I am making plans for a couple of trips in the next few months.

Recently my friend from Sharing Inner Health asked if I wanted to go to the Young Living Convention at the end of June. Not really good timing for me, but I was considering it. This is the time for many advertising deadlines for the Art Festival, so means I really have to be on top of things to be comfortable leaving for a week.

I have always taken my vacation times in Spring and Fall and gone to visit my family in Oregon. But with both my parents gone now, that wasn’t such a pressing place to go. Though I do want to spend time with my brother and his family, I knew that wasn’t happening this Spring.

The next day she called and said, “We have a ride. You’re going aren’t you?”

Someone who has gone many years and loves driving was happy to have other passengers to share the cost of gas. This did push me to making a decision to go.

I spent some time going over my finances and they had a 2-payment plan for the event which was very reasonable to start with using the Early Bird discount. All in all, decided I had wanted to do this for years, and it is the 20th anniversary for this event, so will probably have some fun extras happenings and promotions. So Yes, I wanted to go. Just barely affordable, but I can make it happen.

Then there was the matter of a motel room for 6 nights.

I have been told I snore, so was concerned about that even with just Kathleen. She had mentioned the possibility of sharing a room with our traveling companions, but I wasn’t totally comfortable with that.

My Greek friend showed up and brought me some cookies and suggested we meet Kathleen for tea. Which worked out perfectly to discuss the motel situation. I said since Kathleen was already in a stressful situation with her housemate, neither she, nor I needed to have a stressful series of nights in Salt Lake City. Having 4 people sharing a bathroom, the fact that she meditates for a long time in the morning and my possible snoring, made me think we should just share a room ourselves.

I called the motel earlier that day and the woman said they had not Senior or AARP discounts that week. Kathleen had suggested I go on Expedia and Travelocity, but when I did that, the rates were actually more than what her friend had paid and I was quoted by the motel desk clerk. So I suggested to Kathleen that she call the motel and make a reservation, as I just have a debit card and have occasionally run into problems using that for making reservations using it compared to someone having a credit card.

She left promising to do that task. A little later, she  called me back and joyfully announced that when she called and made the reservation. At first the male clerk was a bit brisk and suggested we try Travelocity for a better deal. She told him we already had, and the cost was higher than his rates. Then he got really nice and said, “Well, let’s just take care of you here and now.” And the rate she got from him was better than what her friend had gotten, or I had been quoted earlier. Win!

I still need to figure out my motel situation for the weekend Creative Industries Conference May 1 and 2, but am just going to relax about that a couple more days to see what my friends in Villa Grove can do for me or share a room with someone.

I am looking forward to being around many like minded creative people at both of these events.

And hopefully getting my creative juices flowing again on projects that will benefit me financially a bit more than the time I am spending on the 40th Anniversary Old Spokes Gallery show.

Though I am really looking forward to the opening and connecting with friends and seeing all the work from Old Spokes hanging in the Gallery.