New Year Brings New Changes
One more year is almost over and, once again, we mighty media geeks at our much loved little newspaper have made it through and we’re headed toward the new year with a new face, excitement and greatness on the horizon.
We are a once-a-week county paper and we also produce a TMC piece every week (in addition to magazines and brochures … blah, blah blah, blah blah). At Christmas time and Thanksgiving we do double and sometimes triple duty to get several issues out back to back so that we can take a little time off during the holidays to be with our families. This year was no different … EXCEPT we’ve added a complete office move in the mix.
Tomorrow is our absolute last day in our old office. Cleve, Cathy, Analisa and I finished up the last paper tonight that will be produced in that old hole. I use the term “old hole” loosely. It is pretty horrible but we’ve endured and even thrived there for the past seven years. The paper itself has been there for many, many years … we’ve only been there for seven.
I guess, for me, it’ll be bitter/sweet when it’s all said and done. If any of my co-workers heard me say that, they’d think I was crazy. Truth is, I’m very sentimental and even the strangest of situations can bring a tear to my eye. After all, it was in that old building that my life changed … for the better. It’s in that building that I’ve shared more belly laughs that I can count and it’s there that I learned the value of friendships among people I’m with day in and day out. It was also there that I learned how to have more patience than I ever thought I could possibly have. Even though we never knew if the toilet was going to work or if the roof was going to leak nor did we ever figure out what the scratching noise in the wall was … that old, horrible newspaper office has been good to us.
We’ve seen a lot of people come and go through our doors … some we’ve never seen again and some are still very much a part of our lives and hearts.
Tomorrow, we’ll walk through new doors and enter into a new year looking forward to new experiences … facing the future eagerly and with enthusiasm. I am truly blessed to have the good fortune to be surrounded by some of the best and most talented people I’ve ever known.
God bless our little paper and if, for some reason, we stray from our beliefs and “doing the right thing” isn’t our top priority anymore, snap us back to reality and help us back on our feet again.
Tomorrow will be a long, hard day.
Greater Things are just a Move Away …
After an emergency trip to the Apple store in Charlotte right before Christmas, Cleve walked out with one of the new, black MacBooks … sweet.
Although I know it’ll be awhile before I can get a new laptop, I’ve been eyeing the black one and also the MacBook Pro. I’m not sure which one would be better plus I’m used to an iBook.
I’m excited about the new Intel processors and also the ability to partition the harddrive so that you can run Windows on one of them. Ok … I said it … yes, it would be nice. I’m not saying I want to work on a PC but simply because I have to use a PC at work when I do bookkeeping and that’s only because we have to use what Corporate uses. It’d be nice to not have to use two computers. Everything else we do at the paper is done on a Mac, of course 
.
Speaking of the paper … our new place of business is just about finished. It looks fantastic! We’re going to start moving some boxes in today. There was a frenzy of going through and throwing away and boxing up yesterday. It was fun coming across tools and stuff we used in the newspaper business not so long ago like border tape, exactos and rollers. Ahhhh, those were the days … of grid paper and wax machines, pasting up and stripping in, cutting color and using border tape and after it was all pasted up, giving it a good roll with the roller. We did have fun back in the day when the production department was a flurry of activity on deadline day.
Cleve’s going to display some of those cherished relics in one of his windows in the new place. How appropriate.
Although I am thankful to God for even waking up this morning, I do not look forward to my day today. We should be completely moved in Friday. The phones will be turned over then and we can start sorting through our work lives that have somehow been reduced to a few boxes temporarily.
I love my work. They say that printer’s ink gets in your blood. I believe it.
God bless
Christmas 2006
Well, Christmas 2006 is almost over … 6 hrs, 10 min left.
Ours was uneventful and blessed. Joe and Rachel came for a very brief visit to be with us this Christmas and they left around noon today to make the trek back to Alabama through all the rain and storms around and about. We all webcamed with Skye and Spencer for quite awhile the past couple of days which was GREAT! Looks like they were blessed this Christmas as well.
We spoke with family in Arkansas and Texas. It’s so nice that pieces of our family were able to be with each other. We were all pretty scattered this year.
On a sadder note … I talked to my friend Barbara this evening. She has had cancer for a few years and is coming, I’m afraid, to the end of her life here in this world. Her doctor has given her less than six months to live and she’s struggling through her last precious months.
I am constantly amazed at her positive attitude and acceptance of what her life has been dealt. She’s such a strong soul and one, I am sure, that will be in heaven when it’s all said and done.
I always say that during my times of trouble and deep pain that I’ll be as strong as my friend. Truth is, I don’t know that to be fact. All I can do is have faith, and lots of prayer, that God is in control.
I’ve learned a lot and have grown spiritually over the past three years. I am deeply grateful to God and the people (whether they were a good or bad influence) who changed my life forever.
“Chin up, Barbara. You have great things to look forward to. Those of us who are left behind will be the ones who are hurting.”
Home for the Holidays
I am forever amazed at how much I jump around from one thing to the next. My first post here I had doubted that I would keep the current posting up and I was right.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but if I did, mine for this year would be to keep my blog more current and work on our family website ….
Ok … having said all of that ….
It’s Christmas weekend and all is well. Joe and Rachel are here (still in bed at this time after a late night of drinks and talking). We’re so glad they were able to come even if it is for a very short weekend. It’s been a year since they’ve come to visit. Amazing how “jobs” change your life . When everyone gets up we’ll do Christmas today instead of tomorrow. They’ll be traveling back home then.
Spencer and his family are doing well and doing the Christmas thing this weekend. Orie is Buddhist, Spencer is Christian so I urge him every year to tell the Christmas story to Skye. I wish we could see them. Sometimes it makes me ache I miss them so much.
Our new office is coming along. We’ll move, God willing, next weekend. There are some excited people around our office. It’ll be a good change.
Alright … I’m going to rally the troops here. For all intents and purposes it’s Christmas morning here and it just ain’t fittin’ that people are still sleeping at 9:30 a.m.
God bless…
… And yet, another blog
I can’t help myself. Not being satisfied with any blog I’ve had so far seems to be an issue with me. Maybe I can give due diligence to this one. Somehow I doubt it.
