One Of Those Days

Image © 2012 Frank et al

We had a day that we'll never forget, and even though we all weren't present...it was one of those days.

We also put the official offer on the property, signed, sealed and delivered. The Father, dad, went out to look at it with us yesterday, and we went for a walk out in the woods attached to it, part of the property, and it was a nice time. Found out the big tree we thought was an oak, is actually a weeping willow, (which one of us fancies putting a swim on) and there is a nice sized apple tree, some lilac bushes, a few maples, and a blue spruce in the front yard, as well as sumac, birch and a whole bunch of pine, and many other types of trees on the 40 acre property, or as we'd call it, "The back 20".

We're excited, We're so excited. James is excited. We're all trying to keep it cool.

We'll find out what they say in less than 48 hours. It's likely they'll counter, which will be better than a rejection.

Whose life is this?!

We've come so far in just over a year. Life is completely different. Last year this time we still hadn't been fired from that job, we were single (even though we had already met James), and we were living in a city. Now we've been to England, lived there for four months, went on a big road trip of the USA, got to see New York City...and everything in between. Meeting people from Twitter at the Detroit Tweetup for the first time, not to mention Kerry, Serenity, Alley.
It's like a fantasy.

Now it's completely different; and while each day is different, and we still struggle mentally, it's...better, for now. We want to relish it, bite juicy chunks out and let the juices drip down our mouth, preserve it for the cold months.

It's also summer; and we're not sure, but at least one of us might suffer from S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), we can feel the difference between winter months, and summer months, she tells us of worsening depression during that time. It's probably best not to dwell too much on it for now.
Then, we've also been too busy since getting back to the states to even sit and think, or work on mapping therapy, or...do anything but enjoy each day. Once we get back to "reality" that might shift.

Soon, soon we will have to sit down and take roll call, really pay attention to each other, rather than let each other go off and do whatever, whenever, however.

But every so often it's important to relax the mental chains; and summer is the best time for it, no?

Grab it, and bite into it, for it is ever fleeting.

~ Frankie (& Ivy)

Because LOVE.

Our Guest Blogger Writes About Positive Affirmation

Hard to admit, but when we got to the last paragraph of this guest entry written by our friend Kerry; regular guest blogger, author, cancer survivor, mental health professional, mother, wife...and so much more; there was a tear in my eye, that a gift of appreciation and love from us has become a positive affirmation to a beautiful friend who many of us find to be one of the most amazing, strong and charismatic woman ever...<3 it meant a lot.

It's so hard to stay positive in the eye of humanity, in one's personal life, in one's daily goings. We won't bore you with how difficult it can be living with someone inside you who just cannot grasp the positive without struggle, but it helps the rest of us understand the struggles of negativity.

Thank you on again, Kerry, for your insight.

Think it, feel it, surround yourself with...

Positive Affirmations 

I have had a wobble recently, a rather large one which is quite out of character for me but there you go, we all have them. People look at me and see a thirty-something lady who has it all under control and has got her shit together. Anyone who knows me more than superficially knows that this is utter bollocks and that I am just a hypo manic woman with a very mercurial mind. So how do I stay so positive when life gives me a swift kick (because I am not immune, I am just like everyone else).

Let me tell you a story….are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

For many years I was told that I was only averagely bright and my brother was very bright and I was metaphorically patted on the head in a condescending way. Spool forwards to about 10 years ago, smudging over a somewhat train wreck of a life, I got my first A grade at university. I had never got an A before and was delighted with it. My ever brilliant mother-in-law, who is into embroidery and craft things, made me a cross stitch card with an A on the front with other little A’s flying around it and she wrote a lovely message inside. Now I fully thought that this A grade was a one off and was delighted when I got another…and then another. Like most obsessive students I had diagrams of the brain and the latest theories stuck to the wall so that I could refer to them easily but then I got struck by a bout of clinical depression.

After picking my ass up off the floor, I decided what I needed to see around me was things that make me feel good not the latest mental health research. So down came all my student stuff and up went that card, then I got another card from someone else, then there was a note that someone left me…up on the wall it all went. Before I knew it, I had a pretty full wall and thought that this was a cool idea.

Being the laid back chilled out dude that I am (no please don’t laugh) I went through the whole house and binned all the crap and kept stuff from people that was either a nice gift or card or comment. So out went the bank statements and the outdated letters from the taxman that I was keeping ‘just in case’ and the old love letters and the scribbles my son made on paper took pride of place all round the house. Ok the love letters are in the draw but you get the picture.

This method of surrounding myself with positive things came into its own when I got cancer. Someone suggested that I have a mantra ‘I will be alright, I will get healthy’ that kind of thing. Except my kind of mantra would contain a lot more swearing! I tried the none swearing version because when you have cancer you will try anything and unsurprisingly I found that it did not work. What did work were they physical signs of people who love and care for me.

OK I hear you say, this isn’t brain surgery, why are you telling me this? Take a look around your home. There may be paintings done by the kids but what else is there? My son was playing being a pirate one day and asked if I had any treasure. Of course I have, I told him but he was very surprised that it did not contain any jewellery rather my Weight Watchers card which showed how much weight I had lost, his milk teeth, an old playing card that I got on an excellent night out. None of these treasures has any intrinsic value, but they are priceless too.

As I write this I notice that I have tattoos, rings and the necklace Frankie bought me, all on me with at least 5 other things I can see without getting up off the seat that are positive affirmations . Go on and try it; you may find it life changing or you may find that it brings just a little bit more happiness into your life. Let’s face it, who couldn’t use some more happiness.

With love,
Kerry x

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And Happy Mother's Day to Kerry. We have had the fortune of spending time with the amazing boy that is the product of her parenting. He is indeed an intelligent, kind, happy and lucky young man. XO

Our Guest Blogger, Kerry Stott (@kerrystott), Writes About...

• Our New Guest Blogger (2011)
• Depression   (2011)
• "Us & Them" Mentality   (2011)
• Suicide   (2011)
• Endopsychic Energy  (2011)
• S.A.D.  (2011)
• Anxiety  (2011)
• Fear (National Breast Cancer Awareness Month)  (2011)
• Insomnia  (2011)
• Personal Problem Solving  (2011)
• Our Guest Blogger Writes About...Meeting Us!  (2012)
• How Risk Feels  (2012)
• Therapeutic Alliance  (2012)
• Personality Disorder  (2012)
• Psychiatrists, Are They Devil Incarnate  (2012)
• Stress (2012)

On Our Sobriety and Alcohol

*Just a reminder, unless the actual link address is shown here, all links take you to other pages of our blog that we are referencing, this is an ad free blog*

Some people speculated that something must have happened for us to make this decision to become sober, to quit drinking almost entirely.

Sure something happened. We pulled our head out of our ass. We realized that continuing to drink a bottle of wine or more everyday was not going to be good for us in the long run, and we'd be better off stopping drinking for an extended period rather than trying to cut down, and we figured it we turned it into a New Years resolution, and drank to the end of the year just because we could, that our success rate would decrease. Who really keeps New Years Resolutions anyway?

What we didn't mention much about in the post where we talked about quitting drinking - a post written by me with many of the et al feelings in mind, but not so much my own reasons - is that  for almost the entire year of 2011 we hadn't been sober for more than two whole days; to be honest, it's been years since we hadn't been at least high every day, until we started drinking every day instead, though we never drank or did drugs AT work though. That is just unacceptable...for us.
Of course there were reasons why we drank, among them chronic pain (caused by the permanent damages of the car accident we were in, which yesterday was the 7 year anniversary of) and internal management (meaning it made the things going on in our head easier to manage, for some of us). We're not unhappy with our life, as a whole, sure we've had some pretty monumental things happen to us this past year and a half (most, but not all, of them are detailed in the pages of this blog), and very few of the positive ilk, but that's no reason to become an alcoholic, in my opinion.  Furthermore, alcohol isn't exactly a pain reliever...and IS actually a depressant (which means if you're drinking because you are depressed...well, that's dumb, it's causing an endless cycle...do other drugs instead...ones that are less likely to make you cry in a puddle of your own snot on your living room floor).

It's been one week sober for us now, and it's actually not entirely as terrible as we thought it would be, though we have spent the last few days with a raging headache. It helps that most of us are stubborn as hell, and just like it's hard for us to ask for help from people, we're not going to pus out and think there is any help at the bottom of a bottle of alcohol. *que Superwoman music*

The only problem we're left with is the physical pain (we refuse to use pain relievers unless absolutely necessary), and the chronic headache though some headaches are normal with our "disorder", and we know from experience that no pain reliever will take THAT headache away.

This is not to say we wouldn't love a drink. Fuck it would be nice - but we also have a LONG "trip" that we can barely afford in just under three and a half weeks, and by not drinking we are saving $150-300 a month. Not to mention the calories. We were consuming from 600-800 calories a day in alcohol, which was making us stressed out about our weight.

We are treating ourselves to a bottle of wine to celebrate the New Year tomorrow, then following that we'll be sober for the foreseeable future (only exception being when we have cocktails with Tweeple in the UK, and then when we travel the USA next year), because it's the healthy thing to do, and it's also easier when it's not a dry-turkey forever situation, like in things like AA, because we're not an alcoholic, we are just trying to love ourselves better...and if we have to continue to exist, we'd like liver function as long as possible.

~ Frank

The World of Alcohol...and What You Will Think Is Useless Information
Fun little alcohol calorie counter: http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/collegestudents/calculator/alcoholcalc.aspx

Note: Each example below is based on a 4-ounce glass. However, depending on the bar or the restaurant (or how much you pour yourself), glasses may be as large as 8 ounces.

Wine

Type - Calories |Carbs (g)

Cabernet Sauvignon (red) - 90 | 2.5

Merlot (red) - 95 | 2.5

Chianti (red)-  100 | 2.5

Chardonnay (white) - 90 | 1.1

Sauvignon Blanc (white) - 80 | 1.1

Port (Ruby) - 185 | Up to 10

Note: These approximate values are based on 1½ oz of alcohol and 8 oz of mixer. Keep in mind, however, that jumbo-size drinks in restaurants can contain much more. For example, a Long Island Iced Tea can pack up to 16 ounces and 750 calories.

Cocktails

Type - Calories | Carbs (g)

Gin & Tonic - 200 | 4

Vodka Cranberry - 220 | 5

Bloody Mary - 180 | 4

Margarita - Up to 500 | Up to 10

Long Island Iced Tea - Up to 550 | Up to 11

and don't even get us started on the calories in beer...

Read more: http://www.askmen.com/sports/foodcourt_150/150b_eating_well.html#ixzz1i2pqs0Se

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Of course none of that makes any sense, or matters, if you don't know how many calories you need just to maintain your current weight:

Calorie intake for Weight loss
Sedentary Lifestyle: 20 calories per kg of body weight [Let's be honest...this is probably where you are at]
Moderately Active Lifestyle: 25 calories per kg of body weight
Heavy Activity Lifestyle: 30 calories per kg of body weight

Calorie intake for Weight Maintenance
Sedentary Lifestyle: 25 calories per kg of body weight  [Let's be honest...this is probably where you are at] 
Moderately Active Lifestyle: 30 calories per kg of body weight
Heavy Activity Lifestyle: 35 calories per kg of body weight

Calorie intake for Weight gain
Sedentary Lifestyle: 30 calories per kg of body weight
Moderately Active Lifestyle: 35 calories per kg of body weight
Heavy Activity Lifestyle: 40 calories per kg of body weight

Source: http://www.fitho.in/how-many-calories-do-i-need/

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This is not us preaching on the fucking dangers of alcohol, unless you're a moron you know drinking is among the few fun AND dangerous/unhealthy things you can do legally, and honestly...we don't care about your health. But in the event you have no idea the effect of alcohol to your internal organs...and you're too lazy to Google it, or you like things served on a silver platter, we present to you liver...(yummmmm, liver paté...on a silver platter). 

• Information on Alcoholic Liver Diseases: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001326/
• Information on Cirrhosis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001301/
• Biological Impacts of Alcohol Use: An Overview by Michaele P. Dunlap, Psy.D, Clinical Psychologist http://www.oregoncounseling.org/ArticlesPapers/Documents/ETOHBIOFx.htm
  
  P.S. mixing alcohol with some pain killers and antidepressants will destroy your liver...which is actually a pretty important organ...