Category: husband

how tiring it must be to be married to us

Belle 18 Comments

what must it be like to be married to us, this unique combination of high functioning, high emotion, lots of noise in our heads.

my husband, though he drank as much as I did, does not have a wolfie voice. he is not wound up by things. he doesn’t struggle with “can I, will I, should I, is there more, is this the right amount.”

it must be so tiring for him to be married to me. I may complain about his sloth tendencies and the absolute LACK of obsessing (about anything). but really, he’s dealing with me.

I’ll give you an example.

This is a true story.

My husband is perfectly content to make me a ‘special drink’ at suppertime. if I tell him specifically what I want. and how to make it. why ‘how to make it’? because I keep changing what I want.

(1) Hot chocolate from Marks & Spencer. very yummy. expensive (3,25€ for 10 packages). they have no diet or ‘lite’ option. I only bought one box of the 10 packages.

(2) Then at Christmas, I got Mr. B. a treat for his stocking (which I promptly drank): a box of instant cappuccino powdered things. I drank all of his, and started buying it regularly for myself, the little single servings, 10 to a box. Worked my way up to one or two a day. They were quite weakly flavoured, though, so had to be made in the medium coffee mugs so that there wasn’t too much water added. We have 3 sizes of mugs: large, medium, and small. My husband would make my special coffee for me in the medium cup.

(3) After a few weeks, I moved to a canister of the same powder, instead of the premeasured packages, because it was cheaper (there’s a theme here). Now that I had free reign of the powder, I switched to making a stronger, bigger dose in the large mug. Now it had to be made with 4 teaspoons of the powder with a bit of cream. in the larger mug. there. that’s pretty good. my husband would make it for me.

(4) Another few weeks. it’s too expensive. I’m going through these canisters way too often. I go to the store to buy some diet instant hot chocolate that can be made with hot water.

AND there isn’t any.

France, apparently, is a land of hot cocoa (made with milk, which I don’t drink). it’s all cocoa. no hot chocolate. And not only is there no instant hot chocolate in france, there is no ‘diet’ anything hot and chocolate-y/coffee-y. I can picture the blue canister in my Canadian memory. it was president’s choice brand. I had it all the time. But here? There’s cocoa and sugar in a can you can add hot milk to, but no instant hot chocolate.

I consider leaving the country in desperation.

(5) Instead I buy the cheapest ‘intended for milk’ cocoa mix there is (nesquik! oh my god!) and a bottle of instant decaf coffee.

now my special coffee goes like this: medium cup, 3 spoons of chocolate powder, 1 teaspoon of instant coffee, cream, hot water. my husband would make it for me.

(6) Then I read something about trying to reduce the sugar in my coffee to 1 teaspoon, so I calculate the number of grams in a teaspoon of sugar (5g) then I try to figure out how small my coffee/chocolate combo should be. I switch from the medium to the small coffee cups (of the three sizes), to make a smaller 5g of sugar portion, and I mix one spoon of decaf with only one spoon of nesquik (lame) and some cream and hot water. My husband makes my coffee for me, after I clarify the specific recipe which changes daily.

(7) Last friday I had a catered event, and there was some real coffee left over, I put it in a jar. now I’m adding it a few tablespoons at a time to my little special coffee, for a tiny bit of caffeine but also to use it up. My husband makes my coffee for me, BUT every day, now, he has to ask me ‘how I want it’.

(I want to moderate my drinking, I can’t figure out how to do it, I try things that don’t work because the thing I’m looking for isn’t in the alcohol.)

I have an idea of what I want and I keep changing, because I can’t match the idea. for the hot chocolate coffee combo? I’m looking for some feeling that isn’t there. It reminds me of home. when I used to have it before my sunday long runs. I can still remember the sound the spoon made in the square blue cup (that the movers broke). mix a bit of powder in the bottom with cream, then add hot water.

why do I want that experience now?

soothing.

what am I getting instead? gritty nesquik in a small less-than-5g-cup with an endlessly patient husband (but how patient is he, really, how long can he tolerate the intolerable).

(8) yesterday morning I got up and did research on homemade instant hot chocolate. it is really just cocoa, sugar and powdered milk. I have all that. I make some, it’s fine. but it has 30 g of sugar in one cup.

(9) yesterday afternoon I walked to the Marks & Spencer to check out the hot chocolate they have (again). surely this would be easier. but it has 26 g of sugar per serving and it’s 3,25€ for 10. I leave without buying any.

so.

if the thing that I’m looking for isn’t IN the hot coffee drink, then it’s time for me to move on. stop trying to make it into something it isn’t. go back to tea. I was drinking only tea before. I liked it there. my husband can make tea: add one bag to the teapot, fill with water. serve with any mug. it’s just plain easier.

(if the feeling you’re looking for isn’t in the alcohol, they stop fucking with the quantities, timing, types and tricks. just move on. the thing you’re looking for isn’t in there. the feeling better? it’s not in a bottle.)

I’ll come back and torture you again

Belle 13 Comments

working on a new secret writing project. here’s a quote from today’s writing session:

Let’s start with a bath at supper time. The crazy wolfie brain is yelling ‘wine wine wine wine’ and I start to run the tub. The brain says: It’s not tub time now, this is just delaying the inevitable, you know you’re going to drink.

I add bubble bath that smells like cedar. How clever, who invents this stuff. It’s in a nice masculine blue bottle. Nothing pink or frilly about this. It’s anti-wolfie bubble bath. I’m sure of it. This won’t work, I can yell for a long time here.

I sit in the tub until I’m pruney. I read, then fret, then read again, then plan to change the world, the read some more. I ask my husband to make me a bitter drink (black currant syrup, grapefruit juice, soda). No, no, you don’t want to have that now, it’s much better if you drink on an empty stomach, you’re ruining things, don’t do it, shit, I don’t fucking want grapefruit juice.

I get out of the tub, dry off, put on one of my husband’s heavy metal band t-shirts, usually inside-out so that the tag doesn’t scratch me (I can’t cut the tag out of his shirts, only my own). I wear red plaid pyjama bottoms with a drawstring and pockets. The orange Ernie socks. Wet hair up in a pony tail.

Husband is looking at me, hands me my special drink. He doesn’t know what state I’m in (or why). I’m not making dinner I say. But you always make dinner and drink wine while you cook. If you let him cook he’ll ruin it and the kitchen will be a mess and it’s better if you do it all yourself. And then you can drink here in the kitchen where he can’t see what you’re doing, and you can drink from his glass before you hand it to him, and you can make sure you get enough.

I take my special drink and sit in the living room, big floor-to-ceiling windows open. July evening, there’ll be light in the sky until 10:30 pm. I’m facing the courtyard, trees, lots of birds here in this country that we didn’t have back home. New sounds.

I’ll start up again tomorrow night, you know. This might be over for tonight, but I haven’t gone away. I’ll come back and torture you again. This whole bath, special drink, not making dinner, looking outside thing – it’ll get old. I’ll be back. You need me.

I sip the drink, I can hear the husband banging around with the pots so that he can make roast potatoes and sausages (something he can make without asking questions, as he senses – rightfully so – that asking questions right now won’t go over well). I listen to the unidentifiable birds. Across the courtyard the teenager practises his saxophone. The family downstairs has a screamy child. The granny likes to lean over her window railing with the phone in her hand, talking to someone I can’t see, about something I can’t understand, in a language I don’t really speak. She pulls her pink button up cardigan around her. Always the same cardigan, grey skirt, white blouse. Every day.

I sip the drink again. I reach up to rebundle my wet hair into the elastic. It’s nice here. The witching hours are over for tonight.

 

~

[note: there are extracts from the writing project included daily in the micro-emails. here.]

what to do when family expects “christmas cheer”

Belle 1 Comment

from my inbox:

TheFun4 (day 397): “I am having my family over for lunch for the first time in like 10 years. I have done minimal entertaining since stopping thinking about drinking over a year ago (because of you 🙂 ). So, my whole family drinks and expects “Christmas Cheer” wherever they go. I on the other hand DO NOT WANT TO SERVE THEM. So, my husband is being a pain and making me think about dealing with this before Sunday.

Should I serve or not? This will be the first sober day together for all of us (assuming they show sober which is likely the case) in, well, forever.

Husband says they will expect it so I need to manage it…

IDEAS? PLEASE!!!”

from me: happy day 397 🙂 You don’t have to serve your guests. your husband can pour their drinks. or you can ask your sister/sister in law, friend, or mother to do the pouring. or there’s some 18/21 year old who’d love to be given the responsibility of topping up the adults drinks. You don’t have to pour. you can put the bottles on the table, ask someone to open them for you, and then walk away …

if you don’t want alcohol in the house at all, then you invite them for the lunch event and indicate that there’ll be a lovely selection of teas and homemade lemonade. don’t offer any alcohol, have none in the house, and if someone comes with beer /wine they can open it themselves and take it home with them when they’re done.

if people expect alcohol, they can go to a bar.

what you’ve done – this sober thing – it’s a big deal. I personally can have other people drinking around me, but lots of people cannot tolerate it at all. so if you feel even a little bit weird about it, then the answer is no. promise your husband some kind of favour (you can invent something!) but you should do what you feel comfortable with. there is no obligation to provide alcohol. there is no expectation that you do anything.

 hugs, me

It’s OK already

Belle 11 Comments

what a weird boost. this last week has been the strangest ‘gift’ i’ve had in a long time.

got a big catering job, busy doing that. listening a lot to podcasts. had the idea to expand MY sober podcasts, to change how they are distributed (move from a paid subscription to perhaps iTunes) and to add sponsors.

Got lots of emails, thankfully you’ve been pretty kind to say “yes i’d like that” or “no i wouldn’t like that but i’d follow you anyway.”

E. asked me if i was really ready to give up Job #1 to focus on the sober stuff more.

my response: “I do like job #1 but only because I’ve had it for a long time (1988) and I’m good at it and so it’s easy, and it’s safe place to hide. whenever I need to feel like I know what I’m doing, I can go there. the sober world isn’t quite like that! So being a text and graphic designer is an ‘easy’ place to go, periodically.

then i realized that in my imagining to ‘go big’ with the sober podcasts, what i was really wanting was for someone to convince me to do it. If you’ve been following me for awhile, you’ve seen me do this a few times. I walk right up to “let’s go big” and then i slink off again. I’m a reluctant protagonist.

I realize now that one of the gifts of sobriety has been my slow learning about how let things unfold as they will. No pushing. No plans to do anything. Stuff just happens. Opportunities come and you take them, but I’m not out there hustling up anything. I’m just going-with-the-flowing.

sigh.

So i thought, OK, i’ll contact Mailchimp to be my sponsor for the podcasts and just see what happens. I didn’t email a bunch of sponsors, i dipped my toe into one sponsor. i figured it’d be a litmus test. and … they didn’t answer.

and so today i wake up and realize that there’s nothing the matter with where I am now. while i periodically have fantasies of ‘changing everything’, in reality, when we do that in life it hardly ever works. let’s leave our husband and go live on a goat farm and write a book. Yeah, i’d last less than a week. Decisions made impulsively, or on some kind of high of “let’s DO this” have a dreamy quality to them. they’re not fully thought out. they don’t include the “yeah but…” (yeah but if you post podcasts on itunes then your anonymity will be at risk, and you’ll be subjected to the trolling comments of 1 star, she’s full of shit, which is fine, but you can’t ban the trolls on iTunes…)

That impulsive thing that comes over me every so often, the feeling that “where I am now much change” happens less and less now that i’m sober. and I can see it coming, I can reach out, get ideas, start the wheels turning, and then the tide flows back out. And then I feel OK with where I am again.

I think what i’ve learned is that good shit happens. It’s not my job to MAKE shit happen. It’s my job to be sober, clear, present, and well-slept enough to take advantage of the opportunities when they come.

Not sure what to do next?

I sent this message to Lifeasirockit, but as usual, I was really writing it to me:

“you’re on day 73 today 🙂 Not sure what to do next? Things start to shift in the rest of your life later. still too early 🙂 no plan yet 🙂 once you’re 90+ days things will begin to happen for you on their own. you don’t push anything. things just happen. you’ll wake up and say today’s the day I’m going to work on some changes for about an hour… you have lots of time, so you can clean house … literally. make a clean ready space for your new life to come flowing in!”

PS/ as an aside, about how things happen when you don’t push, I mentioned that I’m going to be in London at the end of the month; in the last day since i posted that, a whopping 12 people are coming so far. And TWO people are flying in from other places. People are getting on airplanes to have coffee with us in a bakery. holy shit batman. Lordy. That’s what happens when you just have a big sleep and show up.

Things Just Happen.

or, as my husband would say … “It’s OK already.”

 

make it harder than it has to be

Belle 8 Comments

i’m having a good stretch of life these days. sleeping well. surprisingly zen about moving in 13 days. no moving truck booked. nothing packed. current landlord says we can take our time and so we shall.

i also seem to have solved a problem that’s been plaguing me for … my whole life? i’m just over 2 years sober. i know you’re going to think i’m a slow learner. but I’ve finally figured out that if i do a bunch of the catering work in advance, then the day of the cooking is easier.

duh.

how many times have i gotten up early and just pounded my way through a long and difficult day.

how many times have i started a busy catering day, realized that i’m behind before i even begin, then realize that i’m out of fresh ginger and will have to dash out with things on the stove.

how many times have i decided part way through the shitty long catering day that i am NOT doing any catering any more, it’s just too hard.

when what i really needed was a plan, some accountability, some sleep, a treat. and a boost.

when drinking, how may times did i MAKE myself do things the hard way. just to prove that drinking wasn’t ‘really’ a problem. why did i think that pounding my way through things was the right way?

so stubborn about asking for help, so late to get support.

why did i leave everything to the last minute and then panic my way through life — maybe it was so that wolfie could say “see, life is stressful, you might as well drink.” why did i make it all so hard. doing it alone. not telling anyone. not sharing the contents of my head.

yesterday when my husband came home from work, i told him there was “a lot” to do. and he said the magic words “what can i do to help.” and so starting at 7 pm, even before we ate, he cleaned house, changed the bed, i chopped peppers and onions for today. he heated microwave dinners (yes, really, make it easy on yourself). he peeled carrots. I made pastry. I made cookie dough. I made cake batter. I premeasured all the ingredients in advance for 2 different kinds of bread.

we were done by 10 pm and went to bed relieved. i’m a girl who really sings when we’re working as a team (rather than him at work and me fretting that i have to do it all alone, or me working while he’s sleeping). he agreed it was a calm and productive night. I know the world does not revolve around my asshole, but i also know that making things harder than they need to be is something I specialize in. You?

reminder, photography project due friday 🙂

september rocks (corn on the cob)

Belle 13 Comments

dear universe. it’s so weird, but september has rocked so far. i know it’s only day 4, but really. is it because i struggled all of august that things are easier now? is it that I really like September (new school year, etc.). is it because my inbox is magically full again whereas in the summer people are vacationing and sporadic with contact.

is it because i’ve been working on developing a daily routine that actually supports me and helps me like my life? or is it because i’m not catering this week so i’m having a bit of a ‘rest’ still …

is it because the sun is finally shining after the greyiest, shittiest august i’ve ever experienced? was it as bad in England/Scotland/Wales/Ireland? it sucked rocks here.

is it because of the lovely coaching call i had today with a new team 100 member. or maybe it was the email i got from the most adorable boyfriend of someone doing the challenge.

or maybe it’s because i’m doing what i want to be doing, connecting with seriously cool sober people, and having fun. a lot of fun. even when i’m going to the post office twice a day and buying envelopes and getting things copied and folded and mailed.

well really, maybe it’s because I found corn on the cob at the market. if you know me, you know how exciting this is.

and tomorrow is my wedding anniversary.

honestly september rocks so far.

and you? what’s the best (sober) part of september so far?

sleep more; wait for clarity

Belle 14 Comments

I will allow myself 2 more days to change my mind, but here’s how i feel about august unplugged:

when i quit drinking, i filled my non-drinking time with being online and catering. once you remove both of these things… i’ve got serious hours to fill.

for most of this month, i’ve been thinking through sober things (that, to be fair, i could have been thinking 2 years ago when i first quit but i guess i was too busy to process):

  • what am i going to do with all of this time?
  • i only know how to drink through vacations, i’ve forgotten how to vacation sober
  • we could go for lunch on an outdoor patio … but without booze, why bother.

i’m doing some delayed grieving i think. all the busy-ness has perhaps kept me from processing.

and so what did august bring?

seriously bad (and i mean gigantically bad) crappy weather. oh and i have been frigging with my cardiac medication to see if i feel better with less (not really). Then in the last week there’s some very serious family illness taking place back home that involves dysfunctional family dynamics at its best. Then to top it off, i went to see new apartment yesterday for the 3rd visit and suddenly i have decided it’s too loud, in a grungy part of town, too far away, and too empty (unfurnished). (note to self to read about adventures again.)

and you know what, i’m not really complaining.

i should have done this a long time ago. you know, the extreme self-care stuff i suggest … I could have spent August ordering take out, watching bad tv, going to bed early. instead i’ve spent most of it offline wondering just what exactly i’m supposed to do with my time if it’s raining? like really? there’s only life in good weather? and if i can’t watch movies in the afternoons and i can’t drink, and i’m not catering then what exactly am i supposed to do?

You know, all those grand plans to clean the house? none. i cleaned two individual shelves one day. nothing else. Use the metro pass to go somewhere every day? Perhaps 50% of the time.

it’s like once i remove my regular daily structures, but don’t actually go anywhere on vacation (and my husband is still working) … i just sort of slump. girl without structure. Bored. mostly uninspired.

Thankfully two things are about to occur: september begins on monday, back to school, i really do like september. time for new beginnings … and in 10 days we’re going on a 3 day vacation, finally leaving the apartment, going somewhere far away, travelling.

can i wake up with more energy? apparently not. perky? where are you perky?

Was the goal for august unplugged (early sobriety) to be low when required, to sleep more and more, and wait for clarity? If it was then i guess i achieved that 🙂

holy don’t i HATE a process (“honey, it’s a process, you just have to go through it.”). fuckers. process my ass.

here’s what i want: glorious up-energy daily, with a thin waist and a clean apartment.

not happening for you? yeah, me neither!

sober?

yeah, me too. sometimes that’s enough of an achievement for one day (or one bleeding month!)

(and to be fair, here’s what i did accomplish in august, though it feels like ‘not enough’: read 7 books, ran 4 days a week, found an apartment, visited said apartment 3 separate times, wrote a newsletter that’ll actually go in the postal mail, cleaned TWO shelves in the kitchen (ha), changed the sheets once, was in bed by 9:30 pm just about every night, have been quite admirably eating down the contents of the freezer.)

OK. so to turn this around i’ve (a) blogged about it and gotten it out of my head, and (b) i’m getting some sober treats for today. i hereby solemnly swear, even though i am ‘meh’, that i will go and get myself three sober treats today: flowers, bubble bath, an expensive quart of the last strawberries of the year.

here’s to a long weekend (labour day). at least my husband will be home now for 3 days. Vacations are more fun when he’s here. we do things that seem vacation-y when he’s here. maybe it’s that i don’t like being on vacation by myself … maybe i’m co-dependent. maybe it’s that i don’t have any fucking hobbies except for cake. Maybe it’s …

Mr. B? can you come home? i’m bored.

[written offline, typed up during online time …]

 

a mouse in the house

Belle 9 Comments

Sunday morning, completely out of nowhere, a mouse ran into our apartment from under the front door.  she ran into the kitchen, then into the living room where my husband was (he yelled as if he’d just discovered that David Bowie died, a yelp of shock and true exasperation).

the upside to my heart medication combined with sobriety? reduced adrenaline. so when panicky stuff happens, i just go “wow. did you see that?” and then I go out to buy a mouse trap on a sunday. The gardienne, all dressed up on her way to church, wearing white over orange, sees me with a bag of mouse traps and sticky paper, and she offers to lend her cat for an hour (no joke). and i’m just smiling, and texting my sister. It must be the good heart drugs mixed with a healthy dose of sobriety. this clearly isn’t me.

i sit around with my feet UP and let husband deal.

as i hide in the office, i start singing: “he sat Miss Mousie on his knee, and he said, Miss Mousie, will you marry me? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.” thus, the mouse is a girl.

and then the gardienne really does arrive at the door to our apartment with her little white cat and says “here …”

Mr. B is so in love with the cat that he can’t just let her do her business.  He stares at the cat, the cat stares at him, and the mouse hangs out under the couch.

text received from sister: What a great idea . You could start a rent a mouser business – if Mr. B will let them go. If puddy gets the mouse, Mr. B might want it for a pet too.

i tell Mr. B to come out of the living room and leave the cat alone. but the cat is meowing so he won’t leave her … honestly. it’s good thing we don’t have a baby … let the cat cry, i say. she’ll get the job done! but no.

i finally talk him into let the cat cry alone in the room with the mouse for 15 minutes. we set the timer. the cat meows. the mouse hides. mr. b. cringes and paces around in the last minute.

unfortunately, Mr. B. accidentally squishes miss mousie moving the couch (the mouse was up in the hide-a-bed by the end of it… and the great white hunter just cried and cried and cried …)

Mr. B says in English: “this is not for me…”

finally he traps the mouse with two pieces of cardboard … the puddy is not a hunter cat after all.

text received: The GREAT WHITE HUNTER. That must have been a really lazy mouse to allow itself to be caught with cardboard. Or she found some wine? [note to self, time to update sister on my non-drinking status, now that it’s like 2 years …]

we put the two pieces of cardboard in a giant garbage bag. and Mr. B. exits the premises. i suppose mousie met her demise after that. i asked not to be informed.

my father texts: All of this about a mouse? The other day, someone in Yellowknife had a bear in her kitchen.

to be fair, i never saw miss mousie. and it’s a good thing, too. it’s just the kind of event that i’d play over and over.

for 2 days, though i’ve been calling Mr. B the great white killer. he’s not that happy with the title. he said “il faut le faire” – which means ‘you’ve just to do it’ or ‘it must be done’.

if you have a mouse (wolfie) in your house, what are you doing to get rid of it? borrowing your neighbour’s cat is a good place to start. just find a successful neighbour with a fierce cat. and model yourself after her …

~

Happy Day 50 to magic arrow!

Happy Day 100 to AM!

Happy Day 100 to Laure!

Happy Day 100 to Moss!

Happy Day 100 to unsmashed!

Happy Day 100 to Darla!

Happy Day 200 to Doll Face!

Happy Day 365 to Laurie!

 

I’ll make potato salad for YOU but I won’t make it for myself

Belle 33 Comments

did you notice those crickets? yeah, that was me. silent. ha. hardly ever happens. interesting. i’m happily emailing my sober people, just not writing as much here. busy with sloth followed by catering this week. and my job #1 was busier than it has been.

At the end of the night, last night, when Mr. B and i relate the best part of our days, and the parts we’d like to change, I said that i’d had a good day because I’m a much happier person when i have enough to do — not too much, not pressurized — but when i have projects that are beyond my own self-generated ones like ‘clean the fridge’. I told him i just ‘feel better’ when i’m doing more things (job #1 was busy yesterday + catering = a nicely full day).

What this really means is I feel better when I’m productive.  Not just busy for no reason. Not stressed and overtired. Better When Happily Puttering Away at Things That Please Me.

Then as i write this, i realize that the same tasks on a different day could have made me irritated. It’s probably not the tasks, it’s probably me. Yesterday I was quite happy to make potato salad. But i really like the client, and she’s so happy with all the food she gets.  If it’s just me making potato salad for ME, I’m all like meh, boil potatoes, boil eggs, make mayonnaise, chop pickles, chop celery. who cares.

oh god, am i so transparent that i’ve just written the truth that is me? I’ll make potato salad for YOU but I won’t make it for myself. yeah. there we go.

do i really really love a clean house? yes. do i give that to myself? no. do i resent when my husband doesn’t give it to me? yes. do i think of paying someone to do it for me? sometimes. Have you heard my audio about cinnamon toast? oh. god. this is the same thing.

This is the ‘self-care’ thing that we boozers suck at. Before my epic drinking began, I used to make dinner for myself, single girl, i planned my meals and made grocery lists and everything. When i was single girl, i made potato salad. I didn’t see it as ‘too much work’.

then the drinking became ‘daily’, and then Every Fucking Thing was too much work, because it kept me from drinking. Clean the fridge or drink? Wolfie would win that one quite easily.  Make dinner with all the lovely ingredients I’ve just purchased that are now sitting on the counter, or drink? Wolfie would win that one too. Shove the food back into the back of the fridge and call for pizza.

I had only one way of administering self-care. it was to pour a bottle of wine on my head.

for one day, today, for right now, for this minute, i’m going to try to figure out what I can do that would make me feel good. like, really good.

And even if i have to mechanically go through a list of things, i’m going to find something. If the first treat/reward doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean that my sober toolbox/treatbox is broken. It just means I need to use a different treat.

First up. OK. I have some really nice freshly squeezed OJ. Yes, it’s true, i did make it for a client, but there’s some left over for me.

What? That doesn’t count? I have to ‘do something FOR me?’ fuck, you’re tough.

ok.

By Me. For Me. 

OK, i’ll windex my glass desk. It’s been months. and I’ll make some nice little piles of receipts and tax things. and i’ll put the old newspapers into recycling. and i’ll se the timer. I think it’ll take me about 12 minutes. Go.

~

Happy Day 50 to Pastor K!

Happy Day 50 to Jaden!

Happy Day 50 to Dubby!

Happy Day 50 to AngieG!

Happy Day 50 to Liam!

Happy Day 100 to Lo!

Happy Day 100 to Isabel!

Happy Day 100 to Cyndy!

Happy Day 100 to Rich!

Happy Day 180 to Tammi!

Happy Day 180 to Shay!

Happy Day 180 to Shell Bell!

Happy Day 180 to Tuomas!

Happy Day 180 to RM!

Happy Day 200 to SarahinSurrey!

Happy Day 200 to Mack!

Happy Day 200 to RF!

Happy Day 300 to Victoria!

Happy Day 300 to JennyGardenGirl!

Happy Day 300 to Tami!

Happy Day 600 Sober Kat!

Happy Day 700 to me 🙂

how strong to make the tea. served in which cup.

Belle 15 Comments

After a ‘really’ long week of catering, baking, cheesecakes, and two private dinners (Tuesday and Friday), today is finally a day off 🙂 OK, technically i am doing some coaching calls today, but that hardly seems like work!

As I go along being sober, i realize that catering is continuing to teach me things – about sobriety, about myself. This started a long time ago, and yesterday again i had one of those ‘oh-god’ realizations.

Friday’s dinner was something I was hosting for out-of-town family who were passing through on their way elsewhere. So yesterday morning, I was supposed to be cooking. I couldn’t get myself organized. I didn’t ‘feel’ like it, and I was quite irritated. My husband had said he’d come home early to help, but he didn’t say when.

“Should I do the carrots now? No Mr. B. can do those. What about the potatoes? He can do those too. What should I do? wait until he comes home and then we can do it together. when is coming home? don’t know.”

“Why am I always doing this alone. Why is there so much to do and only me to do it. Why does he get to walk in at 6:30 pm and dinner is ready. Why isn’t anybody helping me.”

Stop and try to think.

“OK, self, why today are you being weird about this, when just a few days ago you catered a bigger dinner, alone, without husband’s help?” (Mr. B., in fact, went straight from work on Tuesday to a show and was gone for 16 hrs straight that day).

And on Tuesday’s marathon cooking day, did this happen? no. I puttered all day, then hosted the dinner and then went for a walk at 11:30 pm just to bask in the successfulness of the day.

So what was different about yesterday?

Mr. B was going to be at the dinner. He was going to be eating the food.

And i didn’t want to be the person doing all the work if husband was going to benefit from the food.

Really?

So i tried to dissect this further.

You’re irritated because he is going to eat dinner in his own home?

You’re irritated because you have to do it ‘alone’ but it was your idea to host the family dinner as the gang passed through town.

You’re OK busting your hump for paying clients, but if your husband is going to be at the table then you think that he should be ‘helping’ more than he does already. (To be fair, he does a lot of my dishes, daily, morning and night, and he does a lot of the shopping, morning and night, when i discover i’m out of eggs, etc.).

I just wanted to resent someone. Mr. B. is closest. He bears the brunt of my resentment.

Now imagine he comes home from work. I’m grumpy and give him the cold shoulder. And I have every right: you see, I’ve been working myself into a resentful lather all day.

When he did come home yesterday, with the bag of missed ingredients, I looked at him and think “OK, this mood thing, belle? It’s entirely by choice. You can do the same work and like it, or you can do the same work and hate it. That part is up to you. Why would you choose to be shitty about it?”

And then i fucking looked at the fucking picture icon thingy that i fucking posted yesterday. no one is coming to do it for you. your life is (thankfully, hooray great news) up to you.

No one is coming to get sober for you. YOU will do the work (not alone, of course, with support, but it’s you doing it). no one is coming to ‘take care’ of you, you’re going to take care of yourself.

And frankly you’ll do a better job of it than anyone else can, because you know what you need. when you need it, how you want it, how strong to make the tea. served in which cup.

and you’re going to stop shitting all over your husband for imagined, perceived slights, that just do NOT exist. he walks in and he has NO IDEA what kind of nonsense is going on in my head. He must be nervous to come into the house some nights, not sure which version of me he’s going to find.

(ps. whipping ourselves into a frenzy (over NOTHING) is sometimes done intentionally by wolfie so that we can work ourselves into a state where we ‘deserve’ a drink. just saying. in my case, most whipped-frenzies are self-induced. have virtually nothing to do with reality. Thanks wolfie. you can blow me.)

And really, the family dinner was a success. Husband helped a lot. And the new coffee cheesecakes were really quite good. Maybe an 8/10 😉

coffee-cheesecake

Now i’m going to make MYSELF a cup of tea, smoky tea, in my favourite green cup.

just the way i like it.

~

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