Wednesday, October 8, 2008

What Makes Me Happy

I. Love. Event. Planning.

I do! And I've had my share of it over the years thanks to my career. (I only wish I could be doing THIS full time!) I've planned meetings and events in Las Vegas, New Orleans, San Antonio, Santa Cruz, all over the Bay area and in Colorado. Great memories of all, and especially when I could attend and oversee everything in person. A favorite memory I have is enjoying the dinner barge on the river walk in San Antonio. Another would be the fancy dinner in an upstairs restaurant at Paris, Las Vegas, with a view that made you think you were looking out over Paris itself. The funniest part of that dinner was avoiding the expensive red wine because I was just SURE I was pregnant, but I couldn't tell my boss or anyone else my suspicions. (And I was!)

This comes up because I'm right at the beginning of planning a scrapbooking retreat for this January, and I'm in heaven. The invites have been emailed out, RSVP's are coming in, and I anticipate hitting our maximum number of 80 within the next month. Note to my girlfriends -- I'm already 25% full, so hurry up already!

This is such a fun event to plan for many reasons. First and foremost, this is a weekend that's gone on for years before me, put together by another consultant who later showed me (and then handed me) the ropes. I don't have to reinvent the wheel here -- I just have to organize it, and throw in my personal touches or changes here and there. I love that.

Another fun aspect is that it's a weekend many of us look forward to all year long. We're all excited about it, which makes all the background work worthwhile. And thanks to the other working consultants, not every task falls on me. I get to spread the work around!

My favorite task of all is arranging the gift that everyone will receive. In the past, we've done shirts, scrapbooking products, travel mugs and a few other things. This year -- well, I can't say what it is because there are people reading who would lose out on the surprise, but I WILL say that it's (in my opinion) going to be enjoyed greatly and will come in very handy.

When all is said and done, we'll spend 2 1/2 days eating delicious home cooked food, scrapbooking our hearts out, laughing and enjoying old and new friendships. I can hardly wait for January to arrive. Darn that Christmas for falling in between and adding to my to-do list!

4 comments:

The Mom Jen said...

YAY for scrapbook weekends, and double yay for 6 months apart this year!!

I'll get mine in...just gotta choose WHO is 'buying it for me' for Xmas!

Can we be roomies, i'll help do prizes again for you! ;)

Jamey said...

I hope I can go, I will get it in soon, if I can! I got more crap going on with you know who...

Ranch Girl said...

I'm so glad you're enjoying the planning of this - and I'm doubly glad that I'm not in charge this year (or that I wasn't in charge last year - yikes!). Have fun planning, and I can't wait to see what the thank you gift is!

Heather - Hopelessly Flawed said...

Sounds like fun! I also love event planning - it's so satisfying!