Props for Publisher

Warning!  My graphic design peeps are going to hate this post!

Although I am by no means a graphic designer, I have had to do quite a bit of basic graphic design.  Postcards, newspaper ads, websites, that kind of thing.  Because I am virtually self-taught--and not an Apple user!--I have found Microsoft Publisher to be a lifesaver. 

Why do I like Publisher?  Ahh, where to start?!

1.  I like the fact that I can set my page size quickly and easily. 
2.  I like that you can print multiple copies of the same page (think postcard) on a larger page (think 8.5"x11") with the click of one button.  (I dare you to do it in Word . . . even the hacks didn't work for me!) 
3.  Grouping, ordering, and arranging text boxes, photos, clip art, etc. is EASY!!!! 

In short, Publisher is my friend. 

Why, then, you might ask, did I futz around with Word for an hour and a half today on a postcard only to finally give up and return to Publisher?  Well, the last time I used Publisher, it kept crashing.  As soon as I opened the file I wanted to work on, POOF!  One of my not-so-friendly error messages appeared--Microsoft has encountered a problem . . . blah, blah, blah--and the program shut down. 

I have since run several recovery sessions, but I didn't want to frustrate myself (ha!), so I used Word.  BAD CHOICE!

I was able to design the thing easily, but getting four copies to print on one page proved to be nigh impossible.  I adjusted page size.  I designed 4 on one page.  I even tried converting to PDFs.  Nope.  Did not want to work for me. 

Out of desperation, I returned to the old standby.  Five minutes later--literally--I have 16 gorgeous full-color postcards on glossy photo paper ready for tomorrow. 

I have only one complaint about Publisher (aside from its strange crashing experience a few months back): the lack of a free Android app version.  Microsoft has them for Excel, Word, and a few other programs I have no interest in even exploring.  What's the deal with my Publisher?  I've experimented with the "free" trial version of the entire Microsoft Office and hated it.  Is it really so hard to make my Publisher mobile? 

I would like to think they'll come around and realize that the world needs Publisher for tablet, but  I fear they never will.  At least I have it on my laptop . . . at least until my next Microsoft Meltdown!

It's in the Bag

I have been struggling mightily with "doing" forgiveness, particularly in showing kindness to my ex.  To be honest, I haven't been kind at all.  "Frigid" is probably closer to the mark.  I have made a commitment to forgive, so my unforgiving behavior has been weighing on me.  It is one thing to decide to do something; it is altogether different to actually do it.  And wanting to do it?  Different planets!

Anyway, in Sunday School this week we were studying 1 John 1.  Verses 6-8 read, "If we claim to have fellowship with [God] yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.  If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." 

Ugh. 

(You know God loves you when you simply cannot go to church without having Him speak directly to a sin in your life!  I am very loved by God!) 

I'd been making all kinds of excuses for myself.  Forgiveness takes time.  This has been a deep, personal betrayal.  Don't expect so much from yourself. 

They're nice excuses.  Plausible excuses.  Universal excuses.  In reality, however, they come down to two pernicious lies.  1.  It's okay to hold onto a little bitterness, anger, and even hatred if the hurt is of sufficient magnitude.  2.  His sins are worse than mine. 

God's truth doesn't say that.  He says to get rid of wrath and hatred and anger.  He says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Period. 

By the time we got halfway through class, I knew I had to apologize to my ex when he picked the kids up for Daddy Day.  Galling?  A little.  Purifying?  A lot. 

After the kids left with him, I loaded the dishwasher and talked to God.  I told Him, for the first time in my life, "I feel like I see the woman You're making me to be, and I like her.  I don't like who I am right now, but I like who I'm going to be." 

I shared that sentiment with a dear college roommate, and she said I was "marinating."  How I love that image!  Like a tough cut of venison, God is soaking me in a bag filled with all kinds of acidic, caustic substances designed to soften the rigid muscles (heart of flesh, anyone?!), add flavor, and transform second-rate stew beef into a gourmet meal. 

By the time I'm done, I'll be a meal fit for a King! 

Excel Headache

I hate Excel. 

Okay, so I really love Excel, but not at this particular moment.  Last night I spent hours creating beautiful, functional spreadsheets for my VBS that started today.  I had registration charts, badge data sheets, schedules . . . all kinds of things.  I printed them all out.  Gorgeous. 

I pressed save. 

I forgot something, so I immediately went back to reopen it when . . . UNBELIEVABLE!  Only one sheet existed in my file of formerly many.  Could the big data sheet have survived?  Nope.  Of course not.  All I got was some piddling list of first names with nothing else.  Virtually useless. 

Because I was doing this at midnight, I blamed operator error.  I had been copying and pasting like a fiend, so perhaps I had inadvertently copied the useless sheet onto the useful sheet before saving. 

Tonight I am convinced that is not the case because . . . if you can believe it . . . it happened AGAIN!!!!  Only worse because I had more data entered.  Oh yeah, I lost all the data from last night (that I had to re-enter) PLUS new data from today!  PLUS my fancy formatting, which everyone knows is really the biggest thing.  Data entry goes pretty quickly. 

I was really careful this time, too.  I literally saved after every little change.  And really, it's not even 10:30pm.  It is practically the middle of the day compared to the hours I have been working.  This should not have occurred. 

The kicker is that I use Excel all the time and have never had anything like this happen.  I have financial records dating back 4 years all in the same file.  (With color-coded tabs for active/inactive!) I used to simultaneously manage 6 grants at one time using ONE Excel file.  This is NOT rocket science. 

There is only one thing I can figure might have happened.  Both times the documents actually originated from an on-line source.  (You know the type: online forms that collect your data and have an option to "download as an Excel spreadsheet."  Usually works like a charm.)  When saving them, they gave a pesky little warning about saving in a different form because of different versions of Excel, blah blah blah. 

I usually ignore that warning because, frankly, I don't care if the yellow on my screen is the same yellow on the printed page or if Times New Roman prints more like Calibri.  I use older versions of Excel with 2007 all the time without difficulty. 

As I think back, however, I think this warning was a little different.  I seem to remember something about "comma delimited" something or other.  Hmmm.  I know that refers to how the program recognizes breaks in data, etc.  I thought is was a superficial formatting thing; I didn't think it would preclude saving multiple sheets. 

I have to say, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.  Why let me create the additional sheets in the first place if I can't keep them both?  Why not make an annoying dinging sound and give me a pop-up that says, "Hey, Dopey, this file format does not accommodate multiple pages.  Please save as a different format before trying to create additional sheets." 

Oh wait a minute . . . I guess maybe it did . . .

Paradise Regained . . . Momentarily!

Last night I ended my blog with a heart-felt longing for a plain, old "good" day.  Today, I got it.  It wasn't perfect . . . I was there, after all! . . . but it was "perfect enough," as my counselors would say. 

We didn't do anything too spectacular.  The kids finished watching Finding Nemo that we started almost a week ago and didn't finish.  (They don't like the shark part . . . or the angler fish part . . . or the whale part . . . too scary . . . so tell me again why they insist on watching the movie???) 

Then we went to WalMart to get last-minute supplies for VBS.  (Naturally, I forgot the sticky tack . . . looks like a trip to the Dollar Store before Monday!)  We ran into my cousin whom I haven't seen since before my daughter was born, so that was very fun!

I put the air conditioner in the kids' room before nap time.  I must say that I, personally, do not like air conditioners, the exception being when I was pregnant.  (Women really are taken over by aliens at that time, and I implore every soon-to-be-father to be patient with the poor mother-to-be, regardless of how many times she may or may not have done it before.  She really has no control over anything at that time, particularly her susceptibility to heat, smells, broken finger nails, bad hair days, Law & Order SVU episodes, and puppy pictures.  PLEASE give her a break.) 

On the topic of air conditioners, though, my kids take after their father in this respect and suffer greatly in the heat.  Last night little Chinchita could not sleep, and when I finally tucked her in around midnight, she was drenched in sweat and looked miserable.  I vowed I'd get the air conditioner in for them today. 

Mind you, I've never installed a window air conditioner before and approached this task with trepidation.  It took a little muttering, a little opening, closing, re-opening of the window, and a final smack to close the corner again, but I did it.  Coolness for the kids! 

In their now-comfortable room we read Curious George.  Chinchita napped.  Ranita and I did a Thomas puzzle for the first time in weeks. 

We played in the pool. 

I love our pool.  It has a leak I can't locate in the air ring around the top, so I blow it up a minimum of once every day.  The pump and filter are too small, so I have to clean that daily and replace weekly. 

It is the best purchase I have ever made.  (I say "I" because my husband at the time did not think we needed a pool.  He didn't . . . we did!) 

In the pool, we laugh.  We frolic.  We sing.  We relax.  We are free of email, texts, phone calls, Facebook updates, and even the radio.  It is just we three.  It is heavenly. 

My son swam underwater for the first time today.  My daughter, not to be outdone, learned how to blow bubbles underwater without inhaling half the pool. 

I, for a moment, pitied my ex and felt that I did indeed get the best end of our divorce.  It is true that he will forever be the "fun" parent, the one who shows up for semi-weekly Daddy Days and whisks them off to dinner at Applebee's and jaunts in the park and hikes along the bike path.  He will forever be spared the day-to-day grind of broken glasses and before-bed toy pick-ups and being tired of being so darn responsible all the time. 

But he'll never have an ordinary magical summer of day-after-day pool times.  He'll never know just how remarkable it is to slog through the unending tedium and monotony of parenthood and get rewarded with an hour of perfection, right outside your back door, no traveling required.  I really am the lucky one. 

To top it all off, tonight my son picked up his toys.  No fighting.  I admit this resulted from a moment of brilliance on my part.  (Don't be too impressed . . . my brilliance was preceded by one of my less-than-brilliant moments earlier in the evening . . . I pray they all balance out in the end!)

Anyway, Ranita is in a bellicose place right now, and tonight he "couldn't" clean up because he was protecting us from "bad guys" with a drumstick in one hand and a chainsaw in the other.  I looked at him and said, "I know!  Let's pretend all the toys in the living room are bad guys and you need to protect us by taking them all to jail!" 

He went for it!  So much so, that he even put the toys in the right places because some had to go to maximum security prison and some were only minimum security.  The living room looks amazing! 

A good day, indeed. 

Happy Anniversary?

Yesterday, on the one-week anniversary of my divorce, I:

• Scheduled an emergency trip to the eye doctor after my son bent the arm of his glasses by slamming a book on them
• Took two dogs and two children to the vet (all without shoes because the ones who should have been wearing them left the house without them after I told them to put them on 3 times, and I refused to turn around and let them put them on . . . lesson learned?)  
• Held my dogs for the vet, each quiet during their own examination but howling like dervishes during the other's exam . . . can't tell you why, can only say it is VERY annoying!
• Spent $400 dollars on canine wellness visits, flea/tick preventative, rabies shots, and the like...nearly swooned at the bill.  
• Came home and actually went in the pool--first time this season--long enough for black clouds to move in and begin pelting us with rain.  
• Let the kids watch National Velvet while I made lunch.  
• Served lunch, only to have my son refuse to eat and choose bed instead.  
• Read kids "princess" story (a Cinderella knock-off about the "perfect wedding" . . . can I just say it took everything within me not to gag?!).  
• Gave up on naps after an hour and dragged kids to Wal-Mart for essentials like Pull-Ups, watermelon, and color ink cartridges.  
• Earned 50 cents on Ibotta for the watermelon and was entered to win a shopping spree on Checkout 51. 
• Went to the eye doctor.  Read Stellaluna to my kids for the dozenth time.  Eye doctor managed to salvage eye glasses...for the moment.  Was informed that the backup pair I ordered from Zenni has a 50% chance of arriving with the wrong prescription.  Yippee.  (Wish I could have seen into the future and known the child would rip the arm off his repaired pair today . . . I would have just given in and bought the several hundred-dollar pair of pretzel glasses...first thing Monday morning . . . !)  
• Came home and rush-prepared for my final VBS meeting before the actual event.  
• Barely spoke to ex when he came for Daddy Day.  Am struggling with the whole being cordial thing . . . life is a bit overwhelming right now, and I confess I blame much of it on him.  
• Sobbed like crazy the entire 45-minute car ride to VBS meeting.  Can't imagine what other drivers were thinking.  Don't really care.  
• Ran VBS meeting . . . started to panic . . . it'll be okay . . . won't it?
• Listened to VBS music on the way home, felt guilty about the raging hatred I feel for my ex.  Prayed.  
• Came in slightly less hateful.  
• Thought about writing this blog, and just couldn't do it.  Read a book instead and went to bed.  

Am praying for one sunrise-to-sunset GOOD day . . . with play and fun and happiness and without stress and tantrums and work . . . I seem to think I used to have those once upon a time . . . 

Top Ten Temper Tantrum Topics

No, this blog is not about my temper tantrums!  I throw them, but "it's not about me" right now!

It's about my kids. 

They are expert tantrum throwers.  After a week of surviving said tantrums, I thought I'd list the top ten tantrum topics . . . the things that will set my kids into orbit faster than any other. 

1. Being told, "We're not watching TV."  (It's not like they live on it, but they are little addicts like their Mama . . . )
2. Being sent to bed without a Bible story.  (Gotta say, kinda proud of that one!  Doesn't happen often, but when it does you know we had a BAD day . . . !)  
3. Having to brush with "big kids' toothpaste" rather than "baby toothpaste."  (Can't figure this one out . . . it's the one time they're allowed to spit!)  
4. Having a toy taken away because it was used as a weapon.  (Well, duh...)
5. Being told they cannot wear a down coat when it's 85 degrees F outside.  (Again . . . really?)
6. Having a toy taken away because it was deliberately disassembled when it was most assuredly not a construction toy (i.e. the hamburgers in "Pop the Pig" . . . how DID he get them apart, anyway?!)
7. Any form of discipline that arises after inflicting damage to one's glasses.  (Oh, yeah . . . Mommy will be taking an unscheduled trip to the eye doctor AGAIN tomorrow to try to repair the arm on his specs . . . I cannot WAIT until his Zenni pair arrives . . . I hope they fit!!)
8. Being put in the bathtub due to an accident.  (Do they really WANT excrement all over them?)
9. Being asked to consume leftovers.  Even though they loved the original the night before.  Go figure.  
10. Alternately: getting hugs/kisses from Mommy, not getting hugs/kisses from Mommy.  (This applies most particularly to my daughter, but my son is not immune.  I think my kids are turning into cats: they want what they want when they want it and will not be cajoled, forced, or otherwise persuaded to do anything else at any time or for any reason.)  

So there they are.  There are more, but these are the most common ones.

If your kid has a favorite tantrum trigger, put it in the comments.  The other moms and dads out there have been there!

The Water Bottle Battle

Looking back, if I had taken a page out of my parents' book of Parenting 101, the incident never would have occurred.  The object in question would have been nowhere within reach, and the subsequent chain of events would have ended before they began.  I didn't, however, and the rest (as they say) is history. 

The object in question?  A Ninja Turtles water bottle.  The incident?  My son throwing it at my head (and hitting the mark, I might add!) while I was driving Cebu the Subaru.  The chain of events?  Mommy spotting two empty recycling containers at the end of someone's driveway, pulling over, throwing the offending object into one of them, and driving away while my son alternately screamed and cried in the back seat until he succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep. 

During the remaining drive, I thought quite a bit about this incident.  The first thing was, "Was life better for moms before it became mandatory for children to have a beverage in their personal cup holder every time they left for a ride over 5 minutes in length?"  Perhaps.  I never threw things at my mom in the car because I never had anything to throw!  There is, of course, the pesky, "Mom, I'm thirsty" when you're on a wooded country road 30 minutes from your destination  . . . okay, keep the bottles. 

The second was, "Am I being too hard on my boy?  Are there underlying issues driving this?  Should I have used a little psychology instead?"  This one's a little trickier.  Are there other issues at play?  Probably.  Would psychology have been helpful?  Maybe. 

Was I being too harsh? 

I don't think so.  For one thing, we've been through this before with other objects: a shoe, a hat, a sippy cup full of water.  Each time I've yelled, explained, rationalized.  Today I didn't yell.  I processed for a few moments and almost threw the bottle out my window . . . but I have a visceral aversion to littering.  The recycling bins seemed like divine intervention!

For another thing, there is a safety issue in play, for me, for him, for his sister, and for anyone else unfortunate enough to be on the road if I unexpectedly get hit in the head and swerve into oncoming traffic.  Not a pretty thought.  And the truth is that my kid has a heck of an arm on him.  He throws HARD.  An injury is more probable than you might think. 

Finally, and arguably most importantly, is the fact that you DO NOT THROW things at people . . . ESPECIALLY not your MOTHER!!!  There is a respect for people that needs to become internalized. 

As my son "processed" this event, naturally he accused me of 1. Not liking him and 2.  Not wanting him to have special things.  I affirmed that I definitely liked and loved him, though I was most definitely not a fan of the current behavior. 

I also reminded him that I was the one who gave him the bottle in the car to begin with, so obviously I wanted him to have special things.  He, on the other hand, was the one who threw it away, signalling to me that it was not important to him.  I also suggested that next time he might consider keeping his bottle in the back seat where it belonged if he cared about it so much. 

So, straw poll time.  Right decision?  Wrong decision?  I think it was a reasonable and justified decision.  Right?  Who really knows?  Wrong . . . I wouldn't go that far.  Painful?  YES . . . for all involved! 

I just hope Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo keep their shells where they belong next time!