Ctrl Z, how did we live without it in the 80s?

Tomorrow is my last day of work, and I was supposed to go for lunch with my office mate, Woop Girl. We didn't get our long extended goodbye, but that's probably for the best. She did surprise me, though. I have been admiring a card she had on her bulletin board, and she gave it to me! I can't wait to get back to the North Country, paint my office, and hang this by my desk.

League of Extraordinary Penpals

I have been trying to decide between joining the Writers' Alliance or the League of Extraordinary Penpals. I love the stationary that's available on the Alliance website, but the League is less expensive while still having so many wonderful things that I'm interested in. I spent yesterday writing letters, notecards, and postcards, so it seemed only right to join.

Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to add the cool "I belong to" logo and link to my sidebar, so I'll just put it here.

League of Extraordinary Penpals

Returning Home

My House, June 2007 

Once upon a time there was a newlywed who didn't understand the difference between the environment you are in and the environment you create. She wanted everything to be perfect, and she knew that the world was meant to make her happy.

This newlywed woman didn't get everything she wanted, so she fled her home and her husband in search of happiness. No matter what she did or where she went, the emptiness remained. One day, she realized that what she needed more than anything was to be home with her husband. She made the decision to return home, and suddenly she was filled with a calm purpose and knew that she would be happy at home.  There's no place like home!

Spring is here!  Photo courtesy of my husband.

Let my hair down

Today I wore double pigtail buns on the top of my head. A few minutes ago I took them down. Massaging my scalp, I remembered why I don't wear such a fun hairstyle more often! Ahhh, I feel so free.

Girl Scouts and Christianity

Girl Scouts (GS) is a religious organization, regardless of what their website states. I am a former GS, and a large portion of my childhood is defined by Girl Scout activities. My troop met at a church, and we always participated in Girl Scout Sunday (girls show up in uniform and handled the collection plates.  My troop leader was my Godmother.





As GSs, we vowed,"...to serve God, my country, to help people at all times, and to live bythe Girl Scout Laws," (Girl Scout Promise, 1980s to present).  Every week troop meetings began with a recitation of the Girl Scout Promise and the Girl Scout Laws.

            I will do my best

            to behonest

            to be fair

            to help where I am needed

            to be cheerful

            to be friendly and considerate

            to be a sister to every Girl Scout

            to respect authority

            to use resources wisely

            to protect and improve the world around me

            and to show respect for myself and others

            through my words and actions

                                    The Girl Scout Laws, 1972 to 1997

The GS laws do not mention religion, but they do discuss respect, protection, honesty, and fairness. These qualities were, to me, necessary with interacting with others. They are overreaching qualities that cover things like religious intolerance, acceptance of sexual orientations, gender equality, and many of the other qualities that led me to feminism in the 1990s.
 

There were five of us left in the troop by high school. Our main interest was travel, and we held countless fundraisers to finance our trips. We earned badges in finance, auto mechanics, reading, music, and anything else that sparked our interest.  We worked both together and independently on a variety of projects and charities. All five members of my troop earned the Girl Scout Gold Award. We received letters of commendation from local and state government officials, from community leaders, and even the President of the United States.  We were in control of our lives and our destiny, and all of us thrived.

 
Girl Scout leaders are in a position to positively affectgirl's lives. My troop leader taught us to take care of ourselves. 

Meetings began with the GS Promise and Laws, and these rules seemed stupid.  We already knew we could trust each other, so why take a vow to do something we already did? Some of us were founding members of a local environmental organization that helped start curbside recycling in our town; yet we had to vow to protect and use resources wisely. We were family, why keep reminding each other of that? 

Me on my first day of GSs (I look so bored!)

I recited the GS Promise every week starting at the age of five (aren't I a little sweetie pie in that picture?). When I was seventeen, there was a news story that surprised me. The parents of a six year old girl, Nitzya Cuevas-Macias, sued the Girl Scouts for kicking their daughter out because she refused to serve God. (LA Times, November 19, 1992). If we all vowed to respect others and their beliefs, how could a troop refuse admittance to someone for having different beliefs than the high level whoopidy whoops?  

A few years earlier, Boy Scouts of America had been taken to court for not admitting aethiests, and the BS Council publicly stated that Christianity was an integral part of being a BS. When that had occurred, my troop had felt self-righteous because we belonged to an organization that allowed each member to make her own decisions that would be respected by those around her.  So hearing that Nitzya had been kicked how upset me quite a bit. Nitzya would not recite the GS Promise, "On my honor, I will try to serve God, my country, and to live by the GS laws," because she didn't serve God.  

The delegates at the 1993 GS convention voted 1,560 to 375 to retain the word "God" in the GS Promise. However, no girl would be required to state that she would serve God unless she wanted to, and if she wished to include the religious clause, she could substitute a different word, such as Allah.(New York Times, October 25, 1993). 

In reality, it's not that simple. The decision to continue to "serve God" in the GS Promise has been taken quite literally. Many troops combine Christianity with being a GS - my troop did, and other churches still do. For example, the Episcopalian Church in St. Columbia, Georgia, states that, "These words are reminders that we as Christians are responsible for spreading the Good News through words and actions. Fundamentals of Girl Scouting are the principle of spiritual belief and the need to give back and serve the community." 

 

The GS Laws have changed since I was a GS. Girls no longer vow to becheerful (yay, females can have any mood they want instead of always pretending to be sweet little girls!). GSs now agree to be caring, to be responsible for whatthey do and say, and to be courageous and strong, as well as the other important qualities I remember from my glory days ;-)
 (http://www.girlscouts.org/program/basics/promise_law/).

It's been twenty years, God still has not been removed form the GS Promise.  Troop members continue to have the right to choose to skip that part of the Promise or adapt it to their beliefs. That's a stupid cop-out. It singles out individuals who are not Christian or who do not wish to vow to serve a God.

I also wonder if the troop members and their parents are even aware that the phrase can be skipped. I know about the clause, and I searched www.girlscouts.org specifically for this information and couldn't find it. If you weren't searching for it, would you stumble across it? With the lack of readily available information on the website, I wonder if GSs are even being educated about religious diversity and options outside of Christianity.

To the best of my knowledge, the GS Council hasn't considered the religious statement since the 1990s (but I have been out of touchfor a while and could be mistaken). I have always assumed that the GS Council refuses to remove the "serve God" clause from the GS Promise because they are not a public group and can make their own decisions (which is why BSs can openly ban non-Christians and homosexuals).  After all, girls aren't "forced" to become GSs like they are "forced" to become students. 

Is it really a choice? I became a Girl Scout when I was five years old in first grade, and there are levels now for girls younger than first grade. My mom put me in GSs, and nobody thought about my future religious or sexual decisions. They were thinking about camping and singing and learning. In my school, most of the girls joined Brownies (that level of GS), and the girls who didn't join were left out. One day a week, we all wore our uniforms and chattered about what we'd be doing while the few non-GSs played alone on the sidelines. I don't remember us purposely ignoring them. We were all just reveling in our own membership. I don't have any friends with girls that age, so I have no idea if the peer pressure to become a GS is as strong as it once was. 

But gosh, we could have chosen to quite when we were older, right? Most girls did quit by high school, but I was heavily invested in my life as a GS. I was best friends with the members of my troop, a family member was my troop leader, and I could never have organized all that travel financed by my own hard work at 14 if I hadn't been a GS.  I could have quit, but it would have meant leaving an important piece of myself behind.

I used to think that the 1993 GS Council ruling was enough, but it's not. Girl Scouts still agree to serve God. Troop members aren't kicked out for having different beliefs, in some places they are "shunned" out.  And the GSs aren't forthcoming about choices that young girls can make for themselves. And to me, that's what GSs was really about. We were taught quite a bit in the younger levels, but by fifth and sixth grade, we made our own decisions and then were assisted in attaining our goals. By high school, we ran with everything we'd learned, and we thrived. We belonged to community organizations that only adults bothered with. I learned to conduct myself with adults to plan my own activities within the town. I was leaps and bounds ahead of many other young women my age when I took my first "grown up, full-time, permanent" job at 22. Many of my coworkers had children who couldn't support themselves, who weren't comfortable in positions of authority, etc. I was in position of authority at 22 (HR and QC manager, to be precise). 

I have grown and changed over the last 20 years. I've expanded upon everything I learned as a Girl Scout. I've continued to learn about diversity and make decisions about my life. Those events I organized led to future employment; the badges I earned led to lifelong hobbies; my troopleader is still one of the most important people in my life. She is hardworking, loves me, and is one of my biggest cheerleaders.  

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Girl Scouts has grown and changed into a more accepting organization during these last twenty years. It's a shame that an organization that influences so many girls' lives isn't willing to openly recognize the inherent worth of all girls.

Miro Notebooks

Notebook Stories is having another great giveaway; this one's for Miro Notebooks. Notebook Stories giveaways are always fun, and this one's no different.

Photo from http://www.remembermiro.com/journal.

My favorite notebook of the ones reviewed on Notebook Stories is probably the journal. I love the idea of colored edges with a coordinating band. However, I'd probably need to keep my Cat Midori Book Bands handy for when the rubber band snaps off the journal. I am very hard on my bands. I love that more and more journals come with them, but if they're not sturdy, they're useless. If I liked the notebooks and bought more, I'd have to get the Dolphin Midori Book Bands so they'd color coordinate. In fact, I know that I'd get the hot pink journal and the dolphin bands (sadly, I'm not a huge dolphin ban, but they're the only cool colored book bands on Jetpens!).

I like all the colors, but I don't currently have any aqua or hot pink journals, so those are my favorites. Then again, Red is always a favorite color, and the lime green is quite attractive... Well, I don't know if I'm going to buy these journals, so I guess it doesn't matter that the black isn't attractive to me because the thing I like about this notebook is the crisp contrast of the colored paper edges against the black.

The journals are available in 3.25x5.5, 5x8, and 7x10. The two larger sizes come with a 3x5 utility pocket book. We all love free things, right?

I generally prefer wire bound notebooks, and Miro has two different kinds. Unfortunately, they're not as attractive as the journals. The Notebook Stories review said that the journals lay flat, so I'd say the crisp look of the journal beats the convenience of the wire bound.

Making Mail

I might have spent far too much time playing Dragon Age yesterday, but I also had a lot of paper and pen fun.

A sampling of my new envelopes. 

Envelope making is a great recycling project. I used an old map and some magazine pages for some of the envelopes, and I used a spirograph on some large thrift store envelopes. The labels were cut off of sheets that had jammed up the copier at work and were being thrown out.  

I started out by making envelopes using the Kuretake Handmade Envelope Template  purchased from jetpens.com.  I traced the shape onto the page then cut it out.  

I used the Kuretake Handmade Envelope template to make several of my new envelopes.

The pages are folded along indents.

Cut and folded envelope just before I glued it with my Kuretake Craft Glue Pen.

I used the Kuretake Craft Glue Pen on my envelopes.  An ordinary glue stick would have worked, but I love this little glue pen. It's far stickier than a glue glue stick, and the ink squeezes out blue. This was my first time using it, and I learned to dot the glue on instead of drawing ink lines with the pen. It's very strong, and a little bit goes a long way.

These envelopes require address labels if they're being mailed.

Then I pulled out my spirograph. 

I have a partial spirograph set from the late 50s/early 60s. I purchased it on eBay. 

The box came with some of the circles, the pins, two outer circles, and two long sticks. I haven't figured out how to use the sticks properly. I think they might require the pins. The box also says that it's a great way to get children interested in math, but I've checked with some math professors and teachers, and nobody knows why it says that on the box.  

Look! An orange and pink spiraled envelope!

I needed very large envelopes for my spirograph. 

Finding paper that could fit inside my map and magazine envelopes was difficult. The envelopes are small because I didn't have large enough paper to make larger envelopes. I don't have any paper that will fit inside my large spirograph envelope.

The smaller template envelopes were a bit easier. I discovered that one of my notebooks is great. It's a gorgeous notebook with a cover that's been decorated with snipped electrical wire. It's too small for use as a journal and too large for a quick jot pad. I picked it up on a lark at  Antigone Books  in Tucson, and the high quality paper is great for writing letters!

I purchased this journal from Antigone Books in Tucson.  The cover decoration is a great example
of re-purposed materials (electrical wires snipped and glued into place).

The notebook pages are not not lined or perforated. I yanked them out at the wire binding then trimmed off the edge bits.  Then I placed washi tape along the top edges to disguise that they weren't perfectly even, and voila, pretty paper!

Some samples of some of the paper I decorated yesterday.

Future envelopes will be more customized; I plan to play with lining the envelopes for more variety. I'll make some solid envelopes with spiffy inserts or add solid linings to my spiffy envelopes. I think it will be even easier to line envelopes made by template because then I can add them before I even fold the page! Oh the fun that I'll have.