Sad and Beautiful World

"Anointing all forgotten forms that swirl and smoke"

Two Weeks!

I swear I'm going to write an actual post soon. Seriously.

But for now? Video. LOL!

One Week!

Quitting Smoking, Day 2

Thank you all SO MUCH for the support and amazing comments, and the shared experience. I will respond to each of you, I swear. In the meantime, I posted a video diary type of thing yesterday on Flickr to document how I'm doing, and did another one today.

So I'm trying the 'embed this video' feature to see if it works.

Oh Boy...

I debated whether or not to go public with this, but I figured two things.

1. I live almost everything else on the Internet and people are very supportive.

2. I have never tried to do this before, and I think I’ll need all the support I can get.

At 9:30am this morning I smoked what I hope to be my last cigarette ever. Pete and I have been talking about thinking about getting ready to try and quit since last summer, but it is so easy to come up with a million reasons why this day or that day isn’t quite right yet.

Our friend Catherine quit a couple of weeks ago reading the book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. I remembered that my friend Caitlin lent me a book by the same author many moons ago and I glanced at it, then put it aside because I had no real interest in quitting. I pulled it out and saw it was his second version of the book; The Only Way to Stop Smoking Permanently.

I told Pete maybe we should try reading it aloud together at night and then stop. I was mentally preparing myself. Before we started it, however, Pete abruptly arrived back from a dog walk on Saturday morning and said, “I’m smoking one more cigarette and then I’m done.” We had ¾ of a pack left before we’d have to buy more anyway, and so I decided to have the rest over the next day or so and then stop as well. I’ve now read only one chapter of the book, and will keep reading it since it will hopefully just reinforce my momentum.

Pete’s been doing exceptionally well…though he is finding he has much more time on his hands then ever before. He’s waking up earlier and not spending hours on the porch smoking and thinking like he used to do. He’s eating more, but he’s also walking the dogs farther than before. His mood has been impressive, aside from a small outburst this morning. Heh. I’m the one I’m worried about, as I already have a short temper.

I told my daughter when she got home last night that I was on my last few cigarettes and that Pete had already stopped. At first she wasn’t happy…she was nervous about me “going psycho” on her. Then she cheered for Pete when he came upstairs. I don’t think she really believes me yet, as I’ve been telling her off and on over the years that I would try soon. Always “soon.”

I think to keep me focused and to entertain myself, and because Flickr now allows video (which I think is awesome), tonight I will start a video diary of my experiences. They will probably be a little tongue-in-cheek.

So…wish me luck, Internets! I am going to try to apply things from what I’ve learned in recovery, first and foremost. I am also going to try very hard to take a deep breath before I speak, ever. I’m actually hoping that becomes a habit, because I should be doing it whether I’m smoking or not. I’ve bought lifesavers and gum and I plan to buy those flavored toothpicks. I have to disassociate all the millions of things I associate with smoking, too, and I think that really is the hardest part of quitting.

I plan to put the money aside each week that would have gone to a carton of cigarettes so that we can do something we both want with it if we keep this up for 6 months to a year.  That’s $45.00 a week! If the health reasons weren’t enough, this is a great bonus.

It is well past time to try this.

Keep the good news coming!

...yeah. :-)

I got some fantastic news today!! I submitted three pieces to a juried exhibition called Art of the State run by the Greater Harrisburg Arts Council.

Today a letter arrived that I was certain was my rejection letter. To my absolute GLEE, I had a piece accepted!!! My self-portrait And You're to Blame was one of 167 works chosen from a pool of 2,442 entries!!!

I was literally jumping up and down for an hour. :D

So now I have to deliver the work along with a resume and an artist's statement. Anyone with experience writing one of those, please feel free to give me some pointers as I freak out about it. LOL.

The opening gala reception will be on July 28th at The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, Pa.

YAY!!!!

A Moan for All Seasons

I need to clean my house, desperately. I typically wait until it gets to the point of making me disgusted, but this time it has gone well past that. It isn’t that I don’t get it, either. I mean, my mother cleans every week under the reasoning that if you keep on top of it, it never gets bad. This is true, as her beautiful house proves.

My house proves how absolutely lazy I can actually be. Heh. The funny thing is that when I do get myself to clean (or really, insert whatever To Do item you want here), I feel better. More than that, I feel good.

So one might think that I’d have changed my habits by now. Is it a defeatist attitude? A characteristic ingrained too deeply to make a permanent change? Just the ability to fool myself over and over at various points when I do the exercise or the cleaning or the laundry or the paperwork or the grocery shopping on a regular basis for a short stretch of time before some totally reasonable excuse comes along to throw me off it.

Spring is technically here, but has been very slow in blossoming (aside from the thousand daffodils). The weather has been chilly at best, downright cold at worst. And a bit wet. But it is trying to get warmer, and the psychological effects are begging for it. That change in the season brings the renewed promise to change my habits: start exercising; get moving (again) on getting my photography out there; and for fuck’s sake, clean the damn house already.

What are your goals for the spring?

TequilaCon '08!

Hey! What are you doing on May 3rd? You should totally come to Philadelphia and hang out with me and other bloggy people at the North Bowl Lounge 'n Lanes for conversation, fun, drinking (if you're into that kind of thing. Heh) and did I mention fun??

Jenny has done it again, along with her illustrious committee, and organized another gathering. They picked my city and I did absolutely nothing to help. I think I should get an award for that or something. I will be there, though, and so should you!


Here's the details:

TequilaCon '08
May 3rd, 2008
6:00pm - ?
North Bowl Lounge 'n Lanes
Philadelphia, PA

and here's a super awesome poster designed by Dave of Blogography.com: