VISA

Crap!

I wined last night
today I wake and my credit card is out and .........
well I guess we'll see what arrives in the next few weeks
I hope it was worth it

It Only Took 7 Days

Well .. it only took 7 days to figure out that beveraging is not a thing I should be doing.
I started off slow.  Mid-way I went hard at the end I teetered it out.  Felt like shit.  Got about as much done as I would have without it.  Burnt dinner once.  But fuck - I was not engaged when I should have been engaged.  Mostly I just felt like shit and I felt guilty, and feel guilty that I should have gotten more done on my holiday.
So now, here I am starting a new 3 month goal.  I am 3 days in.
I am good.  It is easier looking towards the 3 month goal this time.  Likely I will feel I need another reminder wagon fall in November.  I hope not.  
My daughter broke up with her boyfriend a week ago and is now on this road I don't like.  I don't feel comfortable with.   I have not been engaged for any of it.  She is going out with Friends ..... boys ..... I don't like that either.  How she is behaving.  Now she is talkign about going camping this weekend coming up!  with boys ..... they are all friends she hasn't seen in a looong time .... but my Mumby senses are tingling and I don't like it.  I need to be available and not drunk.  My husbands truck blew up on the highway on his way home from work on Friday...Aug 4 ... I was a micky in.  Aug 5 I went to renew my insurance and he owed 500bux in points that I paid so I could get my insurance.  UGH!
So on the wagon I go.  Will I look for more support?  I might.  I just might.  
I  am going to take time from facebook as well...... that may not go as good.  It is how I communicate with the world afterall.
HOwever - I need to be amazing at my new job.  I made too many rookie, stupid mistakes last month that I am not ok with.  I am not organized enough.  I am not keeping myself organized enough.  My mind doesn't and can't remember things.  I know I am creeping up on alzehemiers and I am going to battle it as best I can until I am forced out of work.  I figure I have 10 years.  So I need to make this job amazeballs for my family before I lose it completely!

I am not Selfish - I am Saving -

 .....  but if I stick around to save you ..... i will lose myself

If I am lost .... who will look after the ones that don't drown me but keep me whole?

I have a wall around my heart.  People get in.  

My depression is Huge -- but I have learned how to save myself.  I won't allow myself to die because I was too busy trying to hold someone else up that wasn't doing the work and expecting me to do it all.

108th Day

Yesterday was my wedding anniversary!  
6 years.  Pretty awesome I think.  I worked in the yard for a good portion on the day.  I really enjoy my yard.  The boys had stayed the night, so I had them in the morning till they went home at 11.  It was hot and beautiful out.  Husband and I decided to not go for a drive or go out.  Which was fine with me.  i have things to do at the house and getting dressed up with make up just to go for dinner sounded like more effort than I wanted to put in to it.  We decided to order in!  A Friend of husbands came by and ordered with us.  We chatted all night ..... I liked it.  It was good.  

It was my anniversary.  So, I poured myself a glass of chilled J.Lohr.  It was ok.  HOnestly not at good as I thought it was going to be.   I had 2 glasses.  Half a bottle - the last glass I ended up dumping out.  It was the end of the evening and I had switched back to Tonic.
So thus ending my wagon bound trip at 108 days.
I think about the open bottle on my counter.  Do I dump it?  Do i drink it when I get home tonight?  Do i put it in one of my glass decanters and use it in cooking?

In the end it came down to hiding in drink.   I got messy.  REally messy cause I was hiding all my stress and frustrations in drink.  The mess came because there was not enough alchohol for me to hide in.  My issues were soooo huge the booze couldn't hide them from myself any longer .......... any of that make sense?

Do I still have issues?
I got sober and 6 weeks in i realized -- i needed to quit my job ASAP.
I got clear -- my thoughts about different things were the same, I just got to finish them out and come up with solutions.  Or just finish the thoughts.  I have had lots of time to think -- to go far back in my memories of the years to understand why I felt i need to hide.  Why was I running from my own life?

A lot has happened when I think about the last 10 years.  Really, it all started with my car accident in 2009 ....... my life, my sense of self, me ... i derailed then.  Instead of dealing with the derailment, mourning it, letting it go...... i kept trying to hang on.

So many things have changed in my life since then.  So many things that I have had control over and so many I haven't.  

2016 pushed me over the edge.  2016 was the catalyst.  2016 destroyed me.

i am still self healing.  I am still figuring it out.  I will be okay, but I will never be able to take on so much ever again.  There are too many scars.  Too much damage.

The self realization I have been going thru for the last 108 days has been good.  I have been talking to husband the last couple weeks ...... he does tend to shut me down every now and then, but for the most part he listens.  This is good as I try to sort the stuff.  Soo much stuff.  And he is part of that

NOw I must sign off - I do need to get to work -

Blog On

I CAN BE YOUR GREATEST ADVERSARY OR YOUR BIGGEST ENEMY

 ...............  YOU CHOOSE .........

Todays First World Problem

 ...... Golfing - 

................. Golfing with clients as part of schmoozing in my new position.  I must be fun,  funny,  magnetic, social, fit in, impressive, smart all without beveraging ...........

bought a men's Polo shirt ..... 
time to get my cute on!

Dense tit Smart tit

Today I do not have Cancer!
What I do have is a dense tit!!
The tissue have become dense for some reason.  Doc said it didn't look cancerous, but they are sending me for an ultrasound next month to find out, or see, why the tissue looks the way it does.
They said not to worry about it.  So ok - I won't worry?
I wonder why I shouldn't worry.  If there was nothing to worry about, why send me for an ultrasound?  
Doc said it didn't look calcified.  So good?  I feel like I should have been more on the ball and recorded everything .... I feel like there are holes in what they are telling me.  Seems odd to me to go for more looking if I have nothing to worry about.  Is it so they can keep an eye on it cuz it could change at any moment?  Is it going to be a thing that I have to watch like my moles and go for mammograms twice a year?  Is it because they are blowing smoke up my ass?  Or is it simply that I have one smart tit and one stupid one?

What If?

Today I meet with the Dr to find out why my tit was recalled.
Yesterday I  had another squishing at the hospital - another picture just in case the first one was  truly a mistake.  Today I go and the doctor will tell me what they found if anything.
I am sure it was just a blur or a bad picture.  I know I breathed when I wasn't supposed to, that probably screwed it up the last time.  Me not being able to take direction properly - UGH!
So today, in a couple hours, I go brave the insanity that is the hospital parking lot to find out why my left breast had an abnormality in it.  
I am concerned.  I have not allowed myself to get lost in thought of the  "what if's"  So the fear has not grown.  The anxiety is manageable.  I am not allowing myself to be scared.  I will go alone to this appointment.  I thought about asking Mountain to come with me.  I thought about asking The Queen ...... but I decided this is no big deal.  I will go alone.  I can't waste time on being worried.  Even though it seems in the back of my head ....... I am terrified.
What is my Plan B?  I always have a Plan B.  I don't this time. Turns out, in order to have a Plan B you have to allow yourself to go down the path of "what if" in order to build a Plan B.  Since I have not allowed myself to do that......... no Plan B.
As I write this, I am  feeling the anxiety grow.  I am totally unprepared for this appointment.  
A "what if"  just popped in to my head - I will not type it out.  If I put it down in words, it becomes real.  A real "what if".  I hate surprises - I hate not being prepared. I hate not thinking of Every Angle, Every possible way something can play out.  
I have not googled anything to do with breast cancer.  I don't want to know anymore details than I already know from those who have gone down the road ahead of me.
I am a busy woman these days.  Quit my job -  I signed all my paperwork at the new job yesterday.  I start in a week today!  I don't have anymore time than I have spent typing this out dwelling on my left tit.  We are having a few friends over SAturday to celebrate Canada's birthday - i need to get ready for that.   My garden is a mess, the house needs to be tidied.  I have projects that I want to start.   It's The Queen's day off today.  We have mother daughter stuff to do.  Mostly just staring at each other ..... but I look forward to that.  Going to an appointment focused on my left tit is not how I wanted to spend these last days off in June.

The thing is ..... when I found out my uncle had the brain tumour at Christmas, then my dad with his prostate, I said to myself..... 2017 will be the year of Cancer ...... I just never thought it would include me.
Blog On Dude

QUIT MY JOB TODAY

Home From Work

So today, he is home from work.
Not because of a lack of work - he hasn't been laid off ...... yet.
He says his back hurts.
So here he is home AGAIN!
He is already working half days -  we may have a lay off in our future - he won't have money coming in ...... but he can take a day off.
It is nearly 9AM and he is still in bed ....... but I guess, what else would he be doing?
I am so pissed off!
My back hurts too!
I have to work today - in the rain - going door to door for deliveries.  Running around all of Maple Ridge from dealership to dealership.  Prolly won't get lunch until 4PM and I probably will only get half of it ........ somehting is wrong with my left tit.  I am bracing myself for the negative side of the 'what if'  of the tit.  Yet he can stay home from work.
FUCK!!!!
not cool Mountainman.   Not Cool

Locked Out

well ....... it's been so long since I've blogged - that I have managed to lock myself out of my Peri - menopause blog.  ERG!
What have I been doing since 2014 ...... it seems I gave up on all my outlets when I moved here ........ maybe that's why I upped the wine intake?  I stopped venting.  Gave up my escape ...... interesting.
WEll In any event - I Obvioulsy used it last while I was beveraging and now I don't remember how to get in to it.  Fuck!

The Two Week Wait

So Yesterday was an anxiety roller coaster!

I spent the morning recovering from my 3 mismanaged, no/late breaks, 10 & 12 hour shifts.  Then I kept checking my email to see if I would hear from the new job for a 3rd interview to be formally hired. Then husband was home from work at lunch cuz there is no work there for him.  Then at 2:44PM i get a call from Fraser Health telling me that there are abnormalities in my left breast and I need to go back for a VIP exam on the 27th.  Followed by a special appointment with the Doctor on the 28th to discuss the results.

My left Tit has been recalled -

I have decided to not worry about it.  Even though I am totally worried about it.  
I have been cysty my whole life.  The first time I found lumps in my tits was when I was 18.  I was told, too much caffeine and hormones.  Then cysts were found on my ovaries when I was 19.  Went to my first ultrasound.  The body absorbed them,  Once again I was told hormones.  Then I had one behind my ear ....... it went away.  So I am not going to worry about this 'abnormality' in my tit!

Something different about this - I can't feel it.  Like with my own hand, fingers.  Not that I felt the ones on my ovaries with my fingers, but I did have aching back then.  Which is what prompted the trip to the doctor to begin with.  The cysts i have had in my tits have happened many times over the years.  Many trips to the doctor with fears.  I've always felt them.  All the doctors I have seen over the years have said, if they move, don't worry about them.  The body will absorb them.  They are due to hormones.  This I don't feel.  Or do I? 
When I breast exam myself, the left does feel denser then the right.  Is that it?  Cuz if it is, it's massive -
I am Totally worried about the 'abnormality' in my tit....

So, the 2 week wait.  So different from the 2 week waits I was doing 4 years ago.  Waiting to see if the invitro had taken ...... waiting to see if I had another period or am I pregnant.  That was full of anxiety, hope and dreams.  This 2 week wait only started yesterday.  So far it's full of anxiety and thoughts.

My first thoughts  are about the job I am hoping for.  The job I plan to leave.  Worst case scenario is that I have cancer.  Boob Cancer.  People survive that all the time, every day.  So That I am not really concerned about.  Waht I am concerned about is being sick.  Having to do the get well journey.  I will need disability for about a year.  Switching jobs without the benefits right away ........ we will need that money to keep the house.  I can't afford to be without an income.  My family needs this home.  Do I continue forward with my plan to leave my current job?
I think about my husband.  He loves me sooo much.  He makes me insane, but in the end, I love him too.  Is he up for this?  If I do end up being sick, can he handle it?  Can he handle all that he will need to do?  If I am here day after day feeling shitty and bad about myself, will he be able to cope?  Will he be able to keep the house in order to relieve the anxiety I am sure to have about it?   Will he be able to keep his job?
I think about my daughter - I quit drinking because I was leaving her.  Drinking has put time between us.  Lost time.  It finally became enough that I felt it.  Worrying that it had been too long and she is/was gone.  I've missed so much ........ now to be sober and I end up leaving her anyway?  Or losing time because I am sick.  She has so much in her future.  I don't ever want to be the reason she doesn't reach her full potential.  I don't ever want to be the reason she didn't go forward.  She is the most amazing person I ever could have created.  She is strong and smart and so secure.  She is my world.  She has great things coming to her.  So many great things.  I don't know what they are, but they are out there for her.  She keeps reaching, she will get there.  Where ever 'there' is.
I think about money.  Money we don't have.  The bank account that has $198 in it.  I think about the thousands of dollars that i owe in my name.  I can't afford to not work.  I can't afford to miss days.  We are living pay check to pay check.........
I worry that we will lose the house on a day to day basis.  Being sick or possibly sick..... the worry is strong.
So then I switch to ...... so I'm sick.  So maybe I lose my Breast.  You get new ones!  Better ones!  I always wanted a boob job.  I go bald.  Well, I guess that is what it is.  I haven't been bald.  Even as a baby I had hair.  So I will rock hats and Scarves! I will wear Huge colored hoop earrings and bright lipstick.  It will be amazing!   Biggest perk of all - I will lose weight!  Maybe get back down to a size 5!  Although, i have gotten rid of most of my small clothes.  The Queen has a handful of them that she is now wearing ...... so i guess there is her wardrobe that I can dive into ....... I will get a holiday.  Time to do the projects I have lined up. The colander hanging baskets.  The teapot wind chimes.  Fairy gardens.  I'll have time to meditate how I like and to excercise!! see lots of positives!

I decided last night that I will continue with my plan to quit my current job and move forward to the next job.  I will get thru my 2 week wait however I get thru it I guess.  Hopefully with not to much anxiety and not to many blow-ups at work before I leave.  I don't want to burn bridges or destroy friendships.
Today, I will Tonic.  I will Tonic a lot.
Today, I might just have a nap in the afternoon.  I haven't slept since 5AM.  So I am sure a nap will be wolcomed.
Today, I will binge watch Sex and the City some more.  That was the reason I decided I had to get my mammogram done.  I identify a lot with Sammantha.  The episode where she fell in a hole and broke her toe, is what prompted me to make the appointment.   I broke my toe ..... several times......and then my foot ......... I figured Carp!  she broke her toe and then she had the cancer thing -  I better get my shit looked after!  It was a, 'the light came on' moment.  Glad I did.
Today, I will paint my Bathroom Floor and probably the pillars in my living room to keep busy on my day off!

Blog On Dudes

June 13, 2017

Husband is home from work for the second day in a row at lunch.
The new wood Tarriff's make it hard to work at a mill.  No wood to work with - bundle, fork lift, plane ect.  So awesome.  Year two of him home in June .......... and just as I was dealing with that and how my mind is reacting to it ......... I get a call from the boob twisters I saw a couple weeks ago.  Apparently, my left tit has been recalled - I have to go for the fancy boob squish and then an even fancier one on one with the doctor the next day -

On another note .............. I am 2 months sober today!

Hooray Me

DECISIONS

I find I am in a place where I feel I need to leave my current job.  This is a really hard decision.  Mostly because of money.
I make an ok living right now.  Leaving would mean taking a cut.  I also have amazing benefits ........ the places I have been looking have decent benefits - so not the end of the world.
Why am I feeling this way?
I am a road agent.  I deliver insurance to people's homes and work in the dealerships registering new cars.  I am a slave to the phone and the calendar.  Never really knowing how my day will unfold.  My hours are long.  I am scheduled for 10 - 12 hours on the days that I work.  There is a lot of hurry up and wait in my job.  Sitting in a car waiting for the next phone call to tell me where I am going next.
Today it is raining.  Delivering insurance in the rain is the worst!  House to house - door to door - people not remembering their appointment.    
House numbers not clearly marked.  Brass!!!  FYI - brass or copper numbers, no matter what they are on, are difficult to see!!!  House numbers are also never in the same place on each house.  When its dark, its sometimes impossible to find a house.  Especially when they forget to leave their light on!
Every time my work phone rings, it means I need to go somewhere.  Pick up what I am doing.  Sometimes, stop what I am doing, and go wherever the voice on the other end of the phone tells me.  If I am at a dealership, I am required to keep an eye on the calendar, update every 15-20 mins my actions of where I am in my transaction, if there is another to follow, when i am finished.  I have to keep an eye on deliveries to make sure they are getting done when they are supposed expected to be.  There is a team of us on the road, but if we are all busy and another dealership calls..........or a home delivery needs to be done ........ but you are trapped.  Being held or in the middle of a transaction with a client - who will go?  You finish with your client, check the calendar and toss your mobile office in your bags, race out the door to the next call.  All the while, being organized with your paperwork.  Making sure its all together, nothing forgotten, no mistakes, copies made and given to the business office.  Time is of the essence - and you need to be fast.
Lunch - you never know when you will get lunch.  On SAturdays, you are lucky to get lunch at all!  Never mind that during, what they call, lunch break, the office can and does call to send you to your next dealership.  When you think you are going to get your hour lunch and 15 minutes in there is a call from the office, telling you its only a half break now and when you are done you need to go to XXX.
12 hour shifts.  Whenever during the week.  Its 160 hours a month.  Wherever those fall is up to the manager.  I put in a couple years ago, that I no longer can work Sundays.  I needed a reset day.  I needed a day every week, every month, that I knew fersure was going to be my day off.  
12 hour shifts means, if you work 4 in a row, you are a bag of shit for your first day off.  If you are lucky enough to get 2 days in a row off - you spend the first one recouping from the last 4 days.  Now keep in mind.  The house work has waited and multiplied for you too during your days on.  There is no before work or after work when you can run a vacuum or toss laundry in.  Maybe have a dinner date with your husband or a girlfriend.  Go the to gym.  All the little things,  all the little things that we do to fill our evenings before bed all now has to happen on the days off that have now become so precious.
Being a road agent means, you never really know what time you are done.  I have had occasion when I have started at 9AM and been caught at a dealership - not to be home until 10:30/11!  or the 10AM start that gets you home at 11:30!  that was my latest - you just never know.  There is no way to predict.  Fridays and Saturdays are good.  They are only 10hour scheduled days - the dealerships close at 6.  BUT - if there is a deal - we stay.  so a 6PM close has the possibility of an 8PM home time.  Its exhausting.  The not knowing is exhausting and stressful.
Being a wife and a mother to a young adult - 
I look at my life and my daughter who is 18 with a steady boyfriend and 2 jobs and working on a career.  I think, she will get married one day.  She will have children.  Will I be there?  
The woman is the cornerstone of the home of the family.  When she is missing from it, the family dynamic is lost.
So I look for a new job.  I need to be back in the home.
Truth is - I've never been totally happy with my job, my career, since my accident and I had to leave the restaurant behind.  But I am old for that now too.  And my body is so out of shape.
I do enjoy lots about road running.  The dealerships - each one with its own quirk.  The sales people, the sales managers, business managers ........ i have a friendship with each of them.  That will be soooo hard to leave.  I've been doing this 3years now and have established myself as Queen in the dealerships.  It feels good.  It feels good to walk in and I can do no wrong they love me so much.  I like most of the kids I work with on the road.  My team.  Their youth keeps me young too!  Not being stuck in the same place all the time is also a benefit.  I get my energy from people.  I did when I was serving, I do now with all the different people buying cars.  All the different dealerships.  All the different personalities.  They keep me alive and rejuvenate me.  I do really, really enjoy that part of it.  That's the part I have been hanging on to.  
The stress of the road has been getting to me since 2015.  I tried to get off the road then.  There was a position open in the office in the back.  My sales manager denied me the position because I was too good. to valuable on the road.  My sales are too good for them to lose me.  So I stuffed it down and sucked it up and kept going.  Now that I am sober ....... oh yes!  Still sober!!  I don't have an escape.  The work hard play hard escape of every successful sales rep, booze.  I guess I could escape in a healthy way.  Work it out at the gym ..... oh no wait ...... i can't.  There is no time for the gym in this new life I have of no predictable schedule.  When its been a particularly rough day on the road, after driving in traffic for 11 hours .... who wants to go to the gym?  There is no gym time in that day.  You want a Glass of Wine DAmn it!!!
So tomorrow, I have another interview.
Tomorrow I hope the numbers that come across from the area manager are enough to make me say 'yes' right on the spot.  Tomorrow ..........
  

TODAY IS HARD

Some Saturday Thoughts

You would think that not beveraging for nearly 4 weeks, I'd lose some weight.
This leads me to think that I either didn't drink as much as I thought I did, or the carefully selected beverages i chose really weren't full of as much sugar as I thought.
I do have to say though, I really appreciate the non-puffy state I am in.  The scale reads the same, but I do notice when I look in the mirror and put on my clothes I am not as soft, puffy, swollen ......
UPDATE to the other day when Husband didn't wake up and go to work.  I left to run errands, he indeed did get his Ass out of bed.  He took the garbage out and then he went to his day job!  He was a couple hours late and then did overtime to make up for it - but he went!  YaY!!!
Today we shop Washers.  *sigh*  Money we really don't have.  But what makes this even more difficult is that the space we have to put another stackable in is only 26 inches deep!  I don't know what they were thinking when the put this house together after gutting it 11 years ago.  The modern day units are so big and bulky and deep.  29 to 33 inches deep!!!  One like that will jut out in to the doorway!  FRIG!  1st world problems I know - but Fak!  We looked a bit last night.  I am currently waiting for him to wake up so we can continue the hunt this morning to some places that were closed last night.  We can get maybe another 2 inches if we cut into the drywall to set a washer back a bit.  We did find some units that were skinnier, but who the hell wants to pay 1500 for a washer!!!
Today we vote - I have been doing my best to look things up on the internet and educate myself, but it has proven a difficult task.  So much filtering thru how to vote and where to go.  I wanna read platforms and how these party's intend to make things happen or what their plans are for our province.  Not having cable is nice, but it is also frustrating.  We haven't had cable in a year and I am really starting to feel very cut off from the world.  The liberals, the NDP,  the Green Party ....... I think I know what I am going to do.

We Must be Millionaire's

Wow.  Just wow.

He must have a secret bank account that I know nothing about.

I go to work.  I go to work every time I am scheduled to work.  Sometimes I go to work, to do a deal, so that I get the commission on my days off.  I go to work no matter how shitty I feel.  No matter how little sleep I got.  I went to work with a broken foot, in a boot, when it hurt to get behind the wheel of a car and drive.  Or no matter how difficult it was to do the home deliveries I am required to do.  Climbing flights of stairs to get signatures.  When I broke my wrist last May.  A year ago tomorrow, I went to work.   The pain trying to type, trying to sign my name, trying to work the shifter in the car, holding the steering wheel, I went to work.  When I am so hungover because I just had to finish that bottle the night before, i go to work.

I don't get it.  I just don't.

It's garbage day today.  I have reminded him the last 3 days.  I have straight out told him, the rot pot is so full, because it never went out last garbage day, that he needs to take it to the curb.  Don't forget garbage day, I said.  Everything needs to be at the curb.  He is in bed.  It's after 8.  He is in bed.

Our front loader has bit it.  It is not spinning.  It's going to be expensive should we need a new one.  He told his boss he could't come in because he needs to fix it today.  Today.  It's the bottom of the stackable's.  How is he going to get to it with no help?  Why can't he do it on his days off like normal people.

Yes, i did say that to him.  To which he responded, what days off?

my response was that his 2nd job is NOT priority.  He does not have to go in on the weekends.  

He says, my day job is going to kill me.

Really!  REally.  Becasue my job isn't killing me?!!!  

He knows I have been wanting to change jobs for over  a year.  To get off the road.  To stop working 12 hour days.  To try to adjust something so that I can get more hours home.  I am back to studying again to get my level 3 just so that I can maneuver myself to do just that!  Yet, his job is killing him so he is just not going to go.  I can't afford not to go.  I can't even afford the plan I had to drop 2 days a month to keep my mental health.  But he can manage not to go to his day job.  

I am Pissed!!!  Yes I told him that too.  It's my day off and I took a partial shift for late this afternoon to get more hours.  I am supposed to be laying in bed.  When I am up, I am supposed to be enjoying the hours in the day I have before I go to work.  Now I sit here, venting.  Now I stretch becasue my back is tightening up from the stress and anger.  Yes, this is something I have learned about myself over the last 10 years.  I carry the stress in my back.  

So his job is killing him so he doesn't go.

Well, this marriage is killing me ....... so should I leave?

Will My Marriage Survive My Sobriety?

Well, here I am day 19.
It's the morning,  I had the chance to sleep in a little as I don't work until 10.
I have been getting wokin up since 6AM - husbands alarm.
my final wake up was to the phone ringing.  it was just about 7:15 and it was husband's phone.  Which was in his hand as he lay next to me.  Why is he laying next to me at 7:15?  He starts work at 7 ................ FUCK!  He isn't going to work Again!!!??!!!  I hear him tell the voice on the other end of the phone he won't be making it in today .....
Why?  Why do you have to be such a loser?  You didn't make it in one day last week either - why?  I don't get it.  Last week you didn't get enough sleep - today........ just admit that you slept in, get your pants on, and get your Ass to work!!!!  Fuck!  I am glad you are making soooo much money that you can afford a day off!
Back to being sober
Being sober is great.  I feel good.  I am struggling, but I am good.  I have some fears about staying sober.  Being OCD is one of them.  Everything has a home.  Everything has it's place.  If it doesn't, I do my best to create order within the chaos.  Beveraging helps keep the OCD anxiety at a low.  If you are OCD you probably know what I mean.  There is a certain level of anxiety that comes when you walk in to a space and things are not as they are supposed to be.  You freak out.  Mostly inside your own head till you get the things back as they are supposed to be.  When things are continually our of place, eg. i have a front hall.  I have a shoe rack there.  It's a crappy shoe rack, but a shoe rack all the same.  Yet every day, when I come home, my husbands and  my daughters shoe's are in various different places in the front hall.  Daughter has gotten much better as of late, and she is keeping hers in her room ......... but the man ....  He also likes to use the dining room chairs upstairs, as his own personal coat rack.  I just looked over and can see 3 different ones hanging off a chair - Why?
Beveraging helps keep me to not lose my shit at this loser behaviour.  Yes.  I label it loser behaviour because I am to that point.  I guess it's more of childish behaviour.  Children don't put things away.  So I will  apologize for the incorrect label.
For the last many years now - i have struggled with beveraging.  Every time I have been sober, husband , Mountainman, makes me insane.  I know and realize some of it is me.  My OCD, that is truly my problem.  But, when I put systems in place to keep things in order.  A shitty shoe rack.  An ugly front hall closet, with plenty of hangers in it and he is not using it ........... my anxiety rises.  Toss in him not going to work ........ my anxiety rises even more.........
I have, in the past, poured myself a glass of wine during these times in order to not tear a strip off him.  As I have learned, yelling at him, or trying to talk with him....the result is the same.  He still doesn't do anything about it.   I have analyzed things until I am raw.  Am I unreasonable?  Is this normal?  Maybe I am making a big deal out of nothing?  It's him.
Right now, today, I choose sobriety.
I am sober for me.  I am sober for my daughter.
Today, I will go work my 12 hour shift and not come home with a bottle of wine.
Today, I will not bury my anger towards him in a glass to numb the feelings.
Today, I will continue to move forward and get the woman back I used to be.  

**April 2017** ..... My Bogging Return!!!

Wow!  Hi Blogger world - It's been a Loooooong time since I have put my thoughts down.  Documented.  Journaled.  Years in fact.  What have I been doing?

Well, I am not sure yet, with this post, if I will fill in all the blanks of the last 3 years, but possibly some here and there.  Mostly, i just thought it time to clear my thoughts out of my head.  Put them down in writing to make sense of them.  No, not make sense. To document.  Blogging has always been more of a documentation for me of events and thoughts to keep things straight.  The inside view of what is happening.  The other side of the story to what shows on the outside for the actions that are.  There are always 2 sides to every story right?  2 sides to our own stories even.  How we show people on the outside and then the thoughts that propel us to do, or say what we say.  So does that mean there are actually 4 sides to every story?

Today, the purpose of this post is to say I have made it to 18 days sober.

18 days.  This is a big deal!

When I started blogging, years ago.  What, maybe 15+ years ago.  I was a sober, sober girl.  Didn't have a drop for 5 years.  Not even so much as a liquor chocolate.  Then, late summer of 2005, Mr. Big and I split for the last time for good.  I had left a job that I LOVED, early that summer, because my boss wouldn't pay me 10bux and hour.  Fuck, 10bux and hour - not too much to ask.  Hard to imagine settling for that now.  For Frig's sake!  that's less that minimum wage in 2017!!!!  I Got in to a sales job, selling cell phones, that I was totally not equipped for at all .......... 2005-2006 ........ i think i had my first drink at Christmas time 2005 ......  hmmmm ...... after writing down that time line I can see why I picked up the glass of wine.  Actually, it was Southern Comfort.  After 5+ years, months shy of the 6 year mark sober,  I poured Southern Comfort in to one of my fancy liquor glass   .....     Really only a couple of catalyst things to push me over the edge  2005 -

and for all of 2006 - i fell.  I fell, I crashed, I exploded.  At that mess trickled in to 2007 and a little bit in to 2008.....

If 2005 could have seen in to the future ........ Maybe my 2006 breakdown wouldn't have happened? ...... who am I kidding.  That still would have happened.  7 years of doing it on my own.  Raising a daughter alone.  Keeping a roof over our heads.  Doing it all - by myself -  over worked for minimum wage - the world on my shoulders - all the while feeling so, so lonely ....... that path of bad choices to the ultimate 2006 breakdown was written in the stars.  There was no way I could have ever avoided that cocktail of drama and then the chaotic choices that followed in 2007 ........ 

Fast forward to now.  April 30, 2017.  Sober for 18 days.

Here is a piece of honesty that I am going to share.  It's a tough on to admit out loud, let alone to read on the screen.  Let's see if I can do it .....

The longest I have been sober, in the last 11 years is 5 weeks - give or take a day.  5 weeks.

That's in a row days of Not having a beverage.

Beverage.  This is what I refer to as drinking things with alcohol in them.  Somehow it helps in my head.  It helps me justify the wine glass in my hand.  I hate the phrase, 'are you drinking?'  Or 'you are drinking tonight?'  Or 'Stop Drinking!!!!'  when it is yelled to you, in your face, by the reason you stopped so many years ago.  The phrase, the word, holds shame for me - that phrase can give me power as quickly as it can take it away - that word makes me hold myself accountable and until recently - that phrase would cause me to justify holding that glass tighter.

So yes.  Beverage Free for 18 days.  I Tonic.  I tonic in a wine glass with a slice of lemon or lime or fuck it, just put the whole damn thing in the glass! 

When was this 5 weeks.  This last time?  2015.  February 2015.  We had been in The Manor since Canada day of 2014.  I felt the door on beveraging close and I went with it.  I stopped at the end of January.  Started project after project.  My non-beveraging came right in line with a cancer promotion for a beverage free February to raise money.  I followed thru.  I raised money.  I also started to lose my mind.  The house was chaos.  We were still moving in - still adjusting to this house we had bought.  Still carrying the mortgage and bills from the mobile.  As I did my best to make this house a home I was juggling a new job, a tiny kitchen, a house without closets ........ i was doing my best to organize and find some order.  I was fighting an uphill battle with a teenage daughter that was learning a new school, trying to make new friends, getting her first boyfriend.  A husband that was definitely not on the same page as I was trying to live in this space.  Right after we moved in - his sister and brother in law from England, came to visit with us and stay for a week.   September 2014.  It was only a week, but it seemed to last forever.  We were still moving in.  We were still moving things from the old house ....... and I had to be a hostess ...... I did what any hostess would do - I threw a party!  We had family and friends over nearly every day that week.  Not only to visit with the English, but to show off our new home.  The yard was a mess - we were still in boxes - and we were beyond broke.  But, I justified the party's and paying for the party's and entertaining, going further and further in to debt to show everyone - the world - how happy we were, I was, to be in a new home.  To have moved forward ............. 

Christmas passed.  2015 came and I hid in project after project ....... got sober .... at least I tried.

It became clear that my life and the life I had created since getting married, was out of my control.  My daughter was doing normal teenage daughter stuff.  Going thru everything she was supposed to.  My husband was doing the complete opposite of what I was doing.  I felt like he was fighting me at every turn.  I just wanted to get the house to a place of organize.  Being sober reminded me that I am actually very OCD - he is not.  I couldn't wait for February to be over.  Till the fund raising for not drinking was done - March 1st - I stayed drunk, numb for days.  Who needs to do all these projects anyways ....

Passwords

For Frip's sake!

I had a great post  that I was just gonna sit down and spill my thoughts and wouldn't you know it.

I locked myself out!

Of My Own blog!

how long have I been at this - only a decade - holy crap ...... has it been a decade?