Seriously?

OK so this is gonna be a 3-blog post day. I know that's crazy. But the story I have so perfectly illustrates why I called this blog "The madness of Ms. Katherine" I have to tell it as well as starting the series. My life is crazy.

So I work at Campbell House Museum. Today 2 women come in and say "We have 15 minutes, can you give us a tour in that amount of time". Keep in mind that Campbell House is 3 floors, close to 10,000 square feet, and my tours normally last between 45minutes and an hour. This was not gonna be easy. So rather than introducing myself and taking my time like I normally do, I say "I won't be able to give much info on the story but I"ll try" and just launch into it, moving as quick as I can. We get to the servants exhibit, one woman needs to go to the bathroom so I show her where it is, and the other one and I talk a little about Philadelphia, which is where she's from. I loved Philly. If a job at a historic house museum opened in Philly, I would jump at it. Other woman comes back, we move on with our quick tour.

At the end, the woman from Philly starts talking to our director Andy and says "I'm the director of a historic mansion in Philadelphia". Yep. That's right. I gave a tour to a woman who runs a historic house in the city I'd love to be in. Perfect networking opportunity. I HAD NO CLUE TILL THE END! And I don't even have time to introduce myself and say I'm a museum studies student or give the pretty good (at least in my opinion and what I've heard from others) tour to her! Plus by the time she says this, she's talking to Andy about important stuff so I can't say "Hey I'm a museum studies student!" without sounding immature and dumb.

The good thing is I just looked the place up, and it's not a museum. It's a mansion owned by a college that you can rent out for events. So it's not the dream job I thougth it was when I first heard who she was. And Mom said it's perfectly OK for me to get her info from Andy (she gave him her card) and send her my resume saying 'I was your tour guide".

Yeah - PERFECT opportunity to get an in on jobs and they only have 15 minutes for the tour. Are you kidding me? See how crazy my life is????

Blog on Katherine in Museums

Apology off the bat - I have no idea how to put actual links in my posts, so if you want to look at the links, copy and paste the URLs!

So I just put a new post on my "Katherine in Museums" professional blog - read it here - http://www.katherineinmuseums.blogspot.com/.

Remember it's my professional blog, so any funny comments put HERE not there! Please and thank you!!

The post over there talked about 2 projects I started just before I left for Natchez this past summer. I won't go TOO into detail, since it's posted over there, but basically I started a facebook fan page and a weekly blog. If you're not already, PLEASE fan Campbell House Museum on facebook! We're trying to get our name out there and get more fans, so I'd really appreciate it!

Here are the links:
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Saint-Louis-MO/Campbell-House-Museum/57253224411?ref=ts

Blog - campbellhousemuseum.wordpress.com

For those that don't know, Campbell House Museum is the historic house museum that I work at. I've been here 5 years - 3 summers, 2 year long internship. I could go on for hours but here's the Cliffsnotes version - the house was built in 1851. Robert Campbell and his wife Virginia moved in in 1854. Their family was here for the next 80 years. Robert Campbell was a big businessman involved in every business you can think of in the 19th century (EXCEPT SOUP, Robert is NOT the founder of Campbell's soup!) When his last son died in 1938, with none of the 3 boys really working, his 1/3 of the estate was $2 MILLION. It's like $69 million today. We've been open as a museum since 1943. The house has been restored back to it's 1880s appearance, we know that for a fact because we have photographs from about 1885 of the interior.

So basically, Campbell House is super cool. You should all come check it out, especially if you're a fan of old houses. $6 for adults, kids 12 and under are free, open Wednesday-Saturday 10-4, Sunday noon-4. And if you can't make it, at least fan the facebook page and read the blog.

One last thing. Happy Veterans Day - thank god for all the service men and women that have defended us. And Happy belated anniversary Sesame Street!