My Cousin is Hosting Chef Hunter

I only found out about this a few days ago.

Carrie McCully is my first cousin, once removed, and she is hosting a show on The Food Network called Chef Hunter. It premieres tonight at 10 p.m. EST. I'll have to give it a look-see.

As far as I know I have never met Carrie, although I may have seen her when she was very young and her father came to visit our grandmother. Her father is my first cousin Eugene. Eugene's father, Coleman, was one of my father's eldest brothers. Uncle Coleman was married twice. He had one son and four (or was it five?) daughters by his first wife before she died of breast cancer. I never knew her because she died before I was born. He had three children by his second wife, and I knew all of them as they lived just down the road from us, and I went to school with them. The children from his first wife were all much older than I.

So, anyway, another cousin of mine posted the info about Carrie on Facebook. He is her own first cousin. His mother was one of Eugene's sisters, so he grew up with Carrie. I'm looking forward to checking out the show. Hope you'll join me!

The "Poetree" and Other Mysterious Sculptures

Since March of this year mysterious paper sculptures have been appearing in various public places in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning with this one, "The Poetree".

There is an interesting site HERE that shows pictures of all seven. No one has taken credit for the paper carvings so far, and most people involved Don't Want To Know. The sculptures just suddenly appear in libraries or other public buildings. The original blog posting has been updated many times over the past several months as more sculptures show up around the city. The blog I have linked to has very up-close and detailed photos of all of the intricate little sculptures. It will be well worth your time to look at all of them.

What a wonderful, beautiful gift someone is sharing with this city. Each sculpture has a tag that is addressed to the Twitter address of the location where the sculpture was left, with a short message to the recipient. The tag on the Poetree above says:

It started with your name @byleaveswelive and became a tree.… ... We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books… a book is so much more than pages full of words.… This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas….. a gesture (poetic maybe?)

Be sure to look at each of these and read the tags. They are unique and obviously crafted with much love by someone who loves books and words, and who is very supportive of libraries. One of the tags includes the line, "Libraries are Expansive", where the word was originally "Expensive", but the second "e" was struck out and an "a" written over it.

I think this is the most beautiful thing I've seen on the web!

My favorite? I think it would have to be the one left at The Scottish Storytelling Centre, the dragon in the nest below, mostly because I particularly love the tag:

For @scotstorycenter - A gift in support of libraries, books, works, ideas..... Once upon a time there was a book and in the book was a nest and in the nest was an egg and in the egg was a dragon and in the dragon was a story.....

Which is your favorite?

That Time of Year Again