Monday, October 18, 2010

Good times... no, really, they're actually good!

It's been a pretty good couple weeks. About a week and a half ago, I pulled together a fundraiser to help a local group with their goal to raise $10,000 for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure. It was a Pink Pancake Feed and Purse Auction. And it went well. Much better than I had hoped for. People really came through with donating purses, that were like little clown-cars with great things inside, and then closed up tight, so that folks had to bid on the bag and hope there was something great inside. With the 12 or so silent auction and 8 live auction purses, we made around $1200 and another $300 or so on the food. It was quite a delightful surprise and I had some really good help, although I put in a 10 hour day for myself. And my super hot auctioneer did a great job, as usual.
The next day I relaxed and continued crafting away, in preparation for the craft fair. I made my "big piece" which included a clay Cougar head. I snapped a picture of it with my phone, and when I was showing my husband on Sunday at the local bowling alley, our friend asked how much I wanted for it. I sheepishly told him, still being concerned that I might not sell my wares, and he said "I'll give you that right now for it". WHAAA? I asked him if he didn't want to see it in person first, and he said no, that his wife would love it for Christmas. I was even more excited, because it's all crimson and grey (obviously playing to my crowd) and she works in the Athletic Dept. So, my hope is that others are intrigued and would like to have one, also. I was flying high... I sold my first piece less than 24 hours after I made it AND before the craft fair! Woo hoo!
This last Saturday was the craft fair, and even though I was very happy about the money I already had in my pocket, was still a little nervous. But I did well. Really well. Like I-didn't-come-home-with-much well. And my mom, whom I shared a table with, did really well, too! And I got to hang out with my mom all day! Win-Win! I have money to put back into more crafts, and some in the bank, and money to play with during Homecoming this weekend! I wasn't even grumpy after shopping yesterday and coming home with nothing. And now, I'm pretty stress free until the holidays show up. This is a pretty nice feeling. I hope it sticks around.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Stuff on the brain

1. I hate waiting for the doctor's office to call. It doesn't matter if it's something major ("your pre-cervical cancer state is not advancing") or minor (i.e. "congratulations your cholesterol has not sky-rocketed despite your best efforts"). Both of these situations which I'm currently waiting to hear word on. Because, it appears, that my doctor is incapable of returning calls on her own and needs me to first do an initial reminder call trying to track her down (which never works) and leaving a phone number (which she never tries first). So then I call the next morning, after I've missed a random 6:30pm call to my home phone, to find out that she's not in the office today... after she was gone last week on vacation which she failed to mention in the sentence that started with "I'll call you with the results..." And then I sit with my cell phone on my desk all day, packing it to the bathroom with me, and hoping that's not actually the moment that she calls. In summary: argh.

2. I get so darned excited to do fundraisers and then when it comes down to crunch time, I just want them to be over with. Because they keep me awake at night with dumb things, such as "what am I going to use for centerpieces now that I can't find what I'd planned on?", "is all my help going to show up?", "what if no one comes?" All of which are things that absolutely cannot be solved at 2am when I've let the dog out for the 3rd time.

3. I like my community service stuff. I like helping people. And I'm pretty proud of the fact that I just won the state Moose association female community service volunteer of the year. I'm not looking for recognition for the things that I do, but I'm not necessarily disappointed when a surprise like that shows up.

4. Craft fair. I'm doing my first craft fair on October 16th. It's at the Moose, so I have plenty of concerns that we won't sell all of the tables, although we're doing pretty good, and then I'm worried that we won't have a lot of people come through. I'd love to have people come through, but I'm so excited about the idea of sitting at a table all day, relaxing and sharing space with my mom, hanging out with people that I like, that I don't care too much. I've been a little bit stressed about trying to pull enough items together to have a decent collection to sell, but gosh, being "forced" to craft every night hasn't exactly been painful. And I'm trying not to think at all about whether I'll sell anything. Because that's where my heart starts beating fast... what if no one likes what I made? I hate watching people look over my products, so this is going to be difficult to endur. I'm trying to keep in mind that everyone likes different things, and I like what I made, so someone else probably will to. If not, I have a whole lot of new jewelry. :)

5. Once this week's fundraising shenanigans and the craft fair are over, I'm more than likely going to get sick, but more importantly, I'm going to Cheney the following weekend for Homecoming. Which has become my annual getaway event. There will be no ex's to uncomfortably hang out with this year. Which is good, and bad, because I rarely pay for a drink when he's around. Which is awesome, because he owes me at least that. This year "the fraternity" has other commitments, so it's just going to be the BFF and our other roommate, whom I haven't seen in at least 15 years. Going to be interesting. But it will be relaxing, and I could really use that. And I miss my BFF. I like being around friends that I don't have to say anything to when I want them to glance over at the girl wearing the fluffy white boots in the middle of a redneck college town. For instance.