Nothing to Say

See ... this is what I mean. I've been sitting here thinking and thinking ... thinking about my day ... thinking about my evening with Max and NOTHING! I should have the exciting life everyone thinks I have. Really ... not so much!

What happened today?

I crawled out of bed and was promptly annoyed because it was about 1/2 hour too early. That meant that I had to immediately go to the bathroom, and there wasn't enough time to crawl back into bed. ...whine.

Today was newsletter day in my world. It is a huge pain in my backside to put that thing together. It's like this massive puzzle. None of the pieces actually match, I have to adjust them all to get them to fit together. Then, when I do finally get pieces together, I realize that I have one more article that needs to go in there ... or ... someone comes up with something at the last minute that absolutely HAS to be in this issue. If it's not there, the world might certainly end. And I'm always on a weird deadline because at 2:30 someone comes in to proofread the newsletter. I generally am ready for her, but not without skipping lunch and focusing on my computer for the previous 5 hours.

I'm awfully glad that the ministry directors don't come in to work on Mondays. I get so much work done when they aren't around. The newsletter is the most intense task I have, so I'm glad that it happens on Mondays when they're gone. Anyway ...

After I finished that project, I prepared a handout for Holly for the Small Group Leadership Seminar this evening. When I finished pulling that together, I made the copies for her and began assembling a Soul Seekers postcard that will go in the mail tomorrow. Printed the labels and the postcards and began jamming the labels on this afternoon.

I spent a little bit of time working on a process for reporting and measuring key metrics for the church. I'll spend more time on that tomorrow with Edna. We'll get the plan put together this week, present it to Dr. Delp and then proceed with the plan. I like thinking about those things. Forcing the left side of my brain to actaully process on linear issues. Pretty cool.

Two women from UMW stopped in to see me this morning. They had their executive board meeting today and were doing some planning to increase membership and some other cool things that group does. The president of UMW wanted to see if we could get a nice insert for the bulletin next Sunday. I was a little startled when she said she had been told that I might not 'allow' her to put an insert in the bulletin. Yikes! I've never made that type of decision. Nor have I ever insinuated that there would be a problem with doing that kind of advertising. I assured her that not only would we print the insert, but I would spend some time making it look really nice.

We have interesting reactions to the newsletter at this church. A year or so ago, they decided that they would simply go ahead and drop everyone off the mailing list if there was a legitimate email address. What we discovered this summer was that many people were not getting the newsletter and had no idea what was going on. Though they have email, they very likely don't take the time to read the newsletter online. When a piece of paper comes into the house, it is more likely to sit around and be read for a longer period of time. Bulk mailing for a non-profit organization is 11 cents per piece. That's some of the most inexpensive advertising out there. However, now I have people complaining about the fact that we are wasting paper (1.8 cents per 11 x 17 piece) and postage (11.3 cents per piece mailed). It occurs to me that 20 cents per newsletter (at the highest cost) is a very inexpensive way to reach out to our congregation. [off the soapbox, Diane]

Back to my day ... Max picked me up at 6:15 and we came home. I had leftover Lo Sole Mio's Pasta a la LoSole (Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken, artichoke hearts and mushrooms). Yummy! We talked for awhile about stupid stuff (oh, I'm sure you can imagine) and settled in to watch some pre-season football.

I'm a little tired of all of the conversation about Michael Vick. I'll give them today - he had his press conference today and the Falcons are playing a preseason game tonight. I'm just saying ... I'm tired of it. While he was watching that, I was reading and knitting again. I have a lot of things I'd like to finish up this year for Christmas gifts. There's a lot of yarn in this house and I do not feel like I can go buy more until I use up some of what I have. It's a LOT of yarn. I can't even express to you how much there is around here. Bad, bad Diane.

About 8:30, Max was sinking further and further into the sofa. I sent him up to bed. But, I hear that he has weird things playing on his computer. As for me, it's 9:00 and I'm about to crash on the couch.

So ... I had nothing to say - but, there's my life!