Goodbye Peter Jennings

I've missed seeing Peter Jennings whenever I watch the news. He's been anchoring on ABC pretty much my entire adult life. The one thing he said to learn from his illness was to quit smoking. As an ex-smoker myself, I can understand not only how hard it is to quit, but also how easy it can be to start again.

I'm fortunate. I finally quit after 7 or 8 attempts in January 1991. I recognized that my problem wasn't nicotine addiction so much as the habit of smoking (like biting your fingernails). In the 3 months prior to that, I eliminated habitual places, where I smoked, one at a time. Finally, the only place I smoked was my chair. The day I quit (mid-January), I started an afghan. I made it a goal to finish it for my sister's birthday and it kept my hands busy, busy, busy. Yes, I finished it by February 16 (the night before). I also found that I had to eliminate certain things. Beer was one of them as I always smoked when I drank alcohol. It took about 3 years before I could drink a beer without craving a cigarette.

All of my cigarette money went to buying needlework stuff, so technically, I didn't really save any money by quitting smoking. I created a new demon--one that could fall in on me if the piles of stash get too high!

Today, I didn't get any needlework done so far, but I have been sorting and packing away in anticipation of repainting in September. All these fabrics I had forgotten about, I get to visit again. I am also using my 2.5 gallon Hefty zips to sort out stuff needed for planned projects. I found that these are large enough not only to contain the book/pattern, but also to keep the fabric somewhat wrinkle free. It also reminds me to stop buying more fabric....