Anniversary

This past Friday I celebrated 9 years of continuous sobriety. Which is pretty awesome if I do say so myself. A good friend & I both got sober the same year, so we like to compare notes on a regular basis about the phases we go through, and how crazy it is to be creeping up on a decade of living sober. Good stuff. I went to my home group on Wednesday night and got that shiny new coin above, which has been in my pocket since then. I like to carry my coin with me.

We spent the holiday weekend at the campground with family & friends & food. My girlfriend and I also decided to celebrate my anniversary by finding a local meeting, which proved to be an adventure. Lesson learned: always carry a current meeting list! The one I printed from last year sent us to a meeting that had since moved. We did manage to find one a half hour later at a club house though. It was a Living Sober meeting, open discussion format, so we got to hear from a variety of people. I got another coin which I'm saving for another friend who will celebrate 9 years in the fall.

At both meetings I shared my experience, strength and hope. The bottom line for me is that I sat down, shut up, and did what they told me to do. If a person wants to stay sober, they need to be willing, open & honest. They need to work the steps thoroughly and be willing to take suggestions. It is a humbling & at times painful process, but it is worth it. It's not easy to walk in and admit that you don't have the answers, and that what you've been doing has clearly not been working for you. But the Promises do materialize if we are willing to do the hard work.

The 12 Promises are from pps. 83-84 of the Big Book.

"If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through . . .

1. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
2. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
3. We will comprehend the word serenity.
4. We will know peace.
5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
8. Self-seeking will slip away.
9. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
10. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fullfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them."

Cyanoacrylates are our friends

We had a particularly exciting time at the campground this past weekend. The Tyrant took a header into a stone step and split his chin open. The poor little guy screamed and gushed blood all over. The volume of blood told us he would need stitches, even before we could see the gash clearly. We left the big kids with friends and headed up to the closest emergency room. I was dreading spending several hours in a waiting room, but to our amazement, we were in and out in an hour. The doctor was able to use glue and steri strips to close his chin, and we were very thankful to avoid the trauma of stitches. The Princess had to get stitches above her eye as a toddler, and I never wanted to repeat that hysteria.

We stopped at a store to get children's ibuprofen, thinking that he might have a hard time sleeping with the pain. He whimpered a bit but seemed ok when he went to sleep.

Apparently he had a great night's sleep, and got up with the birds. I'm not sure exactly how early he was awake, but campground security knocked on our door & returned him to us at 7:30am. It was a proud moment for sure, when I admitted that we hadn't even known that he was gone, since we had all still been asleep. We have no clue how he got out of the camper without us hearing him, since the door is right near our bed. He was found near the camp store, which is ironically where he had fallen the night before. (Maybe he was looking for the ice cream he missed out on??) The dog was also loose, no idea where she may have been during this, but thankfully she was running circles around the security man when I opened the door.

The main thing I learned from this weekend, outside of the need to tie bells to my child and explain to him the reasons why he must wear a helmet 24 hours a day, is this: when your child splits his chin open, and the doctor clears the blood away so she can close the gash, do not, under any circumstances, look closely to see the damage, because it will look like ground beef and you will want to chuck, which you cannot do because said child is on your lap having his face super glued back together. Here endeth the lesson.

Memorial Day

This weekend as we gather at the campground to stuff ourselves with goodies in celebration of the long weekend, I'd like to take a moment to thank all of our armed forces, both active & retired.  I'm collecting some more pictures from my Dad's side of the family, and wanted to share this one of my great-uncle.  His name is Michael, though we have always called him Uncle Mickey.

Mickey landed in Europe eleven days after the invasion of France, while there were still bodies floating in the water.  He was part of a machine gun squad.  He was wounded by artillary fire from an 88, which tossed him in the air ten feet or so.  He feels that his life was saved because he had so many clothes on because of the winter weather.  He lost part of a lung as a result.  After being wounded, he was left in a farmhouse with a German prisoner, which he thought was interesting.

Uncle Mickey is still alive & doing well, and he has our thanks for his brave service.  May God bless & protect all of our troops, and may God bless America.

Just Keep Swimming

Where did my blog list go?? It's there when I go to edit the template, but I can't see it on the page. I'm annoyed because that's how I go read other blogs. Foo.

Well I'm off to the camper in a few hours, and I'm only taking the Boy. The Princess is away at church camp until tomorrow and the Barnacle is staying home with the Man. It's the de-barnacling of the Barnacle you could say. It will be the first time that he and I are apart for more than a few hours, so we'll see how he does.

We have some new pets here, six little fish. I asked the Man what kind they are. "Cheap starter fish." he replied. They are teeny and greyish and that's the extent of our knowledge apparently. The Boy named them (not sure how the Princess was so gracious about this) and now they are called Nemo, The Boy, and Hot Wheels 1 through 4.

We had talked every once in a while about getting fish for the kids but nothing ever came of it. Then out of nowhere, the Man gleefully arrived home a week or so ago with a tank, rocks, filter, plants, fish food, plastic castle and so forth. We had new neighbors move in up the street and they put the whole kit and caboodle at the curb the first day. Guess they were tired of it or their fishies were lost in transit. Either way, we are shameless curb shoppers in this family, so home it came to be cleaned and refilled, much to the joy of our children. The only thing we needed to replace was the lid for the tank, as it was cracked.

The first night the fish were with us the Man and I were watching tv and I discovered something fantastic. The sound of the water falling into the tank from the filter could not be drowned out enough by the tv to prevent my body from constantly needing to pee. The Man promised to fix the lid or replace it. The next night the cracked lid was temporarily taped and in place and I could relax without any pressing bathroom needs. It was sometime later in our evening that we heard a loud noise come from the kitchen. The Man had just been walking into the room when one very wet and FREAKING OUT kitty came flying across the kitchen counter, crashed into the fridge and tore up the stairs. Apparently sitting his fat rump on the cracked lid was not a good idea, and he got a closer view than he had planned.

The fish won't talk about the incident but I have a feeling that Hot Wheels 3 is holding a grudge. He keeps giving the cat a fish-eye. (I know, worst pun ever, hahahaha)

Motorcycle Motorcycle

When I was growing up my family took a lot of road trips. My Dad was a teacher and my Mom was a homemaker, so our summers were wide open. We camped across the States and back a few times, so I've been to more national monuments & parks than probably anyone else my age. (Grand Canyon twice!) This is back in the days of manual windows and the walkman, where you prayed that your batteries would last a few more days in the car, and that it wouldn't eat your Miami Vice soundtrack cassette. Don't get me wrong, I loved my family, and we saw a lot of amazing things.... but when you are 12 and on a road trip for two months with your parents and siblings, you can kind of lose your mind a little.

At any rate, one of the things that we did to pass the time was to play Horsey Horsey. Now, for you city kids who are unfamiliar with this diverse and complex game, let me explain. You see a horse, you yell 'horsey horsey!' and whoever has the most horses at the end of the trip wins. That's it. The most excitement comes if someone sees a cemetery and yells out 'bury your horses!' and you have to start from zero. I know what you're thinking, that this game is a sad little way to amuse small children and that a 12 year old would not think this was cool. Sadly, I was that lame, and I guess my 16 year old brother was equally lame, because we all played it with vigor. And when you are traveling the great plains of America, you are bound to see a lot of horses, so the count could get up into the hundreds, with the carnage of the cemetery ever looming in your mind.

Fast forward to road trips with my own children. We don't see so many horses around these parts, given that we live in the burbs and our only road trips are 75 minutes to the campground every weekend. It may be in Lancaster County, but it's still a pretty dry game when you're traveling the turnpike. So instead, we play Motorcycle Motorcycle. This works well, but they seem to need to play a form of this game at all times now, and the competition ramps up more and more each time. On a hike this morning they changed it to Bikey Bikey and then Persony Persony. At that point we reined them in a bit and asked that we please stick to one ridiculous game at a time. On the drive home earlier tonight, the Princess gleefully suggested that we play Signy Signy. I thought that maybe we could instead just have a quiet ride home. The Man thought that maybe we could play Roadkill Roadkill instead. Not too many miles down the road however, they settled for poking each other with their feet and giggling while the Man and I turned Travis Tritt up loud enough to drown them out. The Barnacle, who clearly found all of this behavior beneath him, sat quietly in his seat with his bee (pacifier) and blankey, with only an occasional noise to request his cup.

And not to brag, but I won the day with 27 motorcycles, because no matter what the Man says you are not allowed to count the ones inside the motorcycle store.

Titles and Stuff

So I'm braving it and putting my name on my signature here. I like my privacy, which is why I have been 'anonymous' so to speak, and why I keep my husband's and kids' names off of here as well. But one of my goals with blogging is to eventually become a published writer, and it won't help much to stay hidden.
And because I enjoy change so much, (and since no one answered me when I mentioned it before, *ahem*, I'm thinking of some changes in my format and title too. Pepperpottery is a fun word to say, but doesn't really mean anything, which is slightly embarrassing to explain when anyone asks.
My friend Trish had suggested Beauty for Ashes based on one of my previous posts, which I really love but I think has been taken by many others before me. I'm not ruling it out yet, but it's my back-up at this point.
We're leaving for the campground first thing tomorrow, and the rest of today will probably get away from me like it usually does, so for now I'll be pondering and hopefully will come back in a few days with a spectacular and inspirational title. Or at the very least, I'll come home with dirty laundry and a happy family and that will do nicely too.

Beginning of the Camping Season

We started our camping season this past weekend. It was beautiful on Friday, but Saturday brought cold and grey weather, and bored and annoying children. We managed to keep them busy with s'mores and the sandbox, and the Barnacle explored new ways to bruise every inch of his pumpkinhead.

This was the SAR-EX weekend, which is the yearly training event held by the Pennsylvania Search and Rescue Council. So our campground was overrun with search-people and dogs. This is one of my favorite weekends because I know that if the Boy wanders, I have hundreds of people just itching to search and rescue someone. I considered renting him out for a hefty fee, as I know he would certainly give them their money's worth. Come to think of it, I should sneak into the testing tent next year and try my hand at the written exam. I've certainly had enough on the job training. That could be a good speaking gig too I bet, or maybe a book deal. "How I Survived Raising the Wandering Boy", in stores now!

Lancaster County

I was reading Amy's blog today and trying not to be insanely jealous that she is in MY Lancaster County right now. I simply cannot wait for camping season to begin. We spend oodles of family time together when we camp, and there are so many things that I love out there. First off I get to devote time to hiking, which I need to do. I love it in an indescribable way. I love that quiet time under the trees, with only the noise of nature to accompany me. My folks took us camping a ton when we were kids, and I think I just grew up needing that woodsy air to sustain me.

Out of the woods and into civilization, there are so many lovely places to visit near the campground. We usually make several trips to the outlets while we're out there. But beyond the joy of finding great sales on kids clothing, I really like spending time puttering about in the mom & pop type stores, the kind where there's random things piled everywhere. I love all those little dusty shops, full of marvelous junk that I don't really need. I like old antiquey stuff that I can hang in my kitchen, the kind of stuff that makes it seem like I don't really live in the burbs, but actually out in the country where I belong. My Hoosier cabinet falls into that category. And I just looked at the clock and realized I better hit send ready or not, cause it's time to pick the kids up from school!

The Boy is faster than western security

From September 4, 2007

We've missed attending church a lot this summer since we've been away most weekends. We had been wanting to go to church somewhere in the area of the campground but hadn't ever managed to do it. Some of our friends who have sites at the same place recently went to a megachurch nearby and really liked it. The man who owns/runs our campground goes to this church which is how we found it. It's so very different from our church, in good and bad ways.... They had really amazing classrooms for the kids though, and you register the kids at one of the check-in desks. They put you into the computer and print labels that go on each kid, and on you, and you get a pager too. The pager is on each sticker, along with any special instructions. (Yes, I was in OCD heaven, haaa) When I was filling out the paper with the kids' info I wrote under the Boy's special needs 'He wanders'. (My husband laughed, but he KNOWS that this is true and people must be warned!) Well, anything you put in that section goes onto their tag by code, so if they don't have a code for it I guess it doesn't go on the tag. After the service we went to go get the kids, and the Boy met us in the lobby area of the kids classrooms! He looked about ready to cry too, probably since the place is huge and it was crowded. The Man asked him what he was doing and the Boy replied, 'I was looking for mommy!'
I told the Man that I'd better go tell them in his classroom that he had gotten out so they didn't worry when they realized. (They check your stickers when you come for your child, and if you don't have your sticker you don't get your kid!) The main teacher happened to be our campground owner, lol, so I found him right away. I told him that the Boy had met us in the lobby and his eyes popped, lol. I told him that I had put it on the card I filled out, and he said that he would try to get that added into their coding system..... which totally cracked me up! We found out later that they even called a staff meeting afterwards to discuss the failure! I guess I shouldn't laugh, because it was a big deal to them, since they are really very thorough. But the Boy just threw them all for a loop because nothing and no one can keep him in. He's always been an escape artist and a wanderer!