Melissa’s Life

Text is one of my New Year’s resolutions.

It’s Riv’s plan to read through the New Testament in a year. Kyle and a lot of other people we know are doing it too, so that makes it fun. And the fact that I get it in my email every day is a huge help. A resolution I think I will really keep!

If you are interested in it too or want the emails reminders, the site is Text.RivChurch.com.

We have defeated the printer problem. And it just may have all been worth it. I can now print on any size, any texture, any kind of envelope without smudging or ink spots.

Work is going to be wonderful this week.

For some reason, I can’t post pictures on my blog - the upload stuff isn’t working. I just love technology.
Too bad it hates me.

I’ve had the WORST week as far as technology goes. Specifically with HP Printers.

Short version: I am on my 3rd printer in 3 days, and going onto the 4th today.

Long version (you can skip this if you want, I won’t be offended. It’s for therapeutic reasons I write):

Dec 29: My HP Laserjet P2015dn that I use at work broke. It’s 3 months old. After a lot of troubleshooting and time on the phone with HP support, they concluded it was a hardware problem and I have to exchange it. They guarantee me it will arrive by the next day. Now, my work is entirely based on printing envelopes. (A greeting card company that has a service of printing envelopes. Printer kind of crucial). This printer problem puts me a day behind on the orders, but I can deal with that. I will just have to catch up the next day, when the printer arrives.

Dec 30: I wait all morning for the printer, and then decide to track the shipment, just to see where it is. Good thing I do. The delivery date is for the following day. I call up to see what the deal is, and, oh, actually, that printer is back ordered and won’t ship until January 15th. Lovely. Would they have even told me this had I not called? After a lot of going back and forth, they say they can’t help me out at all, I just have to wait until the new one is available and shipped in mid-Jan.
Obviously, I can’t wait until then to do the work orders that are already piling up.

Time for some online research and calling around to find comparable printers that I can buy in a store. Since I print on a lot of different sizes and textures, it’s not easy to find a printer that can do all of this at the speed and quality I need. Finally, I find a similar model and go into Office Max to get it. They had assured me it was in stock when I called. However, when I go in, they can’t find any. It’s so funny, they say, because their inventory system says they have three in the store, but they just can’t find them anywhere. Hilarious.
At this point, it’s 2pm, and the post office closes at 7, which means I have 5 hours to find a printer that works and get my orders shipped out for the last two days.

I go to Staples. They have the model I was looking for at Office Max. It’s $50 more expensive, but the staff is helpful, and I’m relieved I can do finally get back to work. It’s just like the model I had before, but it’s not a double-sided printer. Which should be fine, since I never use that feature anyway. At this point, I enlist Kyle’s help, and he takes his afternoon to help me set everything up. The printer is set to go, I get to work…but the ink isn’t staying on the envelopes. It just rubs right off. I finish what I can of the orders, and then Kyle and I pack up the printer and bring it back to Staples. The staff tries to help, but can’t offer any solutions about why the ink isn’t sticking. It may just be that the temperature of that specific printer wasn’t as high as the previous one I used, so another printer in the same model may end up working better. But they don’t know for sure. They suggest I try an Inkjet, instead of a Laser. I go home to do more research on Inkjets before I decide which one to buy.

We find one that seems like it will work. It’s an HP Officejet Pro L7590. We buy it from OfficeMax (it’s cheaper there, and they have it when we go into the store, yes!) and we’re back in my office around 10 at night to set it up so I can be all set for work the following day. Kyle (thank you Kyle, you rock!) sets everything up, which ends up being an hour and half set up process. Finally, it’s all set to go, we do a test print, and….well….the good news is, the ink doesn’t rub off. The bad news is, you can’t print return addresses on the envelope size we need. The printer is forcing the margins to be too big. We mess around with it, doing a bunch of troubleshooting and research for a while. At 1:30 in the morning, give up, go home. Problem still not solved.

Dec 31st (New Years Eve): Kyle takes another day off (he is so awesome) to come in and help me with the printer. We research it, troubleshoot….nothing. The printer is now also displaying smears of blue ink on the printouts, so we are trying to solve that as well. At least we have a New Years Eve party to look forward to!

Jan 1st (New Years Day): “Day off” turns into “day at office” trying to figure out the printer. I guess HP Support doesn’t have New Years off either. Though since the support is based in India, it’s technically Jan 2nd for them. Kyle and I talk with customer support, two different times through the day, trying to find a solution. It is really ridiculous how NOT helpful they are. I think they must have a rule where they can never tell people something isn’t possible, even if it isn’t.
Example.
Me: I need to print on an envelope with a width 5.1 but it’s forcing the margins to be too large.
HP Support: Type in the size you need.
Me: I have. It’s giving me a pop up that the minimum size is 6.4
HP Support: Use the arrows to go down to the size you need.
Me: I have. Each time I either type is or arrow down to the size I need, it gives me a pop-up error.
HP Support: Select size 6.4.
Me: My envelope is 5.1.
HP Support: Type in the size you need.
They then refer me to the envelope page printing web page, and hang up. The envelope printing web page does not address my issue.
As it turns out, there is no solution. The printer simply doesn’t print envelopes as small as we need them to.

Jan 2nd: I do more research on what printers will work for the tasks I need. There is surprisingly little info on printing envelopes of different sizes and textures. Most printers that say they print envelopes mean standard size, and there’s really know way to know if they’ll work for my stuff until I hook them up and try them out. For today’s orders, I do some very time consuming work-arounds and get them finished, but it takes me about 3x the amount of time to get them done.

Jan 3rd: That’s today. Another “day off” = “day in the office.” Poor Kyle is going to help me take back the Inkjet printer, and help me find a new one. This time we are going back to a Laserjet, but we’re going to opt for the latest model of the one I had before, and find one that is double-sided and maybe a stronger heating element will cause the ink to stick? HP Laserjet P2055dn is what I’m going to buy today. Wish me luck!

Morals of the story: 1. Have a back up printer in office that is the same as the original.
2. Whenever possible, do not buy anything HP that you may need customer support for.

We had a great one. Christmas eve and morning with Kyle’s family, then Christmas evening with mine. My parents are out here until Sunday so we are pretty busy with them for the next couple of days.
Definitely missed being out east with the extended family this year, though it was nice not having to make the 14 hour (each way) drive.

I will post pics of our recent trip to Chicago and Christmas on here soon. I’ve been completely away from my computer for two days now, and it’s been very nice. I’m going to try and spend more time off of it for the rest of the weekend, but when I get back into virtual world next week, I’ll post here.

Until then!

Kyle got me a surprise gift the other day - and it’s changed my outlook on life. Before, I’d check the weather each day, hoping it would reach above the freezing mark, because then my dog might actually want to go on a walk with me. No longer. She can stay curled up in the laundry basket all day. Now what I’m hoping for is below freezing + precipitation, because the more snow, the better. Here’s why:

So now all we need is more snow. I also need to find some good trails around here.

I sort of don’t want to tell people about this guy.

I want to no one else in the world to know about him so that his work will be affordable so that I can buy it. Once I have several pieces of his work displayed in my house (when the day comes that I have a house) people will come over and say, “Wow, that art is amazing!” It’s at this time I hope he’ll become popular, and I hope everyone will learn about him so he can get the recognition he deserves.

However, I think some people out there have already caught on to his genius. I’m not an art scholar or anything, but this guys work is freaking amazing. I look at it and my head hurts - in a good, awe-filled way. I can’t find much for sale, but the one original painting of his I found online is $21,000.00. And if I want to settle for a print, looks like I have to fork over $5,000.00. Car, or picture, trip to Europe, or picture?

Kyle and I discovered Daniel Merriam’s work in a little gallery in Sedona, AZ. But I just found out that he has some of his stuff displayed in East Lansing too. I’m so excited and I can’t believe it’s right here! I will post a few pics of his work here, but I almost don’t want to, because looking at it online actually does it an injustice. When you see the original painting in reality, and the detail involved, and when you consider that he paints many different works like these…wow.

I’m thankful for you.

I like the snow. I don’t know why all of a sudden this year it’s different, but it is. I’m taking a break from running again, so that definitely helps. Now, instead of looking outside and being frustrated that it’s icy and cold and I can’t go for my run, I look outside and smile at the beauty, turn on my fireplace, and hang out inside. Love having a fireplace.

The apartment is working out nicely. The location is perfect. We are working on getting it decorated. So far, we’ve put in two trips to Ikea and slowly but surely are adding things. We’re also looking at land around Holt and finding some decent deals, and investigating a few options. We want to build in the future, so we may buy land now and hang on to it until we are ready. Researching the kind of home we want to build has been pretty cool. I started a specific home blog at www.residewell.com. It’s pretty much just a collection of things I’m finding as I research that I want to save for the future, but a lot of people have been asking about what we’re into, so it’s on there if you’re interested.

Getting to see my nieces and nephews pretty often, which I love. My mom was in town this past weekend and it was so nice to see her - I miss her and my dad so much. There’s a strong possibility that they are moving out here part-time, yes!!!

Also getting back into a couple of things at Riverview, which I’m really excited about. One thing I’m looking for is volunteers for the Mid-Michigan Food Bank, if you’re interested. Please?! It’s a really easy way to get involved - just one weekday a month for six months or so. The Lansing Area Aid Network gets 5 pounds of food for every hour worked. Email me if interested.

Last night was the Avett Brother’s show at Riv. I had heard they would put on a great show, and they did not disappoint. The venue was awesome and the staff at Riv did a GREAT job at putting everything together.

Tonight watched 24 with the crew at Noel’s. Ah, it’s good to be back, eating junk food and sipping wine while keeping Jack Bauer’s body count through the night. There’s nothing like it.

This week will be some more snow watching, work, life group, work, cooking (we’re trying! it’s been pretty fun), a date with my husband, Riv projects, work, Thanksgiving with the Kranzos, and then a nice long weekend.

People in the Lansing area need a Thanksgiving dinner. Riv (my church) provides the turkey and potatoes, and you get anything else needed for the spread. You don’t have to do any cooking - just deliver the food items to the family or person, along with the turkey and potatoes, so they can make their Thanksgiving meal.

We have 21 individuals and 52 families of two and three people that are in need. Please email Matt at mercieca@gmail.com if you want to help out. Thanks!

The company I work for, Jack Cards, is doing something pretty cool - you can participate. Also, if you’re on Facebook, please become a Fan of the our Jack Cards Page on Facebook.

THE DETAILS

Give one million cards. Give one million dollars.
Our goal is to help send a million cards personally signed by people from the US and around the world expressing their encouragement, support and ideas for our next President, and to donate $1 million to charity.

Cards are shipped to you in time for Inauguration Day
Cards are mailed to you two weeks before the inauguration, (beginning January 7th) with a stamped envelope, pre-addressed to the White House. All you need to do is write your message to Barack Obama inside, then drop it back in the mailbox.

$1 from every card purchased will be given to charity
Proceeds from the sale of each card will be donated to select charities that support Barack Obama’s goal of making college tuition more affordable in exchange for community service.

Cards will be donated to classrooms across America
Jack Cards and Oh My Word are donating cards to students in select schools across the country to encourage the youth of America to share their voice with the 44th President of the United States. One school in every state will be chosen. Have a school you’d like to nominate to participate in this initiative? Visit our Facebook page to supply us with your nominee. We will contact your school if it is selected.

Cards are made in the USA and printed on 100% recycled paper

Congratulate Senator McCain
Want to congratulate Senator John McCain on all that he has achieved for his country? Send him your personal message of support and encouragement.
Choose from Job Well Donee, Congratulations, Support, and Thank you.