Short Sebatical

So somethings have come up recently that require a bit more of my attention and a lot of inner speculation. For these reasons, I will not be writing for a while. I want to take a second here to thank the people who have supported me through the last few days. I know that it's not always easy to hear and see a friend in pain, but you have been strong for me when I couldn't be. I love you very much.

Here's one last pic from Greene. We have pretty much finished with the actual objects anyway, so you all won't be missing that many more pics.


I'm not sure if you can actually read that, but it's a copy from a store's record book. This portion of the page is labeled "Slaves" and lists the name of the slave with the price. Such as "1 Negro boy named Allen $680". You could buy a human being for what we would pay today for a computer. Now yes, I understand that money then versus money now are two very different things, but still. I had never seen it that plainly. It's terrible. And unfortunately, a part of our history.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Check back from time to time, I'm not sure how long I'll need.

Support the Cause

Today I found out that my great aunt has cancer. It is in her arm, across her chest, and wrapped around her spine. I myself am not a religious person, but she is, so I am asking that any one who reads this will take a moment and pray for her. I will.

This also stands as another example of how necessary it is for us to support cancer research. For the cancer to have spread as much as it has in her body, it is clear that it has been there for some time. If we had better developed methods of detection, they might have been able to catch this sooner and stop it before it took over her body.

It is very easy to sit back and tell yourself that there are plenty of people working on it or to ask what good one person's time will actually do. But please, don't let those thoughts stop you from taking action. Cancer comes in so many forms, it can hide for years as any number of seemingly harmless symptoms. We have to find a way to stop it. We have to find a cure.

Here are a few links you might want to try. Each has on the home page a link to join the cause:

American Association of Cancer Research
American Cancer Society
Relay for Life
Susan G. Komen for the Cure


In memory of Grammy 3/17/92. One of too many lost.

Slow Week

Work has been the usual. We have started tieing up the loose ends, adjusting storage boxes so the artifacts will hold up better, adding some supplementary information to the existing entries, and double checking that everything is accounted for. Yesterday, a guy came in to show us how to do more advanced stuff in FileMaker which was really cool. I've been thinking it was just a glorified Excel, but FileMaker can actually do some pretty cool stuff. I tried to absorb as much as I could, but there was just so much he was doing.

Finally, today I started working on my own. J has to take summer class and so has to work nights which leaves me on my own for all but about an hour in the day. I actually really enjoyed it. I have always prefered to work by myself and felt really good by the end of the day. I just felt so productive. Since we've finished the artifacts for the most part, working separately will probably be better since only one person can use the computer at a time. The fear still exists of us finishing everything we need to do well before our 300 hours are up, but I think we'll be ok.

More then I thought I'd be able to type this week. Nothing exciting I know, but frankly after the last couple weeks, this is really nice.

Adventures in NC

Back from the wedding this weekend and I'm exhausted. We have been out of town every weekend for the last month! It's all been so much fun and totally worth it, but good God I'm tired. Two weekends left like this, both being much closer to local.

Anyway, the road trip to North Carolina was totally noteworthy here. First, let me share that as we were driving down, we passed a sign, no bigger than a parking sign, on the side of the highway. It was hanging from a wooden stand with a cross on top and simply read "Prepare to meet GOD." I am still thoroughly terrified. I'm pretty sure it was a sign for a church, but holy crap does it sound threatening (and yes, God was in all caps, I didn't just add that for dramatic effect).

Here's the exciting part though. We had to check out of our hotel a good four hours before the wedding, so we wandered to the downtown area of Greensboro. We are following the directions when all of a sudden there in front of me is a huge statue for Nathanael Greene. Now, there is no way there could have been two famous Gen. Nathanael Greenes during the revolutionary war. It is the same Greene who Greene County is named for. Who would have thought I'd have found him in North Carolina?

The wedding itself was beautiful. Very religious, but beautiful. The bride was gorgeous! None of us had ever met her before and were all rather impressed. There was no wedding cake though, which we found extremely odd and caused us to hit up the grocery store on the way back to the hotel for our own cake. But it was really fun and great to hang out with people. I think Jo reconnected with a lot of guys which will be good for him. New friends are never the same as high school friends. Not worse, just not the same.

One note on this, and then I swear I won't say another word (because Jo will get mad). One thing at the wedding that shocked me was the fact that a girl showed up not only in a white dress, but a puffy, very formal, white dress. I am sure she was a perfectly lovely person, but come on. It's the bride's day. Never try to outshine the bride.

But yes, good times with good people and good after party cake :)

Two Days in a Row!

I know, get excited.

Well today was a high and low kind of day. First...work. We started boxing up documents which was exciting for me because I like looking at people's personal letters that they chose to keep for years and years. Also, I knew exactly what the end product should be for once. Yay! But as we went along I grew to have a much better appreciation for the librarians who put together manuscript boxes like this on large scale projects. It was so hard to figure out how to categorize that stuff! Of course, then we just completely ran out of folders and had to stop before we even made it to the lunch break.

You will remember yesterday I mentioned a newspaper article. Well it came out today and when we went by to pick up copies we discovered not only were we in the paper. We were the front page story. Yes people, that's how small this town is. I made the front page for cataloging the museum at the historical society. Kind of cool to be sure, but totally unexpected and not entirely desired since I had not been expecting pictures that day and did not look my best. C'est la vie.

The bad news today was that a kid I went to high school with lost his fight with cancer yesterday. Now I'm not going to be that jerk who sits here and and claims we were good friends and that a piece of my life is missing now, but he was still some one I knew, even if barely, and I find myself strangely shaken by the whole thing. He should have been getting ready to start his life in the real world like the rest of us are. It kills me that so many people are lost to this disease. It's been my cause since I was old enough to have one to fight cancer and support research. Here is my little plea to you. Please please please. Too many people are lost to this. It doesn't take much, but try to find anyway you can to support the cause. There are constantly charities trying to raise money, looking for volunteers, looking for a word of encouragement. I'm not asking you to dedicate your lives to it. But give one second, one dollar, one word. If everybody just donated one, imagine how much they would have. Imagine how many lives would be saved. No one would ever have to live having lost a loved one to cancer again. That is my dream world and I ask you to just try to find something you can do to make it at least part of your dream world too.

That's my lecture for the day. But always remember that the little things in life are what matter most and what you may find you miss someday. Don't take anything for granted.

For Teeny Weeny

Ok, so I've gotten in trouble because I haven't been so good about keeping up with this. My apologies. I hope I have not offended too many people. Expect this to be a long one to catch me up.

Anyway, the last week has been another busy one. We have just about finished putting every artifact into the database (up to 830 something right now) and are starting to move into proper storage and finally exhibit planning. We did find a whole filing cabinet of documents the other day that we had missed which supplement information we've already done for God only knows how many items, but we need to fill up hours, so it's not all bad. It just was very disheartening at first to realize that so many items we thought were complete are going to need a quick revisit. Most of it will just involve getting a donor name finally, but some will require adding some information into the actual description of the object. Those that give a donor name and year that we didn't have before are going to need to be pulled back out to be relabeled, but that's not the end of the world.

On to more exciting things, I'm going to be in the paper again. The editor of the Greene paper came in and interviewed us about what all we've been doing at the museum and took some pics of us with the items and pretending to work. She brought the rough draft by yesterday and I'm really excited about it coming out (tomorrow). It was an article about all the interns in Greene (all three of us), but our part easily took three quarters of the article. I think people are going to really start to get excited about what we're doing and start paying more attention to that little museum. There's a lot of hometown pride there already and I think the realization of what all we have to offer might really start to kick in.

Highlight of the past week though was driving up for Teeny's graduation party. It was really great to be able to hang out with everybody again, but obviously the best part was seeing my Teeny. I don't know what I'm going to do being 5+ hours away from you!!!! Even though we had to leave a little early to get Jo home, we had so much fun. I just miss talking to you. It's not the same on the phone or online (well, and neither one of us really like the phone). I'll make more trips up this summer, I promise.

We also got to catch lunch with the bride and groom from the weekend before's wedding which was a nice surprise on Sunday. We have another wedding on Saturday that I think is going to be fun. It will most definitely involve Jo going off to hang out with people he hasn't seen in years, but I at least know of one other girlfriend I'll be able to hang out with and laugh at the boys with. We bonded pretty quickly at our first meeting at a high school homecoming type thing for them when we pretty much were forgotten in a matter of seconds.

Ok, now I'll rap it up with a few pics I took and never posted.

Let's start with this little dose of reality. Yes, that's a truck carrying barrels of straw. Jo's mom always laughs at me for being a city girl. I'm not used to this stuff!

These were a terror for me to handle. I don't really want to know what they were used for, but they are clearly hand made. Whoever made them built the stilts part and then cut a pair of existing boots and nailed that on to the stilts. Pretty ingenious, but not a lot of fun to handle.

Ok, these are my favorites of the last week. They are four feminist adds. All are designed to look like something from the early 1900s, but mock the male domination of society. Top left working clockwise: The first one lists all the duties a woman has to take on at home, then the two things a man is responsible for which both sum up to micromanaging the wife. The second one has a bunch of images of a woman doing hard work outside like chopping wood, doing laundry, and peeling potatoes and says "When a woman was first allowed to work outside of the home." Third is my favorite. It has four women named Hope, Carrie, Patience and Bea. Each has a quote under them that uses their name against them like "Carrie: Carry the wood inside then carry the laundry outside." Last is an image of four women with their wrists in laundry tubs with scrubbing boards and a pile of laundry that just says "Women's Board Meeting 1903." All are so clever. I love it.

Ok, but that it a ton for you to read so I'm going to call it quits. I'll do better, I swear. But I shall leave with a rose and thorn for Teeny.

Rose: Seeing you and all our friends. Mostly seeing you though.
Thorn: Getting stranded at Bodos because the rain was so bad I couldn't keep my footing. ;)
(Love you!!!)

Sad Days

So today has just completely sucked. First, I spent all day at work doing nothing but going through books on genealogy and creating a database for them at the museum. Long and boring day with absolutely no fun finds.

Then I found out Farrah Fawcett died.

Then I found out Michael Jackson died.

Sooooo basically, today just has completely brought me down. There were a few personal things too, but I won't get into all that.

But here is something to help take our minds of this list of bad news. Plus, it very loosely fits with our theme today. Yesterday I documented this:
It's a sad iron (haha get it?). Ok, but no, it really is kind of interesting. The handle detaches (I have no idea why) and I can't really explain it but I also just really like the way it looks.

That's really it for today.

Coming Back

Ok, so I kinda failed this last week in keeping up with this, so let's get caught up to speed. Last week: work, work, work. Weekend: wedding. This week: work. There you go, my life is so complicated.

But I did FINALLY find an apartment for the fall. I'm so excited. I get to be just one block from one of my very best friends and just 10 mins from one of the best shopping districts in the city. I'm so excited about it :). PLUS it actually allows cats which means that for the first time since I got him, Teddy will not have to been hidden and I won't have to be paranoid every time some one knocks on my door. YAY!

Work's been pretty normal. Jo came in on Friday to help us identify some things, which was nice. I was glad to be able to show him what I've been doing. It's a little difficult to just explain the job and I never feel like I end up doing it justice. He did get bored, I don't think he was expecting things to take so long to describe, but hey that's also part of the job. We haven't really found anything all that exciting, but I do have a few pictures for you guys that I meant to share last week but clearly never got around to.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This would be my wall of terror. It it most (not all) of our farm tools. Notice the saw. The handle in the middle is for a sythe and the dehorner is beside it. The weird thing with the handles below the barrel rings is the pig snouter.

This is a "medium" sized toolbox. I don't want to know what the large looks like. Cool sidenote, that piece of wood standing up in the back is an early level.

Ok, this one itself isn't anything special, but I only last week learned that the Confederacy had five different flags. This picture shows all five of them. The middle one, the one we all recognize, was apparently the battle flag.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've actually been sick today and couldn't go in, but things are moving pretty quickly. I really don't think that it's going to be that much longer before we finish the collection. Then we are going to put their genealogy books into a seperate catalog and start planning some exhibits. Hard to perdict how long things will take, obviously, but we are moving right along.

We were also interviewed for the paper again yesterday. This time they are doing an article on interns in Greene. I think we overwhelmed her a bit with the amount of little things we are doing, but it really is impossible to give a grand overview of the whole job. It really it just a whole bunch of little things. I'm excited about the article though and can't wait for it to come out. I think it will really get people excited for the museum and may generate a lot of interest.

Oh yes, and the wedding was absolutely beautiful. I almost cried several times which makes me so sure that I will pretty much sob through my entire wedding day. I have to laugh though because Jo's family always assume that since I've been around for three years that I've met everybody. Reality is, I haven't. I wouldn't even say I've met half of them. But it was a nice day and a beautiful wedding and I did get to meet at least a few more family members.

So things are still busy, but I feel like I've accomplished a lot in the last week. I've started taking my GRE prep course too and confirmed the letter of recomendation I most wanted (and was most concerned I wouldn't get). Lot's still to do this summer, of course, but things are coming along pretty nicely.

Cows and Rain

Ok, so reading back over that last entry, I must apologize. It very much reflects the scattered nature of the last few days, but I like to at least think of myself as more coherent than that. I promise this entry will be a little smoother.

Today it rained. All day. I am definitely the kind of person who gets affected by weather like this and not in a good way. I get so depressed and lose all my energy. The day seemed to go on for forever, even though I got home earlier than I have in over a week. I just hate everything about these kind of days, everyone drives like a jackass, you are never able to stay dry even if you have an umbrella, you don't want to go anywhere or do anything...all in all, rain in my mind equals stress and isolation, neither of which I'm too keen on.

But I did get to smile today, even with all the rain blues. While we were leaving, the cows were back out.

Yay! They stared at us the whole time while we walked toward the car. That one in the front even back away. I've never seen cows care at all if some one was there, but they seemed genuinely afraid of us. I really tried to not look so scary, but they weren't having it. Oh! And you can't see here, but the gate was just completely open with one cow standing half in and half out. Trusting folks in Greene, although I guess if your cows are that afraid of strangers maybe you don't have anything to worry about. They make me smile though and I hope to see them more often.

Busy Bee

So it's been a very busy couple of days since my last post. I went home for the weekend to see my two best friends from high school before the one goes off for Teach for America (and brought back a car load of boxes in the process, yay!). I absolutely adore you both and I'm so glad we had a few days, I just wish I'd been able to stay more. We got lost in the city (haha, "strawberry festival" my ass), listened to the city celebrate the Pens bringing us the second national championship this year (Pirates for the hat trick? haha yeah right), saw No Doubt which was the most amazing show I've ever seen, and in general had an amazing weekend of friendness. I will be so glad to be back there with at least HB but I am going to miss DD so much. Trifecta love to you both.

Of course, it couldn't all be good. Teddy ran away not once, but twice in three days and worried me sick. He's home safe and sound now, but I'm still mad at him.

Then of course it was back to the grind, and of course I couldn't be eased back in this week either. After getting up at 5 am to drive back here and straight to work, I had to go directly to a dinner party for the internship program meaning I didn't get a break until 8 that night. Then today I went to my usual day of work from 9 to 5, then had to hang around Greene for two hours and go to a board meeting to discuss the progress we've made. My boss did buy us dinner, so that was nice, but not getting back until 8 again was pretty lousy. I should also say that the meetings were not the bad parts of this, both we perfectly pleasent with lots of laughs, but made for very long days. Now I'm just exhausted. Tomorrow the supervisor of the intern program is going to come and see how we're doing, which is also a bit stressful because we are used to being really by ourselves most of the time. She's just going to be there to see what it is exactly we're doing, but it's going to be a little stressful. At least we should be home by 6 like we're supposed to be.

Overall, good days, but busy ones. I'm so ready for a bit of relaxing.

Brace Yourself

This week has been so awesome. Today at work I found this:


That, ladies and gentlemen, is a letter from General Robert E. Lee to a woman named Birdie Beatles just after the surrender. It describes the terms of the surrender and his pride in all his soldiers. The surrender was April 9, 1865. The date at the top of this letter is April 10. It is, essentially, the most important thing I have ever held in my hands.

Also, my boss told me to take tomorrow off.

Third, I get to see two of my best friends since middle school tomorrow night and through the weekend :)

Finally, I AM GOING TO SEE THE NO DOUBT REUNION TOUR FOR 10 BUCKS ahhhhhhhh. No seriously, I am so ridiculously excited about that I can't even put it into words. Tragic Kingdom was my first CD and I have loved No Doubt ever since elementary school. I am so freaking psyched.

Ok, but now I have to go pack up my car for the trip home tomorrow. Can't wait to see you girls. Love you!

Item Name: Ummm

These are the things I was trying to identify today. If you can tell me what any of them are, I will owe you my life. The one that kind of looks like a toy saddle is actually made of tin...yeah. That's kind of how today went.

Good Days

Newest cool find: early curling iron!

I just think this is awesome. It's a 19th century curling iron. It was just sitting on a shelf with a bunch of random stuff. I had no idea what it could be, but J (my coworker, I'm tired of saying coworker) said "It looks like a curling iron." And it did! So we Googled it to make sure, but yep, it's a curling iron. They warmed up the metal on the stove like they would a laundry iron. I suddenly got a flashback to the scene in Little Women when the girls are preparing for the dance and Jo is curling Meg's hair and burns it off. I love Little Women because it makes me think of my grandmother who I totally adore.

Ok, second cool find (though not nearly as cool): Civil War pocket knife

I know the picture isn't great, it was in a sealed display box, so this was the best I could do. I don't know why, but I really like that it's round. I also think it's cool they were already putting scissors in those things even in the 1860's.

More good news, I finally got to spend some time with my Teeny last night and may not have to say goodbye as soon as I thought I would. Tonight, Jo and I are going to our favorite bar with my favorite Classicists, so that is something else to look forward too. On top of that, I got to come home early from work today and have a little afternoon time to myself for once. I've even finally gotten my room unpacked to a liveable level :). Basically, I'm in a great mood.

AND I get to see the trifecta this weekend!!!!!! I can't wait to see you girls!!!!

The Claw

Yesterday I spent six hours going through one cigar box full of things I will never be able to be convinced were worth having. Half of it was buttons that I had individually describe and number! But I did find this fork which I just think is the coolest thing ever haha. I don't know how well the picture captures it, but it looks more like a scary hand out of a horror movie than a fork.


So we have completely finished going over the things in the museum that were already put into the database and now are going back to the beginning of the collection and starting those entries from scratch. Problem is, we don't always know what the hell it is we are looking at, especially when it comes to stuff like the farm tools. My supervisor has said she is going to set up a day where we have some old farmers come in to help us figure those out, but for a lot of things we just have to do our best. Try figuring out what material a button the size of a pea is made from... It should be interesting though to have the farmers there, although I highly doubt it will be our most productive day. I'm sure there will be plenty of stories of "Of my father had one of these..." type. Small towns really are their own worlds.

Settling In

Today we got to work downstairs at the museum. Although I find a lot of the items interesting, I am always most impressed and fascinated by the handwritten documents, personal letters, written receipts, diaries, legal notices...the objects we marvel at are nothing without the people who used them and these documents are what, to me, make them so human. They have nicknames for each other, they express love, sadness, anger, they pay big money for the things that will help their families flourish. Sometimes the writing is so faded or scribbled that it is almost impossible to read, but these are even better. There is mystery in them, you have to try to piece together the puzzle. What are they talking about? The best though is when you find items separated from each other that are related to each other. Or something that discusses a story you already know. Most of our artifacts at the museum are civil war era. So many families have held onto so much from that time period. This was the war fought in their own backyards. The war that made war so real. I could not imagine handing over that kind of sentimental history to a stranger, but I'm so glad some one could so that I am able to enjoy it.

Of course, I don't enjoy all of it. There are also a whole lot of farm tools that flat out scare me. In particular is a thing called a horn cutter. It was literally used to chop the horns off of livestock. It is massive and, like a lot of the tools, looks far more like a torture device than a tool, but what is the worst about it is that it still has a tuft of fur caught in it. I try hard not to notice it, but it makes my skill crawl to think of where that came from. Can you imagine being that animal? I understand that in reality, these things needed to be done, but I wish I didn't have to know about them. Some are just scary, even if their purpose isn't. Something we documented today was a block of wood with a ridiculous amount of steel blades poking straight out of it. Make it worse by noting that they were severely rusted blades. All it was used for was for brushing flax for linen, but I hated touching it. It's these kinds of things that make me miss the library...

As for life in a small town, I'm getting a little more used to it. At least, I'm learning more about it and how other people live in it. You can never expect a conversation to be short and you can always expect some one to look at you like "now who the hell are you." Have I mentioned there are cows right outside the museum? That was a pretty big surprise the first day they were out. I can't figure out where they go when they aren't in that field. There is no barn and only a few seemingly residential only houses around it...well and off course the historical society, the courthouse, and the church that make up our little corner of town. Oh, we also learned today that all three school levels are housed on the same property with just one parking lot. It is so weird to imagine what it would have been like to grow up there. I can't really decide if I would have liked it or not. I love being able to walk just about anywhere I need to go, but I like my anonymity a little too much I think. Sometimes I really like being recognized, sometimes all I want to do is be another face in the crowd and I like being in control of when I do what. I don't think that would be very possible in a place like this.

I'm also settling into my new apartment. Teddy is just too cute when he sits in the loft and just peeks over the edge. I do have at least one roommate, which I was not too pleased to discover (I was expecting to be alone here), but she's nice and quiet and we frankly have only crossed paths once so far so I don't think it will be that much of a problem. I am more and more excited at the thought of really being alone with a whole apartment to myself. Here I really do have a living room and a bedroom for just me, I just really share a kitchen. It is really nice to sit on a couch and read instead of feeling confined to my bed. Teddy really likes the extra room and I think he might finally lose the little belly he's had for the last year thanks to the exercise he's finally getting from climbing up and down the ladder to the loft.

All and all, it's all coming together. I've still got a lot to uncover at work and a lot of unpacking to do at home, but I'm settling in.

Prima

So I've officially started my new job and have just about finished moving into my new apartment. This first week in the real world has been really eye opening for me. First of all, I never realized just how long of a day 9 to 5 was. But being in Greene has been...an experience to say the least. I am not at all used to life in a small town. Everybody knows everybody and so everybody knows they don't know me. I have been introduced to a few, all who think it is hilarious that my co worker's name is the same as mine...like I've never had to use my last name or at least a nickname before to differentiate. They are all so nice and friendly, its almost unreal. I've even already made it into the paper, which was probably the moment I realized just how small the town was.

My coworker and I had gone out to look for somewhere for lunch. We turn one corner and this woman throws her hands up in the air and goes "Young people!" She was conducting a poll on whether or not kids should be allowed to have cell phones in schools and had only found old men so far. She's actually the editor, so that should give you an idea of how small the paper is at least if she was doing her own street poll. We gave her our answers and she very enthusiastically welcomed us to Greene and told us to come visit her anytime at the paper. It is so cute how happy everyone is to have us there.

As interesting as its been to be in Greene though, its made moving difficult. By the time I get home, I'm so tired and don't want to do anything that takes effort. Instead, I catch dinner with friends or watch a movie with my boyfriend. I've gotten all the big stuff out, but I've still got a good bit of work to do before tomorrow when I have to be out. But I love my new apartment. I have a loft space to separate my bedroom from the living room area and my cat loves running up and down the ladder. I have a communal kitchen which I'm not wild about, but I can handle it and may not have to worry about sharing for much longer (aka the other girl may be leaving soon for the summer). I just wish I had known about this place sooner, instead of getting to live here only for the next two months until my internship is up.

Next week should be nice. I'll be done moving, I'll (hopefully) be getting used to the 9-5), and I'll start being more social again. For now, I've got to get back to packing.