I've been going through a lot lately, so haven't crafted much of anything, and what I have done, I gave away without taking a picture (an elfish hat for my niece, so maybe my sister will take a photo?). One thing is that I got sick about a week ago, and quit smoking so I'd feel better faster. It wasn't really planned to be the big "I'm never smoking again" thing, but I'm taking the opportunity to run with it, see how I feel about a smoke-less life. So far pretty good. I used up the last 5 or 6 patches I had left from the last time one of us tried to quit smoking, and went patch-less today with lots of nicotine gum. I never really felt an urge to smoke until last night, watching Breakfast on Pluto which had me in tears, and featured a lot of smoking scenes at one point, 2 things that usually cue a need to smoke, but I still had on a patch. Because that was the last one, I fully intended to go back to smoking again today, but happened on a big box of (expired) gum, and took a pack of cigarettes (for just in case) and, I don't know, like 30 pieces of gum.
The good thing about the patch was that I didn't really feel much withdraw except in the mornings, but the hand to mouth wasn't being replaced by anything but food. On top of that, when my head isn't congested my senses are more acute. So I guess I grabbed the gum because I wasn't ready to lose that again. Cool thing about the gum is that you shouldn't chew for a few minutes after you eat, so for me that means I'm not constantly stuffing my face, like I did when I smoked, because it became natural to smoke after a meal, and therefore, to keep eating until I was ready to go outside. Also I work in customer service, so I can "chew" it while I'm working. That makes the job a hell of a lot easier.
The weird thing about smelling and tasting things better is that foods I used to like taste weird, like bad weird. Breakfast bagel? What's that weird burnt oil flavor? Was that always there? But at least some things actually taste better. When I did smoke sometimes I just kept eating to try and get to the good flavor. Are there any smokers or ex-smokers out there? Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
The only good thing about smoking was that it was the only thing in a quiet evening in that got me off the couch for a couple minutes every hour or two because there's no smoking allowed on the whole property. On nice nights we'd take a walk around the neighborhood (and smoke at least 2-3 cigarettes), but in crappy weather there was at least a walk up and down the narrow driveway a couple times a night. I try to make up for the lack of movement by walking more at work, but I want to find more active things to do after work. I sure wish there was a skating rink close by...
It'll be good to find new things to do, something cool and healthier than smoking anyway...wish me luck... :)
