Other Folks on the Path

Good afternoon, my Beautiful Friends!

I literally have a sticker stuck to the back of my hand. I just noticed it. This might be a symptom of going sticker crazy (see comment below see photo below).

I got to bed late last night and did not nap on Sunday, so I was planning on sleeping in a bit this morning. While I didn't wake up as early as I have been lately, I still woke up plenty early to go to my Zoom AA Meeting. So I did. Today was about picking up the groceries and putting out the garbage. I did the former before lunch, but the latter will wait until after dinner...maybe until after the sun sets, as we are under a heat advisory. And I REALLY hate sweating. Yesterday, I set up a new checking account, which is going to be my "allowance account." I decided to go this route, with a debit card and a monthly deposit to limit my personal spending.

I feel secure in my sobriety, comfortable in my food choices, and accepting of my spending choices (though I really want to buy more stickers...and I will, but not until my "allowance" account fully is up and running).

I hope you find some beauty in your day, and that you keep cool and drink plenty of water, and as always, I am thankful that you are here.

I'm going to try to keep this short, because dropping our dog off for doggie day care and a bath ended up taking longer than expected, and I want to get the housework started in the morning, since I always work more slowly in the afternoon! The AA meeting this morning was about the 6th Tradition (basically, that AA + Profit = Bad News, so don't do it), and it was a very quiet meeting. I shared on the topic, then I hopped in with a second share to say that sitting quietly together is also a good thing, it's just different from what we usually do. It's one of my favorite traditions -- it reminds us that not everything is a business venture, which is good to remember when we live in a capitalistic world. I also like the tradition that essentially says benevolent anarchy is a good thing.

I feel strong in my sobriety and in my eating habits. I'm not at a point of feeling strong about my financial decisions, since I haven't built up enough of a practice in conscientious spending yet. But I'm working on it, so I am hopeful.

I hope you find something beautiful in your day, and as always, thank you for being here!

This one, I'm going to post to my Bluesky and my Facebook account, because I want to know about other folks' "Dream Houses."

I'm not talking about Dream Homes, mind you, I mean the houses that you encounter in your dreams. Do you go back to the same dream space time and time again? Or is your dream space populated with lots of houses? Are they scary? Or are they comfortable?

Here is my description of the House that lives in my dreamscape. It's someplace where dream-Me often goes:

My House is very complex. It has a basement level that dream-Me won't enter anymore. In the first House dream I had, I was curious enough to go down the ramshackle stairs. I don't even remember what I saw, but I woke up feeling that I was being swallowed whole by something that was constricting me from all sides; I suppose you could compare it to being swallowed by a snake, though I've never been swallowed by a snake, so take that comparison with a grain of salt.

In the early dreams (I've been having these dreams for all of my adult life), the House belonged to my mother, but it is not the house I grew up in. In later dreams, it is usually a house I'm moving into. The glimpses of the exterior indicate that it is an old home of three stories; the interior tells a different story. There are two levels of living space, and sometimes the bedrooms are on a third level, but sometimes they are in the extension. I've never seen the exterior of the extension, but it is built over flowing water (definitely Frank Lloyd Wright vibes), and I am not comfortable with the room that the creek flows through. There is something dark and green in there that does not have good intentions.

My bedroom is always the end link of a chain of three rooms. The first room is a large, airy bedroom, and my room is small and cozy. The room in the middle? You have to walk through a field of psychic energy that is terrifying. It's not the same feeling as being swallowed that the basement has, but it's like walking through an ocean of ghosts, both horrifying and mournful. Then there is the attic. IT IS HUGE. But not terrifying. It's easy to get lost up there, and there is more than one access point, so you don't always leave the way you came. When I'm up there, I'm usually looking for something I've lost. (Yeah, the attic definitely now sounds like a metaphor for ADHD, doesn't it?)

This dream space has a lot of stairs. I opened a door in the kitchen that I thought was the pantry, and it turned out to be a rickety spiral staircase (not the same ramshackle stairs from the first dream, but those were also in the kitchen) going down to the basement, and I slammed that door hard and fast. There is a large main course of stairs, and in the extension, there are several half levels. I'd love to see an exterior shot of that extension someday.

I don't think that my House exists in "normal" space and time as it appears in my dreams (it would be a bit much, even for an HGTV weird homes show), but there are some parts of it that feel like they do belong out here, in non-dream space. I have no idea if this last paragraph makes any sense.

Anyway, if you've read this, share with the House(s) that reside in your dreamscape. I'm curious.