Sometimes I really enjoy what I do. Days like today, notsomuch, but at least tomorrow’s paper will feature two of my favorite ladies in the world, Dara and Christa.

I wrote about Dara shaking things up in the library, bringing them out of the Victorian era and into the 1950s. It’s 2010 and they’re finally going automated. I KNOW. And just to prove how bold she REALLY is, she’s trying to extend the library’s hours; they’re currently open 1-5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday. I’ll share the PDF, I promise. The above photo didn’t make the cut – too pretentious. lol.

My column this week is about Christa and her family and how they made lemonade after being dealt lemons. Even though their home flooded two months ago, they’ve experience more gains than losses, which is truly inspirational.

But today was hellacious. Really, really horrible. I spent 14 hours at work today. I got the children up and dressed and to school by 7 a.m. or so. I drove to work and ate my breakfast, complained about being interrupted, then got to work. It’s hard to explain production day. We’re busy non-stop, trying to meet our deadline with a skeleton crew. It’s stressful and ridiculous and today was over the top.

I was complaining about CONSTANTLY being interrupted, especially for the most mundane of reasons, and almost screamed when I had been interrupted THREE TIMES by 8:19. THREE TIMES! I can’t get my work done if I have to constantly STOP.

I had to leave to pick the children up by 5 p.m. Darin and my mom were out of town, so I didn’t have a choice but to bring them back to the office with me. And they were HORRIBLE! In public they pretty much behave themselves, but OH.MY.GOODNESS were they acting UP today! My mom happened to drive by (she’d just flown in and was on her way home) and took the kids to her house. An hour and a half later, at 9:30 p.m., I finally got off! By the time we got home and I got the children in bed, it was 11 p.m.

This is why I’m late with my blog. And I’ve been writing all day, which is the reason this blog is so lame. I’m sorry. I just don’t have the motivation today; getting the paper out on Wednesdays drains me (especially the writer in me).

Can you believe it’s already June 30? I realized this weekend that the blogging challenge is already nearly over (and will be here in about 45 minutes) and I couldn’t believe how quickly it passed. Doesn’t seem like it’s been a month, but according to the calendar it has.

I had every intention of posting this before midnight, but tonight I failed. I tried, but being a good friend came first. My co-worker got off even later than I did – just before midnight – and because she lives an hour away I offered her my couch. She was at work before I was today and gets up before dawn, so I knew was was ridiculously tired and not in the mood to drive all the way home, get in bed for a handful of hours or less, then drive another hour back down.

We rarely have guests, especially overnight guests, so it was fun to sit up and chit-chat about work through our delirium.

We’re having a meeting with the boss in the morning and I’m thinking I might take a few shots before we leave. After being really, really late with the paper, it’s not gonna be pretty. But oh well, at least I was able to share a little bit of two people I hold dear!

Holla. See you in July (oh, wait).

(Me, in July 2007, with a steeplejack working to fix the steeple on a local church.)

Today was one of those days where adrenaline was running high, simply because of great stories and chasing down a possibly-breaking story in progress. And I have a great story idea which localizes a box office hit movie and we’re trying to make it happen. These things are so wonderful for my mood. And it only got better as the day went on, with something I’ve been looking forward to for nearly a month finally happened (dealing with our website).

In the words of Ice Cube, today was a good day.

Today was the kind of day where the barely-there paycheck, the inner-office drama, the struggles with sources not wanting to go on record, the nasty letters to the editor and all of the tedious tasks the job involves didn’t matter. Today was why I love my job and why, after almost three years, it still doesn’t feel like work.

One day last week we had an impromptu meeting and in the middle of it I realized, “Oh wait. This is my job. But I don’t hate it.” (more…)

Wednesdays are our production days – the days when we hurriedly write our remaining stories, proofread, color correct photos, dream up headlines, paginate, finish ads and send everything to be printed.

It’s quite the stressful day, let me tell you.

I’ll be honest in saying that when other people are around, I have a hard problem staying focused. I want to gossip, I want to chat, I want to get up and grab a snack, I get engrossed in other conversations. But to help stay focused and drown out the activities of my co-workers I pop in my earbuds and listen to music. I like to listen to it as loud as I can, which makes communicating with me difficult (I had a notepad thrown at me to get my attention today lol!), but lately it’s just been only a little loud.

I like to follow the Snow White theory: Whistle while you work, it won’t take long when there’s a song …

Music has always served as an inspiration and when I’m writing I listen to various genres. Sometimes I’m pumped about a story and in a hard rock mood, sometimes the sultry sounds of R&B (Maxwell!) and lately I’ve been into mellow folk and indie rock. Over the last few weeks I’ve been in a melancholy mood and have revisited my preference for raw, gut-wrenching emotional music. I love a good ballad.

A few weeks ago I asked for recommendations and my high school friend Melissa really came through for me (thank you!). Through her recommendations I have fallen in love with several new artists and even found new artists based on my Pandora recommendations (God bless Pandora!). According to Pandora, I’ve really been into mellow rock instrumentation, folk influences, a subtle use of vocal harmony, acoustic sonority, major key tonality, acoustic rhythm guitars and whatever other fancy-schmancy attributes these songs have.

Currently on rotation while I write are:

Chris Trapper, In from the Outside
The Fray, You Found Me and Never Say Never
James Taylor, September Grass and Carolina in My Mind (how do you not love James Taylor?)
Jason Myles Goss, Another Ghost and Long Way Down albums (especially Twilight Serenade and Irish Eyes)
Jason Reeves, Treefall
Josh Kelley, For the Ride Home album (faves here are Home to Me, Pokerface and Amazing; and also, he’s a cutie)
Kan’Nal, Time (other songs are more tribal and psychedelic, but I really, really enjoy the Pandora version of this and the lyrics are great: “People come and people go, that’s just the way it goes/So listen to what we know/Like water we shall flow/Back to the ocean so/In the body of the Lord, yeah/Welcome home, time to reap what you sow/Time is overwhelming me/I just hope there’s time for everything”)
Francis Dunnery, Sunshine (need to download this, but it’s one of my Pandora faves)
Rachel McGoye, Try Try (hated this one at first, but it has great lyrics, melody and repetition; she almost sounds like Natalie Merchant)
Maxwell, Pretty Wings (yeah, not really in the rocker category, but I absolutely love this song)
Green Day, 21 Guns (LOVE this song)
Matt Nathanson, Come on Get Higher

The only bad thing about listening to music while at work? I can’t belt out the songs like I want to. Not only would Echo Live in the Editorial Department be totally annoying, but I can’t sing so it’d really suck. Sometimes my co-worker Sara catches me whisper singing, though. lol. Oh well, I’m just enjoying my workday!

Today Jenna’s school was closed and because I’ve been so absent-minded lately, I completely forgot to line up a place for her to go while I worked. I remembered last night after dinner. OOPS. So I brought her with me to work and we had a lovely time.

She ate breakfast at my desk and tasted caramel Quakes (she thinks they’re yummy). She colored with pens and dry erase markers, sharpened color pencils and sorted broken crayons. She chatted quite a bit and was pretty well-behaved. (more…)

When I scheduled some time off, I didn’t intend to be up at 2:45 a.m. with sick child on Day One. But, alas, those baby people whom I gave birth to had other plans. I gave them the gift of life and they can’t even give me the gift of sleeping in.

I had grand plans to not write anything. Seriously, I did. But yesterday my interim publisher finally gave me the okay to plan a public forum – in less than two weeks! I started asking my former publisher in July. I’m thankful for the opportunity, but considering the fact that I’m technically on vacation until the day prior, I’ll need to actually work. And because of this forum for mayor candidates, I’ll also have to write stories to promote it. And while I’m doing that, I might as well just go ahead and make it a day, working on stories for our annual publication whose deadline is looming.

I’m such a sucker. I really am. Me and my big ideas, right?

Jenna woke up awhile ago with a fever. She’d been better most of yesterday, save for a runny nose, but spiked a fever just before soccer practice. A few hours ago, she woke up with a fever and came to lay with me. Of course, I couldn’t find any Tylenol or Motrin in this house. Seems what was not eaten last week has been taken since. As always. I did find one Tylenol downstairs, so I gave her that and sent her back to bed. And I couldn’t sleep.

Now it’s after 5 a.m. I have to wake the older two up in an hour and a half. Jenna’s teacher is off today, so she and I get to spend the day together doing God knows what. Hopefully she is feeling better because we’d planned to go to Arlington to eat lunch with Darin at work.

(Ooh. Just realized today is payday. AWESOME.)

As for vacation plans, the only thing we have scheduled is a trip to the Memphis Zoo on Tuesday. Katie’s still on maternity leave, of course, and so we’re meeting up and taking all of the babies down there. Apparently it’s free after 2 p.m. on Tuesdays. So yay for free. Personally, I hate the zoo (hate seeing the poor, depressed animals), but whatever. We didn’t get all the way around when we went in July, so we’ll just take another trip.

Other plans include preparing for the move. A week from today we’ll be homeowners! I’m excited, yet nervous at the same time, due to the volatile nature of the economy and housing market. (We have a fixed rate, by the way, that’s not my issue.) We got a great deal on a spacious home and huge lot. We got a great interest rate. I’m just waiting on the other shoe to drop. Shanee said ‘the other shoe’ is the fact that we’re going to paint it ourselves. lol. (In the living room, the ceiling is 17 feet high and flat; the dining room is 12 feet tall and flat.) Just hoping we didn’t make a mistake with this house. But YAY! Next Friday it’s going to officially be ours!

So this morning at work I was greeted by my boss and our salesman “bowing down” to me. I had no idea what in the world was going on, but it’s not unusual for them to act weird. Gwen was saying, “Oh! She doesn’t even know yet!” I didn’t know what?

And then she tells me that I’ve won two awards. That was awesome.

I’m bummed that we didn’t win more, and the awards will belong to the paper itself (sucks), but hey, I’m an award winner from now on. Only one year into this crazy life of being a journalist – and only TWO MONTHS into it when I wrote the story that got an award. TWO MONTHS, with no prior experience! I’m definitely proud of that!

I honestly feel a little weird about bragging, but then I remember where I was a few years ago. It’s one of your classic sob stories, but it’s personal and for that reason it feels like it’s mine alone, that no one else ever has felt that pain. It really was not that long ago that I was taught that I was nothing and that I’d never be anything. And I believed it, which was crazy. I always thought I had so much potential when I was in high school and I always pictured myself sitting at a desk, doing something really important. But a series of bad decisions found me in a dead-end marriage with 2.5 children and no source of income. That’s definitely not where I thought I would be at 25.

For me, winning these awards isn’t just some nonchalant “Woohoo!” It was just two years ago that I moved here and was still crying my eyes out over someone who wanted nothing to do with me or our children. And it was just one year ago that I jumped head first into journalism with no experience. It’s been difficult at times and my lack of experience has hurt me in some ways, but I love my job (as I always say). I’ve definitely learned a lot.

Winning these two awards – which will likely just be certificates (only first place gets a plaque) – really means much more to me. Winning is validation. And it’s revenge in a way. I never sought revenge on my ex. It would have been pointless and would have only been temporary satisfaction for permanent pain. But moving on, being happy and not actually being ‘nothing’, now that’s a great way to get revenge. Not that it matters now, but it’s definitely satisfying. He made me believe I was nothing and two years later I’m an award-winning journalist. Ha.

Yesterday my good buddy and partner at WMC-TV 5 in Memphis, Justin Hanson (who’s Emily’s cousin), interviewed me as a representative for my newspaper for a story he did on our Top Ten Most Wanted weekly feature which is published in conjunction with our sheriff’s office.

Here’s the story: www.wmctv.com/global/story.asp?s=8279858

And in doing the interview, I know why I’m in print journalism rather than in broadcast: I suck on camera! lol. Justin edited out my retardness for the most part, but you can still see me slouching and, if you pay attention, can still hear and see me swiveling in my chair. Ha. (This was at my desk, by the way.) I seriously bombed that interview. He’d ask a question and I’d stutter, then turn to Gwen for coaching. lol. I’m just not a good on-the-spot person and because I work with him just about every day, I know Justin interviews like I do: we don’t come prepared with questions, we wing it.

The Most Wanted program, which was started in late October 2007, has a 43 percent success rate thus far. That means that four out of every ten offenders featured is captured in some way – whether they are apprehended by the police or turn themselves in. It’s been a great benefit for our county.

Also featured in the video are Sgt. Billy Daugherty (and his LIPS! Ha!) and Deputy Chief Donna Turner of the Tipton County Sheriff’s Office. I work with these two quite a bit and they are wonderful. I’ve come to them with everything from keeping an eye on the house when we’re away to filing complaint after complaint about my apparent stalker to programming my police scanner and they are always, always there to help. I’ve found that with most – if not all – of the members of our local law enforcement agencies: they are always willing to help out, no matter how great or small the problem. Gotta love the po-lice (the sheriff teases me for saying it the yankee way lol).

Back to the video – yes, that is our ugly paneled office that used to be a bowling alley. And yes, I’ve watched it like a million times to criticize myself and to laugh hysterically at Billy’s lips! lol. What on earth possessed him to put in that shot of Billy’s lips I’ll never know, but I still think it’s hilarious. Can’t wait to call him up and tease him about it!