November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

[Lavande]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Evening all!

I think I'm back to myself
Whatever viral thing I had is now history!!!

Dill, the hen count is down to 18!!!! Still way too many as far as I'm concerned. We ended up taking the Rhode Island Reds from someone who wasn't caring for them........they were young, scrawny, starving, etc. We fed them well, they're healthy now & laying eggs but one of them has turned 'canibal'. Obviously we have way too many eggs for 2 people so we look for opportunities to give them away. Sometimes the Amish farmer buys them from us to sell to his customers........no one knows the better

mountain girl, glad to hear you jumped right back on board!

Sooty, I'll go wherever you take us

Greetings to the skinny Pnut, lil, Finding & anyone else who stops by!
Wishing everyone a good AF night.

Sooty - tomorrow is your favorite day

Lav

[cyntree]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Quick check in to all before I go off to an evening event -- days have been busy -- I love the idea of finding a new rhythm to life -- and the Lavan-itude doctrine! Like Sooty says, it's fabulous to 'ground' here in the group.

Welcome to all the new November navvies - hang in there; the early days were soooo long and not so easy -- BUT IT IS SO WORTH IT. The best advice the group gave me a month ago was to remember that the craving WILL go away - it won't hound you for the whole evening. Good Luck all!
Wishing you a wonderful AF evening, and I hope to check in earlier tomorrow!

[mighty mouse]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Good night to all, tomorrow will be my day 4...i usually don't get past this onne but i'm feeling positive thanks to all the support.

Love to all, Mighty Mouse

[ladybirdheart]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Goodnight dear ones, Dill, Lav, Finding, Cyn, Sooty, Lil, Red, Scrubs, Pea, Mountain Girl, Mighty Mouse, One More, Girl from Oz, and anybody I might have missed (big group, I am old). Good to see you back Scrubs, and Ms. Mouse, you are really getting settled in, it is great to be with you. Welcome GFO, you can find your way out and still have fun and relaxation although it sure doesn?t seem like that to most of us at one time or another. With this in mind, thank you for your wonderfully succinct summary, Lav, of your celebrated ?Lavan-ittude?. We have to put our alcohol free welfare first and do whatever it takes to keep it there. We can do what we can to avoid or change the people and situations that do not have our best interests at heart, but we can do a lot more to change ourselves, how we respond to social stress, excitement, anger, anxiety, fatigue, happiness, loneliness, and frustration. We can learn to think and act adaptively rather than with certain self-defeat. Nobody gets off the boat. Love, Ladybird.

[girl_from_oz]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Hi to all,

Firstly, thankyou everyone from some great advice. Have my excuses in place now and if I do feel the need to go out and socialise, will throw out the first excuse that comes to mind and sit on a diet coke or iced water.

Well done Peanut on the weight loss, that is one of my big motivators at the moment. Brother getting married at the end of the year so would love to shed some pounds before that. I eat really well and exercise so am pretty sure there's only one reason I'm not making any progress there.

Day 3 done and dusted with relative ease. Tomorrow gonna be the tough one as that's usually the first day of my 4 day weekend drinking cycle. Have my plans in place for the weekend though to keep me as busy and AF free as possible. Nervous but very excited about the strength I'm feeling about achieving it and it will largely be because of you guys on this post!

Dill, made me laugh with your reading comment - don't know how many times I've sat down with a good book and a few too many drinks only to have to re-read it myself. One of the many things I really value and love about these forums is that no matter what you do, there is someone else out there who has already done the same thing. None of are as alone in our actions as we beat ourselves up about. The main thing for me is that I find a lot of strength in this. I can see that others doing the same things as I am/did (hopefully!) can beat it so I know I can too!

MM, let's get through day 4 together - we can do it!! :l

Good luck to all for another AF day ahead... :yougo:

[dill]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Ahoy!

Best wishes to GFO and MM today. We all know the pull of the dreaded "day 4"! You can do it. Here's our 'cheer':
:cheering::cheering: "Make yourself a plan, And stick to it, too.
If we could do it, so can you!" :cheering::cheering:

OK, I'm feeling positive today! I feel like I have been focusing too much on the negative, so today, I'm going out into the big windy day we are having here and I am going to let it blow away the "mini fog"!

There really is so much to be grateful for!

OK, It's almost Thanksgiving. Years ago my mother clipped a poem out of a Sunday magazine and shared it with me along with an article. Although I miss my mother, I am grateful for this moment we shared together over this article. She gave it to me when Dad was in the mid stage of Dimentia. It was a Thanksgiving essay of sorts. The article's author was haunted by this short poem, (in a good way), and I have been too. He was going through a grieving process during the year of losing his father to cancer. This poem went through the many stages of the grieving process with him, and he kept finding new meanings for it as he went through the stages. Kind of like the layers of an onion. I hope it's alright if I share it with you all, my good friends on our ship:

An easy thing, O power Divine,
To thank Thee for these gifts of Thine,
For summer's sunshine, winters's snow,
For hearts that kindle, thoughts that glow:
But when shall I attain to this ~
To thank Thee for the things I miss?
by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (19th Century poet)

I think this is the ultimate in gratitude: to be thankful for the things we miss.

Stay strong, Mates! See you on the shuffle board deck!:H

[Lavande]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Good morning Mates,

Just a quick hello, I have an early appointment today.
Will be back later.
Wishing everyone a great Humpday

Lav

[lilmea]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

There is always an up side to everything. I've always been sad about missed opportunities. But would that 'opportunity' really have been better?

All I know is Life is good today and I am grateful for that.


Here's a shuffleboard for us. I have played it and it is fun.

Just a quick check in for now.

Have a good af day everyone. Attached files [img]/converted_files/1086898=5345-attachment.jpg[/img]

[ladybirdheart]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Evocative and thought provoking poem, Dill, beautiful and lingering, I printed it out. I am looking at making a good day for myself as well. While it warms up a bit, I shall take orderly care of my bookkeeping and then venture out to start my main winter project. The first part will entail building a little stone wall. I am very much looking forward to this, piecing puzzles together, and I hope to make it all out of flat stones and odd rocks I already have here and there. I need to begin by gathering them into piles and thinking things out. I am going to name the wall after us, the November Navigators (each of you will have your own rock somewhere along it ), and it shall be affectionately know as the Sea Wall. Very funny if you realize that it will be a little wall and the nearby body of water is a docile fish pond. To the Wall! To Shuffleboard! And on to Africa! Love, Ladybird.

[FindingMyself]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Peanut, congrats on shedding a few pounds. I?ve noticed a difference too ? it really makes me feel good about myself!

GFO, I didn?t think I was ever going to see a difference in my weight, but it eventually does come off! Great motivator!

Good luck on day 4 GFO and MM

Lav, cannibal chickens :H! Maybe you can drop that hungry girl off at the Amish farm on your next visit.

Hi mountaingirl, with an 11 day streak you get a taste of how good AF can feel. Glad you are giving it another go. My physical cravings are down a lot, but I still take supplements and vitamins just out of habit.

Dill, yeah, still struggle through the weekends and the unstructured time. I need better plans ? things to get me out of the house.

LadyBird, the wall sounds lovely ? you are such a creative spirit!

Hello to everyone, gotta run off to work. Have a good day!

[mighty mouse]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Hii to all, Wednesday...My day 4. Woke up groggy with a head ache. Don't know if that means anythiing? I'am committed to AF today. May be a challenge.

GFO We can do it, a little scary. day 4 was always my down fall. I think we might be a day off from each other but I believe we have the strength. and i know what you mean about thursday. I too have started many a 4 day drink then also. We can do this!! One day at a time we'll get over that rainbow.

Dill, Loved the prayer.I have had a lot of loss in my life...but I had them. I will start giving thanks for the things I miss.
LBH- the vision of your wall is sweet. for me to be a stone surrounded by all the others for strenght to brave the elements.I'll think of you building this. How did you print off Dills prayer?

Lav, Lil, FM and all else. have a great weds. more later. MM

[lodestar]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Good morning, everyone!

Feeling a little groggy myself today. It is a bit hazy outside, so that might be why. I love the thought of the wind blowing off the dust, Dill, and thanks for posting the poem. Beautiful!

LBH -- I am so proud to have a rock in your wall and agree with MM, it is nice to be surrounded by strength

GFO & MM -- Good job gals! Sending you lots of strength and peace for Day 4! You both can do it and think of how good you will feel tomorrow morning when you open your eyes and realize what you have accomplished. Soooo glad you are both here. Halloween weekend was my first and I have to say, it was not nearly as bad as I made it out to be in my mind. I even had some fun! Go figure. Be easy on yourselves and do whatever it takes, even if that means hanging here. :l

A happy AF day to one and all...see you soon.

[sooty]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Happy humpday one and all. I am SO frustrated .... I just wrote this long post in which I gave us all jobs on the boat - and then I lost the darn thing. So please nominate yourselves - there are lots of vacancies, entertainments officer, purser, excursions officer, etc etc.
I've had a silly old day, seem to have been busy but not achieved much - but at least I am AF so that's a pretty good achievement to be going on with!
Have a lovely wednesday everyone, see you all tomorrow
Sooty

[scrubbly]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Good afternoon navigators! The mood on the boat is productive and positive, I love to see that! This being a holiday (at least for me) I have been most productive myself, working on a project to turn my BORING loft of a home office into more of a retreat space for myself that is part reading nook and part laptop-friendly space. So far so good, it is looking great but I am worn out!

LBH: I love your rock wall idea, and I'm honored to have a stone in there! Thanks for thinking of us in that way...alone we are just rocks, together we are a wall of strength, built for protection for the fish pond, a barrier to the cold winds, and a solid base on which to rest. I love it!!!

Sooty: I have no idea what a purser is supposed to actually DO, but I love purses, so if there are any of those involved I'll apply for that job. :H :H :H

GFO & MM: Great going on Day 4...I found that once I got past day 4, and then the first weekend, things got a lot easier...best of luck to you!

Lode: Grab a cup of joe....that might work on the haze!!

Lil: I guess since you have actually played shuffleboard that makes you the best applicant for Activities Director on the ship...

Dill: It's so nice to see you feeling more positive...that little black cloud I have been envisioning following around over your head has blown away now!!! :l

Oz: Good luck with your first weekend...do you have lots of activities planned to keep busy? That always helped me in early days to have things to focus on to get through it AF.

Hellos to Lav, Findingmyself, Peanut, ronaldolover, Cyn, Red and anyone else I missed!

[redhibiscus]

November Navigators ~ AF -Week 2

Hey everyone, new and old. I just returned from a trip, with lots of family and emotions. Also , hurricane IDA. I have been up since 2 a.m. and am wired.

I am back on track to be AF for the rest of November. I had a few glasses of wine on three days of my trip. No hangovers and no drunkeness. BUT....this is not what I am going to do on a regular basis at all. I ate too much too and feel like I gained back all the weight I lost. So, I am back to living the good clean AF lifestyle that I have been working on since August. It was good to see this thread and all the new hopeful people who want to be AF.

I am dreading work tomorrow, but it will already be Thursday and I'll have the weekend to enjoy.

Coming back to the Midwest, a crisp fall day, was a real joy. I will easily slip back into being AF as it is now my real way of life. It's great to be back. Strength and hope.