New Year's Eve, 2009

Ahhhhhh... here it is...the end of the year at last. I was feeling pretty good about it until some buttwipe sent me a horoscope overview for 2010 that said this year would be full of travails and opportunities to show everyone how well I can weather hardship...not exactly the glittery new year I was hoping for, lol.


My first thought for the new year is to start the rewrite on my novel. I haven't touched it since the end of November, when NaNo was over. I think it's a good start for a read, and don't want to just let it fall by the wayside. So it's a matter of developing the discipline that I KNOW can be there (I finished, didn't I ??) and setting a routine to make it happen. Nothing overly worldly about that. Even a resolution breaker like me should be able to manage.

My second thought for the new year is to stop thinking about the New Year. LMAO...


Another 365 days of living in the moment, of staying present in my life. No matter what, no matter how. One Day At A Time has saved me over and again, and continues to be the single biggest gift of my sobriety. I have to gather up the blessings of my life and look them over on a regular basis. Especially this time of year. It's a powerful time of year for Capricorns like myself, born at the tail end of this string of holidays. As always, the pendulum can swing either way. It can be depressing or it can be joyful, and either way, it is my choice. Generally I land in the middle of it all. Some days are good and some days are less so. In the end, I make it through and land on my birthday with a sigh...grateful to have made it through another year and to be beginning yet another adventure. So here we are, leaving 2009 and entering 2010, and with a blue moon to top it off. That is grand. A blue moon, as most of you know, is when we have 2 full moons in a month. I stood out in the backyard last night listening to the snow and ice in the trees...the sky was clear and brutally cold, the silence was deafening. The moon was brilliant. It was amazing. In the far distance I could hear coyotes howling and yipping faintly. The chickens were snuggled in their coop, the local dogs were all snuggled in somewhere too. And it was beautifully quiet, with the sounds of cracking branches and snow falling through the tree limbs every now and then. I stayed and listened until I couldn't take it anymore and then came back in and made a cup of tea. I was in bed before midnight for a change.


The blessings I would send along on this last day of the year are hopes for abundance and prosperity for us all, however we happen to define those things, Blessings of peace in our homes and our hearts, and blessings of love and hope in the coming new year.


And so it is.





Namaste.

A Thankful Thursday

Had a great day...got to hear a wonderful young man tell his story at our speaker meeting and share good food with a great bunch of people, and see my friends who arrived exactly on time! The is nothing like meeting up with friends you haven't seen in a while....and tomorrow we will go have a nice long lunch and catch up some more.

We had a moderate turnout, only about 25 people, and so I came home with sloppy joes to go into the freezer. I made enough for 45-50...and some of the folks took some home, so I only had about 2 gallons left, if that much. I can always use it in chili or for more sloppies.

I am beat tonight. I finished 2 loads of laundry and cleaned house and cooked and then set up the meeting and now I'm bushed. Feels like a good productive day. I know that once my head hits the pillow, I'll sleep with no regrets that I didn't get more done. (Not that I ever do, really...lol) I'm a list maker, and whatever doesn't get done just slides over to the next day's list. It's a fool proof system :)

Tonight, I'm feeling really blessed to be sober and alive and happy. And relatively sane. And content in my life and in love with my husband and even more in love with my friends. I'm blessed to have something to give away today. I'm blessed to know where to go if I need help. I'm blessed to know that I am blessed.

ACIM says that a miracle is a "shift in perception". To be able to look at the world through clear eyes, to be able to love, to not have to drink at all the problems that drinking caused me...these are truly miracles for me. And the truth is that all that happened was a "shift"...for one minute I thought you guys in AA might actually have a solution to my problem. That one minute of suspended egocentricity was enough of a crack to allow a little hope to shine through. And that, my friends, is when my perceptions started to shift. Maybe I could get sober. Maybe this thing could work for me, too. Maybe I wouldn't have to die drunk, way before my time.

One Day At A Time, you said. Act "as if", you said. To thine own self be true, you said. Don't take the first drink, you said. Give it away to keep it, you said. And here I sit, at a keyboard in a house of love, sober and happy and free.

You weren't kidding......




Namaste.