240406 Washing

I decided it was time to wash my windows yesterday afternoon.

Saturday April 6, 2024 Day 49, no smoking, no drinking.

The windows were last washed in the summer of 2021, when Joyce was still alive. We both smoked. The windows haven’t been washed for 2.5 years. Washing the outside of the windows was easy enough, the inside was a different story. The windows had a thick, yellowish tint from smoking. The window frame was yellow. The coating was difficult to get clean. What should have taken less than an hour, took me two hours. This accumulated here for three years, I’ve been smoking most of my life. I can’t imagine what my lungs must look like after all that smoking. Supposedly after quitting smoking the lungs begin to clear up. I have no idea if that is true or if someone is blowing smoke.

I am happy to report that not drinking beer was not difficult to stop. I thought it would be very difficult for me. I had been drinking four or more beers every day. Smoking was and is a whole different story. Every day after doing some chores or taking a walk or having a meal, I want a smoke. At first it wasn’t too difficult to go without smoking, but as the number of days without smoking increases, it gets tougher to resist.
There are several beers in the refrigerator and there is a pack of cigarettes in a drawer close by. One might think that this is tempting fate, but when I quit smoking for 37 years there were always cigarettes nearby. When I quit drinking alcohol for 3 years, there was always alcohol in the house. Joyce always drank and always smoked. It did not sway or bother me at all.

Hopefully I will be free of alcohol and smoking for the rest of my life, which at my age, may not be all that long. I don’t want to be a dithering old man drooling into my soup and not remembering who I am and who my daughter is. I’ll be happy to be able to clean and care for myself, by myself.