After The Open House

I’ve been spending time with the donkeys in the morning.  I’ve been needing their quiet and calm.  And they’ve been very responsive to my attention.

I’ve been working up to the last minute of everything since the Open House. Lunch, dinner, bed, trips to the postoffice and bank.

This morning I was in a panic because some of the numbers didn’t work out.  I knew I had to get to a better place before meeting with my bookkeeper (as understanding as she is) so I took a fast walk in the woods.  Fate and Gus came with me, keeping up as I practically ran down the path and waiting with me when I finally stopped in a circle of beech trees trying to take in their slow sense of time.

After every Open House I always wonder if all the work and time I put into it is worth it.  But like the pain of childbirth, I soon forget as I start planning the next one.

Sometimes the achievement of it all is lost to me.  Until I get a moving message, from someone I don’t even know, about how much the Open House meant to them.  Or I remember that for some of the artists, this is one of the few ways they have of selling their work.

It’s just beginning to quiet down for me.  I haven’t even had the energy to blog, all my time taken up with online sales, emails, numbers, boxes and bubble wrap.

Today, for the first time I was able to see an end to it.  Tomorrow I’ll send off the last box before we leave for New Mexico.  I’ll clean out my upstairs office turning it into the guest room so Shelby our pet-sitter can use it.

On Saturday I’ll get my studio back to working order so I can come home to a space that is ready for me.