Freedom House Update

after 10 months of being open we are FILLED TO CAPACITY PEOPLE!!!!!! and have a FREAKING WAITING LIST!!!!
just had to share that....

day 2 & gratitude friday

stephen survived his second day of mothers day out, they said he did better than on tuesday. when we were walking into the building and he saw the silly old lady with reindeer antlers on he remembered where he was and started crying. break my heart. he loved going on the buggy ride & he got to see a handbell choir. again i have to reiterate how quickly 5 hours goes by. for me, probably not so much for him.

well, not even a week open & one out of our two clients has already burned off. mike was with him yesterday morning at the house & he seemed fine, then didn't show up in the evening. this is the guy that mike has known for years. cunning, baffling, powerful. it never ceases to amaze me what this disease does to people. again it reiterates to me how much easier it is to stay sober than get sober. i am SO grateful to be where i am today. what are you grateful for?

on a side note in regards to addiction, i have been having thoughts of smoking again (because i'm a nut job! and yes i'm still nursing. shut up) but last night i got new resolve.

i love my kids. they are awesome. stephen has been more chatty lately. he LOVES to say ball, dada, drink, that, cup. now keep in mind this is largely in the language that only mommy & daddy can understand. except for ball. thats clear as day. mason uses words like frustrated, object (in regards to game playing), and now i can't think of them. but often he says things and i'm like, how old are you kid?

happy thanksgiving, freedom house, oh my....

this week has been crazy....

my sister becky came for a visit on wednesday. it was, as always, awesome to see her. she is an amazing woman, she is a rock for me. thanks for all your help sista. we cooked a yummy scrumptious thanksgiving feast for my little family. and as you can see i have become "one of those people" who decorate their house for christmas, on thanksgiving. yeah. we also went to the parade downtown thursday morning and it was really a lot of fun. the ponies were my favorite part!

so i was planning on doing this post about gratitude and giving thanks for who i am and the life i have the privelege of being a part of. but I AM GRUMPY. and have been. i have spent the last 3 days running around like a mad woman, close to an anxiety attack, trying to get stuff done for freedom house. which ta da, will be opening tomorrow. we have gotten many calls from fliers we sent out and even one today from a guy that found us on the internet! wow, that is so exciting!! we have a temporary house manager setup and our first resident is moving in, well tonight really. so i have been making lists and attempting not to physically harm my hubby and kids. mike and i handle stress SO DIFFERENTLY. he goes into procrastination and the attitude of "everything will work out" (which it will. but, hello, we have to do stuff to make it so) and i wake up in the middle of the night thinking about what is to be done the next day. he makes me nuts sometimes. a cool thing is that i realize i handle stress better than i used to. i can breathe, i can calm down, i can take my grubby little hands off of things, sometimes.

sleep training

we've begun sleep training again. friday night was a long night, he cried the first round for a little over an hour - we took turns going in every 5ish minutes or so. second time it was under 30 minutes. last night was better - only had to go in once & he barely cried. so wow, they don't lie. it actually works. and he is okay, so far no irreversible trauma has occured. none we can see anyway.

i have decided to start him in a little mothers day out program. i am going in tuesday to register him. so i think he will start next tuesday. every tues & thurs from 9-2. i feel this is a good thing but i feel incredibly GUILTY. because i am afterall a stay at home mom. what kind of a mother am i? plus i don't deserve the time to myself. i should always be DOING DOING DOING. blah blah blah. i think this will be good for him. get him used to being away from me a little bit. will enable me to get some things done for our business without toting around the little guy. i will be able to clean the house, go to the gym, hit a meeting - withouth having to worry about him. that sounds like the life of leisure, that i don't deserve. i'm not sure where i got that idea, but its sucky.

sigh, i still feel guilty. what is it about mothers and guilt? (or this mother anyway) his birthday was nice. we sang happy birthday off and on all day. played with balloons. went to the park. ate cupcakes. i cannot believe he is one! wow, time moves so fast.

on another note we went by the house today to drop off a dresser i bought this week - and i forgot HOW AB FAB IT IS GOING TO BE AS A HALFWAY HOUSE!! holy crap. it is so incredibly perfect! i dropped fliers in the mail last week announcing its openeing on december 1st and have every day been giving it up to God-well trying to. if we build it, they will come. right? we will have a client beginning the 1st, a friend of mikes get out of treatment on the first, and will be moving in. (assuming he doesn't twist off in the meantime. which, lets face it, who the hell knows)

so i feel good about that, still so much to do. so much.

here's to another week. grateful i am alive to experience it. found out this a.m. a member of a group i go to passed away on wednesday. he was sober 35 years and died due to complications related to a brain surgery he had. he was an interesting bird. he seemed okay with himself, his family, with God.
we'll miss you Jim Moon.

freedom house

we have a tentative opening date of 12/1/08. which is contingent on us finding a house manager, i guess. SO MUCH to be done. tenant #1 moved out on saturday, so we are on the move. this week i've been in the place of - "holy crap. this is really happening. we're really doing this. there is a laundry list of things to be done & i don't know where to start" wanted to bury my head in the sand & do nothing. sound familiar? whats the deal with that reflex? the appropriate reaction is - ok, whats first? which i have finally arrived at.
so here i am. doing whats in front of me & i realized yesterday that I AM AFRAID. of failure, of success, of the unknown, of money, of responsibility (says the mother of 2, ha)
this is such a big deal for us. having the courage to do the work is what i'm up against, i feel like i can trust god to do his part. its ME i'm worried about!
but, i am woman. hear me roar. i am strong. i am competent. i am worthy. i am.....crap the baby woke up :-)
so they say courage is walking through fear, not not having it in the first place.
so i will walk. (we will walk. what a gift)

2714 palm st

we had the inspection done yesterday, really pleasantly surprised considering this is an almost 80 year old house we're buying. its going to work out beautifully, i think. we may have to put up/take down some walls to optimize space but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. now we close on the 29th, yes that's next friday!!
the house currently has 2 tenants that we met yesterday, and other than being a little irritated of the inconvenience of having a bunch of people traipsing through their apartments, they seemed very nice. they both just signed their leases in july so we may end up being landlords until next summer, unless we can get them to break lease early.
so we'll see, regardless, the house its perfect so we are one humongous step closer to getting the halfway house up and running.
yeah, go team.

2714 Palm St.

BIG BIG NEWS TODAY......

our offer was accepted - http://search.har.com/engine/harphotogallery.cfm?MLNUM=9580004&leadid=6&portalid=HAR

location: http://www.har.com/MapSearch/default.cfm?mlnum=9580004&leadid=6&sType=0

say hello to the future home of freedom house! it will be a sober living home for recovering alchoholic & drug addicted men seeking a new life & recovery through alcoholics anonymous. we might open up part of the duplex for "young adults" ages 17-25 that will have more stringent rules and additional life building skills taught.

wow, i'm kind of in shock i think. we are still working out part of the contract with the bank, so anything can happen. i feel like we've truly put this in Gods hands, so no matter what happens its all good!

freedom house

i posted last weekend that we made an offer on a house for our halfway house, did not get it. apparently it is different when you place a bid for a bank owned property - the offer accepted was actually above the list price. crazy.
so we've continued looking around various areas around town over the last week and weekend. all i can say is deed restrictions, deed restrictions, deed restrictions!
BUT, i may have some news over the next several days about something else we have in the works! so again fear of the unknown...... leads me to faith in god. i truly believe he, she, it - whatever - has my back. mike thinks the worst thing that can happen is that we don't try, i think he's right.

dream chasing

so mike & i are starting a new journey. it has been a dream of his, one that i've taken on as well, to open up a halfway house for recovering alcoholics, for obvious reasons i think. we want to provide a clean, safe place to give a hand up to people who are trying to get & stay sober. there are a lot of places out there, some good, some not so much. to start we will be a "sober living house" for men. eventually when mike finishes school and gets licensed we will talk about adding counseling services and becoming some sort of facility. at some point i'd like to be able to help women as well, and their children if need be. so the hope is to help people like us get the support and help they need.
so we have been looking for properties in the third ward area, we even made an offer on one this weekend. more will be revealed.
its scary to think about starting this business- success, failure. the unknown probably more than anything.

my girlfriend asked me the other day what i did for a "creative outlet". i had no answer (she pointed out my blog was one) but this is something i've been thinking about for quite awhile, especially this week since i was asked that question. i've never felt like a creative being, actually quite the opposite.

so i had a conversation with a dear friend today and he put something in a way that i have never thought of before. he said the bible says we are created in gods image, so being that god is the creator, that means we all have a creative force inside of us. (not that i'm a serious christian that takes too seriously what i read in the bible - thats a post for a different time) but creativity doesn't have to mean being an artist, musician, etc. or what i've been percieving it to mean. it can be anything really. my children are a creation. our marriage. and as much as i need something for myself i think a good start would be to acknowledge the things that i do create & participate in already. huh, that just came to me. aha.....

so i say all that to say this, i have no idea what that means for me but i'm willing to keep my eyes and heart open to find out. and yet again, more will be revealed.