorized

Where have the Bishops gone?….oh wait, here they are!

Image Well contrary to popular belief, Stephen and I have not fallen off the face of the planet nor have we defected to a remote corner of the world where the internet does not exist. Over the last year and a half since our last post, our lives have been beyond eventful and any spare time for writing blog posts has been channeled towards other things….like watching Chopped or sleeping.

This past year has been one of both feast (mostly feast) and famine – but now that we are on the upswing and our life trajectory is starting to fall in to place we’re excited to share some of what has been going on.

The Good

  • We bought our farm!
  • We’ve expanded our bee hives, plus all of our hives made it through this winter.
  • I have my first closet in 7 years, and it is our house’s first “real” closet in its 120 year history.
  • Stephen has had several articles published in different magazines and has a great new job working with farmers in our county.

The Bad

  • Over the summer we nearly lost Quigley, one of our favorite hens.
  • We did loose two bee hives through the winter of 2012/13 which put a big dent in our honey production.
  • A couple of family medical hiccups.

The Ugly

  • We had a skunk incident that probably left us both scarred for life and smelling hideous for months.
  • The plumbing in our old house has a mind of its own – meaning you have to do some weird stuff just to get the toilet to flush on occasion.

So, hopefully, we’re back – we have lots of stories to tell, with plenty of laughs for all.

Uncategorized

it all goes dark

Anyone that knows me probably knows that politics are not my “thing.” Oftentimes I find it depressing and just prefer to keep out of it all together. Today, for me, is not that day.

I would like to quote a co-worker of mine, Dan Jolley, who has expressed this concern in much better words than I can:

“A number of Internet sites will not be available tomorrow, as they will go dark in protest of the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) legislation pending in Congress.  I personally agree with SOPA opponents that both bills represent an egregious assault on free speech. This is to let you know some of the sites that will be blacked out tomorrow (censoring themselves the way our government will be able to arbitrarily censor any site if the legislation passes).  Some will be going black for most of the day (such as 8 am – 8 pm), while others will go black for 24 hours.”

Several popular sites include wordpress.com, wikipedia.com, The Internet Archive, and Mozilla.com

As a librarian, archivist, and fiber artist, I know many sites near and dear to my heart that would be shut down, impeded on, or penalized by this legislation (etsy.com, North Carolina Digital Heritage Center, and other archival research websites).

I believe in copyright and the right of a creator, and I also abhor purposeful and harmful plagiarism. But in the academic community, we support fair use of information for the growth of research, education, and critical thinking.

As a librarian, I am not supporting mayhem in the streets. A proper and appropriate balance can be met between protecting copyright holders and educators/artists/researchers. In the words of the Library Copyright Alliance, “There are millions of Internet users who are neither criminal infringers nor content conglomerates, and policies to punish the former or protect the latter can affect broad swaths of innocent users.”

I hope a happy medium can be reached in the future…..and that I won’t lose the joys of etsy anytime soon.

I now, respectfully, descend from my soap box in order to get back to other things….and don’t worry, this is probably the last time you’ll ever hear anything political from me again….after all, this blog is mostly about an old house and chickens. 🙂

Natalie