Productive Friday

A rare “free” night occurred last night as there weren’t any games scheduled. The seasons are ending in the next two weeks and my daughter’s softball team does have a season ending tournament which has created a bit of reprieve this week for the team. They don’t have a Saturday game this week for the first time this season and there is a week in between games from this week to next. My son’s schedule remains the same with practice on Monday, and games on Wednesday and Saturday. There wasn’t much on tap last night but for some reason the evening went by so quickly. I no longer watch any programs at their regularly scheduled times because I am spoiled with the DVR and the hour programs can be dispensed in less than 45 minutes. I don’t have anything to report about last night other than we spend a great deal of time doing homework.

I have been tasked with correctly my daughter’s math homework and we require outside assistance with her Language Arts (this was called “English” when I was in school but I guess that is not a politically correct subject header today). Thankfully we have a very skilled “Language Arts” person in the family; my mother who taught for over 30 years and really enjoys this subject. This never rubbed off on me because I have long had a difficult time congregating any sentence let alone knowing what the past participle was!!! Grandma the Language Arts master is only a telephone call away and is very happy to lend any assistance. My daughter called and was instructed on the proper terms; thankfully.

I must say that the math homework does take time to correct and is getting increasingly more difficult. I have to read the passages on figuring angles since geometry was my least favorite math subject and I fear my daughter taking algebra since that was my second least favorite subject. There is math and there is geometry and algebra which aren’t math in my opinion. Anyhow I have no problems with percentages and word problems so I guess I am good until 7th grade!!! My daughter understands the concepts very well but makes very silly mistakes and every time I point out these mistakes she instantly corrects them. My son is a different learner than my daughter and does require further help for reading which I think is wonderful. I can see an improvement already and I am sure he will be on task by the end of the year.

The evening had ended and it was time for bed. This morning I had a health fair to attend which would be my second health fair in my new position. This health fair was local and I had plenty of time to get in a workout at the gym. Today was the last day of my hiatus from training as I would take the weekend off and hit the ground running on Monday. Today I did some hill training and I am astounded that I can get a more intense workout from running slower. Hills are difficult and I can’t go as fast so the workout because more intense which is good. I had that good workout and was off to the office to pick-up the materials for the health fair.

I did pick-up the materials and headed over to the health fair. This health fair was much better than the previous and this time I had a “give-away”. I didn’t want to be the “white elephant in the room” since not many employees want to visit the “addiction recovery” booth but everyone wants a giveaway. A few weeks ago I purchased over 5,000 caribeners (think advanced key chain) with our hotline telephone number along with our website. These were a big hit and with it I was able to hand out some brochures. Everything was well received and I was running low on the caribeners so I called my wife to bring more and when she arrived she walked through the health fair with her good friend.

The health fair was complete with many giveaways and free food which served as lunch for my wife and her dear friend. The health fair was outside and even though it is the latter stages of October the temperature read over 95 degrees. I didn’t have much shade to work with and yes, I was even feeling the heat but the time passed very quickly. I would say the health fair was a success since one person asked me the question, “how do you know if you have a drinking problem?” My response was, “if you think you have a problem you have a problem”. I then received a big sigh and a “oh no!” The conversation went from there and I have no idea if I made any headway but at least there was dialogue which is hopefully better than nothing. It was also great having my wife there for an hour. This was a very productive day through and through.