New Year

The tradition of celebrating the new year must be a very old one. I'm very old and I remember it. (ha) I think it's a good idea to make a new start at least once a year, but I've been taught in recovery that it's a good idea to make a new start any time you think things are going south. Pick a day, any day and start over. I've started a lot of things over in the last 26 years. Plus I can think of some things it would have been a good idea to start over. I've come to believe that marriages should be started over every morning - a new commitment to a new person from a new person. All bad habits should be ditched the first thing every morning. A new parent to new children. A new employee, business owner, whatever. It's a new day; why not change every day into a new and better person? That's my new year's resolution.

365 Project

Getting ready to see Avatar - 3D glasses on. Bec, Aaron, Adam, Thein.

The painting Thein painted for the Russell's Christmas.

Everything's still not opened!

Time to open stockings on Christmas morning!


Here are the makings for the traditional Vietnamese soup on Christmas Eve!

Liz and Thein are working on the traditional Viet Namese soup which took all day to make. It was wonderful!

A white Christmas!

The penguin outfit has been replaced with reindeer antlers.

Pumpkin pancakes for breakfast for Adam and Thein who has her penguin outfit on for warmth.

Here's everybody but me for dinner - Liz, Fred, Aaron, Thein, Adam, Josh (Bec's boyfriend), Bec, Bec's friend Winky.

My new fuzzy socks with sticky things on the bottom (so I won't fall down) that Minky got me for Christmas.

Sore Tooth

"As the sore tooth draws our tongue, so do rejections, affronts, painful criticisms, both past and present draw our minds. We court self-pity, both loving and hating it. But we can change this pattern. First we must decide we are ready to do so. The program tells us we must become "entirely ready." And then we must ask to have this shortcoming removed. The desire to dwell on the injustices of our lives becomes habitual. It takes hours of our time. It influences our perceptions of all other experiences. We have to be willing to replace that time-consuming activity with one that's good and healthy. We must be prepared for all of life to change. Our overriding self-pity has so tarnished our perceptions that we may never have sensed all the good that life daily offers. How often we see the glass as half-empty rather than half-full! A new set of experiences awaits me today. And I can perceive them unfettered by the memories of the painful past. Self-pity need not cage me today." Each Day a New Beginning.

The holidays are a great time for dwelling on painful memories of the past. In my case, I created a lot of those painful memories by my own bad behavior. Some of those memories are of other people's bad behavior. Some time in early recovery, I decided that I would do my best to create happy memories for myself and to the extent possible, for other people. This year I spent Christmas with my oldest daughter and her family - all of them dedicated to creating happy memories and traditions. They go all out and they include both blood family and friend and romantic family. It's a lovely time, full of love. I am grateful for new happy memories.

My memories of Ron's and my Christmases are equally lovely. We spent quite a few of them alone because of all the blended family issues and distance from family. But we always set out to make each of them memorable.

Every holiday has it's downside for me - either stress-related issues or just missing missing people. I am thankful, though, for what I've learned in recovery - let that stuff go and remember the wonderful. What a great time I've had this year!

Guidance

"There is no punishment; only guidance." Attitude of Gratitude blog.

What a lovely thought for this day. I read this blog pretty much every morning. It's written by a guy in Houston who is in recovery. He made a commitment several years ago to post a gratitude list every day and he's kept it up. He has the most beautiful gratitude lists. I make much better ones for myself after reading his. This one really caught at my heart - My higher power has never punished me; but I've had some pretty strong guidance. (ha)

365 Project

Here's where the butterflies went when they had to leave the tree for icicles.

Tammy in the receiving line at her wedding. And a beautiful wedding it was.

Here's Caryn getting ready to give me my Christmas present - beautifully manicured fingers and toes. She is the best!!!

Here's Bridget on the horse with her helpers.




My neighbors have done a great job of lighting up their yard.









Here are some of the women at the exceptional women's party.

The table is set for the party for 12 exceptional women. (Eric called it the super girls party)

Kristin and Marc at our family Christmas party.

Horses

I had the very great pleasure of going to a riding stable first thing this morning to see my daughter, who has pretty much every disability you can imagine, get on a horse and ride for 30 minutes. The stable provides riding lessons for children and adults with any disability. I would even qualify. Her physical therapist is thrilled that they are going to work with her. Riding will strengthen her core muscles and help her balance. She will also have fun. When she was much younger, she used to love to ride.

Challenges

I'm still reading Melody Beattie's book, 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact. This week's readings are on challenges. She maintains that if we don't have challenges, we'll create some for ourselves - and for those of us with addiction problems, they're usually negative and self-defeating challenges. For example, when I don't have enough challenges in my life, I'll decide to take on a "change the world" project, or spend too much time trying to help someone who doesn't want help.

Melody suggests that the solution is to create challenges for ourselves that are healthy and important (and maybe even fun). Set new goals for ourselves in our work, relationships and/or spiritual life. Make a plan to grow closer to someone you love, learn something new for your work, or learn a new spiritual practice. What a good time of the year for me to think about this. I always set goals, but this is kind of a new take on what I usually do. Entertaining - I love to be entertained. More on this later.

Acceptance

"If you have to swallow a toad, don't stare at it too long." A Woman's Spirit.

What in the world is the moral in that quote, you might ask. According to the reading, it's that there are a lot of things that might happen today that I won't like. I can pout and be miserable, or I can cultivate a peaceful attitude. Which am I going to choose? Well, I certainly hope I don't have to swallow a toad today. But I do need to finish my Christmas shopping.

365 Project Still week 20 something

The table is set for the annual potluck dinner the Step Practice group does every year. This year I decided to do a book study instead. 15 years was long enough.

Eric came to go to The Nutcracker, but he had to do some chores too. Putting icicles on the tree makes it a Christmas tree. So...the decorations are done.

Peggy, Eric and I went to The Nutcracker. It was probably the best one of all those I've seen!

I've started writing a little bit every day which means I spend more time in front of the computer than usual. Cisco has decided to help - or at least edit.

If you didn't know where the meeting was already, you probably wouldn't know if was here. But here's the door - meetings Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights

Santa in an airplane and with his sleigh in the daytime. (Taken by Eric on our way back to the house from someplace)

Santa in an airplane and Santa with his sleigh on my way home from a meeting. My neighborhood has some great decorations.

Change

"A gentle, open prayer for help and of thanksgiving surely will help pave the way for change. We don't need to make it sa struggle or an epic. Our prayer can be a gradual, gentle process." Drop the Rock.

I love the programs' Steps 6 and 7. It's the first time I ever knew that I could change with the help of God. Of course, I didn't realize that it's a lifetime process - maybe a little like an epic even though the quote above says it's not. Right now I have several new people I'm working with and they are all terribly nuts like new people are. I'm having a hard time being empathetic. Then I realized (thanks to some re-reading of Drop the Rock - a book on Steps 6 & 7) that when there are character defects in me that need to be changed, I will suddenly be surrounded by people with those same defects and they will irritate me to death. Hmmmm. I hate it but it's true.

Focus

"...instead of always allowing your thoughts and behaviors to be spontaneous and random, why not, at least occasionally, consciously focus on and practice a value instead?" Melody Beattie. 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact.

One of the MAJOR things I'm grateful for learning in my recovery program, is that I'm responsible for what I think about. And that what I think about, to a large degree, determines how I feel and what I do. I was completely amazed to learn this! I thought that thoughts and emotions were just something that happened to us and were outside our control.

The first thing they taught me was that when I was scaring myself by what I was thinking about, I could say the Serenity Prayer over and over instead. What an amazing difference just that one small change made. Since 1996 I've been doing a class where one of the assignments is to monitor our thinking every day and change it when it's negative. That makes an incredible difference too. Now here's another idea: Focus on a value and practice it - that could be fun - especially in the holiday season. Maybe the value of lightheartedness would be a good one - replacing stress and worry and hurry. "Tis the season to be jolly", etc.

Better 365 Project

This is the driveway into a very boring shopping center where the folks that fix my shoes are located. I always wonder why, who, how planted all these trees lining the driveway. It's a beautiful sight.

Coming home from an errand at sunset I noticed how the sun was lighting up the top of the trees.

Went to Ted and Debbies to find a particular candle. They didn't have it but I got this real-looking wreath to hang on the inside of the back door.

Ron and I got this mobile at Mayfest one year and he promptly took it to his office where it was spared from being in the fire we had in 2000. When he moved his office home, he didn't get around to hanging it and since the wreck, I've not done it either. So when son-in-law Fred was here over Thanksgiving, he hung it. Yay! Thank you, Fred.

Interesting table decorations this year at the New Haven anniversary dinner. Very creative. Different. Fun.

Eric and Cynthia (the owner and cook at Pure Cafe). It was delightful to get to meet her. The food is fabulous and we are telling everyone we know!

Miracle Report

Now this is the minutia of the miracle - maybe boring to anyone but me: It's a little after 4:00 and I am up and ready to go to the Messiah, even though I am tired. Usually if I'm really tired I just can't go at all and have to stay in bed. Today I'm going even though I'm tired, knowing that I will go right to bed when I get home. So, what's miraculous about that? Well, I can't explain, but it is miraculous.

Old News

It's Friday and I have only had to take one day off to rest! I have been active - doing something and up on my feet most all day every day except Tuesday. Wow! What's even better, I'm actually doing things because I want to, not because I know I must and having to push myself constantly to get past my reluctance to move. I feel like I've been let out of jail. I know this is old news but I haven't gotten used to the miracle yet.

Dancing with the Devil

"Are the people you're involved with in business, play, and love living by values that are harmonious with yours? Are you dancing with the devil somewhere in your life, either by associating with people who don't have integrity, or by not living up to your personal values?" Melody Beatty. 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact.

I'm fascinated by the differences in the thinking process I use to work my program on co-dependency vs addiction. If you had asked me a few years ago who was responsible for my anguish, I would have named names and not one of them would have been mine. My program for addiction taught me to look at myself first. In the beginning I thought they were trying to blame me but finally saw that they were trying to teach me the solution to my problems - which was to look at myself and what the choices were that placed me in the position I was in. I was thrilled to learn that all I had to do to stay out of pain was to make different choices.

So it was a long time before I learned that it's also important to look at the people I associate with and their influence on me. Dancing with the devil is a good way to put it. I was told to "stick with the winners" which meant stay away from the influence of those who were still acting out their sicknesses. I was also told "their sickness is stronger than your wellness." But I forget this. I've been in recovery a long time now and tend to forget some of the basics. I love this reminder.

Bad, Bad, Bad, Very Bad 365 project

A very bad 365 project week. I'm so far behind now I will have to do a 400 project to catch up. I'm not doing much better this week. New resolve. Never, never, ever give up!

I did put the cranberry wreath up for Christmas.











Liz taking a picture of Kristin while I took a picture of them. (It's time to take the butterflies off the tree and put the icicles on for Christmas)



The evil little squirrel finally eating the squirrel food - after he polished off the bird food. Grrrrr