Sunday

I try to keep my Sundays as low-key as possible. It's a day of rest, and I keep to that as much as possible.

I've been attending Greenwood Christian Church for about two months, now. I changed churches a while back because I wasn't really connecting. I'm hoping that things are different here, but I've been gone so many weekends that it's hard to keep track of things. My experience has been ... rocky, thus far. But I have high hopes for the future.

So yeah. I try to hit the earliest service because, as much as I like my sleep, I like having a full day to just chill. It also gives me a chance to catch up on my online shows. I try not to get caught up in too many, but as it turns out, all the ones I watch have been going on for a freakishly long time. I can't just stop now.



And that's my week. It varies occasionally, but I keep a pretty tight routine. I don't know if that makes me boring or pathetic. I don't really care, either. It's life.

I do hope you're all considering the interaction I proposed. I really would like to hear from you.

Saturday

I pretty much live for this day. It is my day to do whatever I want. Sort of. It's usually filled with errands and such. But it's my one day to just relax and not think about anything if I so choose.

Of course, if you were on Facebook, you read my post about the Huggy Bear Quik Shop in Huntington calling me at 8:45 this morning. I actually missed the call and they didn't leave a message, but I looked up the number. I can't figure out a reason for the call, so it had to be a misdial, but it just seems so random. Definitely not par for the course.

It did give me a little extra time to get ready for the day, though. I had a special treat. My roommate in college contacted me recently and asked if we could get together. I jumped at the chance. We figured out today that it's probably been at least two years since the last time we saw each other. Far too long. So I drove up to Kokomo and we had a lovely lunch, excellent conversation, and I finally saw The Last Airbender. So-so acting, but an interesting story and pretty nice visual effects. I had an excellent time, and hopefully, this will jump start future visits.

The rest of the day was all right. I watched some Sanctuary, played several games of Mahjongg and tried to get over a headache. Probably shouldn't have kept staring at a screen, but I guess I'm not that smart.

I wish I had more to tell you about today, but that was it.

I love Saturdays.

Friday

Sorry. I had to do it.


Bit of a late start today. This is typical for a Friday. It feels like the whole week is weighing down on me. I was counting down the hours until I could go back home.

But my Avon order came this morning. I'm starting on Christmas presents, and this will cover a couple for my mom. She's very easy to shop for. My dad is not so easy. At the moment, I'm at a loss, but that's why I start early.

I got the rest of my letters printed this morning. It's funny how something you can fix in ten seconds with the right part holds up production and causes great anxiety when the part is unavailable. You know what I've learned from this?

Two things, actually.

One: I am a very impatient person.

B: Do not mess with my routine. Ever.

While the letters were printing, I went over to MFM. It was bare bones this morning, like the rest of the office. Fortunately, Emily decided to work on stuff in our department.

Speaking of friends, I don't think I mentioned Arika yesterday. She and I were chatting on and off via instant messenger. This is a frequent occurrence. I've talked about Arika before, mostly about her being a good sounding board and a fellow historian/no- nonsense-allowed woman. Just wanted to say, I'm lucky to have her as a friend.

The morning progressed without incident, but somewhere between lunch and coming back, I developed a headache. It sat in the back of my head for the rest of the day, rather unpleasant, but not much I could do about it.

I think I had more human contact this afternoon than I have ever had in my tenure at OMS on a Friday. Most people don't bother calling because we're notorious for being out. But today, for some reason, I had several phone calls and quite a few visitors. It was weird. If I believed in conspiracies (which I do), I might get a little paranoid.

::looksovershoulder::

Hmm...

Anyway, I also had a short chat with my boss about blogs this afternoon. It's something I've been thinking about for quite a while. As much as I love blogging (it's basically a journal, after all, and I've kept dozens of those over the years), I have really been struggling with various blog-related things. For example, I started this blog for use primarily as a ministry tool to keep everyone updated on trips and day-to-day life. However, I occasionally feel compelled to write about other things, such as politics or religion or other potentially controversial things, and I am hesitant to post because it might be outside my purview. I'm also hesitant to post anything too personal. The nature of a blog makes it almost impossible to know who is reading it, and there are just some things that can't or shouldn't be said to certain audiences.

At the moment, I feel like my blog is really only useful to me personally. I work things out by writing about them, and for that purpose alone, I might be willing to keep the blog going, but with reduced permissions. But I started this blog for my supporters. I want you to know how I am and how you've contributed to God's kingdom by supporting me. I also want you to feel free to contact me at any time. Leave comments! Send emails! I really would love to hear from you.

This is probably something I should be saving for its own post, but I just felt really strongly about it today. I'd appreciate any feedback you might have to offer.

A side effect of all the visitors was missing the webinar I was going to attend at 4. Really, it was a ridiculous time to shoot for, but it promised to be a good webinar about creating successful emails in Vertical Response, which is our email marketing platform, yet another thing of which I am in charge. Ah well... I have another one next week potentially, so I'll just hope that covers good information as well.

I left work a little after 5. Friday is my night to crash. I have to get rid of all the work stuff and just chill out for a bit. I usually go to bed early, which seems odd, I know. But if I can get a good night's sleep and still wake up early enough to feel like I'm not wasting my day, I consider it a win. Besides, I've got plans for tomorrow, plans that require me to be out the door at a certain time.

Tonight, however, was not one of those nights. I went over to Sarah's and we watched the latest Transformers movie. It was good - lots of lovely explosions - but long. Like, super long. Which is why I'm posting this on Saturday, not-

Friday.

Thursday

Rinse.

Repeat.

I admit, I briefly considered leaving it at that. Thursday is a lot like Tuesday, and I had many of the same problems as yesterday.

But I know you're really, really interested in my life. And truly, this is fascinating stuff.

Remember that individual from Israel who was at lunch yesterday? That was our chapel speaker this morning. And it was good. Like, really good. We learned a lot about Elijah and what a screw-up he was. Good times.

The mass exodus began today. Several people in my department were gone, and the rest of the building looked like a ghost town. This is more common on Friday, but if people are traveling, they get a head start on Thursday. It was very quiet in the building. Sometimes that is a good thing. Sometimes it's not.

I continued to have printer problems. Like, a lot. To the point where I couldn't print anything. I did finally get some letters printed, but it was almost more hassle than it was worth.

Lunch was fun. I watched an episode of Numb3rs. Well, I think I actually fell asleep for a bit because it went from a discussion about absent fathers to a shoot-out. Oh well.

More printer finagling after lunch. It was more quiet than a graveyard in the department, so I put on some jazz, which had the further benefit of keeping me calm.

There was a brief moment earlier in the afternoon when the mailroom informed me that something I ordered had arrived. I was prepared to do a happy dance. Alas, it was the card stock for the end-of-year extravaganza being mailed out to 17,000 people.

I spent the majority of the afternoon (when I wasn't wrestling with the printer) reading our second yet-to-be-released children's book. Editing is one of my true joys, so this was an enjoyable task.

Then, wouldn't you know, 4:00 rolls around and I am informed that my toner arrived! I had 900 letters left to print, and print I did! And I even did my happy dance. (Is it sad that I was this happy about toner cartridges? It feels sad. I'm going to ignore that.)

I spent way too much time on cracked.com when I got home from work. I wouldn't recommend the site to anyone, really, but it does have some rather insightful and hilarious articles.

Are all my Thursdays like this?

Wednesday

I hate having wet feet.

It occurs to me that I need to explain this. I don't care about having wet feet when everything else is wet, i.e. in the shower or the pool.

(Though that phrase 'get your feet wet' makes me cringe. I don't see why anyone would want to do that.)

However, when it is raining, I despise having wet feet. It almost makes me change my habits to start wearing regular shoes.



Yeah, like that will ever happen.

I set out to complete the printing of prayer letters this morning only to remember that I have no yellow toner. I thought there might be a letter left to print that didn't have any yellow in it. I was wrong. This leaves me with a dilemma. How long do I wait before trying to print somewhere else?

I got sidetracked this morning by an email from my mother with a few possibilities for 2012. I'm hesitant to say anything here, but it's safe to say it's been on my mind all day.

I deleted 93 emails from my inbox this morning. I felt a deep satisfaction about that.


Foster did a photo shoot for Mobilization this morning. Ostensibly, I was there to make them laugh. But really, I was just there to be entertained. They are a fun bunch.

Foster did another photo shoot with my good friend Emily. She has been a real blessing to me here in Greenwood, and we have very similar senses of humor.

Once a month, we have a half day of prayer on Wednesday. It wasn't today, but I didn't want you to miss out on all the fun happenings of a Wednesday. Because really, my whole schedule was thrown off. Not being able to print letters was a little bit like a death sentence. I had serious anxiety issues.

Seriously.

Lunch was fun today. Every week, except during the summer, one of missionaries makes lunch for homeland staff who sign up. I don't always go, but we were having ribs and mashed potatoes and all kinds of good things, so I felt compelled. Plus, it was raining and cold and I didn't feel like walking to my apartment.

Anyway, my boss, who you can always count on for an... um, interesting comes to mind - yes, an interesting experience, was sitting at my table with some other ladies and an individual from Israel. Susan happened to notice that this individual was only eating salad and potatoes and asked, "Are you a vegetarian?"

For those of you who have anticipated the response: Yeah. I know.

Well, this individual just looks at her and says, very calmly, "No. I am a Jew."

As Lori said later, "I just can't get that moment out of my head."

I spent some quality time with the cutting machine early in the afternoon. I've already posted pictures of me before, but just to reiterate, it's quite the power trip. It is indeed the small things.

I continued on my quest to print letters this afternoon. I used the printer in the Comm office since I couldn't use the larger one. It jammed on me several times. I did my best to keep my composure.

I failed.


But necessity is the Mother of Invention. So I improvised. Not that it did much good. But I did get a few letters printed.

Here's hoping the toner arrives tomorrow. Early.



I hate having wet feet.



I had one of my really bad back aches tonight. Usually, I don't have a problem lying on my stomach to use the computer. (Just ask my boss.) Tonight, though, I could barely move. It probably builds up from all the times I do lay on my stomach, but I swear, most of the time it's comfortable.

That being said, I just curled up with my hot water bottle and watched Criminal Minds for the rest of the evening. Early to bed tonight, I think.

Tuesday

Let's assume that every weekday is going to start like yesterday's. In fact, just go back to Monday and read everything up until 9 am. We're all about the routine here.

Our excitement for the morning was a ginormous flying bug. It was very annoying because it kept buzzing into the lights. We're pretty sure James killed it, but it disappeared, so we're not positive.

Every Tuesday (mostly) we have chapel from 9-9:30 or 10 or whenever the speaker stops talking. Today, Larry and Susan Weil spoke about their service in Mozambique. It was a good chapel, very interesting. I worked with the Weils on their prayer card, and now I'm working on getting a magnet printed for them. I like it when field missionaries come and speak because, though I read about them and even write stories about them, I rarely get to meet them in person.

Since I organized the letters to be printed on Monday, I can start on them immediately after chapel on Tuesday. This week I have eight letters, none of which have to be stuffed by me, which is awesome. Most of the time, I can just hit print and let the machines take over.


Of course, then there's the folding. Multiply that by 3500 pages this week.

Another part of my job is to manage social media for OMS. That means keeping track of our Facebook page (and a little bit on Twitter). My boss and I tag team posting prayer requests and bits of information for our followers.

I told you yesterday that I would tell you about my department today. Way back, I posted a picture of the department as it was. We've gone through a few changes since then.


This is what my department looks like now. (Oh, and we were talking today about "10 Signs That Your Department Is Dysfunctional." There are nine here. I think the collective makes ten.)

We'll start with Sarah on the left. She's not new, but she's still awesome. She's in charge of A/V stuff, and she answers all of my video and photography questions.

Next to her is Jason. He's our One Mission Kids guy. He put together a great website for kids to explore some of our countries.

In front of Jason is Barb. She's our newest member and just moved from HOPE61. She helps with a lot of the administrative stuff and assists me with prayer letters and envelopes.

My boss, Susan, is next in green. She's hilarious. If you are friends with me on Facebook, then you see a lot of quotes from her.

Lori, in front of Susan, is one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. (I mean, I like everyone else, but Lori is just awesome. Sorry guys.) She does a ton of editing, and she doesn't mind when I borrow her to take random photos of me at the folding machine.

Foster's next. He's very cheerful. I am not. He's always trying to get me to be more cheerful. I resist. Most of the time.

Angela is also new. She helps with the proofing. Angela is pretty quiet, but very sweet.

James is also new. He took the workspace directly in front of mine, so we exchange lots of pithy comments. We also play dueling music. He's started a list of things I need.


He also likes peanut butter.

I interact with all of these people every day at work.

It's amazing we're all still sane.

;)





Moving on.

So yeah, my afternoon is a lot like my morning. (Lunch was turkey sandwiches.) I print letters. I fold them. I print more. I come back to my desk and check my email. I talk to Foster about brochures, or Susan about editing, or Lori about the latest episode of Castle or Criminal Minds that we saw. (And work stuff.)

Very occasionally, we head over to Men for Missions land for Holy Hour. Every day at 10 and 3, they have break time. We all show up at random times. I don't go too often, but it's nice to get out of my building for awhile. (Don't worry, I leave letters printing while I'm eating cake.)


It's a good time of fellowship. It's also a good time to gain a new nickname.

No end-of-the-day hijinks today. I learned how to order toner for my machine - I felt powerful. It's the little things, you know?

Of course, now I have a problem. I'm out of Yellow toner and I still have a couple thousand letters to print. Here's hoping the toner arrives or I figure out another creative solution before Thursday when the letters get picked up.

5:20 - Quitting time.

I had a bit of a headache this evening. It happens a lot, and I don't help matters by staring at a computer screen all day.

Of course, when I got home, I immediately logged on to catch up on my British soaps. They are complete rubbish, and it's nice to not have to pay close attention to what is going on. Some of them are worse than the American soaps for dragging things out. I try to watch a wide variety so I can work on the various accents.

I like lazy evenings. It's a nice change of pace from the day.

And that's Tuesday.

Monday

Okay, sooo... It's been forever. I am aware of this. Like, hyper aware of this. And I feel terrible. I feel compelled to make it up to you. And really, the only way I can think of to do that is to do a post-bomb. Therefore, you are getting an exclusive look at my life here in Greenwood on a day-by-day basis.

I hope it's not too boring.

Monday

My week starts around 6:45 am. That's when my first alarm goes off. I keep two because I'm always afraid one won't go off. The alarm at 6:45 gets me out of the deep, not-aware-of-anything sleep. Theoretically, it makes it easier to wake up completely when my phone goes off at 6:55. Practically, I hit snooze until 7:10, 7:15 on a slow day. It takes me about 30 minutes to get ready for work. Then I hit the computer.

There are certain sites I check every morning. I read the next selection in the Chronological Bible Study I'm doing at the moment. I see if anything interesting has happened on Facebook. I check my home email and delete most of them. If it's urgent, I reply; if it's work, I forward it to my work email; if it's not urgent, but still needs attention, it usually sits in my inbox until I have more than five minutes to spare. I usually wait until my inbox hits 100 before I do something about it.

I walk to work between 8:15 and 8:30. It takes me about a minute to get from my apartment to my office unless I dawdle, which usually happens on a Monday. I set up my Mac and check phone messages while booting up my slower PC. The first thing I do every day is check my email. We have an internal system, so I check the posts in General Information, see what Prayer Requests have been added, and when all the flags are gone, I open my inbox.


I don't think I've told you about my new duties, yet. I recently took over the job of coordinating prayer letters. Missionaries send their prayer letters to me, I either edit or pass them on to be edited, I print enough letters for their prayer list, and I send the letters off to be stuffed. Sometimes, missionaries have special requests, so I do stuffing myself.

But I'm getting ahead of my week.

I have two email accounts I keep open all day. The first is my main work email. All of my previous duties are still part of my day, so I catch up from the weekend. This morning, I had about six emails from my boss about various things, including a need to print 17,000 response cards for a DML.

My second email account is for prayer letters. It's too confusing to keep track of everything if it's in one email, so we separated them. It also allows other people to access the email and work on letters when I'm not around.

I get as far as my inbox when 9:15 rolls around and my boss arrives. Every Monday morning, we either have a department meeting or a staff briefing.

This morning was a regular department meeting. Anyone who isn't traveling gathers together and catches up on each other's lives, work projects and future meetings and such. We give prayer requests and praises and then pray for about half an hour. We typically finish between 10 and 10:15.

Then it's back to the desk. Monday is all about organization. What do I need to do this week and when? This is usually dictated by emails or by things I've already scheduled on my calendar. I do short administrative tasks and organize until noon when Sarah Leckie reminds us to go eat.

I'll tell you about my team tomorrow.

Monday is the unofficial department lunch day. It's typically me, Foster, Susan and Lori, but the base group is often supplemented by others in our department, Lori's daughter or husband on occasion, or whomever we happen to pick up in the parking lot. We change venues frequently. Today was McDonald's because we all needed someplace inexpensive and quick. At lunch, we talk about life, work or whatever, and we laugh a lot. It's a nice break to a usually stressful day. Today we talked about the Christmas party. Communications is in charge of some entertainment, but we can't decide between a video and doing something live.

After lunch, I started working on prayer letters. I have to request the mailing list numbers for all of the letters being printed this week, and I have to figure out how many letters need to be printed. Five letters were edited on Friday by Celia, but another three have come in over the weekend, so I will have to edit those before printing begins.

I can tell how stressful my week is going to be mostly by the number of letters I have to print. Obviously, the more letters there are, the more time I need to devote to printing. During a typical week, I'll print 6-12 letters. Last week, I had 12 letters, which meant approximately 4500 pages to print and fold.

It's a lot to get used to.

I can't let letters take up all of my time, though. Throughout the day, I'm receiving more emails holding more requests for editing or video work or file conversions. Last week, I taped a short funding video for Dave and Jennifer Sherwood. They are funding to be missionaries in Mexico. I edited the video and sent it to them this afternoon. I also worked with a family who is sending a letter to the constituents of their mother who passed away in September.


Another huge part of my job is prayer cards. We send orders to the printer every other Monday, but I am always getting new orders. Foster designs the front of the card with the photo, but the inside is all mine. I have to coordinate photo shoots with Foster, orders with our printer and design with our missionaries. It can be a lengthy process, sometimes, but they always come out looking great! Fortunately, I'm caught up with orders this week.

Another video I worked on recently was for a missions conference at World Gospel Church in Terre Haute this weekend. I did all of the filming, which is something of which I've been wanting to do more along with photography. I still have a lot to learn, but we watched the video today, and it was pretty good.

I did a cartwheel in the hallway today. It was fun. :)

The end of the work day can get a little crazy, sometimes. We have been making suggestions all day about the Christmas video, some serious, some not, and Foster had a thought about including something like what SNL did back in the day, so we had to watch a couple sketches on YouTube. We work hard around here, and it's nice to take a break now and then to be fun and spontaneous.

If you're still with me by this point, I applaud you. My day sounds much more exhausting when I read through everything.

I left work today around 5:30. It varies from day to day, but not by much. Dinner was... unsatisfying. I tried something new, and it didn't quite work.

Overall, my evenings are pretty boring. I watch television or read. Tonight was Criminal Minds and Star Wars.

And that's it. That's my Monday. I hope you enjoyed it. Stay tuned for Tuesday.

October Radio

I'm actually quite proud of this month's spot. That's my boss on the loudspeaker, and Jason Campbell is playing Bill. I don't think I have a name in this. So we'll call me SwordGirl. 'Cause I'm awesome like that.