Change in Plans and Attitude

Oh, of our best laid plans….  I was all prepared for a morning presentation on the Arizona Conference Office of Education Three Year Strategic Plan for our schools, that is until I opened a program for the two-day Ministers’ Meeting and found my slot missing from the first day—in fact from either day as other than a simple report—a practice of which I am not very fond.  I was able to salvage a morning slot before lunch tomorrow, but I will believe it when I am actually making the presentation.  I get the feeling I will be relegated to the afternoon after lunch when the pastors are in a post-luncheon stupor and in no mood for another report….in any case, I have been praying for a miracle.  Maybe keeping the pastor awake and engaged will be the beginning of the greater miracle.  In truth I am anticipating some serious discussion on the merits of the proposal before it is taken to vote.  I am praying for a miracle!  Send up a prayer for me tonight and tomorrow morning.  It is a watershed event.

I found myself with some extra time after the preempting of my imagined time slot, at least in my own mind, so I took a flash trip to the Desert Valley School in Tucson.  I had a relatively short amount of time to do an observation in the upper grade classroom.  I was informed while there that I had to be back in the Scottsdale office for a 4:15 p.m. meeting.  I had to leave suddenly.  Believe it or not I arrived at the conference office at exactly 4:15 p.m., only to discover the ministers’ meeting had not yet ended.   Aaaaargh!  It ended closer to 5:15 p.m. and after post-meeting gatherings and de-briefings it was almost 6:15 p.m. when we began our previously scheduled meeting, which was actually a rehearsal for tomorrow’s meeting.

I had a good work out at 24 Hour Fitness.  I might as well share my physical fitness goals for the year.  I want to regain some of my lost flexibility and nimbleness—maybe even run another marathon.  In the absence of any progress in that area I hope to at least lose a few pounds in the process.  I had ballooned to over 240 lbs. over the holidays!  I hope to get down to at least 200 lbs. although my doctor believes I should lower my weight to 175 lbs., at which point I will look like a bag of bones (big bones at that!). 

The good news is that my guest, i.e. my mother, is into her own exercise program.  She has gotten into taking walks around the campus of TAA in the late afternoons—her and her walker.  It is a matter of time until she begins to meet the students who will undoubtedly pump her for stories, which my mother will be too happy to concoct on the spot for their delight.   Oh, well….