This last week has been filled with doing reports for the Art Festival for the Festival Committee meeting and catching up with many things in my own world. Plus a couple of hikes.

The weather has been so very beautiful, I just couldn’t resist hiking when my friend called as mentioned, and then I called her when she was in her car heading to take a short walk in Red Rocks. I told her I could change clothes and meet her there and take a longer hike if she wanted on a trail we had passed up a few times for various reasons. I was ever so glad I did this! We got back into a forested area and that was totally delightful and filled with quiet moments. We sat for a bit and talked and just listened to the birds and squirrels who chattered at us.

It was very good for my spirit to take this time away from everything and do something nice just for myself.

I would add some photos, but am backing up my whole computer into a new cloud storage area that is really reasonable and haven’t taken the time to get the photos off the camera. This back-up is taking a bit of time and I don’t want to add new photo files while it is going on, but soon it should be done and I will get a photo or two posted here.

I got the masks that didn’t get checked into the Commonwheel Gallery onto Etsy, plus a few pairs of earrings. Halloween is coming and I do hope to have some sales there again this year. I need to look at that site and figure out how to sell a few more Estate Items, but that isn’t as high a priority as getting my Sustainable Book updated on Kindle and published on CreateSpace.

And a coaching session with Tony to push my financial situation into a better one by Christmas. (Goal)

I do need to get my inventory of what products I have, books, etc., and what are in the works, not just for this call, but for my own edification, to get motivated to do more marketing and get a bigger list. Too bad, no one is actually reading this blog currently, but it is a good practice of journaling. And some stories will surely be based upon it.

Next, need to catch up on my hiking blog that has more potential for a couple of books and finding an audience.

I did meet with the banker who set up the car loan that just repaid itself for a very small amount of added interest. That loan finished and we did another one with even lower interest. It pushed my Credit Score over the 700 mark and that is amazing in lieu of the fact that my bankruptcy, thanks to Miss Barbara Leuin and her pal Enrique Montiel, is only a couple of years out.

But enough grousing. Time to move forward . . . except need to do just one more grouse – had a call for a “quick” public opinion survey that went on for almost 15 minutes . . . That is not what I call “quick”. And it was very biased in many of the questions. Wonder who really was doing the survey?

On Friday, there was a gathering at MAC for the governor and all the individuals who received Grants after the flooding of 2013 and other important entities in getting Manitou Springs back on track for businesses and the mitigation work. Since Commonwheel recieved one of the Grants, our President and I were invited. I decided to bring one of my Flood Books along and if the opportunity arose, give it to the Governor. There was a lovely buffet and connected with some people I hadn’t seen much this summer. And the opportunity arose to give the book to the Governor’s assistant, who then had me introduced to the Governor and there is supposedly a photo that was taken that was to be sent to the Chamber for a FaceBook post. Forgot to ask them for that today when I went to a marketing meeting at the Chamber. When I get it, I will come back and add it to this post.

I am still doing the FaceBook posts for the Gallery. The person who may take it over and I have not been able to meet yet. So glad to have the income, but it is time consuming. Plus, I don’t know exactly how much she wants to do. Maybe meet next week.

My roommate is leaving for a week tomorrow morning. It will be good to have the house to myself for a short time. Not that she isn’t gone a lot, but I am hoping to also get some rearranging of the house and more chaos sorted out without someone else around. You know how sometimes when clearing spaces, they get worse before they get better. And I anticipate that as a possibility with what I need to look at for getting the house more aligned with the items that are just hanging out in places that they need to leave. And just realized I don’t know where I put the images from the 36 Views of Pikes Peak show. Not Good!

My upstairs tenant is not sure if she is renewing. I mentioned this to a friend who wants to know “right now” if the place will be available and wants to see it. Can’t really make that happen as the upstairs tenant has until the 22nd to give me notice or say she will renew. I guess I will try and talk to her tomorrow, just wasn’t up for it today as I had 2 meetings, a drive to the bank out east and a training today. Just couldn’t put anything more into my day or energy.

The Manifest folks wanted to borrow some signs and tents. So I met her and her two strong helpers at the Storage Unit. She got excited about the number of tents and sides she could borrow. The space was a mess. They pulled out almost everything to get at what they needed. Then put things back in an orderly fashion. I got a tent for Commonwheel’s demonstrators and some chairs put into my car. Then I decided to take our some items that we would never use and get rid of them myself. The guys offered to get rid of the leaking sandbags for me and tossed them into their truck.

One of the Manifest supporters has a storage unit just across from where ours is located, so they put some of the items in there for ease of access on Saturday. The said they would touch up and make look better some of the signs they took. Win! When they put things back into the storage area, it looks much better than it was. And with the items I took, although a pain for me right now, will avoid being moved many more times and not used for anything in the future.

At the Chamber Marketing meeting, I brought up the concept all event organizers should look at what we can share, what signage we could make look better and brand for Manitou, and in general maybe spend less on storage units if we banded together. Something to think about.

I need to get up in the morning and after getting everything ready for a hike, get some of the items out of my car, so on Manifest Sunday, the items we need will be easy to get in and out of my car.

And this hike was to be a different one, but the heat of 85 degrees made it not as interesting to go out east to see a young Clydesdale. Let’s start with and email I sent to a long ago High School connection that I keep seeing mentioned in a column in the Gazette. I was going to go out to his place last year, but then the flooding happened and I didn’t get out there and hadn’t connected in awhile. When I read his name again, I decided to email him and ask about a visit to their “ranch” and just reconnect. When he saw my email, he immediately responded because he has just written one to me, but his wife, who has a strange condition that causes electrical machines to turn off, or die, had walked in the room and his computer shut down. He had to rewrite the email that he was sending asking me if I knew anyone who did Kirlian Photography. I don’t, but had a suggestion for him where he could find that service. We got to chatting via email about his home and the area around it and other health issues. I called RE and asked him for his friend’s phone number that has this same electrical body issue. I thought to connect them to see how each handle it. Not sure where that will go, but got out of the middle of the conversation about that.

My hiking friend loves animals, horses in particular, so I thought a visit to these folks would be a perfect adventure and they have lots of interesting historical things to be seen around their land. But the prediction of 85 degree heat does not sound enticing, so we will have to put this adventure off, but not too long as the young Clydesdale leaves for a new home on October 6th.

This seems like a good place to end tonight.