Busy, Busy, Busy! It's Centennial Time, After All!
I can't even begin to say how busy I am. (yikes)
I'm keeping weird hours. Yes, weirder hours than usual! (smile) I start working at 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning and keep going until 9:00 or 10:00 at night. Then some nights we get up at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. and work another hour or two.
Yes. It's that busy.
And I'm talking about days where I only take breaks to go and brew a pot of coffee, get another cup of coffee or go to the bathroom. Frequently I don't eat until dinner -- and dinner isn't until 9:00 or 10:00 p.m.
That's been the schedule this past week, anyway. I was working on a major project that was on a deadline, so it required some serious time...
But, hell, my schedule is nothing compared to Marilyn's mistressmarilyn!
She estimated last week that she hadn't slept more than six hours for the entire week. And some days she forgets to take time out to use the bathroom! She almost never takes a lunch -- unless it's a meeting (or speaking presentation) situation. I try to keep her in little plastic snack bags of things like pea pods and grapes, so she can at least have a bite or two while sitting at her desk working. But I have to admit I'm not always good at doing that...
She's been racking up the hours for months now. And remains so positive and creative that you'd never realize the pressure she's under. I admire it to pieces, I really do.
But being at the festival office is incredible right now. So many people there are putting in huge hours that go late into the night. 'High intensity' is still my favorite way to describe it, though I know many would say high stress, instead. I'd only go along with that if you could redefine 'stress' in a more positive way, I guess. Yes, it's hard. But it isn't necessarily negative! I think when the average person hears the word 'stress,' they start thinking really downer things -- which is why I avoid using it.
Anyway, semantics aside (grin), there's no denying how busy it is. We're less than a month out from the festival, after all!
So this year I won't be doing my normal parade script (though I'm still supposed to edit it). Instead, I'll being doing the parade script for GFP for the first time ever. I'm pretty excited about that!!!
(A bizarre aside: Doing a google search on 'gfp' doesn't bring up the parade at all, as far as I can tell. But that's how we've referred to it for decades in so much documentation! I sort of expected to see it jump off the page in a search! I guess it shows that things aren't always what we expect...)
Wow. It's been ages since I updated here. I'm a bit freaked by the red underlining of words! Yes, LJ, I do mean to spell those words exactly the way I have them here... (yikes)
I wonder if there's a way to disable the auto spellcheck feature? I'm not a big fan (and never use it in Word, either)...
Speaking of parades, I was actually in a parade last Saturday (with the festival 'Street Team'). I was pimping the 'Tell Us Your Story' project I've been working on (which is what I was talking about above, though I didn't specify that), by handing out cards that explain and push it. Marilyn was a banner carrier (along with Jessica's boyfriend Doug), and the entire Street Team was passing out loads of other promotional pieces, as well. We were dressed in our brand new blue tee shirts (!!!) for the occasion, and marching (well, walking) directly in front of the cars transporting the Princesses of this year's festival Court.
As parades go, it was a first-time parade -- and not much of one, I'm afraid. (I had to keep reminding myself not to say things about 'real parades' -- referring to the festival's three parades... grin...)
The weekend after next we're doing it again for the St. Johns parade -- which is a community parade that I've grown up attending since childhood. Usually that's the first parade appearance each year of the Court... And normally we watch it in the same spot every year -- and don't actually participate it in. But we're all about spreading the word about the Centennial, so...
It's now past midnight, so I suppose I should head to bed.
I still have the goal of keeping track of what's up during this year, considering we'll never have another one like it in our lives. No, I don't see any possible way to live another 100 years! (grin)
Oh! We ran into Jerry at the parade! He was Tom's best friend in high school, and dated (and later married then divorced) one of Marilyn's and my best friends, Dorothy. (We grew up living next door to Dorothy and were so close as kids and youths... I wish I knew how to contact her. It's a pity we're no longer in touch...) Actually, it's pretty much Jerry's fault that we had a bad break with Dorothy while she was still married to him. (He was such an ass...) I guess it really is a small world if we could run into him after all these years! (And I'm not at all surprised that Tom didn't keep in touch with him, considering what a great guy Tom is...)
I really need to try and read at least once a week. And post once a week, too!
Oh! Another thing! I got to re-code the festival MySpace account today! I'm fairly decent at that, if I do say so myself. More about that another time...