The Lonely Wine Reefer

Well, yesterday sucked to put it bluntly.  Day started off lovely and went downhill from there.  I dealt with bad news on three fronts.  It's like it just kept coming at me all day in waves.  By the time I had dealt with this trifecta, I was exhausted and could hardly think straight.  The news would be best characterized as tragic on one front, high frustration on another, and disappointing on the third front.  3 completely unrelated issues.

....and I didn't have a single wine craving.  I didn't even have the energy to think of it.  I enjoyed my mocktails attempting to relax a little by the pool and all was good.  All I could think of was that I was so emotionally beat up that the last thing I wanted was to become even more emotional and tired with any addition of alcohol to my system.  I guess this is progress.

I never commented on my blog comments from yesterday but did appreciate them!

So today, I decided to be a little more lighthearted in my post.  Something to make me chuckle a little as I start off this day.......

The one thing that made me feel very sad and deprived for giving up alcohol.....pathetic as this is to admit...was having to stare into my empty wine refrigerator.  We have one of those pretty little two drawer things where each drawer holds 24 bottles of wine.  The top drawer is one temperature for red wines and the bottom is another for whites.

When I remodeled a few years back I was so excited to have them, felt so grown up.  Oh the anticipation I felt of putting wonderful and expensive wines in there, to take out on special occasions, savoring their delight.

Okay, I must be real.....nothing got stored.  Except for maybe one or two expensive bottles that might last 6 months.  But eventually we stopped buying expensive wine because we downed it too quick.

Our elegant wine reefer became home to Barefoot, 2 buck Chuck and Rex and Goliath.....Americans will know what I mean here, not sure what the Australian and British equivalents are....

No wait!!!  Don't tell me.... because what other countries think is crap, we probably pay a fortune here for....never mind, I don't want to know!  If you live outside the states and pay a lot for any I just mentioned.....err, I'm sorry...  I actually like the stuff but if it is $6 a bottle, well, that is expensive....let's put it that way...

When I stopped drinking, I felt so sad for my little white wine reefer.  Hubby still keeps his red one stocked....every week or a few times a week more of the red goes in, but none of the white.  He likes white well enough but isn't buying any out of deference to me.

So wasting away my little reefer sat....

UNTIL...

I loaded her with Bananas!!!  It's amazing how perfect it is for fruit!!  I upp'd the temperature a hair so the skins don't turn black but I can put in bananas and they stay the perfect ripeness for so much longer!

But then I still felt bad......We don't eat that many bananas and she seemed so empty, so forlorn.....

So then I moved the bananas up to the red section - it's three shelves and hubby doesn't use all - and loaded one shelf in my reefer with Pellegrino water and the other with AF wine of the chardonnay and champagne flavors.  (Okay, the word flavor is a stretch but in small doses mixed with club soda, lime, etc, it's not so bad..)

Now my reefer is full and it's amazing what this did for my spirits!!  Again, another habit I didn't have to get rid of, just retooled.  I can stroll over to my reefer, whip out something, make my drink at the bar, go out to cocktail hour, lounge by the pool, talk on the phone and have none of the ill effects of the old days!!!

It's funny, it is no longer starting to feel like a "second best" nor a "substitute".....it is just what I do!

Some may think this is a bad idea to replicate the drinking atmosphere, but, for me, keeping what I liked about it without all the negatives has made me much happier than depriving myself.   This way I can participate in all the camaraderie and conversation and, oh my goodness, actually remember it!

HD