Crankily for the best.

I quit smoking today. Really, I quit smoking on May 5, 2002, and then again in July of 2005, but I've had a bit of an occasional dependence off and on since then. Until January, when I decided going back to smoking could be a short term coping mechanism. Psychoanalysts will tell you that they consider 20 sessions of therapy to be short term, so really if you factor in a session a week for 20 weeks with a couple of breaks for visits from mom and detox days, I'm coming in under the wire. But only just. I'm less worried about the need for the nicotine than I am about the habit of having something to do with my hands when I'm annoyed. Or sad. But mostly I'm worried about my nagging cough, and can't hang around in denial-land about it anymore.

So today, decision to quit smoking: you make Babz's List of Optimistic Ponderances, or BLOP of the day.
1. I quit smoking because I want to be healthy, and not develop COPD.
2. I bought new running shoes (even though they're really ugly) so that I can start taking old school healthy power walks.

3. I took an old school healthy power walk (they're old school because I didn't have my 6-year old pseudo shared custody shepherd lab cross along for the fun outdoorsie times so it was actually about me wanting to go).

Today's BLOP had some additional unintentional meaning as well in that I discovered a couple of COPD/Canadian Lung Association issues that may lead to some relatively interesting stakeholder relations work. All in all, a positive holiday Monday.