Busy Bee

Is it a new week? It seems like I'm still working on everything from last week. I had a lunch meeting this morning which was cancelled, I was actually relieved because I had a million things that needed to be done. I finally finished our June newsletter, only a week past when I had intended to finish it. We did have some good things happen last week. Boston Event Guide offered to let us hold a raffle on their summer kick-off cruise on Thursday. They even donated raffle items and had two volunteers help us sell tickets as well, which was so generous and helpful of them. BEG is a great source of what's going on in Boston. About a month ago, Miss Southcoast, a contestant for the Miss Massachusetts Pageant got in touch with me and wanted to help Project Smile, so I invited her to come on the cruise and sell raffle tickets. She did an awesome job- she was very professional and pleasant and really nice to be around. Having her there and the other volunteers who helped made my job a lot easier. All I had to do was walk around with Miss Southcoast and carry the bag with the money/tix in it. I really don't enjoy going up to be and selling raffle tix, so it was great to have someone else who was good at it. This was the first official use of our Project Smile tote bags and they looked awesome. It was such a cohesive image to see the Project Smile "team" all walking around with their distinctive green bags. Branding is so important- the more our logo and tagline is visible, the better it is for Project Smile. I really should order more bags. Right now, I only have enough for the date auction, but we should have more to sell online, give out to certain people and also for the anniversary event and future events.

We also have a new date auction sponsor on board, it is a social and business networking website which I am really looking forward to being a part of. It is also a great partnership on both sides for the date auction. We still haven't reached our goal for financial sponsorship, but at least we are making progress. We also got some cool new auction items. Conway Tours donated two roundtrip coach transportation to Foxwoods, Fleming's Steakhouse donated a gift certificate for the date auction, the Revolution donated tickets (at least I hope that's what is inside the big yellow envelope and not a fancy rejection letter.) and Catamount Ski donated two lift tickets- I went there on Saturday to their Aerial Adenture Park- it is awesome.

Our first calendar photos from Douglas came out awesome, but I received some frustrating news. The photo shop raised their prices significantly, even with out discount it is still a 20% increase. So now I need to figure out what to do. I can't afford that much of an increase, so I'm looking at alternatives. It seems everywhere you look prices are getting jacked up, except our donations aren't jacked up to keep pace. Talking about donations, I was at the bank where we do our business banking last week- as I was depositing our checks, the teller, who I have known for 5 years, but only chat with briefly when I do our banking, looked at our balance and said, "you work really hard at this don't you?" I was so surprised to hear her say that. I smiled and said that I did. I had been feeling pretty tired and stressed, and even though on a certain level, I know that I work hard, I always feel like I need to do more- that I don't accomplish enough. Our bank balance doesn't generate positive feelings right now, so for her to look at it and make such a positive statement- it really made me feel good.

What else is new? Our events page has been updated on our website. We've started adding photos of the bachelors/ettes that are being auctioned off. The photos look great. We will have 40 people auctioned off, but there are only about 6 photos up there right now. Another bachelorette sent me a photo today and it is a beautiful photo, so we should get it up there soon. In my web service contract, we get 1 hour of updates per month, so I'm trying to time our updates and do things gradually. Last year, I went over the limit and had to spend more money, so I'm really trying to be a bit smarter this year. The web host does such an awesome job, I'm really happy with his service. We also added some highlights of our anniversary event auction items and a link to the complete list of items. We now either have in-hand or have commitments for 77 auction items.

There are lots of other things going on too, but my little brain can't think of anything else right now. I do seriously need to get to bed earlier though- I've fallen into the bed at 2am trap and my morning productivity is hurting. It is hard being such a nightowl sometimes. I also didn't exercise very much last week because I woke up late and had to make a beeline to get out the door for donations. So this week, I'm going to make a major effort to get to bed at a decent hour- before 1am, excerise in the morning and be back to being a relatively productive morning person. I'll never be a fully productive morning person. So, since it is already 12:30, I will not go back on the office computer and start sending emails, I will switch it off, write my list for tomorrow, hold off on the urge to eat cheese (don't need more food) and go to bed. What a marvelous plan! Until tomorrow friends..