Let's Call it What it is.

Until today -  I've shared this photo with only a handful of people in my life because, well, it's embarrassing.  

The people that I shared it with - were my closest friends.  My drinkin' buddies! The people I spent the most time with at that point in my life - I actually looked through a Facebook message thread today to track it down because I had remembered sending it to them.  Oh, how we had laughed.

You wanna see it? Well, here it is! This was a brand new all white t-shirt the night before - and those darkest spots - are blood.

Let's call this picture what it is...

sad.

stupid.

dangerous.

Those are the first words that come to mind.

Although my friends and I joked about it as we'd done so many times before about one of us doing something really freakin' dumb - there is actually nothing that is funny about this picture.

I had been drinking the night prior.  I woke up like this.  I sat up and shook my husband awake and I said, "What the HELL happened to me?" and he didn't know.  I got up and got myself into the shower and realized my hair was so matted with blood that it was running out red with the shower water! Once I got out and assessed myself I noticed I had a small cut on my chin - and if you've cut your head or face before you know those will bleed real good.

I could NOT remember what had happened - but eventually - my brain came alive and I came across a memory of me misstepping and falling and I remembered the new boots I had had on and sure enough they were scuffed up. I had gone upstairs and gone to bed after that and I was covered up - and so my husband didn't know.

I had also fallen backwards in my driveway once about a year prior to this event and cut the back of my head open a little.  My drinkin' buddies and I laughed about it.  

I'd once stripped down into my skivvies, swam in a pond, and then proceeded to get out, get dressed, and WALK the half a mile from there to my house. Alone.  In the dark.  On my road that has no streetlights and very few houses.

I slipped on ice drunk and landed on my tailbone once and it hurt for THREE full years after. Do not recommend.

There are, unfortunately, many more examples, but you get the point.

Let's call it what it is - something many of you are familiar with.  

If this isn't familiar to you - then this post isn't for you.

I wouldn't be putting this out onto the internet if I didn't think that a whole lot of you have your own drinkin' mishap stories.  Maybe yours include falls, wardrobe malfunctions, dance parties, singing the best karaoke you ever sang, getting into fights, setting yourself on fire, breaking your arm, smackin' your significant other around, throwing up all over yourself, going home with a stranger, saying things that hurt someone, or betraying (or maybe being betrayed by) a friend.

Couple of these are harmless and fun (I mean drunk me was a real karaoke superstar, guys!).  Most in fact though, are definitely not.  

The ones that are not - are followed by regret. If you carry a lot of these stories of regret then you are the target audience of this post and if you are in fact part of the target audience of this post then you KNOW what often happens when you wake up -

--You come to in the morning--

*Head hurts... and mouth is SO dry.*
*Opens one eye and rolls over to see if there's some water nearby*
*Head HURTS HURTS and you need some ibruprofen*
*Wonders why heart is pounding so hard*
*Begins collecting flashbacks from the previous night's events*
*Checks to see if you have your phone*
*Checks to see who you drunk texted*
*Checks your social media activity to see if you posted anything stupid*
*Checks your bank account to see if it's still in the green*

*Checks kitchen to see what kind of food binge was had*
*Thinks if you ate something maybe it would help*

*Also thinks eating could go either way and you might just throw up instead*
*Excessive visits to the toilet*

*Considers staying in bed all day if possible*

*-Insert any other favorite hangover symptom here-*

and then what do you say to yourself while you're feeling like trash? Say it with me -

"I HAVE GOT TO STOP DOING THIS." 

You tell yourself you're only drinking beer next time, having a glass of water between each drink next time, having no more than 2 or 3 max next time, you'll eat more before drinking next time, you'll buy a smaller bottle of wine next time, you'll get to bed earlier next time, etc.

But us humans, see, we don't learn too fast and by the time Thursday rolls around you have somehow forgotten how awful it felt when you woke up that morning after partying hard all last weekend.  Some of you forget by afternoon each day and stop right back at the store on your way home from work. Some of you throw a shot of something in your morning coffee before work because you swear by "the hair of the dog" method and you just need it to feel straight and keep that hangover from creepin' up. 

Maybe some of you are "lucky" enough that you don't really get too hungover regardless of how many you throw back but you still have an arsenal of regrets from drinking.

Let's call it what it is - abusing alcohol.

Let's call abusing alcohol what it is - a means of avoiding or coping with some kind of unwanted and uncomfortable feelings.  (I mean, I don't know if the dictionary says that - but I've been on my own journey, and talked to enough people and done enough research that I think it's a pretty good definition.) 

I don't want to include everything that I have learned from my alcohol abuse journey in one post but I do want to leave you with two things to start -

A LOT of people are doing this to themselves, and they want to stop - not just you.  

A sober life is the very best gift that I have EVER given myself and I am convinced that it can be that for you too if you'll put in the work.  You are worth it.

Sincerely,

-K.

If you liked this post - be sure to bookmark and stop back now and then because I will be sharing more of my journey with you. #DAY842

Oh, Hey! I'd Like To Reintroduce Myself

I abandoned this blog about 10 years ago.

    My life has changed considerably since the stayin' at home with kids days.  I am now the mother of two teenagers, have been married 18 years, own my own business, and know a lot more about life due to MANY lessons that I've learned over the course of the last decade.

    I've unpublished nearly all of the old posts that were here - as they are no longer relevant, or they were boring or just kind of cringey (you know, like when Facebook reminds you of the really dumb posts you wrote 13 years ago and you're like WHAT?!)

    The content will be different here now as I've resolved in my life to help people wherever I can.  I will share things on a lot of different topics - so the "Randomosity" title is still fitting - hence keeping the page rather than starting over.

    I am 842 days sober from alcohol as of the writing of this post and will use this platform in part to help inspire others to start or maintain their own journey of sobriety.  I've also got an anxiety disorder, have struggled with IBS for over 20 years, and most recently - I've been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after a series of unfortunate events that wrecked my mental health.  I'm here to make people feel like they are not alone.

    I am a work in progress and I have learned that writing is therapeutic for me, which is why this blog was started to begin with.

I hope you can find something here that resonates with you.

Love,

K.

A Funny Little Piggy Cake! (and how I made it)

Heres what I did...


I got up in the morning and separately stirred up 2 white cake mixes, which I dyed pink with red food coloring.  I put one whole mix in my midsize (greased and flour dusted) stainless steel bowl.  The other mix I divided up between my small stainless steel bowl and a shallow loaf pan.

I just kept an eye on all of them until they were done in the middle.  The large bowl took close to an hour and the smaller ones only about 35 minutes.  I let them cool off a while and then flopped them out onto my "cake board" which is just a piece of cardboard with tin foil and saran wrap over it and I spray it with a teeny bit of pan spray so I can move things around if  I want.  


I plopped the "body" out and then the "head" and then with the loaf pan cake I cut it up to make the legs and arms.  


While the cakes were baking I whipped up my first ever batch of marshmallow fondant which seems intimidation for a total beginner but it was SO easy and fun!  I melted a 10oz package of Jet Puffed miniature marshmallows in a Pyrex bowl, added 2 tablespoons of water, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and my red food coloring (3 drops I think).  You stir it around a bit and then just keep dumping cups of powdered sugar in and stir and then dump another cup and stir and do that until you have what looks and feels like more of a "dough".  I then greased and dusted the counter with powdered sugar, flopped the concoction out onto it and kneaded it a while until it was nice and smooth and kept adding more powdered sugar as needed.  You will want to put shortening all over your hands or it sticks to them.


When it feels like a nice not-to-sticky not-too-dry ball of fun, you wrap it in saran wrap and put it in the fridge.  I then went back to the cake - arranged it how I wanted to on the board, and once that cooled I frosted the whole thing with white frosting.  It doesn't have to look good - nobody is going to see that part.  It's just going to be used to keep the fondant in place basically.


When that was all done, I took the fondant out of the fridge (the recipe said to keep it in the fridge overnight but come on, I am not that patient).   I kneaded it a little until it softened back up enough to roll out.  I rolled it with a non-stick rolling pin onto a sheet of greased wax paper until it was pretty thin but not thin enough so it was tearing.  Carefully, I flopped it upside down over the top of the cake and then peeled off the paper and smoothed the fondant over the body shape.  (Sorry I would have taken pictures if my hands had not been a sticky greasy mess!)


I took a knife and trimmed off all the excess and rolled that back into a ball.  I made the ears, the tail, and the snout with some of that, and then I added a drop of blue food coloring to what was left and kneaded it in until it made blue fondant which I made the necktie out of.


I decided I needed white for the eyes and tie stripes so I stuck 3 regular sized marshmallows in a bowl, tiny bit of water, and then just added powdered sugar until it was pliable just like the first time.  


The eyes are brown M n' Ms.  


I used chocolate frosting for the "mud" and then dyed some white frosting green for the "grass".  


It was really fun and I really enjoyed making it.  
The moral of the story is don't be afraid of fondant.  This kind tastes good and it was really, really easy to make and work with.  I will DEFINITELY be using it again.

Finished!