Went to a great concert!

Hi everyone, I'm back. Work and life got super intense for several weeks again. It sure has been a struggle to balance both these days. I never, ever feel like I get everything DONE that needs to be done on any given day. Frustrating.

That doesn't mean that I don't have time for fun now & then. Take last night for instance. Jeff, Lily, her boyfriend Andrew and I went to my friend's son, Justin Caldwell's CD release party. He's a gifted, multi-talented musician. Here is more about Justin: http://justincaldwell.com/ I have both of his CD's and they are GOOD! No, they are more than good, they're excellent. He has also been enjoying a good bit of success lately. This is from his website: In addition to his prolific onstage presence, Caldwell engineers and produces his own recordings; a skill developed from years of writing music for film and TV. Most recently, his original music has been featured in national ad campaigns for Nike, Visa, Honda, Tylenol, in the primetime network pilot Dear God, It's Me Traci, and the Australian film Out of Space.

I took a few pictures, but they were blurry. Sheesh. Justin's mom is my friend Gwen. She is a professional storyteller and 1/4 of Once Upon A Times Four, and so am I. The other two members are Genie Hammel and Jiaan Powers. We are four professional storytellers who began meeting once a month for support, coaching and guidance, but it blossomed into much more than that. We have become great friends who now also lead workshops together for librarians and others storytellers who want to enhance their own storytelling skills.

In May we went on a retreat together to Pagosa Springs, CO. Here are a few photos.

Left to right are me, Genie and Jiaan outside a gallery in Sante Fe, NM. We stopped there to stretch our legs and view lovely art during our drive up to Colorado.

Gwen (mom to Justin), Genie and Jiaan who are happy, happy, happy!

Here we are at the house we stayed at in Pagosa Springs. We had been traveling all day and were exhausted, but happy and ready to enjoy a meal together.

I had such a wonderful trip with my friends and feel so blessed to have them in my life. I have the complete photo album of the trip on my Facebook page if you are curious to see more photos.