Wednesdays wandering

LOL...Remember this? I had to post it again when I saw it in my pictures because it never fails to make me laugh out loud.


The end of a productive day. I am grateful that I am a list maker...there's nothing so satisfying as marking a line through things I have accomplished in the course of the day. Today I cleaned carpets and changed sheets and dug potatoes. I did a little grocery shopping too. And now it is late and I am ready for bed.

I got a call at about 11PM...a sponsling wanting to know if I had a recipe for a Gooey Butter Cake. LMAO...she wants to make one in the morning. I didn't, but I do have a computer, so I found a recipe on Paula Deen's website that looked pretty good. While I was at it, I looked up the recipe for gooey butter cookies as well, and printed both of them out for ME. Nopt sure when I'll make them, but at least I have the information. lol

Tomorrow will be a full day....the speaker /potluck is at 6...a Mexican Fiesta! I only have to chop tomatoes, lettuce, onions...bring sour cream and shredded cheese. Because it is one of my sponslings' birthday (4 years Yippee!!) I will also be baking her a cake. So...I really was going to bake it tonight, but I'm too tired, so it'll have to be first thing in the morning. And then while it is in the oven, I'll finish straightening up the house a bit and get some French Onion Soup going. Have a sponsling coming at noon to do a bit of step work for a couple of hours, and then we'll go on to the meeting. We'll have some soup and bread for lunch. As weird as the weather is for this time of year....I love it because soup's a perfect meal. Today was about 72 again.

My sister is coming from Florida this weekend. It was supposed to be Friday, but now she's changed it to Saturday. It will be what it will be. One of the best gifts I have gotten from sobriety is that my happiness is never contingent on someone else's actions. LOL. I think I will get one of the turkey breasts out of the freezer (I bought several when they were .99 cents a pound!!) and put it in the roaster on Friday night. We can have sandwiches or whatever...whenever she happens to arrive. Voila! Problem solved. lol

I am feeling a lot of gratitude today. (And not just because we have water!!).

• Grateful that I have a house that's just the right size that I can manage!
• Grateful that I have family that loves me.
• Grateful that I have food to share, an expression of love for me.
• Grateful to have a social life.
• Grateful that I have hobbies, and that my life is NEVER boring.
• Grateful that I don't have to drink today (this is huge!).
• Grateful that I know that I can do ANYTHING for 24 hours.
• Grateful for the 5 gallon bucket of lovely fingerling potatoes I dug in my garden today.
• Grateful to live a life of elegant blessings and grace.
• Especially blessed to have found friends in recovery who blog!!
• Grateful for the good nights sleep I am heading off to.......

Namaste.

Twoderful Tuesday

[ Home sweet Home....]

Oh, what a day it's been. Got lots of house keeping stuff done and laundry and all sorts of minor and meaningful chores. And a couple of (ahem) interesting phone calls.

There's a guy here locally who is a chronic relapser, just moved to the area. He has a cousin here. Anyway, this guy's been hitting on and using up all kinds of newcomers. He charms 'em and manipulates his way into their homes and their cars and their drawers. He's been here about 4 months, I think and he's relapsed twice. (I know, it's shocking). Anyway, I had just told one of my sponsees who was getting drawn into his web to "Be Careful" when she confided one day that she was driving him places, and he calls her cell or texts her constantly. I explained to her that my observation of his behavior was the same as that of his cousin, who is long time sober and has a nasty habit of hanging out with all these young girl newcomers in the program. It's disturbing to me and when I first moved here it made me crazy. I said, he's developing his "harem" and it will take you down. (He had already been in the home of one of my sponsees who was sober long enough to know better...she couldn't hardly get him out once the bloom was off the rose.) I have been working with her since she firat got sober. I really do not want to see her drunk.

To make a long story short, the roomie of my sponsee was one of the other girls he called several times a day. He called her to say goodnight, and actually said the words "You're the last one of my harem I'm calling for the night..." Well, you can imagine the rest. My sponsee calls me, all hysterical and saying oh, my god--you were so right , blah blah blah...and her roomie calls her sponsor (who is one of my sponsees) and the gist of it is, SHE goes to a meeting and confronts him about his behavior and now ther sparks are flying. I'm LMAO...nobody seems to think it's as funny as I do. Anyway, tonight after she got off work, mine calls and says he's been texting her all night, he called her at work and was screaming at her...he hates me and he hates the other and he hates another (all sponsors of these girls)...and how he talked to his sponsor , who (he says) told him, "don't worry, you did nothing wrong, you're just paying for THEIR problems"...and oh-my-gawd. The confronter says all she said to him was very casually "So..I understand you think you have a harem?" This boy has his panties all in a wad...and is screaming at anyone who'll listen apparently. Amazingly enough...he has not called ME. LOL

OH...dear. The fun just keeps on coming...

I'm grateful tonight for oldtimers who were very clear about a few inportant things when I first got sober.

I'm grateful to not be 25 or 30 years old anymore.

I'm grateful to have babies who sometimes listen.

I'm so very grateful that my self esteem isn't contingent on anyone else today.

I'm blessed that I got to survive my own early sobriety long enough to actually get this way.

I'm really blessed to have a sense of humour. I'm meeting my sponsee (the confronter) at a noon meeting tomorrow where this guy will probably be. I can't wait...

I'm grateful to have this blog where I can put things out there and have a look at them from a bit of a different perspective.

Nighty night.

Namaste.

Freedom Friday...

Blessings were abundant today. They probably always are, but I choose to not see them sometimes...to otherwise engage the committee in my head in all sorts of egocentric activities.
When I can step outside myself, when I can shift my perception just a tad, I can see the overflowing blessings in life.

Today I was blessed to watch a newcomer have a lightbulb moment, and in the blink of an eye, become willing to go to any lengths to live a new way. Today I was blessed to be in a meeting where all the people at my end of the table must have taken their sillypills before leaving the house this morning. We were giggling and acting silly and laughing out loud and almost disrupting the meeting. AND IT FELT SO GOOD... the newbie said, I haven't laughed this much since I quit drinking. Breathless, wheezy, pee your pants, kind of laughing. And I thought, Ah...this is it. This is Happy, Joyous and Free !!! It's an amazing thing, the way laughter changes a person's demeanor. The crinkly eyes, the red cheeks, the breathless paryoxsms that make you laugh even more. The snorting, the hiccuping, the things that you can't control. And today, I am free to be silly. I don't have to police my every word or action, afraid of doing the wrong thing and having the wrong person see it. I can laugh, and feel the joy welling up in my soul and spilling out of my mouth and eyes.

This is good stuff. Exhausting, but good to know that we "...are not a glum lot. We absolutely insist on enjoying life."

May you enjoy your life until water leaks ut of all your orifices.

Namaste

Silly Sundays

Ahhhh...just another silly Sunday. I can see that, now that it's almost over.

We arrived at the meeting hall this morning to find all the tables and chairs folded up and put away. What?? Then when I went in to check the bathrooms, the men's room was a disgusting mess and so, twisted serpent that I am, I cleaned it. That was bad enough. Later we took one of my sponsees and her son home from the meeting. After dropping them off (14 days clean and sober and chatters like a herd of squirrels-nonstop-without taking a breath), we decided to run a little errand and have a little lunch. Not in that order. We went to the Mexican place that we love and had a fine lunch and then off to errands. On the way home we pass a sign on a road that says (I am NOT making this up) WE DON'T RENT PIGS. Now, I've seen this before (may have even posted about it) but today it just struck me as the silliest thing I have ever seen. I started laughing, and I swear to you, it was like I was taking psylicibin. I could not stop giggling, and I was snorting and choking and turning all the colors of the rainbow. And my darling husband is trying his best to be all serious and looking at me like I've lost my mind. And it just made it worse.

And the whole day was like that. And I was powerless to stop it.

I am so blessed by laughter and humour in my life, but this was ridiculous.

It was like God had decided to do a new stand-up and schtick routine. We pulled up in the driveway and the dogs had been frolicking in the mud and the black dog was brown, and the white dog was gray and the tan dog was black. And the little one just kept looking at me, and cocking her head from one side to the other. And the paroxysm of laughter started again.

A few hours later I got a wonderful phone call from a friend on the other side of the country and spent a lot more time laughing.

Later still, I called another friend who has a tough time this time of year. She had a son who commited suicide and got sober around the same time. We spent a lot of time giggling like teenagers.

And a little later still I was IM'ing with a friend from FL and laughing even more.

Silliness. Laughing. All things that are so good for my soul. There are a lot of people with nothing to laugh about in the world, and thanks to my sober life, I am not one of them. So, it's okay to be silly and to laugh until you pee your pants.

Just don't rent pigs.