Five days of craziness and some fun since my last post.

My stress level is very high, my body is in pain, but getting things done and enjoyed some time off with my tenant and her friends on Monday.

Yesterday, I emailed the person who was suppose to be getting an insurance quote for the Festival, the beer garden and our gallery and maybe flood insurance also. I got a response from another person at the company saying this person was no longer with the company and there was nothing in her files about the proposal she had done for the Festival and the beer garden, let alone for the gallery! Not good timing. Our President, when I suggested she contact the new person said she had no more energy for insurance research. And I am not thrilled with the two quotes she has gotten . . . more on that next week perhaps.

I contacted the person who is doing the beer garden and had just finished MeadowGrass, he was shocked also. He did mention another person he had also been working with, so he will follow up with that later this week.

Our Stage Coordinator got a quote from one sound person who has taken on some of the jobs of the person who had done the sound at the Art Festival for many years, and that quote was double what we had been playing. Shocking reality! She might get him to do it for slightly less, but not sure. I suggested she ask our MeadowGrass connection if he really did have some ideas for who else might be available for a bit less cost. Her daughter just graduated and she had been focused on that.

She also said one of our past sponsor might not want to sponsor again because we are working with an ex-employee . . . not sure how that relates. After the jury tomorrow, I may have to call them and see what is really going on with them as I have included their logo in a couple of Summer Fun Guides already. I really need to get some sponsorship contracts found, signed and finished up, just had so much on my plate lately that that hasn’t been my highest priority.

This morning I went to the Gallery to make copies of letters and the jury sheets we would need tomorrow. Of course the copier jammed. The first two I was able to get it working again. But the third one was so bad I couldn’t even see where the paper was. I had taken a small piece of paper out with the first jam, and had thought that was the problem, but who knows what caused the second and third jams . . . and I was going to Staples where I could get the last pieces needed copied easily and quickly.

I learned that a past participant had called the gallery about the Art Festival with a question and the worker had told him to call me. When there was not a message on my home phone, I decided to check to see if he had called the Festival message line. He had days ago. I discovered that no one had checked that phone for messages since April 26th! There were 13 unheard messages.

We lost some possible entries, but I saved one. I told the caller if they got their application delivered to my door in my mailbox this afternoon, I would get it into the jury session tomorrow and he did. There have been other late delivered entries, but this is the latest and all have caused me some extra work. But every jury fee is a help to the Festival’s Financial bottom line this year. Wish I had wondered or taken action when I wondered why no Festival committee member had called me with a question that they couldn’t answer when checking that message line. But I didn’t . . . so it goes.

And my upstairs tenant had thought she needed a ride to work with car trouble just as I was getting ready to leave. I took that time to answer a few more of the messages or decide not to answer some that it was way too late to handle. And two other people called as I was talking on the phone. Pretty crazy! My tenant then called and told me she had a different solution to her car situation.

I had wanted to do shopping for the food for the Festival jury and some for the house, but leaving late, only did for the jury session. When I called the home where we were to be jurying the phone just hung up on me. I decided to stop by anyway in hopes of dropping off the groceries and not having to unload, the reload them tomorrow morning. They were home, their phone has been acting oddly. I was really running late for a ManiFest meeting, so hurried on my way.

At the ManiFest meeting there was lovely food from Seeds Cafe. Yum! And I was hungry. I also boldly questioned how Commonwheel could better work with the whole ManiFest concept rather than with one person who had not been very good at returning my calls or answering any questions by email. The organizer liked my idea and agreed it would work better for Commonwheelers to just do their own thing closer to our Gallery and not try to connect with the other person. Win! Now just need to get those Commonwheelers who said they would do something that day to tell me what they could demonstrate and the time they want to do that by June 5th.

A couple of days ago, I had tried to get the projector for displaying the art to be juried working with my new MacBook Pro and it would not work. Today I bought a connector that was suggested on many forums. But even though the salesperson insisted that she was selling exactly what I needed, it wasn’t. I decided that with only 5 people doing this year’s jury session, we could just look at the images on the laptop screens – I will bring two – and that will work as well as if I went through all the hassle of recreating the files in an older version of PowerPoint and setting up the old Mac that the projector worked with last year. I just couldn’t convince myself to do any more work on this project tonight. I am sure it will work just fine as many years ago when the light went out in a projector with more members of that year’s jury, we were able to finish up gathered around a small screen of the older laptop and get the job done.

I was working on this solution when I suddenly realized it was almost 6pm – and I was missing my Tony Laidig Tuesday Expert Media Show that was to be a lesson on PhotoShop I had really been looking forward too. I got there just as he was talking about the full blown training program he was offering and it would also be something we could sell ourselves. I will have to listen to the replay to get more details. But this is something I could have fun with and get behind selling. (Will post a link here when I have the affiliate link after purchasing the program.) He rarely does trainings that are not live, but he and a couple of other internet and book writing “gurus” have put together behind the scenes. I am sure it will be more than great. Tony is a really good trainer and always delivers more than promised. Plus, I am really ready to learn more about all the ways I can use PhotoShop to enhance and then sell my photos I have been taking. I know there will be marketing tips along with lessons in how to work in PhotoShop. Excited, yes! Exhausted, yes! Looking for the next thing to do to change my financial situation for the better, YES!

Now about that raccoon. After not hearing any sound for a little while, the other day, my tenant’s boyfriend had cut down the tree that we thought was being used to get on the roof. That turned out to not be the only way it was getting on the roof, as I again heard noises in the pipe later that day.

Well, it wasn’t just one raccoon, and she wasn’t stuck in the chimney pipe. It was a mama and at least two babies, probably three. After hearing the “purring” sound again, I had started to clear out the lower vent pipe thinking that would be easier to get a ramp to and help get it out when I realized there was more than one voice and more than one size of face that poked out of the higher vent pipe. Then as I kept digging out the dirt, little feet or tiny furry butts could be seen. Now I was really concerned about how to get them all out.

I did some research on the internet and discovered this was not an unusual situation. And that mama would want to get the babies out when the started to grow.

I went back and removed the cap from the lower pipe. As I was stretching towards the lower pipe to see if it was filled back up again, I started to slip. I could see myself falling to the bottom of the stairs as there was no railing to grab onto and the wall was just flat drywall. A miraculous save happened, similar to when a truck had started to tilt and fall on my car years ago. I felt a presence and was able to stop my fall and right myself on the stairs. I might have gotten my hand on the thin ledge, but was pretty much in a daze while this all happened. I really wrenched my right shoulder badly, but I was not at the bottom of the stairs in a crumpled mess. So very grateful for my Guardian Angel who once again stepped in to save my life and body from harm.

I decided that having a ramp and an exit through the basement window was not a good plan. Mama was obviously getting up and down the chimney. So I limped down the stairs to shut the window and heard a “thump” behind me. Turned around to see a baby dazed and partially caught in a plastic bag on the basement floor. He took the fall I hadn’t. Weird, but true. I was able to get a box on top of him and the plastic pulled out away from him first. He was not a happy camper under there, but I didn’t know what else to do at that moment. I was still assessing my own injured body.

My phone rang and my roommate was calling thinking I was going to be gone out dancing that night, so wasn’t going to be able to help assess the raccoon situation. When I told her of the new challenge, and that I was not going anywhere until baby was back in the pipe with mama, she said she would come home in an hour or so.

I decided to try to eat some dinner, and each time I sat down to eat something interrupted me, including my roommate coming home sooner than she said. She was in a “hurry up” mode and didn’t not hear when I told her I was injured, so kept getting frustrated when I couldn’t move as fast or hold something as high as she wanted. Not wanting to make the situation worse, I just did my best to follow her lead, as she has had more experience with animals than I have had.

I had first suggested we catch it in a towel with one lifting the box, the other ready to cover it. No, she got it into the cat carrier and held that up to the pipe. Then wanted to have a board support it as the baby wasn’t moving out. Finally, when that did not work, she agreed to try the towel method. Baby was very traumatized by now and was easy to catch. Gently pushing it into the pipe worked to get it back to mama.

It had started to rain hard, then harder. We went out and covered some areas of the garden, as tiny hail was also beginning to fall. Then the Emergency Warning Phone Call came and the sirens went off in Manitou Springs saying flooding was imminent. My roommate couldn’t handle that type of stress, so headed off to her boyfriend’s home that was out of the flood plain. I pretty much collapsed and ate my cold dinner. I had to miss going out dancing as I was filthy, in pain and exhausted.

Later took a walk around downtown to see how high the creek had gotten. Thankfully it had not really gotten very high, thanks to the dredging. The heavy rain did bring down lots of small debris from hillsides around town and onto the sidewalks and into the street, but mostly it was just a normal Spring rain in Manitou Springs.

My tenant’s boyfriend being so helpful, a lovely night visitor and seeing all the Iris and Poppies getting ready to bloom made my day a bit happier. I used lots of essential oils on my shoulder and knee, so I did sleep very soundly that night.