This is a weird Christmas for me because my best friend is not here and I'm not there. Until the end of 2007, I lived in San Francisco, and I had spent about the last 22 Christmases with my best friend. People often asked how we could spend every Christmas with each other? Well, we could because of a combination of things. For seven years, we were partners. Then after that ended we remained friends. It also helped that my friend is Jewish and my relatives and I hadn't had much of a relationship since I was a child, and I lived two-thousand miles away. Now, because of the TB disease/infection, I decided I'd better stay in Chicago this year. I'll go to San Francisco in April. So I'm not feeling sad, or happy. I'm sort of feeling out of my element. I am going to spend Christmas with my cousin and aunt, and my cousin's children and grandchildren. I was about to buy myself a Nook or Kindle e-reader, but decided to wait another year and spent the money instead on movie tickets as stocking stuffers for the children in the family. There are so many children that I can not buy for them all. Usually, I'll buy for the ones who parents are struggling, but this year I chipped in for a couple of the children and realize that I had a little bit of money leftover to spend. I thought about taking the little girls, mainly, to see the "Princess and the Frog." I'm too lazy, because it's getting too cold. So instead I bought thirty anytime, any show movie tickets. I'm giving two tickets to the children who are too young to go to the movies alone, so that they can take a parent. The teenagers will each get one ticket, since they can go together or take themselves.
I do recognize that I'm lucky. I have a small special needs trust fund that I can milk for nonessential things, like games, TVs, trips. Funny, but the money can not be used for food, rent, utilities, medical bills.... Sometimes I am dishonest and turn in an estimate for something I never buy. Sometimes it's not a matter of dishonesty. I just change my mind about buying the item. So I changed my mind about the e-reader and was able to buy movie tickets. I absolutely love giving things to the children. But I often find it is too much work to spend a day with them. I have no children, but I see that to raise them well, to be really hands on, takes a tremendous amount of work. I want these kids to be better off than my generation was--for each generation to be better off than the last. It's funny, but as bad as we are, we are still not as messed up as our parents were. They did all of the same things and had much less opportunity to recover and knew far less about child-rearing.
My Milage:My Quit Date: 5/1/2009
Smoke-Free Days: 233
Cigarettes Not Smoked: 6,524
Amount Saved: $2,528.05
Life Gained:Days: 25
Hrs: 10
Mins: 35
Seconds: 41
