Struggling

Today was a struggle. I did have some good things happen, but the negative has overshadowed them. So where do I start? Well, let's start with the good news first. Yelp is on board to help sponsor our Valentines event which I am really happy about. They supported our date auction and it worked out great. It is such an awesome website, I finally started writing reviews on it recently. I'm glad that they are participating. Things are moving along well with the Valentines event. I think as the marketing kicks into high gear, we'll really see the tickets sales jump.

Anyways, the lousy news is really dominating my mind. The event planner isn't going to be able to work on our Mother's Day event. This is really disappointing news. I had already known that her involvement would be limited because she has a big event coming up very close to ours, but I didn't think this was going to happen. If I had, I'm not sure that I would have committed to holding the event. It is too much work to do on my own, plus planning the date auction and the anniversary event and regular program work and grant writing. So now I need to find an event planner. It is hard to describe how I feel. It was a good feeling to think that I actually had help working on the event and it eased a lot of the pressure that I deal with. I don't get much help, practically no help to be perfectly honest. It is very stressful to always be on your own and have to pull everything together by yourself. I started to cry tonight when I was driving home- I felt sad and overwhelmed and I was just wishing that everything didn't have to be such a struggle. I am already concerned about a personal issue, so the added stress of this news was just too much. The tears helped though because it brought out the fighting spirit in me. I'm not going to give up on our event, it is already moving forward, I will find a new planner and it will be a success. I believe that things happen for a reason and maybe this is working out for the best.

I am proud of myself tonight for following my instinct. I had spoken with the event planner earlier and we discussed the Mother's Day event briefly, after we got off the phone, there was something bothering me and my instinct was that we needed to address the issue. So I called her back when I was driving to tango class and the upshot is that she won't be working on the event planning. As much as I didn't want to hear that, I am relieved to hear it now and not 3 weeks from now. Of course, it would have been better to hear it a few weeks ago so I could have already started finding a new planner.

Maybe I should have known this would be a rocky day- I woke up this morning to an email from someone who was upset about comments I made in my blog. I did speak with them and I think that everything has been resolved, but it was upsetting and it got my day off to a lousy start. I know that blogs can be tricky sometimes since it is out in the public. My intention is never to offend anyone or be detrimental to others. My goal with this blog is simple- to let people look inside my work and to see how a non profit functions. In order to be truthful, I do need to share the negative things that occur. Now, there are quite a few negative things that happen that I don't write about because I don't want to offend anyone by writing about some of the lousy people that I encounter and there are times I downplay how strongly I feel about things- particularly when I am annoyed. The reality is that there are a lot of frustrations, a lot of negative things and a whole lot of struggles that go along with this job and this blog would be a fraud if I didn't address them. Of course, there are tremendous highs that go with my job as well, which I share. I have never lied in my blog, I have never exaggerated- I do my best to tell things the way they are while also being fair to others.

Anyways friends, that's it for tonight. There were other good times today- I cleaned my office, caught up on emails, now have a Reiki therapist on board for the Mother's Day event, finished the Awesome Mom award nomination form and did some other things that I can't remember right now. I don't want to focus on the negative, but I am worried about finding a good event planner. Well, I'm going to go write my list for tomorrow- guess what will be number one- event planner search! Let's wish for happier news tomorrow!