improvements

This is my list of personal improvements (not resolutions) that I’ll be working on in the new year.  Some I began several months ago.  Some I began on January 2 like improvement #1, the most important improvement, which is hurting me bad right now.

1.  Quit smoking. Again.  This one is a cliché, I know.  Everyone pledges to quit smoking in the New Year.  But I’m quitting not only because I don’t want to die, but also because smoking will not fit with my new job.  Would you trust an athletic trainer who smokes?  Yeah, I wouldn’t either.  Also, I’m tired of spending so much money on something smelly and gross that is eventually going to make me very sick.  I don’t want to be that asshole anymore who knows better yet continues the vice.  (Who am I fucking kidding. Just typing about them is making me twitchy with longing.  If I had a cigarette here right now it would be smoked faster than you could say inoperable lung cancer.  I MISS YOU DIRTY NICOTINE AND TAR!)

2.  I will not complain about the patches even though they burn and itch and make me want to scrape my skin off with the serrated edge of a knife.  It is better to have an arm burn than lung cancer.  Remember this over the next few weeks and SUCK IT UP. 

3. Do not gain 10 pounds while quitting smoking. The medicine has changed the way I feel about food.  I went through a strange thing with food after the baby was born.  Carbs were the only thing that made life worth living.  Now that the stress has subsided, I have a dramatically different relationship with food.  I’d rather shop for it and look at it and cook it or do anything else with it than eat it. I hope quitting smoking doesn’t shift this balance and turn me back into a carb cow.  If this happens, get out of the pantry and spend a little time getting reacquainted with Mr. Treadmill.

4. Shed the last ten pounds so that I can fit into my whole pre-pregnancy wardrobe.  I should be able to wear ALL of the clothes in my closet, not just MOST.  There’s that pile of cute jeans you can’t wear, hot stuff, REMEMBER THAT whenever you look at a piece of bread or a pile of spaghetti and think about putting it anywhere near your face.

5. Start throwing out Eli’s candy and cookies and treats if he leaves them around the house.  I don’t care if he eats garbage, but it’s too easy to just have a cookie for lunch if they’re sitting there all inviting on the counter and I have nothing to do with my hands now because I can't smoke so why not hold cookies all day long?  Eli will listen when I ask him to keep the shit in his truck or at work if I start destroying his snacks.

6. Accept the nightmares as the small price to pay for daily peace of mind.  I can’t even begin to describe the horror that lives in my nightly dreams.  Every night I have vivid, terrifying dreams that started when I began the medication.  I think what is happening is my anxiety is being shuffled away out of my conscious mind and into my subconscious where it waits until I let my guard down at the end of the day and go to sleep.  Then all the anxiety that used to result in bizarre behaviors in my waking world, comes into my dreams and tortures me at night.   I am going to stop complaining and SUCK IT UP.

7. Live in the moment. Try not to plan so much for a tomorrow that may never come that I miss living in the days that are here right now.  I think I must have seen that on a poster or inspirational bumper sticker somewhere and it imprinted on my brain because I don’t talk like that.  But you get what I mean.

8. Stop using my hair scissors to cut other stuff.  My hair trimming scissors are expensive and very sharp, and they’re supposed to be reserved for taking care of split ends.  But when I’m in a rush and I need to cut tags off of clothes or cut my new bath loofah out of its package, I head straight for my beautiful hair trimming scissors.  They’re getting dull now and I can’t snip the ends of my hair with them anymore.  I have to saw.

9. Try to focus more on the positive side of having pets instead of always noticing the negative things they do and secretly wanting to snap their necks. Starting now.

Good things about cats:
They entertain the baby. 
They make the bed warm when they nap in it before we go to sleep. 
Sometimes do cute things that are funny
They are soft

Bad things about cats:
Can be annoying and very very needy
Don’t understand the concept of their own mortality.  (They run out of the house and we have to chase them through the snow and under bushes and around the house or out from under the car to get them back inside because we have a fox in the woods and a family of raccoons and skunks and we don’t want them killed or sprayed.  If only they would learn to come when I lean out the door and scream, “GET BACK HERE!!! DO YOU WANT TO BE EATEN BY FOXES????”  The cats ignore me, I end up digging around under the snowy bushes in my pajamas and the neighbors think I’m crazy.)
Trip me on the stairs
Meow loudly sometimes
Walk on us in the middle of the night
Chew our stuff
Shed everywhere (though I can’t be too pissed off about this because I am one girl and I shed more hair around this place than all three cats)
Play with bags and things that crinkle in the middle of the night

See? I can't do this one even if I try.

10. Stop killing plants.  Either pay attention and nurture them or stop bringing them here to die.

11. Do not get flustered when people cannot read my mind and need shit spelled out for them.  This especially pertains to Eli.  He is not trying to torture me, he is just very laid back and also not psychic. Just accept it and work together on a household plan that will divide the work up fairly and get on with life.

That's enough for now.  I think I could sum up my whole list with five simple words that would cover everything: Be a Better Human Being.