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I'm back and happy to be home!

I got to go to an meeting while I was there and there were 2 newcomers in it. What a treat to get to talk with them; one even gave me a ride back to my hotel so we could talk more. Another cool thing is my 4th sobriety birthday was the day I left England. There is no way under the sun that I'd have even been in England had I not gotten sober!

My return flight was via Atlanta, so I stayed there for gay pride and rode home with friends on Sunday. One of many cool things that happened during Pride: About a year ago, I received a CD of a speaker at a Florida Gay AA Roundup held in March of 2005. I have listened to that CD so many times and have made so many copies for my friends in recovery. That speaker was in the parade this past weekend and I chased down his car and whispered in his ear, "Thank you for your AA talk!" He said, "Oh Honey, you're welcome." That was all we got, for it wasn't really a good time for a conversation! I have chills right now thinking about it. I so wanted to meet him and I did! AND I got to thank him for sharing his story and touching my life and the lives of so many of my friends.

It is a wonderful thing to love one's life; I love mine!

I'm heading out on Saturday for Northampton and London on my first overseas trip. It's business, but there'll be some pleasure, too. I've already located the meetings in Northampton; a couple are about 2 miles from the hotel. I'll be spending most of the trip in Northampton with a couple of days in London. I plan to just ask the concierge at the hotel in London for meeting info, for I'm sure there are many, many meetings there and I don't yet know where I'm staying. I love checking out meetings when I travel and look forward to seeing the cultural differences in the fellowship in the UK. I'll be over there until June 22, when I return to the US. I'm flying back into Atlanta, where their Gay Pride weekend is starting. Perfect timing! So, I'll stay with some friends that night and then join friends traveling there from NC and SC on Saturday. We're staying in some cool hotel in midst of all the hullabaloo. Then I'll ride back home with them on June 24. What a trip!

Oh! Get this... I'm traveling with only one (YES, ONE!!!) carry-on bag. That's a huge bit of letting go for someone that has over 60 pairs of shoes alone! Pray for me!

And, speaking of cultural differences, check out this bit of news from the Netherlands. It blows my mind...

Students invent powdered booze
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) -- Dutch students have invented powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors.

The latest innovation in inebriation, called Booz2Go, is available in 20-gram packets that cost &euro1-1.5 ($1.35-$2).

Top it up with water and you have a bubbly, lime-colored and -flavored drink with just 3 percent alcohol content.

"We are aiming for the youth market. They are really more into it because you can compare it with Bacardi-mixed drinks," 20-year-old Harm van Elderen told Reuters.

Van Elderen and four classmates at Helicon Vocational Institute, about an hour's drive from Amsterdam, came up with the idea as part of their final-year project.

"Because the alcohol is not in liquid form, we can sell it to people below 16," said project member Martyn van Nierop.

The legal age for drinking alcohol and smoking is 16 in the Netherlands.

The students said companies interested in making the product commercially could avoid taxes because the alcohol was in powder form. A number of companies are interested, they said.