Buffalo Burger, fries, onion rings, and a salad

I had the best lunch today! I split all of the above with a co-worker. It is nice to be able to go out for lunch. In my housewife years, I think going out for lunch was the thing I missed most about working.

Being sober and being actively involved in life is so good.

Better Now

Thanks for the nice comments. I appreciate it. I just met with my sponsee and we went through the tenth and eleventh steps. I am reminded that life is life and all is good. Even when things seem to be out of place, they really fit into a mosaic that I can't quite see yet.

I sat at my desk today and realized that I love my job. Wacky thought. I love my job. I am doing stuff I always dreamed of doing. Why don't I sit around and be grateful for that everyday? I am tired. I work with some true jackasses. However, I love my job and I am doing what I always wanted to do. How much better can you get than that?

Thanks to all you sober people. I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am for the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am grateful for all you sober bloggers as well as my other friends.

Super Size Cat

is sitting on my lap, making it very difficult to hit the keyboard accurately. She really is a large cat. Her name is Minerva.

A Monday morning in late January. It is 5:25 a.m., and I better get a move on. I need to be at work by 7:00 a.m. I don't like this. The alarm woke me up at 4:35 a.m. I don't like the alarm waking me up. Normally I wake up when my own natural internal alarm clock tells me to. And I like that a lot. But right now I need to be at work by 7 a.m. on both Mondays and Tuesdays until an event occurs that we do not know when will be. I don't like this.

In my personal life: waiting to find out when Eddie's funeral is. Planning a going away party for my sponsor. Getting ready for my son to leave for Iraq. Thank God for AA and the wonderful fellowship. I could not get through any of this alone.

Saturday Morning Meeting

I went to my old home group this morning. It was also Eddie's home group. There was a lot of crying going on there this morning, and there was a lot of hugging and a lot of us telling each other "I love you"- because we do - and we don't say it often enough.

It was Elmer's 22nd birthday and Harold's 16th. Thank God it was a birthday meeting. It was so affirming to me to sit next to Elmer and not only remember all the years we have been sober, but to joyfully look forward to more years. I am so grateful to be alive and sober. I am so very grateful for the friends I do have left.

I am so grateful for the people who just show up and stay sober year after year. If you are one of them, please accept my heartfelt thanks. If you are becoming one of those, please keep at it. It is worth it. It is life and it is good - no matter what happens.

My friend Eddie

killed himself yesterday. Oh man, those words even look ugly. I have known Eddie since I got sober. He was 50 years old, but to me, Eddie will always be the 20 something guy I knew back then. He was terminally ill. I could speculate about all the things that led to this, but I can't fathom the fact that Eddie - so much a part of the fabric of my life - is gone.

My sponsor said she would come over and just sit with me and I just might let her.

Friday Morning

I believe I am not going to work today. I had a headache yesterday and I still have it today. I have felt like I am coming down with something for a couple of weeks, but have been sucessful at fighting it. Or maybe I am just too tired and that is why I don't feel particularly well. I just checked my PDA to make sure I don't have any appointments I have forgotten about. I don't. *I have found that it is very difficult for many recovering alcoholics to call in sick to work. It is for me. I hate to call. I can be at death's door, but I feel like I am lying when I am dialing the phone. This is because of my history of being drunk or hung over and calling work and making up some b.s. that I think they will believe.

Yesterday I checked the website for the August triathlon I am so looking forward to. When I saw that registration is open, I cried from joy! This has felt like the longest winter of my life, and just having something to look forward to is wonderful. I set a picture of the race from last year as my desktop at work. It is a photo of the sun coming up over the swim finish line. Both of my twin daughters say they will do the race with me this year. One of them did it last year. The other one came to watch and decided she wants to do it too. This is very exciting. I am so grateful that I can do this and that my daughters can do it with me.

I am also grateful that I didn't write a book full of lies that has me in disgrace... with millions of dollars as a consolation prize.

reAAding

My father's 12 & 12 (seventh printing, 1965).
See the other folks at HNT

60 degrees

I will write what is good:
It is supposed to get into the 60s this afternoon.
The sun is shining now.
I love Diet Pepsi and have a freshly cracked open 20 oz. bottle in front of me.
I am going out for Vietnamese for lunch today.
I love Vietnamese food.
I have a nice friend I am dining with at lunch today.
My daughter is on her way to visit me at my office.
I love my daughter and I am so grateful for such a wonderful young woman in my life.
I am going to write a newletter today and I really like doing that.
Another friend at work gave me a small bottle of Clinique "happy to be" today.
I collect small bottles of perfume and cologne and they make me smile :)
I got a new sports bra yesterday - it is pink and it was great when I ran today.
I can run again.
I am sober and have been for 21 years, six months, and one day.

Thank you God.

Tuesday AM

"...the wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, had power to actually kill."

Not them. Me.

I sat on my sofa last night and just cried. My cat was nuzzling on my ears, my hair, my face - she had never seen me like this before.

Thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank God for the fellowship, and the program, and the way of life that will not allow me to stay in resentment. Also, thank God for my fellows at work. I have some very good friends there. I have an ongoing problem with one of my co-workers and it really flared up yesterday. I usually look at her as a thorn in my side that makes me stay vigilant in my program, my prayer life, and my constant guarding against having resentment. Yesterday that all flew out the window.

God Please Be With Me Today. "Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding."

Back to Work

Monday Morning. It is cold outside. My beloved Broncos lost yesterday. I have back to back meetings all day today. I need to get excited about the day but I am not there yet.

I have been re-reading something I read the other day in my morning reading. I wish I could tattoo it on my heart.

The saints are what they are, not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everybody else. It gives them a clarity of compassion that can find good in the most terrible criminals. It delivers them from the burden of judging others, condemning other men. It teaches them to bring the good out of others by compassion, mercy and pardon. A man becomes a saint not by conviction that he is better than sinners but by the realization that he is one of them, and that all together need the mercy of God!

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 57

Orange Cheesecake

I made 6 little orange cheesecakes for the game today. I will make blueberry sauce for them later. They are not orange flavored, just colored. I am going to my sponsee's to watch the game. They have a huge plasma TV, this should be fun. I guess it is a good thing I am not a Raiders fan... imagine a black and silver cheesecake (orange and blue is bad enough!)

The book game: I am absolutely the lamest. But I am not cheating.

Here are the rules:
1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences (#5,6,7) on your blog, along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it. Just grab what is closest. No cheating.

"of the 10 conditions...the 5th condition
5 and 13 lines
in the 2nd and 11th grades...the 2nd-grade students"

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

saturday morning meeting

I went to a meeeting this morning and then to the gym. I found out one of our members is in ICU and will most likely not leave there. Barbara has lung cancer. A bunch of us women stood around and cried and hugged each other after the meeting. I am astounded by the courage of sober women. She has suited up and shown up for a while. Without hair. With scarves and hats and wigs and sick as shit. God Bless Her. We not only teach each other how to live, we also teach each other how to die.

I made a page of 88 or more things about me last night. If you have a second, go have a look.

Barbeque Anyone?

This is after a whole day of melting. We got a LOT of snow!

Friday Night!

I have always liked Friday night the very best. When I was a kid, it was a time to have or go to a sleepover with friends. When I started drinking, it was the best night for drinking. When I started going to bars, it was absolutely the most exciting night to be at the bar. After I got sober, it was the best meeting night. I got sober at a group in a club, the club had dances every friday and saturday nights. I loved friday night meetings followed by friday night dances. Oh, the times we had!

My old home group's friday night meeting is now a mere smokey shadow of what it once was, so I don't go. I am now older and by friday night, I am dead on my feet, so I love to stay at home. I usually get to a meeting on saturday at 6:30 a.m.

This week I have reflected a lot on what an old boyfriend (AA member) used to say - something like "in the end, all you have are your memories, make sure they are good ones."

I have some wonderful, wonderful memories of my sober life. Thank you God!

Home Group in the snow

We must have gotten 8 inches of snow today. It is still snowing. The roads are a disaster. My home group is only a mile from my house, so I ventured out. I am so glad I did.

There were only 8 people there. It was such a good meeting. We talked about going to any length to stay sober.

I have been awake since 1:00 a.m., if I had more energy, I would take pictures. It is so pretty. I left a string of Christmas lights on my front porch and have them lit up tonight. They look wonderful.

More tomorrow. And Thanks so much for embracing me into this sober blogging community. It is really a wonderful thing. I am blown away by the creativity of the HNT posts.

Going to Spinning Class

I am off to spinning class.

Wednesday Morning

I almost removed my post from last night. If my daughters read it they would say
"Bitter, party of one..."

I just got home from the gym where I ran into my favorite personal trainer man. We had a nice chat. He was wondering where I have been, I told him about my broken rib, and we talked about that. He told me to come to the spinning class tomorrow and we will talk about getting me back in shape. It was so nice to see him.

Life is good. Sobriety is the most incredible thing in the universe. I am so grateful to be a fully alive sober woman - fully participating in life. That is a miracle.

Ominous Cloud

I just spoke with my drunken former boyfriend on the phone. Then I looked out the window and saw that dark, dark, cloud outside. It seemed so appropriate.

He was crying. He said the worst thing that could happen had just happened. Well, in my world, the worst thing that could happen would be that a loved one died. I got so scared as I listened to him sob. I thought that it must be one of his kids... his dad is so old that I couldn't imagine him carrying on so.

Then he told me that he can't live in the house that he just bought because of his DUI convictions. Apparently the community association has rules - or something - that prohibits a convicted felon from living there.

Well, a kind person might have commiserated with him. A kind person might have sympathized. But he didn't call a kind person, he called me. And when he asked me what I would do I told him what I wouldn't do. "I wouldn't get fucking drunk and cry like a baby." And I went on to tell him that he scared the crap out of me - I thought someone died.

He hung up on me. Thank God.

More Thomas Merton

"If you go into the desert merely to get away from people you dislike, you will find neither peace nor solitude; you will only isolate yourself with a tribe of devils."

Snow Day

This is what I woke up to this morning... first of all, when I woke up it was light out which is a freak occurrence in itself. Then the snow. It is pretty. It is cold. It looks slippery. I want to stay in bed. But I must go to the gym and run. Going to the gym in January is a very frightening thing... I seldom do it. But the sidewalks are covered in snow, so I am not going to risk running outside. After all the football games, all the sitting around, and all the eating this weekend, I MUST get some high quality calorie burnage this morning.

Quick list: I am grateful that Ron is doing better. He was sitting in a chair last night when I talked to him. I am grateful that my kids came over and spent the day with me yesterday while we watched football games. I am grateful that this is my fourth day off work. I can go back rested and refreshed tomorrow.

yay!

Oh my goodness. I am so excited about my Broncos. Do you know I never watched a football game until I was 2 years sober? Now I watch them all!

Ron

My friend Ron just called. He is in the hospital, and will be undergoing surgery tomorrow. He has been plagued with health problems over the last several years. His most recent problem is a broken hip, which is what the surgery is about.

Ron asked me to be at his 33rd AA anniversary on February 2. I wouldn't miss it for anything. Apparently, the guys told him he WILL be there, even if they have to carry him up the stairs. I hope he is able to get up there on his own.

Ron is the most grateful person I have ever known. No matter what is going on, he has always just been legitimately grateful. Not in the phoney, pumping sunshine up your ass way, but in his own very very gruff way.

Ron is from some baltic, formerly soviet nation. I am ashamed to say that I can't remember which one at the moment. He has a THICK accent. So, he says "I am so FOCKING grateful for thees Program!" then he will go on to say that this "Gottamm program saved my life" etc. He is beautiful! He is sometimes known as "cussing Ron". I just call him Grateful Ron.

I told him I would pray for him. I am really worried about him. When we hung up, he said "I luff you dahling." I LOVE HIM TOO.

If you can, please say a prayer, or think white thoughts, or whatever you do... for Ron. He is one of the most shining examples of this program in action I have ever had the privilege to know.

My favorite puzzle

Crickler

Four Day Weekend

It is the First Day of a Four Day Weekend for me. I had to Capitalize those words because I am so happy that I am getting four days off. The last day off I had was December 31 - and then before that - I took Christmas off, and other than that, I have been working every single day.

Maybe by later today I will think of something interesting to post. For now, my mind feels so free - four days ahead of me with no plan at all. I will watch the Broncos v. Patriots game tomorrow night. I will see if my kids are available to come over on a Saturday night, but they may be busy.

I may go see Memoirs of a Geisha later today. I read the book several years ago and really liked it.

I think I will go take a run now.

A million Little Skin Cells

Change of Subject

I don't even know if I can stand to watch the game on Saturday night. I was so disappointed that Cincinnati lost on Sunday - I did not want to see the Patriots come here. But better here than there. We shall see...

I worked 11 hours yesterday. I am not going to do that today. And I am going to take Friday off, which will give me a four day weekend. I need one. I haven't had a day off yet this year. I know, ha ha, it is only the eleventh... but eleven days of work in a row for an old lady is a big dea.

You know you're at work early...

When they're buffing the floors. And it's dark outside.

But thank God I CAN be here this early and get ready for what could be a rather outrageous day. And as long as I keep my EGO out of it, it will be just fine.

Thanks Peter

Peter says I can use the picture of his shadow in my profile. He also said "Tell daave there were four black ones."

The day was much better today. Except for the one tiny little lapse where I went on a tirade about a bunch of M-F'ers. My co-worker just looked at me with wide eyes, but didn't say a word. Smart woman.

Other than that, I was pretty spriritually fit!

Overload

This morning in one of the books I use daily there was something so simple, but it hit what I am doing exactly.

The strain is only when you are serving another master, the world, fame, the good opinion of men-or carrying two days' burden on the one day.

From God Calling, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.

Today I will get my suit (of armor?) on, put on my make-up, do my hair, and drive to work and will joyfully do my job to the best of my ability. Any more than that is simply Taking Myself too Seriously - and not trusting God.

Sunday Morning

It's 7:45 a.m. on Sunday January 8. It is 44 degrees outside. I could go out and run. Normally that is what I would want to do. However, I don't want to do that today. I am tired. I am beyond tired. One might say I am a mess.

Yesterday after leaving an AA meeting, I actually cried and sobbed and carried on. It has been a long time since I have done that. I talked to my sponsor and told her that I had lost all perspective due to over work and lack of sleep. I told her that I had been crying because I didn't have any friends. My sponsor, in her inifinite wisdom, said "you may not have any friends, but you sure have a lot of people who love you."

I am so tired I can barely see straight. I did manage to sleep all night last night for the first time in a long time. I am going to work from home today and try to watch some football games. I have worked for eight days straight now and I don't do this well. But today, at least I am not going to go in to the hospital, I am going to stay here and do the work from my computer, which I can do - thank God.

My sponsor also commended me on keeping up on my self-care. Going to meetings. Eating right. Exercising. Reaching out to others. And yesterday I signed up for tanning. It is bad for my skin, but good for my soul. I LOVE tanning. (It was also nice that the tanning salon owner was so happy to see me that he asked me to go to a movie and dinner with him!)

So here is the good news:
My brain may attack me and tell me that I have no friends, but it isn't true.
This tiredness is going to end.
This big deal at work is going to come to an end.
I am going to take a tropical vacation (probably Puerto Rico)with my daughter when the big deal at work ends.
I am sober and all the rest of this is just a bunch of stuff.

Note to self: talk to Peter

I really need to tell Peter that I am using a picture of his shadow on my blog. I wonder if he would approve.

I love that picture (my profile picture). We were at an AA retreat, and I had a new digital camera. Peter was helping me learn how to use my camera. We were standing by his car and I noticed the long shadows we were casting and decided to take a picture since I was standing there with a camera in my hand.

The best part of the day!

Can you believe how beautiful a pan of roasted vegetables can be? This was like heaven after a very long day. I am so glad that I can enjoy the "small" things - even though this is one big honkin' pan of veggies. It was so good. And no, I didn't eat the entire thing. But I ate a lot of it!

Friday Morning

This has been a long week and it is not nearly over. I don't do well with being tired. I am really attached to getting 9 hours of sleep a night. I have been awake since 2:00 a.m., and didn't get to bed until 10:00.

I have got this huge deal going on at work. I don't want to bore anyone to tears with details, but it is a lot of work. The last day off I had was last Saturday and I don't think I am going to be able to take this weekend off.

Yesterday morning I got very upset over something that probably wasn't all that upsetting, and that is a big fat warning that I need to do something differently. (Like sleep at night perhaps?)

2 of my neighbors have started running together at 5:45 a.m., since it is dark at that time, they feel safer that way. I was going to join them yesterday. I came outside at 5:45 and they were nowhere in sight. I ran to the end of my street, and still didn't see them. Then to the next intersection, and then I saw them. About a quarter of a mile ahead of me. I was MAD. Then I looked at it and realized that my primary emotion wasn't really anger, it was hurt feelings. This hit some really old, old, old chords. I felt like I did when I was a kid - the youngest of five... I can't keep up with them, they left without me, etc.

The good news is - I had a good run anyway. And I don't have to stay in that kind of anger or self-pity. I could look at how upset I was and just chalk it up to being overly tired. I have had years of steps and years of therapy to deal with all that crap and I don't need to "go there" right now.

I also had a good day at work yesterday. A meeting that I was dreading actually turned out very well, and I left work after it was over. I got my grocery shopping done and then went to an AA meeting. Got to have dinner with my sponsor and sponsee and her partner. It is so good to be part of this fellowship.

At the meeting a (crying, hysterical, still drunk) returning member was sitting next to a man who buried his daughter last week. She died of this disease and I fear the returning member will too if she doesn't do something different. WHY is it so difficult for most alcoholics to get a "full knowledge of their condition?"

hAAlf nAAked foot in a hAAlf mAAde sock

see my other 1/2 nAAked friends at HNT

Jeez Louise

My sponsor called me at work today. To tell me that she and her husband have sold their house and will most likely be moving to the other side of the state (Colorado is really a BIG state). Their house has been on the market for months and I have hoped that somehow it wouldn't sell, or they would change their minds. Their closing is at the end of February.

I tried to be a "big girl" about it, but it didn't work. I cried. I tried to tell her that I am happy for her, but I was crying. She was crying. I doubt the wisdom of a couple in their 60s moving to a strange new area. But what do I know? (I didn't tell her that I doubt her wisdom, by the way.)

Things change and I need to get used to that whole concept. I used to keep things changing all the time in earlier years, it has become so important to me to be consistent, to keep the same friends, the same job, the same house, the same sponsor, the same meetings, etc. But life is dynamic and fluid.... I guess I better be too.

Work

"The requirements of a work to be done can be understood as the will of God. If I am supposed to hoe a garden or make a table, then I will be obeying God if I am true to the task I am performing. To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God's will in my work."

Merton, T. (1961). New Seeds of Contemplation, p.19

January

This is a picture of Georgica Beach in East Hampton, NY. It is my favorite beach. However, I don't think it would be all I want from a beach in winter.

Thanks to Daave and Aawoken for the suggestions for winter beach paradises. I am focusing on this right now because I am tired and I am sick of working so many hours. My daughter said she would go with me to Puerto Rico. Oh yes. This is NOT what I should be spending money on, but oh, how I need a restful vacation.

Sitting on the beach reading books. With breaks from the beach to get somethting to eat.

Flashback

I am praying for the safety and survival of the miners in West Virginia. And that the families will be able to persevere regardless of outcome.

I worked today and then went shopping (a new suit, yeah!) and when I got home I saw this story on CNN. I reflected on my youth in Chicago and when I would hear a story like this I would wonder how anyone could be a miner or a miner's wife...

Then my husband and I moved to New Mexico and he lost the job that was the reason for our move. He ended up getting a very high paying job - as a coal miner! So I went from being a suburban professional young woman to being a New Mexico Coal Miner's wife within the matter of a few months. I was 25 years old and in the midst of my disease. Let me tell you, being a housewife in a small town in New Mexico is just the thing for an alcoholic.

We moved around... in fact, we lived in West Virginia for a while. But today, watching this story unfold on television, I had a memory so powerful it took my breath away. I really haven't thought about this for years.

One day, about 22 or 23 years ago, I got a call from the ER at the hospital in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. They told me my husband was there. For some reason (denial?) it didn't even occur to me that there could have been a horrible accident, I just thought he got hurt at work. I drove to the hospital in a pretty sanguine mood. When I got there, it all changed.

When I walked into the ER and saw the doctors and nurses scurrying around - all of them covered with coal dust - I knew something was very very wrong. An old woman walked up to me and asked me "are you one of the miner's wives?" Oh my God.

There was a "bounce" in the mine. That is when the floor of the mine comes up suddenly - it can be minor or very major. This one was fairly major. There were no fatalities, but there were several men injured very severely. My husband had some injuries - a sprained ankle, and a rotator cuff tear, I think.

My sponsee called just as I was having this profound memory. I told her about it and we laughed about how many different "lives" I have had. I told her that I am worried that when I am an old lady, they will think I am making shit up. She said not to worry - they think that now! ha.

Anyway, here is an electronic prayer for the miners, their families, their friends, their company, and their town. God please be with them all.

A new year

I need to go here. What do you think? Mexico? I have never taken a winter beach vacation, but I need one. I need it to not cost $50,000,000. Does anyone have any ideas?

I worked today. I got so much done. There was not one other person on the second floor. Just me. I cranked up the music, and sang along and really got a lot of work done. But I would rather have been on a beach somewhere.

I started out my new year this morning in an AA meeting. It was good to be there. It is good to be sober.