~FRIDAY~
We are sinners and haven't been to church in forever. Not for lack of trying but it seems like my child has taken up a hobby of being sick. Since the great breathing episode of August, he just hasn't been better.
But our church was having a fish fry on Friday night so we decided to go for it. Sam was still coughing but nothing too bad and we missed everyone at church.
One of the members had donated 10 tickets for me to find 10 students from UALR to come. Our church does so much outreach for the community. It is a real opportunity for these students to get community service hours and it is just right up the road from the residence halls. We ended up having 6 come and they were all blown away by all the opportunities and giving that happens at the church. I hope to see many of them back.
Sam has developed an Icee habit. That's my bad too. The kid can't have ice cream and most cookies and all that. Hell, he can't even have Pop Rocks (did you know they had dairy in them?! DUMB!). So the fact he can have Icees means... he gets them ALL. THE. TIME.
I promised him if we was good at the fish fry then we'd stop and get one on the way home.
Check it.
I don't know if she shares in my OCD, but the kid chose matching colors for his outfit! Blue and orange all the way around! Momma's so proud. :-)
Later that night he asked if we could just get an Icee machine for the house. Perhaps I've taken this habit too far?
Nah.
~SATURDAY~
This is the day I have been excited about and dreading for two weeks. It was Toastmasters Area Contest time.
I won our club's Table Topics (get a prompt on the spot and then you get two minutes to respond in the form of a speech) and Humorous Speech (5-7 minutes prepared humorous speech) contests which meant I advanced to the Area level.
I worked and worked and worked on this speech and I was all nerves. I don't think speaking in front of people ever gets easy, though I do WAY better when I know I'm not being graded (not the case today!).
I went to the early contest to check out what it was all about. Having never seen one of these before, it calmed my nerves a bit to watch how it worked. I was honestly much more nervous after watching it b/c I picked two winners for each contest and I was wrong both times. Maybe I have no idea what they are looking for?!
My contest time rolled around and it turned out it was just me and one other guy. In both contests.
So this is another case of there is a winner and there is a loser. Great.
I delivered my speech and felt pretty good about it. I caught a few times where I messed up but overall I was pretty proud of it. (I didn't leave out important parts like I had before!)
Then it was time for table topics. This is something you can't really prepare for it. It is extemporaneous speaking and the point isn't to be "correct", it is to be well-spoken, engaging, and creative. They gave me the question, "What is the difference between good and exceptional?"
I came back with a 2-minute analogy of good pizza (Little Caesars) and exceptional pizza (Larry's Pizza). I have no idea why I thought of pizza but it worked so, eh, whatever.
I won both contests.
That was super cool and super awkward. I don't like attention. I was ecstatic, don't get me wrong, but also super awkward. Everyone wanted to talk to me afterward and ask me how I thought of that answer or where I came up with my speech topic or how long I had been in TM or wanting to give me tips/compliments... It was all wonderful but I'm useless in these situations and I just wanted to leave!
One day I'll get over this fear/social awkwardness.
We had planned that if I won, we would go out and celebrate at Red Lobster's Shrimp Fest (Note: I don't like shrimp). But I didn't realize Justin and Sam were STILL at Playtime Pizza at 3 pm when I was done with the contest.
And they had been gorging on pizza for 3 hours so Justin didn't think he would be hungry for RL and Sam still needed a nap.
But first... how nice is Playtime Pizza? They made him special pizza with no cheese!
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| About to ride the go-carts... apprehensive is a good descriptor. |
IHOP here we come!
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| Sam got a bouncy ball from Playtime Pizza and him and daddy were rolling it back and forth. |
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| Good times. |
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| Isn't he pretty? |
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| Celebratory picture! This kid melts me. |
~SUNDAY~
I slept. All day long. Woke up at 6 am. Couldn't hold my eyes open by 7 am. Slept.
Until about 11 am. When I got up and made lunch.
Down for nap by 1 pm.
Woke up again at 4 pm.
Threw on some clothes and visited some good friends.
In bed by 9 pm. Slept great!
It is absurd how introverted I am. Public speaking coupled with evaluation of said speaking... it was like being in my first trimester again. I was ZONKED!
I hope the next level competition goes better than this did. Lawdy, lawdy!
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