We’ll be “headin’ to Evart” — leaving our home in about nine days.

This a.m. I finished all the little tweaks to the ODPC Funfest (Evart) workshop program (sixteen 8 1/2 x 11 pages). Whew… It feels good to have it out of the way.

We will be at Evart starting on July 8th. It’s be a hectic time!

After the festival, we’ll return to our home in Saginaw on the 20th. We have another local Haithco concert on the 23rd. (These events held in June, July and August draw audiences of 150-400 in Haithco Park.)

My husband and I need to check out our place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (on Lake Michigan) between July 24th and August 1st. I don’t know how many days we can stay, but we need to make the 350 mile trip up there to see if it’s still standing.

We have a birthday party for two 90 year old super friends (Bill and Jane Kuhlman) on the 2nd of August, and by August 7th we’ll be hosting a camping weekend with our hammered dulcimer club in Gladwin, MI, for that community’s Carriage Festival.

We have another of our summer Haithco Concert series on the 20th of August.

By then, we’ll be at the Midland Dulcimer Festival where my husband is co-chairman and I’m in charge of the stage show. Two days after that one’s it’s over, August 26th, I head back to Florida to care for my Mother.

(When ever we are at a festival we live in our 5th wheel and host the “hospitality area” with a 20 x 20 foot canopy outside our door. It’s challenging to set everything up and make sure everyone is satisfied. We also run the copy machine services for the festival grounds and provide goodies for everyone who comes by.)

I will fly back to Florida on August 26th but I will return to Michigan on September 9th to pick up my husband. On the 11th of September, we start driving back to Florida. Our plan is to be back to Florida on September 13th so we can plan for my mother’s birthday on September 17th.

When I get back to Florida, I plan to do absolutely nothing but swim in the pool and be lazy until the end of October when we need to return to get our club in shape for the Christmas holidays. Maybe we’ll go to some dances, take some dance lessons, and enjoy the company of friends.

Actually my husband and I have our first paying gig of the holiday season November 1st in a big store (Warmbier Farms) where we provide about six hours of music for their holiday “open house” so much of our October free time will be spent practicing Christmas music. (It’s always strange to play “White Christmas” after returning from the pool when it’s 90 degrees out.) We have a concert in mid-November in Frankenmuth, MI, and about 15 holiday gigs with Saginaw Subterranean Strings in December. In January, we’ll have our biggest event of the year on January 24th (our club’s Snowfest Concert). That’s so far away that I am totally putting that out of my mind.

We really have a lot to look forward to. Busy fun stuff will be filling our days. We can take a deep breath in September when we get back to Florida. Until then, it’s rush rush rush.

Awwww but I’m not complaining. Life is wonderful!