The Holidays Approach

Job 22:21 “Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee.”

The Holidays Approach

I can hear the kitchen utensils clanging, I can envision the family get-togethers, I can almost inhale the food cooking in the ovens across America as we hurriedly prepare the holiday feast for the family. Yes, many prepare a week in advance!

As much as we’re a nation addicted to Big Pharma drugs we’re also an overweight nation addicted to food. As the holiday nears, this is the season where people overeat without guilt. They stuff their faces in the name of ‘it was there’ and as Christmas strolls around the twenty added pounds are already seen in the tighter belt and jeans. The guilt won’t be felt until January first when people make a haphazardly New Year resolution to lose all that was gained setting themselves up for a letdown when they fail.

I am one week away from my eleven-month mark. It’s the time of the month I mark another successful notch in my belt and sticking to my protocol that changed the shape, literally, of my future. The holidays will be more challenging than all eleven months together have been. It will be where his mom pushes ham balls and fudge brownies in his face for his upcoming birthday, and where the family gets together to celebrate the Christmas day meal. 

Since they put a halt to exchanging gifts, that is all Christmas day is anymore, a day of food and family gathering. It’s not like we haven’t spent MANY occasions with the family this year (funeral, wedding, visits) So, the only reason I see celebrating Christmas this year is that I’m alive! And I am ever so grateful for having been allowed these eleven months to change me! I have a lifetime of gratitude, to confine my gratefulness to thirty-days seems menial to me after finding I have a disease that would’ve shattered many.

Please don’t rag on me how December 25th is Jesus’ birthday and a just cause to celebrate the day. Christmas is a pagan holiday set in stone by man. Factually, Jesus’ birthday has been somewhat proven that it didn’t take place in December and hence the reason I don’t celebrate Christmas as Jesus’ birthday. It’s a day not much unlike Thanksgiving, a day of family, food, and gratitude. To each his own. 

While I see my husband trying to change also with his toxic soda consumption, and him wanting to take his own vitamin supplements, we as a family here are embracing change; that is until the family get-together. My hubby will be weak against the wiles of his family as they intimidate him with delicious food. I can’t expect him to be as strong as I am and seriously, I don’t think there are many people who could hold out on sugar consumption (among other things) for eleven months. I’ve been quite impressed with my willpower this year. Where was I hiding all of these years?

I will need all of my armor to face these next thirty-five days and beyond. Instead of stressing over the visit with family, I’m preparing what meal I will take with me on Christmas day like a mega salad with all the fixins and I’m sure the hosts will understand that I had to bring my own dish if they want us there. I’m also preparing what I’ll make for the carnivores of my family and for me on Thanksgiving! I’ll have a rainbow of vegetables and they’ll have meat and potatoes, easy peasy.

I might even try to attempt a modified pumpkin pie with coconut milk and stevia. My only cheat of the year just might be the flour crust. I won’t have the added cool-whip but there is no reason the guys can’t, that’s if they even attempt to eat a modified pie.

Another challenge I’ll face is having a stress free holiday. I sometimes let the smallest of things bother me but this year I am selfishly focusing on ME and my continued healing, in this scenario there is no room for stress. As the month unfolds there seems to be a lot of stress-less events taking place already; it’s as if God knows me so well he’s already set in place the good things that need to happen to keep me stress-free. I’ll elaborate at a later date but for now…I’m off to have me a screen less stress-free day! 

God bless one and all! 

Pss. 4:8 “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.”

Addicted to the Internet

1 Tim. 6: 18 That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;

It wasn’t until eleven years ago when I was first introduced to the computer. My brother-in-law gave me an old one that he said would be good for my writing, and my niece came around, and hooked me up to the internet via an AOL ‘try me free’ disc. And the rest is history so they say.

Before this humming machine rattled into my life, it was a much simpler life. I gardened; I swam in my aboveground pool, relished the seasons, and cherished the solitude of living the mundane life. It was a life where the real world was all I had, good and bad, it was mine. I had my family, albeit a family in dire need of the strength I seemed to give them, I had my dog, but something was missing. I was living but something was missing.

I never owned a microwave, hadn’t touched a cell phone, I didn’t even have a dryer; I hung my clothes on a clothesline! Then it happened in 2003. The internet happened. I was addicted to solitude, then the internet came along. When one has an addictive personality, don’t we always seem to give up one addiction and replace it with another?

This post came to mind when a friend, asking for prayer, mentioned he thinks his child is addicted to the internet. He and his wife took it away, and my heart sank. I totally understood her connection to the virtual world that holds many of us in its grasp. I’m sure he and his wife have outside lives where they connect with humans on an hourly/daily basis, but me, I really conjured images of me and my absorption of the internet.

I saw me, upon awakening, turning on my laptop computer, THEN making coffee. I saw my son awakening, with his ipod attached to his hand like a third limb. I saw my beau wake, and sit in his desk chair as the desktop computer behind me hums to life. I didn’t like the images I saw. I saw three people addicted to a virtual world that they lived in, on an hourly basis.

What has become of the real world and where did it go? I get in the car and ride down the dirt road, drinking in the beauty of it all: the sky, the endless farms, cows, birds and it seems like a picture ripped out of a magazine. It doesn’t feel real.

I think of taking it away, from all of us, and I feel like we would just lash out in anger at each other until we all gave in and re-entered to zone of the web. That’s pretty sad! BUT I don’t think I’m alone on this web of suffocation.

Sure, I’ll justify my actions by saying I’m using it for writing. He’s using it for writing, and Adam is using it to connect with people that in the real world don’t give him the time of day. We all justify our actions and it makes it okay? I don’t think so!

I have to be honest, I think giving up alcohol was easier than even the THOUGHT of giving up the internet. I gave up drinking at 21, and for seventeen years after that I lived without a computer, so I know a life without one can actually take place. Adam has only had his ipod for about three years and I know he had a life before the ipod came along, and at first it was used for games and music, until he found apps that took him outside the realm. I do think beau was a computer geek since he was a young man; still, a virtually good fella. (pun intended)

On a positive note, this summer I didn’t spend much time on this thing. No writing freed me up to play Chess. Yes, I play the game that came with my computer because not many enjoy the game I love so much! My days were spent cleaning, mowing, gardening and enjoying my surroundings. My arthritic pain kept me tied to my sofa a lot, and we watched movies at night and since I would rather be on the computer than watch what the TV has to offer, the net is a safer venue for me. No ads, no clutter and I CHOOSE the good and positive I can glean from the net. Is that justification? Denial?

Now that I’m back writing, I look around the house, YouTube blasts in the background, (through earphones mind you), keys tapping an almost melodic accompaniment, Adam with his third limb goes off to his bedroom and I sit here writing and peeking in on the active frenzy of my writing friends on facebook. Picture of a perfect, loving, Frisbee playing, ball tossing, family romping through the tulips of life, eh? I live in a non-communicative household and a world of communication at my fingertips. Go figure.

 
Hello! My name is Joni and I have an addiction. The first step is admitting it, right?