Day One-hundred-and-nine: Contemplating my navel

I've always associated "contemplation" with deep thoughts and in association with "navel" perhaps deep thoughts from meditation. This is not so in my use in the title. I'm really just misdirecting my potential readers' thoughts from what I've really done today, which is nothing. Since my brain has been active all day, I can always claim I'm thinking.

Indeed, I did think about my upcoming Toastmaster speech. I even read the write-up/directions. Well, since I was reminded yesterday from my review of some of the personality and style assessments I've taken over the years that I have a tendency to gloss over details, I scanned it. I will probably continue to think of it daily until the night before and the point where I no longer can procrastinate and finish it up. I hope I don't do what I did in college where I put off writing my papers until after midnight, which meant I was actually writing it on the day it was due. This was really bad one quarter in my freshman year with a paper due every week and a couple other papers due sporadically in other classes. Finally there was one week that I had two papers due on the same day. For these papers I planned ahead, actually beginning after midnight for two nights in a row. In fact, I was awake for almost 72 hours straight. This led to sleeping for 15 hours straight. I was both amazed and glad that I could sleep that long, I certainly can't now, but the consequences were that I missed all the meals that day of long sleep. I really thought missing food was the worst of the experience. It's an even greater leap to think that I'm now "contemplating" fasting.

I finally took that misdirected piece of mail to its rightful destination. I didn't check to see whether anyone was home but dropped it in the extra-wide garage door mail slot. I did stop and talk with someone who was working on his front yard. He was repairing mole damage with new sod. I thanked him for keeping his house and yard looking so nice. Where I dropped the mail off looked like a rental. Thank goodness it was further away. Since my lot is a flag lot and is set back from the street, the impact of how well other houses are maintained is lessened. Besides, I have my own maintenance issues.

I did pick some more dandelion blooms. Since I don't want to kill the clover that is also in my backyard, I need to go out and dig up as much of the roots as I can. They are persistent and keep producing blooms.

Day One hundred and one: A "happening" day

Maybe it was because of the quiet Life after Layoff I've been leading but I now have joined a local Toastmasters Club. Even though I have talked a little bit on the phone for the webinars that I've been taking, primarily to answer the roll call, I've been trending to more silence. In fact, tonight was the first day since last Sunday that I've made it out of the house.

I also got my Absentee Ballot today. I immediately sat down, filled it in, and mailed it on my way to the Toastmasters meeting.

I see Toastmasters as a way to develop and practice my speech crafting much like this blog is writing practice. I'm hoping I'm using this practice already as I have started my Memories of Marilyn blog. I'm not sure when I will use the speaking practice, or really when I'll even get it. This club has two speakers a meeting. I don't know how many members they have but that could mean as few speaking times as once a month.

Now I'm not sure that my speaking ability will improve as much as would be ideal, since I decided to start from the beginning again. However, my secondary objective, perhaps even the primary objective is to meet fellow Pacificans. What with work and Marilyn's illness, I know very few people. Besides, "relationships" is one of my weak areas for a successful retirement. (It is probably a weakness for finding another job, if I were to do so, as well. Networking is big and I'm not a big networker.) Maybe this is why I'm interested in enhancing my writing skills.

After Toastmasters I went grocery shopping. Here it is only October 9th and I'm well on my way to being well over my monthly food budget. I really don't know what my budget should be but know I could spend less. At some point I will have to, not because I've run out of money, although that may also occur, but because I'll run out of room in my house and around my waist.

Day Sixty-four: "Putzing" outside

Well, that is what I always called it when Marilyn did it. She would do the one thing outside over the million things inside. I don't know how many pruning sheers she went through. At the time I didn't think they were worn out from use but now I'm not so sure. I didn't use pruning sheers but loppers. I don't believe I wore them out but I certainly wore myself out.

Before I could wash my vehicles, I needed to sweep my driveway. Before I swept my driveway, I decided to trim away the bottle brush bush that was hanging over the fence from my neighbor's yard. I carefully cut it up the fence line and had a mass, a mess of a mass of trimmings I now had to fit into the green bin. This involved a lot of cutting of the branches, which I endeavored to do over the bin itself. Since the branches did what branches do, they branched, and they also were longer than the top of the green bin, I would frequently make a cut and have one or both sides fall off of the bin to the driveway. I took care sometimes to minimize the fall off and other times I just let the clips fall where they may.

I don't know which way was faster but after about four hours and two additional small bins I had the driveway cleaned. This meant that it wasn't really too late to wash at least one car, but my arms ached and It was past time for dinner. (Not that I need any excuse to procrastinate on work.)

Earlier today I took my truck out to go to the Faucets and Fixtures warehouse to pick up the toilet I ordered over a month ago. On the way I stopped to get gas and realized that I hadn't put the next year's sticker on the license. Thank goodness I was only a mile away from my house and didn't have a specific appointment to pick the toilet up. After my truck was legal, I made my way to my new toilet. It's a one piece unit and took two of us to lift it into the truck. Probably it wouldn't have, since I was able to offload it by myself, but the sole person who brought it out only picked up one side. If I hadn't picked up the other side it would have fallen to the ground instead of get to the bed of my truck.

For all my work in various positions as a scouter helping my son through Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, I still don't know knots. But, the rope I tied the toilet box into my truck didn't come loose and the box didn't slide around.

Since I was close Whole Foods and it was lunch time, I went there to eat. I like their selection and I am a minor share holder. More minor than I once was: I still have the same number of shares, but their value has dropped close to 60% since I bought them. Poor timing is the mark of Life after Layoff. I lose my job and lose my investment.

I don't feel down at all. In fact, today I had another idea that may even be worth a book. At least it is something that I'm looking forward to putting on my list, researching, and writing. With the number of my projects that involve writing, maybe I'm just looking forward to writing. I know I look forward to writing this every day. Since there are rarely comments, I don't know whether it is even read. I still enjoy writing it.