Grad-ah-tude

Bunches and bunches of it!!!

I had a albeit brief, but much enjoyed vacation this week. One of my sibs had a vacent time share in a beautiful spot near the ocean, and only a hour drive time. Another sib and I took advantage and became commuters for the week. I did manage to sneak one complete and total day off. And for that I am oh so oh so oh so oh so grateful!!!

Absolutely just what the dr. ordered for this girl I can tell you that!!! I think I managed to enjoy the hell out of my brief respite more so than if it was a full week off!! The sleeping late part did not really work for me, to used to getting up and going. But I was able to enjoy a awesome walk along the bay to breakfast next to the water, followed by lunch next to the water, and then do a little wandering that led me to a park surrounded by water .... is there a theme here or what??

The park was for sure the highlight of my adventures away from home for a day .... Big jiegundahuge rocks that I could climb down to, then sit on while the waves just crashed around me. Such a awesome inspiring place to be! I have to admit, as I sat there thrilling to the sounds, smells, and random water drops, I could not see how someone could miss out on knowing that there are powers greater than our self in the universe. I have had other nature inspired moments like that before, but I was really just awestruck by the well, of ... well EVERYTHING!!! I could literally feel the worries of the world just get sucked right out of me as the waves retreated from my rock. Life is good.

Sure, stuff has already snuck back it ... life is life after all. But it was great to really be able to turn it all over and wave good by. I am still re-charged and feeling good. And now I have this added experience to store in the tool box for when the stress of everyday is messing with my serenity. And if things get real desperate, the park is a mere hour away waiting to take my issues of the moment for a ride out to sea ............

Grad-ah-tude

An entires weekends worth!!!!

One of my nieces got married this weekend. It was a beautiful weekend, perfect day for a wedding, everyone had fun nobody got hurt ... I am grateful!!

Friday I was unbelievably grateful for a great employee who worked his tail off to help me be able to take the rest of the weekend off and enjoy it. I really am very delighted with this boy. In a age of entitlement for the teens, sorry I see it far to much! .. This boy is a hard worker and very responsible. I can trust him to do as asked, and do what he says. He has made running this business possible.

Saturday was wedding day, and I was grateful for EVERYTHING!! All the family that was able to attend, and play nice. The love and happiness that was so evident on my nieces face, and her now husband. Very special to see and be a part of. And I am oh so very very grateful that I remember the entire night, and was clean and sober. That allowed me to enjoy the night so much more than had I been drinking!

I have to interject a little story here. There was one person, who IF it was up to me to make the call, I would say this person is a alcoholic. Not my call ... anyways.... This person asked that my sister and I buy some beer for the after party. Neither of us wanted to do it, but another person added to the request. Again, not our call to make. We stressed and stressed over this. By the time we left the reception it was late, we were in a area we did not know looking for someplace to buy beer. We did not want to go back with out it, because the person can be such a freaking ass, and if we did not have the beer ... oh the stress the stress. We never did find a place to buy it. And again the stress the stress of showing back at the hotel without the beer. We were plotting and planning who we could go to to get beer to keep this person from turning up the volume on being a JERK. Doing all of this, made me oh so very grateful that I was not torturing my family like that anymore. And made me sad to realize just what a pain in the ass I was when I was active. I don't believe I ever turned as nasty as this person, but I might have been like that. Sad. But again, grateful for the reminder to me of what it use to be like ~ for me. And what I did to others.

Sunday I was grateful to not wake up with a hangover .... lol And to have all my memories of the night before in tact. TO know that I did nothing to upset or offend anyone. To know that when I say I had a good time, it was the truth.

And today I am grateful it is all over!!!

Grad-ah-tude

Yesterdays grad-ah-tude will be simple. I am grateful that I have a computer even if I can't always use it.

Today I will be grateful for the steps. I have not been so very good about going to my step meeting with the up and coming AWOL I hope to participate in next month. I have been giving myself a "break" from the steps. Not such a bright idea!! To bad it takes getting away from something, in my case, to appreciate how important they are. At the meeting the other night there were a few things that were said that reminded me what I was missing out on not putting effort on a daily basis into living the steps as they are laid out. 1,2,3 all the time 10,11,12 all the time. 4,5,6,7,8,9 ... not so practical to do all the time but important none the less. How else am going to be able to do the rest and grow if I have not done work on those?

So even though I have not been so good, I did not drift so very far either. I am grateful for that as well.

grad-ah-tude

So today was kind of a tough day ~ "D" day ~ I had to go to court for my divorce. Lots and lots of emotions floating around for me right now. Keeping in mind the promises though, today I am grateful for the history I had with my now former husband. I am grateful for all the good times, all the times we were able to share and express love and support for each other, the growing we did together and the many times he helped me. I will always be grateful for having HIM in my life for the period of time we had before I crossed the line and turned into a drunken sloth. I hope that someday he will be able to forgive me, and that I don't allow myself to turn bitter and nasty at him if he is not able to. "Will not regret the past or wish to shut the door on it" .... that covers a lot. Good and bad. I am grateful that I have those promises to help me through days like today!!

Grad-ah-tude

Today I will be grateful for family, and the fact that they love me sometimes despite myself! I think this week it is going to be important to remember how much family means to me. One of my nieces is getting married this weekend. A wedding to rival a royal wedding!! Even though with each new idea she has she adds that she and the dh to be are "simple" people. If this wedding does not prove just how complex we "simple" people are, I don't know what will!! As the day gets closer I know the stress will build, and THAT is why I have to REMEMBER to be GRATEFUL for family .. lol
I am actually blessed with a really great family. 7 brothers and sisters, both parents living, and a slew of wonderful nieces and nephews ranging from baby, to 33!!! Are we a perfect family, puh-leez!! But we do stick together good times and bad. And we have had some very bad. The admiration I feel for each one of my family members unfortunately goes unspoken most of the time. We are real good about giving each other a hard time .. with love.... not so good about saying hey, you are a great person and I love you and I am proud of you. Why that is so difficult to do to someone you love ?????? Something to work on.
So today I am going to pray for each member of my family, love, health, happiness, and a awareness of the good things in their own life to be grateful!

Grad-ah-tude

In the busy busy world that has become my life. Yah know, the one that was going to be over when I put down the drink? I try very hard to stay grateful for what I have. I don't want to lose sight, EVER of the good things in my life because I am not drinking and belong to the fellowship of AA. I hear it over and over and over at meetings how people "get busy", and eventually it leads to a drink. That scares me more than anything, because I can see just how easy it can happen.

So I have a goal that I am stealing from a friend who post. I am modifying it a bit .. I am going to try and post every day for a month. Even if it is just a one liner. And every day it will be something I am grateful for. And if all I can find for that day is I have clean socks .... I will be grateful for that.

Today I am grateful in particular for the fellowship of AA and what it has given me. I recently have had some major life on lifes terms bad mojo. AA has taught me that I did not have to drink over it first and foremost. Second, through your stories I learned that even though it all sucked, and could very well suck for a long long time, it would still be ok. You taught me to trust in my Higher Power, to acknowledge that even though this bad was going on, I was not being punished, that if I gave my trust to my God, believed that He would take care of me and get me through it, He would. As long as I did it on His terms, not mine. You taught me to accept His terms. You taught me that it was ok for me to not like it, He was not going to pull His support if I disagreed with how He wanted to do things .. but I still had to do things His way.

I was in fact all set for things to get far worse before they got any better. Well, it got much better much faster than I could have possibly imagined. Still not perfect, or even great, but better. Down the line I do believe that great will be the result of what has been going on. I know it has helped me grow. And even though it sucked, I am grateful.

Will Not Regret The Past, Nor Wish To Close The Door On It

One of the lines from the promises in AA's big book. I will admit to having mixed feelings on that one some of the time. There are plenty of moments from my past that I wish I could deadbolt behind a closed door never to be seen or heard from again. I have just such a situation going on in my life at the moment. BUT .... ahh, there is always a but... Even though I know I have made some pretty ginourmouslycolosal mistakes in my past, and no doubt still have a few ahead of me too ... The promises are correct. I can't regret the past, even the screw ups. They are all what has made me the person that I am today.

Corny as the shows on t.v are, the ones that are about having a "do over" for something you might have wished different in your past, never leads to the person being happy with this "new" life. The baseball they should have hit, the man they should have married, the paper they shouldn't have cheated on... Does not really matter if it is something you should have, or should not have done. It is what has brought you to today. And when it comes right down to it, TODAY is all that matters.

When crap from the past does surface, like right now, my first instinct is to deny, lie, and hide. But I am learning. I accept that what is done is just that, done. I can't go back and change it. What I can do now is learn from it, accept responsiblity for my actions, and even more important is that I have to accept that sometimes I am not going to be forgiven. Just because I am sorry does not make it all ok. Be nice if it did ... but that is not how the real world works. Not everybody has the 12 steps in their life!! And when I am not forgiven, I don't have to drink, I don't have to continue to beat myself up over what is done, and I don't have to grovel and beg for forgiveness that may never come. What I do have to do is accept responsiblity for what has been done, and now just do the next right thing. That is really all I can do, try on a daily basis to do the next right thing. I am not always going to get it. Sometimes my "try" is going to be a little lackluster. I might take my will back from God. But when I catch myself doing that, I just have to start all over again. And TRY.

And I do have to keep that door to the past open, sometimes I have to look back to readjust the journy forward.