Homecoming

My phone just rang a few minutes ago and I answered it and said, "Hello, free girl!"  My sister giggled and answered, "Good morning!  Mom said to tell Al to be dressed because we're on our way and there's lots of stuff to bring in the house."  Yep, already knew that.  But she's on her way home and very soon she'll be here.

Al hasn't moved her furniture or even made her bed, and the walls aren't done, but they're almost done.  He's got a heater going in that room to dry the walls as quickly as possible.  He's sound asleep on the loveseat and told me to wake him up at 9:30am.  So that's what I'm going to do.  He's got ten more minutes of uninterrupted sleep and then he needs to get up and get moving.  He's been up all night.

I woke up to a completely rearranged living room.  He was up all night, but this place still looks like a tornado blew through here.  He's going to sleep really well tonight, that's for sure, especially with only 1.5 hours of sleep this morning.

I'll tell you one thing, I'm not going to deal with Mom and Dad and their attitudes about my messy house.  In fact, they'd better not even start.  I don't want to hear it.  Al won't deal with it.  If they are smart, they will drop Corri's stuff off and keep quiet about anything and everything else.

I still have to shower and get dressed, but I will do that after Corri and her stuff get here.  I've got to don my Bears gear to get ready for the big game this afternoon.  Pray the Bears win.  The Packers are too hot right now, so it makes me nervous.  But I know the Bears have it in them to win.  I know they do.  I believe in them.  They can do this.  They just have to focus and play true.  And keep the pressure on Aaron Rodgers.  He's got too many weapons in his arsenal.  But they can win.  The Bears have homefield advantage.  They can win.  I know they can.

Corri's friend Jason apologized to her for acting like such a jerk, and you know, my sister has a heart of gold.  She believes in forgiveness and giving people another chance, so when Jason invited her to come over and watch the Bears game over there, she told him she would.  She checked with me first though, to make sure she wasn't going to spoil the nice dinner Al has planned for her for tonight, and she won't.  We still have to go grocery shopping, but that's not going to happen until after the game.  We never made it to the store last night.  It was just too darn cold outside to go out and shop.  Neither Al nor I wanted to go out in it.

After Corri drops off her stuff here, Mom and Dad are going to take her to an AA meeting, and then Jason is going to pick her up from there.  At least she's already planning on attending her meetings.  She doesn't want to miss them.  This will be her last meeting at the place where she's been going, and she has a list of dates and times for meetings that are closer to home, so that will be good.  She's got plans, my sister, and all of them are centered around her recovery and the things she needs to do for herself.

I'm so proud of her. So very happy.  She's coming home, where she belongs, and I know that while the temptations will always be there for her, she's going to do this.  With God's help, she's going to make it.  She's already proven that she wants this sobriety.  She's willing to do the work for it.  I know she can make it.

So I finished my last book this morning and my book review is back one entry if anyone is interested in it.  My last Sisterchicks book is sitting here, just waiting for me to crack into it.  And crack into it I will, after we get Corri settled, after my shower, before the game, or after it.  I just hope that I'm going to be on a win high and not a loss low.

Momentary pause.  Corri is home!  She converged upon the house with all her stuff, just like a whirlwind, and everything was deposited into the freshly rearranged living room.  It now looks like a cyclone as blown through the place.  But she's home!  Or was.  She was here long enough to drop off her stuff, then turn around and leave for her meeting.  We won't see her again until after the game.

I'm all giddy now.

So where was I going with this entry?  I can't even remember.  Oh, well, I was going to talk about my personal book goal of 200 books read this year.  Al flat-out told me I'm not going to make 200.  I think he's right.  That was a pretty lofty goal.  Instead, I'll revise my goal to shoot for 100 and see how I do.  If I go over that number, then next year I can readjust my goals, but I need to start out with something achievable.  I'm not so sure that 200 is achievable for me.  At the rate I'm going, even 100 books is a lofty goal, but we shall soon see.  I always start out guns a-blazing, but then I peter out by the middle of the year.  So we'll see.  I'm going to have to readjust my table in my entries too.  It would be nice to keep track of all the books I've read for the year, but that table will grow to be humungous if I do that.  I might just keep track of the books from month to month and then put my books read for the month at the beginning of the next month.  Make sense?

On the agenda for today, a shower, first and foremost.  I feel skanky.  Put on the Bears clothes.  Watch the game.  Pray we win.  Do some grocery shopping.  Get Corri's furniture rearranged and bed made.  Relax and read and visit with my newly sprung from rehab sister.  It's going to be a full day.

Sometimes I feel the enemy accusing me, as much as I accuse myself, of being lazy and worthless and not doing enough.  How fortunate for me, like the woman who annointed Jesus' feet with oil and was accused of wasting the precious perfume by the people who witnessed her actions, Jesus is there to tell my enemy, "Leave her alone.  She has done all she could."

I admit, I can't do a lot.  My disability precludes me from doing as much as I used to do because I get so overwhelmed so easily.  I just cannot function.  I can't force myself to function.  My mom and even sometimes Al, try to push me to do more, and then it's difficult for me to do anything at all because I cannot be pushed.  I have to work what I can, when I can, and use my own energy to get things started.  Sometimes the energy is there and sometimes it's not.  But always, I do what I can.  Sometimes even cooking dinner is a chore, but at times, that's the most I can accomplish in a day - dishes and dinner.  I can't even always stand and do all the dishes at one time.  I have to break it up into small bits in order to get it done and then take a rest in between loads.  I try.  I'm doing all I can.

Thank you Jesus for telling Satan to leave me alone.  I need to take the initiative on my own, whenever that dark-winged shadow perches on my shoulder to whisper condemnations into my ear, "Go away and fly off.  I have the protection of Christ to back me up."  And you know, it's funny, but whenever I feel the urgings of the enemy and I call on Jesus' name, the urgings go away and leave me.  Satan and his minions flee from Jesus.  How fortunate I am, we all are, to have such strength on our side.

Today we grocery shopped.  I'm fixing lunch even as I type this.  I won't be able to do a whole lot more today because that took all my energy to do these two things, but at least I can hear the voice of Jesus very clearly - "She has done all she could."

Don't expect God to make you thin.  You have to do the hard part for yourself.  Do know this, howeer:  God will bless you beyond your wildest hopes if you will put forth your best effort and not give up.  When we show Him that we really are serious about being better people, He is pleased beyond measure, and He will do all kinds of wonderful things to help us along.  When we refuse to give in to the temptations, to dirty our hands, then God will reward us and lift us up.  All He asks is that we give it our very best effort.  If we do that, we will succeed.

Today's thought:  God is pleased by my best effort to lose weight.

I really have to take myself to task today, because I haven't been putting my best foot forward like I usually do.  I've been cheating, and I'm sure that when I go to see my doctor on February 8th, it will be reflected in my weight and in my A1C reading, although I don't even have an appointment to go get my blood work done.  I guess on Monday I'm going to need to call the base and see if I can get in to see my doctor to have the blood work done and sent to my endocrinologist.

I need to buckle down and do what I'm supposed to do.  That's the only way this is going to work.