2 weeks until Christmas dear reader, am I ready?  Well my wine rack is for sure, I won another bottle of wine yesterday, suffice to say I'd be dead if I even attempted a row of it never mind the whole of the rack!

I was just talking to someone yesterday about my filling my wine rack obsession, it's come about of course because when you have lived your life with an alcoholic binge drinker you can't exactly have wine in the house, well that's not strictly true, every Christmas we would go and buy a ton of bottles of wine and spirits and I would declare that from December the first you could drink whatever you wanted.  For just one month I gave up trying to manage the drinking, it did of course mean we went through untold amounts of alcohol and hangovers but there were definitely less arguments although I did note on time hop that a couple of years ago we went to a Scissor Sisters concert where he got very very drunk and dragged me out into the foyer of the arena and was pretty horrible and told me it was over, there was no hope for us, he didn't know why we were still together, I think that was one of the times when he couldn't remember anything of it the next day, sadly I think that's an easy get out when you drink, you might not remember the hurtful things you say but the people you say the hurtful things to certainly don't recover from the comments so quickly.  The worst thing was that sometimes when alcohol was involved he would be lovely until a certain point when he just became horrible.   

We do that in relationships don't we, we make excuses for the people we love to deal with their personality flaws which hurt us, more often than not we feel it's easier to blame ourselves rather than the people we love, sometimes it even seems unfathomable that those people we fell in love with could be the person who is hurting us, it must be us that are the imperfect seriously flawed people. This is of course why it's still so very hard when you're no longer in those relationships, if not by someone else you have conditioned yourself to believe that you aren't good enough and the recovery from that is the hardest thing entire.

I'll leave it here for today so we can all muse on those words and thoughts, if you figure them out before me do email and let me know and if you are in a similar situation just know that it's not always your fault and most probably you are way better than just good enough and you only ever have to be good enough!

Being angry in an online world

Good morning dear reader, I hope you'll excuse me for writing this from under the warmth and comfort of my duvet, Looby has gone on a school trip and Abigail and Petunia are with their dad and it's a bit too chilly to get up yet so I've made coffee and come back to snuggle until it gets a lot lighter and warmer.

I wanted to write a really positive blog post today but I feel I can't hide the fact that yesterday made me feel so much sadder than all of the days which had gone before.  You see there I was on Twitter being cheered up by a friend when an online attack was launched at me on twitter, a foray of angry words from someone clearly hurting and needing help and reflection, I think sometimes we forget that we're living in an online world and words can be weapons from time to time, I think sometimes we may engage pen or stylus before brain follows through but I don't believe I have done anything which deserves what happened yesterday.  I asked him to stop, told him he was making the situation so much worse and he did thankfully but 1 panic attack later and a fall onto the bus scattering the change from my pockets all over the bus floor and I was left wondering just what more can I take without taking decisive action about the future.  My main goal since the beginning of this tragedy is that I wanted to remain friends not only for the health and well being of my children but also because I didn't want to have to try and erase 14 years of memories in my mind because they hurt too much.  I think when people are hurt, confused and devastated it can make them do strange things they would never have even considered, they make rash decisions without thinking about the consequences but whatever happens you must understand that there are ways of going about things and there are acceptable forms of behaviour and  unacceptable ones.

When you are hurting it's very hard to remain calm and dignified but you must for in many years from now you won't be able to erase the harsh words or thoughtless actions and then it may be too late to recover all of the friendship and happy times because they have been buried under a larger pile of unpleasant thoughts and words and deeds.

Be kind to yourself and others, treat yourself as you want to be treat, do good deeds, say lovely things and it will all come back to you so that you may live a peaceful life of happiness and one where you can forgive yourself and others, paranoia, ugly thoughts and anger will only lead to a long term life spent alone and bitter.

Two good things happened yesterday, firstly before I had a panic attack I managed to quite successfully stay at the desk in my office without having a meltdown and hiding under it, thanks to Helen, your coping strategy absolutely worked wonders so that's my tip for today on dealing with conversations on the return to life after a major life event, if someone asks how you are, just say fine and ask them how they are in return, completely deflecting the attention and creating a much more comfortable moment until you decide what to say at a later date.

My second good thing was that I got my half stone award on only my 3rd return visit to Slimming World, 8lb in 3 weeks which does go to prove somewhat that eating on trains and the Megabus isn't so good for your waistline and also I believe that when I lose some bulk when I look in the mirror I feel a little better about the face that stares back at me, one day I may even be brave enough to buy a full length mirror, not quite there yet and it's always a bit of a shocker when I go into changing rooms and see myself in full length mirrors, if I get to a size 12 I may take the chance and actually purchase one.

Today dear reader I want you to look into your mirror and see the face before you and give them a smile, they might have had a bad day but it's amazing what a smile from another person can do for your soul.