Friday the 8th July, Quit day.

Today I am starting on my thousandth attempt at stopping smoking, with help I have received from Roger and the relaxation and hypnosis tracks he pointed me towards, I have renewed enthusiasm and belief that I can do it.

Okay realistically I have absolutely no will power hehehehe, but I can only try, I have to get the defeatist attitude out of my head when and if I have a slip, one cig, doesn’t have to mean another 5 years of smoking, hiccups happen to the strongest of people.

So far today I have sat and tidied my desk and done a couple of tournaments for a game league I am involved with, drank lots of decaf coffee and water and filled the dishwasher and got it going. I started to put some of the thousand and one things that are lying around back in the cupboards, but decided to take a break -that’s quite enough excitement for one day I think. LOL

I think I will go and wake my husband, then I might have another read of one of Roger's books for a while, I think I will re-read The Naked Emperor. It made me laugh so much; my poor husband must have thought I had lost the plot sitting here at the computer laughing like a crazed woman. Ah well, laughter is good for the soul

The forum is active with posts and Roger and Herb are up to their usual antics and making us all laugh. Though he admitted he could be grumpy, we all thought Roger was too deeply relaxed to be grumpy, glad to know I am not the only one that this happens to! I blame hormones, Roger doesn’t have that excuse.

It is absolutely throwing it down again which really doesn’t inspire me to go out into the garden and check the plants, I can see another tomato ready to come off the largest plant and a few raspberries ready to pluck, I need to get to them before anyone else does, they are too good to be missed.

I am not quite sure what went wrong with my parsley, one day it was bushy and growing nicely ready for yet more to be taken off ( yes it literally took over the huge chimney pot planter it's in.) And next time I looked the blessed thing has huge stems with what appear to be flower buds, I hadn’t an inkling that Parsley flowered and I am blown if I can work out what to do with it now: whether it's now had it and cant be eaten, or if like my moods, it's just a phase and will pass soon and be back to normal.

I have been meaning to make the Moroccan stew for 3 days now so that I can take some photos, or rather get my husband to take some photos, so that you can actually see how delicious it looks, but I keep forgetting to defrost the lamb, so up to now I haven’t any photos to add to any of the recipes. I will get them done when I remember to get the meat out of the freezer.

I think we have to go to Morrisons this afternoon but I can’t decide if I want to go or stay here. I had considered going out to see family today, but I think I will do that tomorrow and try and chip away at things here for now. Plus it’s a good excuse for not braving the elements!

On a more serious note, I have managed to start to change my mindset as to how I view the problems I have. I suffer from extreme pain and after another attempt at the first self propelled flight in England by launching myself from half way up the stairs (and being unsuccessful in my mission) I was somewhat worse for wear. I decided that these attempts really are not doing me any good; I at least need a cape before I can fly, (and that is on the shopping list by the way.) Anyway I digress, the pain had flared to what had become an unbearable level and I was extremely stressed and anxious which in turn was making the pain worse. Again after sage advice from our dear Roger, I set to work taking time-out 2-3 times a day and at bed time to use my relaxation tracks / hypnosis tracks to relax my mind and body. Plus I have altered when I take various meds and so far I have seen a miracle, the pain, although still there, is not bothering me. Pain is purely sensation that doesn't mean anything to me either way.

Crazy woman I hear you say, and yes, to be fair I am generally absolutely barking, but in this case relaxation is important in chronic pain. The body automatically tenses up when it feels pain, which in turn intensifies the pain and the sufferer can get more anxious and stressed causing more tension etc. So if we manage to fully relax our mind and body and accept that pain in fibromyalgia is not something to be scared of, that there is nothing physically wrong with the muscles. They are not torn, they are not inflamed, our joints are okay, the nerves are just sending the wrong signals to our brain and follow the techniques for relaxing the body itself, we can learn to deal with the pain and recognise when we are tensing up.

Okay, so if I am brutally honest, when I first read on the forum that people meditate and use relaxation tracks and hypnosis, I thought they were all a bunch of hippies and really not my style or that they were trying to say we were imagining everything.

The mind/body board gives a really good explanation of how and why the mind can affect the body, be it consciously or sub-consciously, we all know that many common health conditions can be worsened by stress so it makes sense with our condition that we can allay the symptoms by relaxing when and wherever possible. Now I am getting better at the techniques I can do it almost anywhere, without anyone noticing I am up to something strange and should be avoided at all costs, before I do something equally bizarre to them. ( Believe me, taking migraine melts in the middle of Morrisons you get some really bizarre looks! Especially when your balance has gone to the dogs and you're staggering as though you really should have taken more water with that last case of whisky).

Anyway, I think I will go and wake my dear husband and get him a brew then we can decide what the afternoon and evening holds for us. Brew anyone?