nymets86

DD, I hope you had a nice day at work.

Similarly, lots of my friends are getting married and it drives me nuts that I can't find a soul mate. With that said, just because they're getting married doesn't mean they have to be out of your life.

And as Ready mentioned, parents/siblings have been huge for me as I try and get sober. I know that I have zero cravings or desire to drink when around them, and it's just in general a low stress place to be.

Well, I did my taxes yesterday as well as every work/school checklist item I had. So a very productive Sunday. Mets lost to the Phillies, which stinks and I watched every hole of The Masters and feel horrible for Jordan Spieth, but great story about Danny Willett.

This book is 600 pages and while I like it, wish I'd started it sooner. My kindle tells me I'm only 20% done. So this week will be spending a lot of time reading, which I'm actually kind of looking forward to, but next book I need to give myself more time to read.

ReadyOrNot123

So today was our first day in our new office building - I'm driving to work now and while I don't love that, I think it's the only downside. The building is great, the space is 100x better than our last place in Boston. This week I'm headed to Dublin, can't wait for that too. So things are good.

DD I hope you're doing well and the depression is diminishing. Mets, the season is long, it will get better. Good luck with the book.

ReadyOrNot123

Hi all - thought I would check in as I leave for Ireland tomorrow and won't likely have a lot of time to check in since I have a ton of work to wrap up before I go and a hard deadline to get out of the house in time to get to the airport. I'm not bringing my laptop, so won't be checking in until I get back early next week. I'm excited but now the pre-trip nerves are flowing - packing, trying to make sure I've got everything, allocating enough time to allow for traffic, etc. etc. I'm really looking forward to seeing my nephew in his new surroundings too.

Have a good end of the week and weekend!

nymets86

Have a great trip Ready! I'm so excited for you. Once the flight is over and you've checked in to your hotel, take some time to relax and let it all sink in.

Dee74

Bon Voyage Ready

D

DrunkenDonuts

Hope you have a good trip Ready. Sounds quite exciting!

nymets86

Well, I had a nice weekend. First book club meeting was enjoyable, hung out with friends playing frisbee and tossing a football around in Central Park, then wet to a birthday dinner where many people were drinking, but me getting club soda didn't elicit any questions. Maybe a stray glance or two, but just wasn't a big deal.

Did about 3 hours of walking around Manhattan with a friend visiting from out of town. I love being a tour guide. Got home around 1PM when he had to leave for his trip home and then I spent all afternoon relaxing watching sports.

So yeah, all in all, a weekend I was very happy with. Had lots of social interaction and no desire to drink. The birthday dinner was maybe a bit treacherous, but it contained a bar visit after, and I simply didn't join for that part of the party, which I didn't even to to explain away since several others just did dinner and not the bar.

While Monday mornings aren't my favorite, this is so much better than the Monday after my relapse in March where I was terrified of what was going to happen at work. Now, it's just a matter of the weather being nice and not being super happy about 5 days of work (and two evenings of class) coming up this week after having such a great weekend.

DD, hope you are doing well!

Ready, hopefully Dublin is awesome!

Have a good week everyone.

ReadyOrNot123

Just checking in to give a brief update - I was back at work today and it was torture! If I had been in the office, they may have objected to my 90 minute nap this afternoon, lol. The beauty of working from home....but it didn't kill the jet lag - I'm still dragging. I guess it will take a few days. Anyway, what an amazing time we had! I love Dublin, so historic, so picturesque, so interesting and fun. My sister and I got along great, my nephew was a pleasure, and now I have about a thousand pictures to whittle down (the digital age is great, snap away...). As it turned out, my brother was here in Boston for a few days for work, so he stayed here last night. So I've had a lot of family time in the last few weeks - all good.

Mets, I'm glad you had such a good weekend. I wear a fitbit, so was able to track our steps - we walked about 30 miles in 5 days. Somehow walking when you're looking at great stuff just doesn't feel the same as calling it exercise!

More later in the week when I've had a chance to settle in. I have to say that I'm glad to be home. Oh, and on that note, it actually IS my home - yesterday the papers came saying the mortgage is paid off! I mis-calculated, thought I had another month of payments. Good thing, because we spent plenty while in Ireland, so that mortgage payment is already spoken for.

Dee74

welcome back Ready - and congrats!

D

nymets86

Ready, glad to hear your had fun!

One suggestion on pics. Realistically, your friends won't want to see 1,000 pics of your trip if you're showing them, but you also might not want to part with any. Unlike the old film days, there's really no reason to permanently delete any. I have all mine saved in either the Apple cloud and Picassa (Google offers it). I think I pay a total of $25 a year split between Apple and Google for all the extra storage space. Takes up zero physical space. On my phone, I keep like the 5-10 best pictures from a trip and have those at my fingertips to share with people, but do have all the others saved in the cloud if I want to access them, which I do go back and do when I want to relive a trip.

All is well here, other than a minor stomach ache this AM. Had some spicy Thai food for dinner last night which didn't agree with me.

Next few days at work are going to be pretty light, but I have a bunch of schoolwork to do. Might just do some schoolwork while in the office.

Have a nice day!

ReadyOrNot123

Well I am pleased to say that I got through my three day work week - and now have another long weekend. I feel much better re: jet lag, but it will still be good to have some time to rest and lay low. Sunday will be a birthday visit to my niece's and some shopping/lunch. I also have another friend's birthday dinner at some point, but overall, a fairly quiet weekend. Once I get back to work next week I need to focus on organizing my work so I can become more efficient. And of course, it's time to get the diet going too. But for now, I'm just going to relax, do some laundry, unpack my travel stuff, etc.

One of the things that definitely happened while in Dublin was an awakening of the travel bug. I used to travel quite a bit but then I decided it was more important to save money and prepare for the uncertainty of the economy. I need to figure out a way to do both. There's just so much world out there and there's a really good energy in being in it. That said, I think I'll go look at the pictures again - and then watch some TV then go to bed. Mets, good suggestions on the storage breakout. I use OneDrive mostly, and I also load the stuff to Shutterfly for prints. I'm getting a little lazy though - I used to back my pictures up monthly to an external hard drive, but with the cloud it's just so much easier.

The Red Sox blew a 5-1 lead to eventually lose. Our gazillion dollar ace, and he can't get out of the 4th inning.

OH, and Prince died. I can't believe it! I can't say I was a die hard fan - I've never been to a concert for example, but I did love so many of his songs. We are losing a lot of really creative people far too early lately.

nymets86

Glad you're able to relax ready.

And yes, I have the travel bug too. It's an expensive habit, but one that's very healthy. With the money I save by not drinking (no bar tabs, no taxi cabs since I take the subway when sober, no Advil, no heartburn meds, etc), travel is a bit easier.

This will be an uneventful weekend for me. Supposed to be gorgeous weather, but I have a lot of homework. Plan to slowly chip away at it while watching baseball and getting jogs in both days.

Ready, Mets and Sox off to slow starts. As you know, it's a LONG season, so we'll see what happens. Baltimore and Washington cannot possibly stay this hot, and Mets and Red Sox will play better. Should be a fun season to watch.

ReadyOrNot123

So today ends the family circuit, at least for a while. I went to visit my niece for her birthday - we did the lunch/shopping thing with my sister. It was a good time and a beautiful day. I have tomorrow off so I don't have to stress out about not enough sleep. My sleep patterns are still all over the map since getting back from Ireland. So now I'm settling in to watch Game of Thrones - some of it shot in Ireland as I found out (we didn't have time to do the GOT location tour though). Anyway, all is well here - I'm actually looking forward to some normalcy and structure as we ease on into spring.

Mets, you're right, it's a long season. It would be great to get a win tonight, but this pitching staff is kind of hard to watch.

Have a good night.

nymets86

Ready, that game turned out to be very exciting last night, though agreed, the way the Sox pitching staff is going, things aren't looking great. Mets turned it around here recently and are pretty hot. Unfortunately, so is Washington. At least there's two Wild Cards to fall back on if the Mets can't catch the Nats.

My weekend was good. Got out of from under that mountain of school work. I have class this week, so will be busy, then going to the Mets game on Friday with my cousin. Will be nice having school requirements lifted off my shoulders. At the same time, I'm aware that boredom has been a trigger in the past and just because I'm done with classes until August doesn't mean I have a green light to drink in the evenings that are suddenly free.

DrunkenDonuts

Hi all. Just checking in again.

Glad you enjoyed your trip Ready. Sounds like not being a practicing alky is working out for you

Also good to hear you're living life mets - with memories of what you did!

Like both of you, I've been focusing on healthier activities than drinking in order to keep my mind off drinking and hopefully grow a bit.

Over the past week I've expanded the business I started in May/June last year. It's not rocket surgery or anything - I just sell whatever I can make money on. Hoping I can make it full time so I don't have to march to the beat of anyone else's drum.

I bought 4 pallets of stock and moved them into a nice new storage unit which stays open to 9pm (good for me to pick orders after work) and I also photographed and listed roughly 80 items on Ebay. It's like a game for me

Had dinner tonight for my dad's 71st trip around the sun. Indian. Was very nice. Now I have until Friday off and am fixing computers to sell and will finally watch the new Star Wars.

All in all - much better than getting hammered for 5 days straight, which is what I would have done in a past life.

Have fun guys and girls and gender-fluid people and also squirrels.

ReadyOrNot123

LOL, DD, you have a great wit! Due to our love of nature, we have a ton of birdfeeders etc. We do get lots of pretty birds out there, but also have the fattest squirrels you'll ever see. I am continuously impressed at their ingenuity. On the other hand, what else do they have to do but figure out how to outwit mankind. I loved the new Star Wars! Hope you enjoyed similarly. And good luck on the entrepreneuring - I would love to do something like that. My sister in law is craftsy and is now starting to gain some traction on selling some of them in a coop type of place near where they live - I think she may eventually be able to focus on that full time and stop working for The Man. What a dream! Glad to hear you are feeling good.

I'm in a pretty good place now that everything has settled down a bit. Now to focus on my diet and to get this house neatened up. You wouldn't know from the downstairs what a disaster upstairs is - I tend to be a pile person no matter what, and now the piles include the travel trappings (still haven't fully unpacked) and lots of projects that are in various states of execution (none resembling anything final). I'm ready to mellow out and focus on that kind of thing now that everything has calmed down from a social/family perspective.

Off to a conference call with one of my least favorite clients. Last month was a pleasant surprise, fingers crossed!

nymets86

Good luck expanding the business DD.

Ready, wishing you the best with Spring cleaning. I'm working on that too. The amount of dust is truly outstanding here in NYC, especially since I open my windows a lot in these shoulder seasons of spring/fall. I've gone through like 12 swiffers and still have loads to do.

All is well here on the sober front, with no real cravings or dicey social situations.

happy hump day everyone.

ReadyOrNot123

Checking in quickly as I'm WFH today and have a bunch of things to do. But every now and again there is a moment/sense of "I'm so thankful I'm sober". I had that this morning as I was making coffee - I slept terribly last night for no obvious reason. I tried everything to fall asleep - reading, watching TV, getting a midnight snack, walking around (sometimes I get restless legs) to no avail. So I'm a little tired today. But I got up, made myself presentable, took my vitamins, made my coffee and logged on to get the day started. With a hangover, the first thing that goes by the wayside (for me) is giving a crap about any of that stuff if I'm not going anywhere. I also didn't make any stupid texting/posting/calling etc. moves that I need to figure out. Plus I'm ready to attack a long list of to-do's rather than just clock watch until the end of the day. So all things being equal, I'll take an occasional bad night's sleep.

Have a good day all.

nymets86

Oh man, I'm so glad to not be dealing with the routine of finding my phone, then checking the texts, outgoing emails, and possible Twitter/Facebook postings.

Also, to your point about dealing with hangovers, the biggest change for me is still dealing with getting to work. There was a countless number of times that I'd come to after I was supposed to be at work, then I'd rush out the door, feeling horrible, and roll in surely reeking of booze. I haven't missed a meeting in years now and while I'm not always 100% on time to work, there's no sense of dread coming in a few minutes late without a hangover. Coming in two hours late with bloodshot eyes was just miserable.

Busy week for me, but all is well.

DrunkenDonuts

Ready - I am very envious to hear that you have smart squirrels running about the place! We have Koalas with chlamydia sleeping in gum trees. Weigh up brainy cute little fur-people with sexually irresponsible marsupials and I think you'll understand my jealousy.

I was a little startled to hear about your piles and was off googling ointments and salves whilst I read on and determined that you meant piles of rubbish or untidy piles of stuff. You can just put those untidy piles in a cupboard and forget about them until the cupboards run out of room. Then you can get new cupboards.

I thought Star Wars was okay, but I didn't think there enough story development. I am a nerd. Also pernickety. I didn't get how that new jedi started using the force with no training. The apprentice sith wasn't very powerful and seemed like he was just having massive force-tanties. The big evil bloke looked like the bad guy from Harry Potter... But it was okay for an action movie :P

I hope your cleaning went well.

Mets - Glad to hear you're still handling the booze situation well. Also, thanks for using the word "Swiffer". I like it and will start using it more.

Being the paranoid person that I am, I must say I noticed that Dee didn't like my post. But I guess I'm being too sensitive.

Life is much easier not drinking.