This Time 'Round

The first time I quit smoking (for real - I quit before for like 4 hours.  I know.  Will power is not one of my strongest qualities...)  I was cocky.  From day 1,  I called myself a 'non-smoker.'  Of course, at the time I didn't really think of it as being cocky, I told myself it was mind over matter.  Therefore if I said it enough, it would become true.  

"I don't want a smoke!"  I would brag. 

"Ugh, the smell of stale smoke makes me gag."  I would lie.

Sure, I could stand outside with all the smokers and *not* inhale their second hand smoke.  I was a non-smoker.

Of course I could sit on the patio and enjoy a beer without a cigarette.  I was a non-smoker.

Absolutely I could go into the gas station to pay for my gas and resist the urge to buy the cigarettes staring back at me from behind the counter.  Because...I was a non-smoker.

I could have just one puff of that smoke, because I was a non-smoker.  No big deal...

5 months later, I was a full-fledged smoker. 

This time 'round, I'm not so cocky.  I am a smoker.  As much as I wish I wasn't, I am.  I cannot stand out with the smokers, I cannot have a beer on the patio on a sunny afternoon.  Alas, I will have to pay at the pump for the foreseeable future.  I love the smell of smoke.  In a stressful situation?  My first inclination is to have a smoke.  Bored?  A smoke could fill the time. 

I am a smoker.  Just as a drug addict or an alcoholic is and always will be an addict, I will always be a smoker.  I can't have just one.  One leads to just one more. 

But I am two weeks smoke free.  The nausea has gone away - for the most part.  I don't crave a cigarette 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  About once every hour, I will think..."oooooh, let's go have a smoke!"  and then I remember I can't.  A few deep breaths, or a walk around the block and it goes away until the next wave of desire comes along. 

It's a head game.  The thought of not having a cigarette ever, ever again is worse than actually not having one.  And if I have *just one more* I'm back to the beginning.  I didn't go thru hell just to start all over.

Molly (a.k.a the Mollsters, Molls, Molls Balls...)

Whenever you move into a new home, it always takes a while to get used to all it's little creaks and things that go bump in the night.  For instance, when I turn on the sink in my bathroom (yes, I have have my very own bathroom) the toilet makes a flushing noise.  I think it's just my toilet's way of reminding me that its there if I need it.  It's comforting.  Not so comforting is the light in the hallway that turned on on it's own last night.  And I know I wasn't just imagining it, because my mom saw it too. 

Thankfully, I now know which switch turns the lights in the garage on, and which one turns the furnace off.  I did think the switch was quite high for a light switch...but who am I to judge, right?  After two days of 11 degrees inside the house...it is no exaggeration when I say it was warmer outside than it was inside...the furnace fixer guy came and turned the switch "on".  Now I'm pretty sure that if it had been labelled, I wouldn't have turned the furnace off, but you never really know....

We're also getting used to Molly...

ummm...she's a puppy.  It's hard to get her to stay still.  I think that is her tail on the left...

Isn't she the cutest thing ever?

This is her model pose.

Molly is our new puppy.  She is a Cairn Terrier and she is three months old.  She is just the sweetest little thing ever.  She gets into everything...like the garbage and my sock drawer.  She loves my socks and my slippers.  She loves to bite Q's ankles.  I think for this reason, Q could either take her or leave her.  He's taking a while to warm up to her.  She thinks the whole world has been put here just to love her.  When we go for a walk, she has to say hello to her public, it's just hilarious.  She starts wimpering and jumping, like, "Oh my goodness, they're here for me.  They want to say 'Hi' to me.  Oh, I know they'd love me if they just got to meet me.  Oh how could they not? I'm just the cutest thing ever!!!" 

I know this is what she is thinking.  She gets it from me.

And then she has this pose.  Ears up, tail up, one paw forward, one paw back, front paws together.  She does this randomly during our walks.  When you're fabulous, I guess you never forget right?  Smell the ground...smell the ground...smell the ground....POSE.  It makes a 10 minute walk take 25 minutes when you have to stop and pose every three sniffs.  But I just love her little attitude. 

I think it would be great if people everywhere adopted the attitude of a three month old puppy.  Just imagine it, everyone you meet..."Hi!  Hi!  Hi!!!  How are you?  Oh, I am just so excited to see you.  You smell just so good.  I love you.  Do you love me?  We are going to be best friends, I can just feel it.  Oh, I just peed on your leg!  I love you, I love you, I love you..." 

I'm not gonna lie though, saying, "Molly make a poo!" in a baby voice does not actually encourage nor convince Molly to 'make' a poo.  Interestingly enough, letting her out of the kitchen onto the carpet for mere seconds does the trick in that regard...

I'm soooo mad. No, I'm sad. Wait, wait...nope...I'm mad...

There are a few things they neglect to tell you when you're quitting smoking.  This is most likely because if you knew, you wouldn't quit.  Kind of like child birth.  If there were a way to explain the level of agony you'd experience during child birth, you wouldn't do it.  At least I wouldn't do it.  Unfortunately, our brain forgets certain things...like child birth, just so that we do do it again.  I fogot some of these things from the last time I quit smoking. 

I distinctly remember being told that cravings last for mere 10 second intervals.  Make it through the 10 seconds and you're good for a couple of hours.  This is a lie.  I crave cigarettes 24 hours a day.  If (and by if, I mean when...) I wake up in the middle of the night, I instantly crave a cigarette.  It is all I can think about.  There might be a 10 second window in my 24 hour day that I do not think about smoking.  Drink a glass of cold water, they say.  Ya, okay.  Whatever. 

I have this yucky metalic taste in my mouth that I cannot get rid of.  No matter how many times I brush my teeth, nor how many mints I suck on, nor how many pieces of gum I stuff in my mouth...it's still there.  It's horrible.

I have copious (and I use this word only because there is no other word that can describe it other than 'copious') amounts of saliva.  I am producing so much saliva that I am surprised I am not continually drooling throughout the day.  I spit when I talk.  Because I have copious amounts of saliva.  It's driving me crazy.  I should donate my saliva to people with dry mouths.  Wouldn't that be nice of me?

It has been almost a week and I still feel like puking.  Only now it comes in waves.  I'll be feeling next to normal and then all of the sudden I feel so horribly ill.  And the dizzy spells are getting old. 

In the grieving process, I'm somewhere in between denial and anger and sadness.  I go from thinking I could have "just one more" to freaking out when I remember that I cannot have any more, ever ever again.  I am angry that something so trivial could have such a hold on me.  I am angry that the person next door is allowed to smoke and I'm not.  I am angry that people think it's easy, but say they think it's hard.  I am angry that people who've quit before me say that it is the best thing they've ever done.  I went on this quit smoking web site and I've never seen anything so condescending in my life.  And that's only because I'm super grumpy today.  Maybe tomorrow it will be helpful...I get so mad/frustrated that sometimes I just want to scream.  And sometimes, I do scream.  I'm pretty good at controlling it in public, though.  Yay for me.

I miss my old friend tobacco, and I am mourning the loss of nicotine.  Formaldyhyde and carbon monoxide, oh the world just isn't the same without you.

One more...

I'm dying. 

Okay.  Maybe not.

But close. 

I quit smoking (again) on Saturday morning.  Have you ever tried to quit smoking?  I'm jumping ahead of myself...have you ever smoked before? 

It's fabulous.  The taste of it, the smell of it, the feel of it between your lips.  Ugh.  I would kill for a cigarette right now. 

Aside from all of it's fabulousness though, is a stigma.  After moving into the new house, I stepped out onto the deck to have a smoke and I heard this voice from nowhere (maybe it was God) say, "Oh no.  She's a smoker."  Pause. "No, I'm watching her right now."  Pause.  "On the patio."  I looked everywhere to see where the voice was coming from, but I couldn't find it.  I slowly put the cigarette out and slinked back inside. 

Another time, I was smoking in a parking lot, with Q near by.  Some old guy walks by and mutters (very loudly, probably because he was deaf...) "Bet she smokes with the kid in the car too."  It's the stigma.  I'm a trailer trash momma.

Your clothes smell, your hair smells, your hands smell, your breath smells. 

Then there's the whole it-could-kill-you thing.  How can something so wonderful be so lethal?  How?  This is my main reason for quitting.  Q saying, "you know you're going to die if you keep smoking, right?" Damn public service announcements -educating our kids.  I think PSA's should mind their own business. 

I quit smoking a year ago.  And I was pretty good for 5 whole months.  And then I thought I could have just one more.  That's the lie...you can't just have one more.  It leads to another, and another.  Plus, I substititued candy for cigarettes, so I gained about 20 lbs.  Everytime I craved a cigarette, I'd eat a chocolate bar instead.  The first time someone asked if I was expecting, I laughed it off (and asked what she thought I was expecting...)  When the second person asked when the baby was due...It was all I could do to keep from ripping their head off. 

I guess everyone has a different reaction to quitting smoking.  I'm going cold turkey.  Nothing else has worked in the past.  It just prolongs the inevitable...smoking again...   I've tried accupunture, nicorettes, the patch.  They just keep nicotine in my system, and make me crave it more. My withdrawl consists of insane nausea, combined with bouts of dizziness.   My lungs feel as though someone broke every single one of my ribs and then jumped on them once more just to be sure.  Not to mention the overwhelming desire to punch the guy who cut me off in traffic, yell at the wind for blowing my hair into a mess, or any other number of completely irrational outbursts that could possibly release a tiny bit of angst I'm feeling.  So, I'm on day 3 of feeling like I need to puke.  And the world is spinning.  Even when I close my eyes. 

And this is not even the worst of it.  Once the physical withdrawl symptoms disappear...then the mental/emotional ones begin.  Smoking is a relationship.  I know this sounds ridiculous to some.  But it is a relationship.  It's like the abusive boyfriend that you keep going back to because after he hits you, he tells you he loves you and all you remember is the wonderful things about him.  Quitting is a process.  Breaking the routine.  The first coffee without a cigarette, the first beer without a cigarette.  The most haunting thought ever is that I can never have another smoke again.  I look at people who are smoking, and I think,"Oh!  They're so lucky!  They're allowed to smoke."

Once this wave of nausea passes, I will be reminded of the fact that as the nicotine leaves my body, the following is happening:

• 20 minutes: My blood pressure and pulse rate return to normal
• 8 hours: Oxygen levels in my blood return to normal.
• 24 hours: Carbon monoxide has been eliminated from my body. Lungs start to clear out mucus and other smoking debris.
• 48 hours: There is no nicotine left in my body. Ability to taste and smell is greatly improved.
• 72 hours: Breathing becomes easier. Bronchial tubes begin to relax and my energy levels increase.
• 2-12 weeks: Circulation improves throughout my body, making walking and running a whole lot easier.
• 3-9 months: Coughs, wheezing and breathing problems get better as lung functions increase by up to 10%. 
• 5 yrs: Heart attack falls to about half that of a smoker.
• 10 years: Risk of lung cancer falls to half that of a smoker. Risk of heart attack falls to same as someone who has never smoked.

I want to drop kick everyone who says I can do it.  If I wanted your opinion, I'd ask for it.  I can jump from an airplane too.  Doesn't mean I'm going to.  And stop having faith in me.  Okay?  Okay.

Now Don't I Feel Silly

Uhhhh, so I'm not sure if you all got to read Melanie's comment regarding my last post...but it appears as though one of my "secrets" should be that I either cannot read well or I do not follow directions well.  The rules of the award are that you have to share 10 truths about yourself...not 10 secrets.  Hmmm, so this is really awkward.  I mean, for absolutely no reason at all you all now know that I go commando.  Geez, I'm really glad I didn't tell you any really secret secrets.   That would have been really awkward. 

What happens now? 

Does the award get taken away? 

Just for the record, I still can't remember what my #8 secret is and it is driving me insane.  Insane, I tell you.  I can think of a million other "secrets" but not the one I had written for #8.  My new #8 secret (and I'm sticking with secret, because aren't secrets just really, really private truths??  Haha, I win by default!!) is that my memory is shot.  Completely.  And now that Q is 5 1/2, I'm pretty sure I can't blame it on 'baby brain'...

But I am so glad I was able to make Melanie laugh.  I had quite the laugh at my own expense, I must admit.  And to answer her question, yes...as a matter of fact, my uterus is angry right now. 

I'm Baaaaccck!!!

Well, the move went smoothly, thanks for asking!  There are still boxes everywhere and I can't find a thing.  I think that it would have been a really fabulous idea to label the boxes, but me being me...well, I thought I'd remember.  Evidently, my memory is not what it used to be.  For example, I did not remember that I put my steel toed work boots in a plastic bag, in the bottom of my laundry basket and then covered them with dirty clothes.  I'm sure it seemed like a really good idea at the time.  It was not a good idea on Monday afternoon when I was almost late looking for them.  After running out of boxes, I also thought it would be a good idea to use garbage bags for items.  It was not a good idea when I couldn't for the life of me remember where I 'packed' my underwear....

Thankfully, I am never moving again.  Ever.

I am the Queen of Too Much Information.  It's true.  I tend to use my outside voice when it would be much more appropriate to use my 'thinking voice' instead.  Sure, it gets me into trouble more often than not, but it also lets people know exactly where they (or I) stand.  I like to think of it as a public service of sorts.  If, for instance, I tell all of my colleagues that my uterus is angry, they know to stay away.  Isn't that nice of me?  I can be a tad unreasonable when I'm in the midst of my monthly gift, and so a warning is just my way of being courteous.  I think it's really very thoughtful. 

So when my fellow blogger Melanie Sherman of "Meanderings of Melanie Sherman" (thank you, thank you, thank you!) gave me an award with the rule that in order to accept it, I had to share 10 secrets about myself...well, it positively stumped me.  Do I really have any secrets (ack...10 whole secrets)?  And if I do, are they juicy enough to share? 

The following is my list of ten.  If you take the "S" out of the award...well, that's probably more accurate....

1. I have removed my profile and cancelled my subscription from every single dating site, including e-harmony (okay, so that was the only one...)  Learn from my experiences.  It's not a great way to meet men, it's a great way to judge people based on a few blurry pictures and a paragraph on what they do in their spare time.  I don't know about you, but I can't be summed up in three sentences.  I'm going to leave it in the hands of The Big Man Upstairs...
2. I look better naked than clothed.  I have this little tummy that safely cradled my child as he grew inside me.  I have rockin' legs.  The girls are pretty fabulous for my 32 years (they're my favourite!) I have curves.  Clothes just cover them up.  Maybe I need a trip to "What Not to Wear" so that I can learn how to dress my curves...I think this 'secret' is interesting because most people have hang ups about their nakedness, but not me.  Don't get too excited, though, ladies...you'll just have to take my word for it...I am not about to offer up any pics as proof...
3. I hate wearing underwear.  Ergo I don't wear it.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I wear it when it's appropriate to wear it.  You know, to work and stuff like that.  But, if you ever see me in sweat pants...you can be sure I'm going commando....ahhhh, the Queen of TMI....
4. I hate brushing my teeth.  I don't know why, but I hate it.  I do it, faithfully, twice a day.  But I do not enjoy it.  Aren't teeth just bones, really?  Do we brush our bones?  NO.  I know, ridiculous logic but that is my argument.  Just to clarify, I hate it when my teeth aren't brushed too.  Geez, no pleasing this girl, huh?
5. I am not a morning person.  I'm not a "wake-up" person.  I am not one of those who jumps out of bed the moment her eyes pop open, eager to start the day, whistling a tune.  It takes me a good 30 minutes and two cups of coffee to wake up.  And it's not just that I'm grumpy.  I'm incoherent.  Poor Q.  One day he said, "Mommy, wake up"  and I said, "Okay, okay.  Did you get the elastic bands off the counter?"  Silence.  "Mommy," he said quietly.  "I don't know what that means."  Well, me neither....I had drifted off again and was talking in my sleep.  Coffee is my drug of choice.
6. This isn't so much a secret.  I just haven't had a chance to blog about it yet.  Realizing that I most likely will not get married in this lifetime (and at this rate, not the next one either...ha...ha..ha.) and therefore will not be having any more children of my own, I have decided to become a foster parent.  Not in the near, near future because I think Q should be a little bit older so he can understand the concept.  I thought about adoption, but there are soooo many people waiting to adopt a perfect little newborn.  What about the older kids?  The ones who get lost in the system?  I can plant the seed, I can give them my love and my time, and all it takes is a seed.  I don't expect it to be easy  But some of the most rewarding experiences in life come as the result of hardship.  The one thing every child deserves is love.  I have heaps of love to give.
7. I have a sweet tooth, and very little will power....mmmmmmm, sweets.  I'm snacking on some cinnamon hearts right now.
8. (While editing, I inadvertantly erased "secret #8" and now I can't remember for the life of me what it was.  Aarrrrgh.)
9. I know I'm not supposed to care, but I want everyone to like me.  I don't like it when people don't like me.  Why not?  I'm nice.  I'm like super nice.  I smile at everyone.  I hold open doors.  I will bend over backwards in an attempt to make you like me.  What's not to like about that?  Huh?  What?  Well, it's not my fault you're a miserable old hag who doesn't like anyone.  Someone did not love you when you were a child, and I'm sorry.  But it's not my fault.  And I will still smile and I will still say "Hi!" So there.  I win.
10. If I had to do it all over again, the things I would do differently: Laugh more, worry less.  Trust more, worry less.  God knows I've made my share of very, very stupid choices.  But I wouldn't change them at all.  They've made me who I am.  They've allowed me to understand Grace in a way I couldn't have otherwise.  And in the midst of all my pain and loneliness, He gave me an amazing gift to let me know He was still there.  He gave me Q.

And I'd like to thank the Academy..(and Ms. Sherman, of course!!!)  Go check her out, I think she's fabulous!!