November 17th

Good evening all. Well, today that small clean space in my living room grew a bit. Not a lot, but some. It's feeling good to see the growth of clean & orderly, even if it is slow growth. I'm not totally sure what to do with everything, and there is a lot of papers and stuff to be sorted through. I really dislike doing that, it's always sooooo hard for me to make decisions. Do I keep this? Do I throw it in the garbage or the recycle or the Freecycle? If I keep it, where do I put it? What do I put the chinchilla/rabbit pellets in? And their alfalfa cubes? And the shavings for their cages? And the dog kibble? Where do I keep all these containers once I figure out what those containers will be? Piles of papers that I feel I should keep as they have great info on them, and yet I know that even if I want it some day the chances of finding that sheet of paper in amongst all the others is slim to maybe even nil, so why save them, and yet I can't throw them away (things like newspaper clippings, notes made in former classes, stuff like that). That's all on top of the actual physical work of doing the cleaning and tidying.

As well as dishes today, I took out the cage the 2 chinchillas were in that I moved into 2 different cages, this cleared off one small table. I took the sewing machine and a pile of 'stuff' off the other small table, moved both out of the way and did a good vacuum in that area. I put the tables back, but in each others spots. Put the sewing machine onto the larger of the two, 2 sewing baskets onto the smaller one beside a box of the 'stuff' I'd taken off the one table (took a heap of papers etc and put into the box for later sorting). Hey, just thought of something... I don't have a 'before' pic, but I'm going to go take an 'after' to show you how good it's looking and you can just trust me that it's a 100% improvement, haha.

Of course, to see a larger view of the photos, click on them. As I labeled these in Paint, I saw things I want to change yet... so these are not "after" pics... but "in progress" pics.



I put in some time today working on my speech and am not at all happy with how it's going. To read it, it's good, but you can't read the speech in Toastmasters. You 'present' the speech, preferably without notes, and sounding like you know your subject. For some reason I just can't seem to remember what I wrote or what I want to say unless I am reading it. This is NOT good, and I have to present this speech on Monday evening in front of guests as it is open house/guest night. I really need some major spiritual intervention here.

I also read a few pages from The Power of Decision, the book from the course I'm taking on Tuesday evenings. I need to read Chapter 1 (pages 1 to 22) and do a few other projects, then to prepare for Tuesdays class, read Chapter 2 (pages 23 to 43). So far, I'm on page 12. So I have LOT to do with the speech and the class work in the next couple days. I also have other things I must do in the next couple days as you will read tomorrow in my daily report... sigh.

I want to get to bed early tonight for a change. I'm trying to be more organized in the mornings when I have to be somewhere, like church. Rather than running in nearly late and in a muddle, having had too many things to do before heading out, etc etc.... I want to be early and calm. Tonight I actually got all my clothes ready for tomorrow morning, my song binder is ready to go, things like that.

Oh ya, today I practiced singing too. I'm supposed to be doing this on a regular basis, but haven't in ages. Just seem to be too busy or too tired or just plain forget. But today I remembered and fit it in. Hannah will be soooo happy.

I am down to give the 'Inspiration and Treatment' tomorrow and haven't figured out what I'm going to read for the Inspiration. The Treatment is a specific type of prayer and I can do one of them out of my head, or can grab a Creative Thought Magazine tomorrow and read one from there. However, I do need to find something for the Inspiration, and be ready to share it, so have read it enough to read it smoothly out loud. I'm not the greatest reader so this is a challenge for me... and I volunteered to do it, silly me. haha.

Guess I'd better quit babbling and get to it. See you all soon.