In the House

I woke up very refreshed this morning and thought it was much later then it actually was. I thought it was well past 8 o’clock but in was well before 7 o’clock. This did not deter me one bit because I had laid out some goals for myself today. I needed to clean the refrigerator, washer, and dryer and also setup all of the rooms. I was so excited I forgot to brush my teeth this morning. This is a big deal for me because normally the first thing I do is to brush my teeth as soon as I get up in the morning but today I went right to work cleaning the refrigerator.

The refrigerator was so dirty it took me two hours of scrubbing every square inch to get it clean. I guess sitting dormant for two years things do get dirty. I was very happy to finish cleaning and moved on to the washer and dryer. These were also very dirty but not nearly as dirty as the refrigerator. These items were easier to clean because the inside of the washer cleaned itself.

I also hooked up all of the equipment and if anyone who knows me knows this is a major accomplishment. I am as far away from being handy then just about anyone I know so when I do mechanical things and they actually work I take it as a miracle. Of course, there were some parts missing so I needed to go to Lowe’s but after getting the right equipment I was able to hook everything up without incident, yes, miracles do happen!!

I do have an issue with having parts leftover when I am finished. I don’t know why this happens but invariably it always does and today was no exception. I hooked up the dryer and had one piece of equipment leftover and I setup all of the bedrooms with several pieces leftover. I think everything was put together properly but the true test will be administered when my family arrives.

The day went by so quickly and I was able to accomplish all that I had set out to do and then some. I was able to unpack a few boxes and locate some more of the important boxes. After taking a further inventory of all the boxes remaining in the garage it really isn’t as bad as I thought yesterday. Don’t misunderstand there are many boxes but it truly ties the Gamblers Anonymous principles in; taking one box at a time!!! There is no other way to do it and at some point all of the boxes will be in their respective areas. We do have some housecleaning (not in the sense of cleaning the house but in the sense of house cleaning) because we have too much stuff.

I survived for 19 ½ months essentially living in 12 square feet and my wife and children have had half the size of our current house, and they survived. Minimization is the key and we shall see if we can minimize some of our things. There are so many toys that the children have outgrown and today I put away baby washcloths and the last time I checked neither my son nor daughter or close to being babies. There were a great deal of memories made in our previous house and I suspect the memories will continue now that we are a family unit. This is a wonderful house and I know wonderful things will continue to happen.

I purposely finished what I was doing early so I could attend the Sunday evening GA meeting. This would be my last GA meeting before departing tomorrow for New Jersey. I couldn’t miss the meeting because it is this program that continues to save my life. All of the good in my life is tied to GA in one or another and recovery is amazing. Amazing things happen all of the time and it is the program that makes these things happen.

The meeting was wonderful even though the attendance was smaller then usual. There are fantastic people in this program and a few of them assisted me after the meeting carting a television up the 15 steps to the second floor. This was the last major piece of furniture that needed to be placed and two of the stronger members in the group carried the heavy television up the steps.

This is another great perk of the program that extends to life; people helping people. These good friends helped carry the television, another good friend help unload yesterday and finally yet another good friend helped me all day on Friday. Wow; without GA I would be lost in so many ways and with GA I continue to cherish the blessings in my life.