Letters From The Sky

Yesterday was a whirlwind day. As you can tell from the previous post, the morning was filled with tragedy on a broader scale. But my personal afternoon was marked with success, relief, and elation. For the past four months, I've been managing a big project for the company I work for. It is a 128 page journal that consists of articles jam-packed into every available space possible to get the maximum content, while still maintaining readability. The thing that made it especially challenging is that the editor-in-chief for this particular journal has been sending all of her edits and corrections via correspondence. She lives on the east coast, and I work on the west coast. And if the time zone issue wasn't tricky enough, the co-editor lives in another state, not on the west coast, and has been sending in HER edits around the same time. So timing, mixed with conflicting ideas and edits, and a rushed deadline can be very overwhelming! Normally when I work on journals at work, it's all done in-house, with the editing team readily available to work with me to make things work. This project was almost solely my "baby." My in-house editors were busy with their own projects, and my bosses were pushing for a speedy release of the journal, while also including their "final say" on the content. This equals A LOT OF CHANGES.

So after a lot of hard work and making it through stressful days, all the while, learning to hone my craft through it all, I was successful in meeting my deadline—even down to the last comma. Right before (no seriously, like 10 minutes before) the courier came to pick up the package, we looked over everything and noticed that we had missed a comma. My boss said it was okay to just ignore it, but my dedication to the project, and need for excellence in my work, forced me to run up the 3 flights of stairs to get to my office, fix the file, reprint the page, and burn a new CD, run it all back downstairs, and package it up for the courier to pick it up. And I got it done JUST in time! I had the BIGGEST adrenaline rush I've had in a while. I seriously did a "happy dance" as the courier walked out the office door with our project package in his hands.

So I got the job done, and took off of work early. I decided that it was cause for celebration! One of my absolute favorite places to eat is the Red Robin down by the waterfront where I can sit and enjoy my Clucks & Fries and look out at the beauty of Puget Sound. I got to watch the sunset and then I went for a walk around by the pier, enjoying the sound of the water and the reflection of the lights onto the water. Here are some pictures from yesterday afternoon and evening.