Working weekend

Since Congress decided to work all day Saturday, I had the privilege of working this weekend. Most weekends, someone from my team is "on duty," meaning they edit and post a few stories on the website each day, including any breaking news that happens. This weekend happened to be my turn.

Luckily, I could work from home on Saturday. However, instead of posting a few stories, which is what I would do on a typical Saturday, I spent 14 hours on the couch editing stories, posting stories, uploading photos and shuffling the website. (I did get to watch a little football in between.) The health care vote, which was originally set to happen around 6 p.m., finally finished after 11 p.m. I posted my last story and photo just before 1 a.m.

Sunday morning began with the usual round of stories we post about the morning shows. Then, I spent about four hours in the office with our editor and photo editor as we edited and laid out the last few story slots in the paper with updated health care information. (We typically finish Monday's paper on Friday night, unless we need to add breaking news on Sunday.)

And now that it's Monday, I'm still waiting for the weekend to begin. However, I'm a little lucky because Congress does have a short Veterans Day recess this week, so we have a few days of not publishing a paper in which I can catch up on my sanity.

Despite all my whining, my publication did a great job of covering the day's events with four reporters and a photographer running around the Capitol and multiple editors working behind the scenes.