*** I Am Grateful ***

Ahhhh, here I sit in the comfort of my recliner chair and it feels good.

I didn't make it to town today to do my Water Walking, or the Aqua Therapy I want to get started in. Instead, I stayed home to practice my speech and while I did do some of that, I also did a bunch of stuff for the Centre. I phoned some of the volunteers for Friday, one is not going to be there after all, one still is, one I left a message for and he hasn't called back, and one I can't find his number to call and confirm, so hope he still shows up at 3pm Friday as agreed. I also made up a Volunteer Information Form so I can start to keep prospective volunteers on file, and contacted Rev. Dale for a list of jobs he wants volunteers for, also emailed all other Board Members to ask if they had ideas of other jobs we need/want volunteers for. I have a list of people from the Volunteer Bureau as well as I did get 2 replies to my 'volunteers wanted' ad I put into the paper.

This evening I went to Toastmasters. I had a terrible time finding the manual I needed to have to get the evaluation in, then finally just as I was leaving without it, I thought of one last place to look, and found it. For my 8 - 10 minute speech, I chose to talk about my fathers life. I started by reciting a poem (12 verses, 6 lines per verse) that I wrote for my Dad in 1997. Then I spoke of how his mother had cooked for the Royal Family during Queen Victoria's rein, his father had been a sailor in the Queen's Royal Navy, the year they were married and when they immigrated to Canada (handed out photos to pass around)... how Dad was the 4th of 6 children, got a grade 4 education then left home to go to work at age 14. How he moved from Saskatchewan to BC, where he worked, how he met Mom, the kids they had... all that kind of stuff, just touching on things right up to his passing away in '99. It turned out rather well and I was happy to get a very good evaluation.

Pat invited me to go for tea afterward, like we usually do. I said no as I just have too busy a week this week. That is the truth, though I will admit to you that I'm not really in a rush to be too friendly with her anymore. I like her a lot, though she complained to Sheila about me behind my back and I'm not happy about that. I know we all do that to a point and I can't say I never have... however, she made Sheila think she did all the work of preparing the Speech Contest and the truth is that she did help me a lot, and she didn't do it all. I did do a lot of it too. I do forgive her, I don't want to hang onto the emotions of it so I let them go with joy... and I am just not sure I want to be really friendly any more. We'll see in time.

So, now I am blogging when I need to work on the homework for tomorrow evenings class. I have a pile of work to do on that yet and have just not had the time to get it done yet. Hey, I just got my speech written yesterday to present tonight, that's how behind I am with many things just now (working on too many things at once I think).

- I am grateful for the wonderful content feeling I have just now
- I am grateful for the comfort of my chair
- I am grateful to have successfully presented another speech
- I am grateful for the very good evaluation I got for my speech
- I am grateful for people willing to give of their time at the Centre
- I am grateful that I may be able to give up one or two of my volunteer jobs
- I am grateful for my laptop computer
- I am grateful my birds are all quiet, most of them sleeping (some were very noisy today)
- I am grateful to be inside as it's very windy outside just now
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