The bane of my existence

So I'm the secretary of our local Newborns in Need chapter. The biggest part of my secretarial duties is getting out the monthly newsletter and meeting reminder. This is done via e-mail and I have a snail mail list for those who don't do e-mail. I usually postpone it way too long and I dislike doing it because at the end of all the news items and such, I have to list the totals for the month. I have an Excel spreadsheet sent to me every month by the president that lists all the items, but it isn't formatted to copy over, so I have to manually delete and add line items and delete and add in new numbers for everything.

Can you say tedious?

I just spent four hours on it...that and adding some new members to the e-mail list.

It might help if I had better typing skills, but my typing is horrid, as evidenced by the typos that continually make it onto this blog. I took typing in 8th grade. Somehow I passed it. I don't use the same fingers for the same keys...I type very fast but very inaccurately, and I have to look at the keyboard to even type my name. I generally know where they keys are, I just don't have proper form. Maybe someday I will make myself start typing really slow to make myself use the correct fingers on all the keys. Until then, I'll keep on typing like hell fire and then going back and making all the numerous corrections.

The one thing I can handle well is a ten key, but I use a laptop. So I don't even have that going for me.

Normally the newsletter is a lot of same-old same-old and doesn't require much rewriting, but this month I took out a lot of the old stuff to make room for all sorts of new items. I left in some of the old stuff, but I took out a few recurring items because the newsletter was getting very long...maybe too long to hold any one's attention!

And then it takes me a few hours to get it mailed to everyone on the list because I use Yahoo and Yahoo only lets me mail out to 100 or so people an hour. What a pain. I sent an e-mail just now and will do another when I wake up.

Anyway, here's an idea of the month we had...and this is a bit of a low month. We like to have between 2,000-4,000 items for Parkland alone. Our receiving blanket numbers were very low. And we usually have 10-15 sets of bereavement items for John Peter Smith Hospital. Summers can be a bit slower, though, as folks are travelling and caring for kids and having fun and just not as able to work as much on items:

June Totals:

Parkland Nurseries
Afghans 67
Bassinet Sheet 4
Gel pillow covers 30
Quilts 147
Receiving Blankets 669
Washcloths 2
Bibs 31
Socks/Booties 216
Burp Cloths 29
Disposable Diapers (ea) 1
Hats 384
Onesies 78
Shirts 290
Sleepers/gowns 4
Sweater/jacket/Bunting 2
Other baby clothing 7
Other clothing 7
Diaper bag - med 15
Other equipment 4
Bottles 9
Bottle brush 1
Toys 1
TOTAL 1,998

Children's Medical Center
Quilts 3
Receiving blankets 40
TOTAL 43

Family Place
Receiving Blankets 47
Toys/books/CD's 2
TOTAL 49

Shared Life Ministries
Receiving blankets 47
Other baby supplies 16
TOTAL 63

Baylor Medical Center
Afghans 4
Quilts 3
Receiving blankets 34
Towels 5
Washcloths 2
Other bedding 2
Bibs 4
Booties/socks/shoes 30
Burp cloths 6
Disposable diapers (ea) 122
Hats 41
Onesies 43
Shirts 15
Sleepers/gowns 15
Sweater/jacket/bunting 2
Other baby clothing 5
Other clothing 1
Baby carrier 1
Diaper bag - draw string 6
Diaper bag - Lg 1
Stroller 1
Toys/books/CD's 1
Wipes (box/refill) 3
TOTAL 347

Special deliveries
Burial layette gown 1
Burial layette hat 1
Burial layette memory bag 1
Memory blanket 1
Other burial items 1
TOTAL 5

GRAND TOTAL 2,505