Into my 8th month without smoking

I've gone into my 8th month without a cigarette. I've gone through autumn and winter and now we're into spring and for some odd reason, I want a cigarette and instead of smoking, I'm chewing gum from the time I wake up until I go to bed at night and my jaws are tired. It has to be the season, that I'm outside as much as I can be and it's without a cigarette in hand.
I see that $1,000 saved coming up and almost 4,500 cigarettes I haven't smoked (no doubt should be more than 5,000) and I know I'm not going to buy cigarettes to smoke. The urges come, the urges go and I'm getting healthier every hour that I don't light up.

Although the benefits to not smoking should be obvious, one of the biggest benefits is not so apparent and that's the friends I've made blogging when I first quit. Without these people I would probably still be smoking. These women were there when I needed support and encouragement and they are still with me now.
I Love You like you're my sisters!!

Do you hold back?

When you blog, do you intentionally keep a distance from posting on topics/issues that are controversial? Are there topics/issues which you have thoughts on and stay away from commenting because of what someone else might think? Are there topics/issues which make your belly burn, your heart race, and your eyes see red? What topics/issues make you mad, make you want to cry or scream, make you want to hit something or someone?

In all honestly, I started this blog with the intent of being able to speak my mind but I have to admit that I'm somewhat intimidated about speaking my mind. I don't know, maybe this isn't the forum.
What kind of topics/issues you say?

Pro-Life / Pro-Choice
Death Penalty
Judicial System
Social Services
Abuse / Neglect
Dead Beat Human Beings
Spoiled Children / Parents that don't parent
People that Spend Money they don't really have and then file bankruptcy
Politics and the asses that run for office

These are just a few of the topics/issues and I'm sure I'd come up with more with the help of each of you.
Seriously, wouldn't you love to voice your deepest feelings about these issues?

I want a (new, just out) iMac

I currently use a MacBook, it's 2 years old, there have been a number of updates to this machine. It's fine but the screen is only 13". I love the portability, mostly to take when we travel but when we're at home, it's wired up to external hard drives, card readers, ipods, blah-blah-blah and is not portable but the screen is difficult on the eyes for long stretches--damn I'm getting old! LOL

What I'd like is a 24" iMac, ooooooohhhhh, 3.06ghz, lots of bang to use daily and then still have my MacBook for portability.........come on, I need the Mac users out there to talk me into this buy :). It comes in different configurations and yes it's less expensive but the one I want has a 24" piece of screen real estate!!!

What kind of computer do you use?

Visit with Rudy

We're back and I have lots to say for such a short trip.......

First, as I told you, we stayed at LaQuinta and it's normally okay because we bring our dog Winston and they accept pets. This particular location stated online that they had a complete renovation done and the photos looked nice (first deception) - the place was a pit!! To follow are some photos I took of the condition of our room



These were the bathroom photos ah yeah and let me add that there wasn't any towels, no soap, no shampoo, no nothing except filth.
There was also discarded food in the trash can in the bedroom area and it was obvious that the desk and drawers area had not been wiped down - YUCK!!
I pulled the bedspread back expecting God only knows what and found very white and even pressed sheets, not a single stain or wrinkle in them except for the ironed creases.
Needless to say, we did not pay for our room.

NOW FOR THE BEST PART OF THIS TRIP.........We brought my Father-In-Law to meet his only Great Grandchild, Rudy (which is also Great Grandpa's name) and he shocked us in how much and often he wanted to hold the baby and how sweet and gentle he was, even when Rudy was screaming and making himself blue.
These are some of the photos



Then photos with regular Grandpa



And now you get to see one of MamaFlo kissing Rudy's feet ---- this is the only time you will see me kiss the feet of any man!!!!



Rudy smiled for his Grandma and I couldn't have been more pleased.

Still in Houston

Good Morning! It's a little after 7am right now and we're in a hotel (LaQuinta cause they take pets) in Houston. Woke up about 6:15 from small yippy dog barking, I'm supposing the owner had gone to the lobby for breakfast. We will be headed to our son's home around 8 this morning to have breakfast and then will get on the road to head back to San Antonio.

Yesterday was a glorious day as we introduced little Rudy to his great grandfather (baby Rudy's name sake). My father-in-law is 83 years old. I will post photos later when we get home but no photo will do this meeting justice. I think as we age not only do we become more patient, we become sweeter, and kinder. I wish my husband and father-in-law were even half as sweet when our own children were babies.

We will most likely be driving home in rain and hopefully we can dodge the more severe weather that's out there. I don't want to complain about the rain as we've been in a drought for almost a year now and the cooler weather (albeit short lived) is welcomed with the front. I just would rather now have to drive for 3 hours in poor weather conditions.

Rudy is growing like a weed and at about 7 weeks old, we were able to have him awake more (more time to give him hugs and kisses and bounce him around). There will be photos posted later today when we get home.

Friday Fillins for Friday April 25, 2008

1. When I fell in love I was young, dumb, and full of cum!
2. My spirits soar when the flowers bloom and it heats up outside!
3. Oh no! The internet connection is down, THIS SUCKS.
4. I don't watch much TV is the craziest tv show ever.
5. Cheese and Tortilla Chips along with chicken and avocados and throw in refried beans make a great meal!
6. Develop a garden.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to packing, tomorrow my plans include driving to Houston to see Rudy and of course my son and daughter-in-law and Sunday, I want to drive home from Houston!

13 Important Lessons Learned

1. I will get in return whatever I give. Is this what they mean by "whatever goes around, comes around", both good and bad.

2. Don't sweat the small stuff.

3. That I didn't know diddly before I turned 50. I have learned more in the last 3 years than I learned all my life up until this time.

4. Continuing to grow is essential to real happiness.

5. Smile often and long, it makes the people you come in contact with wonder what's happening in your life.

6. Tell the people that you love, how you feel, don't hold back your love.

7. You can't take back words you say in a fit of anger.

8. Every lie you tell will come back to haunt you.

9. You have the power to start or stop anything you want bad enough.

10. Children need more time to be children.

11. Every person has good within them. Every person has evil within them.

12. Taste buds are continuously evolving. What you don't like today you may love tomorrow so keep trying foods.

13. Life is an illusion and we make it what we want it to be, good or bad.

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31 Years of Married Bliss

Today is our 31st Wedding Anniversary. No one that knew us all those years ago would have pegged this relationship to last long enough to even get married least of all stay married for 31 years.
What I have to say to those people is "You didn't even know us".

We were an unlikely match, I was an anglo girl from the mid-west (I hadn't ever even dated a guy that wasn't a blonde or red head) and he was of hispanic decent and from here in San Antonio. We were in the military, stationed in Colorado and he was an officer and I was enlisted (a big no-no in what was the Viet Nam era).
I dated a lot, he dated infrequently. I was an extrovert and he was an introvert. He had gone to college and finished graduate school, I was lucky to have made it through high school. He came from a family of 3 kids, I came from a family of 7 kids. He had already seen the world and I had seen nothing.

Like any relationship/marriage, the "We" took practice, lots and lots of practice. We didn't always get it right, we fought/fight with a vengeance. His careers kept him away from home for about 23 years of our 31 years of marriage, he'd be home for a week maybe out of the month and sometimes not be home for a year plus at a time. Our daughter would scream when he came through the door because she didn't know who he was. This afforded me the opportunity to be a stay at home Mom. I kept an immaculate home, home cooked every meal, laundry was done daily. I volunteered with everything the children were involved in and even some that my absent husband needed me to be involved with.
Money was tight always and we moved frequently until it was time for the kids to start high school. It was at this time that our lives came together - Finally!
This unlikely pair managed to get two children educated in private high school, go to ivy league colleges on merit based scholarships, go on to get Graduate and MD degrees, and now for our son to be married (he's the MD) and give us our first Grandchild (Rudy), and our daughter is climbing the corporate ladder of success, not married yet but is happy and fulfilled.

We sacrificed long and hard to be able to retire early (and well), we travel when we can and enjoy everyday we have together.
Our Marriage actually is BLISS.
He is my friend, my lover, and the best part of who I am.

Load Times on the New Design

Please be patient while we work out the kinks (the page load times).

Thank you for visiting my site and check back as I'm certain this load issue will be remedied soon.

*****EDIT*****

Please let me know if you continue to experience load time issues but for now it seems they have resolved.

There is a credits area on my blog but I also want to APPLAUD my designer DOODLEBUG DESIGNS!!!!

HAIR LOSS

A few people have asked me about my 17 year hair loss.
I was shiny headed bald, nothing, nada, zip.
The loss wasn't so tough on me as I was home trying to raise to babies that were 12 months and 12 days apart in age. I didn't have time to have friends, or go out. I was about 26 years old.
I bought cheap wigs for when going out in public was a necessity and they looked like wigs. This is so unlike today with wigs being mainstream with chemotherapy, etc - shit, even going bald is more mainstream now than it was in 1982.

The person it was hard on was my husband and I can't say I could blame him. What man wants to make love to Kojak? I think you get my drift.

As my kids got older and public appearances were happening more frequently, the need to wear a wig was a bigger deal and it was hot and scratchy, I was miserable. Around the house I went bald and I felt free and felt like me.

I had tests run and even had my head highlighted in a medical journal as the medical community tried to find the cause and therefore a solution.
Nothing came, no reasoning whatsoever, only conjecture, NO HAIR!

I went through probably 2 wigs a year at 60-70 a pop (which was really expensive all those years ago).

The 1990's came around and my kids were in their teens and very self conscious of their wig wearing mother (I felt for them, this was a condition I had no other choice but to accept but for them and my husband it was another story all together).
In the fall of 1996 I started seeing fuzz grow and it would fall out and then actual hair started growing but it was patchy. I continued to wear a wig. I then started back to work after having been a stay at home mom for 18 years and that job was at an outpatient mental health facility. The therapists there were very understanding of my feelings about being bald, about wearing a wig and they encouraged me to cut the hair that was growing and start going without a wig. I did that and my hair started growing and I'd cut it and it would grow more and was filling in and before long, there was more hair than bald spots.

Today all my hair is back in, it's different, the hair is thin and grey yet requires cutting every 3 weeks. I color my hair the best I can but it's all grey and grey resists color. I don't want to make it too brittle so I space out the coloring.

The important part is that my hair is all I lost during those 17 years. My husband stayed, my kids loved me, and I became whole again.
The medical community never did find out what the problem was but if it ever happens again I know I'll survive.

The week ahead.....FIESTA, ANNIVERSARY, BLOG REDESIGN, & BABY RUDY

Spring is the time to attend FIESTA in San Antonio. It's 10 days of parades, food, drink, and community. If you've never attended, do yourself a favor and plan on visiting San Antonio during Fiesta.

Following in the footsteps of Fiesta, I have an unveiling of my own scheduled for later this week........a new look to my blog (I'm not getting rid of my bird avatar though).

Wednesday is our 31st Wedding Anniversary - I can't believe someone has actually been able to stand my company for so long - LOL!! It's been quite a journey and I feel privileged to have made this journey with my best friend.

This weekend we are headed to Houston to see our grandson and introduce him to his great grandfather. Of course there will be lots of picture taking.


*****EDIT*****
For those readers that come to visit daily, you will notice there is a change to my blog. My designer, Doodlebug was able to install me this evening (she's still working on it).
I'm very excited about this new design and hope everyone else likes it too.

MY Blogging: The Past, Present, Future

I first started blogging with Xanga and that was primarily because my DIL and her family had started sharing about her pregnancy which grew into something more. I then decided that as much as I liked reading their blogs that there were other things I wanted to talk about and felt I couldn't do that with them......so I started looking into other platforms and since I had so much going with Google already I figured I'd keep it all in the family. I quit smoking back in September 2007 and that seemed like a good topic to begin blogging about and I made "friends" and looked forward everyday to the sharing about our common goal to stay free of smoking.

Anyway, I've gotten involved with EntreCard, mostly because I wanted a venue to look/read other blogs and now it's become a job of sorts doing my daily droppings. On the up side, EntreCard has allowed me to start reading some very interesting and captivating blogs. In the beginning, I tried to add 5 new blogs a day and now I'm up to over 200 drops (nothing in comparison to some droppers out there) a day and finding it gives me little time to read all the great blogs I've come across and want to read and comment on and then spending time on my own blog. I almost wish that EntreCard had a drop system similar to Fuel My Blog where you can do all you have listed at one time, therefore giving you the time to go in and read and comment on the blogs you enjoy.

I've read on a few blogs where the blogger has decided to take a break, that blogging has taken over their lives, where they've been fired because of blogging, gotten divorces because of blogging.

I'm looking at the long haul, I'd love to still be doing this into my 70's (I'm 53 now) but not at the pace I'm going at today.

To the bloggers out there - keep on posting, I love reading about your lives and careers.

Life: 8 Random Things About Me

I was tagged by haleyhuges at The Beacon to tell you a little bit about myself.........

The Rules:

Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’ve been tagged, and to read your blog

1. The housecleaning task I dislike the most is cleaning the bathroom. I gag the entire time I'm cleaning and you should see me with gloves and googles and face mask - I'm a site! I guess this goes from dislike into phobia actually.

2. I dislike wearing a bra (except in extreme cases).

3. I don't drink wine. The first time I ever drank alcohol (15 years old) it was Ripple and I drank 2 bottle, who the hell knew I'd get sloppy drunk and not be able to control anything about myself. I had a 2 day hangover and lectures forever from my parents and swore the stuff off - never again has it touched my lips and still to this day the mere smell of wine makes me want to hurl.

4. I ran a 9 provider mental health clinic for 7 years. I learned that you have to have a mental illness yourself to be a Psychiatrist, Psychologist, or Master's Level Counselor.

5. I had no hair for 17 years. After I had my children, I developed a condition that didn't allow hair to grow. After 17 years almost to the day my hair started growing back (it's been back for almost 10 years).

6. I love freshwater fishing. I love the time lost in thought and then the tug that pulls you back into the here and now and you reel in your catch (hopefully). I don't need to keep them and clean them as I enjoy the process more than the fish itself.

7. That I love everything Mac (although I can't afford it all).

8. That I loved smoking but that I gave it up almost 7 months ago for fear of dying.


I'm now tagging the following readers:
Maggie
Lynda
Diva
Klogger
Babs
Brandie
Jude
THIS LAST SPACE IS FOR ANYONE THAT WANTS TO JOIN IN

Today was a little of this and that

Today I scrubbed the interior of my car (yeah the one that I spent over 2k on earlier this week - it's a 12 year old Infinite that I love way too much to let go of ). Anyway, I haven't done a complete clean out since I quit smoking almost 7 months ago and it was way time. I was somewhat grossed out at the tar on the ceiling near the drivers door, YUCK!! I was able to scrub it out though and my car is like new in more ways than one.

Went to Whole Foods to buy some Two Bite Scones (both the lemon poppy seed and the orange cranberry) Mmmmm they are wonderful and they are what I had for dinner tonight - yeah yeah I know it isn't good for me but the taste was satisfying.

After the computer fiasco earlier this week I decided to purchase space on Picassa to store all my current photos plus what I take in the next couple years (10 gb). That along with my daily back up to an external HD should cover my butt. So, I copied 3000+ photos over to Picassa.

And now for my favorite part of today........a new photo of my grandson Rudy!
I do love computers though as my son puts himself and Rudy on the video cam with me a couple times a week and it keeps me feeling like I'm getting to see him in person. We're headed to hold him next weekend (and yes there will be more photos).

Thirteen Ways to Show Kindness

1. Yes Madam, Yes Sir

2. Hold Door Open for someone else

3. Allow someone with less groceries to get ahead of you in line

4. Give someone a compliment

5. Call an elderly person in your family just to check on them

6. Write a snail mail letter/card to someone that needs cheering up

7. Always say please and thank you

8. Volunteer

9. Do a chore that belongs to someone else

10. Offer to make a grocery run for an elderly neighbor or family member

11. Take the high road during an argument and just stop arguing

12. Make sure to tell those around you that you care about them, that you love them

13. SMILE

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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