Treats for a Birthday

Quote of the Day: Even when we choose wisely and well, we still must live in a world that dreads death, fears disease, and vainly tries to hide from disaster. Two bad decisions, Eve’s and Adam’s, have left us longing for Eden but trapped on a planet characterized by travail.
—"Living with the Lie," my column at christianstandard.com, posted today.

Picture of the Day:
Today was Sheryl Overstreet's birthday. We celebrated by taking her to her choice of lunch spots, which today was Cracker Barrel. I hope she enjoyed her french toast, because I thought the Tuesday lunch special meatloaf was great!
Sheryl decided to bring a wonderful assortment of her favorite snacks for her office birthday treat, and I persuaded her to pose by the spread after we got back from lunch.

A Team to Thank

Diane, Lori, and Sheryl were first through the food line.

Today is Administrative Professional's Day, and Carla Johns in our office decided it would be fun to have a big spread of food to honor the three admins in Editorial and Magazines. So she distributed cards that we all signed, we got small gift cards and colorful bouquets, and I wrote a song that four of us sang to Diane Jones-Dunham, Sheryl Overstreet, and Lori Davis. 

The tune is (generally!) "If You Were the Only Girl in the World, and the words went like this:

1

If you were the only admins in the world,

And we were the only bosses . . .

We’d still have no fear, ‘cause you’d be right here;

You work like a team of hosses!

You pay all the bills and keep Accounting glad;

You keep going on, Elan won’t drive you mad!

Computers can’t rile you; you have such style, you

Work like a team of hosses!

 2

If you were the only admins in the world,

We wouldn’t be in a bind.

We’d still give you tasks, and you’d never ask

If we’d lost our bloomin’ minds!

Peter, Mark, and Margo have become your friends.

If you weren’t here, we know our lives would end!

Deadlines can’t throw you, we always know you

Work like a team of hosses!

 3

Problems with the warehouse or the U.S. mail—

They won’t make you grouse or let your products fail.

Our mission’s secure, you always endure;

You work like a team of hosses!

A colleague wrote me an e-mail after the party. "Thanks. It was good to laugh again!"

Morale-building, some moments of fun, LOTS of good food, and three worthy administrative assistants thanked: I'd say we did pretty well for one day!

A Birthday at Betta's

What's more fun than a new restaurant? Jim Nieman introduced most of us to Betta's Italian Oven close to Xavier University for his birthday lunch today. It's very fine!
The sign in the window proclaims, "The best pizza in Cincinnati," an award bestowed at least once by Cincinnati Magazine. I don't know if I would have labeled it the best, but the margherita pizza I had for lunch was really good. The pizzas are cooked in a wood-fired oven. They have one size and style: 10-inches, thin and crispy crust.
When the waitress brought it to the table, I thought, Well, I'll be taking half of this home. But I managed to eat the whole thing! It's in a part of town I never get to, but sometime I'll make a point of going there just to try something else on their menu!

Sheryl Overstreet, Jim Nieman, Mark Taylor, Shawn McMullen, and Mike Helm
enjoying Betta's for Jim's birthday!

Spent most of the day working on the March issue, which goes to the printer next week: Read proof and talked on the phone to get quotes from Christian college presidents for the editorial I hope to write for that issue. Spent most of my time after supper this evening studying for our men's group's first study in Revelation Thursday morning. I'm so glad I have Matt Proctor's articles, Part One and Part Two, on Revelation as a help to get us started!

Happy Birthday, Jim!

Today was managing editor Jim Nieman's 50th birthday. We knew it was his birthday, but we didn't realize it was the Big One (or, from my vantage point, one of the Big Ones) till yesterday when he casually mentioned he would be 50.
We decided this needed more than the passing birthday wish, and we moved into high gear to make the day special. Sheryl Overstreet brought all kinds of "50" decorations, we resurrected "Happy Birthday" banners from storage, and we brought goodies to put out a spread so the whole office could join the celebration. Sheryl gave him 50 Tootsie Roll Pops (one of his favorites), Diane gave him 5 sleeves of 10 Oreo cookies, and I gave him a bag of 50 mixed chocolate snacks (Reese's cups, Butterfingers, and Hershey miniatures). (I'm investigating acne medicine and weight-loss entrees as possible Christmas gifts.)
He was gone all morning (took his daughter to the doctor) and arrived right at noon, just in time for us to put out the snacks as add-ons to lunches.
Jim is easygoing, low-key, steady, and dependable, but he was full of smiles this afternoon. I think we helped make his birthday happy, and that made us happy too!
Our usual tradition is to go out to celebrate a staff member's birthday, and I pick up the tab for that person as well as myself. Jim's day will be Monday, so the celebration will continue.

Find the Mark

Took two carloads of my coworkers to lunch today--all of them colleagues in our magazines work at Standard Publishing. Forgot to ask the waitress to take our picture, but I got the folks to pose for a picture outside the restaurant, Ferrari's Little Italy in Madeira. Then one of them, our Creative Services Director, Mark Haas, told me to jump into the frame and he snapped a second picture. He offered to Photoshop me into the first picture, but it's easier just to post both pix here. :-)

The lunch was a fun and tasty interruption to a productive planning day Paul and I enjoyed. Tomorrow I'm going to try to follow up on all of the ideas and assignments I've jotted down as a result.

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!

Good People, Important Work, a Beautiful Day

Sheryl and Diane were game to pose for me this morning.
Two great ladiesI get to work with every day!

We started the day at work with a very small celebration. I brought in a box of Dunkin' Donut donut holes to celebrate the return of Diane Jones to the office after her honeymoon. Now she's Diane Jones-Dunham.  Sheryl Overstreet had been out some last week, tending to her husband, Ed, who had a pacemaker installed Thursday. So today everyone in the Lookout and Christian Standard staff was back at one time. Seemed to me like a good enough reason to eat donuts, don't you agree?

Tomorrow is our second deadline on a new production schedule for The Lookout and Christian Standard. We're giving four issues at one time to the printer, who will print and mail them all at one time. We had been mailing issues two at a time. Printing and mailing four at a time really saves on postage, and postage is every periodical publisher's big concern these days.

Our managing editor, Jim Nieman, already turned in one of this week's four issues last week. Yesterday he uploaded the second of the four, our April 8 issue in which we invite several church leaders to weigh-in on the attractional vs. missional discussion. I'm looking forward to seeing how readers respond.

Today he uploaded the April 15 issue, which examines the idea of elder governance, an adaptation of the Policy Governance model that some corporations and volunteer boards have adopted. It, too, should prompt some helpful discussions.

For the record, today ended in the high 70s, a glorious, sunny, summerlike day. As I left the parking lot today, I saw some guy, evidently from another office in the building, kneeling by a bed of daffodils to take a picture. I smiled and felt like less of a nerd for doing the same thing several days in the last week.