Busy Friday at the Office!
Yes, I do know about the shooting that happened this morning -- and I think it's awful. But I'm not going to dwell on it here. I think that's something I'll discuss another time. Let's just say there is terrible evil in this world -- and this was an act of evil. I agree with Marilyn who says it's not about mental illness. We know mentally ill people and just because someone is mentally ill it doesn't mean they're going to go out and KILL someone... Anway, that's all for now about the subject...
Wow. Today was a very, very busy Friday at the festival office! I couldn't get everything I wanted done, no matter how hard I tried...
As a matter of fact, I was so busy early on that I didn't even hear about the shooting right away. If you're in meetings and so on, it's sometimes difficult to know what's going on in the world. Sister Sue phoned right away to make sure we knew, though (thanks, Sue!).
I did get to see cousin Linda in the afternoon -- and we took time to walk over and get coffee at Starbucks and chat for a few (quick!) minutes. She'd never seen my workspace/cube at the office before, which was a real surprise to me! I didn't realize I'd never had her upstairs before, so we did go up there very briefly.
I gave her some of the stuff Marilyn and I had for her, which included a bath set for Christmas and her bottle of booze that we got her for the birthday BEFORE last (2011, in other words). Hard to believe we'd never given it to her before now! We also had a bunch of clothes for her and some purses and bags and stuff. She took along what she could manage to carry today, and is coming back next week to get the rest. (It was a HUGE box full of bags of stuff, so I'm not surprised she couldn't take everything with her today.)
In the morning I worked on signing New Year cards (our Staff did those in place of Christmas cards this year). It takes a long time to sign 750 cards! Anyway, I did spend some of the time listening to Christmas music on my iPod, considering I couldn't do anything else while signing! That was nice.
I had to try and be quiet upstairs (where my work area is located) today, as the Auditors were working in the upstairs conference room, which is right near me. (There are no solid walls upstairs blocking off areas.)
In the afternoon Donn came in and we did a bunch of IT work that needed to be done. It took hours, and I still had more to do after Donn left... Donn also brought a lovely Christmas gift to Marilyn and me: A bamboo cutting board that he'd made! It's so lovely that we're thinking we'll use it as a serving tray and avoid actually cutting on it -- we just don't want to spoil the pretty wood. I had a bottle of wine and an ornament for him and Denise. Not much, but I did want them to have something. (I left the same on my desk for Kris, who is hoping to get by tomorrow to pick it up.)
Aside from IT and signing cards, I also made some website changes, put up a News item and sent the Year-End Appeal for RHSAA (which we originally sent as our November eNewsletter -- and re-sent today with some minor tweaking).
I did speak briefly with Jeff so I could make sure he understood my feelings about his reaction to Donn's work last weekend. Jeff came in unexpectedly on Saturday while Donn was working on the front desk. Jeff was questioning the project -- so Donn texted me about it. Anyway, Jeff apologized today, so all is well now...
Sue B. was there today, too -- and she had a pile of stuff for Marilyn and me. This included decorations for our tree at the beach, Christmas gifts and even PILLOWS (!!!) in our beach Christmas colors. She just can't stop herself from buying things, even when we agree not to exchange gifts...
This year Marilyn and I are doing very few Christmas gifts. With the second house expenses added to our normal finances, we're pretty tight right now. We'll mainly give to our neighbors here and at the beach, and that's about it... Normally we also give to the Staff, but we're skipping it this year.
Today Carol gave gifts to everyone, which I thought was wonderful of her. And I had a Starbuck's gift card from Rich, too. I was actually in tears at one point, just feeling so lucky to work with the special people at the festival.
I did finally call Charold and thank her for both our Christmas calendars and the birthday gift she gave me. I miss her now that she's not on the board anymore -- and told her again how much I love her and her husband Rich.
Steven's temporary computer is in place and set up -- so hopefully he'll be fine until Donn is able to either fix or replace his computer (which is messed up). The computer was a new purchase in 2012, so it's under warranty. But we're hopeful it won't come to replacement and can be fixed, instead. Hopefully we'll know by next week.
The temporary computer is a donated rebuild, but it seems to be decent. He's got the CAD and other software on it, so he should be good to go (fingers crossed).
I learned something NEW today! Sometimes when you move a Profile from one computer to a different one, Outlook email doesn't roam to the new location. I've never known how to fix this, so I've always had Kris do it for me. Today he started to explain the process -- and even walk me partway through it. And now I think I could fix the issue if it happened again. (woo hoo)
Yeah, I did have to phone Kris and he logged on via Ammyy.com (which works like a charm, by the way). (For the record, I've also effectively used TeamViewer, which is Open Source Remote Support and Remote Access.) It was nice to talk to Kris, whom I haven't spoken to recently.
Marilyn and I were at work until after the janitorial people had come and gone. When Marilyn is getting ready to take two weeks off, she has loads to do to be ready to be away, so no worries there. We got home around 9:00-ish and finally had dinner around 10:00...
I'm probably forgetting things that happened today, but I'm beat and ready for a nap! So I'll head off to read my latest romance book (!!!) on my Kindle.