The storm
Mon., June 8, 2009
   It’s been exactly one month since the “big storm” swept through Southern Illinois and turned most of our lives upside down. Since then, many of us have dealt with the experience and have begun to deal with the devastation.
   The winds that took down my ancient oak tree, punched a hole in my roof and tore up my back deck, threw a tree through my associate editor’s roof. Jan Staab is still living with the damage and dealing with the contractors and insurance settlements as I type. As for me and my family, we’re fine, but still waiting for our insurance check to begin repairs.
   So, here I sit at nearly 2 a.m. It’s officially June 9, but I dated this entry to my blog June 8 because that’s when our power went out again, at 9 p.m. And once again, we are operating on generator power here at the offices of Heartland Women.
   According to the recording on the Ameren CIPS line, only 48 households were out of power when we called our outage in a few minutes after 9 p.m., but I suspect that there were many more.
   I should be in bed. I have an early appointment to cover a press conference in Carbondale, but here I sit, banging out this blog entry.
   Keeping up with this blog is one of my resolutions this year, a part of the “Better Me” I’m trying to create. But things just keep getting in the way of my best intentions. It’s been three months since I’ve added an installment. But blogging just seems to rank low on the priority scale these days.
   Especially since the storm, I have had a difficult time getting back on track. Because we were out of power for seven days, we had to skip our second May issue. We didn’t publish again until June 1. It was filled with many storm stories, including my own.
   Our next issue will be out in a week, June 15, so at least that part of our lives is back on schedule.
   However, almost everything else seems to be catch as catch can. I paid a few bills late. (Some just got lost in the stacks of paperwork that accumulated for more than two weeks before I seriously dealt with all of it.) And I’ve totally abandoned my attempts at watching my diet and exercising.
   I should be depressed and I believe I was for awhile, seriously. When I had some extra time, I just wanted to sit. I didn’t want to work or clean or walk or think about anything in particular. But I believe I’ve shaken that dark cloud, at least for awhile, and I owe that ray of sunshine to the youngest addition to this household, Viviene Lenette, my newest granddaughter.
   She will be a month old on Friday and I think we should have a party. She’s sleeping right now, in the living room, with her mother, my daughter, while the generator thrums outside the back door and the candles flicker.
   Good night, all.


Thu., March 5, 2009
   Boy if I don’t stay on top of my paperwork, it really piles up.
   Sound familiar? It does if you read my last blog. E-mail is less than half the battle here at the heart of Heartland Women.
   It only takes a few days, sometimes a few hours, for the accumulation of papers to completely cover my desk. Of course it doesn’t help that I print out many of my e-mails. But I’m one of those old-fashioned people who deal best with some things if I’m able to hold them in my hands.
   Sure, I have a system of sorting e-mails into folders – 51 of them, not counting inbox, junk, drafts, sent and deleted – and a system of marking some as “unread” until dealt with. But I still have to print some out to make sure nothing falls through those notorious cracks.
   Right now, a mere four days until we publish the next issue, I’ve actually made some headway in plowing through the blizzard of papers. I’ve sorted them into drawers and files and winnowed the pile down to just what I must do to get the March 9 issue to press.
   They fall into three categories: editorial, advertising and everything else, which I call “odds and ends.” Editorial papers are anything related to the stories and photos and make up the next issue. Advertising is self-evident, but no less important, since it pays the bills around here. And odds and ends can run the gamut from phone messages to additions to or subtractions from our delivery list, which I have to update with returns list immediately after I get this issue to press, so I can get this issue on the streets.
   The wrinkle in this winnowing process is that after about, well, today, I keep anything that I need to complete the next issue and everything else gets piled on my desk to handle after that, which means that my desk gets covered all over again.
   Oh well, that’s what I get the big bucks for, right? Uh, right.
   Anyway, back to the small, must-do pile for this issue. Even that must be monitored and sorted at least once a day in order to pull those things that can wait until after the issue is out. That’s what I just did, before I started writing this blog. Here’s just what got pulled tonight.
   There were a couple of old issues, which either go in the stack of the last half-dozen issues I keep on my desk. Or they go in the nearly five years of issues in the corner of my office. Or they’re added to the collection of about 20 copies of each issue, which are stored in large plastic boxes in the basement. It’s what I call the Heartland Women morgue. No, I’m not being morbid. That’s really what newspapers call their reference files of clips and old issues.
   There were notes and printouts of stories that are scheduled for the issue after this one, the one that will print on March 23. There were notes on the proper way to credit news releases that I might run from SIUC University Communications, about how much I spent on refilled ink cartridges for my printer, and to remind me to write up a blurb about myself to put on our Web site. And there were a couple of billing addresses to add to my Quick Books program.
   There was a list of style guidelines for my columnists and writers such as “use single spaces” and “always flush left all copy” just to make the editing process go quicker. (I want to add a few more tips before I send them out.) There was a resume and a couple of writing examples from someone who wants to work for me and an estimate from a salesman at a printing plant in Astoria, who wants to print my newspaper. And there was my monthly bank statement for the Heartland Women account.
   And that was just what I pulled out tonight, stuff I won’t file or do or deal with until after this issue is done. Sometimes I think my head is going to explode. But I keep plowing through, winnowing the large stack down to a smaller, manageable stack.
   When I’m done tonight, that top-priority, “manageable stack” will be filed in a few folders, which will be placed in one of three black leather portfolios. One is for personal to-do’s, another is for Heartland Women to-do’s and the third is for what must be done today, in both categories.
   What must be done today includes tracking down a couple of missing ads and finding out whether or not my graphic artist has a working computer. (His was in the repair shop last week.) I have a list of stories that are still coming in from my writers. I have a list of what stories and ads go on what pages, so I can get my copy editor started making pages. And I have to finish this blog and send it to my Web master.
   And all of the paperwork and lists and notes that I need to get those things done today is in that one black leather portfolio, the one I’ll carry around with me today.
   It’s all rather anal-retentive, or maybe obsessive-compulsive. Whatever you want to call it, it’s my way of keeping on top of what usually takes several departments of a newspaper staff busy. When you want to talk to the person in charge of editorial or advertising, billing or bookkeeping, payroll or payments, returning calls and e-mails or delivery, you have to talk to me. I’m it. The buck stops here.
   Just don’t call today. It’s crunch time at Heartland Women, and I’m up to my eyeballs in to-do’s.


The nuts and bolts
   I have decided to change the tone and topic of my blog in an effort to update it more frequently and establish a basic theme that might be of interest to those of you who care enough to click here.
    I have decided to offer my online readers a look at the various aspects of my job as owner, publisher and editor of Heartland Women.
    This first installment is about something all of you Web-heads can relate to, handling e-mails. Of course, running a business out of your hotmail account is a little different than forwarding a nifty set of photos to all of your friends and family. This task alone takes up at least three hours of my day, every day.

Fri., Jan. 9, 2009
   Boy, If I don’t stay on top of my e-mail, they really pile up.
    It’s been 24 hours since I checked my inbox at heartlandwomen.com and there are three pages, 61 e-mails, most of which involve ads or stories or bits of information that directly affect the next issue, which is bearing down on my like a freight train.
    So, I take a first run at the pile and eliminate the obvious. I delete the news releases on sports teams and the notification that my Capital One statement is available online and invitations to local events that are more flash than substance and find that I have only reduced the pile by four.
    For comic relief, I click on my junk mail folder and get rid of the e-mail from Oshua Omohaa Titoe, the son of late chief Namoha Titoe of Sierra Leone, who wanted me to stand as his foreign beneficiary to receive $23.5 million US dollars. I do the same for the offer from Coca-Cola offering me a job as their payment officer and bookkeeper. Never mind that one of the perks is to keep 20% of the payments I collect as my personal bonus.
    Back to my inbox, there’s a story from Cindy Gunnin. She’s a freelance writer who works regularly for us. I reply that I have received her story, but ask about photos.
    I copy the story to my word program. Then I send it to my editor, Jan Staab. She’ll check the story for holes – missing information – and style errors. There won’t be many. Cindy’s experienced and good at what she does.
    Do I want to buy some weight-loss product involving acai berries? No.
    Will I publicize a clothing drive held by a Herrin church? Yes.
    There’s a column from Cora Sedlacek. We publish her cooking column and recipes once a month, in the first issue of each month, on our Hearth page. She also submitted a list of possible photos to accompany her column that I can get from iStock, an online photo service. I reply that I have received her column, then check her list on iStock.
    After I’ve chosen two or three – and paid $3 each for them – I forward those photos to my graphic artist, Thor Gunnin, asking him to size them and send them back to me in black and white and in color. That’s because I haven’t “laid out” the issue yet – decided what stories go on what pages – so I don’t know whether the photos will be used on a color or black and white page.
    And yes, Thor is his real name. God of Thunder, I love it!
    Do I want to buy a snuggie blanket as advertised on TV? No. Believe it or not, I think my mother has ordered me one of these. My husband has seen the commercials on TV and says they make people look like Benedictine monks. Maybe I’ll learn a Gregorian chant…
    There’s a last-minute ad from Jan. (She’s also our ad manager.) I forward the instructions and attached photo and logo to Thor, who also creates our ads.
    Then, I copy all of my sent mail that I have to keep track of into a series of folders named for the people they went to and mark them as “unread” until my requests have been answered or completed. I do that in hopes that nothing will fall through the cracks.
    There are only about 30 e-mails left in my inbox, but it’s 3 in the morning and I have to get some sleep tonight. (I have an early appointment.) So, I check the rest of them for anything that looks like it absolutely can’t wait until tomorrow and call it a night.


New Year's resolution: Update my blog regularly!
January 11, 2008
   Tick, tick, tick. The clock on the wall was a merry metronome, snapping off seconds with a flippant attitude and a bit of a bounce in the second hand’s steady movement. Tick, tick, tick, to the next second, the next minute, the next hour. It was distracting, that incessantly cheerful forward march.
    I have nothing against the passage of time. Without it, things would be a bit static, to say the least. But on Dec. 31, as I began this update to my neglected blog, I couldn’t tune those tick, tick, ticks out. It was more than a half-hour to midnight, but I couldn’t stop myself from checking the time, every few minutes.
    I didn’t want to miss that magic second when the hands of the clock met at midnight and the ball dropped. I wanted to be beside my sweetie, with my arms around neck, puckered and prepared to wish and be wished a “Happy New Year.”
    I’m happy to say that all was as it should have been, as I spent the last few minutes of the old year and the first few minutes of the next wrapped in his arms and filled with a kind of happiness reserved for those of us lucky enough to be with the ones we love.
    Then, it was right back to work on this blog.
    Of course it’s January and lest old acquaintances be forget, I drug out my old list of goals. Remember them? Well, if you don’t, just scroll on down to my very first blog, May 15, 2007, more than half a year ago. That’s when I declared that my life was out of balance.
    Now, if you read Heartland Women – of course you do – and my column – page 3, From the Heart – you know that 2007 was a challenging year for me. There were lots of changes, not all of them good and many of them downright scary, and most of them happened in quick succession in the last six months of the year.
    I quit smoking, then did some backsliding, then quit again. David, my sweetie, was laid off from his job of more than 20 years. (We lost our health insurance when that happened.)
    My house was literally taken apart – to paint all of the inside walls and ceilings – and (partially) put back together. Several of our children experienced some pretty serious setbacks. And my son-in-law was diagnosed with a cyst in his brain that will require surgery.
    So, let’s just say that by the end of the year, we were all just thankful to be in one piece and gathered together – albeit at different times with different bits of our family – to celebrate the holidays. I took a bit of a break between the last issue of 2007 and the first one of the new year to reassess. And that’s where I am now, just a few days after that ball dropped, trying to share my list of New Year’s resolutions with you.
    Remember my first blog and those goals? That’s when I introduced you to my Genius system. It’s a way to divide the activities of my life into divisions, to better judge if I am spending too much time in one area and neglecting another.
    Those divisions are: body, soul, heart (family and friends), hearth (housework), sweat (job), mind (feeding the little gray cells), spirit (exercising my God-given talents) and purse (finances). And so, here is my honest assessment of where I stand at the beginning of this brand new year and where I want to be when it ends (besides still standing).
    Body: I’m ahead in this category, having stopped smoking – not counting that bit of backsliding – and having started walking at least five times a week. However, in the three months it took me to stop smoking, I gained 10 pounds per month! That’s 30 extra pounds! Yikes! I am determined this year to take that extra weight off.
    Soul: I always say a prayer before I fall asleep and (occasionally) when I get up. When I’m having a rough day, I might squeeze in a prayer or two during the day. But too often my prayers are more of a recitation of oft-repeated words than a real conversation. And too often I’m in too much of a hurry to spend some quiet time waiting for a reply. I resolve to make this more of a priority this year.
    Heart: I still don’t spend enough time with my sweetie, just listening and appreciating everything that makes him so special. I’m up working long after he goes to bed and he’s up working while I’m catching up on my sleep. I’m working on that one. But after a couple of rough patches with a couple of my children, I am – as of this writing – not fighting or mad at any of them. And I talk to my mother at least once a week and my brother several times a month. I resolve to keep those lines of communication open.
    Hearth: My house is much cleaner than it was in May. As each room was dismantled and painted, I scrubbed and dusted, replaced dingy, nicotine-stained blinds and washed or replaced all of the curtains and a couple of the throw pillows. I haven’t put everything back in its place yet, nor cleaned everything I want to clean, but I’m working on that one, too. And there are still two rooms left to paint. I’ll stay after this one and, oh yes, I resolve to put my Christmas decorations away before Feb. 1
    Sweat: I’m still trying to find ways to streamline my work and delegate some of the tasks that must be done for Heartland Women. Dalus, my daughter and partner in this enterprise, are meeting next week to work out some more of those details. I’ll keep you updated.
    Mind: I have always been an avid reader, but I had nearly stopped reading for fun by the end of the year. However, I have just started reading “T for Trespass” by Sue Grafton, and realize how relaxing it is to read a few pages of fiction before going to bed. It’s such a pleasant distraction and seems to put my mind off of all the details that otherwise bounce around my head and keep me from falling asleep. I resolve to continue the practice.
    Spirit: While I am one of those lucky people whose job involves my talent (writing), a lot of my job doesn’t. And the two novels I started more than five years ago haven’t grown by much more than a few pages in the last year. So, I resolve to advance each novel by more than a few chapters in 2008. Maybe I’ll give Ms. Grafton a run for her money.
    Finances: I have made some progress here. I have started a retirement fund (of sorts) that I contribute to monthly (if not by much). And I have managed to stay on top of my bills even though some months were tougher than others. I have to be honest here: the problems with the economy have affected Heartland Women just as they have many other small businesses. But all of us here at the newspaper have tightened our belts and strengthened our resolve to increase our ad revenue and make 2008 a banner year!
    So, there you have it ladies, my New Year’s resolutions. I’ll update my progress here in my blog (I promise to update it at least once a month), if you’ll promise to keep me in your prayers and keep picking up Heartland Women.
    Do my resolutions sound familiar, ladies? I bet they do. I bet most of you have a list like this. Well, there’s only one thing standing in the way of reaching all of those goals. Tick, tick, tick – you guessed it – time. Oh year, and maybe a bit of determination and courage to make the changes we know we should.
    Keep reading. I’ll keep writing. Until next time…