One week

My event will be halfway over in a week. Just about every day I revel in how relaxed I am. For so many years this time was just awash with stress - I mean, intense stress that would take me about a month to come down from. I chalk up my new found zen to a few things:

Technology - a working website I can control myself and an online registration form that never crashes help a lot

I have delegated a lot of the more time consuming projects (like picking all the contest music)

I have become more efficient and a better time manager 

But I think the real reason is that I am in mom mode, which means that for 2 1/2 years I have been in this constant state of hyper vigilance that is really useful in event production. I work every single night no matter how tired I am, I answer every email and phone call immediately because you never know when I'll be unable to for several hours or days, I launch right into unpleasant tasks because I'm used to doing unpleasant things all day (taking a toy away, scraping shit out of pajamas, etc). So I find much to my surprise that even with a toddler and a new baby I am way more effective in my work, because in my home life I have to be effective whether I want to be or not.

So I have just a few more days of customer service and organizing and then it's all systems are go. My nighttime sitter for the event unfortunately now can't make opening night - she is sending a replacement I've used before - and I am dreading this, but really, Bumpus doesn't know either of these gals so who knows how he'll react if he wakes up and I'm not there. The sitter, and the daytime sitter, will just have to handle it because I have three contests to run, three sets to sing, and 1000 people to process into the event. Oh, and I'll be in a Cleopatra costume. So everyone's just going to have to figure it out.