Homely Scientist

So … yes I skipped a day, but rest assured I’m still not smoking.  I also ran out of patches and haven’t had one on since Thursday.  I meant to get to the store on Friday and just never did.  Today?  Same.  The thing is that my stress-o-meter has hit red line.  Stress is my big trigger for not being successful at quitting.  I could just cave, couldn’t I?  If you knew the back story, I think I’d get a pass.
However, the plus side is that when my stress-o-meter red lines, I also don’t feel like going out, which means …read more

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Yep, it’s been almost a full week without a cigarette touching my lips.  Yes, I remembered to take my patch off last night.  Just barely though.
Anyway, I got up, patchless, and got right to work.  Couple hours in, as you can read on my Twitter stream, I needed that patch.  Normal?  Yeah for sure.
Right now what I miss is smoking when on the phone.  It was just something I did.  Grab the phone or answer it, grab a smoke, go outside and talk.
I wonder if this is the final time.  I hope I’m strong enough to do it.  Right now …read more

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I’m sure that Christina has covered this, but since this is a very important topic I’m going to hit it again.  Right now I’m taking 1000 mg a day of a powerful antibiotic for my sinus infection.  My course is for ten days.  Today, in fact last night, I’m feeling better but that doesn’t really matter it’s a 10 day course and 10 days will I consume my horse pill twice a day.  But the question is why is this so important.  It’s all Darwin’s fault.
It’s a natural selection thing, really.  When you start taking an antibiotic, the “weakest” bacteria …read more

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Okay still no smoking.  Beyond the patch I think having a sinus infection has a lot to do with it.  I’ll take it though if it gets me over the first couple weeks.
Anyway, one of the earlier times I tried quitting smoking I used the patch and was warned (it’s even on the box/insert) if you keep it on at night you’ll have vivid dreams.  I remembered this last night, just not just before I went to bed.  So, yes, I fell asleep with the patch on.  Vivid dreams?  OMG.  Bizarre.  Freaky.  I had essentially two dreams last night that …read more

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It’s been nearly a week since I really wanted to smoke.  I did have a smoke last Thursday, almost just to see if I liked/craved them.  Nope.  Since I was feeling like death anyway I didn’t notice the first days of nicotine withdrawal, which is probably a good thing.  I was more than a tad grumpy on Friday, which was probably a combination of withdrawal and just being tired of being sick.
Anyway, I weathered the weekend smoke free, even with Lorraine still smoking (for now).  Today the cravings hit.  Thank goodness there aren’t any smokes in the house or I …read more

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So I’ve been sick for the past week.  It really, really sucked.  I’m finally getting it together here to be able to write cogently again.  I’m drinking a ton of water to balance out all the stuff that I’m blowing out of my nose.  Snot, however, isn’t the point of this post, quitting smoking is.  See, Lorraine and I planned on quitting April 1 but I caught this killer cold/flu thing last Sunday.  Smoking became just something that I just couldn’t do.  During the week, Wednesday especially, I had no energy or desire to smoke, so I didn’t.
Which made me …read more

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And does it really matter at this point?  It’s March Break time here in B.C. and so I had my kids over for the first half of Break.  Of course they both decided to get sick in the days before I picked them up and very kindly shared their germs with me (nothing like being trapped in a car with coughing kids).
Sunday it hit me.  Not hard at first, but hard enough for me to know I was going to be in trouble soon.  Well, Monday I was just toast.  Chills, coughing, more snot and mucus that should come out …read more

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Hat tip to Darren for the link to this site:
By now, we’ve all heard the benefits of compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). Consuming roughly 30 percent of the power required for a similar incandescent bulb, CFLs are a no-brainer way to reduce home energy bills and slash greenhouse gas emissions.
Australia says it will be the first nation to adopt lighting energy standards which effectively ban traditional bulbs, and there are plenty of other initiatives to do the same elsewhere. The CFL is here to stay. In fact, it’s heading your way faster than anyone expected. Source: Lighter Footstep – How to …read more

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Hsien sent me a link to Science With Me a little while ago, I didn’t have a chance to blog it until now, but she did!  Anyway, it’s a cool site with a free membership so you and your kids can learn about static electricity (which I had my own run it with today) and fingerprints.  Everything seems to be written in nice, kid-friendly language and the experiments are short and easy (maybe messy too!).
Looks like I know what I’ll be doing this weekend with the kids!  Oh, what to choose, what to choose…
Technorati tags: kid science, science education, experiments …read more

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No, I don’t mean that.  What I mean is, are you taking enough of your medication for it to work properly?  Of course, you need to take your medication as prescribed.  Don’t even think about not doing that.  I learned something, though, yesterday about one of my medications.  As you know I suffer from depression and take medication for it.  I recently switched to a new one and it was working okay.  Not great, just okay.  I went in, chatted with the doctor and he upped the dose a bit.  Within a day or two I felt a huge improvement …read more

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