I Wish I Knew How To...

...sew my own clothes.

...pick out a good bottle of wine.

...push myself harder in my workouts.

...write a children's book that would sell.

...cook a gourmet meal.

...paint with watercolors.

...apply eye-makeup.

...find homes for all the stray dogs and cats in the world.

...write an eye-catching press release.

...refinish furniture.

...speak a second language.

...travel light.

...make a soufflé.

...do a handstand.

...grow flowers.

...return a library book on time.

...speak cat.

What do you wish you knew how to do?

International Speech Contest

I'm competing this Wednesday at club level in the Toastmasters International Speech Contest.  Or rather, I was competing. I received an e-mail this weekend from our V.P. of Education and it seems I am the only one giving a speech.  Our V.P. of Education was supposed to compete, but he hasn't been able to find the time to pull together and practice a speech. And another woman was going to compete but she just found out she's ineligible as she hasn't yet given 6 speeches out of the basic manual.  So it's just me speaking.  

 I only just pulled together a speech yesterday afternoon and am going to spend time today and tomorrow practicing it.  I don't think it's one of my better speeches.  Topics for the International Speech Contest tend to use less humor and focus on "big" topics--personal issues, politics, overcoming obstacles, etc. I'm speaking on a personal issue but I'm not a huge one for letting my feelings show through, so I'm a little worried my serious topic will be delivered in too "upbeat" a tempo and confuse the audience.

Since I "win" at club level, I'll be competing next at area or district level.  I can never keep them straight. But the competition goes on to state, then national, then International, as the title implies. I'd be pleased to make it one more round after club level.  But as I said, I'm not sure my speech is up to par and I don't have a strong inclination to fix it.  At least not yet. I'm sure I'll tinker with it after our club competition and people have a chance to give me feedback.

It's going to be tough sticking to my work today.  It's beautiful outside and I've opened the windows to let in the fresh air.  I've got a lot of work to get to in the next 2 days though, so I really can't afford to waste much time.  I might sneak out for a 15-minute walk at lunch and if it's still nice when Blair gets home, perhaps we'll walk then as well.

Meanwhile, it's time to practice that speech.

Vacation Day

The raging temper tantrum seems to have passed. Lots of wasted drama in the past 24-hours. I started to detail some of it here then erased it.  I want to move past it and rehashing it won't help.  If I had to give myself marks for how I handled the preceding day's events, I'd give myself an 85-95% passing grade.  If anything, I detract marks for the raging blog-post of yesterday. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with the way I conducted myself. 

It was mid-70's here today and Blair and I decided to escape for the day.  We got in the car about 8:30 this morning and drove to King, a tiny little North Carolina town for an egg and pancake breakfast. Then we drove into Mount Airy (home of everything Andy Griffith) and did some shopping. 

We stumbled into the cutest little store called Scarlet Begonias. It's a trendy gift store with eye-catching purses and jewelry and unique clothing and fun paintings and items for the house. I found a really cute orange travel purse and a semi-dressy drape that also looks good with jeans to wear around England (if you click on "clothing" under the "Gallery" heading, there's a montage of pictures and my orange purse is draped over a mannequin in the opening shot).

The owner was preparing for a book signing later that day and when I told her I'd written a gift book, she agreed to carry it.  Luckily, we'd driven my car that morning so I had some in the back seat. So Scarlet Begonias now carries Lessons In Stalking.  Yea!

We spent some more time exploring stores ("Opie's Candy Store," "Floyd's Barber Shop") then headed to Pilot Mountain for a 2-mile hike. The weather was glorious--it felt so good to be outside, far away from anything remotely resembling a laptop. We ended the day by swinging by and picking up groceries on our way home.

We're not as young as we used to be. The last part of our hike was straight up this very rocky terrain and we were feeling it.  And after we'd sat to drive the 30 minutes to the grocery store, both of us moaned as we exited the car.  Sore legs and buttocks. 

Blair is now collapsed on the coach watching basketball and I'm getting ready to go plop myself on the other couch with hot tea and a book.  A friend in my children writer's critique group loaned me a stash of her novels for middle-graders so I'm educating myself this week.  

Say a prayer for us that we're able to hobble our way out of bed tomorrow...

 Dena

The Tape Recorder That Didn't Take

Observe me sitting here, calmly avoiding having a massive panic attack.  Why so calm? I think I've panicked myself into a stupor.

I conducted an hour-long phone interview Tuesday with a nationally acclaimed and VERY BUSY expert.  Got great information and sat down this morning to transcribe the interview and write the piece up.  Guess what? The cord that connects the tape recorder to the phone was only 1/2 plugged in.  So as I played the tape this morning, I found I had an hour-long tape of me saying "Uh-huh" and "okay" and complete static where there should have been the voice of the expert.

Thank you doctor.  I'm ready for my medication now.

I really don't know what I'm going to do. Try to piece together from memory the best I can and then probably have to reconduct parts of the interview. 

I read about things like this happening in books on writing. There are horror stories and warnings to test your equipment and make sure you have back-up batteries, etc.  So I always test my equipment and I always have back-up batteries on hand.  I tested my recorder right before I called and it worked fine. I must have pulled the phone and disconnected the cord while dialing and just not have noticed it.

So. I'll just sit here.  NOT panicking.  Nope.  Very calm. Actually sort of funny.

Ha. Ha. Ha.