Thursday in mid May

**I put this in the draft box last night becasue I was so sleepy I couldn't finish it.**

It's been a great couple of days for me out here on the Prairie. Had some good one on one time with a sponsee and watched a tornado pass us by (tore up the town 12 miles NE of us though). Planted 2 kinds of squash seedlings in the garden. Went to a couple of wonderful meetings, including my beloved womens group. Had 3 new women in attendance. It was really a good night.

Planning a Saturday (the 23rd) of grilled hamburgers and game night with some folks in the program. Several new people, to show them that you can have fun sober. lol
I'm blessed to be sober and to have new people around me to remind me just how precious this program is.

I'm blessed that people took me by the hand when I was new and said, Come on-let's go ride the roller coaster and have some fun!
That they said, Come on, lets have a picnic!
That they said, Come on...just COME ON !!!!!!

And that I did. I got swept away in a flurry of fun activities that helped me learn how to be social, even in those trembling twitchy days of early sobriety. From greeting people at the door, to washing coffee cups at that big sink with another newcomer next to me drying, I have learned how to be a functioning member of society again. I have learned that you can have fun, no matter what.

Ah...blessings, plain and elegant.


Namaste.

Mild Mannered Monday

I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open...

Didn't sleep last night but for maybe an hour and a half. And then I had weird dreams the whole time. I didn't get a chance to nap this morning after I got back. I cleaned the house, and performed assorted and sundry housewifely duties before getting dressed and heading off to coffee with my friend. Talked to several sponsees, made some plans, and generally bustled off to my "date".

I bought a juicer, got one on sale for 50 bucks. It's a powerful one with a large feed tube and pitcher. I can't wait to fire that baby up in the morning. lol

I have to attend a noon meeting and give a sponsee her 12 year coin. I have to get my nails done. It'll be a little tight...then there's class tomorrow night. I really wanted to go to a speaker meeting and group anniversary bbq potluck, but I guess I can't do it. Man--times like these I HATE not having a second car. I have always had a car, since I was 17. This sucks.

OKay--blessings. Gratitude. sheesh...

Grateful to be sober, as usual. Grateful to have a place to blog and read other people who are travelling the road that I'm on.

ESPECIALLY grateful that the poison ivy is drying up and going away. I am dealing with minimal itching!!

Grateful for friendships.
Grateful for family.

Looking forward to tomorrow.....and going to sleep in my big comfy sleigh bed now!! Blessings are everywhere, when I open my eyes and my heart and just LOOK.


Namaste.

Mothers Day Sunday

Today I watched in fascination as people who were out and about celebrated a day set aside to honor their moms. There were little girls all dressed up carrying presents with ribbons streaming. There were young men standing in line buying hanging baskets full of colorful petunias and begonias and all sort and sundry flower combinations. There were young girls with babies on their hips, obviously enjoying their very first holiday. The restaurants were all filled to capacity.

All this for the women who gave us life. Who attended to our every need and whim for a whole lot of years. Who [hopefully] guided us and taught us and encouraged us. Seems like a small payment in return for a lifetime of service. lol

I have cried through a lot of Mothers Days in my time...either because of the situation with my own son or because of the loss of my own mother. It's one of those holidays that for me was always a double edged sword.

The past decade or so has seen a big change in my Mothers day, although it's surely never been as bad as I seem to remember. Mostly me, getting carried away in an emotional typhoon...

I'm blessed today to have a relationship with that son. A good relationship. And never mind that I don't get to see him as often as I would like...the time we do spend together is quality time, and I am seriously grateful for that. And I know I have AA to thank for it.

I'm blessed to have made peace with and forgiven my long dead alcoholic mother. Again--I have AA to thank for that.

I'm blessed to have a husband of 17 years who said to me one Mothers day, way back...I wish you were the mother of my children. (He has none). A husband who said to me a couple of days ago, Do I need to call your son and remind him it's MD ? I met this boy in an AA meeting and fell instantly head over heels in love with him. No wonder....

I realize that every thing good in my life is thanks to this blueprint for living we get in this Alcoholics Anonymous program. I thank my Creator and I thank you, all the members of these 12 Step Groups everywhere, for teaching me that I was lovable, and that I could repair the relationships in my life, and that I never had to live like that ever again...If I didn't want to. You truly loved me until I could love myself, and you took this drunk by the hand and walked her through her life, saying "If you want what we have, then do what we did." And by that grace that saves us all, I haven't had to pour booze into this hole in my face for a really long time.

Thank you for my life.


Namaste.

S-S-S-S-Saturday

Saturdays are my favorite day, depending on what I get to do. lol Today I got to do lots of stuff around my yard, and that's always good. I got to spend some time with a sponsee. That's always good. I got to eat a quickie Chinese lunch at my favorite little place and talk to the owner about how business goes. That's always good too.

Right now, I need to get sleepy, because I have to get up early and get all prettied up and let my baby boy take me out for a Mothers Day brunch. But my heads going a hundred miles an hour and I don't see sleep on my immediate horizon.

Mommie Cat (dearest) is trying to wean the kittens I think. Everytime they try to nurse, she barks at them and moves away. They are almost 9 weeks old now and are eating kitten chow nicely. I'm sure she's fed up with the little beggars hanging off her tata's all the time. She's staying outside for longer and longer times and hiding from them when she can. It's time.
I will call the vet about having her tested for feline leukemia and if she doesn't have it, we'll get her spayed immediately. If she does have it, I'm afraid we'll have her put to sleep. It's a miserable way to die, that disease, and she will die from it. Saddens me, but there's nothing else to do. I thought I was doing the humane thing once by letting a cat we adopted live out its life with that, but it was horrible and I vowed that I would never do it again. It's better just to get it over with and let her go to sleep and not wake up than to suffer the debilitating symptoms of fe-leuk.

I think of the blessings, elegant and otherwise, that permeate my life these days. Some of them are quite magnificent...others are equally mundane. Yet I treasure them all, and I know that the beauties of the lives we lead are balanced out like this. The good and the not so good, the happy and the sad, the love and the apathy, the abundance and the leaner times. And it's all good. There are no failures, only lessons...a fortune cookie told me once. I believe that too...no matter what comes down the pipe, if I can learn from it, how bad can it really be? When I look at all it took for me to wind up [finally] sober...how could I have missed any of it? When I think of the experiences that have made me the woman I am today...how could I not have wanted them to happen? People have come and gone through my life like a parade. A few have stayed in my life for a lot of years. I am grateful for all the teachers who have chosen to contribute to my life...whether they taught me how to be or how NOT to be. It's all useful information. Just like I'm grateful for every drink I took.


Today, I am a mosaic of people, places and things that have indelibly burned life into me. And I like it that way.

Koo-Koo-Ka-Choo...

Friday is Fabulous!

While the rest of us fight our way upstream....

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It's been a lovely rainy Friday here on the Prairie. The power was off a couple of times this morning and I finished the Lawrence Block book I was reading, since I had to turn the power off to the computer. It's amazing how much reading I get done when my computer is either down or the power is off. lol

Block writes mystery thrillers about a main character Matt Scudder who is a recovering alcoholic. So the book is peppered with AA meetings and slogans and different things alluding to 12th step life. It's really pretty cool, and he is a great writer. I've been reading him for about 15 years.

I found some leftover turkey soup with homemade egg noodles in it in the freezer, and we had soup and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. Rainy days are always good for soup, even if the temps are in the low 70's while it rains. Then we got cleaned up and went out to go to a meeting at a treatment center about 45 minutes away, but when we went to pick up the girl that wanted to go, she didn't have a babysitter, so we'll just go next week. Instead, himself and I went to a local park and walked for awhile, and then went to a meeting there in town. It was a lovely day all 'round.

I came away from the meeting tonight grateful one again to not be a newcomer. Listening to people talk about what it's like in the early days brings back memories that are becoming faint. I remember thinking "I NEVER want to go through that again!!!" Hearing some of the sharing tonight had me thinking that again...that not going throuigh that again is a great reason to not take a drink, even if I couldn't think of anything else.

Here's the list of things I have to be grateful for tonight, on a Friday in early spring:

* The hamster wheel has been put out of commision.
*I don't live in fear of getting drunk today.
*I don't have to look over my shoulder anymore.
*I feel REALLY good.
*I am no longer restless, irritable and discontent.
*I can make promises and keep them.
*I'm not afraid to walk into any AA meeting, anywhere.
*Most all the people around me are trustworthy.
*I am trustworthy.
*Life is good.
*I have gratitude and blessings in my life today...and I KNOW it.



Time for me to lay this head down on a nice pillow, on my nice bed, and get some rest.

The Sandman beckons....


Namaste.

WHAT ?!?!?!?! Wednesday already?!?!?!?!

From a cave somewhere in Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley....

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I don't know how I have lost 2 days this week, but there'll probably be more times like this. I get so busy this time of year that I start falling asleep at the keyboard ! So, I'll just apologize ahead of time and hope for the best...lol

It's been a lovely day of taking a meeting to a woman who's just had a surgery. Got busy early and made a big salad with all sorts of wonderful ingredients, garnished with eggs from my Rhode Island Reds and pickled beets (from my garden, of course), and radishes and cucumbers. We had a wonderful time and she was delighted to have company. I remember how it was when I got hurt, and was so blessed by women coming by with lunch and a Big Book...I am grateful to be able to return the favor.

The itchies are abating, I think. I still have a handfull of blisters on my right hand, but the neck and face are clearing up, thank goodness. I just hope I learn my lesson from this little incident...
never again will I weed without gloves -- at least not along the fencline like that. (Made a solemn promise, with and without an oath...)lol.

We are having a dessert potluck tomorrow night at the women's meeting monthly open speaker meeting. I think I will make the pie again, only blackberry this time, with the fancy crust. I still have quite a lot of blackberries from last year in the freezer, as we had a record crop. I hope they do as well this year, and I'll make jam again as I'm about out. We always have lots of different desserts that people bring and it's always fun trying other peoples recipes.

Little Caylee is asleep here by my desk (her favorite place at night). She is growling softly in her sleep and her muscles twitch as she chases the elusive rabbit in her dreams. She is a very good dog...always comes immediately when I whistle for her and stays close to home. As opposed to the other 2 dogs, who roam the world over and are often outside of earshot.

I was thinking today about how easy it is to not notice all the blessings around you...how easy it can be to take life for granted and not appreciate the subtle graces and gifts that surround us every day. I think it was Einstein who once said "There are 2 ways to look at the world. One is as if nothing is a miracle and the other is as if EVERYTHING is a miracle." I choose the way I look at my world today . Like gratitude, I get to choose this every day, if I so desire. I look for the miraculous in the mundane, the joyful simplicity in the details of my life. I can experience the awe and wonder every minute, if I want.

How cool is that?


Namaste.

Sunday in spring

Whew. It's been a crazy few days, and now I sit here with poison ivy all over me...poor me. Like a twat, I worked along the fence line pulling out vines and weeds so I could plant the tigerlilies...with no gloves. Because I'm superwoman! Because no ivy would dare tangle with me! Because I am a fookin IDIOT !!!!! And now I am suffering like crazy. I can barely use my hands, because I have the rash all between my fingers and the hands are swollen and tight. It's on my neck and crawling up past my jawline. It's on my arms, making me scratch like a junkie in need of breakfast. Sigh...If it doesn't calm down by tomorrow, I may go to the doctor for some kind of antihistamine shot. I'm having this fear of it getting into my eyes...

Anyways....lol. I have been in bed off and on today because I took Benadryl and it knocked me for a loop. I thought I had some allergy capsules, but cannot find them. Even one Benadryl (last night I took 2 before bed, like the box says, and it dropped me where I sat!) made me loopy and sleepy.

But I got lots of yard work done the past couple of days. Even got the mud room cleaned out and organized. That's one of those areas that is a catch-all for everything all winter long. It's disgusting. And it's the size of a small bedroom, so---more room=more crap. sigh...But now it's all orderly and swept out. I have 2 large garbage containers to put out tomorrow. The garbage man will go into shock! We usually can barely get 2 tall kitchen garbage bags a week...lol

Friday night I had a spiritual experience as a huge buck sailed over the top of my car as I was driving into a small dip. I saw him on the bank and started slowing down, thinking he was going to come down the side of the hill and go across the road. Instead, I see him kick his back legs and jump from one embankment to the other!!! I was yelling and didn't know whether to speed up or slow down. He couldn't have been more than 12 inches from my windshield. Hubby and I just stared at each other, and started laughing. It was quite the experience!

I was thinking again about how blessed I am to be alive, right here, right now. How grateful I am to be living one day at a time. And sober enough to think about it.

All the people walking through my life teach me, time and again, that this is NOT a dress rehearsal, that I need to live life to the fullest, and not ever take anything for granted. To be grateful for everything and everyone around me...even the ones who seem to be here to teach me how NOT to be.

Next month I will celebrate (God willing) my 19th year of sobriety. I will celebrate with another friend from Floriduh who has the same day as me, with a group of cyberfamily and local people who have all helped me, over and over again, to stay on this path. That the hand of AA is always out for me to grab, all I have to do is make the first move. I'm grateful to be having all these people in my life and at my home the weekend of June 12th. If anyone here is interested, drop me an email and I'll snd you an Evite.

It's always fun to gather with kin. And that's the coolest part: AA is my family. They took me in when I was desperate and sick and ugly, and they loved me back to some semblance of health. They showed me a better way to live. They said that I never had to drink again if I didn't want to. And they showed me how they did it, one day at a time.

And today, I am one grateful drunk, one dopeless hope fiend.

Thanks, guys.


Namaste.