Yep, I gave up drinking for Lent

I need to preface this by saying that I am not catholic or religious in any way. But I have always admired the conviction it takes to give up something you love or enjoy for 40 days for the sake of trying to move closer to God. Well my reason has less to do with God and more to do with personal conviction. I may have had a drink almost every day but I really do not believe that I have a "drinking problem". I have a bad habit. Having beer on tap at our house makes it too easy to enjoy a cold one as the day draws to a close. I really just needed a good reason to say "not today", so I figure Lent will give me 40 days or so to dry out and get out of the habit. It's day 6 without drinking. And it's very possible that this is the longest I've been without a drink in at least 5 years. I thought that it would be harder than it has been, but it has not been difficult at all. 34 more days will be a snap. Yay me.

I think I'm having a "midlife crisis"

I was always happy and content to be a bartender. Mostly because I made insane amounts of money working just 3 days a week. But I always knew that I didn't want to stay a bartender after 40. The #1 reason is because in your 40's you are now competing with colleagues that are literally half your age. But secondary reasons included everything from the hours on my feet and the lateness of the hour you get off (3 am if you're lucky), to dealing with drunk people all the time and partaking in the partying lifestyle. It's easy enough to get caught up in it. I mean after spending 10 hours making drinks for everyone else, why not enjoy a cocktail or two? But then you end up with a group of friends that are doing this every day and before you know it, you are having 2-3 drinks everyday without even realizing it. That was crisis #1, which led to crisis #2.

Drinking everyday will make you fat. Period. It's not a healthy lifestyle. Who was I kidding? Some days, I'd have more than 2-3 drinks, and then I'd be hung-over the next day. Who wants to get up and do Pilates hung over? Me neither. And when you over-drink, you typically over-eat. Eating anything at 3 or 4 am is never a good idea. Funny thing is, I was always skinny my whole life. With the exception of being pregnant and the immediate aftermath, I always hovered around 130lbs. But when I started working at the bar, I started drinking regularly. And every year I put on an extra 5-8lbs. I worked there for 8 years. Do the math. Yep, I now hover around 185lbs! That leads to crisis # 3.

I have nothing to wear. I hate buying clothes in a size that I currently am. Nothing I currently own fits very well and I feel sluggish and disgusting. My knees hurt, and I creak when I walk because I am basically carrying around an unnecessary 40lbs of blubber. I now have rolls on top of rolls. A public outing in anything resembling shorts or a bathing suit is completely out of the question. My confidence is way down, I've lost the spring in my step and I feel so unmotivated. I would love to turn 40 with a better body than I had when I turned 30. But I better get a move on... July will be here any minute.

Now to crisis #4: I'm pretty much unemployed. I have a weekend gig doing demos for wine or Mike's Hard Lemonade, and it pays pretty well for the work involved. But it's not a job. My beloved River City closed in November 2008. I practiced real estate for a time, then went back to the restaurant biz as a bartender in June of 2009, was promoted to bar manager the 1st day on the job and moved up to General Manager 6 weeks later. That was a hectic job in which I worked anywhere from 40 to 60 hours a week. The pay was terrible, the hours were too long and I rarely had time for my family. Thankfully, that position ended in October. Fortunately, I spent the holidays at The Heathman but was laid off in January. It is now nearing the end of February and I'm still without a job. It's a terrible economy, the job market is overcrowded and there aren't that many jobs out there so it's been tough. I haven't even had one interview, short of 2 phone interviews which led nowhere. On a resume, you can easily express your exceptional customer service experience, but not without also sounding like you're in your 50's. I had my first job at 13. That gives me over 25 years of service, but on paper, it just makes you sound old. Employers would like to think that they hire based on experience over appearance. But the truth is they'll compromise by hiring someone much younger with adequate experience over someone aged with exceptional experience. It's the tired, "you're over qualified" line. I am competing with people much younger and more attractive to their demographics. It's one of the problems with the restaurant business, and another reason to get out. But that's pretty much my entire career. So, my new challenge is finding a place of employment that will appreciate my 25 years of experience and hopefully, it'll be fun, challenging and aligned with my values. It would also help if it paid a decent wage.

I'm going to spend the next 4 months working on getting some of these things under control...

Here's the story of a lovely lady...

...who was bringing up 3 boys of her own.

My friends call me Chupchake. I am 39, divorced after 16 years and now deliriously happily re-married and mother of 3 teenage boys.

I have kept journals on and off for years. I love writing, and for the most part am pretty good at it. I have found though, that I also possess a certain amount of A.D.D. and after a few weeks or months I forget to keep up with the journaling. This has become evident to me by the stacks of half finished journals that I have in my possession that all begin with..."I have kept journals on and off for years". Always with the promise that THIS will be the one that I keep up with. This blog will be no different. That's what blogs ARE essentially, online journals. So at this moment I have the intention of keeping up with this. That being said...if I should forget at some point, or get a new hobby, I apologize, but know that I really am very consistent at being inconsistent. = )

In 2006, I happily left my ex husband and decided that I really did want a better life for myself and my children. At the time I mostly just didn't want to be in a rage and pissed off all the time. But since then, I have made a lot of progress in the self improvement department. I managed to provide for myself and my children, comfortably, in the wake of my divorce for 2 years thanks mostly in part to an amazing job that I had as a bartender in a smoky, dirty, fun downtown Portland bar. During that time, I also fell in love with my one of my best friends. We had a dreamy, romantic wedding, moved in together and started thinking about being more sustainable homeowners. That has brought us a garden, some chickens and a much smaller ecological footprint. But along the way, I have become aware of some very big short comings, and I'm hoping that just blogging about them will help put them into perspective and maybe find some solutions. And I'd like to have a handle on them as I approach my 40th birthday in July.