The List

I took this picture because I wanted to remember Audrey's present list. I had to number the presents because there was a certain order some of them had to go in. Taking advantage of the numbers, Audrey made a list, then guessed what was in each present. This is a picture of her checking her list to see if she was right, and recording it, after each present.

Happy New Year

Ok, so it's a little late.

January 1st has never really seemed like the beginning of my year. Since my life up to now has sort of renewed during the summers, that time of year always feels for me more like the start of something new. It's just too cold to want to change in January.

Personal life updates would include MrP and I having gotten back together...doing well over the past weeks. He completely surprised me with his gift to me at Christmas...a ring that matched my wedding band. It was something I wanted, even though I didn't realize until I saw it, but never would have asked for. That kind of gift doesn't come around for me very often.

Cougar and Sox seem to be fighting all the time. Not just playful stuff, but enough to get me to holler at them, "BOYS! STOP IT!" It really does make them stop. And, if I happen to get up while they're figting in front of my chair...they both run off...together...then go right back to fighting. Crazy ass cats.

The Girl has glasses now and (oh god, she would kill me if she knew I was telling you) the cutest little bra I've ever seen! I swear I heard my own boobies say, "Awwwww," when I picked it up out of the laundry basket. It's a hand me down from her best friend, who felt sorry for The Girl for not having any.

I need to lose some weight. I've gained enough after quitting smoking to not be comfortable in hardly any of my pairs of pants...cry. I got all geared up to start eating better, then I just kind of lost steam. I've been walking about a mile every day at work, and I finally found my favorite workout DVD...but it was water damaged in the flooding of the Minier basement...so I need to try to clean it off and see if it will work. The Girl likes to watch and laugh at me when I do the leg and arm flailing scissor kick things. So, it's not just exercise, but family entertainment as well.


I have had a WTF Wedensday topic on my mind ever since it happened, but I'm just gonna share it now. WTF Sunday:

WTF checkout lady at Wal-mart. I understood when you went ahead and let the girl in front of me use her debit card, even though she didn't know the numbers for it. But, you didn't even ask for ID, or look at her signature or do ANY kind of verifying that the card this person didn't know the numbers for was actually theirs!! It's sickening to know how easy it is to use stolen debit/credit cards.

I have to start making dinner...I'm going to try to stop by more often!

Hi, my name is Baker and I'm a nicotine addict...and I can't sleep!

Ever since I started smoking again last year, I've been trying to quit. I could never get past the first two days though, no matter how much I wanted it. I can't say this strongly enough...I HATE SMOKING. But, the nicotine addiction was so strong and my life so stressful that I couldn't see myself quitting without either slapping someone in the face, or throwing a temper-tantrum at work (excuses, excuses).

When I had my surgery in August, I had no choice but to quit as the doctor said that the bones in my neck wouldn't fuse well if I didn't. I took advantage of being completely drugged up to get me through those oh-so-horrid first three days. But sadly, the second week I smoked. Not because I had an urge or really wanted to at all. I tried to see if it would help me with a problem I was having...which I won't go into for fear of treading too far into TMI land. And this wasn't just some lame excuse to get to smoke either. I was beyond desperate. Suffice it to say, it didn't work, and I let the nasty beast nicotine back into my body for nothing and that one cigarette turned into hundreds more...make that THOUSANDS more. Crap!

I was supposed to quit again October 1st with a friend at work. I lasted 2 days, then realized that I was really stupid to try to quit at the beginning of the new quarter, when I'm the most stressed out at work (even though, oddly enough, I didn't smoke at work). I know this sounds like an excuse too...it's never a good time to quit, right? Well, I really did have to take into account that I could jeapordize my job by pummeling a particularly frustrating and annoying co-worker.

So, I finally decided to look into the smoking cessation program offered at work. I knew they had revamped it in the past few years and I was delighted to find that it was no longer a reimbursement program, but one where they pay for any kind of treatment you decide to use up front. As soon as I saw that one of the options was for medication, I knew that was what I wanted to do.

I don't believe in Nicotine Replacement Therapy. To me, that is just prolonging the agony. If I'm going to have to go through the stress of quitting the act of smoking, then I'm not going to want to have to deal with all of the real hard-core nicotine withdrawl later on! I'd rather rip that band-aid off fast and get all the pain over at once. When I quit a few years ago, I went cold-turkey and relied upon all of the knowledge I gained at a website: http://www.whyquit.com/ to help me understand what I'd be going through, which really did make things much easier. But, since I had started up again, none of that knowledge was helping.

I chose to get a prescription for Bupropion (which is the generic version of Wellbutrin), which I actually took for a few months last year. I had noticed that while I didn't quit smoking while on it before, I could go for long periods of time without having a cigarette and not get that feeling deep down that I NEEDED to smoke. And because it's not just a smoking cessation drug, but also an anti-depressant, I thought it would be a really good option for me right now...not that I'm depressed, but quitting smoking makes me feel depressed, and I'm all for staying in a relatively good mood for the next few months. Not to mention, it also acts as an appetite suppresant of sorts for me, which is nothing short of a miracle when quitting.

All I had to do was call the American Cancer Society quit hotline and set up some counseling sessions. After the first one, they decide which option would be best for you, and because I basically told them what I wanted to do, they approved the prescription and gave me a code, which I then gave to the pharmacy (after seing good ol' doc for the script), and they handed me the drugs at no charge. BONUS. :)

I started taking it a few weeks ago and set my quit date for November 10th. I haven't smoked in 7 days and things are looking good. No one has been slapped, though I have been just a little bitchy at work (I believe this is not as related to the nicotine withdrawal as it is related to how freaking annoying certain people can be). I had to take a half day Friday, but still consider this a relatively easy quit.

NOW....to get to the point...just like when I was on Medical Leave for the surgery, my sleep schedule is all kinds of messed up. I experienced sleeping issues last time I took this medication, but they only lasted for the first week or so. This time, I just can't shake it. I've been waking up by 5:00 a.m. on my own, even if I've gone to bed after midnight. I don't get up most days because I'm so mad I'm awake. My ass is staying in that bed until that alarm clock goes off, dammit!! But no matter how hard I try, I lay there wide awake.

I couldn't sleep last night period. I was awake until 6:00 a.m. And that was after having 4 Woodchucks!!! Anyone who knows me knows that this girl doesn't stay awake long after drinking, but I couldn't sleep to save my life. I finally got 2 hours of sleep in the morning, then another hour of sleep this afternoon. But, here it is, past 1:30 a.m. and I am WIDE AWAKE. I hate starting off a work-week sleep deprived. It takes the whole week just to catch up. I don't drink coffee, drink only caffeine free soda, and haven't even been drinking that much soda lately anyway. I've been flushing out the system by drinking lots of no-sugar-added cranberry juice and water. So, why am I so utterly wide awake? Aaarrrrgggghhhh!!!

Oh well...I guess I'd rather be a zombie at work for a while than still be smoking.

So...here are my quit stats so far:

I have been quit for 1 Week, 2 hours and 26 minutes (7 days). I have saved $31.95 by not smoking 142 cigarettes.

Here's a wake-up call...my stats if I had stayed quit after surgery:

I have been quit for 3 Months, 1 Week, 5 Days, and 2 hours (104 days). I have saved $468.45 by not smoking 2,082 cigarettes.

And, last but not least...what my stats would be if I hadn't started again last year...damn me!

I have been quit for 2 Years, 10 Months, 2 Weeks, and 2 hours (1,049 days). I have saved $4,720.96 by not smoking 20,982 cigarettes.

$4,720.96!

$4,720.96!!!!!

That blows my mind. Hell, even the $468.45 since August blows my mind. That's 2 car payments! One of my favorite parts of quitting is the money I don't spend on making myself stink. :)

So, I'm going to go lie awake in bed now. Send me sleep vibes y'all!

WTF? Wednesday

WTF Cable Company?

Why is it that when I called today to ask why my bill is higher lately, you tell me that I am on the old system, and that you can now lower my bill by $50/month and give me a slew of new channels? Don't get me wrong...I really appreciate this...BUT, if I hadn't called, would have I have been over charged and under serviced forever??? I appreciate you back-dating the lower payment amount for this past month, but how long have I been over paying?? You bought out the old company a long time ago!

WTF Doc?

I go see you with horrible pain from a ruptured disc in July, for which you blew me off and spent about 2 minutes in the exam room with me, causing me to go see a Prompt Care Doc, who sent me for the tests that led me to the ultimate solution for my problem. But when I go see you today to have an old prescription re-written, you spend a half an hour chatting with me about my health? Is it because you feel so guilty about totally mis-diagnosing me and treating me like a drug seeking loser this summer? Too little too late, buddy, I'm still shopping for a new doc.

WTF NetMeeting?

Why is it that you've worked every other time I've used you, but today you wouldn't work for me when I was trying to train our field employees how to use our report system? You just had to do this in front of all of our Managers, but when the person after me (using the same machine with no changes) wanted to show her single document, you worked just fine??? Thanks a lot!

Thank Heaven For Little Sisters

Shortly after I finished my post last night, Little Sister Roomie (LSRoomie for future reference) came in the front door. She asked me why I was being a bum...when she left the house the night before, I was in the exact same position. I started giving her a quick run-down of my failure of an evening (and a marriage and a life), and she said she was really sorry but she needed to get back out to the car, as her boyfriend was in the driveway waiting for her. They were going back to his place to watch SNL with some friends. She asked me if I wanted to go along, but I wasn't hip on being in room full of people I don't know as I really wasn't sure if I was over being upset with myself. I told her I was fine...the pity party was pretty much over, and I was just gonna cuddle up with a bottle of Woodchuck and watch the Palin twins myself at home.

But she went to the car anyway and told her boyfriend that her big sister needed her for a little while. We headed to downtown Bloomington, hoping to find somewhere quiet where we could have a drink and some food...I was starving (always a good sign, cause I can't eat to save my life when I'm upset). The one place we knew of that was still serving food had a $5 cover charge, which meant there would probably be a band playing, which would make it too loud to enjoy conversation. No thanks. Everywhere else was crawling with already drunk bafoons, loud music, and girls who won't wear weather appropriate clothing, preferring to freeze off their little bits...and they had no food. Brilliant youngster that she is, LSRoomie remembered that Lucca Grill was just around the corner...PERFECT!! I always forget about that place and their awesome pizza. The kitchen was closed, but we were still able to order a pizza. And they have Fat Tire on tap, so I had myself one of those and got myself a nice little buzz.

I felt so much better! We talked about my evening in the car, and by the time we got to downtown, I was over it and we spent the rest of the night talking about just any old thing. Even though we live in the same house, we don't spend all that much time together, so it was nice to catch up. It was perfect, really. Even though I was back in my couch potato spot within an hour and a half, it was just enough for me to shake off the cobwebs, remember that I'm not completely heartless, and appreciate sisters (including those not related by blood) and how they always seem to show up and yank you out of your funk exactly at the moment when you need it most.

On Again Off Again On Again Off

Well, this time I think it's really over. MrP and I have been going back and forth with our "marriage" for the past year, but tonight was most likely the end. Nothing too dramatic happened...just an attempt to go to dinner which ended up in me asking him to turn around and take me back to my car so I could go home.

I hadn't talked to him since Friday at work when he called to tell me that he had just had his dog put down. Jack had been diagnosed with cancer earlier in the week, and although he knew it was coming, MrP thought he would have at least a few more weeks with his best friend. But, Thursday night, things got really bad, so he had his parents take Jack to the vet for him because he knew he wouldn't handle it very well. Starting last night, every minute I didn't call him the weight got bigger and bigger. He's used to me not calling him on Friday nights because he has his daughter then, and no matter how great my relationship was with her before the separation, I just can't bring myself to be in her life now. I know he'll never understand that, but she wanted to call me Mommy, and losing that once was enough for me. I wasn't prepared to put myself (or her) back into that until I knew for sure we'd make it work. But, it was a time when I SHOULD have called. I should have been there for him and I couldn't bring myself to move.

So, I did what I seem to do a lot lately, which is sit absolutely still and do absolutely nothing. But soon enough Friday night was over and Saturday was getting away from me and my big void. I thought getting out of the house would be a good idea. I could squash the ever growing tension from the lack of communication by just picking up the damn phone, calling him and seeing if we could go DO something. The last thing I wanted to do was sit on either one of our couches for yet another Saturday night. And I thought that once I got over there, we'd have something to talk about, or find something to do that would be fun and maybe I'd feel like this could work.

So, I did call and shortly after, headed over to his place. We decided to go get something to eat, but half way there I started feeling really sad, which isn't something that has happened much lately. It was pretty overwhelming, and I knew if we went into the restuarant, I'd either be totally clammed up, which would really suck for him, or I'd start crying...and being mortified to cry in public, I asked him if he'd turn around.

He asked me what was wrong and I told him I was either depressed or too stressed out (work, money, taking care of a household on my own, this relationship). I told him that I dread more than I look forward to anything in my life right now. His response was to laugh and tell me he'd said the same thing about himself a few times over the past few days. And even though it was the last thing I wanted to say to him during this difficult time, I blurted out that I didn't think I had it in me to make this relationship work. He said something dismissive, which I know is self preservation, but DAMMIT, I don't deserve that shit after everything we've been through, so I asked him to just not talk the rest of the way back. That was the last thing I said to him, and quite possibly the last thing I will ever say to him. I can't even imagine another conversation. What else is there to say? I'm sorry that for the 100th time, I thought it might work and for the 100th time, it didn't.

I guess I can't get past the past. I can't not remember all of the times I was disappointed. No matter how hard he tries, there are still too many things about us that just don't fit. It's not that I don't care for him, but we are too different to try to keep a relationship going, let alone a marriage. He's a good guy, but no matter how much I've tried to deny it over the past year, we are just not a good match. I need more than he can give me and he needs more than I can give him. And I think I'll go insane if I'm left in this limbo much longer, so this absolutely has to be it.

Now I feel like a heartless bitch.

Been running so long

I've been quiet lately. Just started blogging, then found myself with nothing to say. I get this way when there's uncertainty or confusion in my life. I clam up, become a hermit, lose touch. But even when I'm most quiet, I still find release in music. This pretty much says it for me today. http://www.singsnap.com/snap/r/c11097287