{"id":57527,"date":"2024-09-03T22:43:39","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T22:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=57527"},"modified":"2024-11-09T08:48:38","modified_gmt":"2024-11-09T08:48:38","slug":"opportunity-knocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=57527","title":{"rendered":"Opportunity knocks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>My life as a relatively newly single man has presented plenty of opportunities for me to consider &#8230; and they mainly deal with ways to consider spending some of ample idle time.<\/p>\n<p>I lost my wife, Kathy Anne, to glioblastoma about 18 months ago and my journey has finally found plenty of light at the end of a dark passage through grief and pain.<\/p>\n<p>I attended a regular meeting today of the Farmersville Rotary Club, of which I have been a member for a few years. The program today came from Nichole Perez, community outreach director for Meals on Wheels of Collin County.<\/p>\n<p>Almost immediately upon learning of her program, the ol&#8217; light bulb began flashing in my noggin. Meals on Wheels needs drivers to deliver meals to shut-in residents, old folks who cannot get out of the house, and others who for various reasons are unable to do some essential things.<\/p>\n<p>I volunteered today to deliver meals to these folks. I intend to concentrate those efforts in the Princeton area, where I live.<\/p>\n<p>Perez talked about Meals on Wheels need to do a background check on drivers. Upon clearing the background check, I will be good to do &#8230; with a bit of training to tell me how to handle the food and related issues.<\/p>\n<p>My calendar already is beginning to fill up. I have the Rotary Club meeting schedule each week. I meet with a lay minister at a church to which I belong; he counsels me on the path I am taking since losing my beloved Kathy Anne. An assistant pastor at our church has formed a group of mostly older men who have lost their wives; it&#8217;s called a &#8220;Widowers&#8217; Club,&#8221; but I don&#8217;t like referring to myself as a widower, as the term only reminds me of what is so painfully obvious. I recently joined the Princeton chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which meets monthly to plan its involvement in other community events.<\/p>\n<p>This new gig does enable me to embark on another path in my life&#8217;s journey. I&#8217;ve never done this kind of volunteer work, so it&#8217;s going to be a major kick in the buttock to try this new thing. Perez said each delivery date can be done in &#8220;about an hour.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But she said that depends on how much drivers chat with the clients they serve. Hmmm. I do tend to be a chatterbox when I meet strangers.<\/p>\n<p>Therein lies another challenge that awaits me.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My life as a relatively newly single man has presented plenty of opportunities for me to consider &#8230; and they mainly deal with ways to consider spending some of ample idle time. I lost my wife, Kathy Anne, to glioblastoma about 18 months ago and my journey has finally found plenty of light at the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=57527\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Opportunity knocks<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57527"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57731,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57527\/revisions\/57731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}