Hi honeys…I’m home !!!!!  lol

The very last day of November. Only 2 1/2 weeks since I posted here and it feels like a year. I love this blog, and regardless of what I said before, I am not going to close this one down. It’s my favorite, whether anyone else reads it or not. LOL

I have finished NaNoWriMo, as everyone within a million miles of me knows by now.  I am so pumped that I actually made it to the finish    line, 24 hours ahead of D-Day.  Today I am basking in the glory, *snort* and playing house. I have some laundry to do and I have already run the vacuum and straightened up, put dog toys back in the box, cleaned up the breakfast dishes, etc. I have been on the phone 5 or 6 times already today. I have plans to attend an 8 PM meeting. I am one happy camper.

We had a great Thanksgiving and an even greater post Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. I have a fridge that has plenty of leftovers in it for a couple of days of good eating. Life is good.  Best of all, I have a new Barbara Kingsolver book (she is a goddess!) to read and I think I will start it in an hour or so, when I have laundry going and a nice cup of tea to sip. It was my prize for finishing NaNo. I got an email Borders 50% off coupon and used it to buy the new release.  (I love a bargain!)

We have the first Christmas party of the season to go to on Friday.  I can’t believe we are nearing the end of 2009. This year has alternately sped/crawled by.  I think maybe tomorrow or Wednesday I will get the Christmas decorations out and put them up. I never put them up before the first day of December, and I never take them down until after my birthday on January 6th.  It works for me. lol

As for the rest of my week, a sponsee is going to be moving in to the studio I guess for a month or two. Another just got her own place, the apartment was approved today and she hasn’t got much to furnish it with, so we’ll be looking out for stuff. I thought maybe I’d have a house shower for her, and have everyone bring  whatever small household stuff they can manage. I have already started a basket for her new place, filled with things like dish soap and bath soap, and canned soup, pastas and tuna, tea and coffee.  Just a few of the little things that add up. She’s on a fixed income and things will be tight for her.  But it’s all good and a little help in the beginning is always good.  I’m blessed to be able to help in any little way I can.

I just remembered that I have to make bread today too. Oops. I just got the new Mother Earth News that has a section on healthy artisan breads that you make a batch that makes 4-1 pound loaves, and you can bake it one loaf at a time as you need. That sounds good too, you just keep the unused dough in the fridge and pull off a chunk and raise it and bake it. But for today I’ll use my trusty bread machine.

Okay. Things to do and books to read. I’m one lucky duck.

Namaste.

And I am tired.  Had a great day with my friend and got some important chores done (flea stuff for dogs at the vet, oil change for car, fixed the tail ligh/blinker problem).  It was a cool and overcast day and later the wind came up, making it downright cold.

I think I have decided to cut my hair off again. I am tired of it, and feeling like I look like a ridiculous old woman.  I am going to cut it short and spiky and dye it.  Or have the remaining color taken out so that it’s all white. Hmmm…decisions, decisions…this is a thing I go through all the time.   We’ll see. I get paid tomorrow…I might just do it!

We had a lovely breakfast for supper tonight…red potatoes cooked with onion, garlic, red-yellow-green bell peppers. Eggs perfectly over easy. Yummy whole grain toast from the honey~oatmeal~flaxseed bread I made yesterday.  It hit the spot.

I have been writing a good part of the evening and have to get up early tomorrow again, so I am more than ready to go to bed.  I was up this morning at 5 AM.

We watched Blazing Saddles tonight with our dinner.  Mel Brooks is a comic genius. Period.

Okay–eyes are at half mast.  Must….go…..sleep….lol

Namaste.

Ahhhh….is this heaven then?   Sitting alone in my house in the quiet, eating buttery fresh-from-the-oven  cinnamon biscuits and sipping a cup of bold exotic Sumatran coffee?   Not even a whiff of music playing, save the sounds from outside…the birds twittering their Sunday psalms, the occasional car going by, a dog barking in the distance. Just the muted hum of the computer and the cockatiel chattering away at the cat laying atop his cage.

It’s Sunday morning, and this is my cathedral.

Yesterday was a day full of a delightful 7 year old, and playing in the leaves and doing little bits of odds and ends around the house. Husband was off hiking most of the day, and the weather was incredible. Again today it’s supposed to be 78 on this November roller coaster.  Crazy. Here in the midwest, we gratefully snap up the crumbs of days like this at this time of year because we understand that any minute we are going to get the shit kicked out of us by winter. Last night we stopped at a neighbor up the road from us who had dropped by earlier saying that he decided to have a bonfire and some food and drinks if we wanted to come by. “Couldn’t let this weather pass me by”, he said. We did stop a bit, but didn’t stay more than an hour.  I hurt my back yesterday somehow, and they were drinking too much for it to be fun for too long.  For me.  lol  They were having a ball.  On our way back from taking the 7 year old home, we had seen lots of folks out gathered on their patios, in lawn chairs, around bbq’s for the last hurrah.

I cleaned up the back pantry yesterday, and made room on the shelves for  my appliances that have nowhere to go. In general, they wind up on the bed in the guest room, conveniently situated for the next time I need them. Or cluttering up my kitchen counters. I’m talking about appliances like the bread maker, the electric skillet, the tabletop rotisserie oven..things like that.  My stand mixer. You know.  My thinking was that since I didn’t do much canning at all this year, I may as well move things around and use that space.  Somewhere in transporting things I seem to have wrenched my back and by last night I could barely hobble around. I even took half a muscle relaxer for the spasms, but this morning it’s no better.  So I sent hubby off to the meeting and settled in to pamper myself…with things like buttery cinnamon biscuits and lovely coffee. lol  I am nothing in sobriety if not self nurturing.   The buttery things may not have an effect of my back, but my brains feel better already.  Cinnamon for some reason always imparts a sense of well being to me…even just the smell of it.

I have some crocheting to practice. Some Nano to write. Some coffee to drink.  Later this afternoon, we are going to watch Donnie Darko, Director’s Cut that I ordered from Netflix.  A friend is gifting us with a very nice 27 (29??)  inch Panasonic television that Pat is picking up after the meeting. It will be much better than the tiny 19 inch we have now.

I’m off to spend a day of rest….feet up, aspirin in hand, heating pad at the ready.

Namaste.

************Friday Flash 55*****************

Okay, G-Man…here it goes…

The jazz played softly in the background as she sipped her favorite tea. It was hot and burned her lips, but she didn’t notice.

As her mind wandered aimlessly through the hallways of her past, she was reminded of the smell of night blooming jasmine, growing ’round a doorway.

A tear rolled down her cheek.

It’s another beautiful blue skied autumn day. I got up late, as I was pounding the keys still around 2 AM and didn’t get to bed until late.  I was out for a while last night and after getting back home fooled around a while on the old ‘puter and then got to some writing. I feel like I need  time to myself in the throes of darkness to write sometimes.  Makes it tough when I get sleepy from a full day of stuff. lol  Such is the life of a budding artiste!  lmao…

I am still undecided about what I am doing tomorrow night. I really want to attend the potluck and speaker, who is one of my 3 year old sponslings…and I am supposed to lead the final Deep Ecology class at the same time. I hate this! I am still cooking the turkey for the potluck and have to make a vegetarian dish for the other, which is a potluck as well. Sigh…I am not really undecided, I guess…I do have a firm commitment to this class and we have speaker meetings every month.  There won’t be another class til spring, and I may or may not take it. Depends on the topic, I guess.

I have the turkey out thawing and will roast it tomorrow morning. I had a suddenly free  day today when one of the women I meet with on Wednesdays had a chemistry lab that she had to attend. Fine with me…I didn’t have to get up at 5 and take himself to work on 3 hours of sleep.  lol  That’s a blessing right there!  I am still in my flannel pjs and am finishing my second cuppa joe.  Once I get dressed I’m heading out front to pretty things up out there.  I have some pumpkins and stuff to arrange on the table and will make it all nice and pretty. Sweep the leaves off the porch (which will last about 15 minutes) and  shoo away the gazillion ladybugs (which will last…uh…NOT AT ALL!!!!)   I’ll be glad when they’ve finished their ritual terrorizing of my home…

Need to call my sister today and check up on her and the wayward niece who, of course, never returned my calls. I didn’t expect her to.  It can’t be easy, being face to face with your wreck of a life at 23 years old.  I wish I could just bottle up some recovery and send it on over…pity it doesn’t work like that…

I somehow managed to almost  double my Nano word count last night. Full steam ahead!!  I’m sure that will change soon.  lol

Reading to do, chapter called Ritual Is Essential.  I believe that.  Procrastination seems to be the same for me….

Read a great quote on someone else’s blog and can’t remember who…EO, maybe??  It said “May all beings be free from the tyranny of MY expectations.”   Food for thought…

Blessed day to you all.  I have a full, casual day ahead. Tonight one of my other sponslings will be speaking at 8 o’clock.  Can’t wait to hear her version of the truth! lol (I know you MIGHT be reading this!!!!)  lol   Looking forward to another hour and a half of fellowship and recovery.

Namaste.

Hmmm…I could have sworn that I posted here yesterday. Feeling a might Twilight Zone-ish.  There is no evidence however that I ever traversed these pages. So it goes.

Had a chat with a friend yesterday and we were talking about memory  loss. Or trying to., lol. Menopause brings it’s own dish of memory problems, but honestly, I believe that we just start getting tired of having to remember every freaking little thing. It’s almost as if the brain starts filtering out all the non-essential facts, just to give us a rest.  I know that I have a limited amount of random access memory here, and I really do try to do the best with what I’ve got. Sometimes I just plain forget things, and sometimes I misunderstand what’s been said to me (for one reason or another).  At any rate, since I have commenced to living my life so that my happiness is not contingent on what anyone else does or does not do, it doesn’t matter if I thought someone was coming and they don’t show.  I rarely forget if I’m supposed to be somewhere, but I forget if people are coming here, or not coming here. And it’s okay…I spent a good part of yesterday getting the house cleaned and with such ambition!! (Because I was expecting someone at 11…someone who had [apparently] already told me they weren’t      coming).  Sigh…I just felt alternately silly and pleased…since I got a lot done. This morning someone else is coming at 11, and the house is clean and I’m sitting here on my butt. lol

I am doing NaNoWriMo again this year. I am already behind in the word count, but not by much.  Last year my computer crashed right around this time. This year, I am keeping my writing on a jump drive as well.  I didn’t lose the stuff from last year, I just couldn’t get at it.  SO, wish me well, pray for me to have the discipline to do this, and I am off and running. I got a love letter from the Nanowrimo people this morning, and they told me that everything was going to be alright if I could just get through week 2. lol The tentative name of the novel is Webster’s Last Stand.  We’ll see how long that lasts, lol.

Cooler here this morning. Yesterday was a stunning day of almost 70 degrees and another explosion of those damned ladybugs nearly took over the house. I spent way too much time hoovering the little bastards off the walls and windows. It is a beautifully clear and sunny 47 degrees though…I am going out to sweep the front porch and clean up the rocking chairs area so that I can bring out some pumpkins and stuff to dress it up for fall.  Last night I went to a sponsees house for some f2f time and his darling mother gave me a beautiful wreath she made for me. It’s all dahlias and mums of a dark crimson color, with cattails and greenery. I just hung it on the wall.

I am blessed. Friday night and Saturday I am going to babysit for one of my sponslings who has to work a weird split shift at the restraunt and her 8 year old is coming to spend the time with me.  She also has a 16 year old who has dropped out of school, but he has to work that whole day on Saturday. It will be fun…I don’t get little girls to play with often enough. lol  She’s a sweetheart, and it will be fun. I hope. lol

Alrighty then…off into the day. Gonna make some quickie chicken and rice soup and a salad for lunch, with apples and walnuts in the salad. Hopefully there’ll be enough left over for supper too.

Namaste.

Another month.  Echoes of Novembers past swirl through my mind as I contemplate the upcoming festivities…Thanksgivings and family and fun and not so much fun.  Being so far away from my family for so many years gave me a renewed sense of gratitude when I did finally come back here and start interacting with them.  15 of those years, I did have my AA family around me, and that was a blessing I will never forget. I have them here too, but I have my family of origin around me now…brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and grandchildren.  It has been a good almost 5 years now that I have been back here in my hometown.  Every now and then I get annoyed or worried or hurt by things that go on in the family dynamic, and I gotta say–it’s wonderful.  LOL  If you have never been estranged from your family, you won’t understand what I’m talking about.

Had lunch with a few friends today and visited anothers beautiful home. Then we came home… hubby not feeling too well today. Trying to fight off the flu bug I think.  I played outside with the dogs for awhile and have been on a quest for my lost glue gun. I may need to just buy a new one, as that bad boy has just disappeared. Don’t think they’re very expensive… At supper, we watched the newest Netflix arrival  Good Night and Good Luck …George Clooney and crew did a magnificent job on a subject dear to my heart. Really liked it. Before that we watched No Country for Old Men which was also marvelous. I’m loving Netflix.

It was a 60 degree day here today with beautiful bright blue skies.  As gorgeous a day as anyone could ask for.  It’s down to 46 now…the nights have been getting cooler and all the cats have been coming in every night. Babydog, on the other hand, is staying out as late as she can get away      with.

Husbandman is in the other room watching O Brother, Where Art      Thou? I am loving the music in this film and keep laughing out loud at what I am hearing…

Feeling content and lazy and homebody-ish today…

Namaste.

It’s the end of October. Tomorrow is the beginning of the holiday months and the season of frantic madness as people shop their butts off, cook like maniacs, and become more depressed and more happy than any other time of year. But today…the 31st of October, is Halloween. A holiday of Celtic origin, when spirits walk among us. Followed by All Saints Day. Followed November 2nd by Dia Del Morte, Day of the Dead. I shall be on the lookout…

(My most special Halloween Familiar….)

The sun is shining brilliantly this morning, which is a blessing after so many days of rain. Hopefully the ground will dry up enough to let the farmers get the corn and soybeans in from the fields. It’s 45 degrees at 9 AM…not exactly warm, but still…the sun makes up for a lot. The skies here on the Prairie are bright blue and cloudless and the sun…oh my! the sun….

Dogs and cats are out and about and here and there. We spent last evening with friends in the city, where they have the Trick or Treat night the night before Halloween, from 6-9.  There were hundreds of the little beggars out..everything from Hannah Montana to Zombies to Princesses to Dead Cowboys.  My friends went through over 60 dollars worth of candy.  We had chili and hot dogs and drank decaffeinated coffee and she is teaching me to crochet. While the husbandmen watched a movie, she and I retreated to the computer room where she showed me her Netbook and his new computer and all the toys. We talked of grandchildren and recovery and all things that friends talk about. We didn’t leave until after 11 PM…way late for us to be out, as it’s still a 30 minute ride home.

This morning I got a call from my sister…who is very worried about her daughter. My niece is 23 and has a drinking problem…she wants me to do something…I wish I could. I will give the girl a while to sleep it off and then I will call and see if she really wants help or not. Told her mother (in her drunkenness) that she drinks every day before going to work. She hates her life. She has no friends…yada,yada,yada.  I told my sister it’s just the drunkard’s lament..lol  I will do what I can, because I love my sister and she is very afraid that her daughter is turning into our mother. Maybe this girl will turn her life around , but at this young age, I’m not real optimistic. However, I will do what I can. Miracles do happen, and lives do get saved, and you just never know. My husbandman got sober at 20 years old. It does happen from time to time….

Tonight we “fall” back and reset the clocks for Daylight Savings Time in most of this country. This means it will be pitch dark at suppertime and I will start going to bed at a decent hour.  Maybe.  lol  At any rate, things will slow down after a hectic summer and I am glad for the upcoming winter. (Did I really say that??)  lol  Not so much for the snow and ice and bone crushing cold…but certainly for the slower pace of life.  For cozier evenings with my family.  For more soups and stews.  For sweaters and big wool socks. For holidays and family and all things bright and beautiful….

Namaste.

Raining furiously off and on today. Good day for sleeping in and then staying home and doing housework. I got up, started the coffee, straightened the living room, turned on the computer…finished the first cup of coffee and walked into the kitchen for another, when I noticed a veritable bloodbath on the floor around the food bowl. I mean big  dime sized droplets of blood, and then blood spatter in several places around the hardwood floors. Blood on  the carpet, blood on the sofa cover.  Blood on the throw pillows.  My god…it looked like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre!

Neither of the white dogs had any signs of crimson, so moving on to the black lab, I find she has a tiny little tear at the tip of her ear. Teeny tiny little tear. Right on the vein, apparently. Sheesh.  I cleaned it up and put some neosporin on it. Then I had to mop all the floors.  Take the cover off the sofa and put it in the laundry. Wash the dog food bowl, becasue she has dripped and wiped blood all over the top edges of it. I guess tomorrow I will shampoo the carpet and see if I can get the blood out of it. It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow too though…maybe I’ll just take some hydrogen peroxide to the bloodstains themselves, and wait a bit on the    shampooing…. there’s never a dull moment at Annie’s Ark. lol

I rearranged some furniture this  morning and gave the living space a little bit of a different look. Not sure if I like it or not, but I’ll give it a day or two.

Tonight was our little womens meeting. Good stuff.

There are flash flood warnings everywhere around these parts. Even worse now, because there’s been so much rain this month and the ground is saturated and the water has nowhere to go. Creeks are swollen, roads are flooded. Crops are still in the fields that should probably have been out by now. Warmer though-still 63 degrees at 11 o’clock at night.

I have just about decided to do NaNoWriMo again this year.  I really should….I just have so little discipline.  Maybe this is how I could learn some though. Last year I started, but my computer blew up and I didn’t have the money to get it fixed. maybe this year I could even finish it.  Hey—-it could happen…

Detour Road in all it’s autumnal glory…looks like the long road home, doesn’t it?

Tomorrow we will go to a friends house who does a big driveway Halloween event every year. She’s invited us for chili and goodies. The city she lives in has their Halloween parade on the 31st, so all trick or Treating is done on the 30th.  It will be fun.

I seem to have lost my cursor on the page….how weird.  I  cannot see where I’m typing until

the  words begin   to   appear.

Uh-oh…this looks like trouble….better figure some things out…..

Namaste.

This is a photo  I took this afternoon in the back yard. The colors are muted, due to the heavy rains of the past few days, but still rich. I walked around taking pictures for about 20 minutes.  I like photographing my environment.  It connects my past and present to my future. I keep wanting to do more, but never do.  It’s an old story.  My little digital camera is okay for snapping shots , but I’d like a 35 mm digital. With lenses. And mega-ZOOM.  lol I’m actually quite a passable photographer…

It was grey and/or rainy all day. I spent most of the day in town, meeting with various and sundry sponslings and fielding phone calls.  Went to a noon meeting and then to a pleasant lunch at my favorite Chinese place with 2 very nice women. Sat around a bit with one of the women when it was over and went over some first step questions and readings. Came home, took some pictures and was off to pick himself up from work. Tired, and grateful that tomorrow I am staying home all day. Nesting. Regrouping. I will be chairing the womens meeting in the evening, but the rest of the day will be all mine.

On 3 separate occasions today, I got to look in depth at step 1.  What a blessing that is for me. To be able to offer perspectives that were unknown, to offer ideas for changing attitudes and negative emotions, to be able to offer that precious commodity Hope. To get to reminisce about what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now.  To remember how full of fer I was in those early days, and to know that there is a way through all this stuff that scares us so much. To know and be able to promise, that we can get better.

I remember seeing a Tshirt years ago, from an NA convention, and on the back it said…”The lie is dead…we DO recover!!!!!”   Somedays I want to shout it from the rooftops. We do!!! We CAN !!!

LOL

I think I’ll roast a chicken tomorrow.  I have a couple of gorgeous huge birds in the freezer that I can use (only one, of course!)  and will either rotisserie roast them, or drag out my big roaster. I really like the little tabletop rotisserie my sister-in-law gave me…I use it often.  Now that I think about it, I have 2 Cornish game hens in the freezer that are older than the roasting hens, maybe I should use those. I keep those bad boys on hand as they make a delightfully elegant dinner for guests at a delightfully low price. I have been thinking about raising them, but I don’t know if I can butcher them…I am such a MARK….sigh….I really need to pull up my big girl panties and learn how to do that.  Raising and freezing my own poultry would be a very good idea, both from a flavor and a financial perspective. I’m still thinking about it..

Okay…I’m outta here.  Happy days all…

Namaste.