Almost 6 weeks

I quit smoking almost 6 weeks ago!!!!! I NEVER thought I would quit. I used every excuse in the book not to quit. My arguments were
1. I enjoy smoking
2. Quitting is too hard
3. Even if I try to quit I can't so why bother
4. I am not hurting anyone by smoking
5. All my friends smoke
The list could go on and on and on. Now that I have finally quit I realized that
1. I didn't really enjoy it, it was a habit. Who actually enjoys stinking like an ashtray? Coughing? Stopping whatever I am doing just to have a smoke?
2. It was hard to quit but the satisfaction of knowing that I did it is even sweeter than that after dinner smoke!
3. I can do it and I have done it. It took will power but I overcame. I know that I will still have struggles but if I have come this far I can continue on.
4. I was hurting myself and my kids! I didn't smoke in my house or car but my kids were subjected to secondhand smoke everytime they were outside with me. I took time away from to go smoke, I took money away from them to buy cigarettes. I was hurting them and didn't even care!!!
5. Most of my friends still smoke and it gets easier everytime I see them to not want to smoke with them. It also helps that I know they support me and wouldn't let me smoke even if I asked them to!
I am proud of myself and am more than ready to start living my life as a non smoker!!!!

www.whyquit.com

Updates

As you can see Adia has been losing teeth like crazy! 3 teeth in two weeks time and she has a fourth one loose. She is getting rich while the tooth fairy is going slowly broke!!! At this rate soon she is not going to be able to bite into anything cause she will have no front teeth!

I recieved this lovely hemp necklace, bracelet, and keychain in the Friends of Craftster Raffle Swap. They are really very pretty in real life! The necklace and earrings I sent have not been collected by my partner yet as she has been out of town. I am hoping that she does like them once she gets back. I woudl hate for anyone to be dissapointed in what I have made.

We have been busy, busy, busy! Always seem to be too busy. There are so many things I want to do and it seems there is just not enough time in the day. I only get so much "me" time in a day and I hate having to choose between crafting, reading, or watching a movie with Jason.

So this weekend we had a busy one. It was a full birthday weekend for our cousin/neice (or whatever you want to call her!) We had a family dinner on Saturday with lots of swimming and chatting. There is nothing I love more than spending time with my family, especially with all my cousins and their kids. We went back for the second half of the party on Sunday and watched a presentation about birds (definately not my fave thing in the world)

Despite all the running around I did squeeze in a little bit of craft time. I made some more charms with the scrabble tiles and dominos. I also made two beaded cell phone charms since mine broke on Friday. I am also 90% finished with my "friend" for the make me a new friend swap. Considering I have never made anything like this before, she turned out pretty well. I am not sure if she is swap worthy or not though. I am going to finish her up, take some photos and ask for some outside opinions. If I don't send her out I will definately post pics here. Otherwise I'll have to wait to post until she is received. I hate having anxiety about what I make for others. Maybe I should just stop swapping!

I am already starting to plan what I want to do for my holiday baking, so get ready for some good eats. The kids are both into helping me bake/cook things so everything this year will have lots of V family love added in!

Speaking of baking and cooking the kids and I made our own personal pizza's last week. They did such a good job, had fun, and they both ate their whole pizzas. Landon is so hit or miss when it comes to eating. I may have to try letting him help out more if it means he will actually eat more! I think we are definately going to do the personal pizzas again soon. I am going to upload the photos to my Fickr if you want to see them.

(I can't figure out how to get them to show on here, for some reason the gadget doesn't work for me! I also can't figure out how to get the pictures I do post on her to be where I want them to be rather than all at the top of the page, oh well)

My Jewelry

Ok so I have been making jewelry for a little over a year now and I think I am getting a little better at it. I have been tossing around the idea of opening a shop online and trying to sell some stuff. I will eventually get around to getting some good pictures of everything and getting a shop set up. In the mean time I thought I would share some pictures of things that I have done in the past year. I have found that I am not so hot at making necklaces but really enjoy earrings and bracelets! The charms are what I think I want to try and sell online. Let me know what you think...

Swapping

So I have finished the 4 crafty swaps that I overwhelmed myself with and sent everything out last week. So far my Disney Swap partner has received but didn't post any pictures. I got permission and posted pictures myself. So in all it's glory here are (some of) my Disney Swap items. I am pretty proud since a few of the things I did were new techniques for me. If you want to see them all check out the swap gallery http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=262068.msg2963083#msg2963083

I also completed a necklace and earrings for a raffle swap, some cute magnets for a mini recipes swap, and a box loaded with supplies for a fill a box swap. I told myself that I wasn't going to sign up for anything else for a while but I got sucked in to a make a friend swap. Now I am not sure that I should have signed up for it. I am going to have to craft a "friend" for my partner. I tried making a two different stuffies this weekend, one was given to Adia and one was thrown away! Neither attempt helped build my confindence so I guess I will just have research some tut's and hope for the best!!!!

My current Swaps

i have been a member of a super crafty website called craftster for a few months now. www.craftster.org. they offer up opportunites to do craft swaps. basically you craft for someone and they craft for you. there are themes and such and different rules so that no one gets screwed. after i did my first swap i found that i am addicted!!!!