November 19th

Slept late again today, as usual. Since I go to bed so late at night I do tend to sleep late in the mornings unless I have somewhere I have to be for something important. I get my 8 hours this way most days.

I actually forget now what I did for somewhere around 2 hours, but the time did pass. I was getting changed and ready to go to town when I heard someone drive up, then knock on my door. It was Dan, and I told him I was going out. None the less, it did take some of my time away, but it was also nice to see him. With both of us being very busy lately, we haven't connected in awhile. He was driving past and had a few minutes to spare, so dropped in when he saw my truck was still in the yard.

With all the work I've put into trying to practice my speech and "get it down pat" for tonights Toastmasters meeting, I was totally getting nowhere. It was all written out and it was a very good speech... on paper. However, I had a 'speech impediment', lol. I just couldn't seem to get it from the paper and into me. So I went to the Centre and spent over 3 hours this afternoon with Rev. Dale working on it. Dale is a very accomplished speaker, so I had asked him for help and he'd agreed to give it. He showed me how he prepares his speeches each week, and helped me to set up 'notes' for mine, based on what I'd written. He also helped me to 'make the words mine'. I can't really explain this any better without taking a long time and making this into a very long read (ya, even longer than it already is, lol), so I won't go there just now. Suffice it to say he was a very big help and really saved my bacon. After he left for home, I stayed for over an hour more to do the final touches.

When I left the Centre I had under a half hour to get to Toastmasters. I had to stop at the drug store and pick up a prescription refill I needed, thankfully it was only a few blocks away from the Centre. Then I drove to Subway, a few more blocks, and got a 6" sandwich. Next, I drove to a mostly fenced parking lot on the way to where Toastmasters meet, and let Reba out of the truck for a pee. I'd planned to take her for a walk, but that hadn't panned out. I got to Toastmasters a few minutes later than I wanted to, and quickly took my place as tonights greeter. It was our "Open House" or "Guest Night" tonight, so there were a lot of people came out to check us out. We were all very pleased with the turnout... and it was very busy for me as a greeter. I'd forgotten that I was doing the Inspiration tonight, so hadn't taken anything to read, tho when I asked Brenda if she 'had anything' she was kind enough to write out a short quote by Byron. After the mid-meeting break, I was Speaker #3. The first 2 speeches were great... and then it was my turn. I did a wonderful job and was sooooo relieved and happy with what I'd done. I got a really good evaluation (everything is evaluated at Toastmasters meetings), and afterwards I received many wonderful comments and compliments from my fellow Toastmasters.

Tim Horton's for tea/coffee as usual... after I took Reba out for another pee, of course. There were 6 of us that turned out and had a very nice visit, and more compliments were paid to me on my speech... more on how I gave it than on what I'd said, though that was complimented too. All in all it was wonderful and I was happy.

When I got home I found the pellet stove had run out of pellets, so the house was cold and the furnace was running to warm things up. I brought in another bag of pellets, cleaned the stove and restarted it, then listened to the 4 messages on my answering machine. It was too late to phone 3 of them, but I did return Dave's call and talked for over an hour. Now it's after 2am and I'm still catching up here as well as have animals to care for. It will be a late night again.