I was amazed and pleased to see that John of Storied Mind gave me an award. Like whoa, what?  I didn’t know this beautiful writer knew MigraineChow existed even. I’m tickled both for the award and to see that folks I may not realize visit are getting something from this blog. Yay!  Thanks, John.

I love the idea of a Lemonade award in itself. It’s based on the idea that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I try to make lemonade here. Sometimes there are too darned many lemons and it’s just lemon juice. Sometimes I get sappy and it’s just sugar water. But mostly, I hope it turns into lemonade. There are so many of you other bloggers that make lemonade too. I’ll ponder the lemonade makers and get the award goodies together in the next few days.

Raine commented on yesterday’s post that she hadn’t heard of anyone else having serious mental effects as my agitated suicidality when trying to quit smoking. I’ve heard of a few others, and read some about it. It seems that smoking is a “working” self-medication for bipolar disorder of some sort, as 60%+ of us smoke or did before we wrangled our way through quitting. By “working” I mean that it has beneficial effects in the area of calming or mood help. Obviously it doesn’t work in terms of what it does to our lungs, etc. It also seems that those of use with more frequent or severe psychotic symptoms are the heaviest smokers and have the worst time quitting. Oh joy. No wonder I go wacko when I try to quit. Bother and stuff. It seems that the nicotinic receptors getting plugged by the nicotine in cigarettes helps somehow, though I’m not sure anyone knows how. But always more to learn. I am sort of on the fly, but for folks who may be thinking they’re more nuts than usual to have a hellacious time trying to (or succeeding at) quitting smoking, here are some articles on it: here, here, here, here, here, and here. Not to say we shouldn’t quit smoking, but it looks like there are valid reasons why it can be real hell on us to do it.

Yeah, I’ve got that on my mind as I still feel like crap from two asthma attacks this weekend that I probably wouldn’t have had if I didn’t smoke. Fardles.  Oh well, pass the lemonade. I’m still kicking to type about it.