no good deed

they say that no good deed goes unpunished.

and so it is. a few years back, for Christmas, I put together a family calendar, made copies, and gave them as gifts to everyone in the family. and everyone loved them. so now it's more or less expected of me.

I use photos taken throughout the year, and i put them together into collages month by month. and i attempt to do 3 things. make sure if it's someone's birthday month that they are featured, make sure everyone in the family is represented in each month, and finally, i make sure seasonal or family events that occur in each month are featured.

and i pull pics from everywhere. people's sd cards, their facebook accounts, my phone, my ipad, from actual developed pictures.

and EVERY year, when i'm done, i say to myself, "DO NOT WAIT UNTIL DECEMBER OF NEXT YEAR TO DO THIS!" and yet, i always always always do. )-:

at first i used to use my pc. and i'd use publisher to make a collage of the pictures, which took days, and i'd print the pictures and the calendar pages off, and then put them together myself. that got old. so then, i started making the collages, and i'd save them on to a flashdrive, and take it into a store, and construct them on a photo kiosk, and i'd pick them up in a week or so.

and then i got my ipad and i started putting the collages together in pages. which still took days, but wasn't as aggravating as using publisher. BUT THEN, i beat my head against a wall trying to figure out how to turn a pages document into a jpeg file because the photo kiosks won't use pdf or pages files. grrr. it was maddening. i thought i was saving time by constructing in pages. only to be faced with this file dilemma. so it took me HOURS and HOURS to figure out a convoluted way of accomplishing this. but i finally did.

and then, by the next year i forgot my convoluted way. so then i devised another convoluted way. only to forget that this year. GRRRR!

but even more than that, last year when i took my flash in, the store called me in a couple days, and said they had them ready. and i went in, and they weren't ready. and so they told me to come back at a certain time, and i did. then when i got there, they still weren't ready, and i waited in the store for another TWO hours. (i did end up getting a 50 dollar compensatory gift card out of that deal though.)

so anyway, let's just say i wasn't looking forward to this year. but fortunately, there were more googleable directions of convoluted ways to turn pages documents into jpegs. and i found one that was only a 5 step process that didn't involve acquiring a new app or programs. so yeah! so i did that 5 step process, 12 times. well, actually 13 times- as i had to have a cover picture too.

and then i found a great discount (40% off!) on printing photo calendars online. only to be defeated because the website wouldn't work all the way with their ipad app. but then after gnashing my teeth for a few minutes, i hit on the solution of uploading my collage pictures via the ipad but using my pc to construct the calendar layouts and ordering. and so i did that, and then i hit send, and a mere two hours later, i picked up the order at the corner store. well ok, actually, i only printed two of the 7 calendars i needed to make. (just enough to get the discount, but since i always find mistakes after, i thought i could do the others tonight after i picked those two tonight.)

and so that's what i did. after work, i stopped, picked up the two calendars, came home and found the two mistakes , revised the pages, and then i revised a new order for the other 5.

SO tomorrow afternoon- i will pick up the other 5, and unbelievably, i'll have these blamed things DONE well before Christmas! and actually, even with the few glitches, it's really been the easiest year ever! but i'm SO GLAD, once again, that it's OVER for the year!

and while i'm sure i won't get around to making the collages until next year, i did do one thing good. i wrote down the 5 step process in a safe place! so- next year, it might be a bit more like a walk in the park.

but right now, i'm tired. and i'm still i'm thinking, "no good deed goes unpunished."