Busy, Busy, Busy!

I've been a bit absent this week. Like the previous week (where I began to wonder if I would ever work again), this one has been crammed head-to-toe with work opportunities. I worked three 12-hour shifts back-to-back at the skyscraper hospital, then started a week of straight midnights at the Rehab hospital I work for part-time. Tonight is my second straight midnight shift (both a time- and- a- half rates!); followed by tomorrow again, then two straight days of 16 hour shifts.

The Rehab hospital is still desperately short of staff, and it's only getting worse as time goes on. This is bad for the patients, but my dance card remains full, praise God.


That leads into the second thing. Julian & I are taking a road trip (no, that's not him in the second picture!-- name withheld to protect the innocent.) We're leaving the middle of next week, and we're hopeful we might even make it to the Chicagoland area briefly. We'll be blogging from the road with pictures, so you'll be kept informed.

And, as you may notice, the scanning project continues apace. From top to bottom, you see (1) me, in Belgium, circa 1987; (2) a Brenda's son in Germany, circa 1988, and (3) my grandmother, circa 1989 Christmas.

Finally, Ariane (my lovely and gracious wife) is having some challenges, both at her work as well as health-wise. If you're really interested e-mail me for details, but otherwise prayers are definitely in order for the next month or so -- especially the health stuff. When we know something definitive, I'll share.

~~JD~~

No, I didn't forget . . .

May 23rd is always a little hard for me.


Yesterday was Nana's 101st birthday.

~~JD~~

The Finished Product

Okay. This is probably the most ambitious Arts-and-Crafts Project I've ever tried to do. First, a little background.

Paul Baukema is a member of a MyFamily.com website dedicated to the genealogy of the Long family, and he's a good researcher on all things Long. About three years ago he found a manuscript by a John Turner Long written in the 1907-1908 time period. His sources of information included Joel Long, James Turner and Moses Jackson Long, Professor Joseph R. Long, Mrs. Margaret E. James, and the Hon. E. V. Long. The manuscript can be found in the Heritage Quest images of the Newberry Library (Chicago, IL) images.

Hey, a Judge in the family tree. Imagine that.



The origin of this "Family Crest" is not clear. It was probably created by John Turner Long for the Manuscript he wrote, although it may have earlier origins -- we may never know.

So I decided to try to recreate it as an Arts-And-Crafts Project, and immediately ran into a few problems. First, there are no colors specified in the black- and- white pen- and- ink drawing. I thought the stars should be white -- like the 1776 flag's stars were. The sword should be silver, of course. Through a little research I discovered that the felt cap is a "Phrygian Cap", and a slave on winning his freedom started wearing a Phyrgian cap as a symbol of his freedom.

Okay then -- red seems to be the traditional color for a Phyrgian cap. . . . what color for the plaque background itself? The Virginia flag is Navy Blue; the state seal is a lighter blue; and while I still like Hunter Green, Navy blue seems to be the predominant background color for colonial flags; but I bow to the will of the people.

The next major problem was one of perspective. It's easy to choose sizes when you're freehand drawing something: less easy when you're working with established materials. The tiny swords are swizzle sticks, so there wasn't much choice in size there. I had a few choices with the stars and tried to pick something that wasn't so tiny it would get lost in the background and be noticeable without dominating the area of the craft.

Once I picked a shield shape that roughly approximated for the stars and the swords, the Phyrgian Cap was the last choice. It's obviously larger than the drawing and that was a conscious choice. Too small and it risks being overlooked (or worse, looking comical); and the "Freedom" thing is the whole reason for the Revolution, right? Worth dying for, even.

I elected to retain the hand-lettering of the Crest in the manner of the original, and made the letters yellow like the Virginia Flag; although I did some slight re-ordering of the words to make it less clunky.

So, those were the choices and why . . . .



And this is what I got.

Not too bad, if I say so myself. I'm pretty happy with it, anyway.

~~JD~~