Pickles

My daughter and I made pickles yesterday. It took all day and the end product is 32 jars of garlic dill pickles - some pints, some quarts. My house smells like heaven - dill and garlic. Maybe I just think it smells like heaven because it is a smell of times I have loved in my life. I have loved making pickles, year after year after year. I haven't made them now for I don't know how many years. It is so much work! But with my daughter's help, it was OK. They are my son's favorite... we will mail them to him in a week or so.

It's Monday, I need to be at work by 8, but that won't be happening. I decided that getting a few miles in on the treadmill trumped all this morning. So, I will be there at 8:30 instead. Which is OK. I worry about this, but my bosses don't... I have had three bosses in the last couple of years, and I always have to have this conversation about my hours. "I'm always training for a race, and some days I need to do a lot of miles before I come to work... so some days I am here at 7, and some days I am here at 9 . Is that OK with you?" They all assure me that they know I put in a lot of hours. Maybe it is the alcoholic in me that worries that I am slacking - and everyone knows it!

I haven't been a slacker for a very long time now. And when I look back on my years of active alcoholism, I know that was so much more work than actually doing what I am supposed to be doing. Oh all the time spent on excuses, guilt, rationalizing, lying, and remembering all the lies. It is so so so much easier to be sober and live an honest life.

But I guess you don't know that until you know it.

Thank God I know it.