Small Stuff, Sweating, and Snapshots

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Ray and I did two webinars yesterday. You should have seen the chaos behind the scenes! We set up for the first one in a room that seemed just right, just where we had set up for another one a few months ago. With help from our wonderful staff, Ethan, Connor, and Michelle, we placed the needed equipment. The lighting was in place and there sat my laptop and an additional computer screen atop two cardboard boxes on a table we take to conventions.

From Missouri our son, business manager, and techie, John, connected to my computer in Gainesboro. Pretty soon he realized: uh, oh, the Wi-Fi signal is too weak. That’s when I remembered that we used wired Internet last time instead of wireless, since the place we had chosen is not that close to the router in our office.

Ray looked high. Conner looked low. Michelle looked here. Ethan looked there. The minutes until webinar time were ticking away. Where was that long blue cable that reached to our just-right location last time? With no ideas of where else to look, we moved things out of the way in the office and transferred lights, table, boxes, laptop, and screen. To test the lighting in our new spot, Ray and I stood looking calmly into the camera on my laptop which was hooked up to wired Internet with the much shorter green cable which they did find. Less than fifteen minutes later, we were calmly giving our first webinar with our audience completely unaware of the chaos around us.

With webinar 1 completed at 3:30 p.m. Ray and I went on our way, doing other things, while we waited to do webinar 2 at 7:00. It was about 4:30 when chaos struck again. The power went out — no electricity, no Internet, and, for some reason, barely any cell phone coverage. Oh, dear. It might be time to get back into high gear.

When the power was still off an hour later and all our staff was gone for the evening, Ray called our minister to let him know that we were bringing our equipment to the church building to do a webinar there. That’s when he told us that the Internet speed there is turtle-paced and invited us to set up at his house.

We scurried around loading up laptop, boxes, table, big screen, and peanut butter sandwiches to eat when we could — so much for the nice leftovers from Ray’s birthday supper Monday night which I had been looking forward to all day.

Onto their dining room table went the boxes and computer stuff. Unplug this. Run this cable. Find an extension cord. Call John.

By, oh, about 6:56 p.m., John was able to get everything going so we could begin at 7. When we went live, we stood in front of their beautiful white fireplace in their pretty red dining room, looking calm and ready.

It’s nice when things work like clockwork — at least, I’ve heard that it’s nice when things work like clockwork. I haven’t personally had nearly as much experience with that as some other people have — or seem to.

There are many lessons from our much-less-than-clockwork experience yesterday:

• Everyone needs friends who will let them barge in at supper time and do a webinar in their dining room.
• Everyone needs to be that kind of friend.
• The snapshot (or computer screen) we see of someone may not be an accurate picture of the chaos — or of the beauty — that is off camera.
• Small stuff’s not worth sweating over.

As I lived yesterday afternoon and evening, I remembered the last time our power went out (our rural electric company is so wonderful that it happens only rarely). It was the day I was meeting via Skype with Amy’s Mother’s Night Out group. The power went out just as I was about to blow-dry my hair.

Ray and I decided to try a creative solution. He found our little portable battery in our warehouse and pulled it close to a window (no power in the warehouse either). I grabbed a full-length mirror and my hair essentials and headed to the warehouse. There on top of an order bound for Florida, I set up the mirror and began to dry. I had dried part of one side when the juice ran out. Oh, well. The small stuff’s not worth sweating over. You know my motto: Scrunch, go, and take a picture ’cause maybe you can use it in a blog post sometime!

But the Lord answered and said to her,
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things . . . .
Luke 10:41

Let’s be like her sister Mary and choose the better part.

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