Susie, Coral, and Grace - Native Alaskan skin sewers rolling out a gutskin parka.

First attempt at a "waterproof" stitch. Seal gut, deer sinew, and embroidery floss so we could learn the stitch. I will hopefully have seal and bear gut, with a touch of fish skin in a finished piece.

That is my happy face, and normally I am wearing it (I hope it appears that way), but I am not handling work stress so well at this exact moment (I started this post last week, and yep, the next two months are going to be tough). I am internalizing too much......I will have to see how well I manage, not necessarily the workload, but the stress of not humanly being able to complete it in the allotted time. It doesn't help that the medication I am on magnifies the physical side effects of stress (I shake, etc.). Of course, I also have to consider the Shawen factor and other life demands. It's all rolled in. It's not like my mind can really separate it all.

With that said, I will once again state my job rocks! I am soooo lucky. I get to do a lot and that is good. I am not pigeon-holed for sure! Today I was thankfully ordered to participate in a last minute gut skin sewing workshop (despite the fact that I only have this week to unload 10 units of collections for new drawer installation next week.) It was slave labor, let me tell ya! It was so awesome to sew gut with sinew. They are amazing materials - strong, durable, and even aesthetically pleasing. Gut is translucent, it almost glows. Sinew is 100 pound test for sure. I can't sew a on a button, but have learned the ancient and tried and true art of Alutiiq stitching (one of them anyway)!

This is mainly for my mental organization - here is what I have in the next two months:

Accreditation review (should be first, is darn near last);

getting new drawers for storage units (unload and re-shelve colls., and subsequent paperwork);

50% of my time is supposed to be K-1 (I guess I should write an entry about this, although you've probably read enough about it in the newspaper, newsletter, FB postings, etc.);

a week-long conservation assessment and workshop;

a paper conservator coming for several weeks (for which thank goodness to a very supportive co-worker's spouse we have housing, now I just have to find a place for this person to work that's not at the museum, which is a whole story in itself);

a conference in Anc;

working on transferring our bulky 100 cubic feet of fauna to a museum down south (involves a whole lot more than putting it on a barge);

researchers (some of whom make appointments and some of who show up unannounced twice in one day. I count general inquiries in here too. I have had three today, in addition to the latter researcher.);

accessioning contemporary purchases by yesterday;

TEN other projects that are on my list, but am ignoring for now (prioritizing, unfortunately, what is most important does not necessarily come before the urgent);

some miscellaneous tasks;

and regular colls. work, with about 75-100 collections ranging from 1 object to hundreds that need processing. Obviously not getting to much of that right now.