Near

I have been near my computer all day. Tuesdays are longer days for me in that I work at BPG until lunch and then I head over to the church and work there until 5pm or so. I take my laptop into the building because it has been too cold to leave out in the car. I keep it near me.

I also keep it near me because of the 2013 DC stolen laptop experience. I have panic attacks when I can't find something important. (Things listed under this category are my phone, my wallet, and my glasses. All are thing I have misplaced and then had said panic attack before finding them minutes later.)

At the church I work at my desk and use my laptop. You could say, it's near me there too.

After my day at work, I came home and had to shovel the driveway. It was covered in a nice coat of heavy, wet snow topped by a thin layer of ice.

I have heard more people wish they were on a cruise or in a sunny location today than all the days this winter combined.

Even though we had a lovely, sunny day yesterday.

Back to shoveling snow, or what I do best.

I did not have my laptop near me while I was shoveling.

I will end with this thought; we are one day closer to Spring. It is near. I could feel it in the air outside while I was shoveling.

So long 2014!

Happy New Year!

Overall, 2014 was a good year. It just ended differently than I would have wanted. But it's over now and we've moved on.

Work is going well. At Baker they affectionately call me Emily 2.0 Reboot (the other Emily lasted three and a half days). We're headed into a catalog season, so things are going to get interesting. I have been filing the last two weeks. I've filed something like 3,000 files on thirty DVD's. Except I've actually burned sixty because we save one at the office, and then in case of a disaster, we store one in a secret, off-site location. They won't tell me where. They insist it's super top-secret and they aren't willing to kill me over it since I've stuck around this long.

I'm kidding, of course. And I know where they store them. But I'm not telling.

Now, don't get too excited about this post. I'm not re-committing to any more, or less, posting. I will continue to try to write random thoughts. I've had several ideas, but they never made it here.

One I can remember is that after four weeks of wearing my brace, through one of the snowiest December's, with a mitten that I couldn't pull on all the way, I came up with a better solution. An oven mitt. Now, I don't recommend you break a hand, but if you ever do and it happens to be during winter, please use my idea and wear an oven mitt. You look like you're ready to pull something out of the oven, and it was an interesting social experiment, but it keeps your hand warm.

I've worked on a few crafts and took pictures, so I'll post those the next couple of days. I'm going to post them because I actually have the photos on my computer. They're not stuck in my camera!

Here's to a new year!

1+1+1+1=4

I know. A long awaited post. What happened to me?

As indicated in my title, the total is four. As in, that's how many part-time jobs I now hold.

On Monday, I started at Baker Publishing Group as an Administrative Assistant for the Visual Communications Department.

Think that title is long?

My other titles are (in order of shortest to longest titles):

• Wedding Coordinator
• Jr. High Youth Director
• Administrative Assistant to our Associate Pastor for Adult Education

I constantly define that last one because I am not the admin assistant to the Associate Pastor. That would require more hours. Hours more like the new job. Also defined as a full, part-time job. Get it?

Let me explain; my AA in Adult Ed. is four hours/week. My AA in Visual Comm dept is up to 30 hours/week. If I were assisting our Associate Pastor in full capacity, it would be more like 30 hours/week. But it wouldn't be fair because no one else on staff has an assistant. But the other ministry departments have full, part-time or full-time staff. For instance, the Children's Ministry? Full, part-time staff person (I think she works 35 hours/week). Youth Ministry? Full-time, plus others below her in specific areas of ministry like me in Jr. High.

Now that I've explained that, let me explain that I am not crazy. Four part-time jobs is not too many.

For Wedding Coordinator, that's a consultant job. I'm paid when there's a wedding. We only have one on the calendar for 2015.

Jr. High Youth Director, it's ten hours/week for the school year. Most of the work takes place on Sundays. Plus, I have already planned out Sunday mornings through the school year. Sunday nights are planned out through December.

AA in Adult Ed, honestly that job may not exist after the end of the calendar year due to budget cuts. If it does continue, I have worked it out with my new boss that I can work half a day and then go work my four hours at the church, one day a week.

Hence my lack of blogging. I was visiting mom and dad when I got the call from Baker. I came back home and we have just been busy, busy, busy.

Last Saturday was the .1k and it was a blast. Team Bald Ego formed once again. We had a fundraising goal of $500. By Friday night, we were $225 short of the goal. The date was earlier (last year in was in November) so we had fewer team members.

Bill and I were taking a walk and I thought of a few other people I could ask to donate. When we finished our walk, I sent out an email.

One of those people is a Quotarian. She donated last year and has always been a great supporter of me.

Before I went to sleep that night, I said a prayer. I asked for a fundraising miracle.

Saturday morning, I was drinking my coffee, checking my email, and mentally preparing for the race ahead of us (just kidding). I got a text from the Quota member asking me how to donate to the .1k. I walked her through it. (I think it takes longer to donate than it does to race!)

About ten minutes later, an email popped up telling me I had received a donation. It had put us over our fundraising goal! We had been given that miracle!

Bill, Heather, Kathy F. (she was there somewhere, we never did find her), Chandra, Jason, and Addison were all a part of the team. We have decided, for next year, we will dress up. We are Team Bald Ego, after all.

Needless to say, I did not take any pictures of the race. We still had a lot of fun. We hope to come back next year with a bigger team. If you can't make it, you can still donate! I'll keep you posted on information.

I could have made this into two posts… to make up for my lack of posting. But I didn't. We'll see how often I can keep writing. Come back tomorrow for another explanation. I promise it won't be as long.

Early bird

It has been another busy day.

I spent the day at the office, finishing my hours for Pastor Tish and the Adult Education "hat" I wear.

I'm now done for the summer.

Jr. High is not over yet. Confirmation Sunday is this coming Sunday. Then, in August, we'll have our mission week. I have a little bit of planning and coordinating to get that all set.

When I got home I ran/walked. I ate dinner, swept the driveway, ran the vacuum, did my workout/yoga, made baked oatmeal, and washed dishes.

Now I'm working on a few things before I go to bed. I have two emails to send out regarding this Sunday. I could probably wait and send them in the morning.

It is getting late. I was up early. You really do get a lot done when you start the day early. My parents laughed when I told them that. They have done their share of getting up early. Dad is retired and Mom is semi-retired and they are enjoying it. I think it's great.

But for now, I have things to get done.

I could have been...

Today was a rough day at work. The internet wasn't playing nice which meant I couldn't connect to the printer. Eventually, through a convoluted solution, I was able to print.

Then I called and whined to our IT guy (ha! I just realized he's our "it" guy), who came in on his day off and the minute he walked into the building everything worked like normal. He went home and approximately thirty seconds after he left, my internet went out again.

There's not a lot I can do without internet or printing capability.

Then I came home and read a post on Facebook. It's about having a bad day at work, purchasing a rectal thermometer (made by Johnson & Johnson), taking it home, reading the instructions which (apparently) state that every thermometer is tested before being sanitized and packaged. The gist is that at least I don't work for J&J. Har har. It made me laugh and whether true or not, at least I don't test rectal thermometers.

For that, I am thankful!

our world was a flood

I don't expect most of you to know that is a modified line from a Jars of Clay song. But now you do. See? You learn something new everyday!

Back to the flood.

On Monday, I was at First Place, our church's administrative building. We have our offices on the second floor. The first floor is The Vine, where the Jr. and Sr. High meet. There is a game room (where the youth choir practices), a kitchen, a cafe room and restrooms.

The third floor is made up of a couple Sunday school/meeting rooms, JfON (Justice for Our Neighbors), part of Lutheran Social Services Ministry (LSSM) offices, and another non-profit whose name is escaping me at the moment.

The fourth floor is exclusively rented out by LSSM.

This will be important in a few minutes.

As I said, on Monday, I was working. We had a staff lunch. Then, the Coordinating team had their regular meeting. It was getting close to three o'clock and the sky was getting dark. I had finished up my work and had stopped to chat with Sharon, our treasurer. A few minutes into our chat and the skies opened up.

At one point, it looked like a hurricane. The rain was coming down so hard and the wind was blowing so hard, that you couldn't see the cars in the parking lot from her window (which you can usually see our parking lot, the neighboring parking lot as well as the park a few streets away). She had to go pick up her granddaughter at the bus stop and couldn't wait any longer.

I decided to give it a few minutes and went to make a pit stop before heading out.

I walked into the women's restroom to see water streaming out from under the janitor's closet, which is accessible through the women's restroom. I walked back into the office and said to no one (they were all in a meeting upstairs on the third floor) there's water in the bathroom.

Fortunately, there was a receptionist and Liz (who works for JfON) was making copies. Liz followed me back into the restroom at which point the water was flowing out from under the restroom door. No need to open it, it was clear we had an issue.

Liz asked, where's Emil (our facilities manager)? He's upstairs, I'll go get him, I said. I ran up, busted into the room where the entire office staff were meeting and said, we have water. Everyone looked at Emil. He stood up and asked where? I told him in the women's bathroom. He followed me out of the room and checked the restrooms on that floor.

I said, no it's downstairs.

By the time we got down there the water had reached halfway across the office and was an inch deep. Emil gave me the keys to his car and told me to go get the water barrier things in his trunk.

I ran outside. I took two steps before I realized my sandals were pointless. I pulled them off and grabbed the water things out of his car. I took them back inside, but couldn't find Emil.

After a few minutes of running around, I finally found him. By this point, everyone from the meeting was back in the office and they were picking up everything from the floor and unplugging everything. Somebody asked what needed to be done and Emil said go down to The Vine.

I went down there and, I think, Tish and Laure were the ones who had asked what to do so they followed me.

Water was pouring in from the ceiling. Sami was down there, unplugging and moving all the electronics. The game room, with the most electronics, was getting the worst of it.

Eventually we got everything unplugged and moved. We went back upstairs. By then Emil had shut off the main water. Water was everywhere. The decision was made to evacuate the building, because the lights were still on.

We spread the word, and I decided it was time to go home because I still had to pee. I picked up my shoes and grabbed my bags.

Apparently a pipe burst. I'm not saying I saved the building, but if it hadn't been for me, the water wouldn't have been discovered until it reached the copy room where Liz was.

It was the First Place flood of epic proportions.

falling down

This week was not meant to be normal.

There's the weather. All the snow melted and we reached upwards of fifty degrees. Now it has returned in full force. It's hard to say, but I think we have a fresh six inches of snow that has fallen today.

Tuesday morning, I was awakened by thunder and lightning. But it wasn't a thunder snow (as Bill and probably others call it). It was just the rain that washed away the snow.

It caused a power outage at the church. Which I didn't know about until after the fact. After the emails had been sent saying the church was closed. After the emails had been sent saying the power was back on and after the emails were sent saying there was no internet.

How do you work in today's world without internet?

Well, you either go to a coffee shop (or stay home) and work from there, or you use your cell phone (because the land lines were also down) and do what you can on your computer that doesn't require internet.

It is not easy.

I had to use a phone book to look up a phone number.

Most of the staff chose to work at home or at a coffee shop. I stayed because there were things I needed to print and thankfully we were still able to do that.

That meant that yesterday, Wednesday or blog day, was spent finishing up work that I wasn't able to get done on Tuesday.

That didn't really happen and I ended up finishing a few things today.

Since I fell behind on my weekly blogging, I thought I'd try to share a little today. Yet, there's still more to share.

And wouldn't you know, there are pictures on my camera that I also want to share. Maybe tomorrow...

the numbers game

     two hundred and thirty

     one hundred (for men)

     one hundred (for women)

     thirty (for kids)

That is how many socks the youth stuffed Sunday night for Casey's socks.

There were at least a dozen youth and leaders there to stuff.

We got them all stuffed, tied and carried over to Wesley Hall where they will stay until Christmas Eve morning when they are given away.

It is quite a sight to see three tables heavy-laden with all the "stuffings".

We granted the wishes of a few men who, last year, asked for t-shirts. Not only did I remember their wish, but will be giving the men choices as to what size t-shirt they would like.

Sometimes there are a few people who don't appreciate the hard work that goes into this.

It doesn't matter to me. My hope (and prayer) is that at least one person, on Christmas Eve morning, will appreciate this gift.

It is also amazing to me that we did actually finish the socks. There was a moment around 6:15pm that I wasn't sure we would be done by 7pm.

It didn't hurt that I told the youth: for every ten socks you stuff, you get a piece of candy.

Have I mentioned I am not above bribery?

I would have loved to have posted pictures.

But we needed all hands on-deck to stuff. And only at the end of the night, when the socks had been carried away and we were cleaning up, did I remember my camera.

Drat.

In my mind I took lots of pictures.

I did take pictures of the kitchen with its final coat of paint. And the snowflakes now hanging on the sliding glass door. Let it snow!!! (Don't forget to cut, paint or otherwise craft a snowflake to send/give to me to hang, help me fill the door!)

Sunflowers

Pictures will be posted tomorrow.

Although I meant to post them earlier when I was on my computer.

I forgot.

And I ran out of time.

I had to go to work.

I didn't ever mention my other job, did I?

Hm, I'm too young to be this forgetful.

I'm working as administrative support for our Associate Pastor (Tish) as she takes on the Adult Education classes for the church.

I actually have to go into the office! So I have made office hours as Jr. High Youth Director too.

I have to go in tomorrow too, to finish getting signs ready for Sunday. Eek!