Spending the $ I would have burned up in an ashtray the past year and six months or so.
These are a few of the things I've purchased with my saved cig money:
1) A 3-wheel bike (will post pics when I find someone to help me put it together).
2) A new couch (bought online & wasn't sure of the process/quality/shipping process but it came this week and I LOVE it!)
3) Potting bench (always wanted one).
4) Ancestry.com DNA package (have wanted to do this for years)
5) Various & sundry personal indulgences: new pillows for my bed; creams, lotions and potions for my bod; some new duds & summer sandals
6) Stuff to create a little shaded garden area in my yard---SOOOO happy with this! Needed some shade so bought a couple of those market umbrellas, new cushions for my settee & chair, plants to fill pots I already had, some solar lighting...can't wait for my best friend to see it today. I spend a LOT of time out in my yard now because of this and it makes me HAPPY.
7) Ticket and Hotel Reservations to the Celtic Music Festival in Grass Valley in September. Have wanted to go to this for a long time & my girlfriends from my Truckee days and I are making it happen for my 70 birthday celebration. Can't wait!!!
This is a materialistic post, but one to remind those in the beginning of their quit that the rewards are many if you stay the course. I didn't buy myself anything to mark my year anniversary as a non-smoker...took myself out to a rather bad meal to celebrate. Just didn't have anything in mind that I wanted to mark the occasion.
HOWEVER, I have "flipped the switch" to an attitude of ABUNDANCE rather than LACK. The "poor me" 'tude --the one that got me to break many a quit--has gone BIG BYE-BYE. I LOVE myself enough now to GIVE MYSELF some things that provide me joy, comfort, and pleasure. Smoking was always cloaked (for me) in an attitude of self-loathing, no matter how buried that feeling was, every time I relapsed that feeling just grew stronger...
All this "personal growth" AND physical "gifts" from just saying "NOT ONE PUFF EVER AGAIN" (NOPEA??? LOL) and sticking to it. The good things that continue to happen because of this DECISION continue to be showered upon me.
May YOU feel the same blessings as you continue on your journey. The path is not straight, often has ups and downs and unexpected perils, but it is ALWAYS going in the same direction: up, Up, UP to FREEDOM...FREEDOM FROM ADDICTION!
Bonnie - Free and Healing for One Year, Six Months, Fourteen Days, 10 Hours and 3 Minutes, while extending my life expectancy 19 Days and 11 Hours, by avoiding the use of 5604 nicotine delivery devices that would have cost me $2,867.63.
