Archive for smoking
>Rites of passage.
>
It’s officially Saturday, although you can’t really speak of morning yet. It’s still in the middle of the night, but by the time I finish writing this, it will be so close to dawn that it will be almost morning. I’m glad that it’s officially Saturday, because I feel that I can go back to bed at any time and sleep until I’m done sleeping and ready to get up again, although it may not actually take me that long.
Since I’ve quit smoking, I’ve started taking short naps during the day and they help me get through the occasional craving I may have for a cigarette, so I’m never really super tired and I’m done sleeping quickly. I also spend a lot of time reading to take my mind of cigarettes, so I don’t exactly get exhausted from physical activity. Reading is my main activity and it works very well to keep me occupied, but it’s not very tiring.
I think I take naps to relieve my mind of the thoughts of smoking and because it’s a distraction to lie in bed and listen to the radio and doze off for a short time. I just as easily get up again and move to my armchair to continue reading.
I think the period of quitting smoking is a huge time out from regular life and it is a period during which nothing is quite as normal as it usually is. It is a time of coping and waiting. You wait for your body to forget the actual habit of cigarette smoking. I still have the tendency to want to light up a cigarette and I’m waiting for that to dissipate and disappear altogether. I don’t want that to be part of my second nature anymore. I don’t want it to be an automatic reaction to any given situation, innocent as it is, rewarding as it might have been.
I know that in time my body and my mind will forget about this habit and it will not be second nature anymore. I will get used to not subconsciously wanting to reach for a cigarette and my lighter. I can already drink a cup of coffee without associating it with the need to smoke. Which is good, because I need my cups of coffee.
Every once in a while, though, a very strong urge to smoke hits me and I’m ready to go to my neighbor and beg for a cigarette. Pride and a dislike for my neighbor withhold me from doing so. They are nosy enough as it is. Besides, that would be one cigarette and I would still have to do without the rest of the time and it wouldn’t help me one bit. It would just be a very temporary satisfaction.
I finished reading ‘When We Were Orphans’ last night and was very much impressed with it. The ending was especially exciting and very surprising and not at all what I was expecting. It was such a well written book and so very much believable that you started to think it had really happened, but of course it was impossible, but it is the hallmark of a great book and I wonder about the author’s research for it. This is the kind of novel that will stay in my memory for a long time.
I started reading ‘Man Walks Into Room’ by Nicole Krauss. I’ve read this book before, but it was in a muddled past and I have forgotten nearly all of it, so it’s like reading a new book. I’m looking forward very much to finishing it, because I remember enjoying it very much before and being impressed with it and I will read it all day today, unless I get distracted by the television. There are some cultural programs on this morning, so maybe…
My apartment is very clean, as the domestic help was here yesterday and it also seems to stay cleaner since I’ve quit smoking. There’s less dust and no ashes and tobacco and the whole place looks better. I told the domestic help that whatever she cleaned well now would stay clean and there would not be that brown film on everything. She’s been cleaning with ammoniac to get that off everything. She’s a smoker herself and that’s how she cleans at home. The one that comes on Monday also did a good job and that’s the day I quit, so it made a difference from that day onward.
I think I will go back to bed for a little while and listen to the radio and see if I have any sleep left in me. I will find out soon enough if I’m done sleeping and if I should start the day officially now. According to Tyke it’s not time yet, because he’s sound asleep on the sofa. Gandhi is sound asleep in the armchair. It’s still early in the morning and I haven’t heard a sound yet outside. It’s even too early for the paper delivery person.
I hope you all have a good day.
Ciao,
Nora
>Encore un fois…
>
I’m following my usual ‘get up in the middle of the night’ routine and have just made myself some coffee to get the last few remnants of sleep out of my system. Not that there are that many there. I’m pretty perky as usual and could do my whole administration and not make any mistakes. I want to do something far more pleasant that that, however, and write down my thoughts and musings on no particular subject at all. That means that I’ll probably touch on many bases.
I read a lot yesterday and finished another book. I have now read A Virtuous Woman and Ellen Foster, both novels by Kaye Gibbons. She is a good writer with a unique voice and she writes with an intensity that makes you want to finish her novels in one fell swoop. That’s not hard to do since they aren’t big and you can finish one in just a few hours. They are very concise and to the point, but tell a whole big story with enough detail so you don’t feel shortchanged one bit. You like her characters, though they are not at all perfect people, and you want things to end well for them, though there are not necessarily happy endings.
I am now reading Don’t let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller. It’s a very well written autobiography about her childhood in Rhodesia. The war for independence seen from a white farmer child’s point of view. It’s extremely interesting. I love the title and it alone intrigues, but I like books about white settlers in Africa and what their experiences were there. Another book I really like about that subject is The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing. It’s a sad story, but written with a lot of compassion.
I think I will be reading When We Were Orphans next, by Kazuo Ishiguro. He’s the same author who also wrote The Remains Of The Day. He was born in Japan, but has lived in England since he was 5 years old. The story plays in Shanghai and England in the 1930’s, before WWII, and is of mystery and nostalgia and memories that go back to before that time. I loved The Remains Of The Day, so I’m looking forward to this book in particular.
I find that reading is one way to forget about smoking. I become so involved with whatever novel I’m reading that I forget all about cigarettes. I find it easier to get involved with a book and the storyline, maybe because I’m not distracted by my smoking. Maybe smoking is bad for your attention span and you lose your train of thought. Anything is possible.
Not smoking has certainly simplified my life. I can simply sit down wherever I want without having to arrange to have my cigarettes and ashtray and lighter there. I can just sit down without all the paraphernalia and get up again and move to another spot without a problem. I’m unencumbered. There’s a freedom in that. All I need is my peppermints and something to drink, though that has gotten less too and I don’t drink nearly the large amount of fluids that I used to. I’m not as thirsty and I think that is because I don’t smoke. I guess it dehydrated me.
I have not started eating more to compensate for the lack of cigarettes. I think that’s because I’m not going through nicotine withdrawal. I eat the same portions of food that I normally do. I’m definitely not planning on gaining any weight. That’s not part of the program, especially not since I lost 9 kilos this year, or maybe more, I don’t remember. If anything, I’m planning on continuing to lose weight, although I hope that the peppermints I eat don’t hinder that.
The Exfactor was here yesterday to do the groceries. I had him pick me up some chunky liverwurst, because, despite my misgivings about the meat industry, I did have some worries about getting enough protein in my diet. I thought the liverwurst would be easy to eat for me, because I did so well with the paté at my sister’s party. Well, it turns out that I don’t like the chunks in chunky liverwurst. They remind me too much of meat and where the meat came from. I guess I like my meat products to be in unrecognizable form and not in anyway to remind me of the animal, especially if it’s a cold meat product. My imagination works overtime. The Exfactor is now going to go to the Lidl close to his house and buy a few patés and see if I like those better. I’m sure I will and I look forward to him bringing those over on Thursday.
Ostensibly, he’s coming over to look at my sofa, but I think he just wants an excuse to come over, because he likes coming here. My sofa is going to be delivered this morning between 8:45 and 11:00, so there will be no sleeping late for me if I desire to go back to bed. I think I will stay up and read and watch the nightly repeat of the news. I never did get to watch the news last night and feel hopelessly uninformed.
Tyke seems to be cured of what was ailing him, so those antibiotics worked quickly. I’m sure it was that shot that set him right. He gets a pill once a day wrapped up in a slice of luncheon meat and he likes that so much that I’m sure he’d like it for the rest of his life, three times a day. Gandhi gets a slice to, but she’s a finicky eater and doesn’t finish all of hers. That leaves the rest for Tyke and he’s no picky eater. Gandhi takes little bites of her slice of meat and takes forever to finish half of it. Tyke gulps his down in one fell swoop. he doesn’t even take time to chew properly. That’s why it is so easy to hide the pill in it. I guess that’s a blessing then. You can’t do that with a cat.
I’m planning on finishing that autobiography tonight. I will sit in my armchair and do nothing but read. Hopefully I will have it finished by the morning. I will make that my goal for this night. It will not be to sleep, but to read. I can always sleep. There are enough quiet moments to go lie down and from this morning on there will even be a sofa again.
I have to go see my psychiatrist this afternoon and I’m sure he will be pleased that I’ve quit smoking and am still sane. It is a miracle isn’t it? I never thought I would be this calm. I thought I was going to be much more of a frantic person. I suppose I am very determined. I’m aiming for a 100% success rate on all fronts.
I have to get rid of that nasty little cough. If I still have it next week, I’m going to the doctor to ask him for an antibiotic, because maybe it’s a bit of chronic bronchitis, which wouldn’t surprise me after all that smoking. I never paid attention to it before and just accepted it as a smoker’s cough, but that’s ridiculous, of course. You should never accept things like that. Not even subconsciously.
It’s raining outside and 16C, so it’s not real cold. It’s supposed to clear up later today, but not get much warmer. There’s to be partial sun and clouds. That doesn’t sound too bad. Sunrise will be at 7:15 am. That’s late. It’s staying darker longer all the time.
I hope you will all have a nice morning.
Ciao,
Nora
>The day I quit smoking.
>
It’s now the afternoon of the day I quit smoking and things aren’t nearly as bad as I thought they were going to be. I thought I was going to be a nervous wreck by now, tearing out my hair and pacing the floor, searching through the trash for cigarette buds, being emotional and desperate, going to the gas station for a pack of cigarettes and all sorts of other things.
Well, I had all these scenarios in mind, but not the actual one, and that is that I’m pretty calm and only go through cravings sometimes and have a peppermint if I do. That seems to do the job. Every once in a while a sense of panic hits me when I realize that I can’t smoke, but I quickly subdue it and tell myself not to be a wuss. There are worse things in life.
I know that if I were to light a cigarette now, I would suffer from a terrible coughing fit and would not enjoy it at all. I would be bent over double from coughing, because I would not be used to smoking anymore. I do realize now that I had a chronic little cough with phlegm all day long and I really need to get rid of that and I’ll be happy when I have. It’s not healthy and it is my goal to be. I want my lungs to be clean and my bronchi to be in good shape.
I bought the bag of peppermints at the pharmacy. It’s a good thing that they sell candy there, because I bought it as an afterthought and it has come in so handy. It really takes care of the mild frustration I feel when I have a craving for a cigarette. When my mouth wants to be occupied.
I find keeping my mind occupied works well too. Reading is a good activity. I’ve started a new novel. A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons and I’m reading it quickly, because it’s that kind of a book. It reads very easily, but I think maybe I’m better able to read now that I’m not distracted by my smoking. I can pay better attention and not worry about the ashes falling on my book and having to light up another cigarette yet again.
Every once in a while I think, oh, I will light up a cigarette, but then I think, oh no, I will not, and am disappointed for just a split second, but I am immediately relieved again because I don’t have to. It’s not a compulsion. I can live without it.
The domestic help has been here and cleaned the apartment and I have also liberally sprayed all the rooms with air freshener and opened the windows wide. The ashtrays have been washed and put away. I will not be using them anymore, nor will anyone else, unless they go outside. It’s nice to have clean, never to be used again ashtrays. They will be museum pieces soon.
I wonder what smoking does to your psyche while you inhale all those different chemicals that manufacturers put in the tobacco to get you hooked? It must have all sorts of psychological effects on you that happen as a result of the chemical reactions in your brain. It can’t help but be a mood altering drug or drugs. I wonder very much how I am going to be feeling over the next weeks and months. I bet I’m going to see an improvement in my mood and my overall mental health. That’s something that really motivates me. I want to see how my total health improves.
I remember when I started smoking more than 40 years ago and how tough it was to start and how I really had to fight my body’s resistance against the nicotine. For some reason I was determined to smoke and within a very short time I was hooked. I never was hooked on anything else but nicotine, but it bit me good. I’m just as determined to quit now. I should say, to stay quit, because I already have quit.
I’m going to finish reading my book now. I have the feeling that I’ll be doing a lot of reading in the near future. Luckily, I have enough books to read. And interesting ones too.
Have a good afternoon!
Ciao,
Nora.
>Completely…
>
It’s in the middle of the night and I’m completely wide awake, smoking the last of my cigarettes until I go to the pharmacy first thing in the morning to pick up my nicotine patches. When I first got up I was miserable and grumpy and out of sorts and chain smoking, until I had my cup of coffee and then I was okay and a more reasonable human being. Coffee does set me to rights and I can never do without it. It’s like a medicine to me. I sorts out my brain. I’m convinced of the healing powers of caffeine in my case. I don’t know what it does for you, but for me it is a very positive experience.
I read blogs, which I was behind on, and left comments on most of them. Some of them I had not read in three days, so I was shamefully behind. I had not been in the proper mood and could not bring myself to read them, let alone comment on them. I am caught up now and can relax again. I feel I’ve had my enjoyment and done my duty. I read some blogs that I hardly ever comment on, because I feel a little bit like a stranger there, but I’m a faithful follower. I hope the fact that I show up counts for enough.
I had not planned to stay up, but now that I am, I am going to make the most of it and enjoy myself. I’m in such a good mood now that I want to take advantage of that and let the situation last as long as possible. I’m not going to spoil it by going to bed. There’s not a hair on my head that’s thinking about it anyway. I’m too excited to go to bed just now.
I do have very interesting dreams when I sleep and I wonder how much they are influenced by what I hear on the radio while I’m asleep. I have elements in my dreams that were not there before, so I’m sure they are coming from outside, but I give my own twist to them and incorporate them into my own fantasies. Music is part of it and I do dream about that regularly, but have people play it whom I know very well. Or have them sing songs. Still, although I listen to a Dutch radio station, all my dreams take place in the English language, of that I’m sure, and I find that interesting. My dreams are all very dramatic and look like large screen movie productions with special effects and a music score and everything. Like a filmed opera, I suppose. There’s wailing going on too, sometimes. Lord only knows what I listen to at night.
I talked to my sister yesterday and she told me that her party went on until 2:30 in the morning. Can you imagine lasting that long? I would have called it quits by midnight. I’m so obviously not a party animal and my sister so obviously is. She always has a lot of fun in a crowd of people. I do better in small intimate groups. She’s a very outgoing person, a real extrovert and shares herself with anyone and everybody. I’m more introverted and private and share myself sparingly. Except on my blog, that’s the exception. I share myself here because I can be contemplative and choose my words carefully and show what I want to show, although I’m not that secretive about myself. For the most part, I’m pretty open and tell it like it is in a mostly rational way.
For the past few days I’ve felt a bit down and I thought that maybe I was getting depressed, but it seems to have lifted now and I feel better. I suppose those are just the natural cycles that people go through that I have to get used to. Not every mood has to have a significant meaning, except for the last one I had, which was distinctly hypomanic and could have gotten me into a lot of trouble. As it is, the damage was relatively small and I didn’t do anything too crazy, except for buying a new sofa and coffee table and area rug. That’s still within reason, just about. I’m going to pay them off with the money I save on the tobacco I won’t be buying anymore. That adds up to a large amount of money.
I’m afraid of the black dog that’s always stalking me in the background, but maybe he will stay in the background this season. I’ve had years when he didn’t appear at all, and maybe this will be one of them. I’m as prepared as I can be and have all systems in place. I know I can count on the light therapy lamp to elevate my mood, there’s no doubt about that. It’s a shame that I had lost faith in it and didn’t use it last year. It would have saved me a lot of bother.
Yesterday afternoon I didn’t have an Internet connection. I reset the modem four times, unsuccessfully. I finally called the help desk and they talked me through the procedure and it turned out in the end that the cable in the hard drive wasn’t plugged in properly. Duh! I think Tyke must have pulled it loose when he went to retrieve his ball. It sure puzzled me and I hadn’t thought of that solution, but I will from now on. It will be the first place I look if and when it happens again. You learn a new lesson every day. It makes you appear a little dumb, but I don’t care about that. Let them think what they want, as long as I have my connection back.
Well, I’m going to enjoy the last hours of my smoking life. I have to stock up on some air freshener and Febrèze. I’m going to treat the whole apartment and do lots of laundry. I will have the place smelling good in no time.
Have a good day!
Ciao,
Nora
>Things you lose…
>
I decided to go one the bathroom scale this morning, after not having gotten on it for quite some time. I expected not to have lost any weight at all, because I had not been trying really to lose any. I had been eating when I was hungry and drinking lots of milk when I was thirsty. Much to my surprise I had lost another 4 kilos, that is 8,8 lbs, and just to make sure, I got on the scale twice. It is very accurate and gave me the exact same weight the second time.
Now I am one kilo away from the weight the Obesitas Specialist said I should aim for, but I think I can lose some more weight. I’m not going to obsessively go on the scale to weigh myself all the time, though. I’ll just keep eating and drinking the way I am and go on the scale occasionally, but it certainly is a nice way to start the day. It cheered me up tremendously and I needed cheering up.
I was grumpy and out of sorts when I woke up this morning. I had a runny nose and an irritating cough all night. I must have eaten something at the party that I’m allergic too. I tried all kinds of food, so I don’t know what it was. Whatever I thought I could eat easily, I ate, including a wonderful paté and a piece of quiche. Needless to say, I’m itching in all the usual places now.
The party was fine. I had one glass of white wine and one beer. There were some people I knew there, so I was not completely out of my depth. I didn’t stay too long and as I was leaving, the DJ was setting up the sound system. It must have gotten quite noisy after that. That was at 10:30 and I thought it was a good time to go. I’m not one for big crowds anyway and it was starting to be a big crowd. At least the weather was nice and a large amount of people were out on the patio.
I rode my bike home through the dark night and was a little bit worried about that and didn’t dawdle. Nothing happened, of course, and there’s no reason to think that anything would. Not in this neighborhood. It’s just the idea of being a woman out there alone on your bike in the late evening. You always feel vulnerable.
Tyke was very happy to see me and got a good belly rub. He had found his lost tennis ball and was trying to keep track of two balls at the same time. It was very funny to watch him do it. One ball in his mouth and the other between his paws and that’s how he moved around the living room.
I was pleased to walk into the living room and see the coffee table and the area rug and the new plants in their lime green pots. When I bought those, I had not realized that I already had three other lime green pots, so it was a fortunate purchase, done completely subconsciously. I must have zeroed in on that color in the flower shop without being aware of it.
The colors in the living room are going to be black and dark gray with touches of red and light green. Yellow will be eliminated. There is only one house plant in a yellow pot and I will change that today. The newly washed, yellow, fleece blanket will not be put back, nor will the yellow pillows. I’ve bought two pillows with lime green covers instead. Yellow will be banished to the bedroom.
It is overcast and dark outside and it’s supposed to rain. It sure looks like it will. I don’t mind because I’m nice and cozy inside. I will do a few chores and take it easy today. There will be no grand deeds from me. My nose is still runny and I hope that will disappear soon. Of course, smoking doesn’t help that either. Tomorrow morning I quit and I’m looking forward to it. It will be a whole new challenge and one I’m cut out for. I’m not daunted by it, although maybe I should be.
Have a great day!
Ciao,
Nora
>In the late hours…
>
I went to bed early last night and slept for a couple of hours, only to wake up to have to go to the toilet and to have to let Tyke out. I will have to go back to bed some time to sleep some more until 7 am when I will have to get up, because my sofa is going to be delivered between 8 and 9:30 am. I want to be wide awake and dressed when that happens. I also do want to have had some coffee by then.
The living room is very empty without any sofa in it at all, but there is lots of room for Tyke to play with his ball, so he has been taking advantage of that. I’ve rolled up the area rug and I’m getting rid of it, because it has stains in it and a few burn marks from dropped cigarettes from when I was still on heavy tranquilizers and dozed off regularly. It’s lucky I didn’t burn the place down. I will get another area rug when I’m at Ikea next. I’ve seen some in the catalog that are not expensive and made of natural materials. I’m sure I’ll find something there that pleases me. I’ve also seen the curtains there that I like and they are inexpensive as well and I want to get them. I’ll have to ask my sister to take me over there one of these days soon.
I love all these changes that I’m about to make and am looking forward to them. I feel that I’m being shaken out of my complacency and am accomplishing things. Everything has been on the back burner for too long and it’s about time I do something about them. It only takes a few bold steps and cutting the proverbial knot to get through the inertia that had built up. No doubt cutting down on my antidepressants has a lot to do with that, as it has given me more energy and a clearer point of view. They had actually dulled my outlook and performance. Not only am I reducing one, but I’ve cut another one out completely and I think that’s a darn good thing.
I’m getting back some good feedback on quitting smoking. Not only will my clothes and my apartment smell better, my sense of smell and taste will improve too, so that I will enjoy things a lot more. No doubt I am severely impaired in these senses now. Food should taste better and scents should smell better. I will enjoy the smell of freshly washed laundry better. I have so much to look forward to. One thing, of course, will be cleaner lungs, and no longer that cough that I have in the mornings when I wake up and smoke my first cigarette. My physical condition should improve too and hopefully I will have more endurance. I will notice that when I’m riding my bike and when I’m walking Tyke.
Oh, I’m all bogged down in seriousness. I do have to lighten up. Today is going to be a great day. It is Thursday and officially my day off. Except for the sofa, that means no appointments and no visitors. I do have to do a load of laundry and take the dry laundry off the rack in the bathroom, but that will be an easy job. It’s really not time to change the bed yet, I’ve just done that, but I’m tempted to do it again. All for the sake of clean smelling sheets. Ha, I don’t even know what clean smelling sheets are yet. I suppose I’ll have to wait a while to really find out. I’ve been fooling myself into thinking that I knew this, but I will really know once my nose starts working properly.
I’ve got the choice now to go to bed or to stay up. I’m not in the least bit tired, but it’s awfully early to start the day. I can think of some things to do. There are a couple of jobs that need my attention. I can put them off or do them now and it will be fun to fill this empty time with something useful, as long as I’m not going back to sleep.
Tyke’s gone to sleep on Jesker’s old pillow. First he pulled it into the place he wanted it to be and got rid of all the toys that were lying on top of it and then he laid down on it. He’s a smart dog. He misses the area rug to sleep on, no doubt. It’s not much fun to lie on the cold linoleum.
I’m going to do those jobs now and keep myself busy and out of trouble.
Ciao,
Nora
>After my birthday…
>
The most fun about my birthday was going downtown with my sister. It rained nearly up to the time we were supposed to leave, but when it was time to go, it stopped raining and it didn’t rain again for the rest of the day. We rode our bikes downtown and parked them and went to the department store where I had seen pretty cardigans advertised on television of which I wanted to get one. We were very disappointed, though, because there were only a few left and they were all in the wrong color and the wrong size, so that turned out to be a popcorn fart. Imagine the store advertising them and then being almost out of them. That’s no way to keep your customers happy.
We went to another store of which I knew that they usually have something good in my size and walking around there, my sister spotted a very pretty cardigan in a lovely color in my size. I tried it on, but knew ahead of time that I was going to like it, so trying it on was merely a formality. It fit beautifully and was very flattering and matched the clothes I was wearing very well, so that’s the cardigan my sister bought me. I was quite contend with that.
We went to a café on the big square and sat outside under the wide awning that had a heater built in and ordered coffee and pie. My pie had whipped cream and white chocolate and it was so good, it was like an angel walking over my tongue. It was an enormous slice and I ate it as slowly as I could, but it was too much for me to finish and I nearly passed out eating it. We had a good time, though, and chatted and watched the people walk by. There were still plenty of tourists, even though the schools and universities have started up again. People watching is such a sport, but so is chatting about everything under the sun while having a cup of coffee.
We walked through the main shopping street and said goodbye at the tourist office where my sister works and I rode my bike home, hoping I wouldn’t get rained on and I didn’t, because the gods were smiling on me. No doubt because it was my birthday.
The Exfactor came over and did the groceries for me and bought pastries for by the coffee and gave me my presents, one of which was a set of tennis balls with which he made Tyke very happy, because we had misplaced the one and only tennis ball he had. The Exfactor had bought me wheat bread with poppy seeds of which I had a peanut butter sandwich at night. I was so full of the pie that I couldn’t eat all day. He had a pastry and I watched him eat it, with no desire to have one myself.
After the Exfactor left, my friend Lucienne came over. I had not seen her in a long time, though we talk on the phone a lot. At least once a week, if not twice. We had a good old visit and I was sorry to see her go. I may not see her again for a long time, though she is in the neighborhood quite often. She finds it hard to do things spontaneously and has to carefully plan everything. She misses out on life a lot.
I had decorated the living room with streamers and balloons that I had found when I cleaned up one of the dresser drawers. Tyke was very much interested in the balloons and I gave him one to play with. Needless to say, it burst. He was shaken by that, but when I took everything down, I gave him more balloons to play with and he did it as carefully as he could. Eventually one would burst, but he was prepared and took some pleasure in it. He thought he had killed it and went on to the next balloon. He approached them and hit them and backed off, over and over again, until they burst. It’s a good way to keep your dog amused, after the initial shock.
This morning I had to go see my SPN and I was sitting there yawning and made her yawn too. I had gotten enough sleep, but I was so ready to take a nap. I wanted to curl up on the floor right there and go to sleep. We talked about me quitting smoking and how hard that was going to be, but how determined I was and how very sure I am that I am going to succeed. She’ll believe that when she sees it. She has a two week vacation coming up and when I see her next I will be an ex-smoker if all goes well. On the way home, I stopped by the pharmacy and ordered a two week supply of nicotine patches. I’m starting with the highest dose and will then taper off. I will do it over a period of six weeks, I think.
I took a nap on the sofa when I got home and slept for an hour and a half and was awakened by the Exfactor who came to help me move the sofa to the hallway from where it will be picked up on Friday by the people who will take it to the dump. It is an old, worn out, ugly sofa and it is time for it to go. I have bought a new sofa and it will be delivered first thing tomorrow morning. I plan on paying it off with the money I save from not buying tobacco anymore. The new sofa is very modern and black, because Tyke is black, and it will match the rest of the interior. So needless to say, I’m very excited about that. Now all I have to do is get the living room and hallway painted and buy new curtains. I’ve seen those in the Ikea catalog.
Have a good rest of the day!
Ciao,
Nora
>A short nap…
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I took a short nap after dinner and now feel completely refreshed and ready to enjoy the rest of the evening. I can’t go to bed too late, though, because tomorrow morning I have to go downtown with my sister and pick out my birthday present. I already know what I want, because I saw it advertised on TV, and I hope I find it in the right size and color. I’ll tell you about it when I have it.
Tyke is sitting on the dining table looking out the window. He came and asked for approval before he did so and now he’s being very good. The domestic help brought him a stubby, squeaky, rubber ball today and he has had the most fun playing with it. It’s made him happy all afternoon and he takes it with him wherever he goes. I’ve only had to retrieve it from beneath the sofa 3 times. That’s very good. It means he’s keeping good track of it. I would have had to retrieve the tennis ball many more times. We are very grateful to the domestic help.
I slept late this morning and didn’t get dressed until noontime. At least I knew which clothes I was going to wear. I was so very comfortable in my bed and then, of course, I had to leisurely drink my coffee, which will be a thing of the past once I quit smoking. I will not leisurely drink coffee anymore, but just have a cup in a hurry. I will have to change some of my habits and leisurely sitting around will be one of them. I’m sure I will be more active and I will have to find all sorts of things to do to keep myself busy. Maybe I’ll paint the living room and the hallway.
I didn’t take one moment to sit down in my armchair to read today. It is a real ritual that I have to perform, because usually I don’t sit there. I have to get my book and my reading glasses and my glass of milk. Then I have to get my cigarettes and lighter and ashtray and the pillow to lean against. I really have to settle in and I didn’t give myself the chance to do that today. I don’t know how I did pass the time of day, but of course I was asleep for a large part of it.
At least the reading ritual will be simplified a lot once I’ve quit smoking. I won’t have to bother with half of it once I do. I do want to put the emphasis on that for myself. My life is going to be a lot simpler when I’ve quit smoking because now I have to always calculate the chance to have a cigarette into everything I do and there are so many times when having a cigarette is not such an easy thing to do. The world is not smoker’s friendly anymore and I’m certainly not going to allow anyone to smoke inside my apartment once I’ve quit smoking. There is no place for smokers. They pollute other peoples’ air and it makes their world very small if they don’t want to and they can’t consciously. I’m glad I don’t live in the 70’s anymore when everybody smoked and it was normal to smoke inside wherever you were and it would have been frowned upon to ask someone to go outside and do it. I also want to keep discussing my plan to quit so that it will be a natural thing when I actually do.
I got the new Ikea catalog in the mail today and I’m going to sit down when I have a chance and look through it thoroughly. I can’t wait to see what’s in it. I know there is a nice smallish sized bookcase in it, because I’ve already looked that up on the website and it’s not too expensive. I may get that once my bookcase is full, which it almost is. I’m expecting 9 books from Bookmooch in the mail and those will take up a bit of space. The bookcase I saw is quite nice and I know just where to place it. I do have room for it. I have some of my older books in my bedroom on the bookshelf there, but I was looking at them today and some of them are nice enough to have in the living room. It’s just for lack of space that they are in the bedroom. I want to have all my fiction in one place and all the reference books in another, so I’m going to make some changes as soon as I have the chance.
It’s supposed to start raining tonight and rain tomorrow too. I actually don’t hope so if I’m going out in the morning. The Exfactor is also supposed to come over and a friend of mine is coming over in the afternoon. The Exfactor is going to do the groceries and I need him to get some pastries to have with the coffee. Rain is not welcome tomorrow and hopefully there will only be occasional showers. I usually like rain, so it’s very contradictory of me to not want any now, but I usually don’t have to go out in it. See how selfish it is of me to change my mind like that. People for the most part are very egocentric. There’s always a core of self interest in everything we choose or wish for. Most of us aren’t nearly as altruistic as we’d like to believe we are.
It’s time for me to go to bed, even though I’m not that tired yet and I could do ten other things instead. The problem is that I need to get up on time in the morning and I do want to get enough sleep. I sure hope that I don’t make the mistake of getting up in the middle of the night. I have to stay in bed and sleep and will have to figure out a way to. I will have to show some self discipline, if I have any, that is. Sure I do. I’m quitting smoking, aren’t I? You need backbone for that.
Sleep tight, goodnight,
Ciao,
Nora
>Feeling groovy…
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I got up after having gone to bed early and Tyke thought that was a sign of action and started to get all excited. I had to ignore him and wait for him to settle down again, which he has now done and he is asleep on the sofa. I don’t know why he thinks all sorts of things are going to happen in the middle of the night, because they never do. All I do is give him a rawhide chewy and hope he settles down again. He’s a darn stubborn dog with a one track mind. It’s stuck on having fun.
I was asleep under my nice clean sheets, but woke up nevertheless and had to get up. There was no sense in lying in bed waiting for sleep to come again. It will take a while for it to return. I don’t mind and gladly get up for this middle of the night interlude. I will do my real sleeping when I go back to bed. What I’ve done now is take a long nap.
I’ve given it some thought and have decided to stop smoking. It’s taking too much of my budget every month and I can use the money for other things. I will order nicotine patches at the pharmacy and finish up my tobacco that I still have and then quit smoking. For some reason I’m not at all fazed by this and I think that I can do it. I have a tremendous amount of confidence in myself and think that I will succeed.
It will mean that I and my apartment will no longer smell of smoke and that things will no longer get grimy because of it. I will be able to launder everything and have it smell fresh and apply air freshener to everything else. I’ll get rid of the ashtrays that are always so smelly and I will be able to paint the living room and the hallway without having them turn brown again. And in the wintertime I will be able to close the windows without having the place smell bad. There are so many pros to quitting and there are so many cons to smoking, but the money is a big motivating factor. It’s wasted now and that is a shame. It’s going up in smoke, quite literally.
So that is my big resolution.
I had a quiet day yesterday. I didn’t do anything exciting but change the bed and do a load of laundry that I forgot to hang up to dry, because there was till laundry hanging to dry on the rack in the bathroom. I have to take that down first and may do that in a while. There will be nice clean clothes there as well that will be tempting to put on in the morning. I can’t wait.
I spent the afternoon watching a boring baseball game and reading my novel. The baseball game was truly boring and doesn’t match up to American baseball and seems kind of amateurish in comparison. These guys could not play in the big league. I also watched some of La Vuelta, and that was a little bit more exciting. At least you get to see the scenery come by as the racers climb the mountains.
My book is good. There are some very dicey parts in it that I was not expecting and make it more than a feel good novel. I don’t quite know how to deal with these elements in this book. They seem out of place and interfere with the happy ending that I assumed there would be. It’s a bit more complicated than that and for some people life seems awfully unfair and very traumatic. I need to keep on reading to see how this resolves itself. If it does.
I walked Tyke in the fall sunshine and the somewhat chilly wind. I did wear a jacket, although it was a pretty day. Walking with Tyke is a hurry up and stop exercise, just like it used to be with Jesker. Tyke’s always finding interesting places to examine for a long time and then suddenly runs off to the next place. He has unbounded energy and I have to keep up with him.
I just realized that I forgot to put the trash out and I wonder if I will do it now that it is in the middle of the night. It’s kind of scary to go out there. I don’t really have a full bag and it can wait until next week, I suppose. I won’t be awake on time in the morning before they come to pick it up at 6 am.
I have to mail three books tomorrow for Bookmooch. I want to do that in the morning before the domestic help gets here, so I can’t sleep too late. I do have to get up at a decent time. I’m sure I will not have to set my alarm clock but wake up on my own and get out of bed if I’m motivated enough. I’m going to have tea in the morning, because I’m almost out of coffee and the Exfactor is not going grocery shopping until Tuesday. He’ll also come bearing gifts for my birthday. I asked for tennis balls for Tyke to play with. We’ve misplaced the one he had and he misses it a lot.
The try at the formation of the right wing coalition has failed and a lot of us are very much relieved. Now we start all over again and another sort of coalition will be attempted. All sorts are possible, but it will not be a right wing one, those chances are gone. Parties to the left will have to be involved and that will be much healthier and truer to the outcome of the elections. We can only keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best possible outcome. The government agreement has to be fair to the greatest amount of people and not just to an elite few at the top. It’s not the little people who should pay the price for the economic situation, which is how the right wing coalition would have wanted it. It smacked of American republicanism, to tell you the truth. I don’t think we want that kind of situation in this country. I’m more bound and determined to always vote socialistic as I see it as the fairest system for everyone in general.
Enough politics. I don’t want to alienate anyone with my personal opinions. This is supposed to be a lighthearted blog.
I’m sitting in my bathrobe, drinking a glass of milk. It’s 21C in here and the windows are still open at the top, although it is 11C outside. Isn’t it amazing how warm it stays in here? I haven’t had the heater on yet and will not for a long time. We’re not expecting rain until Tuesday and today it is going to be 21C and sunshiny. I’ve got the perfect outfit for that kind of weather.
I love to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the kind of clothes I’m going to wear because it makes me happy. I do so because I think I will look pretty, assuming somewhere along the line that I’m not this middle aged woman with this less than perfect body, but a tall woman who looks good in her well chosen clothes. I have all sorts of illusions that I’m more than happy to live with and that don’t need to be burst like bubbles or pretty colored balloons. I’m happy to live with my self image, which is good and which I never test to reality, because there’s no such thing. There’s only the concept of self and that’s all that counts.
I’m not nearly ready to go to bed and I think I will hang up the laundry. I’m afraid my schedule is turned upside down. I’m awake for the better part of the night and getting sleepy towards the morning. I feel alive during the night and enjoy myself too much. My mind is keener and I feel better. Possibly my ancestors were nocturnal. Maybe they were pub crawlers and didn’t come home until the wee hours of the morning.
Have a good day!
Ciao,
Nora
>Too much for me…
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I’m up again after having been asleep for 4 hours. I thought I would go to bed early tonight, because of the missed hours of sleep last night, but it didn’t quite work out the way I had planned. Now I’m awake, somewhat stoned from the increase in antipsychotics, which I do not like at all, and I’ve made myself a cup of coffee to try and sober up a bit. I had no other recourse. I think I will not take the increase again, it is too much for me and it did not help me sleep and for a while I actually felt sick from it and broke out in a sweat.
I think the coffee is helping, though, and I’m slowly starting to feel better. I don’t enjoy drugs to the point that they alter your mind in a negative way and that was the case here to the point of quiet deperation. In my mind’s eye I was calling the SOS line asking them what to do if you had taken too much of something, though not an overdose. In the meantime, I think I’ve solved the problem myself. I was typing emails earlier and making a lot of mistakes in them and it took me twice as long to write them, but now this is going better.
So in the end, the only thing that will have changed, is that I will take one tablet of Welbutrin instead of two, and less is better, right? I have to have the same amount of faith in it that I had in the two tablets and I think I can if nothing negative happens. I’m assuming everything will be well and will see the glass half full. So, I didn’t take my Welbutrin at 6 o’clock and you would have thought that I had expected the sky to come falling down on me. Of course, nothing happened and nothing will, because I haven’t taken it long enough yet. My reaction was funny, though, like Chicken Little.
Don’t you hate it when you hold the mouse and your middle finger keeps clicking on the right button when you don’t want it to at all? It happens to me constantly and I really have to let go of that mouse when I don’t need to hold it, but that habit dies hard. Even when you need to hold it, your middle finger reflexively keeps pushing down that right button, showing that whole little menu that you don’t want and then you have to find a white space to left click on to make it disappear. It’s just one of life’s little irritations.
I just went on the scale, which is something I said I would not do regularly, but I thought, “What the heck, lets see the state of affairs,” and I have lost 4.7 kg. That’s more than 10 lbs. Not bad, eh? I celebrated that by eating a couple of teaspoons full of Nutella. Mmm… Those are Dutch teaspoons, not American teaspoons, which are much bigger and would be dessert spoons here, except that we eat pie and cake with little forks that are especially made for it, and we don’t eat ice cream with them so we don’t need a spoon for them. But if you are an American, and you come to my place for apple pie, I’ll make sure you get vanilla ice cream with that. But if you’re a non smoker, you don’t want to come to my place, because if you spend any time here, your clothes and your hair will smell of smoke and you will find it very unpleasant. So, only smokers please.
I’m being a real slow poke in typing this. Hours have passed since I started this and I don’t know what I do with my time either. Proof reading, because I don’t have a spell check, although I just imported an American English dictionary, but I don’t know what happened to it. I’ll have to figure that out later. I don’t know what else I do, except daydream a lot about what is important in my life and what is not and I think about all the different ingredients and people in it. I don’t ponder and worry, these are very light hearted thoughts. I lightly touch on each subject and linger there for a while. Basically, everything and everybody is okay. Everyone is busy leading their own life and doing a good job of it. There’s not much to worry about, except the little every day things, but even those aren’t real worries. It’s kind of nice, isn’t it? A worry free life?
I’m keeping myself upright now with coffee. I’ve had two cups. I think I will sleep in the morning like I used to do. I may be getting back to my old schedule. It’s not such a horrible thing, because at least I have the quiet nighttime hours to sit and write in. I’ve got the ringer on the phone turned down low, so when I’m asleep, I don’t hear it and I can’t be wakened up. I hardly hear it if I’m in another room. If they are people who really know me, they’ve got my mobile number. If not, it’s tough on them.
For the post with the information about my hypomanic episode and my medication change go here if you’re interested. If not, don’t worry about it. In the end it doesn’t really matter.
Have a good morning when you get up. I hope it’s a bright day.
Ciao,
Nora
Another Splendid Day 