Friday 31st January is a rotten day but at least I won't be drinking over it.

I'm in. Late, but here.

Too busy at the moment to read anything but the OP. Life is insane right now. But I'm grateful for much. I choose to be happy for what I have, today.

Dear Mags - Thank you for this lovely thread. I think its brilliant. I'm glad you're feeling a bit better but I'm also glad you shared how you were feeling. You do a huge amount to support everyone on SR so it's only fair we get the chance to offer some thanks in return. I'm still amazed at the level of optimism that not drinking brings and your post has reminded me of how important it is to keep on remembering that.

A quick Saturday morning check in. I really hope the anxiety subsides soon Mags, I know how crippling it can be. Mine seems to have escalated lately, and I really need to stop catastrophising... even in my dreams! Had a rough night last night, little sleep and with anxiety filled dreams when I did manage to catch some sleep.
So I’m off to do some exercise (it’s fallen a bit by the wayside lately) so hopefully I’ll feel better after some physical exertion.

Catch up with you all later :wavey:

It quite here today.
This Sunday is world play your ukulele day!
https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/p...r-ukulele-day/
make some noise!

Hope your weekend is better Sao.

D

Morning Weekenders :wavey:
It's leap year month 👍✌️🐸🐸
Hope everyone is getting through the weekend.

Mags hope you get a handle on that anxiety.

Hi everyone :wavey:

Last night and all today we have had RAIN, RAIN, AND MORE RAIN.

Absolutely loving it . My dried up plants and lawns are loving it.

Hope you can swim PJ , there is even some flooding now. Lol typical Australia.

i forgot how sweet the sound of the pitter pattering on my tin roof sounds. Heavenly.
After the last few disgusting hot days , the native animals can all come out to drink and bathe.

this is life, its so good. Even though its raining , the birds are out there chirping.

i feel so happy today :-)

:c031:

:c016: :abca: :headbang: :danse1b:

I quite agree, STDragon, it is quiet here in Weekender Land.

We have this faux-piano that looks like a spinet, sounds like a Yamaha grand or an organ or a string quartet or a trumpet or an ethereal chorus all at the touch of a button. My husband plays it more than I do but I did have 5 years of lessons once upon a time, before you were born if you don' t remember where you were when JFK was shot.

We got the piano 2 years ago, it has headphones so you can bang away on it without disturbing the neighbors or the dogs, except the brown dog gets jealous of anything that competes for your intention so pretty soon she'll be nudging your legs at the piano bench. Hubby plays with some frequency but yours truly has fooled around with it only a handful of times. So anyway, STD, in honor of ukelele day on Sunday I'm going to see what setting I can find that gets me closest to the ukelele sound and tickle the faux ivories for a bit. Maybe the *****-tonk piano setting, or I think there's a guitar setting or two. (Edit: interesting auto-edit where the asterisks are. Funny, another entirely innocuous word of mine got the asterisk treatment earlier today. Context can be everything, but logarithms are designed with a broad brush; I get it, better safe than sorry.)

So there's my Sunday. Today, Saturday, is yet TBD (to be determined). It's just 12:40 a.m., so soonish I'll be to bed, then when it's daytime I dunno what I'll be up to.

Well I do know a couple of things now that I think about it.

Venuscat, you out there? I got a call from my local book store that my copy of Knots that I ordered at your behest has arrived. I picked it up earlier this evening, and ended up buying three or four other books and got home to find a neighbor sort of waiting to visit and, long story short, I have not even opened Knots yet.

So that's definitely happening this weekend. Probably tonight when I turn in, my curiosity is killing me.

Also, you there Sober45? I'm gonna consult the google re my localest big-box hardware store and see if I can find a fitting grow-light system for the kitchen counter as you and I discussed. I know I can order on line, but I do that only when I cannot locate an item available locally at a brick-and-mortar store. Generally. I aim for the local little stores, too, but I already checked and can't find grow lights there. So picking up and installing a grow-light system could keep me busy a good part of the day, including setting up my little counter-top garden.

That's enough for starters.

Self-quiz:

1. Name the other books jr picked up today at the book store.

A. You mean without getting off the couch and going into the other room and looking at them? Ok here goes, at least by category if I can't remember the exact names:

1) A bio of Gandhi. It caught my eye as I was sitting in an easy chair catching up on some post or other here in SobeRlandia while at the book store to pick up Knots. I read a bio of him 30 or 40 years ago, and saw the movie starring Ben Kingsley (good flick), but this new one looks good, has impressive blurb-reviews on the paperback cover.

2) Another biography, this one of two Fremonts, husband and wife, whose first names I forget, but both start with J, if I recall correctly. They were very influential in the formation and settling of California. I mean as a U.S. state, of course, because California, the land mass, was there quite a little bit before the Fremonts, I can tell you without even cracking open the book. I'll even venture to say it was settled by humans way way pre-Fremonts. For example, the Spaniards set up that series of missions stretching up from Mexico as far north as present-day San Francisco and maybe a little beyond, beginning in what, the late 16th century? Or not much later than that. And part of the stated reason for the missionaries to stake out their missions was to spread the word among the people already living there, which suggests there were people already living there before the Spaniards invaded beginning when Cortez hit Mexico in, what was it, 1517, I think.

But the Fremonts were railroad people (if not I'll let you know after I read the book), and in some ways railroads built the West of the U.S.

3) This one I definitely would not have bought had I not discovered SR a few weeks ago. A biography of Emily Dickinson, the American poet, with a particular emphasis on her passion for gardening. What's the connection? My time on SR, which coincides with my most extended sober time in the 50 years since I was 17 years old, has stimulated certain long dormant corners of my creative intra-cranial area (i.e., my mind), including my appreciation for her poetic genius, and (at least in theory to date, but it is early days, and still winter) my interest in gardening. So to find this new bio that combined those two areas of my interest seemed to be kismet. I was meant to buy that book.

4) There's at least one more book. Drawing a blank and this post must draw to a close.

All the books, taking into account my 20% discount for being a member of the book store, came to $81 or so. Let's do a quick back-of-the-figurative-envelope reckoning here. If I averaged something like a bottle of wine per night with dinner (sometimes two) (split with husband), a couple of beers or a cocktail also, plus on say, two or three, or maybe four days a week some heavier drinking, sometimes at restaurants, and if to that were added my pot consumption, well, let's estimate that by not drinking or smoking pot 2 January 2020 to this moment on 1 February 2020, I probably saved $400 to $500 dollars or more.

Enough of this late-Friday night, early-weekend rambling. See you tomorrow.

Morning Weekenders, where is everyone? I hope people made it/make it through Friday without picking up.

Snoozy, that's fantastic news that you are having a lot of rain, it sounds like it is desperately needed.

jr I often did sums to work out how much money I had saved in early recovery. It would give me a lift although it was bitter-sweet when I considered how much money I had wasted on it over the years. After five years I must be approaching the £10,000 mark easily. Your electric piano sounds fun, I hope you do get to tinkle the ivories. My grandparents tiny living room was dominated by an upright piano which they never once played that I can remember.

I did not socialise at all last night but I did venture out briefly to collect a take-away. I heard some people discussing if they were going to hold out until midnight to complete dry January. Going by my own small circle of friends and people at work I get the impression that quite a lot of people either did it or attempted to do it this year.

A new statue has appeared near my London Underground station. (Old Street) It does not have an explanatory plaque or anything but I guess it is self-explanatory. "Man staring at smartphone" or something like that.

Morning Weekenders

I didn’t get back last evening, went to sit down and look on SR and fell asleep! I’m bright and bushy tailed this morning.

Thanks again for the kind remarks, I didn’t want to make the Weekenders about me but run parallels with the drinking.... I think.
Anyways, I’m feeling much better and I have plans in place for when I go weird again and lose the plot. :)

JR I love your posts. I smile reading them. ::tyou

Vinny I hope you and Little VMan are soon better. :hug:

Thanks Rose, :tyou

Snoozy, so pleased you’re getting rain. Yaaay. :c011:

Saou, I think he’s found the meaning of life. 42 :dunno:

Have a good weekend . I woke up sober and still relish it from the drunken hungover weekends. It’s a good feeling.

Hope everyone is ok. xx

Snoozy it’s been bucketing down here too, absolutely glorious rain :)

I ended up working all day today, but I’m home now, a sober Saturday night and early to bed for me :) 7pm here so bed isn’t far away after the poor sleep I got last night.
Happy Saturday weekenders :wavey:

Morning everyone x

Hi Manta :wavey:
Good morning, but I’m just off to bed, so good night too :lmao:

Good morning people from my realm!
Good night future people!

Going to meet a friend for lunch later today. Will try to go for a walk later too (weather depending) I'm trying to do around 20km walking a week now. I've disc damage in my lower back and was recommended to do a lot of walking to help movement.

Quiz:

1. What would you name the sculpture newly installed near the Old something or other tube stop in London?

Spoiler alert: Jr's entry appears below in this post, so if you don't want your creative flow clogged up by jr's mental dross (something like dental floss, but opposite), cogitate and formulate your answer now.

2. What's your favorite flavor tim tam?

3. What's the actual name of the tube stop referred to in Q1?

Hint: It's deceptively simple, We U.S. natives tend to think all those Old World names tend to be hyphenated and majorly multisyllabic, like, for example,
...

... oh, hello, I fell asleep trying to think of the quintessential example. I'm awake now (can't you tell?), but the best I'm coming up with is Croton-on-Hudson, and that's in the U.S., but you know what I mean.

4. And how about those Welsh place names?

5. Is Rule's restaurant still alive and well in London? Jr ate there on jr's first or second trip to London, on the recommendation of jr's father, who ate there on his (the father's) first trip to London. Traditional with a capital T, don't you know, with stuffed stuff on the walls, and maybe an ancient ceremonial sword or two, and coats of arms. Last time jr was there had to be 26 years ago (1994, I reckon), because jr does not think he went there in 2005 or thereabouts with his future husband. Jr did go there to London in 2005, but to the best of my memory, he did not go to Rule's that time. As with all things internet, this could be wrong.

6. In what field did jr's father work, in Manhattan, that probably explains why someone recommended he try out Rule's when he (jr's father) first went to London?

7. If you climbed up to jr's homeroom on the third (top) floor of his high school and looked west, what three buildings could you used to just barely make out the tops of on a clear day, about 25 miles (40.234 km) distant, as the crow flies?

Hint: Two of them were not completed until after jr graduated from high school.

You're coming to the end of this post, so you're coming to jr's answer to Q1, as predicted:

Fwiw, jr's entry of the A to Q1:

Everyman, 21st century.

subtitle:

Look out for that lorry, dude!

Headed to work. Grateful I still have a job! So inspiring to read all your words!

Good morning love.....huge hugs. xx ❤️

Wow, a statue of man and dumb phone. ;)
Amazing.
Look where we are peeps....Brave New World come true.
Everyone walking around like zombies on tablets. (or phones).

I want that biography jr.....I adore her poetry but did not know she was a gardener. :) And I shall read Knots with you....it has been a zillion years for me.

Let's do this sober weekend.... ❤️

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...201_075151.jpg

So much love dear Sao and Mags and all of you. :grouphug: