Well hello there!
Would you believe that on Friday it SNOWED? A summer snow.
Oh, and I have just not smoked every single day for three hundred sixty five days in a row.
I made it to the 1 year club! the 6% club!
YAY ME!
And I want to encourage anyone who is just starting on the path to look back at my blog. I have been through the ringer!
The day before my initial quit date I totaled my car. I moved my quit date back 3 days - but looking back I probably didn't need to do that. I was just being safe and protecting myself from failure due to stress.
I fought to keep my house from being sold at auction - the first 6 months at least of my quit I was under the fear that my house would be sold within two weeks or so...
My parents were in and out of the hospital. Even now, my mother is in a nursing home working towards rehabilitation after hip surgery. And the newest diagnosis is pulmonary hypertension.
My son is very ill; I fought long and hard to get him help, and he has been in a residential facility since May. He may never come home. His dad died of a drug over dose. He will never see justice in this world.
I gained 17 pounds. And at 6 months quit I decided I was ready to make the next fierce choice and I started to work on losing the weight. I've lost most of it.
I got a promotion at work. I was offered a contract position with another company, and that has changed to an offer for pt work that would fit into my daughter's school day and allow me my Thursday with my son.
I became a coach and went into business for myself. I made success club the first month of being a coach.
My daughter and son are physically healthy. My parents are still here.
I have made true friends here on Ex.
The point is life happens. Good things and bad things and every day things. As long as we are living (thank the Lord) life will happen and smoking does not make good things better, nor does it make bad things less bad.
If you are tired of starting over, stop giving up! I was a serial quitter. I am not proud of it. I look back at all the wasted time spent smoking! If you smoke a pack a day, and it takes 5 minutes to smoke just one, that is over an hour and a half of your day not spent enjoying your family. My daughter was 4 when I quit.
100 minutes a day x 365 days x 4 years = 146,000 minutes, or more than 2,433 hours I spent smoking - usually sitting outside the front door beggin the kids to give me some space and some time and I feel horrible looking back on that! (really, since she was 4 years 10 months and some odd days it is more like 2,975 hours) And lets not even think about how much time I wasted during the 13 years my son lived with me smoking.
I decided a year ago in August to quit smoking. I didn't say "I'm going to try, Maybe this will work".
I decided I wanted to quit more than I wanted to smoke.
Maybe that is the key. Maybe that is what made the difference.
and then, every day for as long as I needed to do it daily, I just did not smoke. I still just don't smoke every singe day. I have made that FIERCE Choice every sinngle day for 365 days in a row.
I don't think about smoking very often and when I do it is usually a bad thought when I smell smoke or see peolpe in the snow smoking or coming in drenched from the rain because they "had to smoke!" Or my employees calling me near in a panic because there is no one to give them their break and it-has-been-over-two-hours!!!!
I want to say thank you to all of you. The elders, the "3rd Quarter Winners Circle/Just another EXample" people I am following into the 6% club, the people who have all been here to read my rants, leave a comment, write a post for me to read, those who have allowed me to encourage them, those who encouraged me or steeled my resole or reminded me how difficult the ourney can be. ALL OF YOU. THANK YOU.
And I want to let you know the Eli comes from Elims which is Smile backwards. It always makes me smile to see that. Silly, huh?
My name is Lisa. It is wonderful to throw off the cloak of anonymity that I felt I needed when I started this journey because of my fear of failure and disappointing people I have never met. I don't need to be anonymous anymore!
I have been nicotine free for a whole flippen year.
And I would love to party with each and every one of you!
~Lisa (Eli) day 365
.png "Sootie"){kind=avatar}
