tired (again)

Tired. It's been busy. We've this party that we're still working towards. At least we won't have to go out of town to transport this one particular person, though we would've preferred the person's attendance. I was tasked to print up the menu; that was easy enough. I was also tasked to make the place cards. That will take more effort since it's been requested that it be done by hand in calligraphy. I have them cut and folded (I probably should have waited on the folding part). At some other time I will pencil in the guides then attempt the calligraphy; in the meantime I need to drop the effort because I still have to do some house cleaning and need time for that.

Yesterday I've been acting as photographer, taking portrait shots of the guest of honor for the party. I'm no pro but this will have to do. I then spent hours working with the photo of choice and have at least a dozen prints that are "toss outs" before I got what I wanted. Part of it was learning to use the software. In one sitting, I've used MS Paint (came with WinVista), Canon ZoomBrowser (came with the camera), IrfanView (free software download), and ArcSoft PhotoImpression (came with the color printer) in an attempt to get what I wanted. No PhotoShop here. In the end, it took the combination of MSPaint (for adding length to the picture without stretching or cropping it), PhotoImpression (to blur certain areas), and ZoomBrowser (to print). Somehow PhotoImpression just wouldn't let me print right. I forgot which one I used to add back some red to the photo (some qualities were lost when I used MSPaint).

I've not completed the presentation slides and I also still have the party favors to work on.

We're also setting up a will for this other person. Thank God we've found a good lawyer through a referral from someone at church. We also had to go the courthouse for a copy of the person's property deed. We did the lawyer and courthouse in one day; I had to take off from work to accomplish that. I will have to take off again for the return trip to the lawyer to finalize (and pay). Wills are cheaper than trusts up front, but will require going to probate court later and will incur additional costs then. If you don't have alot of assets, then wills are ok. Else, a living trust is a much better way to go.

Tomorrow evening I will visit the Dominicans to participate as a volunteer for their anniversary celebration planning. Tuesday evening I will meet with my spiritual director. Wednesday evening we will attend mass for the feast day of Assumption. At least these will be cool, fun things.

At work, I've these loads of documents to read. And they're all very boring reading. It's exceedingly difficult for me and I'm making absolutely lousy progress. On some of these documents, I have to read with a critical eye and submit [intelligent] comments. On others, I'm supposed to digest and bring back to the team what's relevant. Oh, and I'm also writing my own document, meaning that I have to review my own document too. And yes, all these things have deadlines. My brain is tired; and so is my butt.

I have missed blogland and fellow bloggers. Anyhow, I have to go clean the house now ... there is a weekly deadline for that too.