Workshops and Meetings and ZUCCHINI BREAD! in A New Beginning

Oh my, it has been a busy-as-heck week! Last Sunday Carrie and Max arrived. They stayed 'til Thursday. We had a really great time with them! My favorite part (as a mom, especially) was how splendidly Carrie and Joey got along, and how well Max behaved. On Sunday afternoon we had a family gathering, with all of our small family (both sisters, niece, nephew, and Wendy) here. It was wonderful fun! We women, especially, shared a lot of talk and laughter around the dining room table! I'm not going to try to post photos here; it's so much trouble....but if you haven't already friended me on FB, feel free, cuz I post all my photos there. I'm Nicky Woodsprite there too! :o) !!

One night we all went to The Delaware State Fair; twice we went to Rehoboth Beach. Their last night here, we went to The Chinatown Buffet, everyone's favorite chow-down. When we weren't going places, the kids and I had fun playing Trivial Pursuit. Other than for Sunday's gathering and baking a pie one morning, I did NO COOKING the whole time they were here. We are a very active, and also somewhat chaotic and messy family, and trying to cook and clean up from meals with everyone here would've been just too darn exhausting for me. Sure, I always cooked when Carrie and Joey were kids, but I was not 56 then; PLUS, even though we went places, we didn't go places every day!

Of course, the entire week I had looming in the back of my mind the fact that ON SATURDAY I was going to be travelling up to Slatington, PA, to teach a two-hour workshop which I really did not have planned yet!!!!! Why didn't I have it planned, you may well wonder. Because The Old Me would've had it planned a month or more in advance! But The Old Me wasn't 56 either, and wasn't so damn busy! The week before the kids came, I was busy with my sisters. The week before that, we were in Maine, I think! We were in Maine sometime, anyway! When I'm not busy, it seems like I'm trying to recuperate from having been so busy. I am gonna have to cut back on stuff when school starts.

ANYWAY, though, so here was this workshop coming up, and I had company, and I had nothing planned. I didn't want to use the same workshop I taught at Free Spirit Gathering in June. That would've made life easier, but that's not what I wanted to do! So I kept furtively trying to think up, and write, a new workshop outline in the wee little increments of time when I wasn't busy and also wasn't tired!! And by the time I'd get a couple pages of something written up, I'd decide it wasn't what I wanted, so I'd delete it and start over!!!!! I am happy to tell you that the workshop I led, on Saturday afternoon, finally got composed by me at 3 a.m. Saturday morning!!!!! It was a workshop on Magick and Manifestation in our Daily Lives. It was a good workshop! It had plenty of space for interaction, and all the women seemed to enjoy it immensely. I had seven women, none who knew me!! though I felt an almost-instant sense of sisterhood with all of them. :o) !! A few of them already had my book, and those who didn't, bought a copy. I also got paid for doing the workshop! :o) !! Being new to this, I didn't know if I'd get paid for doing the workshop or not, really. I thought that maybe the bookstore would keep that money. So I was very happily surprised!

I nearly stressed myself (and poor long-suffering Joe!) to either death or insanity, between the time Carrie and Max left and the time on Saturday morning when I finally got a workshop written! I must not let this happen again! On the other hand, I left the workshop on a Great High, feeling amazed at myself for how good I seem to be at this. It is something I want to do more of. I'm thinking of cancelling my engagement at Circle of Trees Retreat in October, though. Autumn in such a busy time for us; PLUS I'll be working; PLUS, even though I get to stay for free as part of the retreat, it is a women's retreat and Joe would have to stay somewhere else. I mentioned that to them, and no one offered to put him up, sooooo.

Anyhow.....so, what else have I been doing?! Oh yea....ZUCCHINI AND YELLOW SQUASH! We have TONS of it. I made six more loaves of zucchini bread yesterday! I took a big bag of squash to my coven meeting the other day. I sent a bag of squash to work with Joe this morning. When Wendy comes over on Thursday, I will send her home with squash. Sister Carol doesn't need squash, because they have squash too!!!! Apparently Sister Sandy doesn't like squash????? But I really am thankful. We are also getting tomatoes, cucumbers, wax beans and corn now, too, and Joe can dig potatoes anytime.

Speaking of the coven meeting....it went just fine. EVERYONE (including Darleen( was all smiles.

And now I'm actually going to post this! I hope you all are having a great week. It is actually cool-ish temps here for a few days! :o) !! hugs and blessings, Nicky