Hard Work is all it takes....

to renew my soul! I just spent 4 hours at Christ the King, setting up for our 75th Anniversary dinner/auction. It's been several years since I've worked on a project like this. It was a bit of a "hot mess" and it really got my heart pumping. I'm really good at this. Here's how it started.

A few months ago, a friend of mine asked me  if I would "consult" on the dinner/auction that she was in charge of. Knowing I've done more of them than I can count and that I was retired, she got me in just the right way---"I just need your help with the organizational." I'm a sucker for making order out of chaos.

I was a near full time volunteer for 30 years. Even after I "retired," Butch got me roped in to a fund raiser for our Tennessee Performing Arts Center. A couple of the gals that work there, know me and my reputation and realized he was on the board. Butch and I had a huge fight over it. I didn't want to do it because I learned after doing other community fund raisers---American Heart, Nashville Symphony, Operation Smile and Fannie Battle---that it wasn't for me. There are too many politics to be played and too much money being spent to put together a "snooty" party to raise funds. I did it anyway and offered many new ideas to make it a success.

I preferred to stick with Church and school fund raisers where I had a pretty good "posse" of great gals (that are still friends) that worked with me. Together, we were a great team with me leading the way. I could count on them and they could count on me to keep everything on track. We spent NOTHING to pull it off. My directive to the decorating committee was always that you could do whatever you want as long as it doesn't cost us anything. They were inventive and creative---always recouping their costs with the sale of the centerpieces and actually MAKING money. We made a ton of money every year for years.

Really, the only reason I retired was that I was so busy with all the work and meetings (that I set), I didn't have time to visit Sandy as often as I would like. Plus, it interfered more than once with travel or family plans. After doing a couple of events a year for many years, I decided it was time to call it quits. I must say, that it was pretty darn relaxing to all of a sudden NOT have something on my mind 24/7.

I said the the best part of "retiring" was that now I got to be a guest to the events. No more hauling heavy stuff and late nights after the event cleaning up. I think I want to keep it that way. As much as this excited me today, I travel even more now. Still, it was a nice ego boost to remember how good I am at this. I needed this after the "funk" I've been in.

We bought a table tonight and are looking forward to a good time. There are lots of great things to bid on. You can bet that we (including Mindy and Stephanie) will be coming home with some cool things. Butch might try to make us "throttle back." Oh well, what else is knew??

Report with photos to come....