Oh Christmas Tree!

I think I forgot to mention that the Christmas lights were indeed fixed on Monday. I did my best (which usually is no where good enough in those “mechanical” situations!) installing the Christmas lights on the house but when I went to turn them on only half worked while the other half were dormant. Yes, I did test them prior to hanging because I did learn my lesson a many years ago when I had hung all of the lights but not a single strand was lit.

Oh yes, there was another year where I hung the lights backwards which means the male end of the plug was about as far away from the outlet as possible so instead of re-installing the lights I improvised. My improvisation encompassed a 100 feet extension cord which ran from the front of the house to the back of the house where it would be least noticeable. As you can see I am “challenged” (to say the least) in these situations and my comedy of errors continued this year with half the lights working. We did fix the lights and I say we because my wife helped, in fact she ended up installing the new lights by herself. Now all the lights work and the exterior of the house is very festive. There is a large gap of no lights on top of the house but in order to hang the lights here would require Spiderman! I would have to hang from the roof since the ladder cannot reach and I am not willing to play Spiderman. I do think the house looks very good and it is officially Christmas season in our household.

Last night didn’t take me to the Tuesday evening Gamblers Anonymous meeting because I thought going to three GA meetings in a row would be too much as I search for balance in my life. It was interesting because during the speaker’s meeting on Monday the fabulous speaker did touch on the fact that a member can attend too many meetings which does set a person out of balance. This whole balance issue is a journey there may never be a finish line; however; it is an integral part of recovery and something I continue to make a priority in my life.

Yesterday evening was a relaxing night with the family and this morning was more of my usual routine. I do enjoy my usual routine and this week I continue to deviate from the requisite training program. This week was supposed to be more of a maintaining week as I build toward the marathon in mid January. I did deviate last week which caused me to do fewer miles than required so this week I have added those miles back on and then some.

This was the first time I have deviated from the training program since I started training for the San Diego Rock n’ Roll Marathon and continued to the Long Beach Marathon. I did fairly well in both marathons even decreasing my time over the two marathons but still falling short of the qualifying time for the Boston Marathon. I have a much better feel for my body and I was due for this deviation. I am having a great week running compared to last week where I wasn’t having such a great week. The run today was very intense and an overall success.

I had some appointments today and it was a very fast day all the way through. I was in and out of the “real” office most of the day and before I realized it the day was ending. As I came home I noticed my daughter putting together the Christmas tree. My daughter did request to put the tree together and here she was creating the Christmas tree. Our tree is as old as my daughter since we purchased it for her first Christmas 10 years ago. Yes, it is an artificial tree and it isn’t one of the more modern trees which come in three pieces with lights already installed. It is like putting together a puzzle and my daughter really enjoys puzzles so she put basically the entire tree together by herself. This is so very cool because knowing the tree has been around before she could even walk and now here she is putting it together. Time does fly by so quickly and it is these little moments that mean so very much.