There have been many storms these last few days. But nothing that has caused any new flooding in Manitou Springs. Halleluiah!

But my basement is very damp right now. The old ways water came in seems to have happened again. Didn’t have the heart to take a flashlight and see if the new area was also damp tonight

Spraying YL Thieves Spray down there to keep mold at bay. Doesn’t even really smell bad. But don’t want to forget to keep on this bit of prevention so I don’t have a future problem.

I worked a very long day at Commonwheel last Sunday. I was lucky. I had a mid-shift person. She even let me take a break and walk home to get my lunch eaten there very quickly. I had debated about buying a sandwich, as I had only packed fruits and energy bars with a lot going on in the morning as I was trying to get out the door. When she offered to let me take a real break and pointing out it would probably take as long at that time of day for me to get a sandwich anywhere, even if I called it in as take-out, as going to my home that was just a few blocks away, well, I went for a walk. We had a slow beginning of the day, but steady sales. Lots of people commented on “what a nice shop you have” when we engaged them in conversation. Always nice to hear.

As it neared 8pm and closing time, I decided to count the cash as it had been quiet for quite some time. Then people started coming in and I had 4 sales, all CASH! So I had to count everything again. Still, was happy to up the end of day sales by almost $100 when they all left.

I have been raiding my Etsy inventory to keep Commonwheel stocked. I really need to get into my feather studio and create more FantaFaces. I realized that I hadn’t ordered the kidney surgical steel ear wires, so did that. They will take a week or more to get here, so probably won’t have those on Saturday. But can make masks for both the Gallery and restock Etsy. Trying to order the leather thongs for my necklaces. Found the store, but was after they had closed. Gotta remember to do that tomorrow.

On Thursday, my Greek friend who I hadn’t seen in more than a month showed up at my door. We were both hungry. I suggested we go to The Loop Mexican restaurant for Fish Tacos. She eats a more restricted diet than I do, but she was willing to split a meal of these with me. She really enjoyed them. And so did I. I haven’t had many meals out, very restricted budget, but I deserved a treat and had a good time catching up with her travels and new paths relating to staying healthy she is exploring.

I have been working with Zoltan to get his “Galloping Wind” book published on Kindle, then on CreateSpace. When I was working on the Quark version for CreateSpace I discovered numerous errors in the Kindle version. Including two Chapter 12s. So as I worked on the Quark version, I corrected the Word document to download again on Kindle. After waiting so long to get this published, he was anxious to get it up before family from across the ocean arrived and he could show them he was once again a published author. This isn’t his first book, and won’t be his last.

I have suggested to him that we work and learn things together after the Art Festival so we can both find more financial freedom and success. I think he will also buy the very reasonably priced YouTube Video Training that I did. I also bought the upsell, as it has more training and more things I can repackage and sell.

Commonwheel’s gallery show “Under Pressure” had 18 artists in it and took me way more time to do the Facebook posts than usual. Trying to connect images to the right artist was a challenge for sure. And they also had some workshops that needed advertising in both Facebook pages I write on. Only added one outside the box fun thing to these posts. The song “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie seemed to be a real fit for this show.

I walked around town for a few openings. I had meant to go dancing at Stargazers, but after walking to 3 galleries, I was exhausted. Still hadn’t quite recovered from my summer cold. So I just crawled into bed early and began reading Gary Young’s “The Gift” that I had purchased earlier this year.

I have had a really difficult time getting in my car to run errands and go shopping. But I did, and got lots accomplished in that one bit of driving around. I was out of the friendly half-blind squirrels sunflower seeds, and a few other things prompted me to get out the door. I stopped at my favorite outlet store and discovered it was their last day in that location and they were moving back to a past location that is much closer to my home and in more of my errand routes.  Good news for sure.

I walked into the “antique mall” next to this store. I am always hopeful of finding old books or magazines here. Only once has that happened. But I found 5 fun videos on sale and spent a whole $2.50 on them. Mostly cartoony ones that I had heard about and never have seen. When I will have time to watch them, have no idea.

During this drive a Commonwheel challenge arrived by my phone. A member was very upset about having to pay a fine she incurred and even though a Board member and had been there when we clearly stated fines would all be enforced, she didn’t think she owed it. She was being very rude to our President who was there to train her and wanted to know if I as a Board member would concur to the idea this person was allowed to quit without the 30 day notice and remove everything that very day. This person has been a “thorn” in my side and many other members for years. I felt it would be best if she agreed to end her tenure at Commonwheel that day, to let her do it. And then change all the codes on locks and web site areas. We have had other people resign on happier terms lately, so it was really time to change the codes, which we should do yearly anyway, but haven’t. Stirred up some challenging conversations with quite a few members. Next Monday’s Board meeting should be very interesting.

On Monday, I walked to MAT for a Manifest meeting that actually happened. The last 2 had been canceled for health and weather reasons. This is a half mile walk there, and a bit farther back when I loop around to go to the Post Office.

A little later my Greek friend up at my door. She wanted to know it I wanted to go for a short walk. She was here to listen to the Concert in the nearby park, but that was more than an hour away. I almost said no, but being very behind on my hiking and I needed to get moving after being so sick, I said, sure and changed shoes. We hiked up the street, then turned off and went higher and higher. I took her up to the place I had sat on the rock to watch the 4th of July fireworks. It was even more daunting to look at how steep it was below that rock than in the dark.

As we headed back down, we noticed lots of purple spots on the road. There was an Elderberry, or Boysenberry Tree with ripe berries on it. Need to look this up, but not now. She was so delighted to enjoy this treat. And so was I. They were delicious. We had very purple hands when we were done. We ate every one we could reach, pulling the branches down for each other to reach just a little bit higher. Very fun and a tasty treat for sure. We want to go back in a few days, as there were many that were not ripe within reach. Will see if that happens.

Some how I need to do some postings on my Hiking blog . . . gotten very far behind, but as you can see I only seem to get time to post here once a week, so this does come first. Those I can catch up on, as they are mostly photos and a bit of description of the hike.

The Art Festival has me constantly working on it. Ads with deadlines, making sure everything is in place, meeting with people to get what they were working on into my hands, etc. I will be very happy when this is successfully over this year.

I walked to the gallery to bring in some inventory, from my Etsy stash, meet with 2 members about their Festival jobs, bring one somethings she needed, pick up items from the other. I walked to the bank to deposit a check I had been holding for an artist after jury and it had gotten buried. She reminded me that I could cash it when I saw her during Art Walk. I got to see the drilling equipment that was re-drilling the 7-Minute Spring well so it can be used at Sun Spa for water to bath in and drink again.

I had a really pleasant surprise today. I had not actually looked at my Diamante envelop, but when I picked it up, a check came floating out. A large check. That will be very helpful in the next month, as I want to buy some training programs to work on after the Art Festival is over in September. And it was noted that they think they will begin doing regular distributions early in 2015. Not sure how much, but anything will be appreciated. Thank you Mom & Dad for having made this investment that my Brother and I split after you passed. Will make me smile a bit more every time I see a check from there. I had worked at Diamante, and my Dad liked some of their investments. Some were cashed out while they were alive, but this one was left to us as it was not distributing and yet it is a very good investment. University Village in Colorado Springs where I shop all the time and it is thriving.

There are at least 3 trainings that I want to take in the next few months. All being offered right now. I can buy a couple and do the training later, sort of like how I am handling the Drag-N-Drop program I just bought. I do want to attend the live trainings for one of Tony’s offerings, so that will be challenging on Thursday nights, but at this time I don’t have meetings on those nights until the day before the Art Festival. I think I will miss that class. But there are always replays to watch forever in the members area.

One of these trainings has lots of things I can resell and are very relevant to marketing right now. I really need to focus on that aspect of a way to create financial change in my life. And it really does work with writing and publishing books, as a way to advertise them and at the same time guide people to the trainings I am an affiliate for already.

I swear, these, are the last trainings I can buy before I start implementing what they have to teach me and begin to generate some income, rather than being all outgo of $s.

The Art Festival needs to go back to a very part-time job again, which it was before the flooding, but took over much more time this last year than ever before. I believe that all the things I have put in place this year, will just be easier to continue in the next years, and perhaps if the flood mitigation works well, we can move back to Memorial Park next year. That would make the Art Festival so much easier to do than having to arrange for Shuttles and ways to guide people there. Plus just measuring this park so I feel that I can place booths in it in a way that works with a totally different layout than last year has been quite the challenge.

Am schedule to try and measure the Fields Park one more time. Have notes about what I need to measure to figure out how to draw it in a way that trees and mounds are not encountered in the wrong place when we actually mark the booth areas on August 29th.

Will do some driving errands also.

Then tomorrow night going Dancing for Sure! Tiny Barge is playing at Stargazers and they are really fun!