Newbies Nest

[Slo]

Re: Newbies Nest

So excited for you, Wags, that you have a series of upcoming days off, and a bit of lessening of caregiver duties!

My fingers are crossed too that you don’t have Lyme disease, Lav. And I can count on you to fully understand how lonely & frustrating it has been to live in a long marriage with a partner who doesn’t bother to communicate with me. It has been soul-sucking.

I just read a book, a memoir, about colon cancer: “Life-Saving Gratitude” by Bunny Terry. It was good -and she managed to survive it!

Young daughter is all excited about her Prom tonight!

I will spend tomorrow up at oldest daughter’s house babysitting Beckett, so she can work all day on paperwork for her job, then have her last day at work on Monday; then go in to have the baby on Tuesday!

Wishing all a good weekend.

[Lavande]

Re: Newbies Nest

Greetings Nesters,

Getting whiplash with the weather here today, haha! Partly sunny one minute, rain the next followed by more sun until a storm with hail rolled in, #CRAZY

Byrdie, glad to hear you are catching up on appointments. I think a lot of folks are doing that right now. Always good to get that stuff behind you as you say

Wags, when you think about it the people you spend 12 hrs with, day in & day out know you better than your own family! I don’t have any real life sisters so I gathered a few at work over the years.
I’m happy to hear your wife is healing & getting out a bit, wonderful.

Slo, thanks for your thoughts in Lyme, I seriously hope I don’t have it either. The timing of all this is suspicious as it started the day of my 2nd vaccine. I have a feeling it’s just lingering side effects but we’ll see I guess. About the husbands, I am approaching a 48th wedding anniversary & I can truly say he hasn’t heard me 98-99% of the time. Why I have wasted my breath all this years? I just shake my head & decide not to dwell on it because just possibly he is doing the best that he can, not what I expected from him though. I’m so happy you will have a brand new baby to keep your heart full :hug:

I created a huge (17”X13”) sheet pan sourdough pizza & topped it with marinara & non-dairy cheeze shreds, fresh basil & a little turkey pepperoni - there’s lots of leftovers but it was good! Leftovers are in the freezer now, looking forward to having some for lunches.
Hello to all & wishing everyone a safe night in the nest!

Lav

[wagmor]

Re: Newbies Nest

Flying by, exhausted but sober. Take care everyone.

[Pavati]

Re: Newbies Nest

Hi, All:

Happy SOBER Mother's Day to you mothers and people who play the role of mother to others. I am looking forward to a hike and lunch with my sisters, sister-in-law and mom (with the significant others also). The weather here is HOT which I normally like, but we had a "red flag" warning yesterday for fires because of windy, hot conditions. Those usually don't come until the fall. It is VERY dry here, and we are heading to a dry fire season. Very scary. Send rain our way!

Lav, good luck with all of the blood tests, and I hope you don't have lyme. Byrdie, glad you got in for a tune up. I know three men who have died of colon cancer in the last couple of years - definitely a test worth taking.

Wags, enjoy your time off. Glad you're getting some reward from your garden. I don't seem to have the patience and persistence to be a good gardener, but I do enjoy being in people's nice gardens and eating their good food...

Kensho, I hope all is good with you, too. And everyone else.

Have fabulous days,
Pav

[Lavande]

Re: Newbies Nest

Good evening Nesters,

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone celebrating.
I didn’t get to see my kids today but heard from both of them & got a beautiful basket of flowers delivered Still cloudy here & we had a few brief showers but not a bad day.

Pav, I seriously wish you could have some of this rain. My newly mulched garden beds are sprouting mushrooms - not what I was looking for. It’s just TOO damp here.
Hope you enjoyed your hike today, sounds nice!

Wags, hope your day was a good one.

Hello to the rest of the crew & wishing everyone a safe night in the nest!

Lav

[narilly]

Re: Newbies Nest

Happy Un Hung Monday everyone.

It rained all weekend here and this week we are expecting a lot of rain. We really need it so it is good.

Hey SLO, the counsellor recommended divorce to my husband too when I wasn't there. WHAT a tool that counsellor was! Some counsellors really should not be in that job. My husband was having a total nervous breakdown and the counsellor couldn't see it. My hubby told him he did not love me anymore and wasn't happy and right away the counsellor said "well, there is nothing we can do. You need to leave." What a joke! That was 10 years ago and we are still together. I am not saying you are in the same situation but just that things are not black and white with relationships. Maybe your hubby needs medication, counselling and some time? I just want you to be happy

Anyway, I work tonight. We are super busy, as Covid is raging through our province. Today we are in lockdowns again so hopefully in 2 weeks we see a difference.

xo
Nar

[KENSHO]

Re: Newbies Nest

Quick sober drop in. All good here. Rainy and chilly but I have time to myself! Strong vibes to all!

[Lavande]

Re: Newbies Nest

Good evening Nesters,

Hey, no rain today, haha!!
Just busy catching up on small things, nothing to write home about

Narilly, I’ve always had problems counselors who have all the answers
It’s really not their job to tell people what to do. They should be helping people think thru their problems & possibly showing them there’s usually different solutions out there. Yo don’t always have to cut & run if you know what I mean. I hope your new lockdown is effective & people are getting vaccinated when it’s available.

Kensho, this must be your busy time of year. Glad you are OK.

Hello to all & wishing everyone a safe night in the nest!

Lav

[Byrdlady]

Re: Newbies Nest

Hey, all!
I hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day. It was a beautiful day here.
I made a batch of chocolates and was showing them to a friend. After months of my complaining about how hateful chocolate is to work with, she said, it looks as tho you have learned to tame it. This set me to thinking. Chocolate has rules….strict rules. It likes what it likes and will seize up if it doesn’t.get its way. I realized I was trying to fight it. I wanted it to bend to my rules and limitations instead of my meeting it where it works best. I’ve always considered myself a fighter. I’m not sure this is always a good thing. Once I started abiding by its rules, my life with chocolate got 1000 times easier. My journey with sobriety was the very same as I look at it retrospectively. I fought it hard. I knew if anyone could moderate, it’d be me. Sobriety has but one rule: Don’t drink. Once I accepted that, my sober life got considerably easier. No bargaining, no trying to outsmart or over-think. Just acceptance, gratitude, and MindPeace. Being a fighter isn’t always a positive trait, I have found. There are times in life where we must be coachable and willing to listen to others who walk in front of us. Life really is like a box of chocolates!
Happy Monday to all. Byrdie.

[wagmor]

Re: Newbies Nest

Byrdie - nice comparison of life and chocolate!

Kensho - good to see you friend. Hope all continues to go well for you.

Nar - sorry to hear about the raging covid in your province. Out of curiosity, what do you do as a contact tracer (if you feel comfortable sharing)? Is it basically talking with people who've been diagnosed with covid and asking them questions about where they've been and who they've been around?


I'm on my second "day off" and I'll tell you what -- I'm glad I have two more cuz I do NOT feel rested yet. But I'm sober and happy about it.

Stay safe everyone!

[Slo]

Re: Newbies Nest

Mabel is here!!
Granddaughter was born this evening, and mom & baby are well & healthy! I’m so glad daughter went into labor spontaneously today and had the baby naturally -because she wanted to be induced tomorrow, and had made plans to do so! And I didn’t quite agree with it. So all worked out well!

I love your analogy to working with chocolate, Byrdie; and think it would be a good addition to the Toolbox. Alcohol seems to have very firm, inflexible rules too, and we can’t bend them. Once it has done whatever it does to the human brain and the line is crossed, we can keep fighting with it -but we will lose, over & over again.

Interesting, Narilly! So I’m likely not far off the mark -I think this counselor IS influencing him to divorce! I wish I had tried harder to keep a relationship of some sort going with him instead of giving up -now that it’s for real I just really don’t want to divorce. It sounds terrifying. You’re right, Lav: I needed to realize that he’s probably been doing the best he can with the role models he was given and the influences he has had. I’ve been judging too harshly.

You have been burning the candle at both ends lately, Wags; so you sure won’t be well-rested yet!

Sounds like a nice Mother’s Day hiking together, Pavati.

Sweet dreams to all in the Nest!

[Pavati]

Re: Newbies Nest

Hi, All:

Byrdie - I love your posts. Honestly, I think you should collect them for a book of some type. Along with NS, Mr. G, Lav, etc. Maybe we could do an MWO's best - there are gems here from everyone. Glad you tamed the chocolate AND the alcohol.

Slo - there is an alternate perspective - that your husband came to that conclusion and is saying the counselor told him to. I'm not trying to bust up your marriage, but I also think it is important not to second guess where you're coming from. It IS possible that the marriage has run its course and it is time to leave. I think of his not being supportive when your brother died. I really don't know either of you or the marriage, but I just want to give you that second perspective. Both of my sisters are divorced - it was very hard and scary but they both ended up in much better places. Whatever happens, I hope you find happiness.

Wags, glad you're getting into the time off. I do hope you get some rest. I started getting invitations for may the minute we were all double vaccinated and now my May is TOO full... It was a shock to my system to have so many things to do outside of the house.

Nar, sorry you are in a surge. There is grim data from here about variants and the lack of vaccinations leading to a long (20+ years) cycle of outbreaks here. I wish we were more united in helping each other.

Happy SOBER Tuesday, all.

Pav

[Lavande]

Re: Newbies Nest

Greetings Nesters,

Today was surprisingly nice in that I got to see both my kids & their kids, separately of course

Slo, CONGRATS on the safe arrival of your new granddaughter :hug: A new baby on the family is always so nice.
I’ll have to go thru my Kindle app to find the name of the book I read that helped me see my husband thru the eyes of a Buddhist. It helped me so much in understanding what was going on. That’s where I learned that sometimes people really are doing the best they can do in a given situation & it’s not your fault.

Byrdie, good job on the chocolate taming!!! Come up this way some day & I’ve have you talk to the Swiss chocolatier nearby, yum!

Pav, The Best of MWO could be a best seller if we market it right, haha!! Maybe we could share our combined wisdom with the world or maybe I’m just a dreamer. One thing I do know for sure os that you really have to want to be sober more than you want to continue to drink

Hello to all & wishing everyone a safe night in the nest!

Lav

[wagmor]

Re: Newbies Nest

Slo - CONGRATS on grandbaby Mabel! So glad she arrived easily and on her own terms/schedule.

Lav - sounds like a wonderful day with all of those family visits.


Things are good here. My wife got cleared today to start PT, so she'll have her first appt on Friday. I had a surprising thought sometime in the past 24 hours or so. I just wanted to have a drink or two to "unwind" for a bit. Like I really wished I could experience what people who don't have al problems experience when they have a couple of drinks. I pushed the thought away because I know I might as well wish I could fly (also impossible) but it sure did catch me off guard at the moment. I guess that's part of why we keep our tools sharp and we practice using them -- so that when those fleeting thoughts pop up we don't give them even a second to take root.

Have good Wednesdays everyone and keep your tools sharp!

[NoSugar]

Re: Newbies Nest

Yeah, Wags, isn't the idea of 1 or 2 drinks and being good with that so hard to understand? I look at those little bottles of wine or the 'standard pours' at restaurants and just marvel that that is enough for anyone. I get this feeling in my throat when I think of it of wanting/needing more. That feeling was part of my craving experience back in the day. So glad those days are over!

Congrats on the new granddaughter, Slo. I'm so happy for you that you were solidly AF when these babies came into your life. Whenever I'm with my grandsons I'm so grateful to be fully present and not manipulating things to avoid them so I can drink. I was pretty crushed by what my life had become anyway -- if these relationships had also been compromised, I really don't know how I could have handled it.

This is part of an e-mail I received today and really agree with:

If you’ve ever been to therapy, you’ve probably been nicely brought around to this idea: That there is whatever your husband or wife or father or mother or sister or brother or boss is saying to you, and then there is what you’re hearing. In fact, in a lot of couples counseling, the therapist will try to help couples stop fights from spiraling by asking them to say to each other, “Ok, what I am hearing when you say that is…” or “What I make up about that is…”
Because it’s true. Your mother thought she was just teasing, but what you heard when she did that was, “I don’t love you” and “You’re not good enough.” You feel like you’re just sighing because you’re tired, but what your husband is hearing is, “I’m upset with you,” and now he’s getting ready to defend himself.
It’s not things that upset us, Epictetus said, it’s our judgement about things. It’s what we make up about things that upsets us. It’s what we hear, not what people say, that is the problem.
So think about that today, think about that whenever you feel triggered or misunderstood or attacked. Is that actually what’s happening? Or are you just making that up? Is it likely they were saying anything close to what you heard? Or is your hearing precisely the source of the conflict? It usually is.

I wonder if you and your husband are really talking about the same thing, Slo. Over the last few years, I've been learning to recognize and ignore the stories I make up that make me miserable and may not even be true! I hope you emerge from this loving and proud of yourself and treated by others the way you deserve to be treated, whichever way it goes. xx, NS