My cardinal comes to visit daily. I love his bright color and song.

I had a super busy week last week and a repeat of too much to do this week. I like quieter weeks when I have a few days with nothing to do but read and write.

What’s keeping me busy this week?

Yesterday, I had a meeting for my women’s charity group that supports victims of sex trafficking. We have our annual fundraiser in March. That means it’s up to me to write press releases, public service announcements and then prepare the program for printing. In the Fall, I worked on advertising and sponsorships.

I was fortunate to have a neighbor volunteer to help me get out the press releases and PSAs. But she hasn’t done this before, so we have to meet to get her up to speed.

The other thing is, I’m new to the area. I don’t know the media like I did in Palm Springs. I was fortunate to have years in public relations and advertising in-house for a country club developer and a PR agency prior to opening my own business. I worked for several years for one of the largest advertisers in the Coachella Valley. The ad people from radio, TV and print took us (me and my PR boss) out to lunch. I had friendships with local media managers, reporters and sales people. When I was doing volunteer publicity for our swim team, also a non-profit, I was able to call on my media friends for help.

In Arizona, I have no connections. I don’t even know what the local media is or who they are. I mainly stream online or watch national news. It makes the job much more difficult.

Without posting my entire schedule this week and boring everyone to death, the main thing keeping me busy is the charity group and our upcoming event. The problem I found with being on the board of directors is our group is too small. Our group was in it’s peak maybe 10 years ago — before my time. It was more than 200 women strong. We’re now under 30. COVID shut down the group for several years and people drifted away. They also aged up. I think a lot of our members left their 50, 60 and 70s behind. The group was founded more than 30 years ago by four friends. Thirty years later, I understand why they’re no longer members.

Through the years, the group raised more than $3 million for women and children in need.

I’m so happy to be a part of this group, but don’t know how to make it grow — but I’m doing my part to help out.

When do you have super busy weeks, when there’s little time to sit and think?

What are you involved with that takes most of your time?