You know it’s a good day when:

1. You have a good doctor’s visit.
2. You are told that your 6 month Cat scan to measure the progress of the Pulmonary Fibrosis you were diagnosed with shows NO CHANGE at all.
3. Your doctor tells you that the scarring that showed up on your first Cat scan might not even be Pulmonary Fibrosis but could be due to some damage done in the past.
4. You get to tell your doctor that you believe in the power of God to heal.
5. You have family and friends who rejoice with you over good news.
6. You get to go to work at a job you are good at AND enjoy.
7. God allows you to see just one more of His spectacular sunsets at the end of your work day.

I know it has been a good day.

I hope you had one too.

Sometimes, I think I would like to be a secret shopper. The person who is secretly there to give the business a score. Say 1-10 with 1 being the worst and ten the best. Most of the places I have been to recently would rate beneath a 5. That might be because I expect too much when I go into an establishment or it could be that customer service is a thing of the past.

For instance, (you must have known this was coming) last night, I went to a restaurant for dinner with some friends. All 4 dinners came out of the kitchen at different times. Granted, once we all got our food it was good food. But I would take points off the score for this. At the end of the meal, I paid our waitress in cash. She brought me back the correct bills but no change. I should have received 9 cents along with my bills. I asked her how much my bill was again and she had to go find the bill to tell me.

I said, “Shouldn’t I have nine cents along with my change.”

She quite perkily said, “Oh, I just rounded it off. Is that OK?”

To which I replied, “No, I want my 9 cents please.”

Now, the issue here is certainly not the 9 cents, but when did it become OK for restaurants to round off MY change. What if I had all but the 9 cents to pay my bill with? Would it have been OK for me to brightly go on my way? I probably would not have even made it out the door.

I wonder how many 9 cents or 10 or 25 cents they rounded off that night. Last time I checked, that was called stealing. I do not like to be taken advantage of no matter how cute and perky the person cheating me is.

Next time you go to Elizabeth’s enjoy your food but count your change.

In response to Hazel’s comment, I will give you all the low down on Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse experience.

We drove up to the front of the Sheraton Hotel where Ruth’s Chris is located and were met by valet parking. Ed came around to my side of the car and opened the door for me seeing as the valet seemed to be focused on getting the keys from Ed and parking the Sequoiya. That was OK, it was still a nice start to the evening.

Ed made the reservations earlier in the day. He was told that the dress was “business to formal”. He looked very handsome in his suit jacket and I got decked out in a skirt and heels.

Upon walking into the restaurant, we were greeted by two neatly dressed young ladies who asked for our name. When they looked at the reservation list they immediately wished us a happy anniversary and offered us the choice of a table inside or a table on the small patio outside. Since the weather was so perfect last night, we opted for outside. It was a little weird because it was just a tiny platform that held maybe 10 tables. The good thing was that we got to see a beautiful sunset over the Cape Fear River.

Ok, I know you really want to know about the food. We both ordered the petite steak and shrimp. The side dishes are served family style which means that we had to agree on what to get. Ed wanted mashed potatoes, I wanted steak fries. Ed wanted mushrooms, I wanted asparagus. We got steak fries and asparagus. Ed smiled at the young waiter and explained that we were celebrating our 26th anniversary. He said that in 26 years he had learned to pick his fights and this was not one of them. Smart man. 

The steaks came out on plates that we were told were 450 degrees. It kept the steak hot through the whole meal and that was nice. The only drawback was that it continued to cook our medium steaks for a few minutes. The asparagus was cooked aldente, just the way I like it. Everything was seasoned nicely. All in all it was quite a nice meal. They served me Fiji still water and Ed has Voss bubbling water.

At the end of the meal the waiter brought us a complimentary slice of Chocolate Sin cake. It was like eating a slab of decadent fudge topped with a wet chocolate frosting and drizzled with raspberry juice. Ed is not eating any sugar so I told him I would take one for the team. I did my best to represent.

It was a very enjoyable night. We expected to pay dearly for the dinner and we were not disappointed. It was over $100! We do NOT do this kind of thing often. It was a special night.

Ed also bought me a pair of Tahitian Black Pearl earrings to go with the necklace he got me for Mother’s day. I will wear them to church tomorrow.

This is day one of our next 26 years. So far so good.

Wow, it has been 26 years that Ed and I have been married.

We met in AA, went together for 2 years, then split up for 2 years. It was during this time apart that we each developed a relationship with Jesus Christ. He brought us back together and we were married within a year.

Amazing!

10 MORE things you may knot know about us:

1. This is a second marriage for both of us.
2. We both had children when we met. Ed had 2 daughters and I had one daughter.
3. Our three daughters gave us 4 grandsons until 4 years ago when Caroline Grace was born.
4. We were both heroin addicts in our past.
5. Both our parents got divorced when we were very young.
6. God comes first in our relationship, then each other, then our children (family), then friends.
7. We have committed to be honest with each other and never to discourage each other.
8. We actually like one another.
9. We really love one another.
10. Today, we committed to shoot for another 26 years together.

Got to go now and start getting dressed for our celebration dinner at Ruth’s Chris steakhouse. I have never been to one of these restaurants but I hear they serve the very best food anywhere. Dress is formal.

What a classy couple.

The plan was for me to go to Raleigh today, stay at a hotel tonight and shoot a commercial tomorrow. At about noon today, I got a call saying we would delay the shoot one day because of the threat of bad weather tomorrow.

I think God arranged for me to be home tonight so I could be the one to clean the poop off Daisy’s foot. Mr. Eddie owes me big time. George Carlin once did a whole comedy routine around the fact (?) that humans step in dog poop but dogs never step in their own poop. I wish Daisy had heard Mr. Carlin’s routine. Most of all, I wish she hadn’t proved him wrong tonight. Yuck!

 I really think she was quite embarrassed by the whole incident. She would be mortified to know that I just blogged about this. How could this sweet looking animal do something so gross?

By the way… I am a Grandnoni!! This precious blond cutie is Natalie Glenn Cook. Her Mommy, Becky, is my Little Girl friend. Natalie’s Granny is my BGFF, Nancy. Ed and I got a visit from them last week and Becky took this great photo. Natalie just loved the dogs. I think she liked us OK too.

She decided to move into Bella’s digs. In this pic, I think Bella is saying, “Hey, aren’t you gonna do something about this?” It was adorable to hear Natalie try to imitate Bella barking. Life is good.

 Most of us think of God in the same terms we think of our parents. My Dad abandoned our family when I was two years old. He basically rejected us. When I was 8 years old, my Mom couldn’t take proper care of me. She gave me to my older sister who provided a normal home life for me. It didn’t remove the rejection I felt from both my Mom and my Dad. I began to seriously wonder what was wrong with me that people couldn’t love me. I thought my sister and her husband must have been some kind of a saints to take me in. I tested their love for me all the time.

Fast forward to me at 24 years old, alcoholic, bar room drinker with a child of my own that I was incapable of taking care of. I was suicidal. Hopeless. Completely devoid of any self worth and desperate to change my life. I was angry, rejected, self pitying and belligerent. I was a fighter. When I got drunk, all my self control disappeared. I punched people on a fairly regular basis. People who were once my friends started avoiding me because I was trouble. If I wasn’t swinging at them, I was getting us all kicked out of some establishment by starting a fight with someone else.

Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. I had a hard road ahead of me. If God was like my parents. it would only be a matter of time before He rejected me too.

By the end of step one, I realized that I was completely unable to help myself out of the dilemma of my alcoholism. I was still clean and sober but that had nothing to do with MY will. That was because I was learning to depend on this Higher Power. I was beginning to believe that there was a God out there who actually cared about me. I was beginning to grasp faith. Somewhere in this journey, I had stopped asking Ruthie’s God to help me stay sober. I was learning humility by kneeling next to my bed and sincerely asking “God” to help me stay clean and sober. I was no longer running the show. I could honestly see that whenever I was in control my life was a mess. This revelation was growth.

As I continued to practice asking God for help in all of life’s situations I grew in faith. God never let me down. He didn’t answer every prayer the way I wanted Him to. There are three answers to prayers.

1. yes
2. no
3. not yet

God answered in the way that was best for me. I had come to realize that I did not know what was best for me. I was developing a trust that God knew far better than I what was good for me.

At first, AA was my God. They were a group of people that were doing what I couldn’t do. They were staying sober. They were relatively happy people who lived a generous way of life by using the principles of AA. They used these principals to point me to a faith that was honest and true. I am so grateful that my sponsors never allowed me to put them on a pedestal and worship them. They assured me that any success in their life was due to God and Him alone. AA was introducing me to God as I understand Him.

 Finally, I began to let go of the reigns of my life.

It was a crazy process that got me to the place where I could finally admit defeat and recognize that I needed help if I was ever going to be free from my obsessive, compulsive drinking and drugging. I could not change my behavior on my own. I wanted to stop being a drunk. I desired to be a good mother, the kind of daughter that a mother could be proud of and to be a good and trustworthy friend.

“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do. No, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing.” Rom 7:18-20

This is where I was at the end of step one. Powerless. Recovery begins with the admission that I am powerless. I cannot manage my life or anyone elses life. I am powerless over people, places and things. My life is unmanageable.

“But, He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (powerlessness).” 2 Cor. 12:9

In the fifth chapter of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous there is a paragraph that reads, “Remember that we deal with alcohol - cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power- that One is God. May you find Him now.” It goes on to list the 12 steps which are suggested as a program of recovery.

The 12 steps are a way of life that point us to God. Not a light bulb or a doorknob. God. A power greater than ourselves.

In step two we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. More on this later.

Can I just say? Brilliant!

I have been thinking about AA and how the program inspired me to live a spiritual way of life.

When I first came to AA in 1977, I did not know if I believed in God or not. My mind was quite scrambled from several years of drug and alcohol use. My sponsors suggested (rather strongly) that I find a power greater than myself. That seemed ludicrous to me. At the time a doorknob had more power than I did. But, to humor them (and just in case they were onto something), I complied. I had to ride the coat tails of my sponsors on this one because I was at a loss to comprehend what this higher power might be. So, Ruthie told me that I could use her higher power. I was to pray to this higher power every day and ask it to help me stay away from a drink and a drug just for that day. This is where I began to humor them albeit a bit rebelliously. The first few times I would get up in the morning and go directly to the toilet. While seated I would ask Ruthie’s God to help me stay clean and sober for that day. As silly as it sounds, it worked. I knew it was Ruth’s God keeping me sober because I had tried to do this before and failed within hours. This time, I was putting several days back to back without a drink OR so much as a joint. Did I want to drink? Heck yeah! Did I have opportunities to take drugs? Oh yes. They came right to my front door. During this short period of time, I even found the strength to give away my prized marijuana plant. I grew it from a seed and it was a big sacrifice for me to give it up. I decided that I would follow every suggestion these people gave me because they could not do anything worse to me than I had already done to myself. Just maybe this AA would work for me.

My sponsors wanted me to get into the 12 steps right away. I mean by the time I was 3 months away from a drink they had me at a step meeting. Step one says, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable.

The key words to working this step are:

1. open mindedness
2. willingness

Ruthie told me that I would not be able to stay sober for very long if I could not accept that I had no power in myself to stay away from a drink. Weird, I thought.  I tried my best to understand my powerlessness. Some one at a meeting put in such a way that the little light bulb over my head flashed on. They said, “When I drink, one is too many and 100 is not enough. I have no control!!! “

That is why people die of alcoholism. Alcoholics don’t have a shut off valve. We drink until we break!

Ding, ding, ding. We had a winner! I got it.

Once that first drink was in me, I had no control or ability to decide when to stop. I could not stop. I drank until I fell down. I was powerless over alcohol. Alcohol became King in my life and alcohol called all the shots. Alcoholism could kill me. My life was truly unmanageable.

I told my sponsors, “Well this sucks. Let’s not leave me here for too long.” In their wisdom, they said, “You are now ready for step two.”

This month has some important anniversaries in it.

My 26th wedding anniversary is August 15th. You may call this a coincidence but…

• my best friend
• my strongest supporter
• the one that I can always count on to be in my corner
• the one human that I trust the most
• the one who knows me best
• the one who will let me know when I have a bad attitude
• the one who lifts my spirit by just walking into the room

If we only had one ice cream left, he would let me have the whole thing. If he is cold and I am hot, he puts a sweater on rather than turn the AC down. He puts my needs ahead of his own. AND he buys me gorgeous jewelry and takes me on nice vacation trips and he makes me laugh. Seriously, what is not to love about this man?

We made a commitment to stand by each other and to grow old together. We are doing that one day at a time. I am a blessed wife. I love my Special Ed.