I'm not dead, I swear...

...but all my friends probably think I am.

The last month has been a complete blur. The fall tends to be like that for me, because of several special events we always have at work this time of year, but this year has been worse than usual, because of the addition of a one-time event the weekend immediately after Day Out With Thomas. DOWT, our biggest annual event, spans two long weekends (Friday-Sunday), and generally the event days are12-hour days. By the last Sunday, all the staff and volunteers are generally on the verge of collapse, ready to throttle the next kid they hear screaming because it's time to go home, and seriously considering burning the standard issue royal-blue T-shirts and khakis.

This year, there was no rest for the weary, because a fantastic opportunity to host Disney's "A Christmas Carol" train tour came along this spring, and though we knew we'd all be exhausted, we also knew Disney would bring priceless publicity and thousands of visitors to the museum who may have never been there before--and, quite possibly, never even heard of the N.C. Transportation Museum.

So we said yes, and yesterday and the day before, by my best estimates, probably at least 12,000 people came out to experience Scrooge, Tiny Tim and company brought to life in 3-D with motion capture technology. I had the chance to tour the train early Friday morning and see the preview in the inflatable (yep, I said inflatable) theater that was set up within a 100 feet of my office. I have to admit, it was pretty cool. And seeing that many people enjoying all the other really cool stuff we have at the museum every day wasn't so bad either. Even if I was completely ready to go home by 5 p.m. yesterday, with two hours left to go before that would be a reality.

My personal life has probably suffered a bit in the past weeks, since I've been pretty out of touch with nearly everyone, and at one point I thought I might have forgotten what my boyfriend looked like. But I am through the worst of it, at least until our next special event at the end of the month, and I unleashed the cleaning demon within today, so my house is once again presentable enough to have company over. Well, actually, I didn't get to the bathrooms yet (hopefully tomorrow), so if you do come over, you might want to, umm, just hold it for a bit....