How do you choose?

I had a post all written in my head this morning about the feelings of hopelessness and loss you have when you are with and active addict but it will have to wait for tomorrow. I was checking some of my regular sites and I came upon this woman who DESPERATELY needs your support.

She is/was 20 weeks pregnant with a little boy. They just found out that her son has bilateral renal agenesis which means that he has no kidneys. You can not live without kidneys. So, she had to make the heartbreaking decision of whether to carry this baby for another 20 weeks knowing that as soon as he was born (or within 4 hours of birth according to Dr. Google) he would die or to be induced now.

Yesterday afternoon she was supposed to be induced.

I can not imagine having to make this choice and my heart hurts for this woman that I do not know. I had, once before, heard of a woman who was pregnant and they discovered that the baby did not have any lungs. Being a deeply religious family they decided not to terminate and instead carried their child to term knowing that every day closer that they got to the baby's birthday was one day closer to its death.

I can not imagine shopping for caskets instead of shopping for cribs. Knowing that the only thing keeping your baby alive was the fact that it remained inside of you. What a feeling of hopelessness and complete and utter sadness.

Before I had Zack I said oh no to these things. I thought they were sad but they did not touch me like they do now. Now when I hear about this my heart hurts for these people. I find myself wiping away tears of sadness for a person I do not even know. I find myself clinging to my son extra hard at night knowing that when he was born I could celebrate.

So today, instead of focusing on me I ask that you go there and spend a few minutes focusing on her and letting her know that there are people who are sending out their thoughts and their prayers for her. It will not make her son alright but hopefully it will help her to get through the dark place that I can only imagine that she will be in for awhile.

I Know You Won't

I know you don't mean to be mean to me

'Cause when you want to you can make me feel like belong

We belong

Lately you make me feel all I am is a back-up plan

I say I'm done and then you smile at me and I forget

Everything I said

I buy into those eyes

And into your lies

You say you'll call, but I know you

You say you're coming home, but I know you

You say you'll call, but I know you won't

You say you'll call, but I know you won't

I wish you were where you're supposed to be

Close to me

But here I am just starring at this candle burning out

And still no sound

Of footsteps on my stairs

Or your voice anywhere

You say you'll call, but I know you

You say you're coming home, but I know you

You say you'll call, but I know you won't

You say you'll call, but I know you won't

You say you'll call, but I know you

You say you're coming home, but I know you

You say you'll call, but I know you won't

You say you'll call, but I know you won't

--Carrie Underwood Song

It is amazing to me how easy it is to bring back a flood of emotions. I can be going along my normal way and then the song I put up yesterday and this song today can be played and all of the sudden I'm right back where I was.

I have a meeting tonight. I think I need a meeting tonight. Jake has been irritable and moody for the last two or three days. I think the time change has gotten him into a funk. On top of that Zack has also been moody and irritable because of his double ear infection. Oh yes... I did say double ear infection and yes, we did just do this a month ago. Don't remind me.

Anyhow, I find it strange how just one song can bring all of those feelings back. It takes me right back to that place where I was a year ago. With the time change all of that has already come back to me. I am remembering last year, being very pregnant and very much alone. Calling him and calling him and always thinking that this promise would be the one.

This time he said he was coming home... he will be here.

And waiting and waiting and worrying and wondering and trying to sleep but never knowing if he was alive or dead. This song embodies all of that. The waiting the wondering and the knowledge in the back of my mind that just because he says it doesn't mean it will happen.

The knowledge that you have tried to push out of your mind because THIS time was going to be different and perhaps he's just late at work, perhaps his car broke down, perhaps... perhaps... perhaps....

Stay

My friend Jess really likes this song by Sugerland Called Stay. You can view the music video here at YouTube. The video is awesome, it still makes me tear up.

However, it wasn't until very recently that I have been able to understand exactly why it is that this song really speaks to me. I have listened to this song over and over and I understand that it is about someone who is being cheated on, which I have been, but my connection seemed deeper than that. In fact, it wasn't until this weekend, as I was discussing distorted thinking that it really dawned on me.

When you live with an addict your thinking becomes so distorted that you begin to think their problem is because of you. You convince yourself that if they loved you more they would stay with you instead of going out to use. Perhaps if you show them more love they will stay with you and not go out to use. I was so convinced that if I intercepted the calls from the druggies I could convince them not to call again or I could convince Jake to stay. Perhaps if he never knew they called he wouldn't want to go out and party with them he would want to stay home with me.

All of these are failed attempts to try to control this disease known as addiction. What I have learned in Al-anon is that the addict has a compulsion to use. It doesn't matter how much they love anyone their addiction is stronger than their love. That is why a mother could leave her child to go use drugs. That is why my husband could leave Zack and I in the hospital to go get high. He was driven to do so.

With that said, it doesn't make what I went through any easier and it doesn't make it OK. It just makes me understand it a little more and know that from watching this video and seeing the pain in her face that was a place that I was in for 10 years and a place I never want to go back to.

Towards the end of his journey I was not strong enough to take the necessary steps myself. It took some very dear friends of mine to remind me that I needed to think of myself and my son first and that we deserved better and then for them to help me find the strengh to commit Jake.

I don't think I will ever look at this song the way other people do, but I still love it. Just in a different way than others do. I have put the lyrics below and put in my own so that you can hear it the way I hear it. The way that reminds me of the pain I never want to return to.


I've been sittin' here stairin' at the clock on the wall
And I've been layin' here prayin' Prayin' she {they} won't call
It's just another call from home {them} and you'll get it and be gone and I'll be cryin'

And I'll be beggin' you baby
Beg you not to leave
But I'll be left here waitin'
My Heart on my sleeve
Oh for the next time we'll be here
Seems like a million years and I think I'm dyin'

What do I have to do to make you see
She {They} can't love you like me

Why don't you stay
I'm down on my knees
I'm so tired of bein' lonely
Don't I give you what you need
When she {they} calls you to go
There is one thing you should know
We don't have to live this way
Baby, why don't you stay

You keep tellin' me baby
There will come a time
When you will leave her arms {stop using}
And forever be in mine
But I don't think that's the truth
And I don't like bein' used and I'm tired of waitin'

It's too much pain to have to bare
To love a man you have to share

Why don't you stay
I'm down on my knees
I'm so tired of bein' lonely
Don't I give you what you need
When she {they} calls you to go
There is one thing you should know
We don't have to live this way
Baby, why don't you stay

I can't take it any longer but my will is gettin' stronger
And I think I know just what I have to do
I can't waste another minute
After all that I've put in it
I've given you my best
Why does she {they} get the best of you
So next time you find you wanna leave her bed {their house} for mine

Why don't you stay
I'm up off my knees
I'm so tired of bein' lonely
You can't give me what I need
When she {they} begs you not to go
There is one thing you should know
I don't have to live this way
Baby why don't you stay

F-ing Daylight Savings Time

How do you teach a 9 month old that just because it was 6:30 YESTERDAY... today it is 5:30 and we should stay in bed? Pretty please?? Just for 15 minutes more??

Lost in Translation

Whew... I think I'm going to make it through my first weekend of posting... ever. YEAH me!! Only three more weekends to go!! :-)

So a few months ago I downloaded this software onto my computer. It takes your blog posts and puts them into book format. It's not perfect, I can't get the pages to look exactly like I want since there are only 10 - 15 page layouts to choose from but it is a start. So I slurped up (that's what the software calls it) my entries from 2005.

For the past month or so I have been messing with them and changing page layouts and colors and such. All of this in an effort to get the book ready to "publish." Basically another paper product to add to my already buried office. But we won't talk about that.

Anyhow, after a month of doing this it just dawned on me yesterday that none of the comments are on these posts. And more importantly I didn't really miss them. I was so caught up in remembering all the things I was writing about and enjoying that trip down memory lane that I never even noticed that none of the comments had been picked up in the "slurping."

Lately I've had some people come into the comments who obviously have not been reading long. They come here, they make some hurtful or off the wall comment about a situation which they really don't know much about and then they move on with their day.

Sometimes for me, at least, it is hard to remember that these people don't know me. I have to remember to take some of these comments for what they are, a passing drive by. As if someone on the street yelled something at me. They wouldn't know me and I wouldn't let my feelings be hurt by them but somehow in the blog world those "boundaries" if you will get lost.

We find ourselves getting attached to these people, whom we barely know and we get hurt if they say something rude or inconsiderate. However, what we must remember is that these people in the computer only know little bits of our lives. They know what we tell them, no more and no less.

These people also have lives of their own and sometimes they can just be having a bad day and take it out in the comment section of some one's blog. Sometimes when the screen is protecting us we hide behind it and say things we would never dream of saying in real life.

Thus is the nature of the beast. So while I love all of you coming here and following my life I need to remember that if someone stops reading my site I can't take it personally. Sometimes people just get busy or their interest change. I know I have about 80 blogs on my favorites and I don't always get to them all every week. Sometimes I only get to some of them once a month.

It's not that I have developed a disliking for the ones I don't check it's just that things get busy or my real life gets in the way of my blog life. I also seem to check into the ones who are having a crisis more often then the ones who are living regular life. I notice the same things happening in the stats of my blog. When things are not going well or when I have lots to write about more people come back more often then when things are boring.

Such is the way it is. No more... no less....

Off My Rocker

The other day I received a very nice e-mail from a lovely lady who very politely explained to me that she thought I was certifiably insane.

Let me digress for a moment, if you have a question for me and you don't want to post it here feel free to e-mail me. If you don't agree with my opinion on something but don't want to post it here feel free to e-mail me. Anything else you want me to know but don't want to post it here... e-mail it to me. I accept and read all e-mails and unless you call me all kinds of names I will politely respond to them too. The link to my e-mail is over there to your right ------>

Ok, now back to the point of this post. Me... crazy... oh yes... it's all coming back to me now. This is not the first time I have heard that I'm crazy and it is not the first time I've thought it to myself either. That is what I was talking about in my last post when I said living with an addict or being close with an addict can distort your thinking and your perception of reality.

Let me note for the record just a few of the things I have done in my past that I now look upon as absolutely asinine.

I used to sleep with my keys in my pillow case.

I would take his keys and hide them.

I would drive around at all hours of the night looking for him even though I had no idea where he would be. I have driven up and down streets and neighborhoods just because I thought maybe, possibly I might run into him or see his vehicle.

I have sat up at nights and called him 20 - 30 times in 10 minutes just trying to get him to answer the phone.

I have chased him around in my vehicle.

For the longest time I thought it was normal to get up every 20 - 30 minutes and go downstairs just to make sure he was still watching TV or passed out on the couch. I thought everyone did this. I thought I was just being a good wife.

Shall I go on? At this point I think you probably get the point.

Living with/being close to an addict makes you sick without you realizing that you are ill. You try to force them to do what you want them to do not realizing that if they want to use they will do it no matter what.

The guilt I carry around is astronomical for this fact. I tried to force my husband to be here and so in a small way when he used in this house with my son here it was because I was so worried about him being here I couldn't see past the end of my nose to realize that him being here wasn't going to stop him from using.

So yes, I was insane. I became that way through 10 1/2 years of trying to control Jake's addition. Now, after all of that time, it is my turn. It is my turn to take care of myself and I am doing that through Al-anon and through trying to do more things with my friends or just for me.

However, the key words you need to focus on are I am trying to get better. In Al-anon we call that progress, not perfection. Sometimes I may say things that sound completely crazy and usually it is because I have slipped back into an old behavior/pattern or I have not fully worked on that part of myself yet.

Eventually, some day, I may become sane again. Until then, bear with me will ya? It's a process....

More about Sponsorship

I called another person on my list last night. She is a really nice lady and I really enjoyed our conversation. For those of you who are wondering or have expressed concern, no... I do not spend the entire time talking to them about my friend or even my husband. Al-anon is not about anyone but me. I have mentioned situations to them but only to get their opinion on how I handled something or a suggestion on how I should handle it in the future.

We actually spend most of the time on the phone with them just getting to know me and a little bit about my story. Last night we talked about where I work and what I do the night before I talked to the lady a little bit about why I came to Al-anon and how long I have been in the program.

Oh and speaking of me, for the commenter who posted last night to tell me that other people have problems and I should stop focusing so much on myself... um this is my blog. That's what you do on a blog is talk about yourself. That's the point. If you don't like it, navigate yourself to someone else's blog. K?

Now... on to the true meaning of this post. Laura asked me some questions about Al-anon and AA and since I love to educate those who really want to know I thought I would share today. First of all here is her comment for those of you who didn't get a chance to read it:

I have another couple questions about AA and the sponsor thing. First, are Al-anon and AA the same thing? In your last post it sounded like they weren't, but I thought they were both just different ways of shortening the name "Alcoholics Anonymous." Is that incorrect?

Second, I am a little confused as to why you need a sponsor. I have never been part of AA or Al-Anon so I have no idea how it works, but I had always assumed that the sponsors were for alcoholic's/addicts to help them get through their addiction. That is obviously not your problem, you are not the addict, you are a family member of an addict. What purpose do the 12 steps in recovery from addiction serve for you, if you're not an addict to begin with?

To address her first question. No Al-anon and AA are not the same thing. Al-anon is for friends and family members of addicts/alcoholics. Most of the Al-anon literature refers to alcoholics but one of the things you learn pretty quickly in the program is that an addict is an addict no matter what their drug of choice.

To quote from the official Al-anon website:

It is estimated that each alcoholic affects the lives of at least four other people... alcoholism is truly a family disease. No matter what relationship you have with an alcoholic, whether they are still drinking or not, all who have been affected by someone else’s drinking can find solutions that lead to serenity in the Al-Anon/Alateen fellowship.

Many who come to Al-Anon/Alateen are in despair, feeling hopeless, unable to believe that things can ever change. We want our lives to be different, but nothing we have done has brought about change. We all come to Al-Anon because we want and need help.

In Al-Anon and Alateen, members share their own experience, strength, and hope with each other. You will meet others who share your feelings and frustrations, if not your exact situation. We come together to learn a better way of life, to find happiness whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not.

As for question number two this was something that even I did not understand when I first entered Al-anon. As I have been there for a couple of months it has begun to become more clear. AA members need sponsors to help them work the 12 steps and get through their recovery. Al-anon members need the same thing.

Most people who have never been to Al-anon do not realize just how sick the family members of alcoholics/addicts can get. As my husband's disease got worse so did my own. As they say in Al-anon:

Your thinking can become distorted by trying to force solutions. You can become irritable and irrational without knowing it. (And believe me when I tell you I have made a lot of irrational decisions while trying to "force" him to be sober.)

The 12 steps are to help me to understand my part in what happened. I did not make Jake use but I did have a part in enabling his addiction. I covered for him I didn't file charges when he stole from me and from family members. Instead I just covered checks/etc. I worked harder and juggled money when he would miss work and we would be short. I did a lot of things that enabled him and so in a way I got sick right along with him.

On Friday of last week Jess came with me to an Al-anon meeting. It was a speaker meeting where a very nice woman I know told her story and it just seemed like it was my story all over again. She talked about becoming sick with her husband. About getting in the car at 3 AM to drive around looking for him. About paying for their house while he laid on the couch all day, about all of the crazy things that she had done that I have also done.

The Al-anon 12 steps are a way to work through all of the anger and resentment that I have towards Jake and also a way for me to dig myself out of the dark hole I have been in for the last 10 years. They are to help me gain a new way of thinking about myself and about my life so that God forbid something like this ever happens again I will be able to better cope and won't turn into such a crazy person.

Does this help answer the questions? Does anyone have any more questions? I'm really an open book and I will answer just about anything that you want to know, so ask away. Post anonymously if you want to ask but don't want others to know who you are.

Sponsorship

I think perhaps some of you, ok all of you because none of you are probably in the program, are a little confused about how sponsorship works. I can't ask any of my friends to be my sponsor. I can't ask anyone I know to be my sponsor. (At least not anyone I knew before the program.) I can't ask anyone I live with or am very close to.

Your sponsor is someone who is in the program. They are someone who has been in the program for several years and who has worked the steps and gone through all of this before. The purpose of a sponsor is to have someone to talk to about what you are going through and to bounce ideas off of.

Like I said before they can tell you what has worked for them but they are not supposed to tell you what to do or try to make decisions for you. They just listen and help where they can. When I pick a sponsor they will also help me work the steps. One of the steps is basically doing a self evaluation (Hey Jess... I was wrong on Friday... the self evaluation is step four!!) and then admitting the things you found during your self evaluation to another human being. (Your sponsor.)

So, about my friend. She was never even in the running for my sponsor. She knows that. I think she has a pretty good understanding of how that part of the program works. Our issue has nothing to do with her being my sponsor or me picking a sponsor. The only way the two are related is I was able to talk to someone in the program about my actions and whether I was acting in a certain way or not. I did not go to them for justification nor did they give me justification.

Justification is what I was looking for before I was in the program. Right now, I don't care who is wrong or who is right. It doesn't matter. The only thing I care about is whether I handled myself in an appropriate manner and whether I was polite and courteous to another person. Whether I agreed with them or not. Right or wrong has no relevance in my world right now. Right or wrong just causes stress.

Calling a Friend

Welcome to the first day of National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo for short). I've got lots and lots of things floating around in my head so I should be able to fill this space...at least for a few days.

Last night I made a huge jump forward in my recovery and called a woman I met in Al-anon. On Tuesday I went to a meeting and mentioned that Jake had been pushing me to get a sponsor but I was unsure how to go about doing this.

Let me just digress here for just a moment for those of you not in the program. In AA you pretty much go to a meeting or two, sit next to someone and ask them to be your sponsor. They are encouraged to get sponsors right away so they have people to call and people to be accountable to. In Al-anon they encourage you to go to several meetings and just meet people. See who you jive with and then call them a few times before you pick a sponsor.

The sponsor is the person with which you will work the 12 steps. They share their experiences with you and they give you advice but under no circumstances do they tell you what you should do. They leave that up to you to make your own choices.

So anyhow, when I asked about the sponsor at my meeting I was jumped after the meeting by two or three women who offered up their phone numbers and told me to just start calling people and seeing who I clicked with and who I didn't.

So yesterday I had an awful day. I was conflicted about my actions in certain circumstances and about the actions of a good friend of mine. I knew that I needed to talk to someone in the program but I was afraid to do so. I'm not sure why it was so frightening to me to call up someone but I just don't like to do it. If given the choice I will send an e-mail or a text message far before I will pick up the phone to call.

The whole way home I went back and forth about was I going to call, was I not... then finally after I put Zack to bed I decided to just call. The conversation went really well. We discussed my actions and my controlling nature and she explained that it is what we learn from living with the addict. She also re-affirmed that when it comes to my son I am not controlling I am being a good mom.

She helped me to work through what to do when I am confronted with conflict. Her suggestion was that I can only worry about myself and my actions. If I feel that I have handled a situation appropriately or reacted appropriately than it is all on the other person and how they choose to handle things.

In the past if Jake and I, or a friend and I, would get in a fight I would stand my ground for all of 2.5 seconds. Then I would fold like a pretzel. Eventually things would get all turned around and I would end up apologizing for something that I was angry about in the first place. This is the quality that allowed Jake to pretty much walk all over me for so long. I just wanted to make everything all better because I couldn't STAND for there to be hard feelings. She helped me to see that I need to believe in myself and the decisions that I make. I can't control others and if they want to be mad at me or not speak to me that is their choice. All I can do is continue to act towards them as I always have and let them choose how they act towards me.

I also talked to her about Jake and about ways to let go but still have him help me around the house. It was a really good conversation and I'm really glad that I called her. Tonight I have another person on the list that I am going to call and I hope that conversation goes just as well.

In the end I'm not sure if any of these women will end up being my sponsor but it is really nice to be able to talk to people on a one on one basis who truly understand what it is like to have lived where I have lived and gone through what I have gone through.

Hopefully this is a good step in a positive direction.

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween from the Cutest Turtle I know!!

I'm at a loss for words about what to post right now so I thought I'd give you a really cute picture of Zack in his costume while I gather my thoughts. I'll take the picture down in a few days but the thoughts will remain.

Tomorrow I begin NaBloPoMo so you should be seeing A LOT more posts from me. The idea of the program is to post something every day in the month of November. Even days that are holidays and/or weekends. And you are also supposed to post it ON that day... not back date it. So... I'm going to try and see how it goes.

Other than that, I'm struggling right now with some personal things. Jake has been urging me to get a sponsor but when I brought it up in my meeting last night I got mixed feelings on it. Some people told me to wait until I found someone I was comfortable with, some told me to just start calling Al-anon people and see who I click with, and some others told me to just pick someone and ask them to be my sponsor and then if it doesn't work out to pick someone else.

I think I will try the calling someone thing tonight. I have a friend who I am very close to but with whom I don't always see eye to eye. This has put me in a tough spot lately because sometimes she will say things to me that hurt my feelings, not realizing that it does so. She told me the other night that sometimes she speaks to me as if she is speaking to someone else about me instead of realizing that I am the one that is going through all of this.

One of the things I love most about her is her ability to tell me like it is but it seems like sometimes when I do the same to her I offend her without meaning to. So now I'm struggling. How much of the things that I'm bothered by are truly because I am who I am and I like to control situations and how much are things I should be bothered by? I think only another Al-anon member can answer this for me.

Only someone who has walked in my shoes and has worked their program and come out on the other side is going to be able to see these situations for what they are. Right now I just feel confused and conflicted. There is a part of me that still feels like I'm right about certain situations and like they are getting contorted and twisted to make me look like I'm wrong because she wants to be right (her and I we are very similar creatures) and then there is another part of me that thinks maybe I'm just grasping for something, anything to hold on to and to be in control of.

Anyway, if I get hooked up with someone, and even if I don't, I'm sure that these self examination topics should give me plenty of material to fill my one a day posting requirement. It's just a matter of whether I can find the time to put the post UP every day!! :-)

It's Monday...

Do I really need to say more than that? Alright, I'll go on... but it doesn't get any better from this point on. In fact that is probably the happiest sentence you are going to read so if you are looking for something positive or uplifting you may want to go elsewhere. Perhaps somewhere that will shower you with adorable pictures of bunnies and kittens.

This is not the place today!!

Let's see... where do I begin...

My husband snored last night. So badly that he woke me up SEVERAL times. He would roll over, I would just get to sleep and then he would start again.

When he wasn't snoring I was having the most off the wall dreams. Someone was coming into my house at 3:30 in the morning. They told me that they were renting the place as of the first of the month and they just wanted to move some things in early.

So we chased them outside and called the police and then Jake was going to chase this guy when I realized that Zack was still inside asleep and we couldn't leave. It got stranger from there. So I kept waking up from that.

When the alarm finally went off I opened my eyes only to discover that I had a horrible headache behind my right eye. I literally want to stick my finger in my eye socket and massage my brain.

Then as I rolled over to get out of bed I realized that I was cramping a little and lo and behold Aunt Flo had decided to come to town. Ask and ye shall receive....

So I spent a half an hour of my morning washing laundry in the bathroom sink. Usually I'm just a tosser but these were my tweety bird pajama's and I am NOT throwing those away... no matter how long it takes me to scrub them out with bar soap.

So... that's my morning in a nutshell...

I think I need to go back to bed.

Wake me when it's Friday will ya??

Children... the gift that just keeps on giving....

First of all let me give you a quick update on the housework situation. For three days now Jake has cleaned off the counters and done the dishes. True to his word every day before he leaves for work the dishwasher is unloaded, loaded and the counters are clear. It's been very nice!!

He has also waited for us to get home every night before eating and eaten with us instead of before us. On Wednesday night he shared his garlic chicken with Zack which Zack just LOVED!! Anything pasta that boy is all over it!! Of course I got him out of his crib yesterday morning and all I could smell was Garlic Chicken. We tried brushing his teeth, or his gums, but I could still smell it. Apparently that stays with babies a little longer than adults. Good to know.

Ok... now on to the real point of this post. It is at this point that my mom and anyone else in my family or friend base that has no desire to have visual images burned into their brain regarding my bo*bs or any other parts of my female anatomy may want to just switch their computers off.

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I'm waiting....
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No really... I'm not kidding about this!
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Ok.. don't say I didn't warn you.

So, 18 months ago Jake and I...
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Alright... I kid. I'm not going to go into THAT much detail. (Close, but not quite that much)

Ok, let's start at the beginning. Two years and two months ago it started with a dream. I would go off birth control and boyola we would get pregnant and I would skip around the house and sing merry little songs and everything would be wonderful and happy and then this beautiful baby would arrive.

And then reality happened. First it was the lack of ovulation, then it was the poking and the prodding and the blood checks and the temperature taking and the planned s*x and the lack of anything romantic aside from oh I think it's the right time how many times can we do this in the next 5 days?

Then FINALLY (And I say finally in terms of finally for me. I know for some people this process is MUCH, MUCH longer) there were those two lines on that pregnancy test and I thought YIPPIE, now the fun begins.

And then came the nausea, and the puking, and the wonderfully fun medicine that you "can't take orally dear."

Oh wait... I think my mom just fell out of her chair with embarrassment. She' can't believe I just said that on the Internet. Are you ok... there mom? Can we continue?? Look... I told you to turn off the computer.

Moving on, then there was the waddling and the pressure because some one's son decided to sit with his head IN the birth canal for 3 months. Oh and then there were the contractions, and the terbutaline.

Then there were the OTHER contractions and the visit to triage, and the morphine, and the hmmm that might have been a BIT too much morphine, and then the other contractions and the visit to triage and then the day spend wishing I was in triage and then some more contractions and oh yeah... then that wonderful doctor who broke my water.

Followed quickly by lots of screaming and panting and really... I CAN'T do this!! Then after about 6 hours it was all over and Zack was here and I thought to myself FINALLY... it's all over and I can have my body back.
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Ok... really, who was I kidding? I have been trying for nine months now to get said body back and it just is not working.

After I had Zack, obviously, there was a lot of bleeding. Then that sort of stopped and never started again. I was told it was because I was breastfeeding and when I stopped or as I slowed down it would return. So should I set a clock by this because I'm still just sort of sitting around tapping my foot waiting on this one?

But what has returned to take it's place is the acne. My face looks like a teenager. Every day I wake up and just dread looking in the mirror because I can never be too sure of just WHAT will be looking back at me. Does this go away? At some point will my hormones actually level off or should I just take stock in Pr*active and just sit back and enjoy the ride?

Also, what the hell is up with my bladder? At some point am I actually going to be able to sneeze without grabbing my crotch or should I just take stock in Depends now? The doctor told me to do my kegal exercises. Perhaps that is my problem. Historically anything with the word exercise in the title has not kept my attention for more than a day or so.

The only time I remember to do them is after I've just wet myself and am changing my underware, or in an extreme case my pants. Then I think to myself... hmm.. maybe I should do my kegal exercises.

It's sort of like after you finish off an entire carton of ice cream and then get on the scale, realize you've gained five pounds and think to yourself... hmm.. perhaps I should do some sit ups. Doesn't do you a damn bit of good to only work on something after you have something bad happen.

And finally there's the leaking. I'm not talking about down there, I'm discussing up here. Look, I stopped breast feeding. Actually, I stopped pumping. My son hasn't nursed since he was about 5 months old. I just got up one day last week, looked at the pump and thought, "You know, I don't want to do this anymore." And that was it.

I had already scaled back to twice a day and then once a day so I didn't figure stopping all together would be that big of a deal. 48 hours later I was thinking perhaps I was wrong. So I pumped for 5 minutes to relieve the pressure. Then a week went by and nothing. No problems.

Then all of a sudden Wednesday after a week of no pumping and no pain I start to hurt again. WTF is up with that? All day yesterday I'm leaking and hurting until finally I lay down last night and decide I can't stand it anymore. I got the pump back out and pumped for two minutes just to relieve the pressure.

So for those of you who have done this before... exactly when does this fun roller coaster stop? Am I going to go another week or two and then need to pump again? Can I finally put the thing away or will I be sorry the minute I do?

Honestly, every time I turn around I find something else that reminds me that really, hey.. in case you forgot, you had a baby nine months ago and your life will NEVER be the same!! Does this end? At some point will I actually regain my body or should I just pad every orifice of my lower body and just move on with my day??

Zack's 9 Month Pictures

For those of you who have already e-mailed me for the user name and password you should be getting an e-mail about Zack's 9 month pictures. For anyone else, I wanted to let you know that they are up on his site and if you would like the user name and password to view them just e-mail me.

Krista from One Day at a Time... it bounced your e-mail. Perhaps I have an old one??

Real Solutions

Well I read through all of your comments. Thank you all for your input. After thinking about it for awhile I agree with those of you who said the passive aggressive approach probably wasn't going to work. If I don't do it, at least at this stage, Jake is not going to notice it's not getting done and that is just going to make me angrier.

So last night we sat down and very calmly discussed how I felt and how it made me feel to be continually doing everything around the house while he did nothing. I agreed with the friend who brought up that it made me feel like he didn't respect me and that he was being lazy and selfish. However, knowing Jake as I do I knew saying those things to him would just make him get defensive.

So, I approached them from the angle of if he was doing all of the cleaning and I was just sitting around how would it make him feel. He acted like he was getting it but I suppose only time will tell.

For now the cleaning lady is a permanent fixture. While I don't like the reasons we had to hire her I do like the job she does and the free time it gives me to not have to worry about doing the deep cleaning so for now she's staying.

As for the rest of the stuff Jake and I agreed to split kitchen work and laundry. I will do the laundry and he will make sure that the kitchen counters and the table are cleaned off every day before he leaves for work. At this point that is a start and true to his word he did clean up this morning and start the dishwasher. So, perhaps this is the beginning to wonderful things?? :-)

Real Problems Require Real Solutions

As some of you may or may not have noticed from the comments on some of my recent blogs my sister is in medical school. As such she has developed sort of a "pill popping" mentality. Most recently she has been trying to get me to take anti-anxiety medicine for my "issues" with our house and it's less than cleanly nature.

Here is my problem with this. The fact that my house is not clean is not in my head. I could see if one little piece of cat hair was causing a mental breakdown where perhaps I might need medication. But that is not the problem of which I am speaking.

And in all actuality, it's not even the cleanliness of the house that is giving me fits. It is more of the manner in which the house gets into that state that I am having problems with. See my husband, he likes to clean NOTHING!! I do the laundry, I do the dishes, I was doing the cleaning before we had the cleaning lady start coming, you get the point.

He is full of excuses. He comes home from work and he's tired so he wants to watch TV. Then he has to go to meetings at night. He gets up in the morning and he's tired so he needs to sit and drink coffee to wake up. On the weekends he is forever volunteering himself for one project or another. This last weekend he volunteered to help his dad mow the pasture and cut down some trees. So, he was gone all weekend.

This morning I wanted him to help me pick up a few things but he was too busy "spending time" with Zack because he had a meeting last night so he didn't really get to see him. In the mean time I don't ever get to see him and so I get more and more frustrated with the status of our household.

Here is our typical day in a nutshell:

I get up at 6:00 I shower and get Jake up at 6:20-6:30
I shuffle around putting laundry away, emptying the dishwasher, getting Zack's bag packed, etc.
Zack gets up, Jake plays with him while I continue to do things around the house
I take Zack to daycare around 7:15
I go to work
I get done with work at 5:00 and head to get Zack
Jake gets home around 5:15 and proceeds to eat something and watch TV
I get home at 5:45 and have to set Zack in with Jake so I can try to find some dinner to feed him
If Jake is home he might feed Zack dinner but most of the time he has meetings so he leaves at 6:20
I finish feeding Zack, give him a bath and by the time we're done with all of that he's tired and cranky and ready for bed
It is only at 7:00-8:00 when I finally get to eat and then possibly throw in a load of laundry or start the dishwasher
Jake gets home from his meetings anywhere between 8:30 & 9:30 and promptly goes to bed because he is tired

Here is what I have tried that is NOT working. I have tried asking him to do things. I have tried making lists. Both of these make me feel like his mother not his wife. He's a grown man, he should be able to look around the house and see what needs done and do it himself. He doesn't.

He has a duffel bag that he brought back from treatment. He got back at the end of August. Until yesterday morning that duffel bag sat on the floor of our bedroom. I have asked him no less than 5 times to empty it out. He has ignored me all of those 5 times. Yesterday it caused a war when I asked him yet again and he told me that he hadn't gotten to it and he would get to it when he felt like it and the cleaning lady could just move it. It is now in the disaster area we call an office.

I have asked him to wait until Zack and I get home to eat. He does not. He is apparently too starving and in too big of a hurry to wait for us. So the other night I asked him to start some food. Something simple like Hamburger Helper or Spaghetti. When I got home he had cooked the hamburger and it was sitting in a strainer. It appeared as if he had half assed it because there were huge chunks of hamburger instead of it being finely chopped. You know the way it needs to be for a nine month old baby with no teeth to be able to eat it!! As for actually preparing anything besides the hamburger. He was tired and he had a headache.

I have tried asking him to run the vacuum on various occasions. Instead of taking the five or ten minutes to do the job right he will choose to turn on the Roomba. The Roomba works fine on the hardwood but it does not get the cat hair out of the rugs. He knows this, I've told him a million times. But apparently it has not sunk in because he continues to do it the "easy" way.

And please, don't give me the lecture about how if I ask him to do something I can't get mad if it isn't done "my" way. I get that. I don't get upset if he runs the Roomba, I'm just glad he does something. However when I specifically say can you run the regular vacuum on the rugs and he ignores me it is a little frustrating.

One of my friends mentioned to me last night that perhaps a lot of this has to do with what they told us in treatment. When you start doing drugs heavily your development stops. So part of his development is stuck at 16 or 17 years old. He certainly does ACT like a teenager some times.

So now that we know this... what the hell do we do about it? Seriously, I'm pulling my hair out here. I'm TIRED of being the only one who knows how to clean up our house. I resent beyond belief the fact that we had to hire a cleaning lady to do what he and I should be perfectly capable of doing if he would pitch in a little bit.

I have also tried the approach of not doing things for him. He appears content to just wallow in his own filth at that point. He would just NEVER vacuum but I can't let that happen because Zack is on the floor and it is all well and good that we have animals but I don't need him to be wearing enough fur to classify him AS an animal when I pick him up!!

So please, ANY suggestions that you have would be much appreciated. Should I continue to make lists? Should I continue to nag in the hopes that he gets it? What have you done at your house that has worked for you??

I really can't stand any more fighting over stupid things like housework but at the same time I can't do it all myself. It drives me over the edge.

**Please do not use the comment section as your own personal space to bash my husband or me. I'm not looking for criticism I'm just looking for suggestions. We're aware that it's broken we want to know how to fix it!!**

Counting My Blessings

I had intended to post today about some things that are going on with me and Jake. I'm frustrated beyond belief with the way the household chores are getting divided up, or lack of division. However, in light of some new information I have just gotten about a family friend I think I will leave all of my complaining for another day.

I received a phone call this morning telling me that a family friend of ours has gone back to treatment. He got out around the first of July and last week he left his wife and their three kids and did not come home for four days. When he did make it home he had lost his truck. I'm still not sure if he has found it.

This makes my heart hurt for his wife more than you can imagine. There is a part of me that is upset that she didn't call me, knowing that I would understand. However, there is another part of me that fully understands why she didn't. I can only imagine how she feels but if it were me I would be sad and embarrassed. Embarrassed that I had taken him back and he had failed yet again.

I suppose it is at this point that her and I part ways in terms of how we think about things. I am under the understanding that it was her husband's family that has been helping her in his absence where as when Jake was gone it was my family. Perhaps she is scared that if she leaves him they will cut her off.

I was lucky. All of Jake's family supported me. I knew, and still do know, that if he fails they will not fault me for taking Zack and making sure he is safe. Last time this woman's husband fell of the wagon (so to speak) she came home and he had taken numerous items out of their house and disappeared with her two boys. Her children were missing, dragged along with their father, while he took them to pawn shops and drug houses to sell the items from their house to get money for drugs.

Every day that I am frustrated with how things are going or not going as quickly as I would like I need to stop and remember how lucky I truly am. I have wonderful friends and family that will swoop in and take me away even if I am not strong enough to do it myself. They will help me to help myself.

I hope like hell that I will never have to use them for this but it is a support system that I wasn't sure I had until Jake left and it became obviously clear that it was there all along. So today, instead of complaining about my frustrations (I have the whole rest of the week for that) I just want to once again say thank you to all of those people in my life who have, and continue to be, there for me.

I will be spending the rest of my day praying for strength for this woman and her family. I have offered her a babysitter for tomorrow night so that she might attend an Al-anon meeting with me. I'm not sure that she will attend but I have extended the hand. It is up to her to grab a hold before she continues to fall. Also, if you could, please say your own little prayer for this woman I'm sure she would appreciate any kind thoughts you could funnel her way.

ZZZZZ.....zzzzzzz....

Hello?? Is anyone still out there??

I'm alive. I promise. I've just been really busy lately. First I had a tax deadline and then I had another tax deadline and now... FINALLY... they are over.

So now I'm busy with...

Where are you going?
What are you doing?
Do you really think you need to do that?
Is that completely necessary?
I'm not fighting with you about this?

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And that's just Zack!! :-)

That boy is in to EVERYTHING lately!! Now that he can army crawl the world is his playground. Of course none of the 20,000 toys that he has are good enough for him. No, he wants to play in the kitty fountain, yank on the vacuum cleaner, swing the phone cord around, bang the dog toys on the floor... you get my point.

We have attempted to block his access to some items but that boy is smart. We put a gate between the living room and the kitchen hoping that would stop him from splashing in the cat water. It worked for one day. He has now figured out that it might take him awhile longer but he can go from the living room to the dinning room to the kitchen and get to the water. So that's what he does.

On top of that, if you take something away he screams. I'm not talking about a little whimper. This is a scream that could melt the flesh off of your face. It's a good thing DHS is not coming anymore because if they ever pulled up and heard that scream they would think for sure I was abusing him.

Last night I set him on the rug next to the bathtub and started running the water. The next thing I know he is leaning forward and grabbing the tub. He then pulled himself up to a standing position to look into the bathtub.

People... I am SOO in over my head here.

It was so much easier when I placed him on a blanket and he just quietly played with his toys. Take one away... no big deal, he'd just look for something else. But now... now he has these opinions on the way the world should work and if anyone stands in the way of that he will let you know about it.

His new thing now is feeding himself. Last night I got lazy and was just going to feed him baby food. That lasted all of one jar and then the waterworks started. So I put the tray on the highchair and slapped down a few crackers and he was happy as a clam.

His favorites right now are cheerios, goldfish crackers, and pasta. (A man of my own heart.)

As for Jake and I, this week has been good. The week before, not so much. We spent an entire week at each other's throats. To the point where we honestly considered whether this was ever going to work. Then I went to some meetings and I talked to some people and he talked to some people and then his dad had a heart attack and it all sort of fell into place.

We sort of realized that some things were not worth fighting about and perhaps we could approach how we discuss things with each other a little differently. I am now more inclined to ask him if he can do things instead of just being mad that they aren't done. And in turn, he is willing to do more things now that he knows I want them done.

Also, his grandma had graciously offered to help us with a cleaning lady. At least the first time. She came last week and it is amazing to me how much calmer I am with a sparkling clean bathtub. Right now it is all I can do to keep the laundry done (Jake goes through two outfits a day and Zack is anywhere from two to six) and the dishes washed. Let alone picking up once and awhile.

It is amazing to me that for so long I lived with things as dirty as they were. I think a part of me just must have blocked it out. But now if there is cat hair on the floor my stress level starts to ratchet up. Before this woman came I was so stressed worrying about scrubbing the tub and the counters and dusting and it was NEVER getting done.

Now she came and she cleaned and dusted everything. She Murphy oil soaped my water bed and my dressers people!! She brings her own cleaning supplies and vacuum and she also brings garbage bags. The money that I save on those things will partially pay her fee as far as I'm concerned. Those cleaning supplies can get expensive. Plus I can spend my Saturday playing with my son instead of scrubbing the toilet. You just can't put a price on that!!

On top of all of that Jake and I are just communicating so much better. When I have a problem that I'm unsure how to handle I start thinking about what I've learned so far in Al-anon or I go there and I talk to people. They have helped me to find solutions to so many things and that has helped us tremendously.

This has been a really good week and so now that all of my deadlines are gone I'm hoping to get back to blogging about my life and possibly something else too. I don't know what. Pick a topic. What would you like to hear about??

Reviving Gift of Gab

Our gossip/current events website sort of took a tank last month so we have been slowly trying to revive it this month. I have put a topic on there about the state system and when children should be taken away for good.

I think all of you have great opinions and I would love it if you would join in the discussion over there. You can get there by clicking here or by going to www.gabbinggirls.blogspot.com

Hope to see you all over there!!

Uh-oh

As most of you know, on Friday my son will be nine months old. Over the last nine months there have been times when I have seriously questioned his development. He didn't roll over until he was 5 or 6 months old and he didn't crawl until just last week. (Not really even a real crawl, and army crawl.)

He has instead preferred to work on his fine motor skills. He will sit and stare at the wheel on the bottom of his Winnie the Pooh toy as he spins it with his finger. He will stare at his toys with the concentration of a scientist examining cells under a microscope. He can grab Cheerios like a pro and knows exactly where those go. (Take that Miss he might be delayed nurse!!)

So, for nine months I have been telling myself that perhaps he will be the intelligent type. The guy who examines all the options before he picks one. Then this morning he crawls over to the hardwood floor, grabs his plastic telephone and begins banging it against the hardwood in an effort to make as much noise as possible. (Ok... so maybe he's the strong silent type??)

As he's banging out of his mouth pops Uh-oh. Jake looks at me... I look at him. Did he just say something? Something that really means something? So we ask him. Zack can you say Uh-oh?

Uh-oh.

Can you say Da Da?

Blank Stare.

Can you say Ma Ma?

Blank Stare

Can you say Uh-oh?

Uh-oh.

So there you have it. For nine months I have waited on the edge of my seat certain that my brilliant child is just waiting to surprise me with something like super-cala-fragil-istic-expialidocious and instead I get uh-oh.

Perhaps tonight we shall work on uh-oh that algorithm that I have been working at so diligently doesn't seem to be working the way I planned.

Perhaps I need to wait for 12 months for that one.

Boring...

Someone informed me that leaving my last post just hanging around was sort of depressing and that they would really like some new content. So sorry to disappoint the masses but right now my life is pretty boring and when it's not boring I'm far to busy to sit down and blog about it.

So, here are some of the highlights:

There is a tax deadline on October 15th. I have no less than 5 returns (some of which are very large) that I still have to prepare and get reviewed and out the door by next Monday.

On Monday Zack was diagnosed with double ear infection. He had a fever all weekend and then had to miss Monday from daycare so I had to take a half a day off to deal with that. He screamed at us for two hours on Monday night but the medicine appeared to be kicking in and on Tuesday night he only screamed for 30 minutes! :-)

Mr. Zackary has also decided to begin army crawling. Well really, it's more of a dragging himself along with his arms but it gets him where he wants to go. This has wreaked havoc on my household. I'm now obsessed with cleaning the floors and picking up everything. It takes a lot of time to be that clean, I don't like it at all.

Since he is on the floor EVERYWHERE now, I am also more conscious of the bug population. Extra fiber aside, I think I might just have a heart attack if he picks up a spider or a cricket or something equally creepy crawly and sticks it in his mouth. So, since the spiders have once again decided that my basement is a prime place to live, which wouldn't bother me so much if they would just STAY there, I had to take an afternoon off on Wednesday to have the exterminator come and once again make my home mostly bug free.

While he was there he felt it necessary to tell me that when he sprayed the outside he chased a lot wolf spiders. Big ugly suckers that don't build webs but instead prefer to just jump on their pray when it goes past. Then when he left he told me to avoid the basement for about 10-15 minutes because he had done A LOT of spraying and probably got a lot of spiders/bugs killed. I promptly packed up and left the house for an hour or so. I don't DO spiders!!

On top of all of this, with any free time I do have in the evenings I am still scanning. I have scanned, and scanned, and scanned and I'm still looking at LOTS of pictures to get done. I was hoping to give my cousins the CD's for Christmas. I need to scan MUCH faster to make that happen.

So there you have it. You have not missed much. Hopefully this weekend will be much calmer and I can get some things done around the house and get caught up. Now I must get to work so that I can try to muddle through some of my last minute taxpayers!!

Have a good weekend everyone!!

On Food and Addiction...

First of all I want to thank all of you for the amazing conversation on the last post. You have all remained respectful of others opinions and I really appreciate that. Jess is one of my bestest friends and we do not always see eye to eye. That e-mail did not JUST go to her and Shane, it went to everyone. It probably did not need to ever go out but I guess I was more upset by her reaction to it than anything because it caught me completely off guard and it really hurt my feelings.

However, I greatly appreciate that you can all carry on a debate without attacking her personally. She is a wonderful friend and has done TONS of stuff for me and I would never want to make her feel bad, intentionally or unintentionally, simply because she had a difference of opinion from me. That's one of the things I like best about our friendship is that we can disagree, and do it often. When she sees bullshit she calls it and I appreciate that. As one of our regular commenters has said so often, everyone needs a Jess!! :-)

So, with those good manners in mind I would like to open up another subject that was brought up in the previous post but I think needs a post of it's own. This was brought up by Jess but was also mentioned by a few other commenters.

Comparing dieting to Addiction.

This burns me in more ways than you can even imagine. There is NOTHING similar about someone being on a diet and someone not drinking/using because they are an addict. No... don't try to tell me there is... there is NOT!!

The only way you can even come CLOSE to comparing the two is if you have Prader-Willi Syndrome. Those people have a compulsion to eat and would in fact eat themselves into an early grave if left to their own devices. That is NOT the same as someone who just likes to eat.

Addiction is a compulsion. Something that you can not control. It is a disease. People who are addicts will spend their paycheck on drugs. They will steal to support their habit. They will use even though they know it makes them sick and they will hurt people that they love just to get their high.

When was the last time you ate until you were sick and then kept eating until you threw up? An addict will drink or do drugs until they are sick and then continue doing it until they are even more sick.

Do you steal to buy junk food? Would you spend your paycheck on junk food instead of buying gas for your vehicle or paying your utilities? Would you not bathe for three days because you were on a junk food binge and couldn't go home to shower because you were afraid you might not be able to get right back to the junk food?

Are you about to loose your job because you don't show up because you are too busy eating junk food? Does eating junk food make you not function to where you have to sleep for days after you get done eating and so you are completely non-productive?

Need I continue? Addiction is a compulsion to do something that jeopardizes someones family, friends, and possibly freedom. (Even alcoholics do things like this on binges.) Unless you can say the same thing about eating junk food I don't think the two can even be classified in the same category.

Outside Opinion Needed

Ok... I need all of you to put down your lurker hats and put on your commenter hats because I need your opinion.

I wanted to do something nice for Jake to celebrate his one year of sobriety. I mentioned it to a friend of mine and she suggested that we go away for a weekend. I thought that was a great idea so she suggested a weekend in AR fishing. Wonderful!!

So, I sent out an e-mail asking several of our couple friends to join us for the weekend. We will be driving, to save on money and also only staying two nights, to save on money. The idea is to rent a house or a cabin and to all share it which will also cut down on costs. However, in the end Jake and I are not millionaires so we can not afford to pay for every one's trip. SO... the other couples will be spending approximately $500-$750 of their own money if they choose to go with us.

This morning I sent an e-mail to these couples respectfully requesting that they refrain from drinking if they choose to attend this weekend with us since it is a weekend to celebrate Jake's one year sobriety.

The response I got back from a friend of mine was less than positive and I was just floored. I immediately burst into tears. I really wanted this weekend to be a fun weekend for Jake to show him that you can have fun without drinking. We are supposed to be celebrating his one year sobriety and so all I can think is what a crappy way to celebrate his sobriety by drinking in front of him.

The following are the e-mails that followed:

It came to my attention last night that I may not have mentioned this to all of you so I thought I would very quickly. This weekend in AR is supposed to be to celebrate Jake's one year of sobriety. SO... I think it kind of goes without saying that we would appreciate it if there was no drinking. (Or drugs... Jessica leave that baggie at home!!)

This will be his first vacation since he got sober and I would like to show Jake that it is possible to have a great time without drinking and partying.

Knowing you all as I do, I don't anticipate that this will change your decision to go or not to go but I thought it was only fair to mention it up front. I just don't think it's fair to Jake to celebrate his sobriety by waving alcohol in front of him.

Response from Friend:

I don't know if it will change our decision to go..but I don't think husband will be that receptive to me telling him he can't drink. Now I think he will be considerate of Jake as he has been in the past but I can't promise you he WON'T drink.

Response from Me:

Don't you think it would be a little crappy to say hey... congratulations on not drinking for a year, Here let me have a drink in front of you?? I don't think having a drink if we are in a restaurant or whatever will be a big deal but if they are sitting around playing cards or pool and all the guys are drinking except Jake I think that will be a pretty crappy way for him to celebrate his one year of sobriety.

I guess I could see where I can not ask people not to drink if it is just any weekend get away. I mean if we plan a couples weekend just for fun than hell no I can't ask everyone not to drink just because Jake doesn't. But we are going on this trip FOR Jake, BECAUSE he has been sober for one year. Doesn't that make a little bit of a difference??

Her Response:

I think we have all been supportive of Jake but it is getting a little annoying to me that EVERYTHING is surrounded around Jake and his recovery. I want to help him celebrate but if I am going to spend $1500 on a vacation I am not going to tell husband he can’t drink or I can’t have a glass of wine (god-for-bid – I would want one). This may sound harsh but it’s honest….husband is not the one with the addiction (thus should not be punished). So far I have been very impressed at his lack of alcohol use around Jake.

Let’s put it like this….I am going to be on a hard core diet by then trying to lose weight for my class reunion so I would appreciate it if no one ate junk food, or treats or fried food around me that weekend because it would be too hard. Food is my addiction and as we can see I haven’t done that great at staying clean.

I honestly think that Husband #2 and Husband #3 won’t go if you put this sort of pressure on everyone. I don’t know I can’t speak for them but that’s just a hunch. You can only control yourself and your family….to plan a trip that everyone is paying for and try to control that I just don’t know that it will happen.

We are helping you celebrate but this vacation is just as much for us. YOU and JAKE are going on a vacation to celebrate his sobriety. I just don’t see it like you do.

Now if you were having a party at the lodge where you were paying for everything and furnishing all the beverages then I could see asking everyone not to drink….but you are not paying for my trip and I just don’t think I can ask husband not to drink at all. A-he will be annoyed that I am telling him what he can and can’t do and B-it would probably be better if I let him be considerate of this on his own as he has in the past.

It was at this point that we decided to turn it over to you guys... I don't want to know who is right or wrong. I don't care. I just want to know if I'm being unreasonable to ask people to be respectful of Jake. I have a tendency to control situations or try to control them and I don't want to be doing that. We have good friends, I assume that they can make this decision without me reminding them. However, at the same time I don't want Jake to be put in an uncomfortable situation when I was trying to do something nice for him.

Anger, Resentment.... Acceptance

So I have a post that I have been meaning to write for awhile but I just haven't seemed to make the time. Remember last week when I promised you a post... yeah... still in my head. Then today as I was typing a letter to a family friend about how I'm doing I realized that everything I had just written was pretty much what I wanted to write here. So... here it is: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.

Before Jake went to treatment and even after he left I convinced myself that everything would be wonderful if he would just stop using. After all, he was the one with the problem, and that problem was the drugs and the alcohol. Obviously if those things were taken out of the equation life would be all sunshine and roses. How could it be anything but?

Then Jake came back and I woke up from my lovely dream to realize that just because he had changed everything wasn't suddenly perfect. I was faced with a flood of emotions about the way things used to be and also the way I was afraid everything was going to be again. For me, this fear quickly turned to anger. LOTS of anger.

I was angry with him for what he had done but I was also angry with him for things I thought he should be doing and also things I was afraid he was going to be doing. On top of that I was angry at myself for not seeking treatment for myself sooner. I convinced myself for so long that I didn't need a support system and I didn't need to change anything about me that when I finally did decide to go and get help it seemed like it was too late. I had just started to attend Al-anon meetings and then the next week he was home.

I found myself very resentful of him and of the fact that he was there in the first place. I felt like I was just learning who I was and what I liked to do and then he came back and I felt like that was all taken away from me. Like I didn't have the time I needed to heal myself.

So as a result, I would blow up at him about the dishes or the laundry when really that wasn't what I was mad about. Last Thursday I ended up talking to Jess for about 45 minutes (totally missed the first episode of Survivor... THANKS Jess!! :-) and she mentioned to me that sometimes people fight about the topics but not the issues. So she told me that I needed to start focusing on the issues (i.e the reasons I was upset in the first place) and not the topics (i.e. the dirty bowl that didn't make it into the dishwasher).

This seemed to make a lot of sense to me but I still wasn't sure how to begin. So I went to my meeting on Friday and I talked to some people about it. They had some really good suggestions for me. I started pausing before I blew up about something and deciding, number one if that was what I was really mad about, and number two if it was worth fighting about.

Then at my meeting last night we talked about personal freedom which is basically being free to live your own life and be your own person. This topic is HUGE for me because I have spent 11 years doing what Jake likes or basing what I can go out and do on whether he wants to go or if I'm scared that he will get drunk and make and ass out of himself!! :-)

I've spent so much time watching him and taking care of him that somewhere in all of that I lost myself and I lost my ability to just be me. So now, I think I've turned a corner. Jake and I are talking about our, or mostly my at the moment, issues instead of fighting about them. And I am working on finding myself. Right now, I still catch myself doubting whether I should make plans or do certain things but I'm getting better.

On Sunday I'm going to my aunt's house and I didn't feel for one moment like I had to clear it with Jake or make sure he had something to do too so he wouldn't be getting into trouble. I just decided I wanted to do something and I made plans to do it. And for me... that is HUGE.

So, I think I'm finally moving forward in my own recovery. I'm getting to a place where I'm accepting that Jake is NOT my responsibility. I am my responsibility and Zack is my responsibility.

As we say in Al-anon. One day at a Time....

Memories

I spent this weekend going through my grandpa's old pictures and newspaper articles. I'm going to scan everything in and make CD's for my family members so that none of these memories are ever lost.

This weekend I'm going to go to my aunt's house to go through my grandma's old pictures to do the same thing for that side of the family. If you ever have the opportunity to do this I HIGHLY recomend it!! It has been great to go through all of the old pictures. All of these memories I never want to loose and I'm SO greatful to get the opportunity to see and record images like these:

My grandpa - Age 2

My Grandma - Age 3

My Grandparents - Just Married

My Dad - Age 3

6 Months

I have a post all written up in my head but I thought this was more important. So I'll leave this up for awhile and maybe put my post up later today or this weekend.

Today is Jake's six month AA and NA birthday!! (For those of you not in the program that means that he has been sober for 6 months.)

YEAH for Jake!! I'm so proud of him for making it this far. Things are going well for him and if he continues down this path I have no doubts that we will soon be celebrating his one year birthday and many more after that.

CONGRATULATIONS Jake!! We love you!!

4 years

Today is my mom's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

Today is also Jake and my 4 year anniversary. To celebrate I woke him up at 1:30 this morning by screaming about a giant spider on the wall. It wasn't until I had the lights turned on that I realized that I was dreaming and that I had carried that dream over into real life.

So, happy anniversary to the man who would have killed the imaginary spider for me at 1:30 in the morning!! (Even if it was just to get me to calm down and go back to sleep!!)

I love you lots!!

Quick Update

I'm just going to post something REALLY quickly because I'm busy, busy, busy at work.....

- For all of you out there who play on line gambling games, YES you have to report your winnings and losses from on-line games on your tax return.

-Yes really...even though you don't get any tax forms. Keep track of this and report it on your return. It will save you having to pay someone like me LOTS and LOTS of money to recreate it and it will also save someone like me valuable hairs on their head.....

- Jake has a sponsor now. He asked this man to be his sponsor on the 7th. This has helped him immensely.

- Jake now attends one meeting per day as his sponsor has recommended. He has only missed one day which was Saturday because we were out running errands. His sponsor said this was fine because it is important for him to spend time with us too. (For the record I offered to drop him off and wait in the parking lot when I realized what time it was but he decided not to go.)

-Jake and I attend meetings together (I go to Al-anon and he goes to AA) on Tuesdays and Fridays. It is a nice time for us to talk about our recovery and to spend some couple time together

-Jake really likes his new job. He has a lot of responsibility but he has really stepped up to the plate and seems to be handling it well.

-More than his new job Jake likes that his new job is located less than two miles from my parents house and so he gets to go there every day for lunch and eat whatever it is my mom has cooked for the workers and my dad. (I'm jealous...)

-Zack is doing fine and growing like a weed.

-Yes I know his website is outdated. I can't upload pictures and home and I have been SOOO busy at work I haven't had time to mess with it.

-Yes... really... I know Zack's website is out of date. I promise you, he is fine and growing and spoiled you can stop reminding me.

-I am doing well with the adjustment. There are things Jake and I need to work on, like talking to each other better, but these are now normal couple things as opposed to what they were before. Normal couple things I can handle.

-Some time this week I may dig myself out and then I will try ever so hard to post something with a little more content.

Job

YIPPEE!!


WOO HOO!!


HURRAH!!!


Happy dance all around!!

He got a job!! He will be doing maintenance at a trailer park. Mowing, weed eating, snow removal, fixing things that are broken, changing water meters, all that good stuff. It is a full time position so I assume they must have enough stuff to keep him busy.

He got this job all on his own which has just made him over the moon with excitement. AND... while he didn't flat out tell him he was in treatment, he didn't lie either. He told him he was in recovery and active in AA.

YIPPEE!!

Jake was gitty as a school girl last night. Although he admits it is not what he wants to do for the rest of his life it is a job that pays money and that's what he needs right now. Something to build up his confidence and get his foot in the door.

So, join me in the happy dance will you?? (Ok, I know you're at work... but you're dancing on the inside right??)

Discouraged

So the job hunting is going no where. This telling the truth thing is NOT getting Jake very far. Even the people that he has told half truths too seem to be frightened away. It is like he mentions the word recovery and people automatically write "NOT IN THIS LIFETIME" in big bold letters across the top of his application.

Last week he had an interview with T@rget to be a stock boy. This is not a hard job. High school kids get this job. Jake, however, did not. He called me today to tell me that they had sent him something in the mail. They wouldn't tell him what it is. I'm SURE it's a rejection letter. If they wanted to offer him a job they would have called him on the phone. Sending something in the mail is how companies inform you that you did not get a position.

So today he had another interview and he is also filling out some more applications. I am trying oh so hard to stay positive for him. I keep telling him all he needs to do is keep filing out applications but I imagine that if it is discouraging for me it must be discouraging for him.

After all, he's not dumb. He is well aware of the fact that most people can just walk into T@rget, half ass fill out an application and get a job. Yet for him, even though he didn't tell them he was in treatment just that he was now in recovery, seemed to blow the whole thing.

Cross your fingers with me will you that SOMEONE... ANYONE will give him a chance. All he needs is to get his foot in the door but right now even that is a difficult task.

**Update, he drove all the way home from his grandma's house before going to fill out more applications just to get the Target letter just in case I was wrong. I wasn't... but oh how I wish I was.....**

Job Hunting

Wow!! Where have all of you been? I had people leave comments on that last post that I didn't even know read and people who I knew read but had never left a comment before. For the record I told Jake to tell the truth, our friend Jess was over and told him to tell the truth so I think he gets it.

He will know this week about the two jobs he interviewed for last week and he has another interview tomorrow. When he interviewed last Thursday he did tell the person that he was in recovery and active in AA so I think he's also getting the message that honesty is the best policy.

Also, for those of you who asked, yes we are very aware that he will not be able to get the pick of the litter for jobs. For the last 10 years or so he has been in the construction industry. He knows that there are a lot of people who use in that industry and for that reason even though I have suggested construction jobs he has not called them. He's very leery of that right now and so I'm just letting him do his own thing.

Quite frankly I don't care where he works as long as he feels comfortable there. He has sent away for a study guide to take the US Postal exam. I don't know if his past will haunt him if he gets an interview there but he wants to try and so I'm just keeping my mouth shut and hoping that with a little job history under his belt by the time he takes the exam maybe that missing five months won't even be an issue.

In the mean time what he's applied for are jobs that pay $8-$10 per hour. When he left the job market he was working in jobs that paid $12-$15 per hour. We both know that these are probably not jobs he will do forever. But they get his foot in the door and right now any job is better than no job at all.

To Tell or Not To Tell??

Jake has been interviewing for jobs this week and he has run into a problem. Does he tell them where he has been and risk them not hiring him because of it or lie to them and risk them finding out he lied and getting fired over it??

I go both ways on this. Yesterday he told the guy he interviewed with where he had been. He said that it didn't seem to phase him and that the guy told him that he can respect the fact that Jake had taken the time to make sure he got better. Still I wonder if the guy didn't just say that for the sake of being polite only to write NO WAY on the top of his application as soon as he left.

This morning he has an interview and when he filled out the original application he put that he has been working for his dad for the last five months. So, now he doesn't want to change that and tell them the truth. So he told me that if they ask he will just tell them that he is leaving the construction industry because he has a son and needs to get away from that environment. Sort of a half truth.

So which way does he go? What would you do? If you were an interviewer and someone told you that they had been in treatment for five months would you still consider them for a job or would that automatically turn you off??

Maybe the sort of position makes a difference. He has thus far interviewed for a grill cook position and a shelf stocker/truck unloader type position. So it's nothing where he would be handling large sums of money or anything like that. Does that change your answer?

Adjustment

Things are going along rather well at our house, considering the circumstances that is. Last Friday Jake stayed home and cut down some trees and did some yard work. It was LONG overdue and it was nice to have him home to do it.

Then Friday night we went to a meeting. He went to an AA meeting and I went to an Al-anon meeting. I was much more comfortable at this meeting and I'm not sure if it's because I knew what to expect or if I just liked this meeting better. Either way, Jake liked his meeting too so our plan now is to attend every Friday.

We also have a meeting scheduled for this evening so I will be interested to see if we like this one also. If we both like our meetings we may fall into a Tuesday, Friday meeting schedule with additional ones as needed. I really like being able to go to the same place but attend our different meetings. We are doing something together, but yet still getting our own thing out of it.

Then on Saturday we went and visited his grandma and had breakfast with her. Then in the afternoon we went to visit his mom. She was camping for the weekend and so we got to ride horses (which neither one of us has done in QUITE a while) and then we cooked our dinner over the fire. It was nice to visit with them and definitely something we would like to do ourselves once Zack gets a little older and we have a little more money.

Sunday found us a church with a very tired, very wriggly child. Note to self, do not skip morning nap hoping he will sleep through church. He will NOT sleep, he will just piss and moan and wriggle and drive you insane.

After church we put Zack down for a much needed nap and Jake and I headed out to begin cleaning the garage. I wanted to be able to get some things moved to the shed and some things organized so we could possibly fit the lawn mower and one if not both vehicles. Well, we got some things moved, but not much went into the garbage pile.

After about two hours we decided to call it a day and go to Lowe's to try to find some shelving and a cabinet for Jake's hunting stuff. We found what we were looking for but the prices on those things are NOT cheap.

After all the running around we decided to take it easy yesterday. Jake went fishing with a friend until about noon and then in the afternoon we took Zack in the wadding pool we borrowed from our friends.

For all of the running around and doing things Jake and I managed, for the most part, to not have any major battles. Unfortunately the manner in which he was returned to our home left a lot to be desired in the adjustment area. We still have a lot of baggage leftover that doesn't just go away because he's clean.

We both have to learn how to talk to each other and how to ask for what we need from the other person. These may seem like small things but for us they seem to be large hurdles that we are going to have to break down bit by bit.

Today he went for his outpatient evaluation and they only want him to come one night a week since he is attending meetings regularly. So now comes the process of him trying to find a job and us having to get his jeep cleaned out so he can drive it and we can get it insured again. The thought of him driving around again scares me to death but it is necessary. I can't continue to act as his mother. I have to let him "sink or swim" so to speak and this is the first step in allowing him to become the "man" of the house again.