One of Those Nights

Ever have one of those periods when you sit down to write and anything you put together just doesn't feel or read right?? That was me here last night. Start a piece, go at it from different angles, rewrite, scrap it, start again..... eventually I surrendered to the idea that it wasn't to be and gave up.

..... and I knew why. I'd had a rotten time through the day trying to sleep and for no good reason didn't sleep very much. When I made it to work I escorted our clients to my home group AA meeting and on arriving there was asked to speak. Gulp, errr, uhhh, sure..... The talk went off alright but as always it got the wheels churning. It always feels different and awkward speaking in front of our clients for some reason. There are always 3 talks BTW: the one you would ideally like to give; the one you actually deliver; and the 20/20 hindsight one you wish you had done. Ah well, it is what it is.

Once we were all back here at the centre I suddenly wasn't in the mood to be here at work at all. I bore down and had all my usual work done by midnight and then had 6 hours to fill. Hmmm.... okay, extra work. 5 hours to go. Pace. Tour. Check the usual blogs. Listen to music. Long night done and off home to bed, T.G.

What else?? I've been trying to pay less attention to the market news but still hearing dribs and drabs. The Cdn dollar has taken a beating..... a few months ago it was valued higher than the USD at $1.10; now it's trading at .80 for a 30% drop. If you Yanks were considering a trip north of the border now is the time to stretch your travel dollar - c'mon up!! The good news is that gas prices have dropped substantially from a high during the summer of $1.35 per liter to today when I filled up for .93 per liter. (Still over priced of course, but....)

The last week has seen the weather cool off again. The last 36 hours have been non-stop wind out of the north-west - lots of scudding cloud and rain. They're predicting light snow here by morning with greater amounts to the east. Here we go kids - hang onto your hats.

Things with Lynda are good. We enjoyed our time together on the weekend and we normally get a couple of hours between when she gets home from work and I have to leave to come in to my work. We catch each other up on our news, we cook and clean up, watch the news, talk out the challenges we face. Such is life during my work weeks..... it's a strange way to work; 7 nights in a row and then off for 7.

Had a nice surprise email today from a blog friend which included some photos of themselves and family as well. I replied in kind. Nice to put faces with names we agreed.... and so much for anonymity.

Time for a walkabout..... later.

Into Action

A colleague asked me a week ago to speak at a meeting tonight. I was of two minds about doing it as Lynda and I had just had our first talk but when I'm asked to do things 'program' oriented, I do it. I had assumed he was simply chairing a meeting and needed a speaker. When I arrived I found out it was his 15 year medallion celebration (you get to choose who participates in your medallion meetings - designate people for each of the readings, the slogans and the speaker). Once again I'd asked permission from our manager for time off at the beginning of my shift in order to do it. Ordinarily I don't get overly nervous but as Lynda and I had just finished figuring out what we're doing, I was pretty tightly wound. I started off kind of flat but if there's one thing that gets me excited it's talking about recovery from addiction. Once I got into it I was able to put the current personal stuff out of mind and focus on the process of personality change inherent in the 12 steps. There were a half dozen current and former staff there as well as a slew of alumni from all three of our centres. The room was at capacity - probably 80 people. My talk was well received and the evening went really well. I was glad for him; great guy.

The best way to get out of 'self' is to be of service to others. Pass it on.