The First Day of 2008...

...dawned cold and sunny and on the first day of this new year I learned a very important lesson. Addiction is more powerful then anything else on this planet. Addiction will cause you to lie to those you love the most, addiction will make you sneaky, addiction will sneak up on you and rear its ugly head when you aren't looking and make you see yourself as weak and worthless. Granted, I'm not a meth user or a crack head. I don't snort cocaine or shoot up heroin. I rarely drink. I'm not homeless, I'm not penniless (although sometimes I feel that way). The only thing my addiction is doing is killing me... slowly. And the saddest part of all? As long as I can have my fix, none of what I just mentioned matters... until afterwards.

To my friends and family that read this... this is going to be a lot harder then I thought. I have the want to. It only took me till now to get that. But it's not going to be near as easy as I thought it would be. Please be patient with me and know that I am trying and will be trying until the day I am cigarette free. I am weak, but I love myself enough to do this for me... and for you.

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The last thing I accomplished in 2007 was successful training of "fetch" with Cricket. She is asked where her toy is... she will go and get it and bring it to me. I will then proceed to throw said toy across room where she will then grab it and bring it back to me to be placed in my open palms for me to do it again... and again... and again until I can't take it any more and I have to hide the toy.

CRICKET MAKING THE CATCH

There are several points of interest in the above photo. If you click on it and make it big, you can see the heat coming off of my furnace on the right hand side. Also, you can see my old microwave awaiting delivery to the garage, then there's Spazz all comfy in the box the new microwave came in. And I SWEAR I vacuum. I just haven't since Xmas.

CRICKET BRINGING IT BACK HOME