Promises Kept

When I was younger, I worked for an answering service which also took some catalog orders. One of the catalogs that people would order stuff from was called "Promises Kept". It was a collection of overpriced foods and decorations that rich people would order because they were too busy or neglectful to actually go to the store and pick out a present. I guess the name of the magazine helped assuage their guilt somewhat.

With that in mind, here's a list of the things I'm supposed to be doing (or have done) by now, with commentary:

1. Drink 8 glasses of water per day. I'm doing it, pretty much. 8 8-oz. glasses is about 2 liters, and I should be coming pretty close. I have 2-3 cups of coffee per day, then drink water until switching to beer about 8pm. I have a hydration bottle that I carry in my car when I work. Still haven't had any soda since New Year's, except the one can, and I don't miss it.

2. Floss 1x per day. I'm still doing it, err, 80% of days. I went on a real bender for awhile and used up every piece of floss in the house, then we got these y-shaped sticks with the floss in them, and I don't like them as much. The kids use them, though, which is good. Favorite floss: Crest Glide.

3. Get enough sleep. I do get enough sleep. I think I'm addicted to it. What I meant to do was "go to bed earlier at night, get 8 hours, then stay up after you take the kids to school". FAIL. I have been going to bed earlier, often, and sleeping less in the mornings after dropping off the Evil Geniuses (TM), but bed on a cold, dark morning is just irresistable. Now that the sun is coming up earlier, I find myself getting more motivated to get up and get stuff done, but I'm far from mastering this one.

4. Get wisdom teeth pulled (first step of "Get supermodel teeth"). Done. I will soon be scheduling an appointment with the regular dentist for root planing and cleaning, and will plot strategy with him accordingly. This might take years.

5. Quit smoking. I don't think I promised to do this in the blog, but I mentioned to several people on Facebook that I was planning to do it concurrently with getting my teeth yanked. NOT DONE YET. I will be quitting very shortly, as smoking is holding me back in about 5 areas of life. Also spring is coming, and I want to go out biking. Later on, I can use the money I've saved for LASIK, Invisalign braces, and laser hair removal.

Addictions use your own mind to fight against you for their survival; I've been thinking recently about whether I'd be better off quitting on a work day (where I drive for 8 hours) or a non-work day (where the kids might increase my stress levels), and I realized there's just no magic day on my calendar. My addiction says I don't have a free day to quit smoking, well, for the rest of my life. At this point, I'm going to pick...this coming Tuesday.

Almost 2 weeks with the teeth out

And I'm late posting, as usual. After getting my wisdom teeth pulled that Monday, everything went swimmingly. My pain on Tuesday was down to a "2" (out of 10), and I took the last Vicodin that morning. So not much of a drug vacation after all; I only took 4 Vikes. Glad I didn't waste money on a new prescription.

So there we are: no dry socket, no bruising, no massive pain. The oral surgeon did a very good job, and the job was as easy as he said it would be. In retrospect, I chalk up much of my freak-outed-ness to lingering bad effects from the NO2. Next time I'll smoke pot instead. Eirik took my teeth to school that Friday, for show 'n tell.