So glad I took a hike in the sunshine yesterday!

It snowed pretty much all day today. Not sure when it will quit, or how I will get in another hike this week. But will see what Wednesday brings, as it is predicted to be sunny . . .

It wasn’t really very cold, and the white landscape was beautiful.

Yet I have become such a wimp when it comes to snow. You would never guess I grew up in Northern Illinois.

Colorado has certainly spoiled me. And I am spoiled in another way that got challenged today.

I used to be able to walk to all of my Commonwheel meetings or host them at my home. But no longer. After the basement was flooded last summer, our Board meetings have been held at a home, not too far from Manitou, but way too far to walk. Luckily, the general meetings have been held in Manitou Springs and I can walk to them. And I still host the Festival meetings in my home. Yep, spoiled.

I had planned on walking my FantaFaces masks and hair clips to the Gallery earlier today and stopping at the Post Office for Festival mail. Instead, I ended up working on advertising pieces for “Display It Again” show that is opening in the Gallery this Friday night. That took all morning and into the afternoon, so didn’t want to walk anywhere when I knew I had to leave for the Board meeting shortly.

When I was getting ready for the Board meeting, I left early enough to stop and take them there then. Got caught up in the final day of the Pots By The Pound, half price sale. Found some sweet jewelry and ornaments for my niece and sister-in-law for Christmas next year. I had planned on stopping at the Dollar Store, but a sudden rush of customers had me helping the Sales person, and it got to late to do that.

I picked up a pink stained glass butterfly and considered getting it for my roommate, she loves pink and butterflies. I put it back down to think about it, and the artist creator was there, and told me to just take it as a gift. One less thing she would have to pack to take home. Sweet gesture. I am sure it will cheer up my roommate, when I give it to her, perhaps for Valentine’s day.

Then the sales person asked me since I wasn’t leaving on time to do my errand, would I take some of the trash and recyclables to the dumpsters out back. After being gifted by another person, how could I refuse. I walked down the slippery street, only to realize when I got there, that I needed a key! Carefully walked back up, got the key and another batch of recyclables. Now it was very cold and my fingers were frigid by the time I got the locks off and the chains off and back on. Couldn’t do that with gloves on my hands. And the key is on a paperclip, not a real key ring. Didn’t want to chance dropping that in the snow and dark!

What I had forgotten about was why I wanted to get to the shop in daylight was I had planned on being there when it was a bit lighter and packing up some scrapbooks that got damaged by the flooding that are still in the basement. A past Commonwheeler offered to look at them to see if they were in any way salvageable. Didn’t want to go down there when it was really cold and totally dark outside with the little bit of lighting that is working down there now. A task for some other day.

The snow was really fluffy snow, but the roads were a bit icy. Not too bad, and I got to the Board meeting easily.

So many things we need to discuss relating to our future and just staying on track for now. Looking at a new POS system, our scheduled Retreat, advertising challenges, and so much more. Then there is a big discussion about what our landlord is doing and not doing to make our space safe. He did lower our rent for the year. That will be a big help as last year was a year in the red for us due to the many times the town, Hwy 24 and our Gallery had to close due to flooding. And the loss of our basement office and all the equipment and supplies kept down there.

I have a real dispute with the past year’s treasurer who keeps showing the Festival having a loss, when the numbers I got from the account showed a very slight profit, but not a huge loss as he was reporting. And the whole Gallery report was way different from what the new treasurer had from our accountant. I suggested that he not share his report with the general membership, but let the new treasurer and our accountant create a year end report that is based on the final spreadsheets she had with her tonight

Came out to a winter wonderland. At least the 4 inches of snow were easy to dust off, no scraping required, to get in my car to head home. It was really a beautiful scene.

It is still snowing gently. Will see how much snow is on the ground in the morning, as I will need to shovel my walk early before it becomes too packed down.

Someone is trying to access some of my web sites. Luckily there is a program that shuts them out after 4 unsuccessful tries, then shuts access down for 24 hours if they do it for more times in a row. But I think I need to take a couple down that are barely up, and then change the Administrator Name and password again to make sure they don’t get in. Though I had thought I did not have any set up with the Administrator named Admin. Will have to check that out tomorrow also.

Tomorrow I really need to focus on some of my business needs and catch up on a webinar I missed.

But also need to pay attention to the 40th Anniversary Old Spokes Gallery show and a Festival committee member is stopping by to talk about Sponsorship and how she can work on a bit of the advertising that no one has shown her how to do.