Chrysalis

a bat somehow got into the bedroom. MAN! You should have seen our cat go after that bat! :D I'm really looking forward to...

Yeah, come on, folks! Give Jenny some avatars to play with--even if you find them on the Internet. I hate to see such a nice girl cry.

deceive

Here are our cats, Trixie and Harry. Trixie is the upside down goofy one. They were both snoozing on the bed but as soon as she saw my camera she had to get silly on me. Trixie is 6 years old. Harry, our 16 year old tom cat, is as usual looking at her and thinking "Always gotta grab all the attention, don't you, Sis?" :)

Just think... this is the last Monday you will have to live through before you're together again. Isn't that great??!!

How did I miss this thread originally??!! It's great! I would never have the nerve to color my hair that way but I admit that it looks really cool on you. And I love the way your hair goes with the dress. Knock-out!! Your boyfriend is a lucky man. Hope you had a great time that evening.

Deltawings, what you did this year was to QUIT SMOKING!! For Pete's sake, don't minimize how difficult that is or how important that is. You said in your first post that you had quit before, several times, but always relapsed. Well, this year you did NOT relapse and you sure as shootin' proved that you have control there. I don't know what else you did or didn't do this year. But if you quit smoking, then this year was a huge success! Give yourself a lot of credit for that.

Poor little sweetie! I'm glad that she made her feelings known. Hopefully, Santa will be a fun experience next year!

Decided to get creative tonight and made a new dish. It's standard bacon-wrapped chicken but I marinated the chicken in A1 Steak Sauce for an hour before wrapping and baking it. It's excellent! (I have seen something similar but using teriyaki sauce, which is too sweet for me). Here is the marinated chicken on top of the bacon strips. Here are the wrapped chicken strips heading for the oven. Here is the finished product. Served with rice pilaf (with mushrooms and pine nuts) and spinach/mushroom salad. DH was a happy man tonight! :)

Well, as most hospital workers know, when the patient starts feeling well enough to grouse about everything, their recovery is well under way. You say that you are feeling better, headaches almost gone, able to exercise some, definitely on the upswing. So naturally, now is when you start to complain about your eating patterns! You're complaining about that because everything else is noticeably improved. (LOL!!) Please don't worry about what you are or are not eating just now. Continue doing whatever is necessary to continue and complete the healing process. Exercise gently as often as you are allowed. And get off your back about anything else. Cut yourself some slack, girl!

Love it! Thanks, Jenny. Bakon, you look good in a beard! :)

Good man, Rowly! I know that you feel as though you are hanging on by your fingernails right now. I felt that way too from time to time. But remind yourself why you chose to quit in the first place (I imagine that the 2-year-old is a major motivator) and trust us when we tell you that this rough stuff WILL PASS. Things WILL get better! I promise.

There is a lot of help and advice floating around intended to help people through the beginning of a quit. And, indeed, the first month or so is the hardest time. Not only do we have to suffer through the physical nicotine withdrawal, but we have to learn about how a nicotine addiction affects us and how to deal with the emotional and psychological aspects of quitting, too. So the intense help and support are necessary. But I have also seen quite a few people start to have trouble AFTER the beginning stage. They start to have a lot of trouble in month 2 or 3 or 4. These people are no longer "newbies" but they're not Phartes yet, either. What I have noticed is that a lot of the time people at this stage of quitting-- what I call "the end of the beginning"-- start obsessing about cigarettes. That's what happened to me at about that time-- I started to think about smoking a cigarette all the time. I wanted one all the time. I fantasized about driving to the nearest convenience store and buying a pack. Half of my brain would say, "No! No! No!" and the other half would say, "Yes! Yes! Yes!". I really didn't WANT to go back to smoking, but eventually I couldn't stand the constant, corrosive, obsessive thinking about cigarettes! There are some very good classic posts about this in-between stage that is sometimes called the"No Man's Land"stage. But something that helped me a lot was something another member said when I was struggling-- you CAN control what you think about! Imagine that! When you keep thinking and thinking and thinking about smoking, you can NOT stop thinking about smoking. That is true--you can't stop. But what you CAN do is to choose to think about something else instead. For example, right now think about an elephant. Imagine that elephant in great detail-- size, color, smell, environment, eyes, tusk, etc. Now think about a classroom. Imagine it in great detail-- its size, color, smell, desks, windows, environment, etc. Now the elephant-- in detail! . Now the classroom-- in detail!. Notice that you can focus EITHER on the elephant OR on the classroom but not both at once. (Unless you put the elephant in the classroom which is cheating. ) Your brain can not hold 2 different images at the same time. It just can't. So when you find yourself obsessing about smoking a cigarette and it's driving you crazy-- FORCE YOURSELF TO THINK OF SOMETHING ELSE. Do not entertain those thoughts about smoking. Get out of the house and go someplace. Or go clean the kitchen. Or put on some bouncy music and dance. Or balance your checkbook. Or sit quietly and imagine in great detail your favorite vacation spot. YOU control what your brain thinks about. Do not let Nicodemon control your thinking; YOU control it! This can be a tough fight, I know. It took me a couple of weeks to master the knack of choosing what to think about and what not to think about. But once I mastered that, I never got into another one of those miserable obsessive ruts. The occasional smoking thought, yes, but not the obsessing. And believe me, that is a marvelous relief! So try it. If you find yourself thinking about smoking all day every day, force yourself to think about something else. Don't try NOT to think about smoking, but DO think about something else. I hope this will help you "tweeners" who are doing so well!

I have used patches and yes, you can cut them in half. The only problem is that the 1/2 size does not stick very well. You have to keep it in place with adhesive tape or something.

Come on, Rowly, say something! Please don't just sit there thinking about how miserable you feel. At least tell us how miserable you feel!

Hi, Karen- Yes, many people seem to go through a really tough time around 8 weeks. Odd how that happens, but it does. But as you say, it is TEMPORARY. Things WILL get better, I promise!

You also mentioned stress about your holiday money. The holidays can be emotionally difficult for all kinds of reasons. I can well understand that the combination of car repairs, tight money, and holiday stress could provoke frequent thoughts of smoking. Is that what is happening with you?

Can you tell us what is going on with you? You're 60 days away from the cigarettes, so it can't be actual nicotine addiction. You said you are stressed with car repairs. So is it the stress that is making you want to smoke?

Good morning, rowly. Thank you for posting an SOS before you went out to buy some smokes!

weave

Well, if I had been doing so well with nutrition and exercise and then had this fairly serious head injury that messed everything up, I think I would be a mixture of angry, frightened and sorry for myself. Does any of that sound familiar? Can you do any exercise at all or do you have to remain as quiet as possible? Could you swim? Use a rowing machine? Walk? Anything?

daydream

FYI-- Jen and Nancy and I had a nice chat. Jen is feeling a little better now and she is determined keep her quit (one day at a time, like all of us).

I'm sorry that you are struggling so much these days. I have had those obsessive smoking thoughts and they drive me crazy when they're happening. Can you come chat for a few minutes?

housework