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!!!)