Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Smoking Addiction/Nicotine - My Story Pt. 2

- Read Part 1 -

So, how did the parents find out about my smoking? Well, first of all I wasn't too smart by hiding them in my dresser drawer. What is it with hiding things in the dresser drawer? Everyone looks there. I kept them wrapped in a white paper napkin tucked under some jammies - my clothes didn't smell too well.

My mother had a habit of ripping our bedrooms apart when we were off at school. She would literally dump everything we owned out of the drawers onto the beds (we had two twin beds squeezed into our tiny room). She would empty the closet onto the beds and then she would dig everything out from under the beds. We would then come home to a nightmare! She would do this when she finally got tired of asking us to clean our rooms. As with most kids, our idea of cleaning our rooms consisted of shoving it under the bed, into the drawers and on the closet floor. Shut the door - all clean! When she finally had had enough, well... now you know.

It was just awful to come home to that. I hated it when my mom would do that to me and I have to say, it didn't teach me anything at all. I'm still a slob. I'm trying though but not because of my experiences but because I'm trying to be a good example to my children and trying to be a good steward over what God has given me. Tossing what I own to and fro without a care is a shameful trait of mine.

On to the subject of smoking – On one of those awful days that my mom had had enough of our nasty bedroom she happened upon my stash of cigarette butts. There they were, on display on top of my dresser still lying in the little white napkin they had been wrapped in and... there mom was standing there in front of the dresser with her hands on her hips asking me "well... what's this?" I remember feeling all shaky and overwhelmed with the desire to vomit. What could I do? Lie? And so I did just that. It was a scene right out of the movie "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie's mom asked him where he learned that nasty word he spoke when he was helping his dad change the tire. "It was Schwartz!" Only this was long before this movie came out.

I told her I was holding them for my friend up the street. Can you believe that?! And apparently my mom believed me! The only problem was... I didn't realize my mom was going to call my friend's mom and tell HER! AAHHH!!!

To be continued...

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Smoking Addiction/Nicotine - My Story Pt. 1

When I was 10 years old (5th grade) I started smoking. Let's just say, I was dabbling in it. Why? Who knows. I guess to be cool; to fit in? I remember stealing cigarette butts from my dad's ashtray (I know -GaROSS!!) and rolling them up in a napkin to save for later. I would hide them in my dresser drawer. Some of the other girls from my street and I would head to the end of the subdivision where the new houses were being built so we could fire up the "butts" we had collected and learn to inhale. On the day my parents found out you can guarantee those weren't the only "butts" being fired up. Yow!

I remember hanging out on a patio of one of those homes - looking at ourselves through the sliding door. We would watch our reflection in the glass to see how cool we looked inhaling and exhaling the smoke.

To Be Continued...

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

What's This About? Part II

Continued from here...

I guess it's about time I get back to my story. As I was saying before, at about age 22 I started to realize that water wasn't what I thought it was. At least the water running from my tap. After reading that fine piece of paper at my friend's house I proceeded to head home to my little town in Tennessee and rant and rave to my now husband about the tap water in little town Kentucky. I realized that I really didn't want to use my body as a filtration system - I wanted clean water going in.

After some time passed we proceeded to have our water tested and we purchased a reverse osmosis water filtration system. We've had one of these ever since and I'm now 40 years old.

So, the first things I started learning about as it relates to my health was aspartame and clean drinking water. My knowledge has since grown from there.

Don't worry, I plan to share some more of My Way Uh Thinkin'.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Aspartame

I recently got sidetracked on an issue that goes right along with some of the issues that are important to me. Aspartame is an artificial sweetener which can be found in more foods/treats that I prefer to know. There is information all over the internet about how bad it is for the body - there is more information about how bad it is than there is about whether it's good for you. Anyway, here's a link to the post I made on my other blog about this issue and another link to my follow-up post.

Hope you find that information helpful. Also, here's a link to some information on my nutrition site about aspartame.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

What's This About? Part I

I do a lot of thinking. According to some, I do too much thinking. I don't believe it to be possible to think too much. I have a tremendeous passion first and foremost for my God and then my family. Apart from this, I'm on a quest to fill my head with as much information about health.

This quest for health all started way back when (I think it was 1988) while sitting at the kitchen table of a friend of mine who, at the time, lived in a small town in Kentucky. Come to think of it, she still lives there. There was a piece of paper on the table, a letter from her water company. For some reason I picked it up and read it. Now, it's been a long time since then and I can't tell you verbatim what it said but this is what I remember: "allowable contaminants" in her tap water. What did I just read? "Allowable contaminants"? Contaminants. In the tap water? The water you drink?

Okay, I was about 22 years old at the time and was pretty much floating through life without a care. At least that's how I see it at the age I am now. Come to find out, this was common practice with tap water.

To Be Continued...