Day 860

Still rough. My dog woke us up barking 2x in night and after I yelled a lot about not knowing what to do (not my finest hour)  we figured out it was because he wanted -me- so I let him sleep with me and we both slept hard-hard till 8:30. Helped a lot. Bought junky carbs (Combos - a big weakness I usually don’t let in the house - and little bakery pastries) at grocery and ate a bunch for lunch along with a protein bar — feels wrong but also helps with resentment. Got down to basement for polyclay after the shopping was done. It was excellent timing as son went off with his laundry and spouse was taking a nap. One thing I got out of all this is knowledge of how fucking resiliantly strong I am.

After dinner I took a nap - was nice. Also meant I have stayed disengaged from family as they were all off doing other things by the time I woke up. Now I’m back in bed for the night, or at least till my dog wakes me up again. Tomorrow I have to drive to and from an affiliate and I’m not much looking forward to it.

Day 859

Such a hard day. Regular readers will know the pressure has already been turned up high due to increased chaos management at both work and home. Well this morning started at 4:30 but I finally figured out it’s the damned deer setting off the boy beagles which sets off the girl beagle. I closed all the windows tight on that side of the house and fussed around the grounds so maybe that will help.

I did have two good things: a successful leftovers frittata and some really good work with polyclay first thing in the morning.

But oh the day went downhill. The dogs chewed up video game discs and I thought that would be the worst thing. Nope, the worst thing was having a terribly chaotic phone call with Eldest in which she sounded both in quality and content so -very- much like her grandmother that it set off -all- my Mother buttons. As in the ones installed by my own crazy now dead mother. And of course when I got off the phone with her after what seemed like a day and a half but was really somewhere around 30 minutes my first thought was “Ghawd I want a drink or six.”

No of course I didn’t. I went to bed in the middle of the afternoon fully clothed is what I did. I recovered sufficiently to run errands and while I was out she had the same chaotic conversation with her father which didn’t do him a bit of good either.

I broke the shopping into two parts and used this evening’s part to get sweets. Abstinence is easier than moderation which is part of why food is so hard: you can’t just stop eating. Well you could but it doesn’t go very well. I managed not to eat an entire -package- of anything which after the day I had on top of the week I had I count as a win. I also count the little nap I had before going shopping as a win.

Now finally in bed for the night. Heaven.

Day 858

Another really hard day. But at least it’s over now. Sleep is good.

Day 857

Rough day but I took care of myself and it ended up okay.

Work is both busy and depressing which isn’t a great combo. I had to do s road trip today so I made sure to take myself to lunch. Got everything done but not in a particularly motivated way.

However not only did Spouse make dinner tonight but also it was the season finale of the TV show I’ve been watching all summer. I’m kinda glad to have it done, frankly. I liked it well enough for the most part but it just dragged on too long and I started losing interest.

I also played with polyclay and that helped too.

So all things considered the day ended pretty well. I just wish I were sleepier.

Day 856

All the drama and a flu shot too. But sober and not even overeating very much. I’m stronger than I thought. Worried sick about 3/4 of my family but still strong. And tired. Fortunately I’m already in bed.

Day 855

A decent day, all things considered. Started way too early (Five! In the -morning-!) but once I resigned myself to -being- up for the day o got a lot of stuff done. Also managed to have a -good- excuse to skip the painfully long and boring standing noon meeting so that was good too.

But now sleep.

Day 854

Today the washing machine died. We had already ordered a new one as it wasn’t entirely unexpected but the new one won’t be here till the 3rd. Son, who had plenty of his own drama this weekend, was a surprisingly good sport about taking two loads of wet clothes to the laundromat. I am grateful I got mine in under the wire yesterday morning.

There has been other family drama of course and I’ve felt pretty awful about it but it’s just so much better to get back upright (Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down) than it was when I was drinking.  Plus there’s that whole leading by example thing.

At least I improved the sleep situation. That makes everything else a little less sucky.

Day 853

Barely 9pm and I’ve called it a night. In addition to all the usual chaos,today the dishwasher broke. Can’t get someone to fix it till not this Tuesday but a week from. Sigh. 

Let the rest of the family do do their thing; I will be sound asleep in an hour because I took Motrin PM. Conditioned enough polymer clay today to make my arms really sore but it’s a good sore. There’s a lot of bad all around me but I’m still hanging on to pieces of good which I don’t think I could do if I were still drinking.

Day 852: 2 Years, 4 Months

A doozy.

Huge drama at both work and home. Even some social media weirdness. Such a day. But I did it sober and didn’t even ridiculously overeat, though I did call an ice cream bar lunch.

My treat is a collapsible stepstool for the back of my vehicle. Will be useful for deploying the car umbrella I intend to buy.

All’s well that ends well.

Day 851

I just can’t get my sleep/wake cycle right this week. Second afternoon in a row I’ve been utterly -exhausted- by four and here it is ten-thirty at night and I’m wide awake. Not great.

But otherwise it was a decent enough day. Kinda getting used to the new level of chaos.

Day 850

Got a lot done today at work. Felt pretty good about that. Was exhausted when I got home but got carry out for dinner and watched my TV show while knitting so that worked out okay. It’s harder to do self care when also caring for a crazy family but it can still be done and it is worthwhile to do it.

Hoping tomorrow is overall easier.

Day 849

Weird day. Not exactly good; not exactly bad...but kinda glad it’s over.

Day 848

Kinda frustrating day for no particular reason. Then a wave of exhaustion hit hard around 4 pm. Normally I would have crashed hard on the couch for a while but this night didn’t have that option. Got over myself and got a second wind anyhow. Hit a milestone in my sweater and made another poly clay piece.

So far so good.

Day 847

A good and busy day. Crashing at 10pm. Too tired and sleepy to write but it’s all good.

Day 846

An up and down day. Delightful morning playing with poly clay but the afternoon sucked a lot. Stupid stuff made me unnaturally angry and no good way to express it. Eventually it passed.

Ate too much but there are worse things.

Day 845

Hard day. Work, home...just hard. But again I was spared actual cooking for family so that was good.

I seem to be pouring my stress into creative channels - still fired up on knitting from the cruise (even though I totally shrunk the cruise project) and just recently I’ve uncovered the tub with all my polymer clay stuff in it. I haven’t done poly clay in maybe a decade so it’s sort of stunning to look at all this stuff I made and uncover all these tools. I was pretty into it at the time but now it almost seems like someone else’s body of work. Interesting.

And now to sleep. Even if I don’t sleep in, knowing I -can- is pretty awesome.

Day 844

Too exhausted to post last night. Last day of vacation and ended up doing a lot of dog-related stuff plus got lousy sleep the night before so ate way too much Chinese carry out and crashed hard.

Work was pretty much a drag today but I’m glad I planned ahead enough to make sure I had a light day.  It also worked out that I could skip cooking OR dragging in carry out so that was good too.

Sober is always good.

Day 842

Much quieter day. Walked dogs at 5:30 but then slept in till nearly 8.

Tired so not much to say except that sober is definitely better.

Day 841

It’s definitely after midnight and Cinderella has turned into a pumpkin. I meant that metaphorically but just realized it works literallyas well. I never stay up this late but that’s what a nap will do. In any case even though I’m still not back to work I’m definitely not on vacation any more: two groceries to get us back to baseline. 

I’m falling asleep with phone in hand though so no more blogging for me tonight.

Day 840

Back home again.

When I woke up at 6 the ship was just pulling into NY harbor at a decent clip. The day has since included breakfast, goodbyes, car service to one house, brief shopping trip with Eldest, a 4.5 hour drive to the other house, an even briefer shopping trip with Middle and an extra dose of family drama to make up for a week of absence.

I’m tired. Fortunately I still have the next 3 days off work - I planned well, so thank you Previous Self.

Tomorrow is a whole new day.

Day 837

Oh it has been fantastic and still continues to be fantastic. My roommate and I turn out to be great traveling partners and we have laughed so much and had so much fun. Did I mention she doesn’t drink either? Yup, was one of the reasons I thought she was a good choice in the first place. Several others in our group don’t drink either.

Bermuda is...interesting. Many good things but such an oppressive history.

Not to worry; we should be gone before Hurricane Florence arrives.

More another time. Hugs to all.

Day 833 and a half

En route to Bermuda and it is awesome. Bit of a kerfuffle over access as “free WiFi” doesn’t equal “free internet”  which caused the family to freak out a bit when I went incommunicado as soon as the ship left port but I bought a package and all is better now.

I really needed this vacation and it is already every bit as nice as I had hoped. Bonus: my roommate and I won the trivia contest last night.

Sober vacationing totally rocks. Every so often I’ll catch a whiff of alcohol coming from the general direction of people and think “glad that’s not me.”

It’s allgood and exactly what I needed.

Day 832

A better day. Still some frustrating moments but not like yesterday. Also Middle arrived today to take Spouse, girlbeagle and puppybeagle back up to the other house for another extended visit which I think will help everyone’s stress level. The house down here just isn’t at -all- puppy friendly (tons of wall to wall carpeting for one thing) and Eldest is stressing out hugely over her L2 year even without the extra critter-induced chaos. Plus I think she and her father tend to amplify rather than reduce each other’s emotional tension. Knowing that’s happening while I’m away is heartening.

Speaking of away....it’s finally here. Tomorrow is the first day of my cruise. My suite mate called this afternoon but I still can’t believe it’s tomorrow and actually spent more than a passing moment with the sick irrational fear that somehow I had the date wrong. Dreams were all tense like that last night too. Im not gonna be able to unwind till I’m actually ON the ship I don’t think.

And speaking of on the ship...I have free WiFi thanks to early registration and I got a calling plan for my phone so I’ll be as connected to the internet as one can get on the high seas but I still may end up not blogging much if at all this coming week. Last time I pushed the envelope and stayed up way late every night socializing then crashed hard the minute my head hit the pillow - dunno if this will be similar but if so then there may be super-short or no entries. Don’t worry — I’ll be back.