Another day in Paradise...

 Woke up to 40 degree temperatures at 8 AM...it's almost 50 now.  Sheesh. 2 days ago, we had  over 2 inches of snow. Today is all sunshine and blue skies.

  This about sums it up, don't you think?

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   I am going to the dr. with a friend today who has found a lump in her breast and is scared. She went for a mammo a few days ago and they wouldn't do it  without the dr being there.  Of course, now she is even more terrified than before.  Sigh....I will go and hold her hand and pray for a good outcome...this is what friends do. And we will talk about not putting the cart before the horse and not making assumptions about any of it until we have the facts. And then, we will go from there.  And I will be scared for her too, and for me and for all women who face this stuff each and every day.  Thankfully, the detection rates and treatments for breast cancer are so much better than they used to be. Women the world over have done a much better job of self-examination and paying attention and getting treatment than ever before.  Please keep us in your prayers, if you're inclined to do that sort of thing.

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 I am (thankfully) off for a couple of days.  I have an afternoon massage scheduled for tomorrow. I have no big plans for people or parties or even housecleaning. (Though, I may do a little straightening).  lol  I am tired and lazy and full to the brim with holidays and people. Time for a little quietude and reflection, as I am wont to do this time of year.  The neighbors may or may not be having us over on New Years Eve or Day (lol)...all depending on the arrival and departure of their grown children. I will be happy to go or not go, as the case may be. 

  As you can see...I am slithering out of 2011 with  a slovenly lurch.  

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  What does 2012 hold for us? Interesting to think about, but not obsess on. I've been thinking about it  little. All the usual suspects...need to lose weight, change my diet a little (sugar), do a better job of saving money. Those things are probably on everyone's list. But what about the stuff that entails the real inside job stuff ?  

    I need to take more time for my spiritual life...prayer and meditation. I am, not the most disciplined person I know, that's for sure.  My husband, on the other hand, does not miss his morning time, EVER. We could be in a flood with water rising up around his ankles and he'd still be in his zone....lol  As for me--the dog farts and I'm up and running, looking for paper towels to clean up the mess.  I've never learned to lock myself away from everyone and everything in order to have uninterrupted time. Couldn't do it when I was a young mother...still don't seem to be able to do it today.  Is it a woman thing?? Are we always so "on" and alert to the world around us that we can't quite get to that place?  Because we have to take care of our world around us in the home, whether it's animals or children or husbands...we are the ones who hear the scratching at the door, sense the small sounds of a sick child,  smells the smell form the kitchen that no one else seems to notice?  I don't know. The truth is that although those things used to be true for me, they're really not so much anymore. But I am undisciplined and untrained and unable to shut off the sounds around me.  I guess the question really is: Am I too old, is it too late...for me to re-train myself?  The answer is probably NO. But I am so lazy and tired and this sounds like an awful lot of work...even as I hammer it out on the keyboard.

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  I guess I will decide if I'm making New Year's Resolutions or not before the dreaded day arrives.  LOL   Top this off with the fact that a week from tomorrow I will turn 59 years old, and I'm thinking it might be a too little too late kind of thing.   

  In the meantime, I will get moving, take a shower and go hold my friends hand.  Then we will maybe get some lunch or coffee and talk and I will come home to where the Irishman will have gotten off work 2 hours earlier than usual so he can finish up his unused vacation time for the year.  We will have a little supper and then I will traipse off to a womens meeting and share my experience, strength and hope with other women in recovery, who are trying to make sense of their lives too.  I've been doing this circus act too, for 21 years and so they think I know something.  I told one of them that "You can be an old-timer too someday, like me. Just don't drink, and don't DIE."  And together we can do what we could never do alone.

  Have a great Thursday afternoon, people.  It's the last one you get this year !!

 Namaste.