Friday Flash 55- Step One

Every Friday, compose a short story of 55 words -
no more, no less. if you want to join in the
fun and games and give it a try...post your story
and report to the boss G-Man!

No longer able to deny the truth. Rationalizations and false pretenses
begin to feel malignant. Unable to look in the mirror without

shame it was time something had to change.

Surrendering my will and learning to have faith has melted

away the pain of addiction.

gratitude cannot express what I have, Freedom from Active Addiction.

Here you go G-Man, hope you all have a great weekend, I will be giving comments tomorrow but will be away from my computer the rest of the weekend. Will be back on Sunday if I am not too tired will leave a post then.

Unimportant Things that Make Me Happy

I'm to list six things that are unimportant but make me happy then tag six others.
I was tagged by Cliff of WIXY's Gone Bananas fame, I love these things because it gives tangible contact with members in cyberspace and this is such a wonderful community it is always fun to reach out and get to know each other a little better. By the way I didn't know what kind of green beans I planted and I didn't know if they need a pole or not. Well they are bush beans and do not require a pole and trellis, but my sugar snap peas do, so I get to build a trellis!! Any suggestions on how to proceed in this venture, for this frugal gardener will be truly welcome.
So on with my list:
1. Blowing dandelions and making wishes with my little girls really makes me happy.
2. I love getting up really early in the morning to sneak out and go fishing, then come back in before anyone wakes up, this is the definition of happiness.
3. Christmas cards- receiving and sending, i just get so happy thinking about Christmas cards, they are the best. I have a snail mail list of about 100 people I send them to every year.
4. Running through the sprinklers in the summertime is such a blast.
5. taking pictures of my family makes me happy, I love chasing the girls around trying to get a great shot.
6. Comments, comments i receive from the blogger sphere really make me happy. I check my email a lot.
Now I will tag the following:
Shadow of 1 Door Away from Heaven
Steveroni of Another Sober Alcoholic
Syd of I'm Just FINE
Michelle Dawn of Rusin's Round Up
G-Man of Mr. Know it All
Blind Faith of The Amazing Adventure
Now for the fun part, to inform everyone and see the responses I get!! I love the togetherness these tags bring about in our cyber community. For todays thought;
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world it is best to hold hands and stick together. - Dr. Robert Fulghum

Living the Dream spiders and all

So I was watering my garden and it was hot out. I thought I felt a bead of sweat go down to my shirt, but when I looked down there was a little spider there.

I don't know if I ever mentioned my fear of spiders yet, but this little aspiring gardener is deathly afraid of them. Stories of my encounters with them growing up are legendary. I recall coming home from work one night and there was one blocking me from entering my home. Seriously this thing was tarantula like and it jumped off the screen door towards me and when I backed away the big hairy thing climbed back on the screen door where it was when I got there. Guarding my door from me. This was my house and it would not let me in. My cat, bless his soul, tried to swat it off and the dang thing jumped on my cats nose and then back onto the porch!! No kidding, true story. My cat got scared and came to stand behind me. He gave me this "you're on your own" look.

So I have had horrible experiences with these little creatures from God and you know I have been trying to let bygones be what they are and all but to have this thing in my shirt, with the water hose running in my hand....

So let's take Dr. Robert Fulghums look at this and see it from the spiders point of view. Imagine you wake up and find everyone leaving the egg, you follow along on your little string and next thing you know your in a tree.After eating a couple of bugs that seem to be gathering quite a bit down below you decide the best place to set up shop is right on top of the buffet table. It is a hot sunny day and there is a wonderful cooling mist in the air. You follow the mist down and next thing you know the monsoon of the century hits!! Winds Howling like some dying buffalo in a most unnatural way, you feel branches and water hitting you hard submerging you are falling down a cliff scared to death.....

You know I can't imagine what that little spider was thinking, maybe I was a quick way to the buffet line, and I can't even imagine if the thing is dead or alive, I hope he survived, spiders eat bugs out of my garden and that is good. I do know I was absolutely ridiculous in how I must have looked squirting that hose down my top. Probably screaming like a girl, after all I am a girl and then looking around to see if it was there or not. Or if any of my neighbors saw me.

So today, this morning at least it rained, and I will not be in my garden till this evening. Hopefully the spiders are in bed by then. I did do a good deed this weekend, I mowed my neighbors yard. they moved out about a month ago and the grass was taller then my Gillian!! No kidding about 3 feet tall I will show you pictures of the back yard, which I didn't mow, to show you. Anyway I was mowing my yard and couldn't stand how tall theirs was so I just went ahead and mowed. The other neighbors came out and helped me finish it, I couldn't leave the tall clippings the yard was so pretty before they moved, I didn't want to kill it. And so everyone came out and helped clean up this poor house that seems to be forgotten for now but the fun of it was the community spirit coming alive here in my part of town. Kind of a cool thing.

So that just leaves me with today's thought, I know I have not had a gratitude list up for a couple of weeks, I am just so busy I have to make more time!! What a feat that would be huh, if I could make time I would bottle it and sell it to the highest bidder!! So anyway maybe I will do one tonight but for today; I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.- Robert Fulghum

A moment please for Dusty and Cheryl my friends who lost their brother just yesterday.

gardening

Here is my garden 2 weeks ago. i was very proud of the zucchini plant above because i started those from seed. As you can see my garden looks more like a pile of dirt. The lower part was completely under water for a week and a half. The grey tarp is weed block. Never used it before. the only place it looks right is under the tomato and green pepper plants. the part where it is in strips is where we started my green beans and sugar snap peas. They never took, so I planted more last week. and today they are coming in beautifully.
So in recap i started over 200 seedlings and only about 35 of them actually survived to be transplanted to the garden. i replanted more lettuce and spinach seeds and i planted more radishes as well. So this morning i went out and took some pictures, I also took some the other day to show how much my garden has grown in just 2 weeks.














As you can see it is not just a blank space of dirt, my jalapenos are double in size and from the pics you can actually see the tomatoes blooming. There are over a dozen flowers on the tall ones, those we bought in the store, the little ones ares still coming in and they will give us tomatoes later in the summer.
My prize is look how BIG my zucchini plants are!! They are about 4 feet in diameter right now and they are going to keep growing!! They're huge!! And look we planted more snap peas and green beans and the little babies have made it!! It's official I am a gardener!!
I am extremely excited about my garden as you can see I have never grown any thing in my life, not even weed in my using days!!!
So I didn't give up I just kept on planting and look at my garden now. Trust and believe, we move, i am doing this again it is so worth it to see a garden grow. I am out there everyday for just a bit and I feed and I pray to mother earth and i give back it is a great feeling.







So I will keep growing my beautiful garden and i will plant more flowers for my insectary and i will get some more radishes growing. i can't wait for my watermelon and cantaloupe to come in. So I am feeling pretty good today. Todays thought; "We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities
of our real selves."--Thomas Merton

Decisions

Every Friday, compose a short story of 55 words -
no more, no less. if you want to join in the
fun and games and give it a try...post your story
and report to the boss G-Man!

From gardens and pixies and bubbles galore,
bouncy balls and barbie dolls with perfect smiling faces.
We grow each day with all these toys
please wait until we are asleep to decide what stays or goes.
Yard Sale Day comes this time of year,
Oh how happy mommy will be with more room in here!!

Busy day this is where I'm at i hope you all are great, I hope to stop by and see how you all are doing. So what do you think G-Man?

Walking through the hard times in my head

"In forgiving ourselves, we make the journey from guilt for what we
have done (or not done) to celebration of what we have become."--Joan Borysenko

The past week has been very emotional and difficult to bear. I never thought about using dope, I did think about running away. I thought about not being worthy and not wanting to continue. I thought the kids would be better off without me and I projected a future where I would probably ruin their lives like I had ruined "A's". I sat on a huge pity pot and I stayed very, very miserable. I finally got an answer from Wes on my question to him and I am very OK with it. So that really helped me get out of my #%it. I also called on a friend who is almost like a second sponsor and she helped me a lot for which I am very grateful.

I lost my gratitude last week and it is scary how quickly this addict forgets what is good and what is real. It is scary how quickly I forget reality and start to listen to my inner addict and believe the lies all over again. I finished my tutorials and I am working on some "test" pictures for Libby, photoshop is on the fritz right now and needs a reboot. Wes is working on stuff on the other side of the computer and I feel like shutting it down anyway just so I can do my work.

This is something I need to share and do not feel safe sharing in a meeting in Wichita, my sister and her husband are going to Juarez in June. He is trying to become an American citizen. So he will have to stay there for a period of time and my sister needs to go to the consulate with her two children ages 3 and 7 with her to show that the youngest does have a medical condition, seizures, and that they(the kids) exist. I know this is a touchy subject and I know the level of intolerance there is for my people. Me being only half Mexican and looking more Caucasian spares me a lot of bigotry and grief in dealing with intolerable people. Except in some meetings where my anonymity is blown out of the water because many members know my heritage. And do not have one issue with making a racist "joke" several times during or after the meeting while I am there. This is why I don't attend so many meetings, but also a different subject. my issue here is I don't want my nephews to go to Juarez Mexico. I don't want my sister and her husband to go either. They are adults and know the consequences to their actions, my nephews don't nor do they deserve to have to go to a drug war torn part of the country. I have said my piece to my brother and I tried to tell my sister to leave the kids here with us but she insists it is the only way to "fast track" his citizenship. So this will be going in my God Box probably more than once. I know I shouldn't act like my area is the only place with issues about immigrants. I read about the father of two who was beaten to death by teenagers and they were acquitted of murder. No big deal though, just another "dirty wetback" these white kids have their whole future ahead of them. I know not to go to Pennsylvania any time soon.

I am grateful a little more today then last week. I still have a bit of a funk I am in but I am grateful to have a place where I can share what is going on with me today. "My Recovery" is a blog about how I recover as an addict everyday. Recovery from addiction is not limited to drugs, the tentacles of addiction run through every aspect of my life. The addict in me wants to react compulsively to life and the things I do not agree with. The person I am trying to become does not want to live that way anymore. And I do not want that for my children. So I do not teach my children to "hate back". I teach them that some people need more prayers then others. some people are more sad and don't know how to share their feelings. My oldest daughter is the one getting these lessons today. She sees more than the little ones about the intolerance in the world today. She saw the mighty Fred Phelps in town and wanted to go and demonstrate against him. I told her, if you do that he wins. I explained to her that it wasn't necessary to go out and scream at a brick wall. Nothing she would say would change the way that man and his "followers" felt about her uncle and the millions of others they target with their hate. I was in a meeting where a man was talking about diversity in meetings, and the barriers he dealt with as an African- American. And he said "Sometimes it is easier to not go to the meetings and tell members that their way of thinking is wrong. Sometimes it is easier to just not deal with it. Running away from the problem does not make the problem go away, we know this from past experiences as addicts. We as addicts need to learn to stand in our own truths and when we feel someone is saying things that do not belong in NA we need to find our voice and say so."
This man did not put it quite so nicely, he used a lot of colorful words and he made me laugh at myself, he also made a lot of members uncomfortable as they left the room. I am looking for strength to stand in my own truth. Not just in meetings but in my real everyday life. This is part of my recovery, so when I go to a meeting I should feel free to share everything that goes on in my life. But if a group decides to allow bad behavior in their meeting halls I need to let them have their meetings and go else where.

I have a lot of blessings in my life today. I am healthy, I do not have diabetes, I have 3 beautiful girls who give me more joy then one heart can handle. I have a wonderful boyfriend who loves me and my girls and wants to take care of us for the rest of our lives. I have a home, I have a lot of wonderful friends, I have my service work and my fellowship. I am so grateful for my service work because it shows me there is more to NA than what I sometimes see here at home. I have a beautiful garden, I have never in my life grown anything and yet I am learning how to grow a garden!! I am getting to a point in my life where I will be out of debt very soon, I know a lot of people who will be in debt for the rest of their lives, so I have a lot of gratitude for this. I have a community of support from some wonderful people I have never even met who have taken precious time out of their day to read my thoughts and leave me some of the most enriching comments and encouraging words I have ever heard. Thank you. Thank you for caring about me. todays thought;
"When you are grateful-- when you can see what you have-- you unlock blessings to flow in your life."- Suze Orman

just a girlfriend

Every Friday, compose a short story of 55 words -
no more, no less. if you want to join in the
fun and games and give it a try...post your story
and report to the boss Gman!!

Feeling unwanted and unloved. The emptiness inside fills me with thoughts
of finding something else to hide the pain.
I would do anything if I only knew what, but all my questions are asked in vein.
Am I too fat, is it all my debt,
I will never be worthy for your Silence tells all.

not a happy note but it is all i got, i have been in such a sad frame of mind right now all i do is cry or get angry, i think i prefer sadness to anger, so here is my 55 hope you all have a great weekend, don't know when i will be back.- Q

remember to laugh with you whole body

I can feel the cool breeze blowing in the window. there is a chill in the air. i haven't shut the windows all night so i can smell the yard inside. sitting here in my robe my feet cold on the hard floor.
we are going to McPherson this weekend for the RSC. my term as secretary is up and my dear friend, who was going to step into the position is no longer going to be able to commit to a two year term. i already took on another service position in anticipation of leaving the secretary job. i am a great secretary and every bit of knowledge that i have in computers is a direct result of my service work so for that i am very grateful. so i will turn in all my archives and data even if no one steps into the position.
i tried to watch a tutorial this morning and could barely keep my eyes open, not to mention that my Haley got on the entertainment center and tore apart my mothers day arrangement. so it is just a fact that i cannot complete my tutorials while i am watching my girls. i didn't like the stupid flowers anyway. they were a replacement arrangement. i got the most beautiful bouquet on Friday with bright orange, dark purple and deep yellow flowers in it, the vase had these smooth rocks in the bottom and some pretty twine around the edges, a very artistic vase that was just beautiful. well apparently, my Wes thought that the yellow roses were looking a little wilted so he called the florist at work and didn't tell me, but he called them to complain and ask them what were they going to do about this. the florist took down his number and said they would call him back. well yesterday they knocked on my door with this arrangement of very delicate tulips which were white and slightly pink, the vase has these tiny sea shells around the top with little pearl like beads and there are tiny white buttercups in it. then they asked for my pretty flowers back and left. i personally didn't notice the wilting on my roses and i really love the first bouquet i received. so when Wes called me yesterday, i told him they took my flowers away. he said "what?" so i told him what happened and he tried to call the florist but got no answer, imagine he is not their favorite customer. they never even returned his call they just came and took my flowers, so i lost my pretty flowers and these new ones are all brown now anyway so it is really ok that Haley got into it because i liked my other arrangement better. i told Wes i had not noticed anything wrong with the other bouquet and he said he knew i liked it so he was just going to let it go, except the florist came and took my pretty flowers and replaced them with not so pretty flowers.
so it is cloudy out, and I have some housework to do, i also need to work in the garage, i hope to get some of my tutorials out tonight after Wes and Adrianna get home. i think i am going to cook a pot of beans and make some tortillas to go with it. maybe bake some lime chicken tonight to go with my beans tomorrow is gratitude Wednesday and i really need a gratitude check, i cannot wait for my womens meeting and Friday is Flash Friday so at least i will get two more posts in and then maybe be able to catch up on how you all are faring. i really love all the wonderful comments i get from everyone, it is like getting outside affirmations and yesterday when i went and read up on everyone it was like my HP was showing me i was not alone in my mixed emotions and also gave me some wonderful answers for next year. for todays thought; I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou

ramblings of an addict

I sure hope every mom out there had a wonderful mothers day. mine had its good points and bad. i struggled this weekend with appreciating mothers day with my mother gone. it seems to have lost it's importance now that i don't have a mother. i had girlfriends call me to tell me happy mothers day and i was like "am i supposed to call women and tell them happy mothers day, even though they are not my mom?"
i am struggling with step 6 and my "pride". it has taken me over 4 years to see that i have pride, only it is not the usual definition of pride, you know it is like redefining your higher power. when i came into NA i thought i knew what "God" was and the definition of said "God" was that he was mean and spiteful and ready to smite my sinnin' ass straight to hell where i belonged.

in NA we are taught to believe in a higher power, something that is stronger than our addiction and something that is loving and caring, and that is all the definition i need today to have faith and for that i am grateful. the same is true in the meaning of my definition of "pride" where i never knew i had pride was because of my constant self loathing of myself that people who were proud were the ones that were conceited to themselves being proud of themselves. and to me pride was an asset that i did not have. today it is a liability because for me it is my pride that keeps me fighting. like i want to "win" an argument so my pride will go to any lengths to say whatever it is to make the other person wrong. my pride keeps me brimming with anger for hours when all i want to do is let go and say so what i sit and stay angry with my loved ones and my pride hurts me.
i feel as if i am stuck on stupid because i am not moving forward. this weekend was hard because i chose not to talk about my feelings and how i miss my mother. i chose not to speak up about being able to work on my tutorials, then when i tried to speak up it got all messed up and i did not get a hold of my sponsor so i stayed mad. it sucks when your sponsor works 3rd shift and you cannot get her to call you back. so today i woke up tired and sad and i yelled at my babies a couple of times. today is my grandmothers birthday, i used to send her flowers every year. she passed away on february 25, 2005. i had been clean 42 days.

so i can see now that this weekend was hard because i could not be honest with my feelings and i tried to manipulate around it and all i did was create chaos in my soul. i still have to finish my tutorials and i have not been to the gym in a month and well my garden is looking pretty good and my Haley is smiling at me right now. So i will worry about the tutorials in a bit, my children want to play with me. i hope i can surrender today and be ok with grieving my mother. i hope you are all blessed with serenity and happiness, today's thought;

"People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never
between you and them anyway."

--written on the wall in Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta

Friday Flash 55- grateful

Every Friday, compose a short story of 55 words -
no more, no less. if you want to join in the
fun and games and give it a try...post your story
and report to the boss G-Man!

The excitement of the day is here, now, in the moment. No sleep the night before
grinning from ear to ear, too much excitement building up inside.
So welcome each and every day as grateful as today, knowing the present is always a gift,
remember your blessings and always be grateful for the moment.


Here is my 55 G-Man, what do you think?

Gratitude Wednesday and fun

Well I went in to the studio yesterday, full of anxiety. i felt a little unworthy and i was afraid i was not ready for the complete portrait retouch. Libby called me yesterday and has some real work for me, i have been doing the Kelby online training from home but i am unsure of my skills for portrait retouch. i told her i could come in after dinner and i was a wreck all day completely unfocused and i realized my fear and worry were a direct result of my low- self esteem, a character defect i have not yet worked on and yet that is the step i am on. funny i thought i was done listing my character defects and i had already done half of my 6th step with my sponsor, yet here i was crippled with fear over low- self esteem. i thought that after i worked the steps that low self esteem would be gone, i really had no idea it was a character defect. yet here it was in all it's beautiful glory just crippling this little addict into thinking she is not good enough when truth be told, if i use the spiritual principle of "humility" and look at the reality of the situation i have been working with Libby for months now and she knows full well i am in training and she is the one who has given me the skills i know and has helped me so much so why would I feel unworthy? Low Self Esteem. So I went in last night and had a wonderful time with her and we worked on some pictures and I need more work so I took the pictures she needs done home on a jump drive and i am going to finish the professional portrait retouch tutorial today and see where I go from there. I also pitched an idea for her storefront window display that we were going to work on and she loved it so I was given permission to go through her pictures and find the ones i want to work with for this project and when I am finished i can show her and see if it is up to par.
So today is gratitude Wednesday again my where does the week go?
1. i am grateful for humility, sometimes it comes late but i am able to look at life and humbly admit that "everything is not about me".
2. i am grateful for my step work, i am able to look back at myself and see where i really came from and i can appreciate today so much more for that.
3. i am grateful for my ability to see life for what it really is, again this goes back to humility but it is so powerful. i used to walk around in doom and gloom in a world where nobody loved me, poor pitiful me. and that is just not true today and i can focus on the beauty of spring and life all around me and not just me today. so i am grateful for that.
4. i am grateful for my curly hair. growing up i hated my hair it was always a mess and it wasn't pretty like the girls with straight hair and i always tried cutting it myself, my 9th grade picture was me with a mullet because of this!! i recently had my hair cut and now when i wash it i can either straighten it, and it looks great or just leave it and it is full of springy bouncy curls. people ask me if i have had a perm and i tell them no this is natural. funny how i never appreciated what i had growing up.
5. i am truly grateful to see the sunshine today, it is peeking through my blinds and leaving little rays in the air, i can see the dust floating in the air. we haven't seen the sun in over a week it is a welcome sight.
6. i am grateful for the rain we have had, an abundance of beautiful rain that leaves my lawn so green and the scenery here is going to be magnificent next month.
7. i am grateful for the extra washer and dryer in my storage unit, my dryer is going out and it would be awful to try and replace that with a new one. We could afford it, but the shopping for one would suck, so i am grateful for the one in my storage unit.
8. i am grateful for Wednesday and this list i am committed to making it keeps me grounded and happy with my life today.
9. i am grateful for sir Elton John. i love listening to his music and the special memories it brings me when i hear his songs.
10 i am grateful for fishwhiskers. fishwhiskers is new to my blog so i stopped my her site; Crafty whiskers Crochet and was pleasantly surprised to find such a talented and sweet person, just the type i like to follow. for those of you with little ones who want home made earth friendly toys check out her blog and say hi. you will see how crafty she is and what a wonderful addition to the blogging community she is going to be. Thank you for stopping by today.
I hope you all take the time to welcome her to this wonderful community we have here and I hope your Wednesday is filled with gratitude and hope. today's thought;Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.- Melodie Beattie
What are you grateful for today?
Elton John
Here is one you won't want to miss: Enjoy the Ride!!

Learning to Laugh at myself

just taking in this wonderful moment to share some serenity with my blogger friends.......
......breathe in ... breathe out. OK so wow what a crazy weekend i have had now i am in a funk of not feeling up to par and sleepy as all get out and my back is in such pain I am contemplating setting up that appointment with my doctor about steroid injections.
did quite a bit if service this weekend today i am mailing out the last of my newsletters, should have been done months ago, then i need to set up the next edition, which is real easy i already have 4 great articles to put into it. i need to organize all the regional secretary stuff and get it ready to pass on to the next secretary, today we are headed off to order some t-shirts for the upcoming campout, tomorrow we are meeting here to record the hotline and teach other members how to do so, Thursday we are having an adhoc meeting on the campout itinerary and make sure i have all the times right. so i will make this brief so i can do some step work and catch up on my tutorials from kelby training. i apologize for not making it by to comment and see how everyone is doing i hope to do so sometime this week I will have my gratitude list for tomorrow and my Flash Friday though not sure what to write about but i will think of something I really appreciate having a couple of commitments to post on the blog so I don't forget about it.
On another note my garden is coming in and i am going to for sure have radishes, butter crunch lettuce, zucchini, cucumbers, spinach, jalapenos, spring mix lettuce, bibb lettuce, cantaloupe, tomatoes and green and colored bell peppers. not too sure if my carrots are going to do anything and my green beans and snap peas are in the lower part of the garden that has been flooded for over a week so say a couple of prayers to mother earth that they may soon sprout. Also i think we may have found a way to cut $100.00 from our grocery budget. Our Gillybean is lactose intolerant so we have been buying Silk with fiber for her, it seems to help her go, and it cost 3.50 a half gallon and now Wes is drinking it for his G.E.R.D., so we go through at least 6 containers a week, well we went online and found a soy milk maker with all kinds of recipes. the milk maker needs to be able to heat the milk up to 180 degrees to get rid of the bitterness of the soy beans, also you can purchase the beans very cheap and a gallon of milk runs around 40 cents. so we are getting one and we are going to try some different recipes and see how well it works out, i told Wes i would be willing to use the soy milk and give up on cows milk if it would save that much money. Be careful if you go to Amazon though, last Christmas we purchased something from there and our credit card got nabbed and there were 2 -400 dollar charges put on it in New York, of course we were not charged but when we contacted amazon they were not even going to do an investigation of their members. So we have this deal where you can create a card for a one time use and give it a certain limit for online sales and then if some unsavory character gets your number it will be of no value and they cannot get your real number, it is through B of A if you want to check it out it is a customer protection plan. Another thing we went on amazon and ordered a milk maker and the company then told us it was out of stock, and tried to use our money without having the product so double check and call the company to make sure it is in stock first, amazon does have an option that says "out of stock" this company just did not use that option out of fear of losing business. so some food for thought maybe you can save on your grocery budget as well. and for today's thought; “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”-Mahatma Gandhi

crazy rants and the piano man

oh wow, I am feeling a little overwhelmed today. had too much chaos yesterday to want any more today. first off my sisters son turned 19. yippee. so i thought about a gift and a couple of weeks ago he asked me if i had an extra bed and i told him no. he had an air mattress that he put a whole in, not a very responsible kid, actually he is quite a punk. so i thought about buying him a set of sheets for this bed that i was going to give him. i tell my sister(big mistake) and she starts trying to get me to give him a microwave because she doesn't know if he can fit the bed in his apartment, which he is about to lose because he has lost his SSI income.
see all this STUFF has been happening for a long time. I just manage to keep the chaos away. well not yesterday, so we ended up i bought my sheets for my nephew and re gifted the balloons my sister gave me for my birthday, they are still floating!!! anyway she said she would be here around 5 i was in charge of making lasagna and cake for her son and it was almost 4 when she left me in the parking lot at walmart (insert raising stress level here). I get home and my daughter was stuck outside waiting for me because she had no soccer yesterday hooray!! uhg what a day though so my sister doesn't show up until 6.
wait let me back the truck up, so my sister tells me her son has a date at 8pm so she was coming around 5. fine with me because last night was birthday night at one of our local NA groups and I had some members there i wanted to see, took the girls with me too and that was at 8:30.
so now sis shows up at 6, we eat it is around 7 and they want to watch a movie. OK two guys just tried to see if i would pay them to mow my lawn!! ok sorry about that i hate it when i am this distracted. so my sister didn't leave the house until 8:30 and i was 15 minutes late to my meeting and i had a horrible time. and my children were disruptive and members seemed a little intolerant of my Obama shirt, ok outside issue but I am a little intolerant of bigots.
i know kind of a harsh word but when you make light of racist jokes or jokes about people who are gay or lesbian i am sorry i have a zero tolerance for both of those. you know yesterday i read that an 11 year old kid hung himself because he was being bullied and called gay. where do kids learn hate from adults who make light of it, so yes i have a zero tolerance for this and i remembered now why it is i do not visit much with my sister. i love her dearly but it take more patience than Gandhi to tolerate in such a long period of time. and yes i kept people around because my Wes is gone, he is at a mens retreat in Oklahoma and won't be back until tomorrow and i miss him so much. i am so glad he is gone to this though he has been looking for something to do with NA and men for a long time, that was another stupid joke from the peanut gallery last night, "oh i thought wes was into girls, what is he doing with men?" and this is why i only attend the womens meeting at this group because everything that went on last night was not NA. i am so grateful for my recovery and the fact that i know there is so much more to recovery than what went on there and there is so much more to NA than wichita kansas!! tomorrow is our area service meeting and i am trying to do my part to inform the area of happenings and to help in getting meeting schedules done and flyers posted events happening. i really enjoy my service work thanks for letting me vent for todays thought;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCyKcwvV5gE
hope you enjoy your day

Friday Flash 55- Growing Old Gracefully

Friday Flash 55 is still new to me. You write a story of no more that 55 words, and no less than either. Then you let the G-Man know you've posted yours and see what he thinks. This week I had some inspiration from an empty anti- wrinkle cream bottle so Here goes;

Ever Dream of being a princess? Or have a crazy notion of wearing that coveted tiara
of a beauty queen? Then one morning you wake up and notice that extra little wrinkle?
A few too many grays and suddenly your wondering, "Where did the time go?"
Ever think you would look like this at 35?





So here you go G-Man and to anyone else who wants to join just post yours and report to Mr. Know-it-All!! Todays thought; "The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson