Thursday Thirteen: Lincoln's birthday edition

1. I have been obsessed with Abraham Lincoln for as long as I can remember.
2. I was frustrated as a first-grader because one of my Lincoln story books had his mother's name wrong.
3. I dressed up as Abraham Lincoln for our "Night of the Notables" in fourth grade.
4. For that event, I also created a diorama of Lincoln's assassination using flexible baseball action figures for President Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, Major Rathbone, his fiance Clara Harris & John Wilkes Booth.
5. When I was in eighth grade I got a shirt with a giant penny on the front of it.
6. I made a hairclip to match by hot-gluing pennies to a plain barrette.
7. I just got rid of that hairclip when I moved last year, but I still have the shirt.
8. As a Senior Girl Scout I had the amazing opportunity to spend ten days in Gettysburg with fifty other Girl Scouts who were equally as obsessed as I was.
9. We recreated Pickett's Charge during part of our time on the battlefield and spent time in the cemetery at Gettysburg.
10. We took a day trip to D.C. where we visited the White House, Ford's Theater & the Peterson Boarding House, as well as Arlington Cemetery.
11. I once inadvertently spent an entire Saturday in bed watching books about Lincoln on CSPAN's Book TV -- the first time I'd ever watched that channel.
12. Last year I went out of my way to take 10 minutes to speedwalk through the Lincoln Bicentennial travelling exhibit between meetings and heading to the airport because I was afraid I wouldn't get another chance -- and then got to see it at a leisurely pace this summer when it was in Denver during the DNC.
13. Happy 200th birthday President Lincoln!