Footing the Bill

Today I edited footage at the TV station for three hours.  I’m a writer/producer for our campus news show, and I was asked to come in a few hours before the taping to put some packages together for people.  I haven’t edited footage in close to a year, but it was all really satisfying today, even if it was stressful as fuck doing things in such a small window of time.  I mean, don’t get me wrong — I always do my work at the last minute, but doing someone else’s is a whole ‘nother animal.  I think it went really well though!

I also posted here for the first time in, oh, a month!  This semester is running me ragged, but I do find that I’m doing more good things without even thinking about them.  I definitely like that.  🙂

United Service

Today I donated money to the USO.  I planned on donating to Kiva but somehow every. single. loan. on their website had already been funded tonight.  Who knew that was even possible?  It worked out though, since I’ve had an e-mail from the USO in my box for over a month now. Admittedly it was from MyPoints, offering points on their site if you donated money.  The offer has since expired but it’s still a worthy cause, so I donated $15 to Operation Phone Home and $10 to United Through Reading.  I like that you can divide up your donation to different organizations.  I was doing to donate $25 either way, but both of those projects sounded really good.  Donation split!  Wee!

I’m also wrapping up some bidding on Nie Nie Day auctions tonight and I am PSYCHED. (Edit: I won, squee!)

Wine Me, Dine Me

Today I took my parents out for dinner.  I’m home for the weekend which means I worked from 3 to 9, and our options afterwards were to eat mozzarella cheese and tomatoes for dinner (not super classy but one of our favorite things) or go out.  Out won!  We had pretty good food, and I had a calzone that was an entire foot long!  I did not actually eat twelve inches of calzone.

Tuned In

Today I told someone she was good at her job.  Who doesn’t want to hear that more often, right?  I went into an office at school to make an appointment, and the girl behind the desk told me she was new.  She wasn’t really sure what she was doing, but she did just fine and I wasn’t in a rush anyway.  When I left, I doubled back to let her know she was doing a good job.

I also delivered my old TV to my new friend!

NieNie Day!

Today I bid on items for NieNie Day.  I love the idea of the project so much!  It’s really cool to see so many people come together for such a good cause.  Before today I’d never read NieNie but I’m hooked now — her blog is lovely, and I really hope she and her husband heal beautifully.  The only item I’ve landed for sure is a blog re-design (which? AWESOME!), but I’m still going over the list to see if maybe I can grab a gift for a friend’s baby, stuff like that.  I really want to help, so I might end up just giving a donation if my other bids don’t pan out.

Even if you can’t bid, you should check out NieNie’s story and all of today’s festivities!

Television Without Pity

Today I offered to let someone borrow my old TV until May.  A girl in two of my classes is here on an exchange from Manchester, England, and of course I had to make friends with her.  Accent!  British!  We got to talking, and she mentioned she doesn’t have a TV here since she couldn’t bring one from England.  I was thinking about it later on, and obviously it doesn’t make sense to buy a new one since she’s only here until May.  Still, she’s here until May and I know how dull it gets in the dorms, even with a TV.  Without a TV, I would’ve lost my mind.

I kept my old TV in our living room at the apartment, but my roommate brought in a bigger one so I was planning on bringing my extra set home this weekend.  No one’s going to use it there though, so why not let my new friend use it while she’s in the country?  If she wants it, my mom and I will drop it by her room on Friday.  Yay!

Nobody Lingers Like Your Hands on My Heart

WordPress doesn’t even recognize me anymore!  Awkward.

So, it’s been a couple of weeks.  We went on vacation and I saved my mom from drowning, without any exaggeration.  I saved her life, honest to God.  It was one of those things I’ve always thought about –could I save someone’s life if I really had to– and it came very naturally, like it would to anyone in an emergency.  I knew we’d gone out too far in the water, but I figured I would just make my way back in.  It was getting harder but I could still stand, I was fine.  Out of nowhere my mom completely lost it, and I had to drag us both back in.

It was an accident but it was terrifying and frustrating in a lot of ways.  It’s scary to have to be the one in charge.  The whole thing was hard to deal with.

So, I took a break and it’s been good!  I started college again today, which I’m looking forward to even though it’s going to be really effing hard this semester, and I’ll get back into Good Things wholeheartedly tomorrow.  I did a couple of cool ones during my break, my favorite being nominating a teacher for Teacher of the Year.  I picked my old seventh grade teacher since the rules did not explicitly say you need to have had the teacher currently or recently!  Maybe she’ll win just since the other entries were probably all written by eight year olds.

Things are, and will be, getting better.

Exhausting couple of days, post soon!

Are You Being Served

Today I praised an employee in a customer service survey.  At my job, we randomly select people to fill out surveys, which gives them a chance to win a $5,000 shopping spree.  (That’s pretty much my speech verbatim!)  If people fill them out and say good things, there’s a chance the store will get a bonus, so I know how important it is to get them turned in.  Of course it doesn’t happen that often though, since it’s really easy to ignore it or forget about it.  I shopped at Macy’s over the weekend and was asked to fill out a survey, and of course it’s so easy to just cast it aside, but I received good service so I filled mine out tonight.  Hope it helps, Cathy at Macy’s!

Prize Party

Today I bought raffle tickets for the Help a Mama Swag-o-Rama. Each ticket helps the ladies from MOMocrats go to the Democratic National Convention, so it’s for a good cause! Also, I really like raffles and prizes. I bought two tickets for myself and one for a friend. It would be cool to win the prizes I’m interested in, naturally, but also really fun to surprise someone with a prize package I think she’d like. Fingers crossed!