Blather & Whatnot

Good Morning, you Beautiful People!

Today is about laundry again, because my husband says that every thing feels like "there are monsters in his clothes" and wanted to know if I changed laundry detergent. I have not. I have, however, been lazy about adding vinegar to the rinse cycle and have been eyeballing instead of measuring the detergent, so either of those (or the combination thereof) could be the cause. So the laundry is running now, and I'll shower and get dressed once it's ready to pop in the dryer.

Reading my early posts here (from December 2024 - March 2025) gave me a lot of insight as to where I am now. While I am far from perfect (and never will be -- perfection just isn't a human thing!), I really have grown quite a bit these past two years. My challenge seems to be about consistency. Not so much on the alcohol front, but on the reckless spending and reckless eating habits. And I think that most of that is my ADHD brain, not my addict-brain. I'm not saying that the AUD isn't something at play with the reckless eating and spending but looking over where I was two years ago and where I am now, the AUD aspect of my brain has shrunk dramatically. And the anxiety brain is responding well to the sertraline. I can't change my ADHD brain (well, I guess I could medicate that as well, but is that really where I want to go? Unless the Wegovy counts in that direction? I dunno...), but I can keep working on my systems, to try to get them so that serve me well. And I even have tools in the place for that now, with my quarterly "systems check."

Wow. I really have changed. I'm not saying that there aren't days when I want to crawl under the blankets and hide from the insanity of this world, because there are still days like that. That happens when you live in an insane world. What I am saying is that when I feel that way, I do hide under the blankets (or listen to podcasts while doing puzzles), but I don't do it with a bottle of bourbon, or a box of crumble cookies, or going on online shopping sprees that put me in further debt.

Thank you all for being here. I don't think I can express how much these check-ins mean to me, and I hope you know that you are a big part of the beauty that the Universe puts in my life.

Hello, you Beautiful People!

Dang it -- I missed the "good morning" by 27 minutes!

Normally, today would just be about cleaning, but since I couldn't pick up my grocery order (and the store's ordering system is still down), I'll be heading out to run errands (I have some stuff to pick from Walgreen's, as well) when I'm done with this. I'll do the cleaning in the afternoon.

I got my journal fleshed out with my early posts from this thread, and also some stuff from r/stopdrinking as well. Let me tell you, it took quite a lot of time to complete the task, and I probably missed a thing or two that would have been good to include, but totally worth it. Now I can find all of those early thoughts by searching by date or keyword, instead of the endless scrolling I was doing here. In any event, I'm glad I got that work done.

That's what's rolling around in my brain today. I hope you find something beautiful in your day, and as always, thank you for being here!

I'm importing a back log of sobriety journal entries from the SmartRecovery Daily Check-In on Reddit. Sorry if Dreamwidth and I overwhelm you with an avalanche of notifications.

Good Morning, you Beautiful People!

It is an absolutely gorgeous day out there -- temps currently in the highs 50s F, not to exceed the mid-60s, the sun is shining, and the breeze is gentle. Ted has had his "mandatory" 1/2-mile walk, and we will probably take a longer, lazier walk around the woods or the lake this afternoon.

I've continued working on setting up better phone habits, mostly by turning the screen time options back on and setting a time limit for Safari. I also removed everything from Apple Wallet, then removed the wallet itself. And then I did something bold -- I realized that I no longer had any private information on my phone, so I removed my passcode. I do have my bank app on the phone, but that has its own log in. I also removed the Venmo app -- I can always use Venmo through the web, right? Anyway. Perhaps foolish, but I stripped my phone down so that it's a phone, an e-reader, a navigation system, and a podcast player. Eventually, it will also have my music library, but I haven't decided how I want to do that yet. I'm leaning towards the VLC app. Oh. And I also have the Eufy app for my Roe-bit (vacuum).

Today is Tuesday, so that means the primary focus is cleaning -- I guess I started by cleaning up my phone a bit more! The bathrooms need attention, and I still have a pile of towels to fold. I need to vacuum my bedroom (Ted has been shedding like crazy). While not a cleaning task, I need to get that lung scan scheduled. Other than that, I'll probably play with both my personal and poetry journals.

So that's what's going on in my brain today...I'm feeling productive, so I think I will get most of that done. That's a beautiful feeling.

I hope you find something beautiful in your day, and as always, thank you for being here!

Good Morning, you Beautiful People!

Today is Thursday, and that means yard work. I'm just going to mow the front lawn. I'll either delegate the backyard to my son, or I'll do it tomorrow morning. I also need to call our financial advisor's office, as they still have not responded to our request to schedule a face-to-face to discuss what we can expect in terms of the accounts we hold through them when my husband retires. That will be my "one hard thing" to do today. I've been putting it off for a week, and I really need to take care of it ASAP. Maybe I'll call before mowing? I don't know.

Since it's October 1, I also want to review what I did (and didn't do) in September. That might change my plans for October. Not that I have many plans for October: I want to do my first Appalachian Trail hike (something easy and close to home) for my 14 Hikes in 14 States Challenge, I want to renew my membership at our local recreation and fitness center, and personal property taxes are due. This monthly review and monthly goals thing is something new that I'm trying on for myself. It isn't how I usually plan. I'm more of a day-to-day, week-to-week type of person; most of my monthly planning is more about what financial obligations are due (such as the personal property tax!).

That's what's rolling around in my head this morning. I hope you find something beautiful in your day, and as always, thank you for being here!

Hello, my Beautiful Friends!

Where did the day go? Allegedly, I did some cleaning, but for the most part, I read and watched a movie, and did a bit of planning. I dropped Ted for doggy daycare and a bath this morning, and then vacuumed my car…does that count as cleaning?

And I still have a pile of towels to fold that are just hanging out in the spare room.

Oh, well. Sometimes, that’s just how days go.

I’m off to pick up the beast now.

I hope you’ve found something beautiful in your day, and as always, thank you for being here!

Good Morning, you Beautiful People!

I forgot to check in yesterday, oops. Yesterday was about housekeeping and watching a movie and resetting my organization systems (a redo of what I tried to employ end of August). I just wasn't getting things done. Not to the point of implosion, but the piles of undone tasks where becoming hills, so I realized I needed to adjust tracks before they became mountains. So, I recreated a weekly overview sheet for my disk-bound journal and created a daily planning sheet based on one that I've used in the past. I'm still going to keep the other pages I created to use as reference, but the systems of those pages populate my calendar and rolling to do list just weren't cutting it.

I thought that the pare down in daily tools would be enough to support the systems (that's what those other pages are -- info on housecleaning and home maintenance routines, budget worksheets and timetables, assigning things that I *want* to do to days so that I won't keep skipping out, yada, yada, yada) I've been creating, but I just need more daily focus going down. So my new daily planning page includes a section for tasks (which get populated by hand, based on those reference pages) and scheduled activities, a place to write down what's for dinner, a checklist for those habits I'm tracking (which is one of the reasons why I kept forgetting to check in here, without the tracking), a spot in top right hand corner for the top three things that need my attention, and then some space at the bottom for notes.

Today is about an appointment with my NP to increase my Wegovy level. I am starting to feel a difference in terms of appetite. I've lost about 10 pounds this summer, so my weight has finally dropped below 200 (by a hair 199.1 -- but as anyone will tell you, breaking the line past the 200 mark is a huge emotional step). I still have about 40 - 50 pounds to lose.

According to "the charts" a healthy weight for me "should" be between 105 and 140. Being five foot three sometimes sucks! Since my lean mass is already 105 and I don't want to lose that shit, and to be honest, I'd like to gain some muscle mass back (my lean mass was up to 115 in 2023, so I think I should at least be able to gain 5 pounds of muscle mass over the next year).

So... let’s make a goal: over the course of the next year, I want to gain 5 lbs muscle mass. How much body fat would I have to lose to dip under the obese category, based on body fat percentage (because those height/weight charts are just ratios...I'll never understand why the BMI got so much clout as the extra calculation steps involved have nothing to do with body composition)? 30% body fat is considered obese. So let's bring that body fat to 29% -- I'm not looking for skinny here. I just want to release the obesity that affects my health. Okay. So that means that 110 lean body mass needs to be 71% of me. Thus, my goal would be to gain 5 lbs lean, and to lose 39 pounds of fatty tissue, which would put me at a weight of 155 (110 lean, 45 body fat). To do that in a year, that would be losing about 3.25 lbs a month.

I can do this. I'm going to let Wegovy set my body chemistry straight when it comes to food and primarily focus on moving more. More walks with Ted. More PT and calisthenics. Maybe another "My-Tri" (I created my own mini-triathlon challenge in 2021...I haven't found my workout plan yet, but I did find my body measurement excel document, so it's findable somewhere). While never an amazing athlete, I was athletic when I was younger: I played lacrosse in high school and in college, played nearly every sport imaginable through college intramural dorm competitions, I've hiked along the Appalachian trail, I used to swim a mile a day, I used to ride horses and do gymnastics. Mostly, I liked to play. I need to start playing again.

Well...that was verbose. But I'm leaving it as is, since it is what is rolling around in my head this morning.

As always, thank you for being here, and may the Universe surprise you with a bit of beauty you weren't expecting.

Hello, you Beautiful People!

Just a quick check-in today, as it is already bedtime! My husband had a lot of medical appointments today, so I decided to nope out of the housework. It will be waiting for me tomorrow.

Life carries on, and freedom from DOCs and BOCs is a beautiful thing—even when life is weird.

I hope you found some beauty in your day, and as always, thank you for being here!

Good Morning, you Beautiful People!

Normally, Friday would be about housecleaning. But since we are getting our bathtub replaced today (it was sorely needed!), I'm going to skip that entire adventure. I'll clean tomorrow when I do the laundry. What will I be doing instead? Well, I'm in the middle of printing out a collection of sudoku puzzles, coloring pages, and crossword puzzles. I'm putting them in a disk bound journal (I had an extra cover and extra disks in my collection of journaling supplies), and then I'm going hang out in the sunroom and do my puzzles without any regrets!

That's all that's going on my mind right now. While my goal is to get back to posting my weekday check-ins, I'll probably check in once this weekend. I have some other things that are also bubbling in my mind, but I'm not quite ready to write about them (no worries -- it's not the sort of thing that is going to trigger a desire to drink or otherwise fall into old BOCs), but they are definitely a part of my sobriety journey. Because everything is about my sobriety journal -- all of these things I am doing are being done for the sake of becoming a healthy person who no longer chooses to drink, spend willy nilly, or slowly eat herself to death, right? Okay, I guess a little more is going on in my mind, but like I said, I'm not ready to fully give those thoughts a voice yet.

Anyway...I hope each of you finds a bit of beauty in your day, and as always, thank you for being here!

Good Morning, you Beautiful People!

This is going to be quick because I have a teledoc appointment with my Psych-NP in 25 minutes.

I didn't do the mowing yesterday, so I'll be attacking it today, front yard only. I know I listed three other things that need my attention last night, but I've forgotten what they are. But that's cool, because they are written down in my bedside notepad. I'll get to those things after mowing and taking a shower.

I only did a little bit of reading yesterday. The doctor's appointment took forever (comprehensive scanning of my legs), so the afternoon was mostly about puzzles and playing Unsolved Mysteries (with Robert Stack) on Tubi while I let myself rest and zone out (the tech who did the scan, the NP, AND the doctor all said that I looked tired and should rest, so I did).

And that's about it for now. I hope you each find some beauty in your day, and as always, thank you for being here!