surrendering my self

well i cheated myself last night, it was birthday night and without thinking i had a piece of cake!!
today i am having some 7 grain toast with my grillers, my thoughts on this are simple, i do not want to toss out an entire loaf of bread that i took out last weekend and did not have any. today i am hitting the gym now that my girls fevers are finally gone.

here's the thing, i asked Wes about this diet again and he is driving me nuts!! now he says eating cheeses are too much fat, well what the heck am i allowed to eat then!! i have definitely cut my intake down, as of last week i lost 3 pounds i will find out if i have lost any more today. now i have told myself i would indulge on the weekends and i have not. tomorrow is "A's" sweet sixteen and we cannot afford much but i will be having a piece of cake with my daughter. I don't know what i am doing or if i am doing anything right. i know i do not have high blood pressure so i can have some salt, i do not have diabetes so i should be allowed some bread, i do not like to eat eggs everyday, i just don't. so i need to allow myself something.

This is something out of the Just for Today Meditation from October 27..

For many of us, the past is like a bad dream. Our lives aren’t the same any more, but we still have fleeting, highly charged emotional memories of a really uncomfortable past. The guilt, fear, and anger that once dominated us may spill into our new life, complicating our efforts to change and grow.

I have my past sometimes creep up into my present and sometimes i don't even recognize when this happens. Sometimes i feel like i am not doing enough, enough for my family or for my home or enough just to be good enough. then i get stuck, this has been my M.O. for years, well my whole life really. and when i get stuck i allow all the other bad thoughts to swirl in my head. The literature always speaks to me, the NA literature. So i know by reading on that it also tells me that the steps are the key to unlocking these patterns and freeing myself of this chain. So why do i take so long on something that only helps me? it is like i am stuck on stupid and cannot find the willingness to move forward with my steps. i am on 7 and last year for my birthday i had just finished step 6 so i have been working on this for almost a year now!! OK so today, now that i am writing this down, today i will work on my stepwork. i will post about it tomorrow so that i give myself a deadline. i need to do this or i just won't.

another thing that gets me in this funk is not having a gratitude list, which i have not posted one all week so here is my gratitude list to keep me in today;

1. today i am grateful for the willingness to move forward on my steps.
2. today i am grateful an addict reached out to me this week.
3. today i am grateful Halloween is this weekend!!
4. today i am grateful for my beautiful children, who wake me up at night just so i can hold them.
5. today i am grateful for the time to cuddle with these two little sweet hearts.
6. today i am grateful my "A" doesn't know she is getting anything for her birthday, it is getting harder and harder to surprise her each year.
7. today i am grateful for the gift of family i have been blessed with.
8. today i am grateful for the ability to let go of my past, so it doesn't affect my relationship now.
9. today i am grateful we choose to be healthy and have a healthy lifestyle for our children.
10. today i am grateful i do not know how to make a mousse. well not really but i am glad that i did not get upset with the slop that came from my feeble attempt yesterday.

We were getting ready for birthday night and i wanted to make a sugar free, carb free dessert and i had this recipe for lemon mousse. it called for cooking the lemon part very similar to a pie filling but no corn starch. then you needed to make a meringue and fold the cooled part in it. then make some whipped cream and fold that in the mix and viola! well my first part of cooking the egg yolks, butter and lemon, it was not smooth it was curdled. then the meringue, that was good i made that good so i mixed the lemon part in but it wasn't cooled enough i think. then it kind of fell, i am not sure how to fold food. then i tried to make the whipped cream and it started to turn into butter!! so not wanting butter i tried to fold that into the falling meringue mix, it fell more. then i thought if i beat it a little more maybe it would fluff up. nope, it looked like snotty goop. it tasted good though!! Wes loved the flavor!! this recipe called for splenda as well so it was completely sugar free. The old me would have been cussing and screaming for this not working, yesterday i just laughed.

I really appreciate all your kind thoughts from Tuesdays post. that was one of the most difficult times in my life, and there are many more horror stories i could have put in, this was a daily ordeal. but thinking about that time really scares me. and it is not like i try to not remember, it is my past that got me where i am, i just try not to be there. if that makes sense. so i need to bathe my girls and take them out for the morning, i hope you all have a wonderful hump-day!! we are going to try on our costumes for a trunk-or-treat tonight. they are going to look so cute!!! so here is today's thought;"Remember that happiness is a way of travel - not a destination."

--Roy M. Goodma

Remembering the Past and my Mom

"Letting go", was the title of today's meditation from my literature. It was 10 months ago today my mother died. It was 5 years ago today that my father died. I was so devastated that I wanted to die. That is when I stuck a needle in my arm. That was the beginning of the end for me. The next year was a flash of nothing but stealing, bad hotel rooms, jails and an overdose in one of those sleazy places that almost killed me. Later, I remember being dope sick and I was very angry at my mother. I had just gotten out of jail and needed a fix. I had just spent the last year away from my family coming and going as I pleased and my baby was so worried that she stayed up all night crying and praying for me and I didn't care. I remember trying to pack everything up in my van and telling my daughter to pack her things we were leaving. I remember her telling me no. She said no mom, I am not going with you, I love you if you want to go then go I will stay here with grandma. I remember I was angry with her for that so I left to go get high, but I had no money. I had been sick for a few days, then I remember when my fingers started hurting. I looked up and my fingers were hurting, there was a policeman fingerprinting me and I told him "You're hurting my fingers." That was the first thing I felt in a while was my fingers. Then I sat in jail for a while longer, and I started to hurt. And I remembered my baby and the words she said to me and I wanted to make it better. So I decided that I was done using and I was going to go home and fix what was broken. I found out I couldn't do it alone. I tried for four months and I was having horrible fits of rage and I just couldn't function. I remember beating the tiles on the bathroom floor for hours I still have callouses on my knuckles from it. I left my house and wandered the streets all night that night. I wanted to do something to get me thrown in jail with the rest of the garbage because I was worthless. I remember going to the hospital where the waiting room is for people who have babies, it was warm and they had free coffee. I called my mom in the morning and she asked me where was I so I told her. She asked if it would be ok to bring me some sandwiches because I had to be hungry. I told her that would be fine but I was not coming back home. When she got there she asked me to come home. I told her "Why do you want me home? Mom, I can't even think right, I am worthless I stole all your money why do you want me home?" and she told me "Baby, don't you know how proud of you I am, I love you, you stopped all that stuff and you are trying to get better. Please come home. It will be ok." We sat there on the bench and cried together for a while, then I went home and called a treatment facility. My clean date is January 8, 2005 this is my first attempt to stop using and so far the journey has been amazing to say the least. It was not always easy and it won't always be. But today I can handle life and I wake up happy, I am no longer and Eeyore in life. Today I am a Tigger I know how very precious life is and how very lucky I am not to have been inflicted with some life threatening illness. When I first walked in the doors of NA with the gift of Desperation I was sick, sad and sorry. I was afraid of going to the doctors to see what was wrong with me. I just knew I had some kind of tumor or HIV or Hep C. I knew it. As it turns out my tumor was a baby, I was 6 months pregnant. No idea, none. Shortest pregnancy on record I found out I was pregnant on September 9th and my baby was born on December 28th 2005. Then I go and have another baby on December 15th the following year!! They will both be 2 years old for 13 days next month!! I have the ability today to love my life, and my family.I don't yell at my babies and we play so much. I love them so much it hurts and I love them some more still. As I stated earlier my mother died 10 months ago today. She had cancer and I took care of her during that. I am still letting go of her a little everyday and I miss her so very much. I am grateful today for my father dying, though it is bittersweet he was my best freind. I am grateful though because if he had not died I would still be using. I never would have stuck that needle in my arm, I never would have hit my bottom and come into recovery. Because my father died, my mother was able to hold my hand and walk me through my darkest hours. Because my father died I was able to hold my mothers hand as she walked through her darkest hours and for the love we have together through working these steps in recovery, I was able to let go, a little at a time. And for today's meditation, Many of us have said; "Take my will and my life, Guide me in my recovery, and Show me How to live." Just For Today Meditation book for November 15th.