Eeeek-zaaaww-sted

My sister has a frozen pond right in front of her house. If you believe that I have some ocean front property in Ohio I'd like to sell ya. LOL! I took this picture from atop my car trying to keep the shaking to a minimum. My camera is a handheld, I didn't bring my tripod and I was freezing.

Like the title of my post says, I am exhausted. Depleted. I have an event tonight, then I can rest tomorrow. Work on Monday. TSO on Tuesday and then 5 days of beautiful rest! The days of rest are a joke. My house is in shambles. Complete and utter shambles. I have already mentioned that I am a complete failure at housekeeping. Big deal. It is long past the tolerance level even for me. I have been able to keep up with the kitchen, though. That is a relief. I fixed a turkey dinner yesterday for the family that stays with me over the holidays.They pulled out last night for the northwest part of the state, hopefully with full tummies.

I took some time last evening to watch a movie. I chose The Savages. I like both Linney and Hoffman. I first noticed him in Twister and Linney in Primal Fear. Both movies were from 1996. That's interesting. Though I have to mention I did see Linney in Dave. That was always one of my favorite movies. I wasn't overly impressed with the movie, so-so. I did like the acting, though.

The holidays were a blessed event for me. I was able to visit with most of my family. One brother could not make it, he was sick. Ended up going to the ER Christmas day and is diagnosed with bronchitis. I am going to give him a call today and check in on him. Of course my sister is indisposed. She is usually out of the picture around the holidays. It was encouraging last year to see her sober through Christmas and New Years. That was a positive sign. She was trying to straighten up for her son who had open heart surgery in March. They delayed putting her away until after the surgery, but there was that huge mistake made by the anesthesiologist and the surgery got pushed back a few weeks and the judge wouldn't budge any more. You can read more about it from my March 5, 2008 post titled "Detours and Bumps."

The event tonight is a 40th anniversary. I was 8 years old when my oldest sister married. It was a huge event for my family. She said years later "Don't ever plan a wedding around a major holiday!" Her stress level must have been through the roof. She was more or less supporting the family along with my older brother. My dad was indisposed for most of his life. I'll never forget the time I asked my Mom "Why did you marry him if he was a drunk?" She laughed and said he wasn't like that in the early years. Of course I was the last child (youngest of 8) so I only saw the drunk dad. I never observed him working or driving or taking care of the family. That wasn't to say he was a bad person. He was wonderful to me and some of the children. He had his favorites. He worked a wonderful garden, could fry up a wonderful country meal and many other things. He did some very wonderful things for me.

The holidays can be very stressful for the alcoholic. They are always feeling like they don't measure up. They observe folks around them buying, wrapping, planning and laughing and are wondering how it is that they don't feel or act the same. They may have spare time on their hands with days off from work. That is disastrous for the alcoholic. Spare time. Something in their upbringing or childhood or in their genetic make-up made it so that they really don't know what to do with themselves if they find time on their hands. Or, they choose to neglect things they should be doing for imbibing. They feel lost. Drinking has a goal. To obliterate the feelings. Whether they be painful memories of love or feelings of inadequacy.

Whoa, I am going a little deeper here than I had planned. It is rainy but warmer here in my neck of Ohio. I had loved ones travelling, so I'll take the rain. I scored a GPS this holiday so finding my way around Cleveland on Tuesday and to the party tonight should be easier. I'll use map quest for the timing and to get a general idea of where I am going, but I think everyone should have a navigation device in their vehicle. I hate that I don't need glasses to drive, but need them to read. That makes it difficult to see the device sometimes, but text to speech is a must-have.