Happy New Year!! I now realize January is just about over and I am only now putting out this blog. Hopefully as you read on you will forgive me as I have been pretty busy. I hope 2015 is beginning well for you. My year has begun with challenges. Last month I told you that we were in transition. Part of the transition is getting the end of the year finances in order, reconciling our books and getting a clean slate ready for 2015. Thankfully I have not had to do this alone, trust me, I would have made a big mess of things as finances are not my strong point. Do not get me wrong, I am a really good money manager (next time you see me ask me about my 20.00 a week spending budget while I was in school). That said, Sue Davis, who I introduced you to last month, has been helping me in this effort. I guess I should just go ahead and say that Sue has been doing about 99% of this, I am just here to answer questions and support her as needed. I am ever grateful for her accountants perspective and knowing what to do. As I am now officially the Director of Open Hands (I am thankful each day and I still pinch myself at the thought of this being real) I have taken time to do a few things based on observation and feedback. The first thing I worked to do was institute a NEW BAG POLICY for our Monday meals. With the help of Vickie Hendricks, who does an AWESOME job taking care of all the donations that come in, we came up with the following policy which will begin on February 2nd. The policy states: "Beginning on February 2, 2015 you will no longer be allowed to use LARGE bags (i.e., trash, duffle) OR suitcases for putting clothing, household or produce items in. Bag size can be no larger than a grocery bag. This will allow everyone to have an opportunity to select items. We will be monitoring and enforcing this policy closely. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask. Thank you for following the rules." I cannot tell you how many people have said, "It's about time" or "Great idea" both those we serve and volunteers who serve. Now pray for us as February 2nd comes and we do our best to enforce the policy (another reason for my plea above about needing more volunteers). I am glad we are implementing this policy while we are serving indoors so we can work out the kinks for our upcoming outdoor service which will probably be a bigger challenge, just sayin'... Of course this would not be my 'Just sayin' column without some laughs as well. Recently I decided the office chair that I had (I'm told it was a donated one at that) was not the best. Picture an office chair with wheels that no longer rolled (at least not all five of them at once), scraping across the floor rather than rolling, and an occasional screw which would fall out when moving the chair around but no evidence of where that screw came from when I looked for an open screw hole. I am sure at one point it was a top notch chair, just not in 2015. This led me to search the Sunday ads of OfficeMax and Staples for a new one which I would buy and donate to my office. That leads me to the present chair which I found on a chance walk through the furniture area at Staples. It came in a box so I would have to put it together. I am not sure if the packing material of bubble wrap excited me more or the chair, it's debatable. Anyway, once I got it all out of the box I opened the instruction manual and saw the words, "Behold, the finished product" with a picture of what my chair would look like. Thus began my half hour chair assembly project complete with the only tool one would need for the job, a 4 inch long allen wrench! I told Pastor Joy Johnson, "I think the allen wrench is a standard piece of equipment with any furniture we can buy and have to assemble ourselves" which made us both laugh. Once the chair was assembled I went and told Joy "If you hear a big thump on the wall it is me hitting it because this chair rolls around like I am on ice compared to what seemed like rolling around in mud on the other chair due to the lack of movement in the wheels. My old chair has moved on to greener pastures, ok, I put it out for someone to take at our Monday meal. No takers yet but it will only take one person and the chair may live on for years and years to come, just sayin'....