Feeling Loopy

Wow!  How can it seem like forever and just a couple of weeks have gone by?  I knew time flies when you are having fun, but evidently it flies by when you are busy, fun or not.

After my last blog, I set out on a nine day loop of the State, starting in Bakersfield on May 19, all the way to our last event in Loleta on May 26 and driving home on May 27.  My escort drove me out to Bakersfield and stayed with me for Tulare on Sunday, then he had to head home and my partner and his wife took me the rest of the way, ending at my house Sunday evening.  Since Monday was Memorial Day, he and I got lots more done on Monday, especially processing all the mail.  It took us four hours to process all the letters and workshop registrations that had gotten to my mailbox in those nine days.  Of course since there was no mail on Sunday or Monday, another huge pile hit my box on Tuesday.  And I was swamped with work stuff all the rest of last week to make up for being out of the office.  Not that I was on vacation, I had to remind lots of people, just working out of the office all week.  I have finally gotten caught up, sort of, yesterday.

The loop was great even though I spent most of it tired and eating badly.  I do not want to be asked how many pounds I gained that nine days nor how many months it will take me to lose the weight.  That would just be mean.  The problem is that on most days, we would have breakfast and then we wouldn't eat again until 2:30 pm and then we wouldn't eat again until evening refreshments after the night OV.  Or we would eat breakfast and then have a snack on the road and then have dinner at 4:00 pm and then have massive dessert after the night OV.  Or we would eat breakfast and lunch and lunch again at 3:30 pm as the OV refreshments and dinner at 5:30 and dessert after the night OV. Or we would . . . Does this draw a picture as to how one could gain weight doing this?  So anyone who is not certain why I am asking the Associate Matrons to let me know if their District is serving a meal so we can have it at mealtime can read this and hopefully understand what this does to a person's blood sugar.  Sigh!

The very best part, bar none, was getting to see all the members in the various Districts.  For some members who live far away and do not make it to Grand Chapter, the only time I get to see them is at their Official Visits, so it is nice to see familiar faces from my visits to those Districts in the past and find out how their local members and Chapters are doing.  It was also nice to see familiar faces from the Grand Families with whom I have served in past years.  Even though I have moved on to a new wonderful Family, I still love all the members that I have served with all these years and it is so nice to have friends everywhere!

I am missing most of the events this month trying to get paperwork done.  I missed all last weekend, will make all of this coming weekend, but will then miss the two weekends after that.  I have to get lots and lots of appointments made, which means lots and lots of letters, finish all the handouts and materials for the AM/AP workshop, finish the workshop plans, get more clothes chosen and purchased and most urgently, get the calendar finished so it can be handed out at the workshop.  The unforgiving clock keeps going tick, tick, tick forward and never stops and never moves backward.  One member thought that the workshop was in June instead of July and I must admit that evil thoughts crossed my mind at anyone taking away a day of the time I have, let alone a month!  And while the workshop is at the end of July, I wonder if people realize that the calendar and all the handouts have to be done in the next two weeks so that they can be copied and burned onto CDs.  Sigh!

I also admit that I hate chasing people down and nagging them, but that a bit of that seems required to get information, especially for the calendar.  I understand that sometimes people figure that someone else is taking care of that and until they get the reminder, they don't know that no one did, so reminders are good in that sense, but I always feel like I am scolding and I don't want to be doing that, so hopefully all of that will get done and back to me without me having ask my partner to give anyone The Glare!  Believe you me, you do not want The Glare! :-)

So, Lord willing and the Crik don't rise (that's Crik, not creek, different things :-), June will be the push to the paperwork month and so much will get done that I can go to everything in July with a clean conscience.  We'll see how that works out.

Next weekend I will be in West Covina, Yorba Linda, Bellflower and El Segundo.  I will not be at anything June 15-17 or June 22-24.