Reasons and then Some!!

We are just wiped out after these Saturday morning on the diamond. Everyone just about collapses when we get home and yesterday was no exception. We were going strong since early in the morning (not to mention my very early morning 20 mile run) and returned home early in the afternoon. No one felt like doing anything and today was exceptionally hotter than it has been. I guess it is officially fall but the temperature read the dog days of summer. I’m not sure how those kids do it but no one seemed to be worse for the wear playing in the 100 degree heat; however; when we arrived home I could see the heat had taken a toll on everyone.

The afternoon was filled with movie watching as the children watched the “Bad News Bears” movies and my daughter commented that the original movie was much better than the remake of a few years ago. It was good to hear my daughter who wasn’t even a thought when the first “Bad News Bears” movie came out enjoyed that movie over its predecessor. I guess it is a “money” thing with the studios and it doesn’t matter that the remake is worse than the original as long as it makes money.

My wife and I watched “The Departed” since I have a great deal of catching up to do with movies released over the past two years. As I served my sentence there were very few movies I viewed and I had heard “The Departed” was a good movie so we spent the afternoon watching this. In my opinion it was a horrible movie with a horrible ending. The acting was good and Jack Nicholson was vintage Jack Nicholson along with the solid acting of Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio but the story line was terrible and the title was very appropriate.

The rest of the evening was uneventful and everyone was sound asleep prior to 10:00 pm. Oddly even thought I was exhausted I was up very early staring at the clock radio. There is no turning off my internal body clock and when I set it very early this continues whether or not I am due to get out of bed. Fortunately I did fall back to sleep and wasn’t woken up until my son made his daily appearance into our room. I don’t mind my son coming into the room at all and even when he is half asleep he always brings a smile with him and today was no exception.

We lounged around in bed watching our ritual television program CBS’ “This Morning” which is a wonderful to start a relaxing Sunday morning. These Sundays are wonderful since we don’t have any scheduled events but we had to do something today since we are getting our first visitor later this week. Yes, that is correct we are having our first visitor from the East for a short visit starting Thursday. We are looking forward to our visitor and we need to get the house in order. The process of moving in has been very slow but there really is no urgency other than the fact that we will have a houseguest in a few days. The urgency is upon us and I even pitched in with the cleaning.

This is going to sound horrible but I stay away from the cleaning and organizing of the house for the simple reason that my wife always seems to undo what I have done so my philosophy is to stay away. I couldn’t stay away today because we needed the family cleaned and really I would do it myself if my wife would let me but she just won’t. I took my cleaning skills that I honed for the six plus months of cleaning then bathrooms at camp and cleaned the family room. I was amazed how dirty blinds can get and these blinds were extremely dirty. We like to keep the windows open when the temperature is less than 100 degrees but there is so much dust and dirt in the area it is impossible to keep the dust from accumulating and the dust accumulated very much. The blinds were so dusty I didn’t mind it when my wife had to come with a bucket of soapy water after I dusted the blinds to the best of my ability.

The day had gone by so fast and I had all intention of attending the Sunday GA meeting but when it came time for the meeting I had three faces asking me if I could skip the meeting today. My son went as far as asking, “Who is more important family of the meeting?” This was a fascinating question from a 7 year old and I couldn’t explain to him that these two or not mutually exclusive. I know I have my family because of recovery and if I fall away from recovery I won’t have a family. It isn’t exactly a Catch-22 as these are positive consequences so it was difficult for me to explain. The prudent thing to do was to stay home today and do my best to get to a meeting during the week. I do have an opening on Tuesday and I would hope to attend the Tuesday meeting.

Since I didn’t attend the meeting we were invited over to our dear friends’ house for dinner. Prior to dinner we stopped at a local store to pick up dessert and in the store was a person I hadn’t seen in over 2 years. This was a person who I met through the GA Program and this person even visited me while I was at the County facility. I looked down the aisle and instantly recognized the person and the person recognized me as well. We approached one another and gave each other a big hug. Unfortunately this person no longer goes to any GA meetings but there life is getting better because they are abstinent from gambling. I don’t believe in pressuring anyone in coming to meeting because that is a personal choice. I know I need and want to attend the meetings and hopefully others will see this as well. It was good to see that this person was moving forward in a positive manner and who knows I think I wasn’t supposed to go to the GA meeting tonight anyway??

We picked up the desserts and headed over to our dear friends’ house for dinner. These are always great dinners and we always have lots of laughs. Tonight was no exception and we didn’t need any game playing to have fun. The dinner and conversation were wonderful along with just being with our dear friends. This was a great way to conclude another fantastic weekend with the family.