Playing Catch-Up

Whew - can't believe it's been a month since I last posted!  Where has the time gone?  Here is a series of images from the last four weeks of my museum life:

January 30 - Gorgeous 1870s quilt at the museum today.

January 31 - The sun's back!

February 1 - Awesome or creepy attic scene? You decide!

February 16 - Awesome gallery wall in the orientation gallery at the Rosenbach Museum & Library

February 17 - A friend volunteers for the amazing Woodlands in Philadelphia. We got a private tour on Sunday - this is the exterior of the house on the grounds (built in stages between 1774 and 1840).

February 17 - Inside the drawing room at the Woodlands. Gorgeous light!

February 20 - Baking pies late at night for a museum workshop in the morning. Pecan pie on the left and chess pie on the right.

February 21 - The pies the next day, plus the cornbread that I made with my workshop kids.

February 21 - Home early from work that day and rearranged my home office so the desk faces out the window.

February 22 - One of my historic house organizations is renovating their rental apartment and it's been fascinating to watch. This is the kitchen, with new paint, a new light fixture, and newly refinished floors. It's awaiting appliances, drawers, and butcher block counters, but it's gorgeous as is!

The Fun Side

Sometimes, the fun we have at museums isn't museum-related at all!  This 4-week old shih tzu belongs to the exhibit curator at one of my and I got to hold her today.  Gotta love a workplace that has no problem with doggies (admittedly, we were in the staff kitchen, not the historic house, but still).

Snowy Scene & Social Media

After the snowstorm last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I wanted to see if I could snap a decent shot of one of my museum's 17th century houses for our Facebook page. However, I didn't feel like getting to work, leaving one building, trudging across the street to the 17th century building, and taking a picture with my feet in the cold snow. So I cheated. I pulled my car down the small side road next to the house, hopped out, snapped three images, and called it good enough.

So imagine my surprise when I uploaded the image above to the museum's Facebook page and it went viral!  As of today, 15 comments, 123 likes, and an FB-estimated reach of 1,376.  Amazing.

Oh, and while I'm here, today is Museophilia's 5th birthday.  Happy birthday, little museum blog that no one reads!  ;)

Other Museums

Sometimes, I go to museums other than my own!  My husband and I bought our nephews a family membership to the Acton Discovery Museums for Christmas, so I made a trip there today with my parents and nephews.

Even though it's a very different museum than the historic houses I work in, it was interesting to look at their facilities, exhibits, etc. and assess functionality the same way I would at a history museum.  And it was really fun to play with all of the exhibits with my nephews, so there's that benefit, too!

Cold Authenticity

Deinstalling an exhibit in one of my historic houses today and this was what the windows looked like from the inside.  Further confirmation that 18th century houses DO NOT hold heat well!

Picturing History

I'm prepping for a February vacation program at one of my museums and found this image while looking through the family photos of an African-American woman in the city.  This is her with her dog in probably the 1920s.  I love it.

Working from Home Awesomeness

A lovely day of working partially from home today. I drove up to the museum this morning, packed up some artifacts and the museum's projector, gave a lecture to some lovely old ladies, dropped everything back off at the museum, and headed home to finish out the workday here.

The troika of puppies at the reservoir on the walk they got when I got home.

My garden house office, lit from within as the dark started to fall. This is exactly how I was picturing it all fall while I slaved away cleaning & painting.