Just another manic wee-eek!

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Wish it was Sunday…. oh wait… tomorrow is Sunday. The days have boiled past. Now I could really go for a nice hot soak in a tub, a lovely dinner, watch a bit of a movie and then crawl in bed.

Saturday, I went shopping with Jolene. A girl’s day out! Wheeeee!!!! I got a few new sweaters, undies and a skirt. We had dinner at the China Recipe, a decent restaurant in Pueblo. Yummmm…

Sunday, I did grocery shopping with Dan.  Not a lot to pick up, but it seemed to take much longer than necessary. Hmm…. maybe it was because we had Morgan with us. teehee….. She needed new shoes, and I refused to buy them without her trying them on. Fussy feet. We went to Chile’s for dinner and had to tease her because she has become a “veggiesaurus”. Best part was her trying to flirt with the waiter. He was late 20’s, and she’s 12.

I started Monday with taking the girls, Brandy and Blanca to the vet. My mom gave me a little bit of money and after paying off some bills, I decided to get them fixed. Dan did a deal with the local vet, and so we got two dogs fixed for the price of one and the repair of a printer. Wheeeee!

Of course, it snowed that day. Lots of it. The roads were slick, and the WorkForce people didn’t make it up from Trinidad. So, I did bits of their job as well as my own. Plus, this week, Dan has been helping me out trying to get the office in better shape. Since he is now the treasurer for the Chamber, he wanted a place for his computer to park when he has work to do. The dogs were real unhappy with the snow when we picked them up. Don’t blame them really.

Plus, we’ve had to pick Morgan up from school this week. Jolene normally takes her to school and has been bringing her home. However, Jolene’s schedule changed. sigh… So, we’ve been driving up to Gardner to pick up the girl after basketball practice.

Thursday, we met with City Council Finance committee and got the ordinance fairly well straightened out. Talk about a sigh of relief!

Friday I went to a meeting with the Colorado State University Extension office about gardening! It was a good meeting and I think that this will be a good project for the city and the county.  Then, I got paid!!!! Wheeeee!!! We had to take a big box of brochures to Pueblo’s CF&I Steel Mill Museum, so we did a bit of shopping as well.  Dan and I got home late because we stopped into Barnes and Nobel. I got a book and a bookmark. It says “You say WICKED” like it’s a Bad Thing!” and it has the witch from the Wizard of Oz on it. 🙂 We saw our friend Shirley there too. Caught her up on the fun from Monday. She works for Workforce.

Today we got up at the crack of dawn to take Morgan to her basketball tourney in Gardner at 8am…. yawwwwwn! HWY 69 is an East-West road, and coming back (eastward) at 7:15am this morning was horrid. We pulled over for 15 minutes to let the Sun get off the highway. Dan literally couldn’t see to drive.

After playing with the dogs for a bit, we came down to the chamber. Why? Because Dan was meeting John from the finance committee to get the treasurer’s books. Whee….. I put in 3 hours extra time. ah well… Plus played on the computer.

We headed to Gardner around 1:30pm to go watch the girls play in the finals. Gardner took second. The Craven team was really nasty. They played a foul offensive game. grrr… One of the girls got hurt. Liz. She’s a real sweetie, and smacked the begeezus out of her kneecap. Dan, Cathy (the coach) and I gave her ice packs and cuddles while the game finished. It is a bad sprain, but should be ok.

Of course, my car acted up on the way home and so it took us nearly 30 minutes to go 1 mile at one point. We were rolling downhill and couldn’t make the turn to the house so we glided to the Chamber parking lot. Dan worked on the books a bit and I decided to post for the first time in over a week. Gads! I want to go home now!

Where’s my popcorn and movie!?!?!?!?!

Lucky Number 9?

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Happy New Year! I had a really quiet New Year’s Eve. However, since then life has been hectic. Today is the first day that hasn’t had me going 9000 miles per hour.

About 15 days ago, one of our chamber board members got given an Ordinance that the City was gong to put into law. #982. That one was all about business license. Biggest issue was that this ordinance was so broken, that if we as the chamber didn’t do something, it would be criminal. They upped the license from $5 in perpetuity to $35 a year. Plus, the way they worded it, you had to have a license if you even thought about being in business. Oh, and the lawyer who “authored” this thing cut and pasted from about five different places. The numbering and bullets were all wrong and some things just did not make sense.

So, we called our “pet city councilman” who happens to be the chairman of the finance committee and a fellow journalist at the Huerfano Journal. It was a general “hey! this is Broken! Want to FIX IT!” call. Larry came over and we talked about it. Lots of good ideas exchanged and some things clarified. I took notes, Larry took notes. All good. We let the general business population know what was going on and that we planned as a board to go to the next finance committee meeting.

In the meantime, we were also made aware of Ordinance 981, which was about the liquor license which is set out in Colorado Revised Statute 12-47-505. Oh was that messed up. It took us most of the weekend to fix our brains on that one. Sunday was one of those “Oh My Gods” epiphany moments when we realized that the City was trying to follow the law as they are a Statutory City, and yet had gotten it horridly wrong.

Monday of course was the Finance meeting. We went along with a lot of the Chamber Board and various business people. Dan got to be spokesman. 🙂

Dan looking serious
Dan looking serious

My cousin Brian Orr took lots of pictures. He also captured Dan looking very “Ben Franklinesque”

Dan and the mob
Dan and the mob

That’s me trying not to look at the camera and Nancy Lave, one of our board members next to Dan. He did a really good job. We got the committee to decide to recommend to the City Council the idea of taking 982 back to committee.

Next day, while getting ready for the City Council meeting, we took another look at 981. I finally got cross eyed enough that I called the Department of Revenue and got the number of a man named Dan Gunter. He is the head of the liquor license division, and the expert on 12-47-501-505. After a 45 minute conversation, I told our Dan that we needed to go talk to the City people again. So, off we went. We spoke to the City Clerk, and the City Manager, and they both said that they would talk to Dan Hyatt, the City Lawyer. (too many Dan’s!) Of course, by this time I have people patting me on the head with the whole “Jaye, you are just out of your depth, and  you don’t know what you are talking about.” grrrrrrrrr!

At the meeting, they discussed the whole thing and when we got to Ordinance 981, the lawyer stood up and admitted that he was wrong!!! That he had made a typo! One Hell of a bloody typo! Overcharging local businesses by nearly 50%! That we didn’t all jump up and cheer is a miracle. However, Dan was a smart arse and mentioned that he’d call off the pitchfork, torch, tar and feather brigade. 🙂 That got everyone’s attention and elicited nervous laughter from the 30+ audience. He also stood up and said that the Chamber of Commerce would support 981 as long as the changes were made. Everyone agreed. Then 982 was legally turned back to committee and the Chamber will work with the Finance committee on that one. Yeeeeehawwwww!!!!!! We were so happy! Best part for me was the councilman who came over and apologized to me for saying that I was wrong! I was right. :):):)

It was very cool too that the Chamber was actually doing what it is meant to do. Help business!

Wednesday was slightly calm. I went to a meeting of the county commissioners and got ready for our chamber meeting. First one of the year and elections.

Thursday… Election day. I had things as ready as I could get. And of course, the screw up fairy hit. Two board members neither called or showed up. So, we started 15 minutes late. I had to run the elections. Wheee…… I am the recording secretary for the board. Mike got the presidency, Nancy the Veep, and Dan is now Treasurer. I have the feeling that Patty, our old treasurer is floating on air with happiness! We got through a very long agenda and then finally got home around 9pm. Nearly 4 hours of meeting. Blahhhh

Oh, and Dan got his picture on the front page of the Huerfano Journal. Not sure what is more fun. Watching him when people recognize him or just watching the people. teehee…

Today was hectic on other levels. I started out the day by taking the two dogs, Brandy and Blanca to the vet for shots. Then it was off to the Chamber. It started snowing at about noon, and is still dumping the white stuff down. argh……

Meanwhile, I have paid the electric bill, water bill, tank rental, bought propane, picked up Morgan from Badito, ran errands for the Chamber and now all I need to do is make some dinner and go to bed!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!