Exciting is Exhausting (but not vice versa)

First day of a 6-day, 3-province road trip, highlights the amazing and whirling life of a consultant. After a final breakfast and endearing good bye hugs, hopped the Greyhound for an hour of reviewing documents and some more shut-eye. Then started the real work:

- training proposal on grantwriting and RFP bids for a new potential client
- introductory letter to send tomorrow to delegates of the Coast Waste Management Association, inviting them to visit the Cowichan Energy Alternatives prototype kiosk for collecting waste residential vegetable oil that we'll then convert to biofuel
- meeting with the Western Canada representative for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to explore my prospects for overseas consultancy work
- popped by Heritage Canada to thank them for 2 recent grants for our local "The Hub" community centre
- facilitated a final 3-hour fundraising training session with EMBERS, a non-profit client in Vancouver's downtown eastside
- facilitated a training-of-trainers for men who will be facilitating Dancing Star Birth prenatal men's workshops
- tea and Oreos with dear old friends (only one of whom reads my blog), on whose floor I'm about to crash for a few hours before their excited children find me in the morning

This is the stuff of consulting. Tonnes of variety, new interesting projects, an exhilarating list of new prospects - reminds me so much of my dating life in college. Sometimes I long for the stability and long-term commitment of a regular job, and sometimes I wonder how I'd ever thrive again without this stimulus. All I can really be sure about is that it's 11:27 and I'm one happy and tired traveller.