OMG MY CAMERA IS FIXED!!!!!!!!

      For a few days here this past week, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. I literally had nothing to do, all day, most days of the week. My phone is on it's last legs and I'm in a heated email exchange with the provider; my camera was broken; my laptop is too slow to work on my timelapse stuff; and none of my favorite shows start until later this month. Because I spent this past summer working my butt off, all day, every day, all summer, up and running around for 8 or 15 hours a day, when I suddenly have nothing to do, and no one to do it with, I get incredibly bored. A lot of you would say “Oh gee, free time, what a TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO-GOOD VERY BAD thing to have!” Well... when all of your hobbies involve photography, and your camera is broken, there's not a lot of options.

BUT NOW THAT'S ALL CHANGED!!!!!!!!!

          Yesterday, I decided to update our resources book, which has like 100 pages of homeless housing, hot meal options, Spanish-speaking resources, medical information, etc, etc. And it hasn't been updated in years and years. Some of the agencies don't even exist anymore, and a lot of the numbers have changed. Coming from a hospital, where everything is painstakingly updated yearly, if not monthly, it was a bit of a shock. And none of it has dates of insertion on it! I have no idea how old the papers are! Yvonne and Stephanie at the Clay Center Hospital business office would just have a STROKE if they could see it! So that's one thing I've been working on.

         I also received a big box of stuff from my parents – hangers, an alarm clock, a couple of dresses, and of course, a plastic pat of butter. Haha. They are so funny. I decided to start a computer class at the house for a few of our residents. I asked what they wanted to learn, and Maria said “Can you teach us how to use a mouse?” So I guess it'll be from step 1.

         Today was our bi-weekly team meeting, during which SSusan got frustrated because there are some things that we haven't been doing because we have no training manual for the house. So that's another thing I could work on. She also gave me some more stuff to do. A lady also stopped by and donated another computer, so now I have 3 that I can use for my class! She gave me an Excel project to work on, and that made me very happy, because I love Excel, and thanks to Yvonne and Stephanie, who made me do like 100s of Excels at the business office, I am an EXCEL MASTER.

          Some postcards also arrived for me, courtesy of Grace. They illustrate how to effectively parallel park, a technique which I have been avoiding as much as possible.  Aren't they just the CUUUUUUUTEST?!?!?!  If you send me cute postcards, I will feature them on this blog.

          AND BEST OF ALL MY CAMERA WAS FIXED TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DON'T HAVE TO USE A POINT AND SHOOT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!! I CAN GO TO CHURCH RETREAT WITH A RESPECTABLE PIECE OF PHOTOGRAPHIC EQUIPMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you know me well at all, all of those exclamation points can be pictured as me hopping on one foot and flapping my hands violently. If you don't know me well, then I guess I'm sure you'll see it at some point or another.

So I think I'll make it. My computer is still a slow piece of crap, my cell phone (or rather the provider) is still a giant d-canoe, and my shows still won't start until next week at the earliest, BUT MY CAMERA IS FIXED AND I HAVE THINGS TO DO. And that's the important part.