Saturday: too busy for words

So you just get a photo - of the Reedy River downtown, taken last weekend.

I mean, you get SOME words.

But just a few.

So... it's almost too busy for words.

From last week's downtown weekend

The river was up from the rain, the sun was out, and there was just enough breeze to make the temperature really mild and blow away some of the humidity.

Jason and I had breakfast at our favorite downtown breakfast place, wandered the banks of the Reedy River with a camera for a while watching the ducks, the tourists, and the water. We ended up at the Upstate History Museum to see a folk art exhibit I had read about. I suppose I'm trying to get back up to snuff as far as my understanding of what's going on in at least the local art scene. I feel like it's kind of a professional thing I should be doing now.

This was my favorite piece in the folk art show:

One of Richard Burnside's white wolves. He's done several of them. He's actually one of my favorite folk artists because his stuff makes me think of aboriginal Australian art, cave paintings, the super graphic and simplified symbols with the little bits of texture glued on. I like it when there's a lot going on in a painting like this.

I'm a fan of folk art - I like seeing what happens when people just create, without that constant drumbeat of art school's ideas of what is acceptable, what it "art" and what isn't.

This was Jason's favorite piece:

It's an oppossum mama and babies! The piece is by Minnie Adkins. Minnie's growing on me, too, although she wasn't one of my favorites before. I don't know - there's such a huge amount of humor, and not taking yourself too seriously, in folk art. It's something the "highbrow" art world could stand some more of.

So, yeah. The folk art show was a really good one. I'm excited to get back into really paying attention to the different exhibits going on - I can call it professionalism now, right?

I was able to get quite a bit of rearranging done at work today. Tomorrow's going to be all about people bringing in entries to our upcoming juried art show. I have been informed that there will probably be no time for work on the shop, but I get to listen to NPR at work occasionally, which means I don't have to miss the Saturday shows I like. So... in short, this is all good with me.

I know, I said I was just going to do a single photo.

I'm really bad at doing what I say I'm going to do, okay? Sometimes you just want to ramble.

Ah, well.

One of these days I'll do another simple, photo-oriented entry.

I promise.

Pinky-swear, and all that jazz.

(less than a week until I'm in Illinois!)

Ideas, Tidbits & Trivia

Yes, I know I need to dust. That's going to be today's project. Dusting is kind of an ordeal with all these tiny breakables about.

In any case, I took yesterday to let myself move a little slowly and just think. There's a lot of thinking going on as I begin with this job.

I have spent the past couple of days just making notes on what I need to do. I'm going to fill up my pretty new notebook quickly, I can already tell. I get ideas, and I've been jotting them down while I watch the desk and greet new people coming in. The plan is to spend about a week just acclimating myself to the basics of the job, and getting used to the shop. I'm slowly mapping out where everything currently is.

Then I'm going to sit down, make a map of how I want it to look, and we're going to move roughly 78% of it somewhere else.

This is going to be a serious investment of my time, and I cannot tell you how excited that makes me.

Jason has been very excited about the job, too - I think he's just excited to see me be excited by the concept of what I'm doing. I've come home throughout our marriage excited about getting a job, or my coworkers, or occasionally just worked up and energetic on how much I disliked what I was doing... it's probably a little bit novel to have me come home, a smile on my face, and show him a book on Museum Shop Management I found in my desk that I am so going to memorize because this I plan to be doing this for a while.

My coworkers are lovely - for the sake of their privacy, I won't go into anything about them overmuch on this blog without their express permission to share any of the specific stories. I hope that's okay with you readers.

In any case, I will say that I've told one of my coworkers that I'm thinking it will take me six months to get into the groove - six months before I can get to a point of maintenance instead of tear down, rebuild.

The schedule is interesting, too. It's a Tuesday - Saturday job. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday are 8:30 AM to 5 PM. Thursday is 12 PM - 7:30 PM. Saturday is 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM. Then I have Sunday and Monday off. I like this because I can still see people on Saturday night, and I still get my two-day weekend. These are things I like very much.

Today, the museum's local Youth Art show is coming to an end, so the teachers will be in and out taking down the projects they've been showing. I took a walk around the rooms so I could get a look before they came down - there are some kids in the elementary, middle, and high school shows that I think are either going to go to art school later in life, or will always have a hobby at least that they are really good at. Some of these kids really showed promise. It made me wish, vaguely, for about half a second, that I'd gone into art education.

Then, of course, I remembered that I probably wouldn't be a very good teacher since I have the attention span of the goldfish, and the feeling went away.

Then, people will be coming in to start submitting pieces for the Juried Art Show the museum does this time of year. I am even more excited about that. It will be a good time to get an idea of what local artists are up to, and see what I can do once I start looking to rebuild with new things in the museum shop.

Today, I'll be fielding lots of people coming in and going out, making more notes, dusting, and beginning the process of planning out where I'm going to actually begin with what I'm trying to do. I think I'm going to have to carve out some storage space somewhere. Somehow.

Also!

Bit of interesting trivia, which those of you from SC probably already know, but I think my Illinois people might be interested to discover;

The museum used to be a jail. It was a jail starting just before the 20th century right up until 1975. Originally, the sheriff lived on the top floor, and the jail cells were down below. The sheriff would take care of the inmates, and he and his family would live above them.

There are bars on the windows of the old building. Which amuses me to no end.

It's also rumored to be haunted, but I think that's mostly the result of superstition (people did die there, after all) and the fact that old buildings just make really weird noises. I grew up in an older house and some of the noises people call 'weird' are pretty familiar 'the building is settling' noises to me.

Well, so. That went on quite a bit longer than I planned.

I think my next update's just going to be a single photo. Keep it brief, so I don't drown everyone in words every couple of days.

As of Day 1 (Start of Day 2)

I have been at this job a single day and I have already been asked by a vendor if I'd be willing to pick up a piece of their merchandise to sell in the gift shop. I am reminding myself that just because it is a book I want to read, doesn't mean that customers will pay for it. But I'm considering asking if I can just have one for myself, anyway, because a book about the Cherokee presence during the Revolutionary War seems pretty cool to me.

I've been there one day and already I am being tempted by merchandise. This isn't even the merchandise already there, people. This is hypothetical merchandise I'm dreaming about.

In general, it was a day full of cramming information into my skull. Some things, like figuring out how to run the (seriously old school) register and inventory system were pretty simple once they clicked. I answer the phones like a pro. Which I suppose I kind of am.

I am going to be spending the first couple of months just acclimating to the concept of being in charge of this little store, trying to get the sections a little more strongly delineated and really just trying to make the place my own.

Although, of course, it's all going to be baby steps.

Yesterday I mostly figured out the bare bones of how this job works. There were a nice variety of customers - I signed someone up for a membership/class, which you have to do a certain way when they sign up for both at the same time. I was able to meet one of the instructors who teach the art classes that go on downstairs. They're currently doing a Youth Art show with the local schools so there were people in and out all day.

Today I think they're starting the takedown on the Youth Art stuff, because this weekend people will start submitting for the juried art show. Which is definitely going to be awesome to see.

Guys, I work for an art museum now. I just thought I should repeat that. Maybe be a little bit giddy about it.

Let's go see what I learn about my job today.

P.S. Nine days until Jason and I fly to Illinois to see my family!

Southern Snow

Don't be fooled - we may not have gotten any snow this winter, but we're definitely making up for it with the spring.

I mean, it kind of looks like snow. Plus, everyone's going around sneezing and coughing. So... it's a little like the winter when everyone gets a cold, right?

Frankly, the sheer amount of pollen in the air has been causing me to get the slightest tickle in my throat during the day. I don't even have allergies - my friends with allergies are downing medicine like candy or are perfectly miserable or, occasionally, both at the same time.

The mildness of winter means that the pollen is in overdrive this spring. I washed my car on Sunday and by Tuesday it was vaguely orange from all the yellow pollen. I made the mistake of parking under a tree in our apartment complex's parking lot and came out the next day to find my car both orange from pollen and green from tree buds that had fallen on it. My car looked like nature had become angry and was trying to take it back.

So, like I said.

Don't be fooled - the South gets snow... it just falls off our trees instead of from the clouds.

A little bit about now

So... what good things have been up the past few months?

Well, the usual stuff: Jason and I went out to Hagood Mill a couple of times, he went by himself a couple of times as well. We had breakfast at Coffee to a Tea, sometimes just the two of us, sometimes with our friend Liz, sometimes with our married friends Sarah and Josh Forgie. This, of course, was when I wasn't working on Saturdays. I wasn't usually scheduled, but the problem with both having trouble with thinking past the short-term AND working in a place where they often let you leave early if you agree to come in for a few hours on Saturday meant that I, in the last couple of months I was there, ended up working almost every Saturday.

I worked on building something approximating a 'spring' wardrobe. I love sweaters, but South Carolina does not want you to be able to wear sweaters after mid-February for some reason. This saddens me - in Illinois one can get away with sweaters almost the whole way through April, at least a few days.

I guess that will work for me no longer.

On the other hand - my car is slightly orange from yellow pollen, the flowers have all burst, the magnolia trees will soon hang heavy under their blossoms. Magnolia trees are one of the greatest things about living here. You see a big old magnolia tree, like a huge one? You know that it's probably nearly as old as Greenville itself, as they grow so slowly.

Today I went in for the fun part of getting a new job - drug test and signing papers. It's starting to feel like I really did get this job. I don't know what to do with my hands when I think about it - I just start wanting to kind of drum out a beat on the table with excitement.

Now I'm settled in at Sarah's house, doing some laundry and listening to music, idly looking at real estate for sale in the area.

I know this entry was pretty random, but it's mostly to get me into the swing of regular updates again.

It could not be a prettier day. I can even handle the humidity for gorgeousness like this.

Even if I still complain about it a lot.

A little bit of honesty

Anyone looking at this page will notice that my last update was on October 16th. An astute observer will see that it is the post in which I announced I had gotten a new job.

I then dropped off the face of the (blogging) planet.

These things, you should know, are related.

The simple truth is that it became too hard to come up with anything to write... I was too unhappy with the job.

I didn't want to tell you all, who are mostly my family and friends who know me outside the space of the internet, how miserable the job made me. I won't say I made a mistake - I was making a lot more money, which enabled Jason and I to start building towards buying a house in the time I was there. I met some pretty cool people, had so me very awesome coworkers. But it was hard to write when it took so long to decompress after every single day. I haven't even been taking pictures, or drawing, or really anything at all... my brain has been completely focused on I'm not at work when I'm home.

I don't want anyone to think I was super unhappy or anything. I was having a great time... not at work. We had parties at friends' houses, Jason and I went out to Hagood Mill a couple of times, or we just relaxed and were together.

Being unhappy while at work, though, was kind of sapping my creative energy whenever I wasn't there. Which is not something I am okay with work doing.

So, you may be asking yourself, why are you writing a blog entry today?

Well...

I quit my job. This is my last week there. I am sad only because my supervisor, who was really nice, is on vacation so I'll be gone before he gets back, and that is sad. But not sad enough to stop me.

I have been offered a new job, and accepted the offer. I'll be working in an art and history museum's gift shop. I'll help source out new merchandise to sell from local artists, be on some days the "face" of the museum - the first person people see. I'm going to bury my head in books on local history over the next month or so, I can already tell.

While I was sitting here being happy about this last few days of work, I thought to myself, You know what I haven't done in a while?

So I wandered over here.

I think I'll come back in to this blog. I hope to stay awhile.

If things go even remotely according to plan, this is going to be a pretty exciting year.

I'll have enough vacation to see my extended family more than once a year - Jason and I are both (!!!!) going to see them here for Easter. This will be the first time in... too long... since Jason has been able to come, too. I wasn't able to go home for Christmas or my little cousin Jake's wedding, which means I still haven't met his wife (how cool is that to say, huh?). So I plan to rectify these things.

We'd like to buy a house this year, get a dog, maybe go hog-wild and host our own party since we might have enough room to fit more than three other people in our living space. Maybe we'll be able to swear off apartments forever. That would be exciting.

So what do you think the odds are that they will? 

Then again, if there's anything the last couple of years has taught me, it's that trying to calculate the likelihood doesn't mean anything. I have to make my own odds.

Maybe I'll pull my camera back out, too.