My Secret Pal is messing with me.

She has read my blog and decided either:

1. I have had a harsh last day or two and she wants to brighten my world
2. She wants to mess around with my already addled brain.

I think it’s number 2.

So here’s the scoop.  A few weeks ago, I received my first secret package – which was filled with wonderful goodies btw – and the return address was from St. Albans, Vermont.  Home of one swap participant.  Please also note that in her entry today, she confesses to loving to mess with minds, this could be a crucial clue.

In today’s mail arrived an envelope with a cute little blogger’s notepad in it and a card from my BP.  This time the return address was from Wisconsin.  hmmmm ……. I do know a certain cheesehead …. Now Vicki might give the outward appearance of being a kind and loving soul, but ever since she put down the coughin nails she has been a seething cauldron of god-knows-what.

So, does it follow that one of these two is my Secret Pal?  That one of them is crazy enough to actually mail things to the other to mail to me just in order to throw me off the scent?  Do either of these ladies know me well enough to know how much I delight in this kind of subterfuge?  And that I wish I had done this to my very own Secret Pal?

Is there any other blogger that I know who would be this ‘out there’, who would take total delight and chortling glee in this escapade?  who is probably giggling like a chimp as she reads this??

before I tell you of the many ways things have gotten better, let me add to my litany of electronic woes ….

• when D#2 got home from school the day of my meltdown, she announced that her scientific calculator had mysteriously gone belly up
• when she got home from school yesterday she announced that her scientific calculator was just as mysteriously working again, but now her IPOD was acting crazy.
• thinking I had put all my bad mojo behind me and believing in the motto that tomorrow is another day, I happily went to my laptop.  Which received me with some kind of dire warning about corruption in files.  I don’t know what it all means. 
• When Boar rolls out of bed, he will make everything better.
• I am typing this to you from Boar’s laptop.
• I really like this laptop.
• would switching laptops be as traumatic for him as switching sides of the bed?
• I am wondering if this mayhem is being caused by sun flare ups or something.

enough about that.

onto how my mood has been improved …… go and see what Jackie made —– for me!! How fantastic is that??

I’ll tell you why!

1. my PDA seized up on me —- and by PDA I do not mean public display of affection, I am talking about my life’s blood —- my palm pilot.  My Sony Clie to be exact.  I can live without a lot of things – but this is not one of them.  Of course I backed it up, but what good is that when the thing is completely frozen.
2. after work, I had to by a new PDA – a Palm Zire 72 to be exact.  The Clie could not be resurrected and it had acted up before and had lost my confidence in its ability.  So off to CompUsA.  Whereupon I encountered a salesman/manager who would have been better off selling used jalopies on a tar lot somewhere.
3. he really brought on some bad Mojo, I tell  you.
4. after that I had to come home, and install the Zire.
5. but first I had to go out back with all the reluctant dogs.  Why reluctant?  because we were in the midst of a deluge — side effects of Ophelia.  Do I like standing outside in the pouring rain waiting for dogs  – Poe to be exact – to get to it?
6. No.  but he seems to think I do and likes to prolong my experience.
7. have I tried just sending him out on his own?
8. yes.  he is convinced that I am an integral part of the process and has held his bladder (until he comes back inside – where I am) longer than I ever thought possible.
9. then I had to figure out why my laptop had seized up.  The CD rom drawer to be exact.  Usually a spot that is never used, but these devices come with start up CD roms.
10. figured out to no avail and then had to install everything into the Boar’s laptop.
11. was I happy?
12. Oh No!  I was really having a total meltdown.  Just like my Clie.  Which started the whole thing in the first place.
13. the entire afternoon & evening was spent transferring data.  Because of malfunctioning electronics, this took two laptops, one desktop and one PDA.  I also kept checking the Clie periodically to see if she was still dead. 
14. She was.  And is.
15. Did I do anything else?
16. I screamed at Poe to quit chewing the power cords.
17. and Lucy to quit trying to limbo under them.
18. at midnight, I was ready for bed and went to get some water from the fridge.
19. the shelf on the door let loose and there was soy sauce and glass shards and some kind of lemon liquor that my MiL brought back from her Italy trip all over the kitchen floor.

Italy sounds nice.

That Vicki is so nice.  She sent me a package to celebrate our upcoming anniversary.  (Yeah – Vicki and I have an anniversary together.  So what?  It’s not like we’re going to leave our husbands for each other …… are we?)  Check out the cute things she sent – I especially love the card.  Those pictures are from our blogger’s get together in NYC!  Isn’t she so clever?

We have an upcoming six month quit smoking date!  Yay for us!!  Along the way, she and I have been exchanging notes and comparing experiences.

So, it’s been six months.  According to Silkquit, I have:

• not smoked 3,607 cigarettes
• have saved $964.84 (holy crap, that’s a load of money!)
• and have saved 1 week 5 days 12 hours and 35 minutes of my life

It is easier and harder.  I certainly don’t have the urge to smoke as much as I used to.  But I do still want to and have even dreamt of smoking numerous times.  I hear from other Quitters that this is completely normal and will happen for years to come.  I need to guard against feeling cocky about this and trying to kid myself into thinking that I can have just one.  I cannot.

Here is an excerpt from an email I sent to Vicki this past weekend: 

….. over the weekend we were closing the pool and during the down time, I did some raking.  I popped some of the leaves in our outdoor fire pit just for the smell and when it started smoking wildly —- I didn’t move.  Just stood there in the cloud of smoke and breathed.