Some Art and Then a History Lesson

It can't possibly be midweek already, can it? Time is flying. I have one more week off and then its back to work for me. I can't think about that yet though. I am going to try to keep it out of my mind until at least next week. Try being the word.

So today I begin my post with another spread from my Iceland travel journal. I have been working away at it and am almost done. Once school begins I will be mentally moving onto the next round of  life's adventures and Iceland will seem further away, So I am really try to finish it up ASAP.

This spread is all about sheep. They are everywhere in Iceland. All sheep  roam free during the summer, and in September they have a roundup.  You even see them on the sides of some very steep grassy hills, which made us joke that they looked  like they were kept in place by Velcro. We also laughed about pink sheep- not that there were pink sheep, but some of the hay bales were wrapped in pink plastic, and as they were as round of the fluffy sheep, we joked about pink sheep. 

So I found a pink sheep postcard which made me smile and thought would be a good memory for my journal. I also bought a little Viking  reproduction  trinket that came in a jewelry box. Instead of having cotton at the bottom of the box, there was a little bit of this unspun black wool. (Of course there wouldn't be cotton in a country that has a bigger sheep population than people population.)So I also added that to my page because I love the texture it creates.

I am linking up to Art Journal Journey too. Sheep are a wonder of nature with there cool wooley coats. How smart we are to figure out to spin it and turn it into yarn which can be used for both knitting and weaving.

So this past weekend I went to the Hudson River Valley in New York for a couple of days. I had never been to this particular area of New York, but it was green, lush farmland with some beautiful homes. One of the towns we visited was Hyde Park, which was the home of one of the US's former presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. For those of you who may not be familiar with US presidents. FDR was president back during the 1930's Great Depression  and during most of World War II. He was the longest serving US president, having been elected to four 4 year terms. It is because of him that US presidents can no longer serve more than 2 terms (8 years) in office.

This is the home he was born in and was his residence all his life. I didn't know that he only owned it for approximately the last 4 years of his life. It was instead owned by his mother, and she ruled the roost. But it was also here that  some dignitaries including Winston Churchill and King George the VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth of  England visited. 

 This was his bedroom. I don't know if you can notice the phone on the wall next to the bed, but this was his direct line to the White House in Washington. 

FDR came down with polio as an adult and he was paralyzed from the waist down. He needed a wheel chair, however he had regular chairs made into wheelchairs. He wanted to keep his disability hidden since in those days many people believed physical disabilities also meant mental disability. This wheel chair is in the extra large dumbwaiter installed in the house so that FDR could get up to and down from the second floor where his bedroom was. He would pull on the cord to lift the dumbwaiter up to the second floor. 

You might also see the wheelchair in the living room.  What is really cool is that when FDR died he gave the house to the US government. That included all the furniture and many of his other belongings. I think its fascinating to see things that FDR actually used. I like to imagine what it was like when they actually living there.

There is also FDR's presidential library and museum on the grounds which was really fascinating too. It was actually much bigger than I thought, and bit overwhelming, but I found a few things worth photographing.

 This is his car, with hand controls since he could not drive a standard car due to his paralysis.

And when Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese in 1941, FDR gave this speech the next day. Here in the US it is a famous speech, about "a day that will live infamy". This is FDR's hand corrected draft of the speech. No speech writers in those days.

 His desk from the Oval Office at the White House.

 And many of the knick knacks he kept on his desk.

OK, long post.  Hope you made it and didn't either fall asleep or click off. Ha-ha! 

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.