Petunia rambles on and on….

Sidewalk chalk and 2 small artists became a decorative asset to my driveway.

We are not sure why one felt the need to practice standing on one foot.   The tongue sticking out makes me think that this is a tough task, but he’s really getting better at it.  We’re just not sure why?

All fellas need to be able to play Tic-tac-toe, and Mom’s giving lessons.  And, by the way, Nick won.

After liberal doses of chalk were spread on the driveway, it got boring.  Much more fun to decorate each other.  Blue chalk goes nicely with the shirt, dontcha think?

Alex doesn’t appear any too “decorated.”  That’s because all his chalk dust is on the seat of his shorts.  He’s been sitting where they were drawing!!

But all got “chalked” before it was over, including Mom.  On this night, they really needed their baths.

FOREST CANOPY ?? – my husband will think its gonna be a jungle story, maybe something off The History Channel.  He’ll keep reading now.

Oh, the disappointments this man has to deal with.  It’s another damn knitting story.

He’ll stop reading now, right here.

This shawl has already been written about over here.  I even took it’s picture.  I thought to give an update, for those that think I quit all my knitting and have taken up sunning myself on a beach in the south of France.  No, that hasn’t happened yet nor is it ever likely to.  Not in this lifetime, anyhow.    In its “baby picture,” Forest Canopy closely resembled an amorphous pile of inflamed zits.   I’ve been working on it steadily, as life permits, and now, after all this effort, some tinking back, a few choice words that Mom wouldn’t have approved of ………….

here it is.  A large shapeless mass of inflamed zits.  See the small bit of 2nd skein of Cherry Tree Hill there?  It’s time to go into the border rows.  I wonder how big this is going to be when I block it out.

Will I need to pin it out on the floor of my office at work on a Friday night, leaving it there to dry over the weekend, as that is probably the only bit of floorspace I can guarantee will remain untouched?   Will we have to buy a larger home?   Will this stretch out from here to Chicago?

Did I screw up by not following the directions to stick with the body pattern until an exact stitch count was achieved?   There is absolutely no way my eyes would handle counting that many stitches.  I just went on until I finished an 8-row pattern and appeared to still have enough yarn left over to finish the border work. 

I’m still hopeful.

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And I’m carrying it around in this delightful bag that I bought in Virginia last year.

That’s a Blue Crab – ain’t he handsome.  Some, most, find them very tasty.  I am the oddity in this area because I don’t eat them!!  As a kid, we caught them by the bushel baskets full.  As a kid, my older brothers threatened to use me as bait.  What else is a kid sister good for?  I learned to handle them, and how to pick them up without, most of the time, getting bit.  I’ve also been bit hundreds thousands of times.  I can tell the boy crabs from the girl crabs.  I learned to steam them, clean them and serve them, with the table covered in newspaper to help deal with the mess they make.  I’ve cleaned up the mess made by serving them to others. 

I just don’t eat them.

When I saw this bag, I had to have it.

Yesterday was the 26th. Of June. 15 months.

After a lifetime as a smoker, I now, finally, consider myself a NON-smoker. It’s taken me 15 months to get here. I used medication recommended by my doctor, followed the directions for increasing the dosage over the first week, and quit on the 8th day. Jim’s birthday. So I’d never forget the date providing I was successful. I guess if it was a failed attempt, I’d be OK with forgetting about the whole thing.

But it worked, and I haven’t had a cigarette in 15 months. It doesn’t bother me in the car, it doesn’t bother me after meals. All the things that once triggered the urge to grab a cigarette just aren’t doing it anymore. I resisted trying to quit for a long time and the reason was that I just didn’t feel up to a lifetime of denying myself of something I really wanted. I didn’t want to deal with something in the back of my mind always agitating at me. It just all sounded like “The Road to Doom” so why start?

The medication curbed the withdrawal symptoms and sufficient time has passed to break the “habit” of smoking. Because in addition to the physical addiction to nicotine, there’s also the activity which becomes a very hard habit to break. Like someone who bites their fingernails, or twirls a lock of hair, and doesn’t even realize they are doing it AGAIN!!

Some things I’ve realized over this 15 month journey:

• I’m now really turned off by the smell of smoke clinging to clothes, hair. I always loathed those “Righteous Former Smokers” that turned into real pains in the ass about it. “Oh, oh, get it away from me” “Oh, I can’t be around smoke anymore; it bothers my allergies, my breathing, my nose hairs, my tennis elbow.”Insert appropriate gesture – hand to forehead while swooning. Oh, for shit’s sake, you were around smoke every day all your damn life. Quitcher bitchin’. Insert different hand gesture here. (With the exception of a very few who really do have a medical reason, I always felt that most complained just to show their superiority as Former Smokers. Damn braggards never missed a chance to ram it down the throats of those of us who hadn’t quit!) I’m now going to apologize to all those folks that I mentally railed at. For years and years. ‘Cause I don’t like the smell of smoke anymore. I had a smoker in my car the other day. With the A/C on full blast, I opened the windows to let the stench out. I thought about just putting him out of the car, but we are married to each other, and that might cause problems in other parts of my life.
• I’m now really embarrassed that I went around for 40+ years with my clothes and hair and home and car stinking like that. Back in the day when EVERYBODY smoked, perhaps it wasn’t so noticeable and it wasn’t considered offensive back then when the vast majority of adults did smoke, but that day is well past, and as more and more have quit before me, more and more people were affected. And offended by the smell.
• Someone with chronic lung problems that got so far as to be off cigarettes for months and months and THEN goes back to smoking, even just a wee bit on the sneak, because he likes it, is a childish, selfish, foolish person.
• It does not take 10 minutes to take one small bag of trash to the outside can, 15 feet from the back door.
• There is no need to make multiple trips per day out to the shed, which conveniently is located on the side of the house with NO windows.
• When you open the door of your truck, the smoke pours out like there’s a 4-alarm fire going on in the cab.
• Appreciation for your willingness to run to the corner store whenever we are out of bread or milk is tempered by the fact that you are using that time alone in your truck to grab a quick smoke on your way up and back, and the sure knowledge of what you are doing to your lungs, your health.
• I’m going to miss you desperately when you’re gone. So will the kids. And the grandchildren.
• I’ve had my car just over a year now, and it has no ash tray. It’s clean. Well, actually, it has some sand and dirt in it, and it needs a good vacuuming, but there’s no ashes and no burn holes in upholstery or carpet and there’s no smoke smell.
• The concept that smoking enables you to deal with stress (“Oh, this is so difficult. I need a cigarette.”) is utter bullshit. No problem on this good green earth is made better by smoking a cigarette. Never. You may convince yourself that it’s true, but that makes you the sort of person that could also convince yourself that you are Mary, Queen of Scots. In short, a nut case that will believe any sort of crap that appears to support what you have already decided to believe.  Or the sort of person that likes long flowing dresses and/or dislikes your cousin. Whatever. I freely admit that I don’t deal well with certain types of stress. Some things will turn me into a freaking basket case. Yes, indeedy. A life-long history of it. I do well in the Emergency Room, though, where I absolutely MUST hold up.  But I was this way in 1974, and in 1994, and last week, too. Having a cigarette in my hand never made any situation better way back then; my ability to deal with things hasn’t completely deteriorated since quitting. There is no damn ratio between smoking and handling stress. It’s all bullshit we’ve told ourselves to justify our actions. I suspected that this was true long ago. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I know it’s true.
• Weight gain is a frequent side-effect of quitting smoking. It’s hit me rather hard. Not sure whether there’s a tendency to substitute the activity of eating for the activity of smoking or maybe something about keeping the hands busy? Does the lack of nicotine in the system affect metabolism? Not sure. Did I make poor choices early on, those daily cappuccinos every morning on the way to work, for months? The French Vanilla surely was good, but how many calories per cup? (Large size every day, too! LOL!!) Should I be sitting here eating this cheese danish while I type? Simply a factor of aging?� No spring chicken here anymore, so that could be a factor.� Sedentary life style.� I have a sit-on-my-ass job, then I go home to blog or knit. Or “D: All the above.” I’m putting my money on “D.” Many of these things can be controlled or altered. There’s little I can do about getting older, and I’m not going to quit my job.� If there’s any genetic factors at work here, well, I guess I’m pretty much stuck with that. Bitching about my fat ass hasn’t helped. And I’ve been doing that for quite a while, so I’ve given it plenty of opportunity. It’s time to take a good, hard look at reality, which is available in every mirror and do something more effective than griping. It’s time.� Bitching just doesn’t burn as much calories as I hoped thought it would. If it did, I’d be back to the Size 4 I was when I was 16! Pop would probably think I’d have disappeared by now.
• I am so glad that so much of my life and what I do is no longer controlled by this addiction. Years ago, not so much, but as more and more folks quit, there were more and more restrictions placed on smokers.� And I complied, rather than quit. I remember smoking at work, at my desk, IN A HOSPITAL. Damn! But then that was outlawed, so we all stood outside, in the rain, in the cold, huddled against the wind. I’ve delayed entering places, to get that last cigarette, and scurried out of places early, to get another. And the price per pack went up, and the taxes went up.� And I PAID! I remember when they were 3 cartons for $10. Now a carton is probably over $30 here in Delaware, and much, much higher elsewhere. And if I was still smoking, I’d be paying it. And cutting back elsewhere to get the money. Cutting back in the grocery store?

In the first few months after I stopped smoking, I didn’t consider myself a NON-smoker, a Former Smoker. I was afraid to, as if that would jinx my efforts to quit. I simply said, “I am quitting,” or “I’m trying to quit,” thinking that this meant it’s still in the “being worked on, on-going, present tense” stage rather than an already accomplished feat. And that’s how I felt. I was still hopeful that I could do it, but also a bit unsure. Pop and I avoided places where there would be smoking, and stayed away from folks that still smoked. (Actually, that wasn’t too difficult. Being late to the game here, almost everyone we know had already put down their cigarettes for good)

And it is good. Right in the beginning, I did the math on how much Pop and I were spending per month on cigarettes, and so far, every month, more than that amount has been added to the required mortgage payment and has been applied directly against the principal of the loan. I figured I always found the money somehow to buy the smokes – I’ve used that same effort to allot it out to a much better purpose. Oh, how easy it would have been to absorb this money back into the monthly budget with no gain noticed, and I didn’t want that to happen. I would love to buy more yarn, or fiber, and Pop would love to play every golf course on the east coast, but we both agreed that this is a wiser choice. I even add a bit more to it when I can. The outstanding balance is dropping much faster than expected, and so is the amount of interest we’ll pay over the course of the loan. All good.

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And if it seems like I’m going on and on about this topic, well, deal with it, OK? In the beginning, there was probably a “smoking-related” post every week, then monthly reports. Now, it’s only every 3 months. If any smokers are out there, and they read how someone was able to quit after a 45-year habit, well, it might be what that person needs to get them to their doctor, ask for and receive some assistance, and finally quit this habit. If one person is helped, it’s worth pissing everybody else off, one day every 3 months.