One Year Ago Today...

After 28 years of smoking, I put down my cigarettes for good. It wasn't simple, it wasn't a firm, angry, I will do this. I just decided to try. I'd found an on-line support group that appealed to me at www.quitnet.com. I pretty much lived there for a month. Then gradually spent less and less time there. During the past year, there've been plenty of times I thought about smoking, even wanted a cigarette. Times leaving doctor's offices with less than pleasant news, times of boredom, times of worry. But every time I thought, "I need a cigarette" I just as quickly turned my head around and said "What? Me? I don't smoke anymore." And that was that. Today it's been a full year.

It was the best decision I've ever made for myself. It's a decision I make every day, when I get up and say Not One Puff Ever - the quitnet mantra - N.O.P.E., N.O.P.E., N.O.P.E.!

And while the quitnet has tracked and calculated all the cigarettes I've not smoked, the lifetime I've saved by not lighting up, and the money I've saved from not running to the store (every day), I have to admit that I transferred my addictions, like most obsessive people I know...

Now I'm addicted to fabric and fibers...I sew and I knit. Now instead of relaxing on the balcony with a cigarette (I always smoked outside), I relax behind the sewing machine, or in the comfy chair with my knitting. It's much, much more pleasant. I have a new sewing business, and many, many new knitting friends.

I like my life much more now...So if smoking is something you've been thinking of ridding your life of...think of www.quitnet.com (or the Q as it's affectionately known). Just click on the little red-haired guy in my Sites of My Heart section. Then just think of all the yarn you can buy with your savings - mine as of today was $1281.00 and that's a lot of fiber!!