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.

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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.
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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.