Tuggings

I'ts been more than a week since I've had those little tuggings to smoke and they hit me a few times while I was working on planning this school fundraiser today. In fact, I had to backtrack through my blog to see when the last time I was having a rough patch was. While this wasn't really a "rough patch", I was getting frustrated and having a hard time concentrating. In her comment to my earlier post, MamaFlo helped put into words what I was feeling. (Thank you, MamaFlo.) It's so great to have people who know what you're going through. People who can put your feelings into words for you (without realizing that's what they're doing) so that you understand. In turn you recognize more quickly what you need to do to get past it. I haven't forgotten about you, either Jamie. Thanks, again for the card and the support. You made my day.

So to get my mind off of the little tuggings earlier, I made coffee. Or, um, I tried to make coffee. Three times. I've got to get off this Starbucks Peppermint Mocha thing, because I've gained 8 pounds since the holidays and quitting smoking began. (Yep, so much for that lost 5 pounds in the beginning thing - I gained that back, plus 3 more.) So now, not only do I need to get serious about losing some weight, I also need to learn how to make a decent cup of coffee that doesn't taste like wet coffee grinds. (Gag.) Can someone please teach me how to make a cup of coffee?

Running Away

After spending 2 1/2 hours last night and another 3 hours so far today on planning for the carnival at Ryan's school, I've decided that I'm going to run away and not come back until the thing is over and done with at the end of February. (She screams like a madwoman while pulling her hair out in front of the computer moniter.)

How in the world did you ever manage to get us sucked into chairing this thing, Teri?

Has anyone else taking Chantix had a harder time concentrating while talking this drug?

Trading Up

My daughter has her best friend spending the night tonight. Her friend is making Ashley's bed and dusting her furniture. I am so going to have to send the wrong kid home tomorrow!

Rough Night

The Chantix dreams and nausea are back in full form. The nausea is probably due to not remembering to take the Chantix right after I eat, but it's also making me a little dizzy. Not remembering to take it may be a sign that I'll be ready to go off it when 12 weeks is up - we'll see.

Bret came home from work early yesterday due to an ear infection. He went up to Prompt Care to get an antibiotic and the doctor told him something about the Chantix that I haven't heard yet. First off, he said that Chantix is the only drug he's seen that really does help people stop smoking and that's he really impressed with the success rates. But he also said that after 21 days, you don't really need it anymore because by then the receptors in your brain have returned to normal. You're basically taking the drug at that point for psychological assurance. I hadn't heard that before. Has anyone else heard this?

So, not only is the nausea back, but the wierd dreams and insomnia are, too. Last night was rough. It was freezing cold in our bedroom, Bret was snoring and kept poking me with his foot (which makes me jump a mile high) and I couldn't fall asleep for anything. And that was with ear plugs in. So I took my pillows and camped out on the couch with a sleeping bag and laid awake for another hour, wishing I hadn't taken the ear plugs out because our wall clocks wouldn't stop ticking. If I hadn't been so cold, I would have thrown them into the garage. Once I did fall asleep, I woke up a short time later due to some crazy dream that I can't even really remember now.

Life must go on, though. The kids and I have a lunch date at Mickey D's at 11am with Shawn, so I must run. We're going to motivate each other into going back to the gym. She's been better about it than I have and it should make going back more fun. Here's a little preview of what Monday will be like.

Peace Of Mind

Okay. I jumped the gun. I should have given him the benefit of the doubt. When I took the kids to see our new/old doctor today, he was much better. No double questions. Friendlier. Better sense of humor. Very attentive to what's been going on with the kids since he last saw them 3 years ago. Laughed at my jokes. He must have been having a bad day yesterday and mentioned to us today that he's fighting the nasty cold that's been going around. I was happy with the way things went today and all is forgiven. Everyone is entitled to an off day every once in awhile.

Mostly, I'm relieved that he seems to agree with our previous doctor's diagnosis in regards to the bruising that Ashley had biopsied on the back of her leg. He thinks it's nothing serious, but is waiting on her records to be transfered over so he can see the biopsy report before he decides what to do next. He may send her to a dermatologist just so that we can finally find out what it is and move on.

He seemed impressed with Ryan's progress in the last three years. Couldn't believe how much both kids have grown and laughed when I said that Ryan hadn't stopped talking since he got out of bed this morning. Three years ago Ryan didn't have but a handful of hard to understand words in his vocabulary due to his hearing loss. We were still trying to figure out what was going on with him at that point. (For more on that, click on the link in the sidebar for "Live Journal".) It's amazing what therapy can do for a kid.

So all is good. We're really going to miss our last doctor, but life has to go on.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have to go whoop my husband's butt on the Madden Football game that he got for Christmas on the Nintendo Wii.

Cuties

Chloe is back and still cute as ever. Ryan was really excited to see her today.

Ashley is going to start taking offense if Chloe keeps doing this to her, though.

Must. Get. Warm.

Our power was only out for three hours this morning, but it has yet to warm up in here. The thermostat reads 69, but it lies! My toes are like ice and I'm just plain cold.

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I had my appointment to get re-established with our old doctor from 3 years ago and was rather disappointed. I don't find him good looking anymore. Stop laughing - that's not what I was really going to say. While he's not quite so eye candyish anymore, that's not really the problem.

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I was a bit put off by his not so great bedside manner. The kids and I loved him 3 years ago and were crushed when we had to change doctors. We thought he was great. But today he didn't seem very friendly. He seemed stressed out, unfriendly and kept asking me the same questions repeatedly. Isn't your doctor suppose to be smarter than you?! No, for the second time - I don't need any refills. And no, for the 3rd time - I'm not having any problems. (Or does he have me confused with a different patient with short term memory loss and chronic problems?) (Quiet now, Bret.) Anyway, I was disappointed.

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I kept trying to talk to him about how I quit smoking and am taking Chantix and he couldn't keep the number of days I have been quit straight either. He also told me that I can only take it for 12 weeks. When I asked him about weening off of it, he said that usually people just stop taking it. Um, that's not what I've heard. Sigh. I was really hoping to stay on it for a bit longer than 3 months, but we'll see. It was my OB/GYN that actually prescribed it and I have my yearly appointment (sorry, TMI) in two weeks, so I'll bring it up with her instead.

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So, is my new (actually old) doctor on drugs or maybe he was just not feeling well? He did seem a little congested. But, seriously? He wasn't even really laughing at my jokes and I'm funny. Really, I am.

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Both Ashley and Ryan have their appointments with him tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll get a better impression then. Maybe it's just me he doesn't like. Humph. My little innocent crush is so over.

Yaaawwwnnnn

Single digit temperatures + power outage at 4am = NO SLEEP.

Happy 2008

So how many of us are going to have trouble remembering to write "08" instead of "07"?

Last night, we went over and stayed with Bret's Grandma while his parents went out for New Year's. It was a nice quiet night spent with family watching Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve on TV. We watched the ball drop in New York at 11pm and then headed home. I'm sad to report that Ryan and I were in bed before the clock even struck midnight. But on the bright side, Bret and I have officially made it through to 2008 as nonsmokers.

Tomorrow is going to be a crazy day. After more days off than I can count, Bret goes back to work and Chloe returns. (For those of you new friends of mine, Chloe is one of the babies I watch during the week.) I have my "get reaquainted with my old doctor from three years ago" appointment tomorrow since the City of Peoria decided to up and change insurance providers on us. Three years ago we had to go through all of this when Bret went to work for the city. Now that we've gotten use to all new doctors, we have to change back again. (Secretly, I'm okay with this as I refer to my old doctor as eye-candy. It's ok, Bret knows about my little crush and is letting me go back to him anyway. LoL.)

We did finally manage to go see Alvin & The Chipmunks today. (We didn't make it last week.) The kids seemed to like it and I thought it was hilarious, but then again I grew up watching The Chipmunks every day. Bret spent most of the movie wishing he hadn't taken his iPod out of his coat pocket before we left.

Well, I better call it a night so I can drag myself out of bed before Chloe gets here in the morning. That's the bad thing about having a week and a half to sleep in - it throws your body completely out of whack!

If I Could Get The Chance

If I could get the chance to say one thing to one person, it would be...

Dear Man At The Gas Station,

You have managed to change my life. On the Friday afternoon, the day after Thanksgiving, I ran into you at the Shell Gas Station while paying for my gas before leaving town for a weekend up in Chicago. I was also paying for cigarettes. You made a joke about saving a lot of money if I would just quit. We laughed and then you told me that the only reason you made the comment was because you had quit a month ago on Chantix. You changed my life that day.

You see, I had been looking into the drug for sometime now, but had never had the opportunity to ask someone who was actually taking it about the side effects. When you told me that you hadn't had any and that if you did, they would be better than dying, you triggered something deep inside me.

The following Monday when I arrived back in town, I called my doctor first thing and asked for a prescription for the Chantix. I have now been smoke free for 26 days and never before imagined that it could be this easy. You told me that it would be and you were right. Never before would I have believed that a stranger could have such a big impact in my life and I hope to have the chance to have an impact like that on someone else some day.

Thank you. I will now live a healthier, smoke free life. A life where I'll get to see my children grow up, get married and have kids of their own. As I approach my one month anniversary of being a nonsmoker, I'll think of you and wish you luck that you're still doing well, too.

Thank you,

Lynda

If you had the chance to say something to one person, what would it be?

Worth It

There are days when all you want is some quiet time to yourself. Days when the kids are loud, the house is a cluttered mess, the dog is looking at you pathetically because it's been forever since you've taken her outside and the laundry your worked so hard to get under control last week is quickly piling up again.

And then you begin getting your son ready for bed. He spends two minutes telling you that he's not tired enough to go to sleep, even though it is almost 10:30pm. And then, after you go to tell your daughter that it's time to get ready for bed and she doesn't argue with you about it for a change, you go to check on your son (1 minute after you left his room) and he's snoring away, most likely dreaming of Webkinz and baseball.

These are the days you want to hold on to. To lock the day in a box to revisit later when they are too old for hugs and kisses and you putting them to bed at night.

The Day In Ryan's Eye's

Sometime in between last night and this afternoon, someone gave Ryan access to the digital camera. I thought I'd share.

Ballerina Bret? Your guess is as good as mine.

Obviously it's way past Ashley's bedtime.

My guess is he was helping to remind me that the Christmas clutter is way out of control and it's time to. get. rid. of. it.

Pretty glad we remembered to empty the trash can yesterday.

His new Leapster game that came in the mail today. We set up his team and got started. Two minutes later, he quit because it was "too hard!" We'll try again later.

The loves of his life - baseball...

...and Darth Maul.

He also got this book of all of the Presidents for Christmas. It's pretty cool. It fans out and has a separate page for each President. Ryan was in the process of taking a picture of each one of them - one at a time - when I confiscated the camera.

Our little cameraman...

Normalcy, Or Something Like It

Four whirlwind Christmas's aside, things are starting to resemble some sense of normalcy - if you look beyond the fact that my house is past the point of cluttered chaos. It looks as if Toys R Us blew up in my livingroom - no exageration there.

I thought that I would maybe try to keep the tree up until next weekend, but taking it down would really help take care of the clutter. We'll see.

We've all been busy enjoying our new Christmas toys and are planning on going to see the Chipmunk movie later. But first Bret and Ryan are trying to figure out their new Madden Football game on the Wii. Ryan is very frustrated because it is nothing like playing it on Uncle David's PS3. For those of you that have seen what Ryan is like when he's frustrated, it's sure to be worth a good laugh or two. (Remember how he beat the living daylights out of his 4-wheeler last year?) Oops, guess Santa didn't look too closely at how it's played. My guess is we'll probably be stopping for the PS2 version while we're out today.

And.....according to quitmeter.com, in 3 weeks, 1 day, 12 hours, 37 minutes, 1 second I have not smoked 382 cigarettes and have saved $72.00. Wow. In my head I knew the numbers would be high, but not that high! It's a real eye opener.

Not smoking over the holidays have been difficult and I sometimes wish I had waited until the holidays were over, but I look at it this way: my biggest hurdle will soon be over. If I can get through each day, one at a time, past January 1st, I'm out of the woods. Don't get me wrong, the last thing I want is to smoke (and I won't!), but the urges are still there sometimes. I need normalcy. Once the holidays are over and things return to normal, it should be easy again. This sitting around bored is taking it's toll. I need to stay busy. I think I'll go take my shower now and then herd everyone over to the movie theater.

Hitting The Road Again

Today is our last day up here at my mom's house in Chicago. It's hard to believe Christmas is over and that we will soon be approaching New Years. As soon as I finish my beloved mug of Peppermint Mocha we'll be packing up and getting the kids (and ourselves) out of their pajamas and onto the road.

Any bets on whether Bret will actually let me listen to my new CD in the car - over and over and over again? It's rare when I find a CD where I enjoy listening to the whole thing.

By the way, it has now been 22 days since I quit smoking. Hooray - I hit 3 weeks yesterday and didn't even realize it. And another big perk? We got here faster without making any stops and made it through the holiday without one.

Photos

All Christmas photos are up over at Flickr.

Merry Christmas - Part Two With The S's

Christmas came and went faster than ever this year, it seems. Once again, my Grandma outdid herself with last night's Christmas Eve dinner.

Grandma, hard at work.

Ashley, having no business looking as grown up as she does this year.

My brother, David and Ashley.

Ryan and Bret.

Dave, Lori, Ryan & Bret.

Ryan gets the Imaginext Jungle set he's been begging for.

Ashley gets her long awaited boots.

He didn't really ask for this, did he? (He did.)

My Aunt nearly gave my Grandma a heart attack when she opened up her Williams Sonoma gift certificate and exclaimed, "Wow, a thousand dollars. Thank you." My mom had ordered it online with her credit card number. It gave everyone a pretty good laugh.

We got Grandma pretty good last night when she opened her last gift. She's been wanting this Bose stereo system for some time now and had no idea it was going to be hers this year.

Ryan got her pretty good, too. His new toy came with a pretend snake and he kept tormenting her with it.

So off to bed we went last night to await Santa's visit and woke up this morning to find our presents waiting for us under the tree.

I retired my scrapbooking supplies this year and went digital over at Snapfish. So much easier, plus without smoke breaks, I didn't think I could handle doing any scrapbooking yet.

Ryan was really excited about his Baseball Guys Play Set.

Ashley has a place to store her earrings now. (Which will make it easier for mom to browse, too!)

Go Cubs!

So, my buzz from my homemade Starbucks Peppermint Mocha has now worn off and I've successfully made it through Christmas without smoking. Even with family members going out all last night, I did great. Not even a single urge to join them, but I did drink two cups of real coffee last night. I've officially joined the grown up table now.

Heavenly Caffeinated

I'll have more Christmas pictures for you all when the caffeine buzz from my new Espresso Machine and Starbucks Peppermint Mocha ingredients wear off. I am very happily caffeinated right now on this Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas - Part One With The W's

This weekend we kicked off Christmas, Part One with the W's. Last night we joined Bret's family for dinner, professional photos a'la Grant and of course, presents. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins and the new pony that Santa had brought Brooke that morning since they won't be in town for Christmas either.

Ashley & Ryan pose with Grandma Jerry.

Ryan was super excited when he opened his new Lego Harbor. He's been asking for this for some time now.

Ashley got some mind boosting games for her Nintendo DS. Okay, I was the one who really wanted them - I've got to keep up with her some how.

We were really excited for Grandma Jerry to open her gift from us. We had gotten her a digital photo frame and I had loaded it with hundreds of pictures of the whole entire family from over the course of the last year.

Super Cool Bret with his new Cub's coat. He did his runway thing and had us all cracking up.

Sleep wasn't really in the cards for us last night since we got home late, put the kids to bed and tried to get everything cleaned up and put away. I think it was almost 2 am by the time Bret and I got to bed. Thankfully the kids let us sleep until 8:30 this morning.

Peaceful looking isn't it?

Peaceful until the wrapping paper started flying the next morning.

We spent the day playing with all of our new toys.

Ryan really loves his new Leapster L-Max and Animal Genius game.

Tomorrow morning we'll be loading up the kids and the dog into the minivan and heading up to Chicago for Christmas with the S's (my family). I'll try to post more while I'm up there.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Barely Made It Through That One

Something has been off today. I've been moody and fighting the urge to go outside and smoke all day. It's the closest I've come to messing up in the last 18 days.
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Trying to get past it, I've spent the last two hours cleaning up my house, putting all the baby stuff away (the babies are gone until after the New Year) and attacking the ever growing mountain of laundry. (Although I do find comfort in the fact that I'm not the only one. Thanks for making me feel better Jamie.)
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Keeping myself busy wasn't helping so I sat down and tried to figure out why all of a sudden I'm now fighting the biggest urge yet to end my 18 days of smoke free bliss. Then it hit me just as my blood sugar plummeted. I have barely eaten all day. I had oatmeal for breakfast, snacked on lunch meat and cheese at lunchtime and had a bowl of soup for dinner. It's now after midnight and I'm starving. But instead of realizing I'm hungry, my mind is taking it in as a craving to smoke. I think I've found my biggest trigger.
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You see, not only has the Chantix taken away almost any desire for me to smoke, it has also taken away cravings for food. I've lost 5 pounds, but my blood sugar has been chaotic.
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So with that in mind, I got up and started boiling some water in my coffee pot for some yummy oatmeal only to dump it as I changed my mind in favor of Rice Krispies cereal with cut up banana in it. I sat down and took a bite and nearly got sick as I realized that something tasted horribly wrong with the milk. (I just bought it. It doesn't expire until the 24th, but man was there something sour going on with that milk.) Sadly, I watched my uneaten cereal and banana disappear down the disposal and reboiled water for my oatmeal.
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I'm taking this as a lesson. I should eat before I get to the point of total mind loss. Also, I should go to bed before I start talking about something more boring that what I'm eating.

Don't Mess With 'Em

This may be the funniest thing I have ever heard! EVER! I am still laughing right now and have listened to it 4 times already.

Click HERE.