For various reasons in the past, Excel formulas haven't been used for salary calculations, nor were any of the spreadsheets that had been used actually consistent enough to be effectively used. Things like that bother me - something that has been taking someone days and days to do with a calculator could so easily be done using a few formulas and some mail merges! So last year, I started helping R put some order to the whole system. And this year, we started where we left off and got even more order to the system! I realize that I'm admitting my utter geekiness here when I say that I felt much joy and satisfaction at 10:30pm on a Saturday night when I was able to work with R to get a mail merge properly working with a salary sheet that accurately reflected the new salaries for this fiscal year. It was pure joy to see how, at the touch of a button, hours of work was saved :) We spent quite a few hours last year getting bits of the system together, and this year, I feel pretty satisfied that we've got something together that can work effectively for next year, as well.
We didn't quite get one section done, though, as we were both tired and wanted to tackle it with fresh brains today before R flew off to the city this afternoon. However, that was not to be. He called me at 8:50am and said, "Oops, I have a little problem..." He thought the flight was an afternoon flight, and that he had to check in at about 2pm (2 hours before the scheduled departure). But, he looked at his ticket this morning, and realized that in fact, he was booked on the morning flight, which was scheduled to leave at 10am! So I quickly tried to wake myself up (I was sound asleep, enjoying the sound of the rain and the cool sleeping weather!), pulled on some clothes and went out to bring him to the airport. I was pretty impressed by the fact that we were at the airport by 9:15am, and they were still checking passengers in for his flight. But I guess the rest of those contracts will have to wait until we can work on it by email... only minor problem is that the poor guy can't type because he was injured last week - hurt his left arm and dislocated two fingers on his right hand! So, we'll see how it all gets done!
The rest of my day was spent cooking, eating and sewing curtains! After 3 years of living in my house, I've finally decided to put some curtains up in my verandah/living room. However, because it's such a big room, and ONLY screens (that is, no walls, just a screened in porch), it's taking a while to get this whole project done. In fact, I think I didn't quite buy enough fabric for it, either, so it's going to be back to the market for me. The curtains themselves are quite simple, and it's looking quite impressive in here so far. But I'm not even halfway done with the necessary sewing... and I have to admit, if anyone came to look too closely at them, they'd be a bit disappointed with the quality of my stitching! But I love the fabric I've chosen, and am enjoying sitting here and admiring the patterns!
My idea is to make more plain green panels and divide the patterns with plain green in between. I still have about 8 panels to sew, and I have 7 done already... just to give you an idea of the amount of curtain we're talking about here! But already, especially in the evening sitting here with my curtains closed in my one little corner, it's feeling a bit more cozy than it did before. I guess I should have tried doing this a long time ago!
While I sewed, I was watching the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" dvds! I highly recommend them if you can get your hands on them.
After sewing, I went to set up the chairs and tea for our International Fellowship ground which meets here on Sunday evenings. It's such a great time of prayer and Bible study with friends from all over the world, and I look forward to it every week. However, this week, we set things up and went to wait for folks to come over. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, the guy who was supposed to lead called us, and said that he was stuck over on the other side of the road. The road was closed by the police and they wouldn't even let him drive across the road! Eventually, he locked up his truck on the other side of the main road and walked the two blocks to our compound to drop off the study materials that we were supposed to use tonight. The road closure explained why no one else had showed up yet, either! We waited for a little while longer - sometimes they end up opening the road as suddenly as they close it - but to no avail.
The leader guy and I had talked earlier in the week about trying out a place to eat supper after the fellowship tonight, so we decided to go and have our supper instead, since there were only 5 of us (out of a possible 25 or 30) people around! So we walked back to his truck (no way our truck was going to get off our little side street!), walked across the closed road and took all the little back-tracks to get to the eating place. I say "eating place" because it's not really a restaurant where we ate. The place we went is a collection of plastic tables and plastic chairs which get set up each evening in an open space near the main road. Every evening, they start up the grills and charcoal stoves and cook up huge pots of beans, fried meat, greens, and roast chickens on the grill. It's one of the most popular eateries in town these days, and I've wanted to try it, because there are literally traffic jams caused by people trying to get into this place to eat every night!
And now that I've eaten there, I can see why it's so popular! The chicken was amazing - a bit spicy, but juicy, tender and perfectly roasted. And it was HUGE (well, ok, not huge by the likes of Swiss Chalet chickens or anything, but for this part of the world, we were talking some big chickens!). They just put half a chicken on a big platter, give you a bit of bread, some broth in which to dip your bread, and voila: dinner. It was delicious. Though I was taken out for dinner tonight, I'm sure the price was reasonable, like no more than $5 per person. I will definitely be tempted to stop there again, though we were a bit conspicuous being the only two white folks sitting on the side of the road chowing down on our chicken!
So now my belly is full, I'm sipping my Earl Grey tea (which I brought back from the City last week) and am admiring my curtains. I somehow feel like I've been rested and relaxed and am ready to face another week at work. I wonder what the week will bring?
On Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this past week we had meetings which were supposed to be held in the City on Monday to Wednesday... but we all know how that turned out! The meetings themselves were good, and went surprisingly fast for 3 days of meetings. I've been on this Executive Committee/Board for quite some time now, and it's actually quite encouraging to me to see how things get done and how we are actually providing some leadership to this little organization of ours. While a lot of people might complain about so many days of meetings (and I admit, I used to be one of them!), these particular meetings are becoming more and more enjoyable as I learn more about how they work and why we do them. There's something to be said for a bit of longevity and continuity, and a whole lot of good to be said about sitting down and talking face to face, rather than trying to do all our business by email! Imagine, ME, saying that I would prefer to talk face to face with someone rather than sending an email?!
Right, this blog is getting rather long and probably rather boring. So I'll stop here and perhaps watch just one more episode of No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency before I go to sleep :)
No comments:
Post a Comment