This week was filled with meetings.

By the 6th one, I was not as on point as normal.

The best parts of the week was getting to work with a client on his book and getting my Kick-Starter “reward” for supporting the new Local Grocery Store in town.

I do know I did some work on my Book on Sunday, but not much. Probably worked on Festival items and prepared for the upcoming meetings. Oh yeah, I did some work on the print items Sharing Inner Health needed recreated with the new business name.

Monday at 9:00 am, I met with a KRCC representative to talk about the Music portion of the Art Festival. Instead of Commonwheel buying us morning treats, he offered to buy me a Chai, which I gladly accepted. He also had all sorts of potential solutions and a great new opportunity for getting the Art Festival more exciting advertising. We discussed that if KRCC can have some say in the music line-up, they will put a couple of musicians on the air the weeks leading up to the Art Festival. Wonderful advertising for the musician and for the Art Festival.

Plus KRCC has sound equipment to loan if we can pay the Sound Engineer a fee that was more in line with what we have paid in year’s past.

Then he mentioned SeptembeRama – Making Arts the focus of September. We might get to be the Kick-Off Event for that concept. The “What If . . .” festival happens the second weekend in September and ManiFest, which will have a booth at our Art Festival happens the 3rd Weekend. I forget what else he mentioned, but that makes it really a fun month just with those events. We all involve kids and music and many forms of the arts in our Festivals.

I decided to call an artist who was going to submit a late application that I am really anxious to see. He said he had forgotten he hadn’t done that and was leaving for Venezuela the next day.  He promised to get it sent before he left. And Google’s Doodle artwork by an 11 year old reminded me of his style of art work, without the animation Google had added for her. He really liked my telling him to check it out.

At 1:30 pm I met with a Festival committee member at the storage unit to discuss signage. He will be in Africa when the Art Festival is happening, and is willing to take on some big tasks before the Art Festival. It was a great meeting. He has ideas of placement and we discussed cutting most of the 4’x4′ plywood A-frames in half to be easier to handle and have more to use. He took one with him to experiment with and will get in contact with Fab Lab at the Manitou Art Center to see how they can help.

And we are loaning our stage “risers” to another non-profit who said they could help with signage in exchange for using these. So he will contact her and make that all happen as smoothly as possible. The “risers” are behind and supporting many items in the storage unit, so she will need a team to get them out and figure out how to get them back in so they don’t cause trouble when we take items out that need to be used before the Art Festival or loaded first onto a truck for transporting them to the Art Festival.

At 3:oo pm, I had a ManiFest meeting. I had dashed to the bank before that meeting and was hungry. I had a bowl of soup at the little cafe at MAC. Then when we got to the meeting, Seeds Cafe had brought food again. Wonderful Kale Salad and a veggie mix with fresh tortillas. I didn’t need dinner that night.

Two women were talking about having a “milestone” birthday in the next few weeks. I asked which one. Sixty. I said I was ahead of them. They both told me they had no idea I was older than them and that I looked really good. And one of them is a fitness instructor. Made my day!

At home I did a quick check of emails and got the T-shirt inventory started. Worked on the Park Map a bit, but didn’t get either project finished.

Started my Tuesday with a substitute person for Aine that was really sweet. I liked the 4 directions “prayer” that she did with us. Need to listen to that again.

At 2:00 pm there was a Chamber marketing meeting where the new Chamber Web Site was shown to us in a very unfinished stage. They have been working on this since last Fall I think and it is dreadful! The current one is so much better. No one was happy. The presenters seemed to think it was really good, but I don’t think anyone else in the room, other than the person who was the liaison thought it was better than the current one.

I missed the new Kindle Training Q & A Session and realize I will have to do this training next month. Every Tuesday is filled at 2pm except the one the first week of July. Though that may have a Chamber meeting . . .

Tony’s training at 5:00 pm was the second half of what one needs to do to be a success. I asked a dumb question, which made me realize I was not on point for myself and was feeling pretty tired.

Some new applications are coming in and that is time consuming.

I finished up the Park Map, only to discover there is still some measurements that don’t look quite right. Need to go back and figure out where some trees are and the actual space that is a bit slanted where the Beer Garden will go so we can have a safe path. And just now realized I forgot to send a pdf of that to the Beer Garden sponsor . . .

I also worked on the Agenda for the Festival meeting the next day. I had emailed out to members that I would appreciate if they could bring a snack as I was “meeting out” and just didn’t have the energy to feed them this time as I usually do. And they had responded positively.

Wednesday, I finished up the Festival Meeting Agenda and walked to the Post Office and Commonwheel to make copies. Stopped to smell some roses at the Cliff House garden that were really worth the effort. How I love the scent of roses! Dropped off my dues and the deposit receipts also.

I really wanted to get a short massage, but that person wasn’t in his office, so went on to pick up my Kick-Starter Reward from the Local Grocery Store. Those items will keep me from needing to do any more shopping before my trip, except for some things I want to have on my trip. I bought a type of tea I had wanted to support them and my taste buds.

I worked on rewriting the Food Vendor letter and realized there could be a big glitch if we ask them to use Recyclable cups for all cold drinks. The Smoothies that were accepted could not have their cups put in a recycle bin, so would need to be Compostable. So should we require all cold drink cups to be Compostable? No one has responded to this yet.

My roommate decided to vacuum and clean the bathroom some for the meeting. That was helpful and much appreciated.

I took our visiting cottage kitty back to his home as his owner was returning that night and I didn’t want to take a chance of him escaping when the Festival committee members showed up. He wasn’t thrilled with me leaving him there. But I am sure he will be glad to see his real person when she arrives that night.

One of the members did not show up which complicated handing out jobs. The others took on many things and we had a good discussion about signage and community sponsors. The one that is taking on the job to contact all the food vendors to make sure their paperwork was in order came early and we went over what she needs to do for that. A job she can do at home.

T-shirts were another big discussion. Use Tee-Spring to try to do some fundraising with this year’s poster design? And one member wants to let a friend of his bid on doing he regular T-shirts with the sunset colorization that most silk-screen artists will not do, or charge a huge fee to do. Gave him the inventory to share to see what a cost would be for the different styles.

And how to handle the “Group Booth” concept if no other members sign up? I had some ideas, but need to keep working on this. Luckily still have a little bit of time.

Everyone brought something yummy to eat. One person just got told she couldn’t eat Almonds, of all things, and brought a chocolate treat with Almonds that she then left with me. That was really dangerous as it is very tasty and I am a Chocoholic.

The meeting got over in time for me to relax and watch “So You Think You Can Dance” – my most favorite TV show. And the only one I will be watching for many a week now that Survivor is over. That ended my night on a fun note.

Started of my Thursday morning with a meeting in downtown Colorado Springs with the insurance person who had disappeared and the Beer Garden coordinator. He will have to purchase on his own. We discussed some other things and I realized I had forgotten to bring the map that was sitting on my desk.

On my way home, stopped at the pond to see if the Heron was there. He wasn’t, but I saw the Turtles my hiking partner had told me about. And of course, my camera battery died on me. Still got a couple of fun photos. And was good to walk out in the sunshine. The geese were congregating on the little island and a Mallard Duck swam right past me. A moment of nature’s beauty always lifts my Spirits.

How can I make money from my photographs. Keep putting that out there for my subconscious to find a solution to help create more financial security.

At 1:30 my favorite client showed up, well, a little later than that. We discussed the different books he has done and how to market them. We downloaded the image for the cover. (When I worked with it on Saturday, it really does look good I think.) He has a book that needs to be published without being attached to it and one that would be perfect for Home Schooled kids. I suggested he needed a web site and to get hosted by my favorite host, Springs Hosting. Money is tight, but I really think he needs to do this before the first book is published. Or at least put up a FaceBook page. He sees the possibility of it being made into a movie, and it does sound feasible from the outline of the story he shared with me. He found a font he liked, but had not put it on the Thumb Drive and couldn’t remember the web site it came from. Future assignment for him is to get that to me to work on the cover.

After he left, the weather made a major change. It hailed. Not to bad, but scary for the garden.

Saturday Sharing Inner Health came by and we finalized and tweaked the 4 items she needed with her new business name. My printer printed two just fine, then acted very badly and colorized things wrong. Need to figure out what ink cartridge is empty or what is going on with it. I really need to buy a new laser printer and a scanner that actually works with my most current computer. After my Young Living Convention I will look into that.

When she tried to print them on her printer, she couldn’t get her Quark to open. So will come by tomorrow night with her computer to see if I can figure anything out. I also think I might not have saved them with their .qxp extension, which would complicate matters even more. And I will probably open my older computer and print them as pdf in hopes they will print properly on the old laser printer that will only talk to my older computer with an older version of Quark on it. Technical challenges galore.

Saturday I worked on my clients cover and it is looking good, except I still need the font.

Worked on the cover and the header for “How To Plan A Sustainable Event” and created a web site with pages that have addresses I can use, but no real content. But it is up and that is a big first step.

Sent off some excerpts from “Sinister Frog” to the Cottage Tenant to see if she wants to do a cover image for this very wickedly strange book written by keyboard player in my Brother’s band Parish Gap, and long time friend of the family.

I need to write a note to my Coach – it has been a year, and I have not finished my last 4 calls. I know his time is now more valuable than when he made this offer, but I had no clue how my life would get swept away by the flooding of Manitou Springs and the amount of time that would consume. Tomorrow is another day, and perhaps I can get that written.

I got into my FantaFaces Studio and created 5 pairs of earrings, fixed one for myself, put a clip on a hair clip and created 3 masks with Ostrich Plumes. While working, I decided what I want to have for sale at the Art Festival if there is even a scaled back Group Booth. I will only have items made with Macaw and Parrot feathers for sale. I need to just have fun and play with all of these beautiful feathers in my studio upon my return. That way I could just have one or two of my small A-Frame boards for the display with very colorful and unique items that won’t be hard to handle.

And now I am once again very tired and have blogged late into the night. Need to come back and do the links and maybe add an image, but not tonight, just too tired.

But feeling good about how I had a really productive week. With all the connections I am making and the community involvement, I am sure the Art Festival will be very successful this year. And with any luck, won’t need so much attention going forward as it has this year. Will be really nice to get back to a normal routine for it and get more time to write, publish and market my own books.

I had hoped it would rain today, but it didn’t. Need to get some water on the garden tomorrow . . .