December

I have long been of the opinion that church office equipment has a sensor that alerts it to the busiest times of the year, and that is when it breaks down.  Yes, it is more than a little paranoid, but it does seem to be an accurate depiction of the situation.  My cell phone had been giving me trouble.  It was almost 2 years old, and the battery life, which was never good, had gotten even worst.  Yesterday morning it began turning itself off.  It still had over half a battery, yet it would just turn off.  I pulled the battery to reset it, but that didn't help.   After the third time, I decided that I needed to replace it now. 

I spent most of the morning in the company phone store.  I was able to transfer the upgrade on Daughter's phone to mine, but it was still expensive.  Then, when I left, I discovered they'd put Daughter's line on it.  I went back, and they got it right.  I knew what I wanted when I went in, and I got there when it opened, but it took time. 

I arrived back at the church and got busy.   I had decided that I wanted to delete a number of contacts before syncing my computer and phone, so after I finished several tasks, I started on that.  Then I tried to sync.  I couldn't get it to work.  I had to stop to go teach a class, and when I got home, I tried again with different software.  At one point I had a dialogue box that was moving whenever my mouse got near it.  It would vanish off the edge of the screen.  I finally restarted the computer, and tried again.  After 3 more hours, of trying, I gave up.  None of the trouble shooting suggestions I could find on line were working. 

This morning was the planning meeting for Daughter.  It went very well.  After Christmas I'm going to go check out a possible home for her.  Case Manager is compiling a list of problems with her current home, and it is a long list.  It sounds like the agency is building a case.  Staff only earns minimum wage, and they will tell the director that they are waiting for her to fire them so they can go collect unemployment....  Daughter had several stories, including that on several occasions staff has left residents in the van with the van running while they go in to various homes/stores on a personal errands.  House Manager acknowledged that there are staff members who don't measure her food if she isn't there to supervise. 

While I'm fighting with electronics and dealing with Daughter's needs, Administrative Assistant  is losing things.  After losing a piece of music earlier this week, she started putting current items in a file folder.  Today she lost the file folder. 

Treasurer is fighting the budget, and is frustrated with some mistakes he made in his calculations last year.  He spent several hours today trying to find the worksheets from last year so he could figure out where he made his mistake.  He hates making mistakes, and was very frustrated when he came in to talk to me late this afternoon.  I reminded him that as humans we make mistakes, and it's okay.

We've also had a steady stream of visitors this week.  People want to talk.  December is hard for many people, and they end up at the church to do something else and then come in to talk. 

Fortunately, we know all of this and so we work ahead.  We have all the bulletins for the month pretty much done.  They just need some minor tweaking and announcements will need to be updated.  Next week we're going to have an office Christmas lunch.  That will be fun.  I'll try to get most of the work done on the last three sermons of the month.  Beginning Christmas Day, the office will be closed until January 2.  January will be another busy month, and I am looking forward to it.  I love my life, even when the electronics are out to get me.