3 Meetings one depression and an inspiration

Catch up time again ... I must be the laziest blogger .. EVER !

So what's been happening .. well, last week was pretty good on the whole .. had couple of nice days ta the cricket where the weather was good though it was bleeding freezing on teh last day but at least Notts won convincingly .. a good start to the season so hopefully will go straight back up. However, on a sad sporting note, my old home town team Boston United dropped (not unexpectedly) out of the football league.

Thursday night was Jazz night and a great set from Renato D'aiello who had a great young drummer with him .. very promising and no real hangover on Friday amazingly enough !

Friday night, I was supposed to be going out for a drink but that got cancelled though I wasn't too bothered as Friday night is CSI night, but though I watched them, I didn't really get into them at all and on Saturday morning I realised why !

When I woke on Saturday, I felt truly awful and depressed and couldn't motivate myself to do anything .. just dragging myself round the flat .. I did manage to do gongyo but very very half heartedly and also walked into town to get some air but just sat in the square feeling very isolated and pointless and that continued through the evening too. To make matters worse, I checked my bank account inteh morning which had just about been hanging on and discovered that a cheque for £200 which I'd put in over 2 weeks ago had gone unpaid and also my current overdraft agreement had expired leaving me in debt. So in one fould swoop, I lost about £500 though I should get the cheque re-done and can sort the overdraft out hopefully but could well have done without it !!

On Sunday, I felt if anything even worse and 'what's the point' .. sometimes life really does feel like too much of a struggle to be bothered. I would have stayed in bed all day I think but I'd promised to go to Chesterfield in the afternoon to chant with someone and he was going to the Kosen Rufu meeting at Charmain's in the morning so I eventually dragged myslef out of bed (and I mean Dragged !!) and got down there before the end. I went to Chesterfield in the afternoon and had a chat and a chant then came home on the bus (with some annoying 'gel haired braying idiots' (description courtesy KP) who found it amusing to play with the sliding doors ALL the way home and bellowed each time they closed. Imagine cavemen coming into this era .. it was that kind of level.

To end the day I had yet another Buddhist meeting at Charmains which was to do with the course, so all in all, I was actually forced to do a fair bit of chanting that I definitely wouldn't have done and I have to say that by the evening, while I wouldn't say I was Mr Happy, my depression had at least started to lift .. unfortunately my bad back hasn't but I should be able to sort that by sitting better and not slouching at my PC !!

And so to today .. BankHoliday Monday ... Not planning to do much today which is probably why I'm writing this though I do have a few tidy up things to do before going to the Mayfair yet again for a meal so that will be good, though I'm afraid a cheap wine is in the offing today as I need to watch my cash at least until things get sorted.

Another piece of good food news is that apparently Yo Sushi are opening in Nottingham .. yay .. sashimi ;-)

I watched an Ikeda DVD this morning and picked up one really good bit of inspiration on it where Ikeda is talking about what Toda used to say to him so I'm paraphrasing here but you get the drift.

He often used to say "You can do it ! If you think you can't and give up, you won't acheive anything!" The important thing is to take action yourself and not leave it to others. ....... "Faith is not just going through the motions. You need to put your heart into it and pray to the Gohonzob with everything you've got. Never forget that basic point.

So, with that in mind, I'm re-evamping my determination to be by the end of the year to have cleared all my debts and earn a regular decent income and also to be in a realtionship by the end of the year. One thing which cropped up in my chanting is that I've been chanting to find a girlfriend (or at my age I guess it should be a womanfriend !), but that's kind of turned round now and Ilm chanting for them to find me :-)

And on that note I'm off to do some chanting, some course admin and do the washing up that's been sitting there for days !!