Just about 3 days quit and I'm feeling okay so far. I stopped by Woofmang.com and offered some support to someone who just relapsed for a couple of days and congratulated another person who resisted a monster crave. I have to be sure to touch base there every day to tell people how I'm doing and to support others. I still have to follow through on the Freedom From Smoking program as well. I need to write down my reasons for quitting, make copies of the list and keep it close at hand.
I've been sleeping and eating too much, but I did paint today. I worked a little bit on three acrylic paintings including the portrait of Avery Rose. I'm afraid the portrait of Avery doesn't quite capture her likeness. I tried painting a watercolor version of the photo, but that didn't come out. In fact, I'm struggling with all my paintings for this project. I'm only really satisfied with the watercolor of Jack Michael. I'd like to do a good watercolor of Avery and one of Jack and Avery. I ordered some more Arches watercolor paper in a larger size which should arrive in a few days. I'm also getting some artist grade gouache to replace my student grade gouache.
About.com-painting has a monthly painting project. This month it's mixed media or more specifically mixing wet and dry media. I'm going to use gouache and pastel. I have a large wooden box filled with soft pastels. I got it over 20 years ago and never really used them. I'm going to follow the technique of a former teacher in an instructional book she wrote over 20 years ago (too). I think I might try doing a self-portrait. According to this teacher (Mary Beth McKenzie) you establish the composition first with gouache and then go over the gouache in part with the pastels. She literally draws lines of color and crosshatches them instead of rubbing the pastel into the picture. In doing this she keeps the colors vibrant. She also uses pastel fixative spray to preserve parts of her portraits and rework other areas. I'll be a neophyte at this, but that should be exciting.
I'm not happy that we lost an hour of light in the evenings today. It means to me that winter has officially begun even though it's still fall. Short days and long nights. The main thing is to get through this winter, stay busy and keep a positive attitude. Sometimes easier said than done. I told my therapist that there are days when my painting goes well and other days when it goes poorly and I get depressed and lose motivation. She said I need to have a plan for another activity during those times of poor painting. Writing or craftwork or even songwriting. It takes training to get myself to do something instead of sleeping. But I can do it if I set my mind to it.
The national election is coming up on Tuesday and I'm getting nervous about it. When I met Bev on Friday I had an Obama button on my purse. She told me she was voting for McCain. I felt dismayed, but kept my mouth shut. This is a free country, thank God, and people should vote with their hearts and minds in whatever direction that takes them. I still have been praying that Obama wins the election, but I'm fully aware that I'm full of personal bias. I guess we all are. The main thing is to work at being bipartisan. We have a lot of problems in this country, the economy is in deep trouble, we're at war in two countries, millions of people have no healthcare. We have to work together to get through the hard times and not spend our time pointing fingers and placing blame.
2 comments:
At long last the election will be over. Then the ralling will stop and we won't have to see it. I must admit I am kinda looking forward for the results after that long run up to them. It can't be anything like Zimbabwe's elections this year. That was something else.
Kate i love that you have such a good relationship with your therapist and that you take on board what she says. I was thinking I need to take on board what the nurse says but for now I am waiting for my blood test results to tell me if there is a reason why I am so lethargic.
My sister is two weeks gone non smoker. She is on champix. And you are doing well too.
I have been sleeping alot.
J.P
Hi Kate~
I am so glad you have managed to go without smoking for three days! That is progress. My mom got pneumonia recently, for no apparent reason other than that she is a smoker. The pneumonia symmptoms never went away completely, and now she is waiting on test results that will tell her if she has Lymphoma.
Her lymph glands are swollen abnormally. Being pessimistic, she seems to be assuming the worst will happen. However, being addicted to smoking, she only quit for one or two days and then started smoking again. I found this hard to understand because, while I know it's a difficult addiction to quit, if you think you might be dying from something that you're doing, it would seem logical to stop doing it if you do not want to die.
For example, I had anorexia for years and an addiction to self-mutilation for years, that involved cutting myself up with razors and knives.
These were unhealthy coping mechanisms I used, though people often mistake such problems for a desire to die. I didn't really want to die, but I wanted to be in less pain. And eventually, I had to fight hard to beat each of those disorders. The anorexia was the hardest to overcome, and even though I did overcome it, I am still dealing with lifelong aftereffects such as Osteoporosis which I developed, apparently, from my years of starvation.
I broke my ankle last year, and then found out it was because of Osteoporosis. So I thought, what a damn shame. You can quit doing something harmful and still end up with harmful aftereffects from it.
I hope my mom can quit smoking, whether she has cancer or not. I was trying to tell her about the program you mentioned online through the lung association, but I did not know the name of it. If you could send me the link sometime, that would be great.
Good luck in your battle against the cigarettes!
Take care,
Jen
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