World Book Day

Did you know that March 1st is World Book Day? It’s the biggest celebration of its kind, designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and marked in more than 100 countries all over the world.I am behind World Book Day 100%! I can’t imagine not having books to read. Or not being able to read. I can’t sit still without reading something… anything, even the back of the cereal box!  We are so lucky to have the Book Thing in Baltimore. Since all of the books are FREE, I can take and keep the ones I want, and return the ones I’ve finished.Some of my favourite design books are listed along the right side of the blog, and they all have links either to posts I did about them, or where you can buy them.I can’t remember when I first started reading, but I do remember reading books like Nancy Drew, which started my life long love of mysteries.  Both of the houses where I grew up had libraries, and I remember sitting for hours, looking at the books there. You can just see my father’s collection of red Baedekers’ Travel Guides in the left corner of this room. He had shelves built in on the wall opposite the fireplace for all of his books. At one point, he had more than 4,000 books! But that’s nowhere near the number that Johns Hopkins Professor Richard Macksey has in his house (top image). His floors had to be reinforced!This is just a small portion of one of my book cases, and you can see some of my father’s old travel books in the upper left of the book case.

Happy World Book Day!

UGH!

What about improving your mind by actually opening them, and then reading them? Isn’t that what books are for?

Tie One On!

It’s been a fun couple of days at the office. On Tuesday, at a meeting, I found out that the kids in residence with us are learning to tie scarves and ties as part of their life skills classes. And they’re going to show everyone their newly acquired skills at an all-campus assembly on Valentine’s Day.We had purchased white shirts for them, but when it came time to buy 55+ ties for the boys and 10+ scarves for the girls, it just wasn’t in our budget. Shocking to see how expensive even the least expensive ties are.

So I sent out a mass e-mail to everyone on our list, and within minutes, my e-mail started binging with people replying to tell me that they would be happy to donate their ties! And their scarves! I have packages coming from across the country from people who want to help, many of them readers of Pigtown*Design.  And people are doing this quickly, because we need the scarves and ties by Monday for Tuesday. I am in charge of the scarves, and put together a little booklet for the girls about different ways to tie scarves.

Envelopes, boxes and bags filled with ties and scarves for the children we care for is the best Valentine present they could have, because it shows that there are so many people who want to help them!

So, from me, and our children at Woodbourne, thanks so much!