The End of The World...has come and gone.

Well, I thought I oughta tell  you about an "End of the World" partyt I got to go to last weekend. I know that for most of my life as an addict, I'd have been WONDERING what had happened while I was there. However, this year, as I recently celebrated having been clean for 20 years, things went quite a bit differently than way back then. 
My dearest friend, Barb & her 3 sons came up from her home in Tn to visit with her Mom, who lives just a short drive from me. Since the 2012 Blizzard had not yet hit, it was a nice drive for my 2 boys and I to go and spend a few hours. 
Unlike my family, Barb's little klan seems to have somehow managed to sidestep the addict gene, so they occasionally have a little "medicinal" recreation, let's say. While we were making sure I remembered how to get to (Barb's) Mom's house, Barb made sure I knew that Mom was planning on "partaking" at her party, having never done so before. At 75 years of age, I found this pretty funny-knowing the experiences of 2 out of her 4 kids to have been similar to my own, it seems like Mom woulda had to have checked thingsout by now, right? But, she'd apparently been hold out for the end of the world, and verily, the time had come. 
Long and short of it: by the time the boys & I arrived, there was a small pan of brownies that was untouched "the Clean batch", and about half of the LARGER batch was gone. It was a familiar sight, with everyone sitting around the table, glazed eyes and zoned looks ... I smiled and started picking on the closest of Barb's boys, telling him he looked REALLY thirsty....He grinned that red-eyed grin that so many of us know, oh, so well. Barb's Mom didn't particularly look any different but I learned later that she had had a couple of the "good" brownies and seemed to have fun.
The thing about this whole scene that made me want to post about it, is this: I was happy  to  get to hang out with my friend for a few hours, since it only happens every few years, and  I was prepared to deal with the fact that one of my long-time favorites was going to be there. Honestly, knowing that Mom's house is HUGE, I only had a minimal concern about the odor (didn't know that they were going to be eating, for the most part) bothering me, and having thought it through (the inevitable consequences if I chose to use) so many times, I wasn't uncomfortable at all about the proximity. A couple of reasons that also helped me know that I would leave there with the same clean date that I arrived there with:
1. My boys were with me, and I am determined to give them reason to make wiser choices than I did...
2. My Darling husband inspires me to keep up the good fight.
3. My relationship with my Savior gives me strength to keep my priorities in mind.
4. I haven't been through the ________ of the last 20 years to give away my clean date on a silly whim!! 
5. Oh, and also, there's NO WAY there woulda been enough of ANYTHING to satisfy my need for numbness if I would have began the self-destruct, again. 
So, it was great seeing my best friend from 8th grade and her sweet boys. I always enjoy spending time with Barb. We understand each other like not many people I know. I support her even when I don't agree with her, and I know that she feels the same toward me. 
I am hopeful that someday in the NOT too distant future, we will again be neighbors. Until then, we'll just have to be long distance BUDS Friends. LOL

Christmas Eve 2012...

This year Christmas has come and (almost) gone with breath-taking speed. I'm not certain if this is due to our general lack of organization and time management, or because we are less and less focused on "things", here at the O/W Homestead.
For the last couple of weeks or so, I've been busy working on finding and acquiring household and foodstuff for a friend of mine who has been in the process of moving out of the "transitional housing" apartment and into her Very Own Place. It's been exciting for me, as I've been gathering resources for just such an occasion for many years; a favorite untapped one is a lady I befriended a few years back when we were involved in a group seeking to help out local homeless youth. Miss B is a charming lady, probably not much older than myself, who has an eye for "potential". This includes cast-off items from the local auction house, thrift stores, and possibly even more-so: people. I've been wanting to get a look into Miss B's OVER-stuffed garage since I first discovered her "collection" of "treasures". (Ok, she's a pre-recovering Hoarder, and I can tell you that it's probably my VERY favorite kind!) Given the time and a place, I'm quite sure that Miss B & I could easily do a lot of excellent up-cycling of various kinds of furniture & misc. house wares. She's mentioned doing something like that before, but I'm afraid it's probably just her wishful thinking.
At any rate, yesterday I went to "Christmas Dinner" with Mom, my brother & his family, along with my 2 darling boys. The Big Guy was working, so it wasn't a complete family gathering. His company was sorely missed. My little niece who has been quite taken with the Big Guy, from the first time they met, seemed to be getting by, when she immediately requested my older son to sit by her. She's adorable, and my guys have pretty much always had that effect on girls. My younger son sat with his nearly-twin-aged cousin and they talked about video games for the most part.
We went to a very nice Chinese restaurant and everyone ate their fill. I got an extra big helping to take home for my Sweety, so everyone was extra blessed. Mom said this was her gift to us all, and I gotta say, we were all sorely blessed.
I went to a meeting this evening. The topic was Resentments, but it kinda ended up being more about Boundaries. I suggested a friend check out an Al-anon meeting after he shared about family members and the chaos they'd brung into his home...Thank God I've been willing to get peace of mind, whether it comes from people who are addicts, alkies, or just happened to be the ones who got crazy as a result of them. Ultimately it's the same 12 steps, and I'm grateful to have learned more than one way to apply them to my life.
My Love has finally come home from another 13-hour day, so I'll close now.
I hope that your Christmas is a good one, filled with the Spirit that brought us life. Jesus came to give us life, and that more abundantly. truly, in all of my experiences, I've never felt more alive than since I determined to build my life on the Solid Rock.
Here are some tunes I love, this and any time of the year:

Bracing for the holidays

Hi, friends : )
For many of us "recovering" folks, the holidays can be quite a test. Spending time with our biological families, while there are usually some nice things about it, can also bring up old hurts and scars from the past, making the holidays kind of an ordeal.
I know that for me, even having done the Sober Holiday Thing for several years, now, I still find myself anxious and unsure of protocol. We haven't any actively users or drinkers in our little family, now, but not all of us are recovering, either, so the insanity can get pretty silly at times. There are the fears of forgetting a present (ADD, thank you very much), wearing something not approved by Mom, who's bringing someone new to the party, and will we like them or just talk about them ruthlessly after they've gone, to mention just a few of the things tearing around in my mind. Dad used to call it "Freight Train Brain". Perhaps you're familiar with it? It usually reminds me that I could stand some extra meetings right about now.
Anyway, I'm going to go put my facebook status on afk indefinately, so I'll talk to you later. I hope you're able to find a nice quiet spot in the midst of your "celebrations" for when you need to decompress.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Happy Day!!
I get to spend the day at home with my energetic, loud children. Oh, joy.
OK, seriously, I am grateful that I DO get to be home with them. I don't know how much longer I will have the opportunity. Things can change to friggin' quickly...and I know it.
So why am I not deep-down, all-over REALLY happy when I get to be with them for prolonged periods of time??? I would absolutely give my life for them. I do enjoy their company, for the most part. I think it must be that together, they feed off of each others' hyperactive tendencies, and then as that happens, the volume goes up higher and higher. I am just worn out.
I want to see about getting off of the ADD medicine I've been on. It seems that my memory and attentiveness are getting much worse as time goes on, and not at all in the direction they were in the earlier stages of taking the meds. I've done the differing doses, tried a couple of different medications, and the results are getting to be more and more quickly, that they are just not giving me much (if any) relief. I know there was a very long time that anti-depressants were more than sufficient, now I think I want to see if that could be the case again. The less I have to depend on a pharmacy to be able to interact with the rest of the population, the better. And certainly it can only help the way I relate to the boys. I have to be able to access the "best" me, in order to give them the best Mom I can.