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Archive for November, 2012

Update on quiting smoking and what's with the spam?

November 30th, 2012 at 03:08 am

I just finished my 4th class on smoking cessation. It sure is different from the old days. Long ago it was run by the lung association and only discussed the medical implications. Now they discuss neurological habits (ie - body responses to lifting your arm), habits, reframing by during neurolinguistic programming, withdrawal and available aids etc. This is working for me. When I started the class I expected my success as a one out of ten. I was a three out of ten on Tuesday. But today I tried a nic mint and it worked! Mind you, it only made me delay for 45 minutes but I wasn't nutso coo-coo needing one. It was strictly a habititual smoke break - I finished reading the paper, therefore outside for a smoke. I'm thinking these new aids might work this time. I think I'm up to a four out of ten!

Meantime, what's with all the famale spam that's on everone's page. Can't this get blocked by the moderators? Please?

I think I'm going to hit my revised goal

November 26th, 2012 at 02:39 am

Just watching the Grey Cup and have had a relaxing weekend. I needed it. Fighting a cold. Again. Hosted a wonderful dinner on Friday. And will be joining in the family Christmas festivities on December 15th and 16th. One of the things I've learned from tracking expenses is the many items I spend money on but didn't budget for. So to my list I will add the neighbourhood Christmas gathering (a pot luck gift exchange plus byob so need to budget at least $50, the friends Christmas gathering (probably $125 including gifts, wine, food), and the family gathering (food and wine so likely $75). On a good note I am not hosting so I've likely saved a good $250 that would cover a cleaning lady, food, bar, etc. One other event that needs to be in my budget is my "Sista" shopping day. It is probably one of my favourite days of the year where we go shopping at a mall, have lunch and dinner, and laugh until we convulse. Looking at my tabs I need to add another $60 easy for the food. Logic tells me I should not participate but it's just so outside our normal routine of being frugal and it brings us so much joy so I'll keep it in. So all in all another $300 that I need to include in some sort of play fund.

I am looking forward to next weekend where I will be able to blog the reduction of my line of credit to under $9K. As long as my expenses go through. Perhaps I'll have to wait until the week after that.

My regular contribution of $125 per week plus any surplus funds will be suspended as of November 30th to cover Christmas gift expenses. I will be back at it in January.

I can't imagine what it will be like in December 2013 when I am free of this line of credit debt. I am practicing my happy dance.

Celebratory dinner

November 7th, 2012 at 01:26 am

I took myself out to dinner tonight. A wonderful $7 dinner at Whole Foods. Outstanding. Now you might recall that I've been cutting way down on eating out at lunch. I spent $28 for all of October so I am very happy with that.

But tonight I treated myself as I waiting for my meeting to start. I have joined a smoking "butt out" group at our local hospital. Good for me! I ranked 10 out of 10 on my motivation to quit smoking but 1 out of 10 on the chances I'll be successful. That's something I'll have to work at because I really enjoy smoking but it's making me sick too often.

So the celebratory dinner was so very worth it!

I'll keep working on the lunches. Room for improvement for sure, but that's only 4 lunches out of 23. Not too bad.

Unfortunately I just stocked up on my cigarettes and I'll have to figure out how to sell off the extra 2 cartons I bought. Surely someone will buy them...

And hey, to lighten up the meeting I asked to sit in the smoking section :-)