Milestone!

One year ago today was the first day of my new life.
July 18, 2014: After 2 weeks of being on Champix (Chantix in the States, it's a stop smoking prescription medication) I woke up and started my first smoke free day.

It was a lot of jitters, grouchiness, grumbling, panic attacks, soooooooooo many cravings including a few that had me in tears, and just pure HELL that first day.

It was tough and touch and go for that first bit, but I managed to get myself through the day and get into bed without begging my husband to buy me a pack of cigarettes.

That was my first smoke free day in over a decade. The last time I had tried to quit, I was pregnant with my son and lasted about 10 weeks before I caved in and started smoking again.

So this has really been the longest I was smoke free since my preteens. I had my first cigarette at the age of 12 years old, and smoked once in a while until I hit high school at 15, then it escalated to me being addicted and finally smoking constantly at the age of 18.

I smoked for the next 22 years. The last going off, I was up to 60 cigarettes or more a day. That's 3 twenty packs or as we east coast Canadians prefer, 2 1/2 packs of 25 cigs a day.

As of today, I reached my ONE YEAR SMOKE FREE anniversary.

Look, I never thought I'd last a week, let alone 52 weeks. I was seriously addicted. Everything took a back burner to my addiction, even my writing some days. Everything had to wait until *after* I had one more cigarette, one more drag.

A year later, I no longer have that problem. I'm not even using the nicotine free vapor sticks. I haven't had one of those in over 3 months.

I've even written a full manuscript draft in the last year, my first as a non smoker.

Speaking of which, "Hearts Remembering" is now back in stasis and will be sent to the beta team sometime next month. It's as done as I can get it, and now I'm just waiting for word that I can start sending it out to the gang. I'm now in the process of trying to come up with a great short and longer synopsis for it.

My health is slowly improving... I'm feeling more and more like my old self, even if things are not completely balanced yet. It's a slow process but I'm hoping to be more "normal" for me by the time the new year rolls around.

And lastly, new glasses!! My new condition requires me to see my optometrist every 2 years, and well, something amazingly weird happened to me last month. My eyes IMPROVED to almost what they were back in 2007. I was wearing the glasses from that time period for a while because my prescription from 2013 was too strong for me... I am happy that I always keep old glasses as a backup, cause I wouldn't have been able to drive myself to a local hospital for an information session/workshop if I had.

My new glasses are even similar to the 07 prescription... Silver half rims, but wider lenses this time.

Me in 2011, with the 2007 prescription.

Here's what the present glasses look like...

Current glasses, almost identical in looks and in strength.

All that's really different is the fact the new glasses are a little bigger in the lenses and it's slightly stronger.

Hubby likes them, and my best pal Heather helped me pick them out.

Yeah, I think I'm doing okay, considering.

Have a great weekend everyone! :)

Starting off 2015 With Some Mad Ramblings on Video!

Happy new year everyone! My apologies for now updating things regularly, but.. Well, it's all explained in my first ever video blog outside of my personal Facebook page!

I will apologize for my accent, I know it's akin to something one would hear in New England, but not quite "exactly" like it. If you want to hear the stereotypical "Canadian" accent, "hosers" included, go west, eh? *nyah*  

"My 2014, and Other Junk"

Sorry it's so long but I had a lot of stuff to update all of you on! My next blog will be a text one, I promise.

I hope y'all had a wonderful holiday season and a great start to 2015! Enjoy. :)

Rejuvenation, Healing, and Corgis....

It's been an interesting two weeks.

I haven't done anything writing wise, but conditions still aren't ideal for it. I'm still feeling rotten physically and that's keeping my concentration at a bare minimum, which isn't good for writing or editing. I've been so bad the last couple of months that I've had to retire from admining all but my author's page and two of the groups I was running. I was too darn sick to watch those, but left them as "inactive" during the worst of it. I'm only starting to get my author's page going again, and I'm still not doing a lot with it.  

My sister in law is still sending me edits for "Away to Me" and I'll soon be hearing back from D and A, along with my best pal and her suggestions.

My goals for the rest of the month include giving "Away to Me" another read through while doing suggested edits, and going over Ten to see what can be kept, what can be tossed, and what has to be rewritten, and so on.

I'm starting to come out of the "just quit smoking" fog a little more so hopefully I will have the mental energy to do that soon. I'm on Day 23 now and things are finally starting to ease up in more ways than one. I'm finally bringing up interesting and gross gunk now, and I'm able to breathe a little easier. This is part of my lungs healing after abusing them for over 20 years, and heavily for the last 8 or so.

Tuesday, one of my longtime friends and alpha readers D and I spent the day together. It was so much fun! We went to my favorite beach, where she took some photos of me, and we had some fun with one of her corgis, a sweet fellow named T. He is so gentle and cuddly. I fell in love with him instantly!

I wish I had been smarter and worn shorter jeans but in the end it was worth it. Some of the pics turned out great and all of us had a great time. We went to her house for a few hours after that, and I met two of her other dogs, a Sheltie named "S" and her other corgi named "S". Sheltie S was pretty timid and wasn't sure of me at first, but she was soon accepting any treats I dropped for her and even let me touch her nose once or twice. She's a gentle and sweet girl, and so gorgeous. Corgi S is out of this world gorgeous, and he exudes a really upbeat, silly and fun energy one can't resist.

D's dogs are amazing. They stole my heart!

Fun fact: Her dogs are the inspiration for a dog in one of my manuscripts. She's helping me with getting the movements and everything else down pat in that story, that way I won't get lynched by the breed's loyal servants!

In other news... As part of my quit smoking journey, I'm giving myself rewards once in a while, as motivation to keep going and have something to look forward to. Part of my "Surviving Heck Week" reward came this week... Bejeweled 3 is one of the things in Part One of the reward. I did have it years ago but lost my copy of it before I purchased my current system. Son didn't like not having it and kept asking me to get it. I saw they finally had it on sale in an online store and ordered it. He's now VERY happy and is playing it a LOT during his evening computer time.

The other part of Part One of that reward is a CD I've been wanting for a while... "Proof of Life", which is the latest solo album by my favorite singer of all time, Scott Stapp, who also happens to be the frontman for my favorite band of all time, CREED. It's GOOD and I now have a lot of the songs from it in my main play list on Media Player.

The final part of the reward will be here within the next couple of weeks, it came from a store that advertises on this online shopping site. It's Bejeweled Twist, another game I had on the old system and lost the disk for it. Son didn't play that one a lot but he said he wants to learn this time... Okay with me as long as he doesn't mess up the computer or MY stuff at all! LOL

Have a great weekend everyone!