I needed some good refreshing time off after the stress of Lent and Holy Week. During Lent we had two services per week that I had to publish bulletins for on top of the regular duties of running the office and then during Holy Week, four bulletins and more prints/bulletin for each of them meaning a lot more time goes into the printing/collating/folding/stapling process.
Granted, I print directly from the computer to our digital color copier, but each bulletin is a three step process in the print jobs alone. First the cover page needs to be printed all alone. Then I flip those over and print the ONE color page (two when folded, but whatever...) Then I place those back in the bottom tray and then print the remaining pages and set the printer to use the cover sheet but not print on it. It obviously prints collated for me but will then in the finisher fold and staple. It sounds all great and hands-off, but it's not. First of all, I can only do it in batches of 50 because anymore than that the printer gets too warm and then the pages start jamming... mostly just fake sensor errors but it still beeps and stops working. And then the finisher tray only holds about 20 bulletins +/- because it's "full" and the entire process stops and it beeps. So every 10 - 15 minutes I have to walk around my desk, head into the copy room and remove the bulletins so the thing will continue printing. That's almost as bad as standing over it or doing the actual work. The good thing is that I *CAN* work on editing the next bulletin or crunch numbers or answer the phone without the majority of the bulletin work stopping like it would if I had to do the manual labor of collate/fold/staple myself. So essentially, the process for each bulletin saves about 2 hours per week. Thing is, I have enough work to keep me busy during the weeks we have just one bulletin to produce.
Christmas is nearly as bad, but not quite because Advent is only 4 weeks as opposed to 6 of Lent and the week of Christmas there are only Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to worry about rather than Maundy Thurs, Good Fri, Easter Sunrise and Easter Festival. And with Easter coming so soon this year, I only had the month of January to decompress from Advent/Christmas and attempt to catch up on filing. Of course during this time I also had to assist our bookkeeper in gathering information and double checking figures on folks we needed to send 1040s to... not to mention ordering stuff for the upcoming Lent and Easter season. So I had been thinking all along that maybe I can squeeze a few days off right after Easter instead of the regular Monday day off and maybe on additional being Tuesday. So I asked, and I received, yay!
I wanted to take a whole bunch of photos and practice my photography skills. I learned a lot about what NOT to do, lol. I was disappointed the filters for the lenses I ordered did not come on the Friday before Easter, so I think that maybe the pictures would have been even better, but then again, maybe not. I don't know that much about using them yet.
I had big plans to hit Death Valley, Mojave National Preserve, Joshua Tree National Monument, Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve and Carizzo Plain National Monument. On Saturday before Easter I decided Death Valley would be a waste of time because I'd have to backtrack a bit and the flowers there weren't popping like they were elsewhere. But I had planned on doing the rest, but that would mean leaving Sunday right after dinner and going as far as I could towards Mojave... maybe camping in BLM land nearby. But I was wiped out with all the hard work I put in and also being in choir having to be at church well before the sunrise - 6:45 I think it was - and not sleeping enough before that. So I said forget Mojave and Joshua Tree and just take off Monday.
It was still worth it. So over the next several days I'll be posting either slideshows or pics just to show off, lol.
In the meantime, I can't go a post without putting in a picture, so
I hope anyone reading this had a Blessed Easter.
Granted, I print directly from the computer to our digital color copier, but each bulletin is a three step process in the print jobs alone. First the cover page needs to be printed all alone. Then I flip those over and print the ONE color page (two when folded, but whatever...) Then I place those back in the bottom tray and then print the remaining pages and set the printer to use the cover sheet but not print on it. It obviously prints collated for me but will then in the finisher fold and staple. It sounds all great and hands-off, but it's not. First of all, I can only do it in batches of 50 because anymore than that the printer gets too warm and then the pages start jamming... mostly just fake sensor errors but it still beeps and stops working. And then the finisher tray only holds about 20 bulletins +/- because it's "full" and the entire process stops and it beeps. So every 10 - 15 minutes I have to walk around my desk, head into the copy room and remove the bulletins so the thing will continue printing. That's almost as bad as standing over it or doing the actual work. The good thing is that I *CAN* work on editing the next bulletin or crunch numbers or answer the phone without the majority of the bulletin work stopping like it would if I had to do the manual labor of collate/fold/staple myself. So essentially, the process for each bulletin saves about 2 hours per week. Thing is, I have enough work to keep me busy during the weeks we have just one bulletin to produce.
Christmas is nearly as bad, but not quite because Advent is only 4 weeks as opposed to 6 of Lent and the week of Christmas there are only Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to worry about rather than Maundy Thurs, Good Fri, Easter Sunrise and Easter Festival. And with Easter coming so soon this year, I only had the month of January to decompress from Advent/Christmas and attempt to catch up on filing. Of course during this time I also had to assist our bookkeeper in gathering information and double checking figures on folks we needed to send 1040s to... not to mention ordering stuff for the upcoming Lent and Easter season. So I had been thinking all along that maybe I can squeeze a few days off right after Easter instead of the regular Monday day off and maybe on additional being Tuesday. So I asked, and I received, yay!
I wanted to take a whole bunch of photos and practice my photography skills. I learned a lot about what NOT to do, lol. I was disappointed the filters for the lenses I ordered did not come on the Friday before Easter, so I think that maybe the pictures would have been even better, but then again, maybe not. I don't know that much about using them yet.
I had big plans to hit Death Valley, Mojave National Preserve, Joshua Tree National Monument, Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve and Carizzo Plain National Monument. On Saturday before Easter I decided Death Valley would be a waste of time because I'd have to backtrack a bit and the flowers there weren't popping like they were elsewhere. But I had planned on doing the rest, but that would mean leaving Sunday right after dinner and going as far as I could towards Mojave... maybe camping in BLM land nearby. But I was wiped out with all the hard work I put in and also being in choir having to be at church well before the sunrise - 6:45 I think it was - and not sleeping enough before that. So I said forget Mojave and Joshua Tree and just take off Monday.
It was still worth it. So over the next several days I'll be posting either slideshows or pics just to show off, lol.
In the meantime, I can't go a post without putting in a picture, so
I hope anyone reading this had a Blessed Easter.
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1 comment:
I sure hope this photo is posted at church. It really is beautiful.
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