ways to celebrate laura ingalls wilder's birthday
1. Read a "Little House" book.
2. Bake gingerbread. Chocolate frosting adds to the goodness.
3. Share a bit of research you've been holding back.
4. Make a donation to a "Little House" heritage homesite.
5. Make another donation to a different "Little House" heritage homesite.
6. Wash your face in a frying pan.
7. Drop down on all fours and chase your kids around the woodbox.
8. Slide down a haystack. Or roll.
9. Write a letter. Turn the page and fill it the other way, too.
10. Give Little House in the Big Woods to a child who has never read it.
11. Invite friends over for oyster soup, biscuits, white frosted cake, and oranges.
12. Follow the moonpath.
13. Waste good candy on a pig.
14. Loosen your corset strings.
15. Wear your sunbonnet.
16. Curry the underside of a horse with a corncob.
17. Plant watermelon.
18. Watch the sun rise.
19. Make an air castle. Tie the corners with red yarn.
20. Braid your hair.
21. Change into a clean apron.
22. Sweeten the cornbread with the print of your hand.
23. Eat all the maple sugar you want. It never hurt anybody.
24. Slap a bear.
25. Holler 'nuff.
26. Buy a cap with earlaps.
27. Grow a beard.
28. Have your picture taken. Hold the chair arm so it looks like you're making a fist.
29. Don't eat the only bug in Dakota Territory.
30. Come from back east.
31. Get a leech on your leg, then dance like Nellie.
32. Tell the truth, but only if Ma and Pa ask you.
33. Fry some apples 'n onions.
34. Graduate from anything.
35. Learn to write copperplate.
36. Write a verse on your slate. Erase it.
37. Be glad that the little boys like you.
38. Exchange namecards.
39. Write a verse in a friend's autograph album.
40. Make a braided rug.
41. Fetch that frozen cod from the front room.
42. Wave your arms and shout, "Grasshopper weather! Grasshopper weather!"
43. Cut some paperdolls and dress them beautifully with bits of paper and ribbon.
44. Diagram a sentence.
45. Plan your garden.
46. Nibble half a cookie, then share the other half.
47. When you talk to your husband, try to include at least one "Oh, ______."
48. Carry a bale [sic] of hay in your teeth.
49. Pop your weasel.
50. Take a stab at writing down family receipts.
51. Play charades. Make sure you have an ax and some potatoes.
52. Compete against your mother in a jigging contest.
53. Sing Yankee-Doodle-de-do
54. Wear nothing but skins.
55. Buy a white pony without one strap.
56. Make bedshoes out of an old blanket.
57. Dig wintergreen berries of the snow. Share, or not.
58. When you laugh, try to make it sound like great bells ringing.
59. Explain about the shortest verse in the Bible.
60. Bake twelve blackbirds in a pie.
61. Grab the wool on a black sheep. Scream.
62. Jump up and down, shouting, "Lookie! Lookie!"
63. Stare at three parched corns.
64. Shake out your pet's bedding.
65. Write a book with your daughter.
66. Buy an earspoon for a loved one.
67. Wash your quilt by hand. Strong wrists help.
68. Give a chicken a grasshopper.
69. Bounce on your bed. Pretend it's a haystack. "I'm flying! I'm flying!"
70. Eat another scone with butter. Pretend it's the fish that's making you fat.
71. Renew your membership at a "Little House" site.
72. Move as beautifully as a cat.
73. Modulate your voice.
74. Dye your hair golden (it's much prettier than brown).
75. Offer to trade your best horse for a neighbor's child.
76. Be seen and not heard.
77. See how much sunshine you can soak into your bones.
78. For a change, buckle your bustle in back.
79. Put your leg through a screen door.
80. Let your butter speak for itself.
81. It's a good day to get a lunatic fringe.
82. Save the clippings for your switch.
83. When you disagree with someone, tell them they are "utterly too-too."
84. See how many pieces of hard candy you can cram in your mouth.
85. Now try to yell, "Yah, yah. Long-legged snipes!"
86. Contemplate the rings of a carrot.
87. Catch a gopher for your mother. You know she wants one.
88. Don't obey against your better judgment.
89. Wash, starch, and iron your curtains. Even if you live in a shanty, you can be decent.
90. Call your husband "The Man of the Place" today. And only today.
91. Sleep on a narrow sofa.
92. Flip that penny.
93. Mail all your "Little House" postcards. You can always buy more.
94. Be fascinated by angleworms.
95. Milk a cow from the wrong side.
96. Buy a broo-oom.
97. Call one of your friends by both their first and last names.
98. Bet somebody a cigar you can beat them at a game of checkers.
99. Only read part of today's newspaper. Save the rest for tomorrow.
100. No matter how mad you get, do not throw the blacking brush. Seriously. Don't throw it.
101. Offer to set up a Laura Ingalls Wilder display at your local library.
102. Make a button string.
103. Learn to knit.
104. Sew red catch-stitching on your underwear.
105. Sing a round.
106. Make butter.
107. Put an extra three dollars in the collection plate tomorrow.
108. Cross that bridge when you come to it.
109. Play both "Uncle John" =and= "Ring Around a Rosy."
110. Take a walk on the wild side: wear pink ribbons with your blue dress.
111. Make the toughest railroader back down.
112. Give a Laura Ingalls Wilder biography to a teacher.
113. Make a dish cupboard out of a packing crate.
114. Give away your prettiest Sunday School card.
115. Make fudge. Roll in bloodsucker shapes.
116. Walk a furrow barefooted.
117. Twirl 'round and 'round on the piano stool.
118. Let the other girls hold your doll.
119. Say "Good morning."
120. You wash. I'll wipe.
121. Plant a tree for each of your children.
122. Make rhubarb pie. Sugar optional.
123. Locate primary sources.
124. Eat honey from the comb.
125. Learn the difference between a homestead, a preemption, and a tree claim.
126. Spread the word that there was no Albert.
127. Remember a "Little House" site in your will.
128. Make your own raised print using alphabet noodles.
129. Throw a candy box out of a train window.
130. Make hailstone ice cream.
131. Grow geraniums in tin cans on your window sill.
132. Resist the urge to scratch under your flannels.
133. Marvel at a world that could not support both sage =and= onion in the stuffing.
134. Make praise-worthy buttonholes.
135. Covet an Indian baby.
136. Get a pet antelope.
137. Pick up and move.
138. Be thankful for plenty of meat left on the bones.
139. Just watch those darkeys' feet.
140. Eat a pound of crackers. How full do you feel?
141. Watch the wheels go 'round.
142. Buy your own damn copy of the Pioneer Girl manuscript.
- posted by pioneergirl at 8:46 PM