Quite some time back, I put in a vacation time request for this past Friday, the beginning to Memorial Day weekend. Then I was booked to work in Magee, MS for a few days this week, assisting a hospital with their software use. In all honesty, I had forgotten this was the holiday weekend, so had planned on leaving Magee Thursday and traipsing around the backroads of that area, working my way back to Bama and heading back Fairhope way on Friday evening, all the while looking for photo opportunities. It wasn’t until I was driving up to Magee that I realized the ramifications of my plan, what with the holiday, the hordes and the traffic. I started to make alternate plans and figured that I’d best get home sometime late Thursday night to avoid the worst of it.

     So, Thursday, I checked out of the hotel and headed to the hospital where I worked with staff until it was time to join an exit meeting at 11:30. It was during this meeting when my plans were altered. I received a notice on my phone informing me that someone had purchased a couple of my photos from an old Etsy shop that is still active. Now, that’s always a good thing, though I’ve been toying with the idea of closing that shop. See, I set it up quite some time ago and have since opened a shop on Zenfolio which is fully automated once I load the photos. When a customer orders a print, it is automatically sent to the printer who delivers straight to the customer. Very smooth and efficient for both the customer and me. With Etsy, I have to dig up the photo, size it properly, send it to my printer and edit it on their site, place the order and inform Etsy that it has been done. I also send a message of thanks to the customer, but, I do that on both sites. Because the order was placed with Etsy, I knew that I had to be back in Fairhope before ‘close of business’ to get it processed. I’ve always provided my customers  prompt service and if that necessitated a change of plans, then so be it.

     Our exit meeting finished up around 12:15 and I was on the road by 12:30. It is usually around a three hour drive from Magee, but with the usual backup in Hattiesburg and the holiday traffic starting early it took a bit less than four. Once home, I commenced the search for the original photo files of the ones ordered. As I said, this Etsy shop was created  quite some time back and I’m not the most organized guy you might run across. Still, I found the photos, uploaded and ordered them and with time to spare. I sent off my thank you to the client then set about starting the holiday weekend with no plans.

     Believe it or not, I still managed to pick up some groceries, start some laundry, get in a five-mile walk and have enough time to capture a few sunset photos. The shot accompanying this blog is one of those photos and it seems a perfect end to my day. Though the day was hectic and things didn’t go as planned, there are things in life I can count on and photo ops in Fairhope are chief among those. Of course, being flexible in life pays off as well. Got an email from my printer mid-day yesterday that they had shipped the prints to the customer. Gotta love it!