Another Good-bye

We've been having hot, hazy weather this week, and the rising sun has been beautiful every morning on the way to work. I stopped in the church parking lot to try to capture it today. It was prettier than this, but this will help me remember it.

Today we had another going-away party. Joann VanMeter decided to retire (I think she had toyed with the idea for some time), and we had a surprise farewell lunch for her today at noon. Matt Lockhart expressed the company's appreciation for her 14 years (I think that's the right number) of service, most recently (and most valuably) as our rights and permissions manager. Her skill and knowledge of the whole rights scene has grown with her years of experience. That, plus her knowledge and concern for our customers and contributors and her warm personality and ready laugh all combine to make us very sorry she's leaving.
But she's not the only one to go. A week ago Friday I treated the Magazines staff to lunch so that Shawn McMullen could tell them that he's been recommended by the elders of Lifespring Christian Church to become their senior minister. He'll preach trial sermons at Lifespring's various campuses this month, and if the elders' call is confirmed September 29, he'll begin at Lifespring November 1.

This follows a summer in which we lost Jared Alexander, Robb Faust, Zach Davis, Valaira Hoskins, and a couple of others I didn't know as well and whose names I've forgotten.
Someone came by my desk after lunch today, "You're not planning on leaving, are you?"
"Not planning on it," I said.

A Day in Winter, I Mean Spring

 

All afternoon and evening yesterday we kept returning to the Internet for weather updates and reports of massive snowfalls in Kansas and Illinois. Before we went to bed, the newsmen here were saying, "This is very difficult to predict. I'm not sure we'll see as much snow as we at first thought." They had at first thought about 5 inches for Butler County. But we awoke this morning to steady snow, but only an inch or two of wet, heavy snow on the ground. I drove Evelyn's car to Barnes automotive (that "Check Engine Light" came back on again last week), and Robb Faust gave me a ride from there to work.

We enjoyed something different at lunchtime. A cooking demonstration and talk about nutrition from two representatives from the culinary school that offers classes in the building across the courtyard from ours. The homemade spaghetti sauce over spaghetti squash was wonderful. I've never cooked a spaghetti squash before, but I want to try it. And he mixed broccoli slaw into the tossed salad, dressed with a homemade vinaigrette.
Soon after lunch I joined a few from Standard at Christ's Church at Mason to help with a video we were shooting there. It 's a training video that will be posted at standardpub.com to help users know how to use (and decide to use) Standard Lesson Commentary and Standard LessonQuarterly. My friend Jared Alexander needed some folks to pose as members of an adult Sunday school class for some "B-roll" shots.

We had fun trying to look like real Sunday school class members while joking and chattering with each other. It sounds simple, but we were there almost two hours. Stephanie Woeste asked me to read the brief intro for the video before we left.

Robb and I went to pick up my car at Barnes's, and I ran some errands before coming home.

It snowed all day long, but thankfully the warm highways and the air temperatures just above freezing kept it from sticking on the roads. Nevertheless, the scenes outside our windows all day long were from Christmas cards and not Easter catalogs.

Using Our Noodles

My best days are a mixture of meetings and desk time, and by that measure today was a fine day.
Three meetings--all of them productive and positive, at least generally so. And Robb Faust and I went out for lunch. (I like going out for lunch; it really does help me be more productive in the afternoon. But I don't like taking the time or spending the money every day.)
Meanwhile, I prepared copy for our weekly e-newsletter and wrote a draft of my column that must be posted tomorrow. I got a big boost on that task from Ben Cachiaras's blog post that he copied and e-mailed to me Monday. I'm going to quote a big batch of it. Thanks, Ben!
We're making some progress, and I'm feeling good about that.
Tomorrow I have one meeting, and a phone conference with Paul Williams. Those will be nice breaks in the long list of editorial tasks, article assigning, and correspondence I need to do as well.

Tonight we had leftover chicken and noodle soup for supper. Evelyn made it fresh to greet me Sunday night when I got home from Orlando. Jennifer had shared the recipe with her, and we agree: it's yummy!
"You're going to take a picture of leftovers?" Evelyn said as I snapped this one just before we sat down to eat.
"Yep."
Enjoy your giggle, Bob Wallace.
If some reader would like to try our discovery, here's the link to the soup recipe:
http://www.creativelydomestic.com/2010/10/guest-post-crockpot-chicken-and-noodle.html.

Bravo for Brava!

Needed to go to the Post Office today at lunchtime, so I asked Robb Faust if he wanted to go with me and grab some lunch. He needed to go to the Post Office, too, and hadn't brought his lunch. So we had a plan. We ate at Fiesta Brava, a Mexican place on Fields Ertel that we had tried once before. I was reading reviews of the place on the web while I was looking for a picture. It's amazing how the same restaurant can be rated "disgusting" by one person while another says he loves it and eats there every week.
I doubt I'll eat there every week, but I WILL eat there again. I like it!
Had a good meeting with Mark Haas today to make art and design decisions about our March Christian College issue. It was productive and encouraging. We're going to finish up tomorrow with him. Had a long list of to-dos and was able to cross most of them off, including writing some letters in return to letters that have been sitting on my desk--dare I say it?--for months!
Evelyn worked at the Healing Center tonight, and I had brought my lunch to work today. So I ate it for supper!
Tomorrow is the last day of the first week I've worked all week in a long time!

A Nice Break from Desk Work

The unique thing today was a morning-long work day Robb Faust hosted to pack info bags for VBS previews. He had a thousand of 'em to pack, and he recruited helpers from Editorial, Marketing, and Customer Service to do the work. 

"I Help Change Kids' Lives! is the caption
on the bags we filled today.

It was the sort of mindless, rote task that is nice for a change of pace, satisfying because you can see your progress as the bags are filled, the boxes are packed, and the stacks of samplers and circulars are diminished.

Robb and I get to lunch every so often, and we went to Abuelo's today to celebrate his getting the job done several hours faster than he thought he would.

Relentless

Proof sheets for our December
issue were spread out for
final checks before we sent it
to the printer yesterday.

When I first started with Christian Standard, one day Ruth Davis brought me a proof, and I looked up, surprised, and she said, "Relentless, isn't it?"
I might have thought the move to monthly from weekly would have relieved that a bit, but not really. Yesterday we sent the December issue to the printer, and I've spent every free minute this week editing the January issue. I'm still not finished, and I'm not sure I'll finish in the half day I'm working tomorrow.   This is the fifth monthly issue we will have done, and I've been surprised each time at how much material we're publishing in each one and how much time it takes to complete each step of the publishing process.
For a nice break today, I took Robb Faust to lunch to celebrate his 40th birthday. It's today, and I didn't know it till he sent around a note inviting us to have snacks. We went to one of his (and my) favorite places--Abuelo's. Oh, those enchiladas are good, and the guacamole too!
We're scurrying around getting ready for a weekend of company, all associated with the alumni weekend at CCU starting tomorrow. It will be fun!

The Grass Is Always Greener . . .

The grass is always greener . . . when you pay a guy to dump fertilizer on it, when he spreads gypsum and lime and then aerates and adds grass seed. THEN the grass gets greener. And as I was mowing tonight, just 5 days since Evelyn mowed it while I was gone this weekend, I was looking closely at the neighbors' grass so I could feel good about all the money I'm pouring onto my lawn. The issue, of course, isn't just GREEN. It's green-ER. No pride here, of course, it's just a desire to upgrade the environment, you know.
Anyway, while I was mowing, I looked carefully at the lawn just beyond my driveway, and I felt a slight sense of satisfaction because I do believe that one neighbor, at least, has a yellow tinge to his lawn that I'm just not seein' in mine.
Of course several days in a row of steady rain hasn't hurt anybody's lawn, and I have to admit that a quick drive through our neighborhood shows everyone's lawn looking a lot like spring.
We had a 70-plus degree afternoon today, with green lawns under trees turning gold and maroon, and it was just beautiful. I even enjoyed mowing the lawn!

I got out of the office at lunchtime, because my buddy Robb Faust needed someone to pick him up from the car rental office after he returned the Toyota he drove to the NACC meeting this week. I was glad to be in the warm autumn air. But tomorrow I think I'll stay in all day.

Catching the Vibe

Something different for lunch today. A healthy shake at Vibe Nutrition in Loveland. Robb Faust took us after Sarah Mitchell had invited him to have the Vibe experience several weeks ago. The shakes are good--available in about 10 or 12 different flavors, full of protein, and only  225--or is it 250?--calories. It was tasty and filling. And it was a great day to stand in the sun on the Loveland Bike Trail and sip our shakes.

Robb took me, Sheryl Overstreet, and Abby Haynes (a new employee at CFM), and as you can see, we had fun!

The Meetings of Mine

The chronicle of my day can be reported in all the meetings I attended:

6:00—Thursday-morning men's Bible study at the church. We studied Romans 13 and grappled with how a Christian responds to a government that may require immoral or unbiblical actions, and what it means to be "clothed with Jesus."

8:30—Meeting with several decision makers to consider options for digital versions of Christian Standard. We're getting close to some exciting options.

10:00—Conference call with Robert Welsh and Doug Foster to discuss the meetings of the Stone-Campbell Dialogue group in Dallas this November.

11:45—Quick lunch and a run to  Staples with Robb Faust.

2:00—Performance Management Training, led by our VP of Human Resources, Tina Macon. (She posed for a picture before the workshop started, and let me get away without her signing a release!)

3:30—Weekly one-on-one meeting with my boss, Matt Lockhart, VP of Product Development at Standard Publishing.

In between all this I arranged for meals at the NEXT conference for young leaders that's happening in Irvine later in March, handled some correspondence, and sorted copy and pictures from Kent Fillinger  for three issues in May: Megachurches, Large Churches, Medium-Sized Churches.

Then I headed home after 5:00. Decided on a whim to snap the view from my car of the crowded intersections just outside our office building. I live only 12+ miles from work, but most evenings it takes me a good 35 minutes to get home.

 Tomorrow I have only one meeting scheduled so far. Actually, I don't do well with a whole day at my desk by myself. But a whole day with meetings can make it a little difficult to get anything else done. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Buddies

Susan Shearburn's last day at Standard Publishing was today. She had worked with us for 11 years as receptionist and then in Customer Service. All of us appreciated her pleasant demeanor, ready smile, and spirit to help. She's taking early retirement to take care of her husband who received a difficult diagnosis just a few weeks ago. We're going to miss her, and from her tears today, I'd say she'll be missing many of us too. We're praying for you and your husband, Susan!

Robb Faust is an assistant brand manager at Standard Publishing and a good friend. We went to lunch today (can you tell where?), and it was a good time. Beautiful sunshine, warm temperature, and lots to talk about.

All the tests say I'm an extrovert, energized by interaction with people. I was feeling lots of energy today!