Jill's Journal - Sometimes, it's like pulling teeth ...

When the alarm sounded at 5 o’clock this morning, I’ll be honest, my body was dog dead tired.

I’d worked until 10 p.m. Monday at the paper, then brought my work home with me to bed – literally – where I pounded on the keyboard until close to 1 a.m.

That surely makes for a short night.

But the way my day started out should have been indication that’s just how this day was going to go.

Sometime in my short night of sleep, one of the pillows had fallen to the floor. As I’ve done many times before, I bent over to pick up the pillow, and on way back up, the top of my head caught the corner of the top of a dresser.

I’ll be honest. It hurt. No, it smarted, and I’m pretty sure it hurt worse given the fact I’d only plunked my head on that pillow four hours ago.

It’s easy to feel sorry for ourselves. And living on my own, there wasn’t anyone to feel sorry right along with me.

With no one to share my early-morning woes with, I told myself, “Jill, get over it. You’ve got a lot to get done in a short amount of time today.”

Then I told myself, “I think this is going to be one of those days.”

I think I jinxed myself.

It has been one of those days, and it’s long from being over anytime soon.

For starters, on a Tuesday morning I still had way too many stories yet to be written.

There were still empty pages to be laid out, headlines and cutlines to write, and proofing to be done.

I was only a few hours into getting this paper ready for the press when I realized that I simply can’t get it all done. So, I had to pick and choose what needed the most attention, what needed to be accomplished first and then proceeded to tackle the mountain of “paper” work that was before me.

I also had to rely on a bit of “teamwork,” getting some help from our marketing and advertising director, Carl, who transcribed notes from several of my audio recordings, which gave me free rein to plunk out the stories.

I can’t thank him enough for being a team player.

I also have to give some credit to Kim, our graphics gal. I fired her off some directions on where to put this story, which pages could use a “house ad,” and she, too, came through like a trooper for me.

In the middle of all of my chaos, I had to miss an event at Sioux Valley Energy, which I’ll be sure to follow-up on this week so you, too, can know what’s going on at the cooperative. It entails building and expansion, and next week, I’ll tell you why.

Finally, with the first day of school tomorrow, it’s been tradition that on the day before, I climb up a really tall ladder and take the more than 600 all-staff photo for the Brandon Valley School District.

Just as I have for a number of years, I committed to taking this beginning-of-the-school-year photo weeks ago, and I surely was not going to cancel at this stage of the game.

Some weeks, readers, getting a weekly newspaper to press  is a lot like pulling teeth. It’s a painful process, but the end result is surely worth it all.

I’m getting some help beginning next week when Alison Sundall joins the writing team here at the Brandon Valley Journal. I look forward to her joining the staff.

We’ll tell you more about her next week. too. In the meantime, I’m way past my deadline, but am so thankfiul to put this issue – and this editor – “to bed.”