Fridays Finish

Here we are...the 31st day of July. Tomorrow starts another month...

Went to a meeting tonight and the topic was acceptance. Heard some good things and some interesting things...but this drunk was in good company. About 15 of us stayed sober one more day.

Had an interesting Reikki encounter this evening. A friend that I didn't even know practiced this offered to help with a whole body healing for me, and so I went to her house and we meditated a bit and then she put her hot hands on and around me. I have had Reikki before, and I felt the rearrangement of energy just like I have in the past. I wish she wasn't leaving town next week....when she comes home, I would definitely do this again. It felt very healing on a lot of levels.

It's late and I'm tired. I wanted to take a moment to look over my day and be grateful for everything in my life. I haven't had to drink, or become homicidal, of suicidal. I haven't had to live under a bridge. I haven't had to leave my husband, or scream at my kids, or move in the middle of the night.

On the other hand, I did have a plumber here today to get ready for hooking up the water!!!!! I did get to go to a meeting. I did get to spend some quality time with people that I really care about today. I did get to "practice these principals in all my affairs." I did get to help someone else, so I don't feel all useless and shit. Someone called today, just to see how I was doing. I go0t to work in my garden, nurturing and caring for plants and vegetables and fruits and flowers.


Life is a banquet....Rosalind Russell once said....and most of you suckers are starving! Reach out today and grab as much of your life as you can hold. Love the people around you with all you've got. And don't forget to be good to yourself.

"You are a child of God...So ACT like it!"


Namaste.

Monday Night/Tuesday Morning

These are a sweet little thing called Surprise Lilies. About a month after the green sword-like leaves all die away, up pops this long green stalk and !SURPRISE! ... lilies... They're quite beautiful, and the tips of the leaves are edged in the most subtle baby blue.(Click the picture to enlarge) You can see it if you look real close. lol They come up fast, and I think they came up about 3 days ago. I have a couple of clumps of them this year...started out with just one pot from Pappy's Market.

The sun is blazing out there today. It's only about 85 degrees though, but feels quite hot when you're weeding a garden. I picked a smidgen of okra today, and 2 bell peppers and a load of cherry tomatoes and a good handful of green beans. Enough stuff, I think to saute and throw in with some pasta for supper. I have some whole grain farfalle pasta I got on sale and with sprinkling of fresh basil and some shredded parmesan cheese, it should be wonderful.

I am doing a lot of thinking about food and cooking with intention today. I have to do the opener for the Sustainable Living Class, and this session is on food. Great articles by Micheal Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver and a host of others. A Zen tale tells us to see the pot as our head and the water as our blood. The art of cooking involves preparing foods mindfully and projecting positive energy into what we eat. And part of bringing out the life force is showing loving respect for the labor involved in the cultivation and preparation of food.

I am so blessed to have the tiniest bit of awareness that I have about food and nutrition and cultivation practices. Not sure where I got it or why...but grateful that it's a part of me.

I am so blessed to have a plot where I can garden...a piece of dirt that can and will grow things.

I am so blessed to almost have water!! *grin

I am so blessed to be sober and useful human being and willing to be a part of life today.

I am so blessed ...just so blessed. By friends, and family and dogs and cats and sunshine and trees and everything.


Namaste.

Sunday Night/Monday Morning...

Where does the time go?? The older I get the faster it goes...and here it is, the last week of July already. Seems like we were just making plans for the gardens and ordering seeds, waiting for them to show up at the mailbox. Already I am watching the waning of some parts of the garden, and we could sure use a little rain right now.

We dug new potatoes for supper last night...a combination of the Ruby Crescents and the Banana fingerlings...OMG...they practically melt in your mouth. I picked the first of the okra, and some onions and and potatoes and tomatoes and blackberries. I need to get out there and pick cucumbers too. I think I'll have some cucmubers for breakfast, as a matter of fact. A little sea salt sprinkled on top...mmmm.

Living off the land is easy to do in the summer, especially in the summer. I picked 3 peaches yesterday that were the size of softballs. This tree is only 4 years old, so I am right proud of it. We didn't have a lot of peaches this year, as a storm took off most of the flowers. But the ones that are here are gorgeous and I can't wait to bite into one.

It's easy to look around me out here and be thankful for the abundance and prosperity I have in my life. What really amazes me is that it comes in many different forms, and not in the ways that I always used to think of abundance. I don't have much money in the bank. In fact we live pretty much paycheck to paycheck...like a lot of people in this country do these days. Wasn't always like this-but it is now. We have about exactly enough to pay the bills, and God help us if there's any extra emergencies. I have a grocery budget that I try really hard to stick to, and when we have more garden stuff, I buy more dry goods, etc. to stock the pantry with. But I have a beautiful little slice of country out here. It's nothing special, and it has its problems, but it's peaceful and it's a roof over our heads and it's ours. I can sit out in the backyard for hours, just listening to no other sounds than birds singing and dogs barking and roosters crowing. It's a symphony in its own right. I have enough love in my life that I am not unhappy or discontent or alone. I have enough clothes for 3 people (probably) -by some standards- and I have several pairs of shoes that I can wear. I have no running water at the moment, but I do have gallons of spring water in the back room and I do have a pond that I can bring water up for flushing toilets. It's a little primitive (What??WAY primitive, you say??) lol but it's not life and death. My loved ones are all relatively healthy and happy and unafraid. I have a program and a fellowship that, if I do my part, insures that I don't have to be a drunk ever again, if I don't want to. I have a car that runs, animals that are fed, and a relationship with my Creator.

All in all, a life of Elegant Blessings.

Namaste.

Full Up Friday

I love sunflowers. And I'm not even from Kansas! lol (Of course, everyone knows that the sunflower is the state flower of Kansas, right?) I plant them around my gardens every year, here and there, usually a good stand of them, like here by the potatoes and green beans. Then I have volunteers that come up all over the yard and garden by themselves because they are in the birdseed I buy that I fill my feeders with. I adore their cheerfulness, their steadfastness, their ability to bend in the wind and not break. I love that they look so beautiful, draw bees and butterflies into my garden, and then at the end of the season, they feed the birds. How great a life is that?

You can see from my picture what a jumbled mess my garden has become. I'm not complaining...everything is growing like crazy and when you garden like this (biointensive), instead of in precise little rows, this is just what you get. The thing I love the most is that you get flowers sprinkled all throughout the garden beds..like little treasures waiting to be discovered.

It was a good day today. Yes ((Paxaa)) it was indeed little Miss Tina that got the promotion and she is so proud of herself...it makes me tear up to watch her. She has also gotten a rental that is ridiculously affordable, and gets to move in in 3 weeks. When they had her in the office, giving her the promotion, they ..."said all kinds of nice things about me...good, real stuff...about how I was a good employee and that I brought a lot of love and compassion to my job..." This is one of the miracles of sobriety...I told her this is what happens when you call your sponsor every day. One of the presents of the program. lol We went to an 8 o'clock meeting tonight (the one we always crash when the Gathering comes here) and it was just a happy, joyous and free meeting...all the way around. There was lots of laughter, lots of love and lots of AA spoken here....it doesn't get any better than that.

I feel so so blessed to be able to attend meetings whenever I want to, to know that, for me, those feelings of uselessness and self-pity have disappeared. I feel so grateful that I have been delivered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. I got a hotline call today from a woman who cannot stop drinking and cannot imagine that she could live if she did. I got to share with her that I felt that way myself once. I got to tell her what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now. I got to see a little snapshot (once again) of myself--and how I could be again, if I don't do these few simple things that keep me grounded in sobriety and in conscious contact with a power greater than myself. In the end, she said she would do anything...except go to those damned meetings. And as I rang off, I wondered what possessed me to surrender my will and my drinking life over to a Group of Drunks all those years ago. I wondered what magick changed me enough, in one nanosecond of breath, to allow ME to ask for help, and to put my hand out, and to have never let that hand go...all these years later.

What a gift sobriety is....


Namaste.

Tickle Me Thursday...

The Posse...


A long Thursday winding down at last. They look like I feel tonight. lol

Tornado sirens going off tonight as we sat outside gabbing right before the womens meeting. It rained like crazy there (15 minutes south of me) and seemed a little intense for a minute. Later, as I drove up this way, the roads were dry as a bone. Go figure...

The newly planted irises could have used a drink of water...

Too tired to write tonight, and am heading off to bed. I'll revisit this post in the morning, 'cause I'm SURE there's something that needs saying. *wink My brain is just a lumpy grey mass right now..so I shall bid thee adieu! And be off...



*************************************************** I TOLD you I'd be back this morning..well, sort of--it's 3 PM now... Unfortunately, there is nothing left to say, as it's all been said. That being said, I'll let you know one true thing I know...

The program of Alcoholics Anonymous has never let me down. the people have let me down sometimes, but the program of action and living has not once ever yet let me down.

'Nuff said.

Woeful Wednesday

All I'm saying tonight...a quote from the Daily Buddhist Wisdom:

Don't be afraid of doing good. It's another name for happiness, for all that is dear and delightful-this phrase "doing good".

Whoever would live well
Long lasting, bringing bliss-
Let him be generous, be calm
And cultivate the doing of good.

By practicing these three,
These three bliss bringing things,
The wise one lives without regret
His world infused with happiness.
----Itivuttaka Sutta

Namaste.

Manic Monday

(I LOVE this!! And must admit, I kyped it off another blog.)



I had so much to do today, and got a smidgen of it done. And that's okay. (in my best Stuart Smalley voice) *grin

I am in severe pain from planting the irises yesterday, as I knew I would be. I'm all hunched over , like the Grandmother of Notre Dame...lol But I got all the laundry done today, and went to the springs to fill 29 gallons of drinking water. Yes, 29 gallons. I nearly spit! If my lower back didn't hurt enough, by the timeI had all those jugs filled it did. I carted them around back using my trusty garden wagon and got them all into the mudroom too.

I'm a freaking work horse.

I also got groceries and went to the Rural King for scratch for my chickens, lye soap for my husband (poison ivy), biscuits for my dogs and a bottle of bleach for me. Then I picked himself up from work and came home and fixed corn on the cob on the grill with teriyaki turkey burgers and grilled fat onion slices. We ate like big dogs.

Speaking of big dogs....I called the no-kill shelter in Benld and asked if I could bring Fred there. They said they were full up and unable to take any dogs that wouldn't be immediately adoptable. That translates to : something small and cuddly and cute that people want. So, Fred is still here. Not sure what the next step will be, as we really cannot afford to take care of one more animal. Especially a 75 pound guy named Fred who likes to chase cats. Sigh...I hate to call Animal Control...they will take him to the pound and after a few days or a week, he will be put to sleep. I tried to check his ears for a microchip. If there's one there, I sure can't feel it... I know that I am such a sucker for these animals, but it breaks my heart...

I am ready for sleep....kitchens cleaned, lunches made, breakfast egg sandwich made and waiting in the microwave, litter pans scooped, food and water for cats and dogs and birds all checked and filled. My darling boy is already sawing logs for the past 3 hours. I will not be getting up at Zero Dark Thirty again tomorrow. I am staying home. One of my sponslings is coming over at noon and we will have a nice little chat about the 2nd and 3rd Steps. And lunch. Not sure what I'll make yet...perhaps a quiche....I have some beautiful cantaloupes that need eating as well, and lots of blackberries too. Maybe a quiche and a little fruit salad on the side. Yummmm....I have to get up early enough to get my juice made and straighten my house a bit.

Want to shout out a WOO HOO to Macdaddy for being nominated for a black blogger award in about a gazillion categories. This man is some kind of wonderful, baby--and I am proud to be one of his stalkers. lol xoxoxox You go, Daddy....

Wishing you all the sleep of the innocents...sweet dreams and restful bliss.



Namaste.