2017-03-11 - 2:54 a.m.

Last month I was very proud of myself that while I did not get a newsletter out as early in the month as I liked, I also worked on it on a Saturday for a change from 10 AM to 2pm.
YES it took me a whole four hours.
YES that was twice as long as the prior months in which I was pleased I had been more efficient.
Ce la vie..
I have to look through old meeting minutes, and e-mails and search for information on line for our supporting business partners etc.. etc...
I have to draft an article, and then modify pictures with too high pixels.
I have to turn back on my computer which randomly shuts itself off, or freezes, or pops apart at its seams (since at one point my darling daughter removed all its small screws in some computer "improvement" moment.)

The screw of course are lost.

Stripped some fell out.
Others never made it back in the encasing holding together the hardware.

I have to shimmy the cord in JUST the right way so the battery charges.

I have to go do other things after the battery dies from not being connected just right, then come back to the task after the frustration and moment of lacking of power and energy passes.

So tonight I made a call just to make conversation and pass that time while the near dead battery (3% energy left!) recharged. It was meant to recharge me as well and worked a bit. The nap after a while also rejuvenated.

Tonight I also felt compelled to then also do some training for my other volunteer gig of master gardener.

The day of the car key falling in a toilet with autoflush was one I was working from home and I INTENDED to take my lunch hour to go to a training for the EMGs (new lingo mandates we are now called "Extension Master Gardeners" to emphasize the Virginia Cooperative Extension connection.) I figured I would go catch that and work later... well that plan was soiled.

So I did rock and roll and get a lot done tonight after I stopped working at 5pm. I was up and on line at 8AM with a brief break to visit a drugstore to pick up medicine for my daughter who has a cold and drop off medicine at her school.

So work has been very good. Productive and valued and I asked for a substantial raise and received it. (Still paid only about 1/2 of what the agency gets for my labor. Ce la vie... Actually sadly LESS than half as I inadvertedly came across the project plan that included that info as I was learning all I could about this project.)

But still, a 20% raise is a 20% raise. I know I could actually go elsewhere and get a 25% raise over what I am making now NOT EVEN KIDDING...
But I am staying where I am because I really enjoy it , am learning much there (and its a great place to learn. They give SPACE to learn!)

SQL is on my TO DO list. Just basic skills ,not to master it, but to understand it enough to be able to look at the queries run and find them intelligible.

Mastering advanced Excel is also on my list.

Funny to be working Operations . Last thing I ever EXPECTED to be doing and ENJOYING.

User Testing is something I do very much enjoy!

So work of late has been fun for me as I get to be the last tester on the end to end tests of a new system.

That is rather cool actually.

FUN
And I am not kidding... and I believe everyone really should be having fun at work at some point (or perhaps they are in the wrong line of work for him/herself and should figure out what they would ENJOY doing!)

I just like learning new things and take pride at doing whatever I have opportunity to do as well as I can.

SO tonight , after a few very busy weeks (Actually a very busy MONTH) during which I had a few marketing meetings and helped volunteers get organized (wrote a phone script for donations; a marketing letter edited; did what I could...set up meetings; wrote emails about Marketing meetings which took way longer than they SHOULD...)
The good news is the volunteer group I am doing marketing for met our fundraising goal!

That was cool.
And we sold MANY more Ads than typical.
That was an accomplishment.

I kinda sat on this role for a while coasting until I had met some personal goals (like run the marathon! I THOUGHT I was going to pass the bar and be a legal advisor for this group!)
The other good news is we have recruited a lawyer to join the board! YAH THAT role is filled!
I can help as needed and that makes me feel MUCH Better as without having passed the bar I could only give business advice. So now it is GREAT that we have a lawyer on our team to formulate actual legal advice!

That distinction had to always be considered...

Now won't have to worry about that anymore.

I do think it somewhat funny I missed the last board meeting and the President said she would like someone to take over the contracts. I suppose she forgot I am a contract manager. Funny as it would make more sense to leverage me in that regard than have me take care of marketing, but you know, Marketing, although a pain in the butt for the volume of work, might be more interesting in the end. Contract management would be rather boring and simple frankly and we don't have that many contracts to manage anyway.

So I think I am content doing what I am doing as it requires me to push myself to continue to grow beyond my comfort zone. I pretty much avoided the responsibility of this for a while as it was intimidating. Everything from figuring out the email and marketing application tools to finding vendors to provide marketing materials takes TIME which was something I didn't seem to have enough of. There are a few people who have done this for YEARS, so I said I would help out and take over but for a while they just kept doing it all (Except for the newsletter).

With a team of 15 volunteers, they really rocked and affected great improvement in picking up our marketing!

So now it is just after 3AM. I stared this tonight around 6pm, worked until 7pm when battery died, talked on phone while taking a razor to the top of my ceramic cook top stove scraping and cleaning it, then started on this again at 8pm ,but quickly transitioned to EMG training from about 8 to 9:30, then around 10 pm started again and finished at 3 AM. DAMN this takes me a LONG time to create a newsletter.

The guy that did the newsletter before used to complain that he felt underappreciated and no one had a clue how much work it is. I get it. He was correct, but the fact he never showed up to a meeting contributed to that!

I might just find another volunteer to take over the newsletter. But for now, having two new web masters is a HUGE accomplishment!

Off to bed.
Super late, but super satisfied that I got it done!

�

�