othersomethings.com

I have several blog posts sitting in drafts waiting to be edited. However, everytime I sit down to the computer there are way too many other pressing tasks so I haven’t gotten to them.

I’m working on websites for 3 nonprofits, a portfolio site for myself, 2 logo designs, just finished a newsletter layout for my grandparents, specs for a website for my dads company, and coming soon – marketing materials for two charity events and branding for a small business.

Before we moved here, I probably did 1 or 2 projects a month. Since moving here, the projects are literally raining down and I don’t see an end in sight! I’m realizing that I have to evaluate each project carefully. The paying gigs are few, and there’s the whole “being a wife and mother first” issue, so just cause I’m doing it for free doesn’t mean it’s not still work, and taking me away from what I believe is my first priority.

I enjoy my profession immensely, I love the creative outlet, I love that there is an infinite learning curve and I have bajillions of new things to learn to do what I do better. As long as I keep up with the curve, I’ll always have a profession, whether I need it or not. I know not many women can say the same, especially women without college degrees, like myself. I can be a hobbyist if I wanted. Or a serious “up to my eyeballs in Pantone” designer. If I wanted.

So I guess let it pour…I’ll sort my plate out as it fills up.

By the way, I was just blessed with a great deal on adobe CS4. I went with the production suite cause It had more value, but if I can swing it I’m going pick up the design suite too cause I really need indesign and playing with adobe’s web products could be valuable In the long run.

I’m pretty stoked about it. Like, I’m jumping up and down, in my mind. I’m grinning from ear to ear, you just wouldn’t know by looking at me. I’m screaming like a little girl, without sound. Only dogs can hear me.

That’s me, in the corner sitting completely motionless and expressionless, being excited about something.

I’m editing the audio for an interview I did with Kyle, I should have it up tomorrow. In the mean time…these people did a much better job. I just saw this, it’s a report on the orphanage in Haiti where my brother has been. You’ll see him a few times in it. The footage was taken the first week after the earthquake, the filming team was following them around trying not to get in the way, etc.

Three posts on sunday and nothing since. How quaint.

Slugging along with the same things. I’ve been playing back-up hostess for my Sister-in-law, since nearly every night someone is coming in between the hours of 11 and 3, and leaving again between the hours of 4-6 to catch these darn flights ferrying orphans and supplies. Mostly out of Ft. Lauderdale, Vero, and Melbourne.  Kyle came home for two days to have some meetings and hammer some details with heavy equipment they’re trying to move in, and to spend a few minutes with the ones who miss him most. Poor kid picked up that stupid parasite that everybody seems to get when they go to Haiti…so he ate alot but regretted it later.

My family has been posting this interview from Kyle all day yesterday and so forth so the chances are good that you’ve already heard it, but I put it together with some pictures he gave me to make sense of what he’s talking about.  It’s a bangup job, sorry.

In an effort to take something off Cherie’s plate, I offered to pick up some water purifiers (it’s what her dad’s ministry does) that are going on a plane tonight.

I had her keys, and as I turned the key to the building, I remembered seeing an alarm keypad just inside that door the day before and realized I didn’t know the alarm code.

By the time I called her and got the code and entered it properly, the alarm had already gone off and I had a minute to get to a phone. I missed the phone call, and went downstairs to start loading the cases, I saw the policeman at the door shining his light in. I opened it, invited him in and he waited while I called the alarm company to give them the code.

To be fair, if I weren’t dressed in my church clothes and wasn’t wearing baby hair clips and tan leather dress shoes, it REALLY looked like I was doing something criminal. I was loading 6 large black cases and a red drawstring canvas bag out of a dark wearhouse onto a cart and loading it into a waiting van.

He was satisfied and went back out, I thought he left. But when I backed out the side door with the full cart, I saw the two police cars still there and the officer yelled out “what are you stealing?”

I said “water purifiers for Haiti…”

And the two officers joked about how bad it’d be for them if I really was stealing.

Then one of them grabbed the two cases that were falling off the cart and they both helped me load them into the van. The one said “I’d be in so much trouble if you really are stealing these.” and I laughed, and said “yeah, especially since these are $2000 apiece. People keep calling wanting us to donate them, and boy are they dissappinted.”

He loaded the last one, and I said “thanks so much!”

He said “have a good evening.”

He’s either a terrible cop, or I have a promising career in a life of crime.

So things aren’t great. Is anyone surprised? No.

Of the efforts we’ve been involved with, we’ve had as many fails as wins.

Win: there is clean water for the Ruuska villiage.

Fail: of all the leads we’ve had on structural engineers, none will commit. So we haven’t sent one down yet.
Update: change this to a win…an engineer is going in on Thursday.

Win: Don and Christine Ames agreed to go down and be on hand to oversee things at the orphanage since they need a steady “on site” contractor type, and an administrator type. Don and Christine fit the bill, and their hearts were open to it.

Fail: from the Ruuska orphanage, two private flights of about 7 already adopted orphans each have made it to the U.S., and have been detained and some even seized by INS and DCF. Their paperwork is correct and in order, they have visas, they are accompanied by their legal guardians, and their adoptive parents are sitting there waiting. The 7 children being held right this minute, as I write this, are detained because of lack of “official” creole translator to read their documents. Understandable, but frustrating for every person involved. Especially the children who don’t know what’s going on. And the one little girl who has been held for almost two weeks now…yeah. Retarded. That one is absolutely not understandable.

I spent yesterday helping pack 6 100lb cases of food and supplies to go down, and then repacking them because those flights fell through but a new one opened up that could take 4 50lb bags. Kelly and I packed a regular sized backpack with exactly 50…it was a work of art.

My brother decided to stay down there til he has to come back and pay bills. His wife said that on TV and random people are mailing them checks. So I guess he’ll be there longer.

There’s a lot more. Much more. Haiti.

God help them. We sure are trying.

Today has been exceptional.

By that, I don’t mean “amazing” or “super great” I mean…it has been the exception. To pretty much all other days in my recent past.

lets work our way backwards here.

I may possibly never get invited to a “Princess House” party ever again. Or any kind of home selling party, for that matter. And if I do, I will have to wear a name tag that says “not allowed to ask questions.”

I’m just saying, if you’re trying to sell me hundreds of dollars worth of kitchen items, I am perfectly justified in asking a few detailed questions. Right? Am I the only person in the history of princess house shows who gets the contact info for the supervisor so I can ask her how long the company projects a profit from the current business model in a recession?

Yeah, I probably am.  Poor lady, doesn’t know what’s about to hit her. I have so many questions. What IS the process for making the glassware non-stick? (Google failed me.)

Before that, we had dinner at my folks, and before that I walked past my brother-in-law at walmart, (we exchanged a surprised “hi!” but in spite of the fact that we haven’t seen each other since I moved here, we both kept on walking. Hmm.)

Here comes the exceptional part.

I worked today. Like, did stuff that helped someone and perhaps others, and so forth.

Every time I answered the phone, I had to pause because the FIRST words in my mouth were “Shoreline Church” and I haven’t worked there in two YEARS!!!! So I paused and then answered some garbled form of “air mobile ministries.” And half the calls I got were “what the soup of the day was.” If that boggles your mind, yeah, mine too.

So there have been earthquakes in Haiti. Like, a lot of them. And here’s the thing…my brother Kyle is there. He flew down on a NASCAR plane (what does that mean? I don’t know. I thought NASCAR meant cars.)  a few days after the first one, and has been…doing a lot. I don’t know what exactly, I think it can be summed up in “anything and everything.” with an orphanage there. There is a lot of damage, a lot of need, a lot of hurt people, and it sickens me to say it but a LOT of dead people. A lot of everything every family and individual hopes to never have to experience or deal with.

Kyle’s wife Cherie is 6 months preganant, and if it weren’t for that and his stern “you’re not coming” she would be there too. So instead, she is here. Manning 4 seperate phone lines from early in the morning til late at night. Her priority is 1. Kyle is still alive, 2. Supplies and DOCTORS and hopefully 1 engineer are being flown on private planes into Haiti, 3. children that have visas and are in the adoption process are being flown OUT on the same private planes, 4. a million other things that are imporatant and pressings and everything all at once because DISASTER is a big word and is spelled with two S’s.

So I handled at least one of her phones today. And I emailed for her. And had others do things. And it was good to feel useful on a not-domestic level.

And I prayed for people. And people responded. And I called people. And people responded. And I got some weird calls. And some annoying calls. And some GREAT calls. And some “this isn’t going anywhere” calls. That’s what answering a phone IS, right? “Weird, annoying, great, or dead-end.”

And before that, I dropped my daughter off at my parents house for the day. And I really did miss her. I didn’t miss her, but I missed her.

I’m probably going to have to do penance or something for the princess house thing.