Thankful Thursday

Today was one of those days...gratitude everywhere I look. It started early this morning, listening to my neighbors across the pond fighting and screaming at one another. In all fairness to them, it's difficult to tell by their yelling if they're always fighting or not. It seems to be the way they communicate. But it sure sounded like something I'd just as soon avoid in my own life. He has lost his job of 25 years and they are scared, I know. And they are cutting down every other tree on their property, it seems like. I want to go over and take away their power tools....today they took out a snag that is home to many woodpeckers and other birds. The snag wasn't hurting anybody...husband says the result here is going to be more erosion along the banks of the pond and loss of wildlife habitat. One more example of how man never stops to consider nature...it makes me sad.

I was thinking...how blessed am I to not have that kind of husband ? One who rages and yells and is angry all the time... instead, I have been blessed with this big gentle teddy bear of a guy. One who loves nature and reads poetry to me on picnics, and holds my hand when we are out together. One whose very spirit is about love, most of the time. I don't mean to imply that he is perfect, but he is sure a gift in my life. And he has a big heart and a willing hand to anyone needing help.

Then I had another sponsling come out this morning and we did some 1st step work and chatted and drank coffee. I was blessed. Tonight at the womens meeting we had 6 women with less than 3 months sobriety. The sharing was great and I felt that recovery was alive and well in this little corner of the world. I picked up a newcomer to carry to the meeting, and she has damaged herself to such an extent that I wonder if she can ever fully recover. But I have to have hope that it can happen. More importantly, I have to convince her that it is possible. To offer her all the hope I can m,uster. Even though she has an impressive record of relapse activity, I think this time she might be desperate enough to get this. And I realize all over again, just how blessed I am to have the gift of sobriety. To not have to fight these demons and these obsessions any more. To feel grateful that I can remember how it felt, and to be able to offer someone the truth of my experiences. Feels like holding out a rope to someone caught in quicksand.

The satellite computer is working like a charm. Only once have I experienced any kind of slowness, and that was while it was raining and the cloud cover was very thick. Otherwise....EUREKA !!!!!! lol

Time for me to go to bed. Big day tomorrow, lots to do, and then getting my grandson. Yippee!



Namaste.

Whirligig Wednesday

Who comes up with words like whirligig ? Or fortuitous ?

sheesh...

Had a very relaxing day today...too cold to go outside and work, had to be here waiting for the guy to come repair the satellite dish, took a nap...all in all a nice day. Did a tiny bit of sponsee-talk. Did some reading. Watched some television with my darling husband. Loved up some dogs and ran a vacuum cleaner.

The exciting life and times of Annie Kelley. Wow. Maybe I should write a book.

I have had some adventures in this life. I have had some terribly lonely times. I have been loved ferociously, hated venomously, and totally ignored. I have been kinda rich and very poor. I have been so dry I was about to burst into flames and so drunk that I couldn't stand myself. I have been married, single and anything in between. I have been a bride and a widow. I have travelled all over these United States and into a couple of other countries and to Hawaii. I have lots of places I would still like to go. I have been hungry and I have been fed and I have been so thirsty I thought I was going to die. I have had a child and lost that child for 9 years when he was kidnapped by his father. I have been a success at times and a failure at times and everything in between. I have analyzed my life and behaviors, I have deluded myself about my life and I have looked myself square in the eye. I have loved me and hated me.

And through it all, I managed to stay in the middle of my own life and not waiver. By a thread, sometimes. I am a survivor. A childhood violence survivor and a rape survivor and a drug abuse survivor and a drunken survivor. I was robbed of my childhood at an early age, and have been frantically making up for it ever since. I have gone twice as far, worked twice as hard and done twice as much of everything-to try to feel half as good as you. Those feelings of worthlessness fueled a lifetime of ambition.

I'm now past my middle fifties. I enjoy a modicum of balance and self restraint in my life today. I'm sober nearly 19 years. I'm happily married for nearly 17 of those years.

So, gentle readers...you can see the wellspring of blessings. I am a mosaic of every single experience I have ever had and today I am grateful for each piece of that puzzle. Some more than others, to be sure. From that 6 year old standing on a chair cooking dinner for her [then] 3 siblings because the person supposed to be doing that was drunk and passed out...to the funny happy old broken bodied lady that sits at this keyboard---it has certainly been a journey. From a confused and dazed teenager looking for any solution, any relief...to a dopeless hope fiend. A sober woman, walking the walk, one day at a time.

Wow.

I AM especially blessed.

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.

Serene Sundays

It's been a nice quiet (mostly) Sunday. The grandson was here to spend the night on Saturday and his mom came to fetch him around 11 AM. We had a nice (although short) visit. We made pancakes and scrambled eggs for his breakfast and spent a little time out in the garden as well before she got here, so it was all good.

I harvested tomatoes and green beans and bell peppers from the remains of the garden. There are still a couple of eggplant out there, but they don't look great. Still more bell peppers too. I ground the tomatoes (mostly Romas and yellow Brandywines) and then cooked them down before putting into the freezer. I made stuffed bell peppers for supper and put the rest in the fridge....tomorrow I will cut them into strips and freeze them. The stuffed peppers were delicious. As a side dish, I cooked fresh garlic and onions and green beans in olive oil over pretty high heat. A little cracked pepper and sea salt and they were heavenly. I am ALWAYS grateful for fresh vegetables....

Rereading my last post, I feel a little sheepish. I sound like a petulant child sometimes. Especially when I know that everything will be exactly the way it is supposed to be--so skip the high drama! I am grateful tonight for optimism and for hope and for serenity. For the sounds a puppy makes when it sleeps, chasing some wild and elusive rabbit through her dreams. For the letter I got for Grandparents Day. For love in my life....wherever it comes from.


Here's to brighter days, and answered prayers, and trusting that if the Universe is giving me a sign, I will recognize it. And to feeling especially blessed.

Always that.