Mmmm hmmmm….good day!

Boom boom!  One month, three days, 4 hours, 1 minute of smoke-free livin’, baby. Oh yeah, 1366 cigarettes not smoked, punk! I have saved 4 days, 17 hours, 50 minutes of my life.  Hmmm, all the more time to annoy someone.

Yup, forgot to mention that I stopped smoking (for what HAS to be the final time) on August 11.  My doctor told me I most likely have stage 1 emphysema, so I decided that cigarettes are my mortal enemy, because I have no desire to suffocate to death.  I’ve been lucky to have very little temptation and only a few smoking dreams, so it’s been a really good quit, which leads me to believe that I have God’s help on this one, for sure, so I can’t afford to mess it up.  I am still mega-short of breath sometimes, which scares the shit out of me, since I’m NOT smoking.  Laurie "is not ready" to quit.  I’m trying not to nag her to death, because I hated it when people did that to me, but we KNOW she has emphysema, and I smoked more and smoked harder than she does…so….
 
Yesterday was…or would have been, depending on how you look at it….my parents’ 42nd anniversary.  Mama doesn’t seem old enough to have been married 42 years!!!!!  
 
Joyce, Hunter, and Joyce’s fiancee, LV, have moved in with us.  Joyce was going in on a house with a married couple who are friends of hers…or were, anyway.  Apparently, it was a one-sided friendship.  Now, I have had plenty of issues with Joyce, but I love my little sister, so it made me mad when these people told her to "get the fuck out of our house", along with her 4 year old son, Nephew Hunter.  
 
Laurie’s initial reaction when Mama asked if Joyce could come live with us again was to give a two-day limit.  Joyce has put in applications at the housing authority, but they’ve denied her for one of the two apartment complexes she applied for.  Laurie has softened about things, because it seems Joyce has grown up a lot since they stayed here the last time.  Also, the other night, totally out of the blue, Joyce sent me a message saying she knows she doesn’t say it, but she loves me and wanted to thank us for what we’re doing for her.  I can’t even say how happy that made me!  
 
Joyce and LV have been keeping the house straightened and cooking our meals, which neither of us even asked for, so it’s even easier to appreciate it!  I don’t know if they’ll be able to help with bills, but maybe that won’t be a big problem…they don’t seem to use that much electricity, for example.  Our daily rates have been reasonable.  
 
Laurie has been over-medicating again.  With the new semester, then the turn of events that have happened since it started, I decided to trust her yet again.  I don’t know WHEN I’ll get the fucking point that I can NEVER trust her with those goddamned pills.  I didn’t double-check her for a few days…just assumed I was being paranoid.  Well, I wasn’t. Within two weeks, she went through whatever was left of the 120 hydrocodones, once I turned them over to her.  It’s maddening, feeling like I have to do everything, but I guess if it has to be that way, it just has to.  I am reaching a point where it’s really hard for me to show her sympathy when her pain is unbearable.  My first reaction is,  "Well, if you hadn’t taken all your fucking PILLS, you might not be in so much PAIN!"  It’s not exactly conducive to a happy marriage, but I still feel like we have a happy, though troubled, marriage.  No denying it’s troubled.
 
Wayne, my stepdad, is recuperating, but it’s not as fast as the doctors expected.  In fact, signs almost point to another stroke in the not-so-distant future, but I hope like hell the signs are WRONG.  He already can’t walk (he can stand but not walk), and his left arm was paralyzed, at first, though he has regained a tiny bit of control.  The whole stroke incident has made his grip on Mama tighten even more.  I told her she needs to get away sometimes.  She’s been spending the nights up there with him (he’s in town), but she’s been neglecting herself and her dog.  Wayne insists she be there for all kinds of things that the staff COULD and maybe even SHOULD do for him.  It’s not Mama’s fault he doesn’t let them.  He needs to back off of Mama.  He throws things at her with his good arm…says he "has to get her attention".  Joyce suggested moving anything throwable to his left side, since his left arm stopped working.  We all shared a wicked laugh over that thought.  
 
I’ll have to dedicate an entire entry to Hunter, my beautiful little nephew.  Beautiful ACTIVE little nephew.  Active.  Hyperactive. WAY hyperactive! lol  That boy has the energy of twenty kids his age!