Warrawong Lodge Hosts Its First Wedding

My sister Karen and her husband Frank built a B&B named Warrawong Lodge (WL) in Far North Queensland on the Coral Sea—home of the Great Barrier Reef.  The WL is laid out so that it is also a great place for weddings and parties with an impressive commercial grade kitchen.

Yesterday they hosted their first wedding.  It went really well.  The previously unknown caterer lives only a few kilometers down the road and really liked their facility.  Hopefully that will lead to more referrals.

WL is not yet self-supporting.  My sister is a CPA with an MBA blessed to have chosen a career in financial database programming that allows her to work remotely making big-city technology wages.  This allows her to live in Clifton Beach while working for a company located in Sydney due to her decades of experience with a highly desired unique skill set.

Frank has been putting finishing touches on the 3 acre yard including 1500 meters of irrigation pipe with 11 water pumps.  Although they live next to a rain forest, there is an extended dry season that makes for a tough environment for plants to thrive.

I am grateful for my sister and how she helped me find my way life at a time when I was completely lost suffering from incomprehensible demoralization.  I don’t know much about the wedding.  I am proud of my sister and happy for her success as a programmer and in the completion of their dream home.

Toni’s Last Day—At Work

My friend Toni retired yesterday.  She was a research professor working at Harborview.  From what I can tell by her resume, she was the leader of the team that advised the powers that be in Olympia (governor, legislature, top bureaucrats) on how to best allocate drug rehab funding in the State of Washington.  [She said that was not quite correct, but it makes for a nice simple story.]

Lea and I were at Harborview so she could get tested for carpal tunnel.  I left a vmail for Toni before the test letting her know we would like to visit her after the test if we could.  After the test, I called again and we arranged to meet outside on a warm day by the ER for a minute before Toni had to go to a retirement lunch with her coworkers.

I told Toni of my conclusions about her job based on Goolging her name and reading her resume online last week after another friend mentioned in a tongue-in-cheek way that Toni is famous.  I don’t know if Toni is famous, but she did get the first ten hits on Google being about her.

I pointed out that if she was the leader of said rehab funding advisory team, then Lea’s recovery via methadone was the ultimate end product of a long and distinguished career.  At that point, Toni and Lea were hugging each other crying tears of joy.  It was a special moment on a big day in Toni’s life. 

Last night, Toni emailed me letting us know how important it was to her that we stopped by to say “hi” on her last day.  That was a bright spot on an otherwise tough day for her.

I am grateful for my friends, for my now being a much better friend to them, and for being able to share our joy & gratitude with each other.

7 Days of Swimming

I swam for 7 days in a row yesterday.  Every day has been a perfect touch more exercise that leaves me tired at night and refreshed in the morning.  Yesterday was the first time I swam for an hour in 26 years.  My pace is the swimming equivalent of a slow jog with brief spurts of running and stopping to tie my shows, i.e., to fix my float or hand-paddles positioning.

When I swim by myself, the lifeguards have been very helpful in holding my chair  while I flop into the pool and then setting my chair by the window away from the pool.  They will get my chair, run the lift and hold my chair while I get out.   They have all been kind and helpful.  Most of the lifeguards are young and a little unsure of (slightly freaked out by?) bracing my chair while I get in and out of it.  After a time or time, it is no big deal for them.

Two more swims and I am going to buy a 3-month pass.  Unfortunately, the pool closes for a month from late August to early September.    That gives me another 6 weeks of swimming to look forward to until then.  That is good enough for today.

I am grateful to have fantastic facility to swim in, the money to pay for swim-time, a car to get to swimming, helpful lifeguards and how good I am feeling thanks to endorphins and the self-esteem I am getting from being the kind of person that exercises on a daily basis.

Helping Lea Advocate For Better Healthcare

After 32+ years of being paralyzed, I have skillz as a healthcare advocate for myself.  Yesterday I got to use those skills to help Lea.  She suffers from week-long bouts of body pain.  When she went to her doctor at the public health clinic on Monday, he dismissed her pain out of hand as either being a mental health issue that he could not treat or, more nearly, drug seeking behavior.  He did not do any tests or even examine her body.

When we went on Tuesday, he did at least touch her body at a few of her pain points.  After the doctor described her problems as “being subjective”, I asked about running some objective tests.

I pointed out that they had her for being positive for Hepatitis C and another clinic reported her being negative for HepC, he at least ran another test for HepC instead of merely for HepC antibodies.

Dr Hwang nattered on about mental health issues and stress.  I countered with her having been doing Mindfulness Based Stressed Reduction (MBSR) as explained by Jon Kabot-Zinn for months.  He then said he could not give her medication to help with the pain (since she is a former IV heroin addict).  I countered that with asking that he try to find the cause of the pain to see if that could be treated pointing out that Lea has been diagnosed as having and not-having Lupus.  He agreed to run a preliminary blood test for signs of auto-immune diseases.

It sucks that I had to develop these skills as a healthcare advocate for my own needs.   It is great that I am now able to use them help others get better healthcare.   On Monday, she got dismissed out-of-hand from the clinic with no hope for any kind of diagnostic help.  On Tuesday, they drew blood and ran some tests.  That was great progress and brought Lea tremendous comfort in the change from being treated as sub-human to being seen as a patient with valid healthcare concerns.

I am grateful for my healthcare advocacy skills and for being able to help someone else see a future that involves a much higher quality of healthcare than being told she has mental health issues and having her pain ignored by her primary care practitioner.  She slept ten hours last night—8 hours more than the night before.

Second Effort

After being turned away at the Warm Springs Pool yesterday afternoon, I made a second trip to the pool last night.  It was a glorious swim and a chat with my new friend Laura about positive psychology and mindfulness.

I am grateful that the pool is minutes from my home with good parking and that I am able to independently swim by myself.  The bliss from exercise (endorphins)continues unabated! 

Points For Trying

Lea and I tried to go swimming this afternoon.  Unfortunately the pool was closed for unscheduled maintenance on the first day of the summer schedule.  We might be able to go swimming later.

I am grateful that we at least tried to go swimming.

Angels In My Life

I finished reading Angels 101 by Doreen Virtue last week.  According to the author, angels are everywhere in our lives either as some nebulous energetic beings our showing up as people in our times of need.  Much of it was a too woo-woo for me.   With a slight interpretative twist of the people in my life, especially friends, being my angels, it was a nice book on positive thinking.

The book stated that if we ask our angels their names, they will tell us.  That was a direction my imagination could not travel easily.  It was easy to think people whose names I know as being my angels.

I would be lost and alone (or more nearly, dead by now) without my angelic friends and supporters in my life to help me find my way.  Thinking of the people in my life helps me view each person as being even more important to me.  That goes along well with last November’s new-found profound need for better relationships in my life.   Valuing people more helps me value our communication and relationships a lot more.

I have more good friends (angels?)  in my life than I have ever had before.   They are vital to the quality of my life with their love, support, advice, help and kindness.  They also call me on my BS.

I am grateful for the corporal angels in my life today.  There are a dozen close friends, scores of friends and hundreds of acquaintances that are all angels for me.

A Big Project

For most of my adult life, I have had a big project I was working on—at least in my mind.  Few of these projects ever came to complete fruition.  There was a lot of alcoholic grandiosity going on which enabled me to avoid living in the present moment by being focused on the future when someday…I would be successful and complete.

I have not had a big project for years.  Last week while talking with older friends in recovery that I have great respect for, they did not have grand projects either.  Simply staying sober has been tough for me.  Even so, I need to do more by way of getting a hobby or leisure activity.  Swimming is a fantastic start.

While facing a blank screen this morning, it occurred to me that my big project could be me.  While at the doctor’s office this week, I got weighed.  With my chair, boots and backpack, it was 330 lbs.  Basically, I am a shade over 300 lbs.  That has got to change.  I need a big project.  Voila!   My big project is to swim every day and lost weight until I get to be less than 210 lbs.  It has been 30 years since the last time I weighed 212 lbs.

I am grateful for my newfound big project of diet and exercise.  Now I know what I will be doing every day for the foreseeable future.  I will need all the help I can get from my “angels” to achieve this goal.  Even if I fail to make 210, whatever progress I make will be a great success.

A Progress Report On My New Habits For 2013

Since making committed New Year’s Resolutions in January, I have been working on developing new habits as a part of a healthy daily routine. 

The new habits now include:

·         Going to a meeting every day

·         Writing my Gratitude blog every morning

·         Reading morning devotionals about mindfulness and spirituality

·         Being kinder to myself and others

·         Exercising 3x week

·         Healthier eating

My meeting attendance is averaging slightly more than one meeting per day.  I don’t always write my Gratitude blog in the morning, but I have done better than hoped for about writing every day (except for a 10 day dry spell in March).  Reading devotionals in the morning is more likely to happen than my Gratitude blog writing, if I miss a morning something is always read by the end of the day.

Studying mindfulness has helped me be kinder to myself and others.  I get to live a lot more in the moment and with much less fearful future-tripping.  When I am living in the moment, my life is pretty good—I have food, a nice safe place to live, a car that runs, a wonderful wheelchair, a king-size bed, a giant TV, exercise and the love of good friends.  When I am living in the future, my thinking becomes fearful, full of self-pity and depression.  That happens a lot less than it used to.

Since committing to exercising multiple times each during a conversation with Bernadette on April 16th, I have exercised 3 or more times each week for the last two months.  That has made a world of difference in my attitude, energy and physical abilities.  I was headed towards being homebound by obesity.   Now I have a path towards physical fitness and weight loss via swimming.

Healthier eating is off to a simply easy start by not letting Michelle pan-fry meals soused in oil.  More fruits & veggies, less beef and pork, and much less junk food has at least greatly slowed or even stopped the constant continuous weight gain.

I am grateful for the miraculous progress I have made in living a better life so far this year.  I am optimistic about the future being even better.  A great big thank you to god and all the people that have helped me live a better life.  I could not and would not have done it without you.

Swimming On My Own

For two weeks, Lea was helping me shower and dress after swimming.  I could not have done it on my own from the get-go.  For the last three days, Lea has been unavailable for swimming with me.  After two days without swimming, I could no longer allow my dire need for exercise to be held hostage by flaky help.  Today I went swimming on my own.  It worked really well.

I had been trying to shower on a wooden slat bench.  That is high-risk for my bony tailbone.  After I transferred to the bench from my wheelchair, Lea would push a pneumatic cushion underneath me.  Still not great.    Between the bench’s weird “L” shape and the slippery tile, the transfers to the bench and back to my wheelchair were bound to end in disaster sooner than later.

My big idea was to put a towel on my chair, then cover the towel and chair with a heavy-duty garbage bag.  That worked like a champ.   I could shower from my wheelchair, dry off, slip the bag off, dry off some more and then get dressed in my chair like I usually do.  My high-compression stockings are impossible to put on in the 100% humidity of the locker room.  That is not a problem for an hour or two.

I really appreciated Lea’s help getting me to this point.  I could not have done it without her and the two weeks of tinkering to get a working solution for showering and changing on my own at the pool.  It sucked needy help from others to accomplish basic activities of daily living such as getting exercise from swimming. 

On a side note: being a paraplegic is challenging, it is vital to my independence to have the use of my arms and hands;  It is funny-peculiar how many, if not most, people can’t see the difference between a paraplegic and a quadriplegic.  

I am extemely grateful for the independent living I get by having the full use of my upper body and for the freedom to be able to go swimming (and shower) on my own without being dependent on the help of others.  

A Late Night Post

My goal is to write a Gratitude blog post every day.  Missed writing for yesterday by a few hours.    I have many good things in my life to be grateful for.  However, at 4:37 AM, nothing profound is coming to mind.  It does feel good to at least check in for the sake of (a foolish?) consistency.

I am grateful for innumerable good things in my life today.

I Don’t Have a Toothache

 I am going to the dentist tomorrow for a cleaning and to have him put a little “bondo” on a chipped front tooth.

I have been reading several pages a day from Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh.  Tonight’s reading was about being grateful for the problems we don’t have such as not having a toothache.

I am grateful to have all my teeth (sans wisdom teeth) in good working order with no dental pain.

A Wonderful Day

Today was much like every other day this last two weeks, only with a better attitude.  A trip to the clinic with Lea, a meeting, swimming for 35 minutes, home for lunch and then a nap, followed by an early supper with Sandy on a sunny warm  76°Bellevue late spring day.   That is as good as my life has been in a long time.

I have been reading about angels which is a little woo-woo for me in a literal sense.  However taken in a more practical perspective of the people in my life being my “angels”, it works well for me to be able to manifest even more gratitude for the good things in my life.

I am grateful for the good people and useful resources in my life today.

Celebrating Toni’s Birthday Today

Toni’s birthday was on 6/11.    Several of her friends are getting together at the 3^rd Floor Nordstrom Café in Bell Square at 5 to have dinner with her and give her some birthday presents. 

We met at the Nordstrom Cafe for my birthday in March.  That worked really well since the café was almost empty and very quiet so we (I) could easily hear what others were saying.

Toni is going to retire in early July.  She might keep working part-time.  It will be interesting to see what directions her life takes her from here.

I am grateful for my friendship with Toni, for having nice friends, and to Leslee for organizing a celebration for Toni and for me back in March. 

Swimming 5x in Six Days

After having gone 20 years without swimming at all—not even once, I have been swimming 5x in the last six days.  It is working out really well in terms of getting great exercise.   Due to my lack of physical fitness along with being extremely overweight and the setup at the Bellevue Aquatic Center Warm Springs Pool, I can’t shower at the pool without help from Lea.

My weight and lack of physical fitness had become a life-threatening condition before I was able to admit to needing help.  Funny (in a bizarre way) how I can ask a stranger at the grocery store for help getting an item off the top shelf, yet when it came to a life-or-death situation for me needing exercise I had a dilemma between asking for help or continuing on towards being homebound due to an underpowered power-to-mass ratio.

I am loving my time in the pool and am already much more mobile than I was less than two weeks ago when I went for my first swim.  Each swim session has been a bit more physically demanding than the previous session.   I come home exhausted and sleep for a couple of hours.  Thank god it is a 90° pool.   I would not be able to exercise nearly as much in a cooler pool.  

My “swimming” consists of treading water in a variety of ways since the pool is too small and busy for swimming long laps.  I really enjoy my time in the pool and still have more ideas for exercising different muscles while I swim in one corner of the pool.

I am grateful for the warm springs pool and its lift to get me out of the pool, Lea for motivating me to swim and helping me to shower afterwards, having the resources to get to the pool and pay for swim sessions, and having the time in my day to come home to sleep for hours after my swim.

Some Mechanical Ability

My father taught me a lot about mechanical devices, their nuts & bolts, welding, hydraulics and more while growing up on a farm.  I don’t often overtly use those skills living in an apartment, but they are damned handy when I do need them.

A bearing has been failing on the right front castor of my wheelchair.  I had ordered a new one last month ago from the vendor, ATG Rehab.  When the vendor was a mile from my home in Bellevue they were slow.  Now they moved to Lynnwood and are owned ATG Rehab with an even slower processes to getting new parts for my wheelchair.

Yesterday, the bearing failed completely and is frozen solid rendering my wheelchair difficult to use and slow to go anywhere.  This morning, I took the bearing assembly apart.  The bearing is still frozen, but I loosened the axle bolt and so have a mechanical bearing instead of the ball-bearing.  It is much better than it was, but still a farm-fix with a damaged bearing.

I am grateful for the mechanical skills my father taught me growing up on our family farm.

Helping Others Find Courage

Ten years ago, Lea left her family for a life of crime and using.  Yesterday she had 3 months of methadone treatment along with daily 12-step meetings.  She has not met with her son or daughter on a regular basis in years.  Her son talks with her by phone.  Her 18 y.o. daughter Lori and ex-husband have not responded to phone calls nor a letter.

Lori turns 18 on Saturday and graduates from both High School and Beauty College this week.   Of course Lea is despondent for her failure to show up as a mother and would like to attend these major milestones in her daughter’s life.  Almost undoubtedly, it would be extremely counter-productive for Lea to show up uninvited.

Yesterday, Lea was courageous by accepting life as it is and making the best of a bad situation by getting Lori one card each for her birthday, her high school graduation and for her beauty school graduation.  It is unimaginable how painful it is for an addicted mother like Lea to look at the wreckage of her past and start picking up the pieces to clean up that mess after years of being AWOL from her children’s lives.

It was as powerful a performance of courage and right action as I have ever seen by an addict in recovery.  First, Lea talked it over with her sponsor and then she got the cards and then wrote to her daughter and her husband (Sunday is Father’s Day).  Nobody knows what the results will be from Lea reaching out to her family.  At the very least, Lea will know she did the best she could in the current situation.

I am grateful to have people as courageous as Lea in my life.  I got a motivational thought for day by email.   Yesterday’s was most appropriate, "We're not in the results business. We're in the footwork business."

Making Progress

I have been diligently reading and studying mindful meditation for years.   For the last several months I have redoubled my efforts yielding gratifying results.  I am serene and happy with a zest for life that had been missing for years and years.

Today, I am grateful for my serenity, friends, progress and recovery.

My Friend Sandy

I have known Sandy for almost 7 years.  We have gone out to supper once a week for 6 years.  Our friendship is vital to my emotional well-being.  After my nasty months-long relapse last year, we met at a Mexican restaurant in Bellevue on my first day sober on a Monday.  While talking with her that night on the rainiest night of the rainiest month of the year in Bellevue, I realized that my relationship with others is the most important human issue in my life (my spirituality and sobriety are prerequisites for relationships with others).

I feel foolish for having learned that about relationships at 53 years old.  D’uh!  It seems like little kids should intuitively know that early in life.  Somehow that lesson escaped me for a long long time.  Even know when writing about the priority of relationships in my life, I wrote a bunch of extraneous details about Mexican restaurants, Bellevue, rainy days and rainy months—although those details are vivid reminders of where we where and what it was like when I made the profound realization of the importance of relationships for myself.

Sandy is a reserved person and yet shows me her feelings better than any person in my life.  As an old fat guy in a wheelchair, it is tempting for me to think “if only I were younger, ambulatory, smarter, richer, etc…, life would be great”.  Sandy is younger, ambulatory, smarter and beautiful. Yet her life is not perfect and she is often frustrated by her issues.  Sharing with her about our own issues helps me keep my “if only…” thinking in check.

I am unimaginably grateful for my close relationship with Sandy.  My life is infinitely better for having her in it.

Letting Go of Self-Righteous Anger

The topic for our morning meeting was letting go of impatience.  My impatience generally disguises itself as self-righteous anger (SRA) in the form of “they are not doing it right”.  Being stuck behind cars driving slower than the speed limit 3-abreast down a 3-lane freeway lights up my SRA. 

I get annoyed by their ignorance, deliberate obtuseness and selfishness.  It is not that I am in a hurry or am late.  I allow myself to be annoyed by stupid drivers in a variety of forms.   I hate tail-gating the car in front of me.   Stuck behind weird driving causes others to then also drive erratically which takes the form of cutting me off.  I then have to take change my following distance to avoid being repeatedly cutoff or else have cars speed in front of me only to hit their brakes because they are still stuck behind the same selfish motorists—only now they are one car closer to being where they want to go.

My SRA is not limited to driving situations.  That was just an example that did not involve me being egregiously in the wrong.  My defects of character consisting of varying combinations of the 7 deadly sins (wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony) serve to fuel my anger.  Greed and pride probably provide the most fuel. 

Fear is the real source of all my fuel. Simplistically, there are two kinds of fear: fear of not getting what I want and fear of losing something I already have.  Being afraid of not getting “my share” or “my turn”.  I don’t know if it is greed, pride or gluttony that trigger my SRA per the freeway example and am not sure it matters beyond intellectual naval gazing.

I do know as I become more spiritually fit, I have fewer and shorter bouts of SRA that are more often immediately followed by a prompt admission of wrong-doing on my part when possible.

I am grateful to enjoy my enhanced spirituality and for spending less time in self-righteous anger.

A Different Standard for Construction

My sister Karen and her husband Frank had Ash Mosely Homes (AHM) build their dream house/B&B in Clifton Beach on the Coral Sea in NE Australia.  They named it Warrawong Lodge which is aboriginal for “side of a hill”.  They have a spectacular hilltop view of the Coral Sea.

For years, AHM had a great reputation for high-end quality homes.  That reputation is now in the crapper.  They went from averaging one Request to Rectify per year to 6 in 2012 while at the same time going from building 7 homes/year to 2.  As a long-term member of 12-step programs, I have a simple explanation that fits the facts…

AHM did mostly good job on building the home.  It is level and square.  Unfortunately, mostly good left room for plenty of problems such as leaving the deck lumber out in the rain for months before installing and painting it.  Bear in mind that while Australia is the driest inhabited continent the Daintree Rain Forest is their backyard.

My sister is a recent resident of Clifton Beach.  Before that,  they lived in Sydney for years.  She is not new to Australia and is an assertive advocate for her rights.  AHM violated building codes, standards and their contract.   At her request and substantial document, the Queensland Building Services Authority (BSA) has already sent a Direction to Rectify to Ash Moseley Homes for their deck among other items to be fixed. Karen has blogged her experience at http://ourcairnshouse.wordpress.com.

A deck problem might sound trivial.  Their deck is 150 feet long and up to 15 feet wide above a steep slope.  It is not a cheap simple fix.  

I regret that my sister has had so many problems with AHM.  I am proud of her for advocating for her consumer rights.   It is good that Australia is strongly pro-consumer rights compared with the USA.  Here it would be lawyer vs. lawyer.  Down under, the BSA is taking steps to ensure that the problems are paid for by the contractor’s insurance/bond.

I am grateful to have a wonderful smart creative sister that is a good advocate for herself.  I have learned a lot from her in my life.

Up Early on a Saturday Morning

Got up at 7 AM on a Saturday for no particular reason.  It has been a communicative morning having written several emails, sent a txt message and talked with Greg in Minneapolis.

I am grateful for a good start to a potentially wonderful day.

Literacy -- Reading is a Great Thing!

I have been a reader all my life and come from a family of readers.  That has been a huge blessing in the Information Age.  It enables me to continue self-study as a life-long learner reading from books and the web. 

The reading world has undergone fantastic change since my childhood on the farm where the latest news came from the newspaper or a magazine.  Now a magazine is a nice portable disposable source of reading and not something that is read at home.  I read a copy of The Economist over the last month while waiting in my car for others to run errands.  

Yesterday I read a discarded copy of the Seattle Times newspaper while waiting to meet Sandy for lunch at Crossroads Mall.  It was an emaciated version of formerly great regional newspaper.  It is amazing how free online ads from the nonprofit Craigslist almost single-handedly killed the newspaper industries regional price-fixing oligopoly on advertisements.  (I bought a bicycle and a beading kit off CL in the last week for a total of $40—that was about the price of an ad back in the day.)

I am grateful for written communications, literacy, my love of reading and the miracle of the world wide web in my lifetime.

Living in the Present Moment

I have enjoyed a long continuous string of successful happy serene days for months as a result of diligently working on overcoming chronic depression, drug addiction, paraplegia and other health care issues for the last 14 years.

When I was first paralyzed in 1981, my rehab resident MD gave me a book to journal in.  I would sporadically journal several times of year about how my life is almost together and soon I will be happy.  After rereading my journal entries in 1984, I gave up writing.  I had succeeded at many personal achievements such as doing a marathon in my wheelchair, scuba diving, Hawaii wheelchair tennis doubles champ, getting into Chemical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara and more.  Yet I still was not happy in a bone-deep serene way.  There was a lot of fear and drug abuse in my life.

Today there is little fear and no drug abuse in my life.  It is a big achievement and a lot of work that I could not have done on my own.  Many people helped find my way on my journey through life towards being the person I was always meant to be.

I am grateful for my serenity, happiness, the loving support of fellow trudgers in recovery on the road to happy destinies and my sister.

A Quiet Day

I spent the early afternoon at home by myself today enjoy the quiet solitude by reading and taking a nap.  That was nice.  Too much quiet and solitude quickly turns into an unhealthy isolation for me.  Lea came home from meeting with her sponsor, took a nap, and then we went swimming for the second time this week.

I am grateful for small pieces of solitude and for Lea’s helpful motivation and companionship in getting me swimming

Step 6 Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character

Being a fairly literal person, for years I had a problem with “entirely ready” since to me that meant something close to infinitely perfectly ready which is not something I was anywhere near close to achieving. 

Reading Step 6 from the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions described entirely ready as being an ideal for us to strive for and not a prerequisite for progress.  Over the years of 12-step recovery, I had come to think of entirely ready to mean reasonably ready—a status that I could work towards.

This morning while ready Step 6 from the 12x12 with Lea before the 9:30 meeting, I had a small epiphany realizing that I am entirely ready to have god remove my defects of character or, if you will, sins.  Three weeks ago another epiphany got me to let go of sloth and gluttony while at a 7^th step meeting.  That is a lot of progress in letting go of my defects of character.  Nothing I could really force to happen beyond diligently working a program of recovery to the best of my ability.

I am grateful for my god-given gift of willingness to go to meetings, have a sponsor, work the steps, participate in the fellowship and carry the message of recovery to the still suffering alcoholics.

Writing in the Evening

I got off to a slow start this morning missing my morning writing session mostly due to sore muscles from swimming yesterday.  By this evening, the soreness had gone away.  It was a full day of running errands.   There was an hour of downtime in Seattle this afternoon after giving Michelle a ride to treatment that gave me a chance to drive through Chinatown, Pioneer Square and the Pike Place Market on a warm sunny spring day.

I am grateful for a pleasant productive day being of service to others and for chance to make-up for a missed morning writing session.

A Sunny Saturday Trip to La Conner

Mike, Lea and Michelle rode to La Conner with me yesterday.  We met Toni and Sharon, chatted for a bit, and then enjoyed waterfront dining under a warm June sun.  After that, we drove over the Swinomish Channel to the No Reservations speaker meeting. 

I am grateful for good times with friends, delicious food in a beautiful setting and learning wisdom from the experiences of others.

A Trip to La Conner

Lea, Michelle and I are driving to La Conner to meet Toni for dinner on the Swinomish Channel and the attend the No Reservations speaker meeting.  La Conner is a cute little tourist town just over an hour north of Seattle.  It will be a nice outing.

I am grateful for sunny days with fun activities in June sunshine with good friends.