>>>My life seems so incredibly vanilla compared to some of the stuff I read here. And I think that I'm a fairly colorful character. Am I the minority or are the addicts, depressed and clinically insecure just more vocal?
>>
>>I don't think you're vanilla. I don't know anyone who can bake a cake like you.
>>I just came back and read some of the things that were posted while I was gone. Tho I have simpathy for those who are fighting their demons, I don't want any part of it in my life. I like being "ordinary".
>>
>>If you're "ordinary", consider yourself fortunate and go do something extraordinary.
>>
>>Happy New Year, Jay.
>
>I guess I'm sort of the same. I have issues - ask anyone who is close to me - but nothing like the obvious displays I see here. Some of my demons are very dark, but very private, and that's where they should be. I've known coworkers who's day-to-day family lives seem like a bad Jeff Foxworthy joke. I know because they worked at home and I could hear it going on when we were having meetings over the phone. I just go through life trying to do the best I can. Work during the week, take our girl to school, attend recitals or plays that she's in, run to Target to get a few things, over to Home Depot to get what I need to replace the kitchen faucet, out to Macaroni Grill for dinner maybe and then clean the house on Saturday morning. Try to get to the driving range or the coffee shop to read the Sunday paper on the weekends. Once in awhile I have moments of creativity where I do a wedding cake, a painting or write a song, but mostly the other stuff. There's good and bad and lots in between. Reading some of the stuff here just makes me appreciate the mundane.
>

To some things like spending time with your girl and going to her recitals may seem mundane and ordinary, but to her I'm sure it was extraordinary. I think when your kids see that you take interest in things like fixing up the house or even just reading, it has positive influence on them. It 's surely better than them seeing you being a couch potato and drinking beer all the time... although there are appropriate time for that too. :)

My father was an alcholic until I was about 30. So I know what it's like living with one. Always making excuses for everything, until one day I decided heck, why hide it from friends... after all if they are my friends they wouldn't stop being my friends because of my father's problems. His biggest probelm was his stupid pride. So many years he thought he didn't need help and insisted that he could stop on his own and no one can help him.

Anyway... some how he got sober and the last 20 years of his life was actually very productive. Now, he was never a bad parent. He just wasn't as good as he could have been... he couldn't ever keep the small little promises, which eventually all adds up to something BIG.

My tactic as a father is to do the opposite of what my dad would have done.... I think it's worked out well. I find it delightful that if you do the little things like going to the recitals and balls games, you get extra serving of hug and kisses and the obidience level goes way up too.


>Happy New Year to you too, Sam.

Thanks.