1 day left of 12 days

I never know I could be so drained. I feel exhausted and am absolutely sick or working. I can't seem to concentrate on anything.

Happenings up till now:

Got my pattern all cut from the extra strips of paper. Just need to pin it to the fabric to cut out of and get ready for Helen to look at. The only draw back is that I took my measurements (or at least what I think they are) and I am not sure what size to do. I am going to go with the bigger size to be safe but I am really cautious about this.

I have read 200 pages in the Sam Houston Correspondence (the book of published private letters between Sam and Margaret) all since Saturday. I am kind of tired of reading it.

The Museum grounds have been surprisingly busy with how hot it is outside. Plus SHSU is doing the freshman orientation things this Thursday and Friday so campus is backed and some spill over comes here. The ducks don't seem to be laying. The grounds- well we are, actually Peter is doing the best he can to keep the grounds looking nice but there isn't a whole lot he can do with the lack of rain. He has had a ton of random community service kids looking for hours to help him out. I don't know that we are going to do the Gulf Coast Kid for a while yet; some internal issues have been going on there.

I have been reminded today about wind that blows around inside some of the heads here. You would truly be amazed.

Tomorrow I will be in the WEC all by myself. I am looking forward to it. I will have some form of music on, that should keep me active an awake. Can't really do that in the Rotunda because it can disturb the museum experience for our patrons.

Oh... Peter and I with Mike's assistance final looked at all the photos I took of the museum grounds for the Folk Festival. I put all of the ones that we liked in a folder and labeled all the pictures. Giving descriptions so that you would be able to know what you were looking at exactly. Just waiting to take that to the board or have someone else do something to it.

Also plumber has now fell into the duties as assigned category. For some reason starting this weekend to present the toilets at the WEC have been going nuts. Most of them either won't flush or constantly run. I can't decided if they are just all acting up at once or there is something larger wrong. There is this turn and hit trick that sometimes makes the toilets stop running or flush. I have made it work before. But yesterday no such luck. I feel like we have called the SHSU plumbers out here every day this week to address the issue. Long story short there: the whole WEC needs to be re done, the AC is whack, Plumbing awful, ventilation system weird... tons of stuff. I can't wait for tomorrow to be here so I can have a break from all of this!

Day 3 of working 12 days straight.

Day 1: Swept out the historical homes. I was supposed to help Peter mow but since it is so dry we are going to put off on mowing for a little bit cause it would just cause the water to run completely off.

Day 2: Drove out to Fernland. It was so amazing out there. But the trip down there had it's hightlights. We were supposed to leave at 8. Didn't leave until about 9:15ish. I also got doughnuts for us.

On the way down we had: Helen's truck- with me and Helen; the Silver Bullet- the museum truck driven by Mike and Sandra riding it; and renting/ borrowing a university truck with Mac and Peter. Helen and I were in the lead and right when we get to Conroe we get a call from Sandra that the clutch and transmission went out in the Silver Bullet. (Which is a Ford F150 from the 80's or earlier). So we turn around to go get them.

Well I had the Fernland Key to the gate and Mac and Peter beat us there and were waiting on us to get there after we had picked up Mike and Sandra. Finally we all arrive and go to the cabins.

It was like stepping back in time to the 1800s. The cabins looked amazing the stuff in them was amazing. Just that it was put there in the 1970s by Mr. and Mrs. Thaurp. And basically hadn't been taken care of since. I forgot how the University managed to get it but it was given to the Museum. That day was the day we went down to get some of it.

Unfortunately. We can't take it all. Sandra had a list of what we were going to take. We ended up come back with 1 blanket chest, 2 beds, 1 washstand, 1 table, and 2 pie chests. Some time later on in July or the end of June Sandra, Helen, Rebecca and I are going to go back and box up some of the smaller things to bring back to the museum. We are doing that to either use or might end up selling on ebay. We might be able to get some money for some things but not really sure about the rest.

The reason we are trying to get the stuff from Fernland- a collection of Jardine, Crane and Bearbend Cabins along with a blacksmith shop, and several storage/ work sheds- is because the Unversity is planning on selling the property and basically the cabins on the land. The museum wants the Bearbend cabin but there is just so much involved in getting it to the museum and actually putting it on the grounds.

Some of the concerns involved with the adventure are:

• Funding will be needed for it- Sandra and I were talking, we are going to need more than a grant, we will need funding from an institution or organization
• When will the move take place if we can get them here?- the sooner the better so the university can sell the land
• How will it happen?- Will we hire a company to do it? Will the museum do it? Will there be a class offered to help?- It's too far to really ask for a class or trustees to help. Will it be taken apart and re assembled?- very time consuming. Will it be just loaded onto trailers and then driving up to the museum?- Where would we get the vechicles to do?- We would have to rent. Have to cut down trees to get it done. Get permits to move it on the freeway.
• Where will it go on the grounds? - There isn't a whole lot of room unless we aren't picky about where it is placed
• Who will be in charge of this?
• If the University was to keep the property and therefore the cabins down there. How would the cabins be maintained? Would need plumbing, electrity, welcomeing center, staff to be at each cabin to watch them, demonstrate or be there to talk about like a living farm. Parking would be needed, better pathways to get to each place. The rodent and insect infastation would need to be cleared out.
• And so on and so forth.......

Anyways... it took forever to pack this all up and figure out how to load it on the trucks because we had one less truck to work with. Somehow we made it all work. Well on the way back up to Huntsville we passed two tow trucks and an 18 wheeler about in the place we had left the Silver Bullet. Since the Silver Bullet wasn't running we had to call our Secretary, JoAnn (even though she does more than just secretary stuff) to call the Unversity to have them take a truck out there to pick it up and work on it.

Hopefully we will get a new truck. Unfortunately with our boss you tell him something that needs to be addressed or taken care of and you are lucky if it gets done. Peter, Mac and Mike had been telling Doc that the truck needs a new transmission, a new clutch or a new vehicle period for months now. Well the running joke now is that anything Mike drives for museum purposes breaks down and we should have done that a while ago; of course now we don't have anything that will work. So we are going to have to buy a vehicle to use now.

Back to the 18 wheeler. After we see the 18 wheeler- which by the way has a smashed front end- we wonder if accidentaly the 18 wheeler hit the truck and trailer and that is what caused the accident so we are waiting to get back to the museum to talk to JoAnn to make sure that the truck was picked up and not sitting in a montgomery tow lot.

Turns out the truck is sitting in the lot on SHSU West campus to get worked on. We finished unloading the trucks, brought the furniture into the back of the exhibit hall to be cleaned and repaired and then placed in the houses. I will be helping Sandy with that this summer at some point.

Day 3: I now know how to work a surger machine, the thing that makes a chain stitch on your clothes so it doesn't unravel. I had to surge the ends of my fabric. Then I washed it and in a few minutes will iron it to then start laying out the pattern to work on cutting and slowly putting my dress together.

Summer To-Do List

Here is a list of the tentative plans for the summer here at the office:

1. Make my day dress.
Have the material, pattern, thread, machine... just need to do it.
2. Make another work dress for me to use in the kitchen.
Indirectly have the pattern.
Just need to get the material and actually do it.
3. Do an inventory of the things in the historical houses with/for Sandy.
Not sure exactly how we are going to do this but we are going to do it. If anything thing it will be good to add to my CV
4. Vacuum out behind the display cases in the Rotunda.
i.e. become a Ghostbuster again. :)
5. Read some of the books that I have made a list of to read at work that in some way reference work and can get away with reading at work.
6. Work with Rebecca on updating the teacher packets.
Put it all in the same font and format; organize it better; save as one document in Word Publisher; update the information for k-3rd, 4th-6th and 7th-11th; possibly re write the confirmation letter; upload it to the website for teachers; possibly have a page up there for the teachers for them to find all the information that they need; and quite possibly more to come there...
7. Booklet of the Sam Houston Children
Sandy did a PowerPoint on the Sam Houston Children but that is it. So I got roped into doing a booklet for that indirectly by asking her if anyone had done anything on them. Most of them went on to be authors, novelist, politicians, writers, poets and stuff like that.
Need to do research for it.
8. Work on the Garden.
Maintain it; put veggies in there for the fall; learn more about growing vegetables.
9. There might also possibly if Peter has a say about it more tractor lessons.
10. Helping JoAnn with some filing.

I am sure that more will be added to this as it goes on.

Ghostbuster Vac and Red Hats

Today was another day that I can add to my list of things to put on my resume. (Or at least a CV. I really need to get that started or at least a list down.)

I helped the Collections Registrar clean the top of the display cases. In detail: Climb on top of a rickedy ladder behind the cases; swiffer dust cloth the dust on top of the plexi glass; vacuum up the pile with one of those vacuums you put on your back; climb down and go to the next case along with readjusting the angle of some of the lights. It was interesting because I got to go behind the cases and see what's back there. Nothing really just a little dust and extra lights and maintenance stuff like that.

The only cool thing from the experience is that the vacuum looks like a Ghostbuster's backpack. I even told Sandy that the vacuum might be lost during Halloween and use that as a costume. It would definitely be a classic. The one we have right now is in bad shape but the museum has no money in the budget to get a new one so we are going to have to make do with this one.

While doing it Sandy and I thought of a to-do thing to add to the summer to-do-list: vacuuming all of behind the cases- inside the mini walls-because there are little slots that are gathering dust.

Also 2 ladies from the Red Hat Society came in. That was a nice little diversion. I ended up googling it and reading how it started it is actually pretty interesting. It actually didn't start that long ago and has just completely come off the ground into something of its own. That and some of the things they were are fun to look at. I can see my aunt doing that unofficially with some of her friends. They get together every Thursday morning and have coffee at a hole in the wall cafe in Cali some days only a few show up others, everyone and they all can bring friends. I have even gone to a couple.