It's the time of the month for me to do our senior MHPs newsletter. It's only 6 pages, double-sided (3 sheets of paper), so the writing and editing went quickly. I finished late on Wednesday and gave proofing copies to two neighbors, as usual, early Thursday morning. By 5 p.m., I had my list of changes and fixes, and took care of them. I began printing them on the laser printer purchased by the Park management for that purpose. I needed to print 435 sets. The output tray only holds 50 sheets, so I do 16 sets at a swipe (48 sheets), at least 28 times. I had figured to finish the printing Thursday night, leaving the stapling for Friday. After just 10 batches, the toner cartridge emptied. No amount of shaking would revive it. I checked Office Max by phone and they wanted almost $100 for a new one. I went online and found a local supplier who seemed to be within a mile of me. I did not expect to get so lucky.
Meanwhile, I went around talking to myself about how my plans were interrupted and everything was going wrong. The supplier was closed for the day (by then it was close to 9 p.m.), so I sent an email, and shut down the computer for the night. Suddenly I realized how tired I was. I decided to accept my lot, and just close up shop for day, altogether.
Then it dawned on me that maybe God was telling me exactly that: It's time to get to bed, old woman! Thursday night was the one night a week we do not have to shuttle my nephew back and forth to work in the middle of the night, and I had planned to work late on the newsletter. Well, it looks like the big guy had other plans.
In the morning, Friday, at 8 a.m., the supplier emailed me that he had a generic toner for only $39! I went right over, picked it up, and plopped it in.
It wouldn't fit. It wouldn't "sit." I had a fit! (sigh)
I called up the supplier. By now, I was already seeing my day go down the drain. I was scheduled to meet with our charity crafters between 10 and Noon, and had hoped to finish the newsletter as soon as I got home. He said to try it again. I did. No luck. Finally, I looked at the little instruction sheet which came with the toner, and it mentioned inserting it into the drum.
Uh oh. Seemed to me maybe I turned in the old toner cartridge still IN the drum. I called the poor supplier back - he checked. Yep. Back over to the supplier for my hastily discarded drum. By then, it was getting close to my 10 a.m. time for the crafters. I did take the time to test the printer and it was all right.
When I came home after Noon, I was easily able to finish everything, all in good and easy time.
I keep forgetting that sometimes when I schedule things, God knows better about how they must fit together. Maybe if I had pushed myself the night before, I would have made even more mistakes the next day, so it all worked out just fine.
Dear God, thank you so much for guiding me to work with your time, not mine.
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