Gambling's Grip

My apologies to everyone regarding yesterday's posting. The link to the story title In Gambling's Grip for some reason did not work. The story appears in the Sunday LA Times and hopefully the link I inserted today will work. Also regarding the online compulsive gambler help group my wonderful friend from the Great White North and I have started a group here is the link to this group. I must lay a disclaimer even though my wonderful friend and I have started the group we do not have a ownership claim in the site. We are merely caretakers and the site belongs to all of the members. I would like to invite anyone who has a gambling problem or who has been affected by someone with a gambling problem to join. I am looking forward to interacting with all the new members.

I have some news to report on my case and I shouldn't really say anything until I know what it is but I have to relay this story. I was looking at my case report online as I normally do once or twice a week and I noticed something had been filed today regarding my case. I naturally called my attorney hoping he could shed some light on the subject matter; however; as is the case most times I find out things about my case before he does. He didn't know what it was and he called to find out and no one could give him a straight answer. He will go over to the DA's office tomorrow and find out. When I first saw the filing my heart started racing and I had all types of thoughts. After about one minute I took a deep breath and said to myself; there is nothing I can do about it until I know what it is and even if I find out about it there is probably nothing I can do anyway. I cannot get worked up about whatever it is because it will make me more crazy than I already am. Oh how does the serenity prayer go; God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..... I can't change any of this and I must be surrounded by positive influences because those negatives ones are of no value to me.

This afternoon I had the pleasure of taking my son and daughter out to the local golf course. My daughter has been asking me all summer; when are you going to take me golfing? Since she and her brother start school on Wednesday I thought today would be an ideal day. I have taken my son and daughter golfing before but never together. I enjoyed the afternoon with those two immensely. Each one has their own set of miniature golf clubs and each one takes a mighty swing. The best part of the day for my daughter was driving the golf cart. She is actually big enough to reach the pedals but hasn't grasp the principle of using the big pedal in the middle you know the BRAKE pedal. She was using the two feet method; one on the gas and the other foot on the brake; it made for a fun ride. She got the hang of it by the 17th hole!!!

I did ask both of them if they were having fun and my always cheerful son said yes very quickly and my daughter said, "yes, kind of". I asked her what do you mean by "kind of" and she replied; "I am kind of jealous of Jonathan (her brother) because he can hit the golf ball further than I can". Remember my daughter is three years older than her brother and she wants to do everything better than him and she saw a few times when her brother hit the golf ball further than her and she became jealous. I thought this was so sweet. My daughter is a very innocent soft spoken seven year old when you first meet her but underneath this soft spoken exterior lies a very competitive individual. She is so hard on herself when she doesn't do things perfectly. I don't know where this will lead in the future but I am trying to teach her it is okay if she doesn't hit the golf ball further than her brother and it is okay if things aren't perfect. Also if she wants to hit the golf ball further than her brother she will have to practice more because her brother even though he is only four years old really likes swinging a golf club. I think this is natural for four year old boys because they like swinging anything!!! It was a wonderful afternoon.