breathing new life into an old chair

I spent the weekend working at the Burke Museum's Coffee exhibit, but Johnny and I found time to browse Earthwise, go to Target & Best Buy and a few other places, including Goodwill. Inspired by a magazine before & after, I decided to try my hand at turning an old, dark chair into something fun and usable - and for hardly any money, too!

to-do list

I noticed that my to-do list is not looking so good. School and life really caught up with me. I barely had time to do anything, including reading for school (which I did almost none of...), let alone anything on my list. I mean, I did get some stuff done. But that was inadvertently. And there's a lot of big stuff left to accomplish. And a lot of things I started but didn't keep up with. I mean, I'm not beating myself up. Grad school is a big task in itself, not to mention we moved twice in the last year and don't really have a home right now and we both commute quite a ways to school and work.

But, I'm obviously going to have to extend it, maybe an extra year? I don't anticipate getting much done in the next school year, at least, considering I'll be working on my thesis and be flying around the country for conferences. hmm.

Honestly, I think as long as I keep a list of things I want to do, I can take as long as I want to complete them. The list just enables me to store them somewhere and mark them off when they're accomplished. There are more things I want to add: start a vegetable garden. try my hand at woodworking like my grandpa does. learn to design a webpage. wake up at 8am or before every day for a month (I love sleeping, which is a problem because I hate wasting time). I think a good solution is to continue working at it, but while I'm in school, I'm not going to hold myself to any timelines.

Free First Thursdays

One day later, and I'm already going to post another blog! Look at me go!

Well it's Friday, meaning that yesterday was "First Thursday". That's the day when most museums are free for at least some portion of their day, if not all of it. The Burke, for example, is open extended hours until 8pm and is free all day. We had over 1,000 people visit, and it was a total nuthouse. Free days bring out a different sort of people, I'm not sure what it is. The people seem to expect more - despite the fact that they are getting in for nothing. They want your attention right away, expect tours or demonstrations to be going on, and are relatively short tempered. It's frustrating! 

At the conference I recently attended, someone spoke about how people seem to value museum or other arts & entertainment experiences more when they pay for it rather than get in for free. I guess in our minds, free = cheap & low quality? and when you pay, your expectations are higher and you are more satisfied and fulfilled by your experience? I don't know - it's a mystery to me! But I definitely see it every First Thursday. 

If I don't work First Thursdays during the school year, I am going to try to hit up the EMP, which features free admission and live music 5-8pm, or SAM, which includes access to all exhibits.