Pammy

I have recently discovered the pure bliss and simplicity of signing up with one of those meal delivery services. But, I am lazy when it comes to shopping, portioning and cooking...much to my husband's dismay lol. The particular service I use affords me the ability to choose from several meals offered each week (usually about 10) and also to tailor it to specific diet needs. (I am diabetic and have to eat a bit differently to others, but to their credit, the food is pretty awesome). I choose my meals by noon on Friday and the box, which is packed well and kept refrigerated for the trip is delivered on Weds of the following week; you can choose your delivery day too. All ingredients are included and portioned out for 2,3, or 4 people. It is just Mike and myself so we choose the 2-person option and we get plenty of food for just the two of us. You can also choose how many meals you want to be delivered. Of course, the price is dependent on how many servings and how many meals you want. So far the ingredients meet or exceed anything I could get at the local grocery store and all ingredients are fresh, the meat is very good too. As a bonus, you get these great recipe cards that come hole punched so you can put them in a notebook and use them for future meals if you want to go to the grocery store instead of ordering the ingredients. If you decide its not for you, you can always cancel your membership and if you decide you don't want to use the service that week, you can skip a week or two whenever you want as long as you let them know by your deadline day. The price is not bad either. It's an option for you and I have learned some new cooking skills along the way with this, and at 58 I didn't think I could learn anything new when it came to cooking hah.

Having a colonoscopy is a breeze compared to the prep. UGH. I snapped at everyone when I was going through my "prep" time too and I consider myself a pretty amiable patient with regards to medical treatments. Try not to take it too personally

Here in Georgia spring has sprung and with it comes wasps, hornets and bees galore. I use cheap mouthwash in a spray bottle and spray around my doors, windows and patio furnature. The minty freshness seems to repel them, it is environmentally safe, safe for pets and won't kill the pollinators, just repels them

Thanks Bear So sorry to hear about your mother its a miserable disease. My husband passed from diabetic -related heart disease. Good luck with your journey. There are many in the diabetic community who feel that the term "pre-diabetic" is no longer appropriate and any fasting number over 100 mg/dl should be considered a full-on diabetic. Some doctors are starting to back this theory too. Personally, if I can keep my number below 140 fbs, I am thrilled lol.

If y'all don't mind, I think I am going to join up with you I have a different goal, however....I hope it fits in with this thread ?....here is my story: I am type 1.5 diabetic ( basically a type 2 who has become insulin dependent.) My goals revolve around lowering and stabilizing blood sugars. My pancreas no longer makes insulin, so I will be injecting insulin the rest of my life, however I want to lower my insulin dosage as much as I can. My diet now is basically "Atkins," but stricter. I will remain in the induction phase. Instead of adding carbs back to my diet slowly (as Atkins suggests after induction) I will remain at 35grams or less of carbs per day. I use My Fitness Pal which gives me the macros for my diet (great little program btw). Currently my daily macros are as follows: carbs - 35grams (10%), fat - 30g (20%), protein - 240g (70%) Exercise is integral in my regimen for its blood glucose lowering aspect (for me, others find it raises the bg readings) I do not count calories. I don't need to loose much weight (currently I am 5'7 and weigh 135lbs) my goals revolve around lowering blood sugar. My HbA1c (blood test for a 3-month look at blood sugar ranges) was 15.1(extremely high) 6 months ago (this precipitated my need for injectable insulin). 3 months ago my A1c was 7.2. My goal is an A1c of 5. Due to high bg levels over an extended period of time (I was diagnosed 16 years ago) I now have neuropathy in my feet and lower legs. I also suffer with macular degeneration. I am trying very hard to stop the progression of neuropathy and eyesight. I am still figuring out my exercise regimen so bare with me Good luck to us all!! Pammy PS if anyone else is in the boat I am in (diabetes and drastically changing diet in an effort to control this chronic STUPID chronic disease lol) please feel free to pm me or contact me on this thread

My encouragement (based on 11 years being widowed, remarried and mostly very happy)is to just give into the blues. Or at least give into them for a period of time. I know having children doesn't necessarily lend itself to being a blubbering, angry, sad mess for 2 months to get through the season, so sometimes you just have to put on that happy face. Having sad that, here is what got me through many of my 11 holiday seasons: I would sort of compartmentalize my daily life. There was the nose- down-ass- end- up working woman part of my day, the put-on-a-smile (but still quiet and reserved) for those meaningless holiday parties and get-together, then there was the reflective what-my-life-might-have-been-if-he-were-still-here moments of contemplation, the giggly-shopaholic, the motherly, happy-for-the-kids decorator and cook/baker. But then finally, after everyone was tucked up in their beds at night, when all the noise of the day and going through the motions settled into a dull roar at the back of my mind, after all this, each and every night, I would become the "real" me. I would indulge in the depression, that anger, the hopelessness of it all and usually cry myself to sleep. Its an odd thing to say, but I do believe in those first few years and holiday seasons, this was the time of the day I looked forward to the most. Knowing that soon, very soon I could drop the mask and just FEEL what I needed to feel. No judgement, no excuses, no sideways glances, no explanations. Just me and my pillow (and usually a big glass of wine and a picture of Jeff) I would finally let the cocoon drop away and a feeble, tattered,broken winged butterfly would lay in a puddle on her bedroom floor and just. be. me. I don't do much of that anymore, but there is still some part of me, some selfish part, that indulges in the memories and sometimes I shed a tear. The good news is that my wings have renewed themselves and I can fly - most of the time. The other news is that even after 11 going on 12 years I sometimes still remember, especially during the holidays. I will always remember, but I guard this part of myself selfishly and know enough to know when I need to escape life and just be me again. Blessings to you all, P

I could have written a lot of this myself, just substitute my daughter for your son. Counseling is good, but AA/NA is better. I have been attending AA/NA meetings nearly every evening for several months now and the support, honesty, advice and knowledge has been incredible. These people get it because they have lived it and, most importantly, have survived it. One of the best pieces of advice that was offered to me in my first meeting was to let go. You can't control your addict child. They must find their way out of it themselves. As much as you want to love them healthy, it just doesn't work and only takes its toll on you. Take care of yourself first. Think about it, you might find everything you need within AA/NA

I would also quit. My husband has fired several over the years and this is ALWAYS, without fail the way they present it. (unless there is some reason that the worker must be fired immediately) In my opinion, based on how my husband (following the requirements of his large company) approaches this, the writing is on the wall. There is likely nothing substantial to warrant a termination now, so they have to start a paper trail and it begins with warnings - written and verbal, probation's and then time-frames for "meeting the companies expectations." Short of a miracle, this will likely end in termination. He has a blessing here as it will likely not just come out of the blue - he has time to prepare. He needs to use this time to be proactive and, like someone mentioned, pay off bills, save, and actively look for another job. He shouldn't tip his hand that he is looking for a job. In fact if it were me, I would put on my best Oscar award winning face and make everyone think I love working for them and am doing everything I can to get back into good graces. He needs to take the upper hand and work towards the goal of quitting (I would aim for the day before my probation is up) and then telling them what a bunch of wankers they are. JMHO. I hate these corporate games.

Brenda, that is exactly what happened to me. I was not actively seeking love, in fact standing at my husbands grave on that hot August afternoon I declared I was done with love and relationships. If you had told me 3 months later I would be falling in love...well I would have found the nearest nut house and deposited you into it. There was some guilt, but not as much as I thought there would be and it resolved quickly. My new husband and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in February. The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men (and it would seem, widows/ers), Gang aft agley. Guilt is a silly, stupid and worthless emotion. Don't spend your energy on feeding it. No matter what you do, how you do it or when you do it, someone, somewhere is going to make judgement. Welcome to life.

Your original question, I think if you ask 20 different women - or maybe men for that matter - You are going to get 20 different answers. Plain and simply it depends on the relationship, the history (or lack of), the life stresses at play, and unfortunately, age. Thirty years ago, sex was a substantial part of my life and relationship. 20 years ago, sex played a central part, but not as important as it once was. 10 years ago, it was a part of my relationship. Now? Well now it is of little importance. Having said that, there are things that women go through that lead to this, menopause not being the least of them. Men might go through something similar, I believe the jury is still out on this. Sex has fallen to the low priority list for me. I find at my age now, a true, deep, respectful, communicative, and happy relationship, the companionship that comes with knowing someone so well, and a truly committed relationship are much more important then sex. Sex is just physical after all. You can make it what you want in your mind, but when all is said in done, amazing sex and going at it like rabbits will never hold a relationship together. The love I look for (and have found) transcends the physical. As to the other questions. Wow, I don't know. I just get to know someone for who they are and if it feels there is potential and a connection, the other things just fall into place.... or they don't.

I love what Annie said, she always brings the sanity into a situation however, me? I am not someone who can forgive and forget easily or quickly. I wish I could easily forgive betrayals, its a character flaw of mine, but it is what it is and I am too old to change now. I had a conversation with my daughter not long ago. It sort of is comparable to what you might be going through. She jumped me because I am still not trusting of her behaviour. (we went through a very rough patch the last few years which involved her becoming an alcoholic and rehab) I told her it is not my problem to "re-learn" to trust her, it was HER problem to prove to me that I CAN trust her again, and that might take months, or even years. She needs to take responsibility for the destruction she caused within our relationship; I didn't do it, she did. I think your guy needs to do the same. You need to be able to trust him again. Its likely going to take him actively participating in that process and it might take a long time for you to trust he won't do that again. This isn't YOUR problem, if anything it is both of yours. He set the stage at the beginning. FWIW she (daughter) still doesn't' get it. She has been out of rehab a grand total of 6 months and she thinks we should just forgive and forget. Don't get me wrong, she is my daughter, I love her, I always will, but she did some things that really tested that unconditional love I have for her. Good luck, I hope you can forgive and as importantly, forget.

Wow. Ok, well I do not have any direct experience with this, but my current husband's wife claimed she was raised in a cult. I say "claimed" because there is some doubt that it all was reality. Her recollections and experiences were pretty far-fetched and no evidence has ever been produced to support her claims. The things she said, wow. I mean I know that this stuff exists, but.... This cult was to the extreme - things like child abductions, sexual, physical and mental abuse, incest, human and animal sacrifice were all relayed by her to my husband and her many therapists. She also developed alternate personalities in her efforts to deal with what had happened to her. She had something like 30 alternates. It was one of these "alters" Who was very vocal and angry about what had happened to her as a child. It was also this same alter who committed suicide leaving current hubby a widower. On the outside, no one would ever know this shit happened to her (or that she was so mentally ill that she was conjuring it all up) She seemed very normal, or so I am told by many who knew her. If I sound skeptical, I am. Mike (new hubby) is/was too. But it seemed to be real to her so Mike helped her the best he could until she suicided. He had to hide her meds because she had attempted a few times prior to her success. The day it happened this one particular angry alter searched hi and lo all day and finally found the meds. When he came home from work, she had passed from an overdose. A note was left and that is how he knows the alter who suicided. I guess my point in all this is that we are not sure if it was real, but there was obvious real mental issues with her. We are just not sure if the mental issues came prior causing her to conjure up this cult, or if the mental issues were a result of the cult life she described so vividly to Mike and therapists. Just be careful Gracelet. I can't imagine that life in a cult (if it is true) would not leave deep mental scars and the need for therapy would be there. If she is not in therapy now, she should be. This might help take the load off you a bit. Good luck and you should not be in a relationship because you think you *owe* someone...

I would say it was closer to instant than not, but it was not like rainbows and butterfly's in my eyes when I first met him lol. I did feel like I really wanted to learn more about him. Its hard to describe - something was instant, even if it was just the curiosity to get to know him better. We must have done something right, we have been married for nearly 10 years now

Interesting question you pose lcoxwell, something I really hadn't thought too much about until reading your post. I am different than most widows in that I felt like a widow and single from just about day one. A little backstory on me: I have been widowed 10 years, 337days and some odd hours that I don't want to try and figure out, so basically 11 years. I have been married 9 years 174 days and, again, some odd hours that I can't be arsed to figure out lol. My title or label is ever evolving, but also self-limiting. I am a wife when I need to be, I am also a widow when the situation fits (such as meeting a new widow/er) I am also a daughter/sister/mother/cousin/friend/diabetic/divorcee and lately I am menopausal/bitch/quirky/eccentric and a general PIA when it suits me.... well you get the picture. I am all of these things, and yet there are times I am none of them too. I don't know if this makes sense, but I guess what I am trying to say is that a label is only important in the situation you are in at the time you are in it. I guess I have never been one for labels except as a temporary reference when it fits. Also, Conflicted, the guilt does go away. I met my husband when I was a fledgling widow at 3 months, he was 6 months widowed and we managed to navigate the grief with each other to lean on. I love him more than the day I decided I was in love with him and there is no guilt. I quickly learnt, as a widow, you do what you have to do to get through it and come out with some dignity and sanity on the other side. My journey is unique, yours is unique and no one knows what that is except for you. Being a widow, I can IMAGINE what you must be feeling and going through and I will likely get much closer to feeling what you are feeling than someone who is a non-widow would get, but still way off the mark probably. Like I heard someone say the other night "If we are lucky we MIGHT get what? 75, 80 trips around the sun? Why would I care how others think I should be living my life? Seems to me like that would be a wasted trip - and I don't waste my trips to anywhere" Made sense to me.

Mizpah, I get sibling rivalry. I didn't deal with too much of it with my kids, but I have seen it in action with friends and family's kids. What you are describing *might*, MIGHT, be understandable as just sibling rivalry that would go away as they age, but you mentioned this child wants to hurt animals and other children, that raises SUBSTANTIAL red flags and goes to the overall mental state of this child. Your baby is the easiest target and that is why she is probably baring the brunt of it all. I don't think this is sibling rivalry, this is something much more deep seated. You should do some research on children who exhibit this behaviour (abuse of pets, siblings and other kids) and then present the research to his father and have a very deep talk about how to move forward. I would not let my baby (or any animals) be alone with this child for even a second. If this was simply sibling rivalry, I would have expected it to resolve itself by now. This is not likely to go away or resolve itself. I hope you can talk someone into getting this boy some therapy, he is in desperate need. Good luck, this can't be easy on you

I guess I am the odd one out as seems to be one of the few constants in my life. I have established what I firmly consider my "new normal." But I have managed to reinvent myself several time before in my life, so this is a familiar feeling for me. I don't really consider this new normal (or any normal for that matter) as something that is set in stone, Annie, but I do get where you are coming from. My "normal" is ever changing, and what I feel is normal for me now, is way WAY different than even 5 years ago. Life tends to do that to me. Now I do sometimes look back and think about what was sometimes missing what could have been, what might have been even what was, but it is rarely with longing that I do this re-visitation of my past. I certainly have no regrets. I have adopted the theme of "it is what it is" and it helps me. It also helps me to know that the path I travel is of my own choosing and the mistakes I have made have been learning times rather then regretting doing what I did that led to the mistake. Most of my mistakes have revolved around men - beginning long ago with my father, but I learned something from every mistake I made and applied it to my next normal, so how can I take that as a bad thing? For a while I even berated myself for choosing a man who just up and died on me with not even a F*ck you from him - my widowhood began with a sudden death, but it led me in a direction I never even considered, with a man I might never have considered, living in a city I definitely never would have considered in any of my other "normals". There is no right, there is no wrong (well, aside from the obvious rights and wrongs in the world), there just "is" and in the end I know that its not what I choose, or what was thrust on me, but it was what I did with it and what lessons I took away from it. MA, never knowing who you really are is not that bad. Like you said, life is every changing and every evolving so we need to evolve accordingly..... but I have a hunch you know more about who you are than you give yourself credit for

Over the years, I have noticed that many of us deal with guilt in the face of loss of our SO's. Whether it is directly related to their death (ie: "I should have done more or something different") or guilt from how we were in the last days (ie: "we were arguing...") In my case, I was angry with him. Pettiness, frustration and not looking past my own nose were my excuses. This is a post I wrote just days after he died. In it I vowed never to forgive myself for being angry and petty to him. That was over 10 years ago. I can honestly tell you that I HAVE forgiven myself and much of it has to do with reading this board. Well, reading YWBB and listening to others advice and experiences. My true wish is that this new board becomes as helpful and healing as YWBB was for me, and it looks like it will. I hope this helps someone (s) who might be dealing with guilt. Here is my post: Dated: 9/21/04 (Jeff died 8-22-04) My husband had been ill for 2 days prior to his death...well now I know he was ill, at the time I just thought he was tired and a bit lazy. We had just moved into a new home one week prior to the day he died. We were both exhausted and in the heat of the summer it took its toll on the both of us. In my selfish world I was assuming that Jeff's "tiredness" was just that, and I started getting irritated with him for it. Saturday he woke up, after having promised me the day before that he would be home ( he was a workaholic as well) and would help me with the unpacking that had yet to be done, and do the yard work on a neglected yard. He didn't feel great....just tired he told me, and I thought to myself * you know what?? I am tired too, dammit! but I am still doing what needs to be done* Bless his heart he made a valiant effort at starting the yard work, but soon I heard him come in the house and into our bedroom. He didn't come back out so I marched back there irritated once again and found him laying on the bed sleeping...my petty anger started. He stayed there all the rest of the day and night. I did what I had to do unpacking, running errands, but I was getting angrier and angrier by the moment. I barely acknowledged him laying in bed...just checked on him a few times and he was sleeping for the most part. I spent most of the night unpacking the office finally went to bed around 2am - in the living room on the couch - partly to give him room in the bed to be comfortable, mostly because I was pissed. I woke up the next morning and as soon as he heard me he called me, telling me he wanted to go to the hospital, he couldn't breath. My attitude softened and I started to worry. He couldn't even make it to the front door..the paramedics came and rushed him out...they knew it was his heart. I was still talking to one of the paramedics giving him information, and I looked around he was already in the ambulance!..I curse myself for the fact that I took maybe too long to get myself dressed and in the car and up to the hospital, even turning around in the middle of the trip to go back home for the cell phone I forgot!!!!.. I got the the hospital just in time to be told my husband had died. I will live with this for the rest of my life I never got to say good bye to him, kiss him, tell him I loved him, that I was not mad at him. He died alone and thinking I was mad at him .... God help me, Jeff may forgive me, but I don't think I will ever forgive myself.... I have forgiven myself. Life is ok now -even good, I still miss him and feel a bit of my heart is missing, but this is a feeling you learn to live with and even overcome in some ways. I know now my guilt was misplaced. Blessings, Pam

Hi everyone. Some faces I recognize, some not, but I am also an old-timer who rarely posts. Still, I find that I read often. I am 10+ years into this journey and 8 years remarried to another member of YWBB. Although I hate to see YWBB go away - it feels somewhat like a death - I know that life is always changing and maybe this was a good time for change for us. It looks like the new admin have things well in hand and for that I am grateful. I doubt a day goes by that I don't think of Jeff, my late husband, at least once. The difference now is that I think of him with a calm and happy mind. He seems like a dream I once had. For those who are newer to widowhood who might be wondering, I still remember his voice and his mannerisms. Those memories are alive and well. I can think of them now without feeling like someone punched me in the gut. Also, you can find love again and it can be just as wonderful. Mike (new hubby) is nothing like Jeff, but thats ok. I didn't settle, I held out for love. Do things in your own time, this is not a race or a competition to see who can "make it" first or best. What it is is a very personal, intimate journey that most other people in your life have no idea of. Typically they say things out of ignorance and not malice. This will probably be my only post, but I do read. I wish us all blessings and a soft and safe journey. Pammy