..."wandering"...on a busy day

I got to bed late last night...
so getting up was a chore...
especially with the Piglet snuggling sweetly...
and purring...
[she's generally snoring...loudly...
and drooling...in my left ear...]

Fluff's eye seems to look better...



though she's obviously annoyed with the paparazzi here...



though it still looks nasty...
I think the ulcer is shrinking...



she's NOT in any pain...
and is very good about letting me put salve in her eye...



especially...

if that results in petting...
chin skritching...
and general adoration of Herself...

so after getting dressed, etc...
a bit more of a chore than usual...
since I had given in to pressure & agreed...
to have my picture taken for the church directory...
[have I ever mentioned that I detest having my picture taken ?]

anyway, I was off for the Bible study at the church...



I went in the office briefly to drop off something...
and saw our Bishop...



who was visiting us & would celebrate the noon mass...
after the Bible study...
I've always enjoyed his sermons & today's was no different...
preaching on the scripture passage...
where Jesus spends 40 days in the wilderness...

about how the enemy always goes after you...
when you are the most vulnerable or weak...
and how we should follow Christ's example...
& rebuke Satan with scripture...

little did I know that that would be a caveat...
for the rest of my day...

our usual lunch was skipped...
as several people needed to be elsewhere...
and the rest were lunching with the Bishop...

I went out into the rain...



to go to my vet's and retrieve Creamer...
who, of course, had had NO diarrhea while staying there...



she was glad to be home and I hope...
her "poopy-butt" days are gone...

while I was home, I put new batteries in my lablemaker...
it still wouldn't work...hasn't in a while...
that was fine...as long as it's twin at the church was working...
but it disappeared last summer, so this meant I had to get a new one...



since I had still a bunch of the tape cartridges it used...
I decided to look for the same one[that model's only 12 years old..]
and I found one on Amazon...but it was $65.00...ouch...
then I noticed that the newest version of the same model...
[that uses the same size tape !] was $29.95...
AND...it was on sale for $17.95 !!




at that price, I could afford to get 2...
one to replace the dead one at home...
[it had been used at school for years...]
and one to replace the one that vanished from the choir room at the church...
[and still have the same labels on the music storage boxes...]

having done that, I was off through the raindrops to...





in search of "legal sized 3-ring black vinyl binders"...

the Renaissance group is working on some music...
from the choral public domain website...
and the notes & words are too small to be easily read...

so our "bass" enlarged his copy of the songs we're doing...
and put them in a legal sized binder...
that he got at Office Max...

I knew I needed the large print version...
so I volunteered to copy a set for each of the 3 of us...
who wanted one in large print...
also agreeing to make it back-to-back...
and put it into the legal size binders...

so I was at OM to purchase 3 of the legal sized binders for us...
I was going to make the copies at the church...
so I was also going to get a ream of 11" x 17" copy paper...
and donate the remainder to the church...

I also planned to get...
10 smaller offset binders for the church choir [we're out...]
& some dividers to separate the Ren. group selections...

I found the legal binders quickly...
and the church ones were right below them...
the dividers were across the aisle...
and the copy paper was right where I thought it should be...

except...

there was only one package of the size & type I needed...
and it was ripped open...
though nearly all of it seemed to be there...

I took it to the cashier & asked about any more...
the manager said,"that's the last one...
but if you want it, I'll make it half price..."

so I happily paid for my stuff, lugged it to the car...
and made my way back to the church...

unfortunately, it was time for my photo to be taken...
[I really hate having my picture taken...ewwww...]

and I got grumpy with the photographer...
it didn't help that she was trying to be cheery...
but I quickly fell into grouch mode...
[what was that the Bishop had just preached on...?
the enemy goes after us when we are at a weak point...
and I was definitely there...& I paid for it big time...]

and this was the instrument of torture...



I was trying to take the enlarged single side pages...
and make a back-to-back master to use to run the 3 copies...
and since it was 11" x 17" paper...it kept wrinkling...
but only when the other side was being printed...

MzYBee came by for her picture,suffering with a miserable cold...
and seeing my plight...
[it wasn't hard to see, I kept telling the machine that I hated it...]
announced loudly that she'd made a lot of "books" when she taught...
and that it was the "heat"...
[I knew it wasn't...it was the size of the paper...]
but she kept telling me it was the "heat"...
so I gave up "discussing it"...

finally...after messing around for what seemed like eons...
I had a decent "master" set that was back-to-back...
and relatively "wrinkle-free"...
so I made 2 more copies... checked the order...

labled the back of the only piece...
that's just 2 pages, so that it opens in "facing" pages...
[ie is NOT back-to-back...]...
then cut about 3" off the bottoms...
punched holes & put them inside the binders...
which I had labeled, "Festino" on the spines...

I discovered that the dividers I bought were too narrow...
they would be swallowed up by the music...
and be useless...
[making the music narrower, was NOT an option...
due to the need to have holes punched...
and the lack of a viable margin to cut off on the right side...

here you can see the original size on the left...



and the "enlarged" version on the right...



and yes, the right margin does stick out a bit...
but on a music stand, it won't be noticed...



here you see the enlarged version of the facing pages...
on the one piece that was only 2 pages...

finally done...3 enlarged copies secure in the legal sized binders...
I left the office at the same time as Square Peg...
I looked at the clock in my car... it was 6 PM...
I drove home...it had finally stopped raining...

so as I finish writing this...
I'm thinking of the blessings of this morning...
and there were many...

and then the wilderness time in the afternoon...
when I knew what the problem was...
but was too tired, grumpy & sore to really deal with it...

despite all of that...

I got the copies made...
and got some other stuff done...
so now, I'm going to cobble together something to eat...
take some MORE Excedrin...
and go to bed...

for tomorrow is the first...
of our Lenten Soup/Study/Benediction/Taizé evening services...
and Thursday is my doctor's appointment...
where he will probably remove the wire from my finger...
[alas, old Frankenfinger, it's time to go...]
then Friday, I have to get my hair cut...

and so it goes...