Tabasco, you bring up a really interesting point about trying to foresee potential obstacles that might cause a problem. Navigating a disappointed family member would be a real challenge for me, even if I could say that it is really their beast that is disappointed or threatened.
One of the things I was most concerned about when I made my initial big plan was navigating my way through an upcoming birthday party with a group of women who seem to think wine is necessary and that all must partake! Midway through that week, I read in one of the AVRT threads (maybe #2?) that we can look at encounters like that as an opportunity to beat down our beast. Awesome! But I decided I'd better have a back-up plan, and I took a cooler with a jug of cranberry juice, four quarts of cold seltzer, and slices of lime. My drink was so pretty that they all wanted one. And no one realized that I didn't have wine until they were pouring the very last drop out of the very last bottle. And by then they really didn't care. I'm not sure I would have made it successfully through that evening (and a subsequent one at a winery two weeks later) intact without a game plan going in.
Anticipating obstacles and coming up with a game plan is probably going to be really important to me, at least until I get the hang of this a little better. I really appreciate your honesty in that struggle, Oakwood.