| Health diary part 2 - financial help welcome |
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Tuesday, September 19th, 2017 13:17:10 GMT |
| Health |
Donations and microdonations are welcome, and might help me buy things that will help my health.
However, I often feel too stressed out to even check to see if I got any donations, and I'm afraid it will dishearten me if I didn't, so, I actually might not notice for a long time if anyone sends anything, because I have to be in a particularly good and brave mood to even check to see if anyone sent (or didn't send) anything.
Also, I still don't feel up to even checking a lot of my email, so, sorry for being so unreachable.
Thanks again to all you kind people out there. You people are among the top reasons why I still think life is worth living.
I'm 36 years old, never attended college (partly for financial reasons, and partly because of my severe sleep issues and shyness), and I have a GED instead of a standard high school diploma.
So, please don't blindly assume I know what I'm talking about, and please don't blindly assume that my ideas or personal health habits necessarily have any merit.
This blog post is a personal diary of how things have been going for me health-wise (and sometimes I mention a few details here and there of other things going on in my life), and my thoughts and speculations on the possible causes of my fatigue, headaches, and other ailments, and different things I've tried, or which I'm considering trying, to alleviate my ailments.
I just want to figure out how I can improve my sleep quality regardless of what time it is when I sleep, and improve my well-being and energy levels regardless of what time it is when I'm awake. It would be nice in many ways if I had a predictable schedule (even if it wasn't a "normal" schedule - like reliably being awake at night and asleep during the day, or having a very reliable, predictable forward or even backwards daily shift of my sleep and wake times). But it seems totally impossible for me no matter what I do, so I think I'm better off not wasting my time, and instead working on less impossible things.
None of this blog post is intended as health advice. It's basically just me venting, mendicanting a bit by pointing out that I accept donations and microdonations, sometimes copying and pasting and/or linking to interesting health-related things I find on the web, and coming up with various (informal) theories on what ails me, and ideas of what possible solutions I'd like to try next.
Also, the details I share about myself are often not very complete, because of laziness, tiredness or feeling too bad (except often I actually write more when I'm feeling tired or bad, since when I feel good, I'm often busy with more useful and/or interesting things, like computer programming projects or reading), and because of me wanting to keep some things private. And I'm often not in the mood to write in very thorough detail about all of my thoughts on things I link to or quote.
Please be careful, please use common sense, and please don't blindly mimic me. It's quite possible that some of the things I tried, or will try, are, or will be, quite stupid. If you need health advice, please consult a health care professional.
And, if you actually get anything worthwhile out of reading this blog post, there's a whole lot more like it in part 1 of my health diary.
But I had such a good day after that (when my cold was still mild), I didn't feel like continuing to post updates, so I didn't rush to create a new health diary blog post. I even got some programming done that day.
I also have a croup cough, a symptom I've commonly gotten during colds since I was a child. And at times I could scarcely speak - my voice just wasn't working - but at the moment, I can speak. Had a sore throat, but it went away, then came back, and currently is gone again. And my senses of smell and taste are usually very diminished.
Been eating soup with freshly-crushed cloves of garlic sometimes, though I find it tough to deal with how garlic burns my mouth, so I'm not sure I've been eating enough garlic to do me much good. However, yesterday or so, it seemed to make my gums stop acting up for a bunch of hours (not sure how many exactly). The garlic made me feel like my mouth was on fire, but after that, my gum's lower left sore spot stopped bothering me for a while.
Another thing that seemed to help was drinking a glass of milk with Breakfast Essentials powder.
And a banana/pineapple smoothie made with my nice, cheap, but still very effective blender.
I have such an aversion to plain water, and still worry that maybe I have some tendencies toward adrenal fatigue-related electrolyte imbalance. Really hoping my recent experiments with resuming caffeine aren't too hard on my adrenals.
Been having trouble getting comfortable temperature-wise, and even resorted to my electric blanket last sleep, which I hope was more helpful than harmful. Been fiddling with my air conditioner a lot lately, since I can't find just one setting I can just leave it at and feel continually comfortable. I keep getting too hot or too cold.
I'm a bit headachy as I write this, which I suspect is from caffeine withdrawal, so, I'm having another cup of tea now, since between caffeine and caffeine withdrawal, I'm gambling that caffeine will be less bad for me. Have only been sleeping 4 hours at a time.
Remarkably, I've still been having less trouble with my eyes getting dry or gooey lately. It seems like I don't get those problems as much when I drink tea.
Also, I didn't realize that there's an access panel for dealing with the upstairs bathroom's plumbing in the neighboring room, which is the room with the junk mountain in it, so, that enormous mess probably also needs to be cleaned up before we can bring in a plumber, unless I don't mind only getting the toilet and sink fixed and not also the bathtub.
But, I really want to be able to take warm baths again in a non-disgusting bathtub, and get doses of magnesium that way, since magnesium gel seems to work so much better for me than oral magnesium capsules.
But magnesium gel is kind of inconvenient (especially since we don't always have hot water immediately available for me to wash it off with, because to save money we keep our water heater turned off), and probably will be even more uncomfortable for me to use as the weather gets colder. And cold can be bad for your immune system.
So, I really, really, really want to get the upstairs bathroom fixed, so I can try taking warm baths with magnesium bath flakes or this magnesium oil.
Donations and microdonations are welcome.
And back in Dec. 2016, my dentist gave me penicillin and told me there's still infection around my root canaled teeth, and even said they might have to be extracted if they flare up again. So, the idea that my root canaled teeth harbor infection is not just a speculation of mine - it's a definite fact.
I'm quite reluctant to part with any more teeth, but, I wonder if maybe I would be better off getting rid of my root canaled teeth, even though it would be more difficult to chew. I wonder if my root canals are a big part of why this cold has been so much worse for me than my other relative who got it.
This cold has been so bad that even frequent Vitamin C didn't seem as helpful as I expected it to be. But I consider that a possible clue that I really am in need of more Vitamin D, since I noticed quite a while back that it seems like I need less Vitamin C to soothe my gums when I take Vitamin D.
So, I really hope continuing to drink caffeinated tea will help me more than it harms me, since I don't think my body can handle going through caffeine withdrawal at the moment, and I'm not sure I should quit again even if/when I do feel up to trying to quit, since at times it makes me feel better and more normal than I've felt in quite a long time.
I recently managed to clean my room the slight amount necessary to make my exercise bike useable again, and was very surprised that my nose unclogged quite quickly during my brief ride. (Didn't stay unclogged for long, though.)
There's a useable TV in the junk mountain room, so, that will make cleaning more pleasant.
Lately, I've actually started to develop some aversion to even being in my room, so, maybe I should move to a different room?
Ever since reading scary articles like this one, and this one which I never linked to before, I've felt rather uneasy about there being a power line(?) or something so close to my window.
But, other than all that, I'm feeling a lot better, probably due to a variety of factors, like the 8000 IU of Vitamin D I took earlier maybe finally taking effect, and the 3 grams of Vitamin C I've been taking multiple times per day. And I think Advil probably helped with my possible fever.
The headache soon decreased after I drank some milk.
Also, found we had a vegetable or fruit peeler. (Not for sale on that page, but the narrowest one on that page looks similar to what I found.) It made it much easier to divide the garlic clove up into easier to eat small pieces.
Thank goodness for Vitamin D + magnesium, garlic, Vitamin C, tea (even decaf, preferably made with the carbon dioxide method of decaffeination), and various other helpful things I already mentioned.
I made the mistake of leaving my air conditioner at 72 degrees, and woke up very thirsty and dry-eyed, with a headache, and my cold definitely isn't gone yet. But, since yesterday, I've had a regular cough rather than a croup cough.
As usual, plain water didn't seem to help much with my thirst and dry eyes. My banana/pineapple smoothie (which I added a bit of salt to because I was worried about possible adrenal fatigue-related electrolyte imbalance) seemed a bit better, but maybe not salty enough and I wasn't in the mood to drink something so sweet. Finally remembered I had some nice salty vegetable juice. That was good, but, I still feel kind of out of sorts and verging on a headache.
Tired and wishing I could go back to sleep, but, my headache will make that impossible. Will probably make a cup of caffeinated tea soon, but it seems like such a chore to prepare it, and I'm tempted to just drink a Barq's caffeinated root beer instead.
Maybe I should try keeping some caffeinated iced tea in my mini-fridge.
Momentarily felt kind of overheated (despite the air conditioner being at 66 degrees now), and am hungry for breakfast cereal. Fortunately, thanks to my caffeine habit, eating cereal or other carby foods in my morning is a lot less likely to make me sleepy.
It seems like I often get dehydrated when I sleep, even when I'm not sick with a cold. Wish I could figure out how to solve that - it would probably improve my sleep quality a lot.
Rather unhappy that Great Value root beer's recipe seems to have been changed - the new package says it has 35 mg of sodium, and the old package says it has 45 mg of sodium. But, I have too much of a cold to judge if it actually tastes noticeably different from the previous version.
I don't know if it's just me, or if there's a low-sodium fad in the food industry which is making foods I don't recall having had to add salt to in the past taste under-salted to me, like Thomas's English muffins, and Campbell's chunky chicken noodle soup and chunky beef/country vegetable soup. Maybe I'm still having adrenal fatigue-related salt cravings.
I wish I could make my own root beer with exclusively healthy ingredients - organic everything, and no high fructose corn syrup or anything else bad. And no caffeine. But judging by this page, making your own root beer seems rather complicated.
Also, I didn't know there are some methods of making root beer which actually lead to it containing a small amount of alcohol! I definitely don't want even the tiniest trace of alcohol in my root beer, or anything else I consume - not even cooked foods, since cooking might not remove all alcohol.
Fortunately, that abovementioned page says "Force carbonated root beer is entirely non-alcoholic."
But, not really in the mood to eat or make food or tea. In fact, now that my headache is decreasing, maybe I could even go back to sleep, despite the presumably smaller than my usual morning dose of caffeine. Perhaps that's because a couple hours ago, I had a full dose of Nature Made magnesium citrate without Vitamin D. I thought maybe I still had enough Vitamin D in my body that the magnesium might perk me up (by enabling my body to make use of the Vitamin D) rather than make me tired (as I long ago noticed oral magnesium without Vitamin D tends to do to me), but I guess I didn't. Reluctant to take more Vitamin D supplements already, though - still afraid of possibly overdosing, and also, I'd actually like to go back to sleep if I can.
Still a bit headachy, though. But, starting to wake up a bit more. On second thought, no, I'm still mostly tired. I guess I could take an Advil. OK, did so.
My air conditioner started making odd crackly noises just now, so I turned it off. But my room will probably get too warm without it. I already am feeling overheated. Maybe I am feverish again. OK, air conditioner back on. It's still making odd crackly or liquidy noises sometimes. Oh, well. Minutes later, though, it sounds completely normal.
I wish I felt up to cleaning the next room. Even if we can't afford a plumber in the near future, it would be nice to know that whenever we can afford to bring in a plumber, there will be nothing else stopping us from doing so. Also, maybe I'd feel more comfortable staying in that room. It's bigger, and I'd have a lot more room in my room if I put my bed elsewhere. Maybe I should use my room as an office and sleep elsewhere.
Also, re-reading some of this page about theanine comforts me, and reminds me that maybe caffeinated tea maybe isn't as bad for my adrenals as I sometimes worry it might be.
Maybe next time I make a cup of tea with a prepackaged tea bag, I should also put in a custom teabag containing just decaf, so I can hopefully improve the caffeine/theanine ratio of my tea - as well as the flavor.
I'm glad I tried going back to making tea the way I always used to make it, though - now I'm even more sure I'm better off doing things differently.
I wonder if maybe the new air conditioner I got last June makes it too dehumidified in here. (However, I've had trouble with gooey eyes since at least last winter, if I recall correctly.) Perhaps my usually-on desktop computers contribute to the problem too.
Too bad it often gets too warm in here without my air conditioner. And I'd be reluctant to use a humidifier in here with my computers.
I read somewhere on the web that a hygrometer is what you use to measure humidity, so, going to get this one since it's only $12.59.
Maybe I should try sleeping downstairs, like one of my relatives already does. That probably won't work for me very well during the day because of all the noise, but, might be OK at night.
There's a computer in the next room too, but conceivably it could be moved elsewhere, so I could use a humidifier in there. Or, maybe I should move the microwave out of the upstairs bathroom and use a humidifier in there, a room designed to cope with humidity.
Maybe I could even sleep in there, since no one else uses that room frequently for anything. I could clean the dust and spider webs out of the bathtub and make it into my new bed, LOL. Even without a humidifier in the upstairs bathroom, that might be better than sleeping in my own room has been lately.
Very curious to see if I really will get less dehydrated sleeping in there than I do sleeping in my own room.
So, I think I might really try it once I get sleepy enough. Except it might be too warm in there. But opening the window might help, especially at night.
I'm most interested in maximizing the amount of theanine I get. But I'm also concerned about the amount of caffeine. Given how sensitive I am to caffeine and caffeine withdrawal, I am reluctant to blindly vary my caffeine dosages very much, and really wish I had a way to know exactly how much is in all the different teas I like to drink.
So, maybe I'll be OK theanine-wise using either microwave.
Despite getting dehydrated again as I slept, I feel like my cold has continued to decrease. My nose and ears are less clogged, and I still have no sore throat or croup cough.
Took 3 capsules of Testa vegan Omega 3 today instead of my usual 1, and took my other usual vitamins. I'm still refraining from having more Vitamin D in capsule form - I think it has been doing me good, but I don't want to make the mistake of overdoing it again.
I think my largest "meal" was about half a container of cottage cheese. (Ate so much of that because it was approaching its expiration date, and also because I knew I had to compensate somehow for having eaten so little the rest of my day). Improved my leftover banana/pineapple smoothie by adding orange juice to it. Also ate some peanuts, raisins, 2 packs of oats+honey granola bars, a can of decaf Great Value root beer (the old(?) version with 45 mg sodium), some milk, and 2 delicious mushroom tarts one of my relatives brought home from somewhere. I should figure out how to make those, they were really good.
Today, woke up feeling alert enough, but I'm still not really eager to do much other than sleep, or lie in bed and write this, or read. But, very relieved that I'm still recovering from this cold, even despite continuing to neglect to eat very well.
But, not going to try it in my room until I get my hygrometer (for measuring humidity).
Actually, not sure I'll try the humidifier in my room at all because it will probably make me worry about my computer stuff. Except I have sometimes read that too much dryness in the air can increase the amount of static, which is dangerous for computer stuff. However, I don't know if it's that dry in here, since I never noticed static shocks even on the rare occasions when I tried to do something about my clothes mountain, nor when I used my electric blanket recently (or any time in the past).
It seemed nice outside (though a bit chilly), and when I turned my air conditioner back on, it seemed like air was being pulled in from that window, judging by the motion of my paper and tape window shade. It was very nice to get some fresh outdoor air in here, and I think it felt much better than running the air conditioner with my window closed.
But, I was still worried that too much humidity might be bad for my computer stuff, or that it might rain while I sleep, and that water might get on the computer monitor I have next to my window. And I also was worried about privacy, and didn't like feeling uneasy about the wind possibly blowing my window shade or blinds around, and having to wear more clothes than I usually do while alone. So, I closed the window after maybe only about 20 minutes.
I kind of wish I had a small tent and sleeping bag and could sleep on my house's balcony. (I'd feel safer there than in the backyard.) But, the weather probably won't be suitable for that for much longer.
I feel even more eager than before to clean the junk mountain room. It has a nice big window like my room, and if I make that room nice enough to sleep in, then, I could finally follow the common sleep advice of using my bedroom primarily for sleep and hardly any other activities. I'm pretty sure that won't cure all my sleep issues, but I like the idea anyway.
And I'll be away from my air conditioner, which I suspect dehumidifies my room too much and thereby possibly contributes to me getting dehydrated. And I'll be able to easily open windows and run a humidifier without having to worry about it possibly harming any computer stuff.
But, the book Dreaming While Awake: Techniques for 24-Hour Lucid Dreaming was so intriguing that when I found I couldn't get many more of the author's books via my local libraries' Overdrive websites, I decided to get physical copies of them.
I already received 4 of those books before, and yesterday, I received the rest of the ones I asked a relative to order, as well as one I didn't ask for, but am glad to have too.
My cold and other things have lately distracted me a lot from the above books, but I greatly look forward to reading more in them, probably even quite soon.
I'm definitely not in the mood to write in depth about deep philosophical topics, but, I just wanted to point these books out because reading Dreaming While Awake: Techniques for 24-Hour Lucid Dreaming recently was so thought-provoking and fun for me.
Surprisingly and pleasingly, the blue version's description says it's made in the USA. The red one's description doesn't say that, but, I'm hoping it's made in the USA too. (Addition, Sept. 24, 2017, 2:23 AM EDT. The red tent's label says it's made in China.)
I chose red because according to this page, "Red light has the least power to shift circadian rhythm and suppress melatonin."
Decided not to get a sleeping bag - hopefully I can just use my usual blankets and pillows.
Was woken by thirst at various times. But, I felt alert and well-rested when I finally got up, even though my cold seemed at first like it might have worsened a bit again, since my nose seemed stuffier. But some hours after I woke up, my cold decreased again before I even ate anything except vitamins, and I felt even more recovered than I did the day before that.
Almost forgot to mention that I slept braless that night, though more because of being too lazy or tired or oblivious to put it back on than because of the scary health reasons to go braless. So, maybe that increased my melatonin and made me sleep better. Sleeping braless is something I seldom do, but, maybe I should try it more often, since maybe it's healthier than even the loose, comfortable bras I usually wear, and perhaps my blankets, sheets and pillows sufficiently mitigate the effects of gravity.
On Sept. 22nd, until around 3 PM, I neglected to eat anything but vitamins. Didn't get tired until sometime (not sure when exactly) after eating. Ate some raisins, granola bars, some Swedish meatballs, mushroom tarts, and orange juice. Later, had some milk, some Barq's root beer, some Maui BBQ potato chips, and 2 dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bars.
Did little besides reading (before getting tired), and watched TV with family afterward. Until getting tired, I felt like my mind was sharper and quicker. Maybe taking 3 capsules of Testa vegan Omega 3 instead of 1 has been helping me.
My body felt spry and energetic even at times when my brain felt sleepy.
Was pleasantly surprised to find my gums weren't sore at all when I brushed, flossed, and irrigated today. Feeling a bit sleepy, but it's not that bad, and I still have plenty of physical energy. I feel like the big 4-capsule (8000 IU) dose of Vitamin D I took the other day is still doing me some good, so I'm not going to take more yet.
Have mostly just been reading, as usual. Actually didn't even take any vitamins yet, and all I ate was raisins so far, but, feeling OK - just hungry.
Just recently, with the air conditioner in fan mode almost 2 hours (after having been in cooling mode for hours), the humidity increased to 51%, and temperature went up to 73.2.
So, at least yesterday and today, it hasn't been as dry in my room as I thought it might be. But, the hygrometer seems to confirm my impression that my room's air is usually noticeably drier than the rest of the house. All readings elsewhere were above 50%, and to my surprise, readings sometimes went above 60%, 70%, or even 80% when I held it next to other air conditioners than mine, especially when they were in fan-only mode.
But the humidity reading always goes down when I hold it next to my air conditioner, regardless of whether it's in fan-only mode or cooling mode. (Addition, Sept. 23, 2017, 4:20 PM EDT. Tried it again recently, and the humidity reading actually went up quite a bit when holding the hygrometer next to my air conditioner in fan only mode. So, maybe the situation isn't as bad as I thought.)
Next to one of my desktop computer's vents (which is constantly blowing very warm air), the humidity reading goes down and the temperature goes up. So, my computers probably aren't helping the situation in here either.
Maybe the drier air here is better for my computer stuff, but, I think I feel better in the other air conditioned rooms, and I think maybe I'd rather get a different air conditioner that doesn't do so much dehumidification. Or, maybe I'll use my room as an office instead of a bedroom.
But by the time I returned, that room had cooled down a bit, so the current temperature reading was something in the high 70's - still too hot for me to sleep there without air conditioning. I forgot what the humidity readings were, but, I think they were always above 50% and below 60%.
I think this hygrometer is usually faster at detecting humidity than temperature, but, it seems to work quickest if some air is blowing on it. It goes up a lot quickly if I breathe on it, or goes up or down quickly if I hold it near an air conditioner.
The tent actually might have arrived at the post office today, but I forgot to remind my relative to pick it up, so, since the post office closes at 12 PM on Saturday, and is closed on Sunday, I probably will have to wait at least a couple more days to get it.
So, maybe I'll sleep in the cat litter room until I get my tent, or until I clean the junk mountain room.
I wish everything was open 24/7. It would create a lot more jobs. And if those jobs (or any jobs) were so flexible that I could begin or stop working anytime I wanted, and didn't have a quota of time I'm required to put in, there would be a lot more jobs I could handle doing.
Took a full dose of magnesium citrate before sleep on Sept 21-22nd, but forgot to take that before today's sleep.
Anyway, to my pleasant surprise, my relative did pick up my tent from the post office, and I was able to figure out how to set it up on my own in the past half hour or so. The instructions were missing, but I found this YouTube video which helped.
I was a bit disappointed that the tent actually wasn't made in the USA - its label says it was made in China. But I still like it. It's a lot more roomy than I expected, and quite comfortable for me, since I'm only about 5'4". The only problem is, I'm not sure I'm sleepy enough to actually sleep there yet.
But, it's 62 degrees outside, which is a quite comfortable enough temperature for me.
Still tired and annoyed at having my sleep interrupted. Thirsty and a bit headachy.
Also, the tent's cloth is translucent, which lets a lot of light in, and makes me worried that I might need some additional protection from the sun to avoid sunburn. I also don't feel like I have much privacy when it's light outside, or even when using a flashlight or my phone inside when it's dark.
It's at least free as in price, but I don't yet know whether or not it's free as in freedom.
So, I guess I could try sleeping in the cat litter room, except that's way too sunny now since the window blinds are rolled all the way up with the window cords taped up so our cat can't mess with them.
Too sleepy to clean up the junk mountain room now.
My room's humidity is currently 51% and the temperature is 67.8. Maybe I'll just sleep here.
Now my room's humidity is 55% and the temperature is 68.7. My air conditioner is set to cool to 68 degrees, and is in energy-saving mode, with the fan speed automatically adjusting itself as well. Seems comfortable enough at the moment.
Outside, it's 86 degrees, which definitely feels too hot for me to go back to my tent.
Asked a relative to try to open the upstairs bathroom window, but, apparently, it's totally stuck. So, I guess I can't sleep in the upstairs bathroom.
Feeling too sleepy to get anything important done, and not in the mood to clean. Probably I need to sleep longer and better. And maybe I'm extra-tired because of having done without caffeine (except for dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bars) lately. I wonder if going braless actually increases my melatonin too much?
Maybe if I stay awake long enough and return to my tent to sleep tonight, I'll end up with a temporarily normal schedule. But, I still have a cold, so, it's probably better if I don't put off sleep for such a useless goal.
My room is 68.9 degrees with 53% humidity.
So, I'm going to quit sleeping in my room for a while and see if it happens elsewhere too.
I tried to sleep, but I kind of felt like I was suffocating, so I gave up and went to the cat litter room. I underestimated how much our cat would keep me awake, so, that didn't work out so well either, even though I slept for a while (not sure what times exactly), and it was nice having our cat next to me after he settled down and stopped meowing and walking on me.
I finally returned to my tent at an unknown time. It was still dark but was getting lighter, I think. By then, it was cooler, and easier to sleep. But there wasn't much night left, so, I got woken up by the sun again, though more slowly than the day before that, so it was a bit less annoying.
I experimented with moving the tent inside, onto the mattress on the floor in the cat litter room, so I could keep our cat from walking on me as I sleep, but, Siamese cats meow a lot, so, clearly that wasn't going to help much, and I also thought he might shred the tent's cloth.
Nonetheless, while I had my tent in the cat litter room, and knowing full well he might damage the tent, I let my cat inside with me for a while, and he soon did put a few pinholes in the tent's side when he batted at a dangling strip of cloth inside the tent. But I didn't mind that much, since I think I'd like some more airflow in there anyway. And given the tent's low cost, it doesn't matter that much if it gets damaged. The tent was actually only around $15 rather than $20, since when my relative ordered the tent, Amazon gave my relative a lower price than Amazon showed me.
With all the morning sunlight, it felt too warm in the cat litter room to even try to go back to sleep, and I didn't feel tired enough, so I soon put the tent back on the balcony, and returned to my room, where the humidity is now 61%, with a temperature of 67.8.
I did get thirsty and dry-eyed sleeping in the tent, but that might mainly be because I forgot to bring my water bottle back to the tent when I returned to it after briefly sleeping in the cat litter room.
I think I also might have gotten thirsty and maybe dry-eyed while I was in the cat litter room, but I don't clearly remember. And I was so eager to go back to sleep when I went in there, I didn't check the humidity or temperature in there with my hygrometer.
Tried to poke some small holes (too small for most bugs to get in) in the walls of my tent to try to ventilate it, but, they didn't do much good. I think maybe I need a tent with more "doors" or something so I can get more of a breeze in there.
Maybe I'd be better off with this this hammock + mosquito net.
It has a big window, so, hopefully that tent will be a lot nicer to be in. It's also bigger. The question and answer section of its Amazon page said it's 6 1/2 by 6 1/2 feet, with a maximum height of probably 4 feet (and lower than that in places other than the center of the tent).
My original tent's dimensions: "height of 3.50 feet and 6.25 foot x 4.80 foot". Which was already pretty roomy for me, so, hopefully the new tent will be even nicer.
I definitely like the original tent too, but it just needs a lot more ventilation. I might try sleeping in it again later, but it might be too hot again.
Despite having eaten 2 dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bars, I dozed off for a while in my room from around 1:50 PM to 4:57 PM. Humidity 46%, temperature 67.5 degrees.
I wish I could sleep in the tent, but, it just seems too warm in there, even though the temperature outside the tent seems acceptable. Really looking forward to the next tent. I hope I'll be able to use it during the day too sometimes.
Haven't been drinking tea as much lately because I've been running low on decaf, so, I hope that isn't causing my cold to linger more than it otherwise would have. I still have some decaf, but anytime I get low on something, I tend to stop using it as much to try to avoid totally running out.
Maybe I better have some caffeinated tea or root beer so I can clean my room and hopefully find my Vitamin D.
Also, I think I better just put all my clothes out of my room without bothering to catalog them in a VUE map yet, because with my energy being so unpredictable, chances are I'm never going to get all that unnecessary extra work done in a reasonable amount of time, given that my clothes have been cluttering up my room for over a month since I made a mess of them just trying to find something to wear so I could go see the total solar eclipse in Tennessee.
So, I guess I'll just put them in unsorted zippable pillow protectors and put them in the junk room, or maybe even the broken upstairs bathroom. That's an especially good place, since if it's cluttered up with my own stuff, then it won't get cluttered up with anyone else's stuff, so it will be easier to declutter when we can finally bring in a plumber.
52% humidity, 68.7 temperature in my room. I think it was around 49% or 50% humidity when I first woke up.
My cold seems decreased, but, I still don't feel like doing anything that involves getting out of bed.
I wish I could be outside in my tent constantly, but it's too hot and sunny and the tent is too poorly-ventilated.
So, at some point, I'm probably going to resume drinking some amount of caffeine regularly, especially after I get this organic caffeinated Ceylon black tea, which I'm hoping I'll like more than non-organic PG Tips.
The ones I got (Goodfields brand, purchased at a Walmart) were so salty that my craving for salt seems to be totally satisfied at the moment.
So, maybe it doesn't matter where I sleep - maybe I'm just very prone in general to getting dehydrated while I sleep. So, maybe that's the problem I need to solve somehow.
Don't know what the humidity was in my tent, since I left my hygrometer in my room. My room's humidity seems to be 54%, and it was 51% the last time I checked before sleep, maybe around 1 AM.
Even about a half hour after being woken, all I want to do is go back to sleep, even despite sunlight blasting me for a while. I wonder if the new tent will make it possible for me to stay in there for more of the day. I guess I could have stayed longer in my current tent, but, I was worried about sunburn, and knew it was going to probably get hot soon.
This page says dehydration can decrease your melatonin levels.
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So, maybe I should resume drinking larger amounts of milk. I used to drink a lot more milk in the past, but, have sometimes been trying to avoid it for the sake of being more vegetarian. But, I always liked milk more than plain water or even slightly salted water, even back before I heard anything about adrenal fatigue-related electrolyte imbalance.
Another reason I avoided milk at times in the past several months was because I was worried for a while that maybe I was getting too much calcium, and that maybe I had hypercalcemia from too much Vitamin D from all the Vitamin D capsules I was taking.
But, now, I'm hoping that the jitteriness, excessive energy, etc. I sometimes got before (such as last May, etc.) was from magnesium deficiency from not taking enough magnesium along with my Vitamin D, rather than hypercalcemia from excessive Vitamin D.
But I don't really know what was going on - I'm just guessing. (But it definitely wasn't from caffeine, because I was strictly avoiding caffeine back in May, etc. - even chocolate.)
Also, when I was dealing with those jitters, excessive energy, etc., this magnesium gel helped me feel better fast. (Though oral magnesium capsules also helped, just not as much or as fast.) So, that's another reason I suspect those problems were mainly from magnesium deficiency.
Humidity 53% in my room. Still very sleepy. Was alert for a little while before sleep, but got sleepy again after eating raisins.
At least the more I sleep, the less time there is for me to wait for my new tent. Might need to resume caffeine to get something useful done, but I'm too tired to even care enough about that to drink caffeine. All I want to do is sleep.
Also took 3 grams of Vitamin C.
So, maybe I'll start to perk up more soon. I don't feel like messing with caffeine yet. Wouldn't mind going back to sleep, but, even just the Vitamin D might interfere with that. But, I thought some more Vitamin D might be good for me, since my cold is maybe only 85%-90% gone.
The weather seems much nicer tonight for sleeping in my tent. Can't wait to get the new tent.
Will be getting the next tent quite soon, but might be too tired to do anything with it yet.
It's bigger than the other tent, and also more opaque, so now I feel like I have more privacy. However, it still lets in an amount of sunlight I find a bit worrying when the sun is directly on it. Fortunately, it has gotten cloudier, and the temperature is comfortable.
The "window" is basically a second "door", since they seem to be the same size and made the same way, and both have a mesh covering with a zipper, and a cloth covering with a separate zipper. I can't even tell the "door" and "window" apart. Both are nice and big, so, I assume that will keep my tent well-ventilated.
I definitely like it more than the other tent. But, I'm keeping the other tent out there, since maybe I could store stuff there that I don't want cluttering up my main tent.
It's definitely nice weather today for being in a tent, at least for me. Except it looks like the temperature's going to be in the 40's for part of the night, so I might need a sleeping bag soon. But, for now, hopefully plenty of blankets will be good enough.
It seemed like Vitamin D might have helped a bit for a while, but, unlike caffeine, I don't think it rids me of the problem of carbs making me sleepy. However, I should be sleepy, because I slept so little and so poorly.
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Maybe that's what's going on with me, or part of what's going on with me. And maybe I always was like that, but I just didn't know it because caffeine did so much to improve my ability to function.
I wonder if caffeine might actually get all my molecular clocks better-synchronized with each other somehow? I feel so much better with caffeine than without it, especially caffeine plus theanine (found in tea).
Still didn't get much done - read and watched TV with family. But, hopefully tomorrow I'll feel like getting more done.
It's 51 degrees outside and might go down to 45 degrees by 7 AM, according to Weather.com. But, I think I'm going to try sleeping out there. And because my new tent is much better-ventilated, better-positioned to avoid some sun, and the weather is probably going to be cool again tomorrow, and I might be able to block a lot of sun just by leaning a big piece of cardboard against the balcony's railing or my tent itself - because of all that, I think maybe I'll be able to remain in my tent even after the sun comes up, and maybe I'll have a better chance of not having my sleep interrupted by the sun.
My main goal is definitely not to try to correct my circadian rhythms by getting more early morning light and other daylight. I just like being outside, now that the weather is much better for that.
The tent worked pretty well today. It got sunny maybe around 7 AM to 10 AM, but the tent's new position and nearby cardboard for shade helped, so I didn't get up until around maybe 10:30 AM.
It got pretty cold, but, my many layers of blankets and robes used as blankets worked well enough. Closing both doors also seemed to probably help (and may have boosted the humidity a lot - my hygrometer said 77% at one point). I eventually opened one door (and put up its mesh) around maybe 7 AM since I wanted more ventilation. (A possible side effect of that was, the humidity went down to around 55%.)
Fortunately, even just one mesh-covered door provided adequate ventilation, unlike the other tent. I also like the extra space compared to the other tent. So, I'm quite satisfied with the new tent.
Didn't get very thirsty until sometime after the sun rose. My water bottle was nicely chilled by the cold weather, and probably so was my root beer which I didn't drink yet.
My cold worsened a bit by the morning, but already seems a bit better again, though not quite as gone as it was before sleep. Sleeping out in the cold was probably not the best thing for my cold, but, my cold was (and still is) mostly gone, and I just was curious to see if I could comfortably enough deal with weather in the 40's without a sleeping bag. I think a sleeping bag would've been better, but it worked out OK.
Not feeling very tired so far, but I think I'm going to resume some amount of caffeinated tea.
Again, didn't get much done besides reading and watching TV with family. Moved some bags of clothes to the upstairs bathroom. Dug out some additional warm things to wear or use as blankets, and some more sheets. Still didn't get my laptop ready to use, but almost did, and organized some files on one of my desktop computers.
Going to get a sleeping bag, which oddly didn't have Amazon Prime two-day shipping, so, might not receive it until Oct. 5th.
Was reassured by skimming this article about phones and extreme cold. So, hopefully there's no problem with having my phone in my tent.
Figured out my phone's Weather Channel widget was showing the wrong info. Was able to fix that by changing to a different Weather Channel widget with a reload button, a circular arrow in the lower right corner, similar to this: ↻
But, soon after sunrise, I went out to my tent, and moved my main cardboard sun shade out of the way (though I later put it back) so the sun would more quickly heat up my tent. It gradually went from around 48 degrees to 66 degrees and humidity in the 70's. And, with one door covered with mesh instead of cloth, the temperature was 62, and I think the humidity went down to the 50's.
Slept a while (though not very well) at times between 7:26 AM and 12:50 PM. Still sleepy. I came back in since I smelled smoke and thought that while I'm still recovering from my cold, I might be better off sleeping in a more predictable environment. But, maybe I'll go back for a while, since there probably aren't that many more nice days like this left in the year.
Yesterday was another day of mostly just reading and watching TV with family. Made tea in the downstairs microwave yesterday. Didn't get a huge amount of energy from it, but, that made sense, since I didn't sleep very well before that. But, I definitely got some energy from that tea, and it improved my mood. Will probably have caffeinated tea today too.
Fortunately, my sleeping bag is going to be here sooner than expected - Monday. So, hopefully I won't need so many layers of blankets, etc. anymore when sleeping in my tent.
So, I didn't even try it, and we just sent it back. I'm astonished that things like that aren't banned from being sold at all.
So, I guess I'm going to stick with regular blankets, or maybe go to a real brick-and-mortar store instead of ordering online from a page with incomplete information and no actual pictures of the product's labels.
Tried my laptop out there for a while, but even inside the tent, around 12 PM, the lighting was too bright to use the laptop without turning the brightness up more than I wanted to, which drains the battery.
So, I guess maybe I won't be doing much computing out there, since it has been getting pretty cold out there at night, and I read that my laptop should only be run at temperatures above 41 degrees. I sure wish I had an up to date fully-rugged Toughbook - then that wouldn't be a problem.
So, that was a nuisance because I still was mostly using my desktop computers rather than my laptops, and my Puppy Linux Setup Kit still isn't renovated. But, it was less of a nuisance than usual, because I was already mostly done preparing to switch over to one of my laptops.
But, it was still such a nuisance to get my laptop set up that I didn't get it mostly done until earlier today (Oct. 4th), mostly for lack of trying, since, unusually, I took a long relaxing break from computer stuff. However, I did work for a little while on some new setup scripts on my most easily set up desktop computer, and made some nice progress.
Later in the day, went to a couple brick and mortar stores to try to find a sleeping bag, but, found nothing acceptable, and also found out that there are laws that require toxic flame retardants to be put in camping equipment, including tents and sleeping bags. :-(
Anyway, I'm just hoping that my tent is not actually so toxic that it will harm me, since I'm probably going to keep using it sometimes anyway, until it gets too cold.
I guess if I'm still awake by the time it gets light, maybe I will move out there, because I won't need as many blankets during the day, so there will be less stuff for me to transfer from my room to my tent.
Today, on Oct. 5, slept sometime between 8:27 AM and 3:21 PM. Was in the tent reading a paper book before sleep, but a thunderstorm started, so I ran inside, sometime before 8 AM. I'm not sure if the thunder was much louder because I was outside, or if that was just some really big thunder, but it was pretty scary for a moment.
Have sometimes had a cough or slight congestion. Sometimes got very thirsty with dry eyes during sleep, but, maybe that's just from not drinking enough in general.
Been feeling much better and more alert and energetic overall, I think largely thanks to caffeinated tea.
That's more work than my log maps where my standards are far more relaxed, so I mostly have been adding to my log maps, especially when dealing with topics or tasks where I'm not at all certain or clear on the answers yet.
And I can make the laptop and monitor display different things (instead of just mirroring each other) by using these commands:
And it's quite relaxing to not have to worry about power outages anymore. If the power goes off, my laptop will just switch over to using its batteries.
Both seemed quite good for my mood and alertness, but I think I might have gotten some caffeine jitters from brewing the 1st flush darjeeling too long.
Didn't drink them both on the same day - I'm still limiting myself to only one cup of caffeinated tea per day.
And I just discovered that the new DreamHost parked domain page - automatically added, not by me - is adorable. :-)
That might actually be better than all of my plans for that domain. :-)
Been getting more done, and mostly haven't been in the mood to update this. Been reading, cleaning, and even programming, and haven't had issues with my energy at all.
Not sure it's only from resuming tea - perhaps the probably significantly increased iron in my diet is also helping, and/or sometimes having some Vitamin D and magnesium and Vitamin K2.
Not that everything is perfect. I've sometimes been quite grumpy at the remaining mess in my room, and been feeling a bit premenstrual lately, and my time of the month got delayed somehow, perhaps by my cold (which seems gone now). Not that I really mind it being delayed.
Anyway, overall, I've been feeling pretty much back to normal (or better), and also like I'm sleeping better. And have mostly avoided headaches. At one point I happily resorted to drinking a caffeinated Barq's root beer when I felt a headache approaching, and I think that may have helped avert it.
Been reluctant to bring my laptop out there at night because the humidity goes up pretty high at night, and I've read that high humidity can be bad for laptops. Tried reading an Overdrive book on my phone (which I'm less worried about, even though perhaps humidity could be a problem for phones too), but it would have been better with a phone stand.
Haven't been watching as much TV or Netflix, but, probably the most notable things I watched on Netflix recently were a Korean subtitled movie called Vanishing Time, and a sci-fi movie called Taking Earth.
Earlier, was grumpy about the mess in my room, and also about being unable to easily remove a Flash drive from my laptop because of SFS file glitches.
Spent hours trying to find a true solution, but the best thing I came up with (which was far from ideal, but I guess maybe it worked OK) was running the sync command (to make sure all files would soon definitely get finished being written to my Flash drive), waiting a while, then doing a "lazy unmount".
Then, since I was afraid some glitch(es) might happen if I plugged that Flash drive back in without rebooting, I shut down my laptop. And switched back to using one of my usual desktop computers, which lets me use two monitors instead of one monitor plus a below average laptop screen.
Also realized there was enough room behind my TV and speakers to push all that stuff closer to my small window. Having those farther away makes my room feel surprisingly much bigger.
There's still plenty of remaining mixed up clutter, but it's looking a lot more manageable now, even though I still have my exercise bike in here. It's still not useable due to clutter, but, I still plan on keeping it and resuming using it hopefully soon.
On both Oct. 10th and 11th, I woke up with a slightly stuffy nose, but it soon went away after drinking a little water.
Mostly been reading, programming, or cleaning. Still been feeling premenstrual, but my time of the month still hasn't started, though I hardly mind. Also sometimes been quite irritable, when the mood-boosting effects of my tea wore off (or when I delayed having tea), and before I finished cleaning my room, which improved my mood tremendously.
Will now also have an easier time sorting through my mountain of clothes and cataloguing them by taking pictures of myself wearing them, and adding those pictures and other details to a VUE map.
Weather.com says there's fog, but outside, it appears there's not as much fog as there was on Oct. 10th. But, maybe it will improve later on.
Starting on Oct. 13th, I actually have been microwaving it for 5 minutes, and leaving the tea bag in, which I'm hoping isn't too much caffeine for me. I'm doing that mainly for convenience, since the tea stays hot longer without me having to remicrowave it, and it's less of a nuisance than taking the tea bag out. But I also hope it helps me get more theanine and other healthy substances out of my tea.
The first time I did that (with a mug of just darjeeling and nothing else), I did start to feel a bit too jittery a few hours later. So, to hopefully soothe that away with extra theanine, I had another mugful of tea made with 1 teaspoon of decaf English Breakfast plus 1 teaspoon of decaf Mixed Berry, and I definitely felt like that helped.
Actually, I just found a different, easier, but just as effective way of accomplishing what I wanted, but never yet actually figured out how to do it the hard way, though maybe I'll keep at it just for curiosity's sake.
I used a piece of yarn to hang my flashlight from the hook at the top of my tent, which worked better than I expected once I somehow tied it well enough to stop it from falling.
Each pair of rechargeable NiMH AA batteries I had lasted only about 2 hours in my flashlight - 4 new ones I hadn't charged myself yet, and my 2 old ones which I hadn't charged in months. Tried to charge them once they ran out of energy, but, both my chargers are slow, and eventually I ran out of batteries, so I couldn't keep reading, and I switched to an audio book on my phone instead. Fell asleep while listening to it.
Got up with my phone's camera ready to take pictures (though in retrospect, a video would have been a better idea), and walked to a part of the balcony where I could see it better - but, to my relief, it turned out it was just the crescent moon.
No problem with cramps now, though I needed 3 Advils in all since my time of the month started (though I only needed 1 Advil each time I took it). Don't know why or how my body is so reliable about usually only having trouble with cramps in the first 24 hours of my time of the month, but thank goodness I don't have to deal with cramps for 5 days.
Also got a headache on the day my time of the month started, but that might have been from thirst from sleeping in my tent in the day, when it got a bit too sunny and warm. My headache went away quite quickly after I drank some water.
Tonight, it's going to be cold and sometimes rainy, so, don't know how much time I'm going to spend in my tent.
It's 50 degrees outside, so, probably not going to stay in my tent much.
Earlier, when I finally came out of my room (sometime probably before 7 PM), I found that the wind had blown both of my tents around quite a bit. The green tent I sometimes stay in had been blown into a corner, even though it had a bag of books weighing it down, and the red tent (which was mostly empty) was tipped over.
But, fortunately, my tents probably can't be blown entirely off the balcony unless the railings break.
I think maybe I'd be better off using less caffeinated tea in my tea bag when I plan to microwave it for 5 minutes and leave the tea bag in.
Also, I have no way to know for sure, but, I feel like this organic Ceylon black tea (which I just had) might have less caffeine than this organic 2nd flush darjeeling tea.
So, I definitely should be a lot more cautious in the future with the quantity of caffeinated tea I put in my tea bags.
So tired of my time of the month feeling like an actual illness every month.
Also, it wasn't always that bad. I was able to read earlier, both library ebooks on my desktop computer in my room, and a paper book in my tent.
But, just recently, my headache had gotten much worse, and I started to feel like I might get nauseated if I didn't have some caffeine. It actually worked pretty quickly to make me feel better. And now I'm actually feeling more relaxed and almost like I could go to sleep. Except I feel like maybe I need even more caffeine.
Been doing much better, especially now that I figured out how to modify the Lighthouse 64 Puppy Linux 6.02 Beta 2 ISO to make it possible to set the RAM disk to whatever size I want.
VirtualBox helped with that, since with that, I could test my changes in a virtual machine, without having to reboot a real computer repeatedly.
So, now I'll be able to use more of my computer's 32 GB of RAM for my own purposes, since now Puppy won't automatically sequester half of that RAM - 16 GB! - for itself.
Haven't rebooted my computer yet, because I'm not looking forward to all the not-yet-automated setup I'm going to have to do, unless I update my Puppy Linux Setup Kit more first.
Fortunately, my time of the month is just about done. Just recently woke up and I still feel kind of tired, which could be from cutting back a bit on caffeine, but I'm guessing another factor is probably that I need to build my body's iron levels back up.
But, have been feeling better since increasing my caffeine again, and have been too busy with reading, etc. to be in the mood to add much to this blog post. Been microwaving my tea for 5 minutes and leaving the tea bag in, but using less caffeinated tea per tea bag.
In one mug of tea, I used 3/4ths of a teaspoon of 2nd flush darjeeling tea, and in another mug the next day, I used 1 teaspoon. Both tasted good to me (even though the amount recommended on the package is 1.25 teaspoons), but I think I might stick with 1 teaspoon per tea bag, since that feels like maybe a better amount of caffeine (and perhaps theanine too) for me.
I'm hoping it will help me get more done and feel less confused about what the best things for me to work on would be.
It's expensive, since all available copies - even used copies - are above $45, but, I'm getting that too.
It was so rainy and windy that both my tents got blown around a lot, even though my green tent had a bag of books in it again, four blankets, two sheets, and various other things. And one of the four hooks holding my green tent's roof covering down got unhooked by the wind, so some things inside got a little damp.
I also took down the not-so-great red tent, which was actually a lot easier to take down than the green tent. (But the red tent won't be as easy to put back up again, if I ever want to, which I probably won't.)
Judging by future weather reports, there might be only one sunny day in the next 10 days, so, I don't know if I'll put my green tent up again soon or not, even though it's extremely easy to put up. I don't mind temperatures in the 50's, but I don't really like being out in my tent when it's cloudy or especially when it's rainy, even when it's warmer.
I'd like to get started making plans for what projects to work on next, but am going to probably wait until I get the above books, so I don't get bored with the process before I even start reading those books.
I'm hoping I'll like it on French toast, which I plan to make in our cast iron frying pan. Maybe I'll even try it on regular toast.
I kind of miss my tent already, even though it definitely usually wasn't the most comfortable place to sleep, due to fluctuating weather, temperature, and nearby noises.
Slept sometime between 6:39 AM and 1:45 PM and remained tired for an annoyingly long while after waking up. Not sure if it's because I need more caffeine or more iron, or perhaps both.
Maybe I should drink tea more frequently, even just decaf, to keep myself more continually somewhat blissed out by theanine. I'm not sure letting myself get anxious and discontent has many benefits, except I guess it makes it more obvious what my goals should be than it is when I'm feeling too OK with my situation.
Does liking tea this much make me a drug addict? :-) Well, at least tea is far from the worst vice in the world, if it's a vice at all.
The Walmart my relative went to didn't have blackstrap molasses, so, going to get this kind from Amazon instead. People in the question and answers section of that page say it's manufactured in New Jersey.
Didn't make French toast because I had no molasses to put on it, so I just made 5 scrambled eggs instead, and had them with orange juice since I've read that consuming Vitamin C and iron at the same time increases iron absorption.
Not that everything now feels perfect. I'm so impatient to get the above books about the Theory of Constraints, which are shipping very, very slowly.
Maybe I'm over-caffeinated, or maybe I'm low on magnesium, or both, but, even though I'm feeling better than I was before, I'm still not really relaxed and mellow and satisfied with life, but at least I'm not tired.
What a primitive era this still is. Despite all our technology, it's still necessary to wait and wait and wait for certain books.
Was more relaxed a few hours ago. Spent some hours playing the very addictive computer game Steamband, but, now I guess I'm annoyed that I'm not making vast progress in my real life instead of some game.
Later, had my usual vitamins, and am now having a mug with 1 teaspoon of 2nd flush darjeeling tea, and 1 teaspoon of decaf Mixed Berry.
1.25 teaspoons of caffeinated darjeeling yesterday seemed like maybe a bit too much for me, so, went back to 1 teaspoon again. If that doesn't seem sufficient, maybe I'll try 1 and 1/8ths of a teaspoon tomorrow.
Will be receiving the blackstrap molasses on Friday (Oct. 27). Hopefully that will help my iron levels. I find this article encouraging.
I just read here that licorice is made from molasses. I always loathed licorice, so, I hope the molasses won't taste too much like licorice. But, I always liked molasses cookies.
I think maybe I was doing better when I spent less time in my room due to being able to go to my tent.
I guess another possibility is, I might need more Vitamin D and magnesium. Took 2000 IU of Vitamin D and some magnesium citrate on occasion in the past several weeks, but not recently. But I'm guessing those could easily be part of why I felt much better for a while.
I sure hope I'll like blackstrap molasses, or can make it into something tasty somehow. I read that some people put it in smoothies, so, maybe I'll start using my blender more frequently again.
Will have to modify it because I don't have all the ingredients. I probably can't get chia seeds quickly. And the only vanilla extract we currently have contains alcohol, which I avoid completely, even in cooked food, since cooking might not remove all alcohol.
I really hope blackstrap molasses works out for me, iron-wise - then I'll have fewer reasons to consume meat or eggs. I guess my problem could also be partly lack of enough Vitamin D and magnesium, among other things. But, I especially suspect lack of iron, since I still don't feel like I'm doing as well as I was before my time of the month.
I don't know if I've ever had enough iron in my diet at any time in my life ever since my menstrual cycle began when I was 13 or something. In retrospect, it's really tragic that ignorance about proper nutrition for women may have robbed me of the ability to have a happier youth. Oh, well.
But, hopefully by publicly announcing all this stuff, it will help others, and maybe even myself if reincarnation exists, since it perhaps it will help prevent future female lives of mine from going so horribly wrong. But I really hope I never incarnate as a woman ever again.
Just had vitamins (including 2000 IU of Vitamin D and magnesium) and am now having tea - 1 and 1/8ths teaspoon of 2nd flush darjeeling tea and 1 teaspoon of decaf Mixed Berry.
So, feeling better, and looking on the bright side a bit more. Perhaps someday, science will figure out how to stop and maybe even reverse the aging process, and correct all aesthetic imperfections, and then everyone will have a lot more time to enjoy their youth and beauty.
And if everyone could be young and beautiful if they want, then there would no reason to be jealous of other people's youth and beauty anymore, so maybe the many mean, jealous people in the world who are unfairly prejudiced against people who are younger and/or more aesthetically blessed than themselves would become less mean and jealous.
Also, if everyone were young and beautiful, then, personality, moral character, and intellect might become a lot more important even to the shallowest of people. It would be really nice to live in a world where appearance doesn't matter so much.
I made a smoothie with just pineapple, then added an unmeasured amount of blackstrap molasses to it. At first, I could scarcely taste the molasses at all, so I added more until I could taste it, and it still remained drinkable, though somewhat less appealing, and I wasn't very eager to drink it all, and didn't finish it. But perhaps that's because I just wasn't really in the mood for so much sugary pineapple to begin with.
Some comments on the web compared blackstrap molasses to soy sauce. I've scarcely ever tried soy sauce, but, I agree that it's somewhat reminiscent. However, blackstrap molasses is definitely sweet. I think I like regular molasses much more (at least in cookies; never had it in syrup form before). But, at least I find blackstrap molasses edible, and just about unnoticeable in sufficiently small amounts. I think it probably would even enhance some things it's put in, like baked beans.
Next time I make a batch of sweet and sour chicken, I'll probably try mixing the sweet and sour sauce and molasses together. And also will probably try the chicken with just molasses.
And maybe someday I'll figure out how to be vegetarian without feeling starved and deprived.
I wonder if different brands of blackstrap molasses taste different. Guess I'll find out soon.
Then, hopefully I'll become increasingly capable of making progress with my various projects, and won't lose so much momentum anymore due to my monthly illness - menstrual, premenstrual, and postmenstrual issues.
I hate my menstrual cycle so much that the most tempting thing for me about birth control pills is not the prevention of pregnancy, but the prevention of my menstrual cycle. :-)
But, I probably will never try birth control pills in any case, because I'd be too afraid they might somehow cause me worse problems than the problems they might solve.
I sure wish my books about the Theory of Constraints had been shipped faster. I have tons of other books to look at thanks to my local libraries' Overdrive sites, but they don't have many at all related to the Theory of Constraints.
There's a Sherlock Holmes quote that reminds me a lot of myself (at times): "My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built."
And now, I'm having a cup of just 2nd flush darjeeling tea - 1 and 1/8ths teaspoons. And after a tentative experiment with some tea in a separate cup, I put almost an entire spoonful of blackstrap molasses in my cup of tea, and was surprised to find it's still good, I guess because I put in a small enough amount that, at least for me, the molasses flavor blends into the background rather than overpowering everything else.
I put in my usual 1 spoonful of honey, but added only 1 spoonful of sucanat instead of my usual 2 spoonfuls+some unmeasured amount much smaller than a spoonful. And am surprised to find I actually still like it.
One problem is, caffeine can interfere with iron absorption - this article says:
But, I guess still getting 38% of the iron might still be worthwhile. It tastes good enough that I'll probably put blackstrap molasses in my tea again. Might try adding more next time. Or, maybe I should add more right now, since I still have plenty of tea left. But I'm reluctant to possibly ruin my cup of tea. On the other hand, I would like to know how much I can get away with putting in, so I can build up my iron levels quickly.
But, I missed my green tent, so I set it back up on the balcony around 5 AM, even though it was around 50 degrees outside and probably going to rain a few hours later.
I stayed comfortably warm with my fuzzy robe and three blankets. Would have loved to go to sleep out there, but, rain unsettles me since I definitely don't want to be out there if there's lightning. So, now I'm back in my room again.
But at least now I can easily go back to my tent if/when the weather ever gets nice enough.
Wasn't outside much yesterday, but, it seemed like a particularly nice day, so hopefully there will be at least a few more nice days like that.
Then, it would be just about as good as a computer with a tiny but nice touchscreen - which actually looks quite a lot nicer than my Toughbook CF-C1's touchscreen.
I don't know how long I was out exactly, but sometime between 7:06 PM and 8:40 PM. I wasn't freezing, but, I was still too concerned about the cold to be able to doze off. And my back was all crampy when I sat up, and for a little while after I came back inside. So, I guess I'll have to wait for at least slightly warmer weather to be comfortable in my tent.
Still haven't tried this blackstrap molasses yet - haven't even had tea yet, since I think I might like to go back to sleep if I can.
Have been kind of sleepy at times since waking, but maybe that's partly because I took a full serving of magnesium citrate instead of half a serving, and only 2000 IU of Vitamin D. Oh, and I only slept sometime between 10:47 AM and 4:50 PM.
The blackstrap molasses we got from Amazon says a serving is 1 tbsp. (21g), and it contains 20% of the "Daily Value" of iron.
And the blackstrap molasses we got from the grocery store says a serving is 1 tbsp. (15 mL), but it contains only 4% of the "Daily Value" of iron.
I wonder if 21 g and 15 mL are actually significantly different, even though both are referred to on each bottle as 1 tbsp. Or, does the blackstrap molasses we got from Amazon actually contain way more iron for some reason?
I think maybe I might have an easier time eating liver for iron. I guess this molasses+tea is not so bad that I'd rather lick my cast iron frying pan, but, I don't think I really want to continue experimenting with this blackstrap molasses or any other, even though the other kind I tried - Brer Rabbit brand - tastes better to me, both in and out of tea. Maybe I'll try it again someday but at the moment, I just want a nice, normal cup of tea.
I wonder what makes the two brands taste different and contain different amounts of the same nutrients.
Maybe I'd be better off just eating more peanut butter sandwiches, eggs, raisins, pumpkin seeds, cereal, etc. Ooh, this page says sesame seeds have a lot of iron. I definitely am OK with sesame seeds.
Yeah, definitely discarding this cup of tea.
I started to wonder if maybe those cramps were a sign of magnesium deficiency, so, I recently put some magnesium gel on the lower half of both arms, and I quickly became more relaxed, flexible, and un-achy. My back feels normal now.
Also had a mug of tea made from 1 and 1/8ths of a teaspoon of 2nd flush darjeeling tea and 1 teaspoon of Earl Grey. So, in a much better mood now too, though I soon resumed being kind of sleepy after a brief energy boost. Also still feeling kind of unsure of what to do, and lately have been procrastinating a lot instead of working on my various projects. Mostly been reading various Overdrive books, other books, and watching Netflix with family.
The books I'm getting about the Theory of Constraints might not get here until possibly Oct. 31st and Nov. 2nd. So, I've been reading this interesting website instead.
I sure wish I could still sleep in my tent, but it's just too cold. I probably wouldn't be allowed to move the cat litter box out of the room it's in, so I can't stop our cat from visiting me if I try sleeping in that room.
I guess the weather might be getting cool enough that maybe I could sleep in the junk mountain room if I clear enough space in there. Or, perhaps the upstairs bathroom. Maybe I'd get just as thirsty and dry-eyed sleeping in those rooms, but, perhaps it would be better somehow.
Unfortunately, there are actually far worse messes in this house that seem even more impossible to clean up. Maybe the most realistically feasible way to deal with them would be to just move out and leave all that crap behind, and try harder from the outset to keep the new place nice, so it never gets so hopelessly messed up.
Going to stay awake at least a little while longer, just to watch some TV. Then, I guess whenever I get tired enough, I'll try sleeping in the junk mountain room. I wonder if the junk mountain is stable enough for me to actually sleep somewhere on top of it. I think I'd feel safer up there than on the floor.
Both books are now at my family's post office box - so, a bit earlier than expected - but I don't think anyone was able to pick them up today, and I didn't want to walk that far.
Found a nice spot on top of the junk mountain - the tallest remaining spot, near a corner. While laying up there, I'm less than a foot away from being able to touch the ceiling. With blankets and some pillows, I think I might be able to sleep up there, but, I was so tired after having dozed off in my tent that I just slept in my room instead.
And, with the humidity apparently around 37% in my room, I kept waking up horribly thirsty and dry-eyed and headachy. Water seemed to help but only for a few hours at a time or less.
So, I really better try sleeping somewhere else next time I sleep.
Too bad my tent wouldn't fit in my room unless I get rid of my bed and the boxes under my bed, since maybe that would increase the humidity enough to be more comfortable for me.
There would definitely be enough room in the junk mountain room for my tent if I clean it up enough. But maybe it will be more comfortable there even without my tent.
Haven't measured the humidity in the junk mountain room yet, but probably will soon.
Probably going to have tea and just stay awake, even though I slept pretty poorly. My tent was such a nicer place to be until it got too cold.
Maybe I should just put my tent on top of my bed and see if that helps. Still afraid to try my humidifier in here, since I don't want to possibly mess up my computer stuff.
Maybe the best thing for me to do is try to clean up the junk mountain room some more, to make room for my tent, or perhaps for the upstairs microwave (which is currently in our totally broken upstairs bathroom), so then I could run the humidifier in the upstairs bathroom, and maybe sleep in there.
I just physically feel worse in my room than I do in my tent (at least when the weather's nice), and I don't know why.
I wonder if because I'm only about 5'4", that might mean I need less iron in my diet than whatever the recommended amount is.
Currently eating sweet and sour chicken, but, decided against trying it with blackstrap molasses.
Still around 37% humidity in my room, but around 40% or 41% in the junk mountain room and upstairs bathroom.
I wonder if running my desktop computers almost constantly somehow reduces the humidity in here. I sure wish I had a way to put my desktop computers into standby or hibernation mode while using Puppy Linux. I wonder if there is a way.
And, most excitingly of all, I'll probably study my new books on the Theory of Constraints whenever I get them. Then, hopefully I'll be able to get a better idea of what to work on next.
At the moment, though, I'm already pretty sure that improving my sleep quality might be the most beneficial thing I can do, if I can figure out how to do it.
My room doesn't feel like such a bad place to be while I'm awake, but I'm so tired of getting dehydrated so much of the time when I try to sleep here.
Been awake since around 6:36 PM yesterday, and having to get my books is the main reason I stayed awake this long.
As expected, the walk was quite tiring, but, maybe it was a bit easier than it was back in the days before I had my exercise bike, even though I was younger then.
It's 39 degrees outside (according to Weather.com, not my hygrometer), but, I think I might try to read for a while in my tent, since it was quite sunny during my walk, and I'm OK spending a bit of time in overly cold temperatures as long as I'm not trying to go to sleep.
I eventually got tired of the cold in my tent, even though I got the temperature in my tent up to 48 degrees and the humidity up to around 66% (if I recall correctly) by sitting in there with the doors closed, with a ceramic pasta bowl filled with water I warmed up in the downstairs microwave.
Came back inside, and sometime after 3:23 PM, went to sleep in the upstairs bathroom on top of some zippable pillow protectors full of clothes in the bathtub.
Only slept until around 6:12 PM because one of my relatives brought home food and we were going to watch TV. And, since we had enough time, we finished watching Stranger Things on Netflix.
Started to get some vague headaches, but, instead of having caffeine, I just went back to sleep in the upstairs bathroom sometime after 11:12 PM until recently, soon before 5:00 AM. Kept waking up thirsty and somewhat headachy, and the humidity was about 35% or 36% in there, and 33% in my room. But, there are some good things about sleeping in the upstairs bathroom - at least it's darker than my room usually is, and might stay warmer than my room once it gets really cold outside.
Also, I think I probably should resume drinking smoothies more often again.
However, I've mostly been avoiding milk lately because I don't want it to interfere with iron absorption.
Hmm, I wonder if the electrolytes are a major part of why tea makes me feel so much better?
Got sleepy for a while after having a bowl of mashed potatoes. Also resumed being kind of headachy, but that went away after I drank some water.
Definitely not liking the low humidity - around 35% in my room, every time I look at my hygrometer. My eyes have felt a bit dry, some of my knuckles have dry skin, and earlier I was coughing a bit and my throat felt a bit scratchy and sore, though now I only have those first two symptoms. Feeling sleepy now.
Going to try harder to get enough electrolytes, since I'm guessing that not paying enough attention to that is probably why I sometimes end up feeling like plain water is not doing me much good. Maybe getting enough electrolytes will make it easier for me to stay well-hydrated, which might also help me to sleep, since maybe I won't get woken up as much by thirst.
Been reading Overdrive books instead of my recently-acquired paper books because I haven't felt up to much deep thinking today. I felt energetic enough up until that bowl of mashed potatoes. Briefly felt OK a couple hours later or so, but now tired enough to possibly go to sleep.
Was surprised that even before tea, I don't think I felt all that tired, which surprised me, since I thought I didn't sleep very well, since I had often woken up thirsty and overheated.
Slept somewhat poorly in my room sometime between 5:05 PM and 9:50 PM. Got thirsty and too hot, with my room around 36% humidity and 70 degrees, but a few gulps of plain water seemed to help quickly, and I soon started to feel remarkably alert. 37% humidity in my room at the moment, with rain outside. And surprisingly, the temperature outside is going to increase so much overnight that I might be able to use my tent soon.
I'd rather put my tent on a balcony, so I'd probably need an apartment at the very least, which would be way too expensive for me.
If I had a fully-rugged Toughbook laptop that could handle a wider range of temperatures and humidity than my current laptops, or a phone or tablet with over 4 GB of RAM which could run Puppy Linux, and which had a way for me to attach a keyboard and mouse, and which I could charge with solar power or even a crank, I'd probably rather spend nearly all of my time outside, someplace where there's usually nice weather.
So, there's no way I'd want to spend a fortune on rent in California (or anywhere else) unless I had a balcony I can put a tent on.
Also, since big earthquakes are a potential problem in California, maybe I'd need to buy a parachute or hang glider so I could quickly get out of my building despite being someplace above the 1st floor.
I guess I couldn't listen to music with headphones, but, I might be able to get a lot of programming and reading done, and it might be pretty comfortable. And I love cats, and they're easy to take care of. (I love dogs too, but they're tougher to take care of.)
So, maybe that's how I could live in California without needing to pay a ton of money for someplace to live.
It's not something I'd actually want to try in the near future, but, just thought I'd note the idea down, so maybe I'll be reminded of it someday when I re-read this blog post.
So, I think I'm going to resume drinking more milk instead of avoiding it so much. (Except for half and half, which I've never quit because I've never found an adequate substitute for half and half in my tea, Teeccino, etc.) I used to drink quite a bit of milk, so, maybe I accidentally messed up my electrolyte balance by avoiding it and not eating/drinking enough other things that can compensate for the lack of milk.
Even when I was younger, attempting to quit milk was rough on me - like in spring 2012, when my lips became very dry and chapped (though that might have been partly due to other major stress). At least I haven't had that problem recently. But, I keep craving milk no matter how long I keep mostly avoiding it.
So, maybe my electrolyte imbalances and thirst issues are nothing to do with adrenal fatigue?
Greatly looking forward to returning to my tent sometime after 8:30 AM, when the sporadic rain might finally go away.
I read The Logical Thinking Process: A Systems Approach to Complex Problem Solving for a while, then went to sleep maybe around noon or 1 PM, woke up around 7:49 PM, and read it some more.
I might even go back to my tent for a while, until the upcoming rain (which will be followed by thunderstorms) starts.
Very pleased with the book so far, and I think VUE will be a wonderful tool for making the various diagrams.
I was surprised to discover today that my used copy of the book actually did have the software CD the new book comes with which I assumed my used copy probably wouldn't have. So, I guess I'll try that too at some point, on a Windows computer, or in a Windows VirtualBox.
Drank some milk soon after I woke up, and it was definitely more satisfying than plain water, and I did feel like it was probably hydrating me better than plain water. Plain water sometimes doesn't feel very effective at all, but I pretty much always like milk.
I think one of my long-term goals in life is now to move to California, or maybe elsewhere in the USA if anywhere else has such nice weather.
It worked so well I even was able to fall asleep in there for a while, sometime between perhaps 9:30 and 11:30 PM. I think my big ceramic pasta bowl of steaming hot microwaved water might have done more to heat up the tent quickly, but, the electric blanket may have helped keep it above 50 degrees. The temperature in the tent slowly fell from around 52 degrees (before sleep) to around 50 degrees when I woke up. When I woke up, Weather.com said it was 40 degrees outside.
I had both "doors" of my tent nearly totally shut. Smelled smoke outside only once I opened a "door". Don't know what that smoke was from, but, it was nothing to do with me, my electric blanket, etc. - it's a fairly common smell around here when the weather gets cold. And a good reason to not even try to stay in my tent once it gets very cold, even if my electric blanket makes it bearable.
I wonder if solar powered generators like this (which it seems you can also charge by plugging it into a normal electrical outlet) might be helpful to homeless people. If someone has no choice but to be outside in ridiculously cold weather, I wonder if that plus an electric blanket and tent could save their life. I wonder what temperatures, humidity, moisture, etc. that generator can endure?
After around 2 and a half hours with my electric blanket turned up to its highest setting, my hygrometer said my tent was still only 47.5 degrees. But, I was still pretty comfortable under my blanket. Didn't sleep, though - I listened to an audio book.
Anyway, I don't want to have to worry about the effects of cold on the wire leading to my electric blanket's controller, and maybe also the controller itself, and also was worried that cold might damage my electric blanket somehow if I leave it outside, even if I unplug it and bring its controller inside when I'm not using it. And I already found out last year that my electric blanket seems to interfere with my sleep quality.
So, I'm not really tempted to keep using my electric blanket out there. I just was curious to know how well it might heat my tent. It definitely wasn't warm enough in my tent outside my blanket, but it was comfortable enough under my blanket that I think I probably could have stayed out there all night if I had wanted to.
I'm very impressed and eager to get started making my own logic tree maps, hopefully as soon as I finish reading the book.
For years, I already had been making numerous of my own self-designed VUE maps for various purposes, such as to try to figure out what would be best for me to work on next, and even those frequently very freeform messy maps have been helpful.
But, I've been getting tired of so much chaos, so, I greatly look forward to trying to make some maps structured in the much more rigorously logical ways suggested in the book.
I did keep waking up, but mostly because I was worried about the upcoming thunderstorms, otherwise I'd probably still be staying there.
Seems like my tent is reliably warmer than outside when it's sunny in the morning. As long as the temperature inside my tent is somewhere in the 50's, I'm pretty comfortable, even with normal non-electric blankets. So, there might be more remaining nice-enough days to stay in my tent than I originally thought.
And maybe there's also a wider range of places I'd be comfortable living at than I thought. Now, I'd never want to live anywhere where I can't live in a tent on my balcony for most of the year. :-)
Finished reading The Logical Thinking Process: A Systems Approach to Complex Problem Solving on Nov. 6 soon before 5 AM.
So, yesterday and today, using VUE, I worked on a map that was originally intended to be an Intermediate Objectives map. But, I chose such a large "system" to depict - my overall goals in life - that I ended up not really following a lot of the map-making rules.
So, my result looks like a bit like a deranged game of cat's cradle played by at least one invisible octopus. :-)
But, nonetheless, I'm very happy with it. :-) Maybe I'll add a bit more to it, then at some point maybe even share it with the world.
It's just too much stuff to hold in one's head all at once (even despite the practice I get as a programmer)... but it's all important to me. No wonder I've had so much trouble deciding what to do and getting more than a few things done really well.
Looking forward to making more maps with different purposes and levels of detail, once I decide what to work on, which I think might be much easier to do now.
Didn't get headaches, but have sometimes eaten a dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bar or two, so maybe that helped me elude caffeine withdrawal symptoms.
I made it while using the screen-tinting software Redshift, so, the colors might not be as nice to look at without Redshift.
Also, I'm fond of the color blue, so I actually put in a fair amount of blue, despite the circadian issues that blue light is reputed to contribute to.
It's a pretty general map, so it doesn't list out my specific projects, like the Puppy Linux Setup Kit, Astroblahhh Desktop, etc.
Still haven't decided what to work on next, and haven't made any other new maps yet, but, likely will soon.
And ended up making a weird variation on tomato soup - 1 blended banana, plus an unmeasured amount of Diane's Garden brand vegetable juice (which is similar to V8). It was kind of good (though strange) cold, but, I figured I would prefer hot soup, so I microwaved it for a few minutes and added saltine crackers.
It's still a bit weird - like strangely sweet tomato soup - but definitely edible, and I definitely might make it again. I guess I could also try just microwaving the vegetable juice alone - I'm guessing it would probably taste a lot like plain old tomato soup.
There are probably spices or other ingredients that might enhance it. I just added some ground marjoram. A subtle change, but good, I think.
And perhaps the cold is good for me in some ways.
I actually haven't been feeling fatigued lately, but I suspect that might be because maybe I finally got enough iron, since I haven't been avoiding meat lately.
Also, maybe that half-hour walk to the post office on Oct. 31st to pick up my books did me a lot of good.
There has been unpleasantly low humidity, around and below 35%, throughout the house, and even outside during the day yesterday. Nonetheless, as always, I still have much less trouble with thirst while I'm awake. (Hardly any.)
Also, I think I've been having less trouble with water sometimes seeming unhelpful, ever since I resumed drinking milk freely.
I probably still need to stay better-hydrated, though. I have a lot of canned peaches with the expiration date 12/2017, so, since I don't want to let those go to waste, I guess I could try drinking various smoothies containing peaches. And maybe I should add stuff that contains a lot of iron. (Other than blackstrap molasses, since the kind we have which actually has high iron tastes so terrible.)
Would rather not try exercising excessively, or drinking a lot of soy milk, even though at least those ideas scare me less than the idea of taking birth control pills to suppress my time of the month.
I wonder why nature imposes this horrible self-destructive menstrual cycle on women.
And sent an order for items to get from Nuts.com to a relative, so, hopefully we'll get those soon. Finally, I'll be able to try chia seeds for the first time. And will have plenty of sesame seeds, among other things.
Also getting a free pecan pie via a Nuts.com email newsletter offer - one free pecan pie with an order over $75.
And replace with:
I wonder if maybe I actually do have ADHD and sometimes the problem of intrusive sleep (or actually tiredness, in my case) when dealing with things I'd rather not deal with. Except I don't think that happens to me consistently. Sometimes I have a lot more fortitude than other times and can deal quite well with some things I'd rather avoid.
Makes me even more glad that reproducing was never a goal of mine.
The first answer provided a link to this interesting article: Scientists Discover Children's Cells Living in Mothers' Brains
So, if I understand that correctly, the unusual and rather scary gestation process of humans exists because our large human brains require a lot more nutrients than other mammals require when gestating?
And no, I wouldn't want to use the so-called "child support" system for "help". The so-called "child support" system is evil and corrupt and actually harms children in numerous ways, as I and my half-sibling and step-siblings found out from first-hand experience as children. Some more details are on my Self-Help page.
Still feeling a bit out of it and premenstrual. But, thanks to how well I've been doing lately, I'm more confident now that getting sufficient iron in my diet will probably help me recover more quickly than I used to recover from my monthly malaise.
A grim yet also in some ways lovely reminder of why one of my top goals in life is to figure out how everyone can be eternally young and beautiful.
I don't understand much of it, but, I thought I heard something about legumes and cheese, and the title means "Today it is beautiful weather", according to Google Translate - so I'm assuming the words are probably overall more pleasant than the other version's lyrics.
Yesterday, made a smoothie from a banana, a can of peaches, a bunch of baby carrots, and a lemon. Didn't feel like drinking such a large smoothie, especially since at first it was a bit too sour. But diluting it with water helped. Still didn't really like it that much, though. Wasn't in the mood for so much sugar. Ended up discarding it after I thoughtlessly left it sitting on a table for hours and fruit flies found it.
Going to try it without the banana next time, both to make it smaller, and also because maybe I'd like it more without it. I actually have trouble even eating bananas, since I usually find them just tolerable rather than something I actually want to eat. They're better in smoothies, at least if their taste is sufficiently covered up by other ingredients.
Found this page on ways to make smoothies without bananas. I'll probably end up trying some of those ideas. Avocado especially appeals to me.
Feeling sleepy now, and I wish I could go back to sleep, but I don't know if I'll actually be able to fall asleep.
Perhaps sleep issues/circadian issues are a lot more common than we know."
So, I don't know what's right - that, or the pages that say milk might interfere with iron absorption.
But, I feel like I'm probably better off drinking milk than not drinking milk, so, I'm definitely going to continue drinking milk.
If it can work so well for someone with such severe menstrual issues, hopefully it will work well for me with my much less severe menstrual issues.
But, I finally tried it - a spoonful of this blackstrap molasses (which has 20% of the "Daily Value" of iron per serving, but made my tea taste bad) in a mostly-full 8.5 ounce styrofoam cup of cold cow's milk.
At first, it was surprisingly kind of good, though I think it's getting worse the more the milk and the blackstrap molasses get blended together. Now the blackstrap molasses flavor is getting a bit too strong for my liking.
Diluting it with more milk definitely helps. And maybe the organic honey I just put in is slowly dissolving even though the milk is cold.
Added a spoonful of vanilla Breakfast Essentials powder - still could taste the molasses too much. Same with another spoonful. So, I added the entire rest of the packet, and some more milk. There are now a lot of clumps of Breakfast Essentials powder that aren't dissolving, but, I guess it tastes mostly OK now.
Transferred it to one of my smoothie glasses so I could add more milk. Still tastes a bit weird, but I might be able to get used to it. Maybe some other flavor of Breakfast Essentials powder would cover up the molasses flavor better.
Perhaps that would be a better approach, since I've read that Vitamin C can improve iron absorption.
So, maybe I'll try that tomorrow or something.
Here's this encouraging article again to encourage myself not to give up on blackstrap molasses.
I wonder if lack of sufficient iron is the reason I've had a problem for years (off and on, but maybe mostly on) with the edges of my lips being pale.
I'm guessing I probably still haven't been getting enough iron, even though I may have gotten enough to feel better temporarily. But with my time of the month approaching, I guess probably a lot of the iron I consumed got leeched away by my accursed womb. I truly despise being a woman!
I really don't know if anything about being a woman is adequate compensation for the drawbacks of being a woman.
I guess even if I feel dubious about having caffeinated tea, I should at least have some decaf tea for a probably much-needed dose of theanine to improve my mood.
My headache slightly came back yesterday evening but decreased after I ate some Thomas brand English muffins with butter and cherry jelly. Which was actually one of the few things I ate yesterday. Also had some vitamins, some apple cinnamon Cheerios, the aforementioned tea, and the aforementioned milk with Breakfast Essentials powder and blackstrap molasses. Should eat better, but I was more interested in reading.
Rather than just tired, I briefly felt almost a bit euphoric after that, and more relaxed. Seems like it's getting much easier than it used to be. I used to get a lot more exhausted and out of breath after even just 1 minute of that.
Been getting drowsy as I write this, so, I guess I better move on to something more interesting, or else go back to sleep.
But now much happier, because the wonderful Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County acquired XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference, which I just recently (Nov. 3rd) recommended.
I already have a physical copy, but, this will be useful too, because now I'll be able to do computerized searches of the text!
And since XSLT is a relatively obscure topic (as far as I know) despite being such a cool and useful technology, the book probably won't be in high demand, so I'll probably be able to borrow it anytime I need it.
Huge thanks to the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County and Overdrive! :-D
Maybe this will help motivate me to finally update my Puppy Linux Setup Kit to make it easy to automatically install all the things I need to be able to use XSLT.
Now having blackstrap molasses in orange juice. Unfortunately, I can still taste the single spoonful of blackstrap molasses, even though I filled almost my entire smoothie glass with orange juice.
I think I'll probably be able to drink the rest of it, but, I'm probably not going to try that again, since it definitely makes the orange juice taste weird and medicinal.
The next thing I might try sometime is, either hot water, or my favorite root beer (Great Value brand), with 1 spoonful of blackstrap molasses. I'm not feeling very optimistic about it, but maybe I'll get surprised.
One nice thing about blackstrap molasses in orange juice (and also even in milk plus Breakfast Essentials powder) is, it seems like the blackstrap molasses dissolved pretty well, since there was no dark brown sludge waiting for me at the bottom of the glass.
I'm relieved to be done with that. Reminds me of the useful self-help idea (and book) called "Eat That Frog", which I believe I first heard about in this helpful blog post:
Also didn't have tea - didn't feel like I really needed it for my energy or mood or even to avoid caffeine withdrawal, and I guess didn't want it keenly enough to have it despite not needing it. But I am going to have some today for fun and energy, even though I still don't feel like I really need it yet.
Despite not sleeping that well, I don't feel all that tired so far, so, perhaps the blackstrap molasses has already been doing me good. I want to get that over with soon, so, I think I'm going to try it with some Great Value root beer next.
I probably won't like it, but even if I do like it, I probably won't want to drink it that way very often, since I've read that soda is unhealthy, and I've already been drinking much less soda lately.
Got lost in reading for a while, then recently tried 1 spoonful of this blackstrap molasses in Great Value root beer. However, the can I got from my mini-fridge was partly frozen, so, I wasn't able to use an entire can.
The blackstrap molasses, unsurprisingly, made it taste bad, and unfortunately didn't dissolve as well as it did in the orange juice and milk, judging by the fact that one gulp through one of my glass straws seemed to consist mainly of blackstrap molasses syrup. I drank maybe 70% of the foul mixture, then discarded the rest.
Going to try blackstrap molasses in vegetable juice next. I wonder if anything has a strong enough flavor to cover up the foulness of blackstrap molasses. Maybe coffee, but I don't like coffee unless I put in a lot of half and half, but I don't want the half and half possibly interfering with my iron absorption. Also, I don't want to drink that much caffeine.
Definitely wouldn't want to keep consuming blackstrap molasses if it didn't seem to possibly be having some quite good effects on me. It's horrible-tasting stuff, but, I guess it might be worth it if it's really helping my iron levels as much as I suspect it might be.
It seems really weird that I feel so fine today despite not sleeping as long or well as I would like. Didn't even have tea yet, either. Nor even my usual vitamins. Also didn't eat anything yet.
I put 1 spoonful of this blackstrap molasses into less than half a smoothie glass of Diane's Garden brand vegetable juice. (Which is similar to V8, but I think I like it more than V8. My family gets it at our local Save-a-Lot grocery store.)
The more the blackstrap molasses dissolved, the more disagreeable it got, but, it was astonishingly good at first, and diluting it with more juice - filling my glass about halfway - made it good again.
Yes, good! Reminds me of baked beans. I'm guessing I could probably make a pretty good bean soup out of this stuff.
Made a soup out of them plus the abovementioned mixture of this blackstrap molasses and Diane's Garden brand vegetable juice. It was a bit too plain at first, though, so I added unmeasured amounts of salt, black pepper, and butter, plus one crushed clove of garlic.
Now, it's quite good, and probably giving me a ton of iron, which the Vitamin C from the vegetable juice will probably help me absorb. This turned out much better than I expected, so I will definitely be making this again! Probably I should try making it with more exact measurements of ingredients, so I'll be able to share a more exact recipe.
I did get a bit tired recently, but maybe that's because dealing with food is kind of boring to me.
Really happy that getting sufficient iron doesn't seem so difficult to do anymore. If I don't feel like making soup, I can easily just drink about half a smoothie glass of Diane's Garden brand vegetable juice plus a spoonful of this blackstrap molasses.
I don't feel like drinking tea because I think maybe I'd rather just go to sleep.
Anyway, given that I started blackstrap molasses so recently, and so soon before my next period, I won't be too disappointed if my next period isn't already tremendously improved from how it usually is.
Judging by the aforementioned video which helped persuade me to resume experimenting with blackstrap molasses and at least one other video, and other things I've read (not sure where exactly), I'm guessing I'll probably see bigger improvements during (and before and after) the periods after my next period, rather than my very next period.
Going to have tea since now I feel like staying awake.
No more cramps so far. Remained kind of sleepy for a while after waking up, and still am not as alert as I'd like, but tea can probably fix that quite well.
So, I only needed 2 Advils for this period. Sometimes I need 3.
So, perhaps all that iron is already helping me. Today, my period has been unusually light compared to what it's usually like on my 2nd day, though not as light as my 3rd days tend to be. Yesterday was more of an average or maybe verging on heavy day, more like normal for me.
One possible effect of blackstrap molasses that I'm really hoping will work for me at some point is, my time of the month not lasting as long. Mine pretty consistently lasts about 5 days, though by the 5th and often the 4th day it tends to be more brown than red.
It was a bit worrying, and I wondered if maybe that meant I was dehydrated, or perhaps in need of magnesium, so I drank a bit of water and took two Nature Made magnesium citrates. Haven't had that problem at all since, nor any other headaches.
Did start to get quite sleepy in the past hour or so, which I'm guessing is from the magnesium.
Given how horrible blackstrap molasses can be, I'm still astonished at how good-tasting this is. And if it ever gets boring, I can probably make it more exciting by adding some sort of vegetable smoothie made in my blender, or some spices, or something. Or make it into a variety of different hot soups.
Wow, maybe my whole life might have gone better if I had been properly educated much sooner about appropriate nutrition for women.
Or, maybe my life would have gone worse in some ways, because maybe in the past, I was actually better off being so debilitated that I had little better to do than learn to program.
If I hadn't been weakened by poor nutrition, etc., I would have had a better chance of sticking with my time-wasting, mostly uneducational, dead-end nearly minimum wage job longer, among other things I didn't realize at the time I was better off without.
Apparently there's a problem with the furnace, so it's a bit cold. But for some reason, even though we currently can afford to do something about it, we're going to wait until tomorrow to get it fixed.
Anyway, good thing I have some practice dealing with cold thanks to my tent, and I still can use my electric blanket. And I've read tents can be used indoors for warmth. Don't know if that will be necessary or not.
We also are possibly going to use our oven for heat.
I guess maybe my two desktop computers, two lamps with incandescent light bulbs, and two big old CRT computer monitors are helping to keep my room warm.
Haven't measured my room lately, since it takes my hygrometer so long to detect temperature changes, and it seems more important to measure the colder rooms than my room, which still seems OK.
We'll probably get the furnace fixed sometime in the afternoon tomorrow.
So looking forward to my time of the month being over, and hopefully being able to rebuild my iron reserves quicker and better than ever before, and then hopefully feeling like getting more stuff done other than sleeping and reading.
Still not feeling as alert and energetic as I'd like, but, I guess I probably feel better than I usually feel during my time of the month. Skipped tea lately because at times I've eaten enough chocolate that that alone made me feel quite alert and even jittery.
Found a page called Anemia & Chocolate. Apparently chocolate contains some iron. However, the page also says "Don't self-treat your anemia with chocolate".
Of course, I wasn't trying to - I just like chocolate sometimes. But even if chocolate was actually particularly helpful for iron deficiency, I probably would still prefer blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice anyway, simply because I'm guessing it's healthier, and I'm not always in the mood for so much sugar.
Quote:
My room stayed surprisingly comfortable the entire time the furnace was broken. I guess this page might be right. Quote:
A different room, with a big boxy old TV, also stayed warmer than various other rooms.
Slept somewhat poorly sometime between 4:42 AM and 11:00 AM. Have been probably mostly rather tired except when caffeinated or soon after eating chocolate, but maybe not as tired as I usually would be after poor sleep during my time of the month. And I feel like I might possibly recover quickly if/when I sleep well enough.
As usual, did plenty of reading. Also watched a bit of TV. And even tried to figure out if there's a way to make version control software handle XML files better.
Quite tired at the moment. Skipped blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice yesterday and today so far, since I didn't want to have it anytime too close to when I had chocolate, milk, or caffeinated tea, since those might interfere with iron absorption. I should probably just make it a part of my "morning" routine, since anything I put off until my "evening", there's a large chance I might not get around to it at all because I'm too tired.
But, today, our 2nd floor hallway ceiling started dripping rainwater from a new spot, but strangely, not from the old spots it usually drips from.
There's probably nothing I can do about it, since my family's emergencies demolished my credit a long time ago, and I don't want to possibly upset myself by looking to see if anyone sent any donations or microdonations or not, so, I'm just going to try to stay focused on my various long-term projects and rebuilding my iron levels.
I definitely feel like I'm already doing much better compared to how I usually feel around my time of the month. So, maybe once I recover more from my quite possibly low or somewhat low iron levels, maybe I'll finally have more nerve for dealing with things I've been procrastinating for literally years about dealing with, like a lot of my email, my financial situation, etc.
I wonder now if maybe low iron, low Vitamin D + magnesium, and my sleep being interfered with somehow by my electric blanket were the things most to blame for my fatigue, and maybe caffeine had little to do with it. And maybe I didn't have adrenal fatigue at all, or not as bad a case of it as I suspected originally?
Mostly been reading, but also cleaned the junk mountain room a bit more, and also moved my many zippable pillow protectors of clothes back into my room from the upstairs bathroom. Sorting my clothes is definitely not an important long-term goal of mine, but, my clothes have been so disorganized lately that I've been having a tough time even finding a single outfit I can wear if I want to go out.
The hallway ceiling is still dripping, but, a few more buckets "solved" the problem for now.
So, I guess the latter will now be part of my "afternoon" routine.
That's because my Puppy Linux Setup Kit still mostly hasn't been updated, so rebooting would still be more of a nuisance than it ought to be.
But, fortunately, the very thing which made testing my edited Puppy Linux ISO so much easier - VirtualBox - will probably also make it much easier for me to refine and test my Puppy Linux Setup Kit.
Then, I'll save a VirtualBox snapshot, so I can easily and
That will make it possible to easily test my setup kit repeatedly on a fresh, mostly pristine, almost default system, without having to repeatedly reboot a real computer.
And, outside of VirtualBox, I'll be able to edit my setup kit scripts with all the comforts my already fully set up non-virtual Puppy Linux system provides.
Quote:
Me too, still, even though I've been doing quite a lot better lately. For a long time I was afraid I'd never get so many of my "spoons" back, but thank goodness, I did.
(Maybe my possible Non-24 is also at least sometimes a factor in my sleep sometimes - and formerly, often - not feeling very refreshing even when my sleep isn't cut short. Except I now think iron deficiency might be more to blame for that in my case, since my sleep - even short sleeps - have been seeming so much more refreshing lately, since I started trying to get more iron in my diet.)
My sleep issues can easily result in tremendous "spoon" loss, during which I have a very difficult time dragging myself out of bed for almost any reason, no matter how bad the consequences of not getting out of bed might be, nor how good the rewards might be.
(No doubt other things help too, like Vitamin C, eating better in general, and getting more exercise - but of anything I've ever done, I think the things I mentioned in the preceding paragraph have been giving me the most obvious and dramatic energy improvements, and have been the most reliably helpful to my energy.)
I'm quite surprised to find that there's so much controversy around spoons. It almost made me not even mention the spoon theory at all to avoid any risk of offending anyone.
But, it seems like a really useful analogy which explains many people's situations very well, and it still applies to me, though to a much lesser extent than it did even as recently as earlier this year.
So, I just wanted to mention it at least once.
Felt fine at first today but eventually started to get headachy, probably from not eating well enough, and maybe also from not drinking enough. Or maybe it's even caffeine-related, even though I had tea hours before my headache started.
Or, it might even be from getting cold, except my hygrometer says it's 68.7 degrees in here. Yet I feel colder than I did on the days the furnace wasn't working, when the temperature was probably usually below 65! I guess that could easily be another symptom of not eating well enough.
In any case, my headache has decreased since I ate a dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bar and started drinking a smoothie.
So, I guess I will start my day with my vitamins and blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice, then have tea somewhat later on, to hopefully avoid caffeine interfering with my iron absorption.
So, now, my mirror isn't hidden at all anymore, which will make it easier for me to take pictures of myself wearing my clothes so I can finally catalog them in a VUE map.
I think I might have preferred just eating the avocado, though. Avocados are actually really good. Even a smoothie containing just avocados, and maybe some salt, and perhaps a bit of melted butter, would probably appeal to me.
Happily, the avocados we got were organic, so, I'll probably be getting a lot more of those.
Still haven't tried any of the new beans and spices yet, but, looking forward to it.
From my food log, I can see that prior to my headache, I had only water, vitamins, tea, a small amount of sesame seeds (not with anything else, I was just tasting them), 2 English muffins with butter and cherry jelly, some pistachios, and vegetable juice+blackstrap molasses. So, definitely didn't eat enough.
I'm really glad I have a hygrometer now which also tells me the temperature. In the past, due to my poor eating habits, I probably often mistakenly misjudged my room to be much colder than it really is.
So, maybe in the future, looking at my hygrometer and realizing that I feel like my room is much colder than the temperature shown will hopefully remind me to eat better and more often.
Maybe some sort of bean and chicken soup would be a good breakfast. I wish I could just be satisfied with a purely vegetarian soup, but I just crave meat so much sometimes. Also, avoiding meat is probably part of what got me into my iron-deficiency mess.
Before sleep, had a mug of milk with chocolate Breakfast Essentials powder, a flavor I never tried before.
Was good, but I think I like the other flavors more. Maybe someday I'll try it with blackstrap molasses in it, as I originally planned.
Been feeling kind of hungry, but not sure what I even want to eat. Maybe scrambled eggs would be good, but, it's such a nuisance to cook them and clean the pan. I wish I could just go back to sleep. I probably would have slept longer if I hadn't been woken up by my headache and feeling cold. And thirst.
Oh, yogurt might be helpful. I'm in that fragile state I sometimes get into where I can't stand to eat many kinds of food since I feel like it might make me throw up, but I can usually handle slowly eating some yogurt, or canned peaches, or canned green beans, or juice, or soups, or small amounts of peanut butter. Fortunately, we have plenty of yogurt and everything else I mentioned.
Seems like the grape juice might already be helping me somehow. I wish I had a bigger refrigerator in my room to keep a wider variety of helpful things in. Alternatively, maybe I could get another mini-fridge and try to make space for it. Sometimes I'm so tired I wish my refrigerator was reachable from my bed. I actually could move it there if I really wanted to, if I move my exercise bike and office chair, but I'm not sure it would be all that helpful.
Maybe I'd be better off with the upstairs microwave in my room too - just am worried that it might be bad for my computer stuff. Except way back in 2002-2004, until my family's microwave broke, I had my own microwave in my room, and it didn't seem to do my computer stuff any harm.
I wonder if a more strict routine for meals would stop me from ending up like this. Anyway, less headachy and more drowsy now.
And I wish the upstairs bathroom was fixed and that we always had our water heater on, like we used to prior to 2005.
Anyway, strawberry yogurt seems to be helping me some. And I think I'm less fatigued now than I usually would be when I get headachy, cold, and scarcely able to eat. I'm guessing this kind of thing is probably totally preventable if I just am more careful to eat enough and eat well.
Not sure it's caffeine-related, except insofar as caffeine interferes with my appetite, and not eating well is what leads to me getting like this.
Feeling a bit too warm with my fuzzy robe on now, so, maybe I'm getting better. Still a bit headachy, but it seems to be decreasing. Had two strawberry yogurts so far. Might like to go back to sleep.
Yesterday, found The Spoon Theory Demonstration choose-your-own-adventure game, which seems much too reminiscent of how my life has too often been, especially in recent years. Though my life hasn't been quite that bad, hopeless, and unwinnable.
Things have overall been getting better rather than worse. Maybe I just need to pay more immediate attention to my body's hunger signals, rather than often thoughtlessly ignoring them until they go away and then unignorable symptoms eventually start. And I'm probably better off having tea in the middle of my day instead of my "morning" so it doesn't suppress my appetite.
I guess it could be more caffeine-related than just a headache from not eating well enough, since maybe my sleep issues and varying tea times finally have resulted in caffeine withdrawal issues.
Having a Barq's caffeinated root beer at last, since I didn't feel like making tea. Feeling a bit better. Except still wondering if maybe I should rearrange my life and priorities, just in case I'm going to die many years sooner than I think.
Anyway, I guess I'm lucky that this hasn't happened more often despite my reckless inattentiveness to exactly what times I'm consuming caffeine.
But, I think I'm feeling a bit better already and less on the verge of throwing up.
I wonder if maybe I should try living with one of my other relatives, since not having to do without warm water most of the time might be much better for my health.
It would be so nice to get rid of a lot of my stuff and become a nomad, I guess probably via house-sitting. I'd want a fully-rugged Toughbook with a much nicer screen, though.
And now I'm not as enticed by daydreams of totally running away from my entire life here. :-)
I guess the idea of living elsewhere actually still appeals to me a lot, but, rather than just abruptly leaving without much preparation, I'd rather recover my health and energy more first.
Ate a dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bar, a Taco Bell beef chalupa a relative got for me, a Great Value root beer, and later, another dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bar.
Been doing better, and haven't felt sleepy, but still worried my headache might come back. It's 69.8 degrees in my room and 28% humidity, and my fuzzy robe feels much too hot to wear in my room now.
Might have tea, even though I might try to go back to sleep soon. Caffeine interferes with my sleep a lot less than migraines do.
My room feels too hot now, so, I just turned the air conditioner on. It's kind of squeaky but might be working well enough.
Oh, I guess another thing that might have wreaked a bit of havoc with me was eating so many chocolate-covered pretzels several days ago, but then, on subsequent days, mostly just going back to my usual more restrained caffeine consumption.
Didn't have tea, and I feel like I might not need it yet. Ate my other Taco Bell beef chalupa. Sleepy, and might go to sleep soon.
I feel like I have some energy today. It's 67.1 degrees in my room with 29% humidity, but I don't feel too cold. My lips got a bit dry again.
I think my improved iron levels are probably the top reason my sleep has been feeling more refreshing lately. But I think the magnesium gel probably helped too.
Maybe I'll try making some bean soup today, probably containing blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice. But, I don't think I want it for breakfast.
All I ate so far was vitamins and pistachios, but, will probably eat better soon.
But, I'm glad to have that done, as well as good notes enabling me and others to easily repeat the process without having to remember it or figure out again.
Still have scarcely actually worked on my Puppy Linux Setup Kit yet, recently.
But, involving VirtualBox in the process will probably make it much nicer to work on.
Yesterday, tried chia seeds 3 different ways - soaked for less than a half hour in water, grape juice, and root beer (not all in the same glass). It reminded me of tapioca, but I ran across lots of worrying pages about chia seeds as well as praise, and I'm not sure what to think. I kind of like them, but don't want to eat too many of them if they have excessive amounts of antinutrients or might interfere with digesting other food or might block my intestines or something.
Also, I ran across something about someone's esophagus getting blocked by chia seeds, and people talking about cases of intestinal blockage from chia seeds. Apparently chia seeds are very absorbent of water and other liquids, and I've seen claims that they might dehydrate you by soaking up fluids inside you, but also claims that say chia seeds (soaked before eating, I presume) can provide you a lot of hydration.
I also ran across the ideas of sprouting chia seeds, or soaking them for many hours, being healthier. And various concerns about "phytic acid", reputedly an antinutrient which interferes with the absorption of many different nutrients, including iron.
So, I probably am not going to eat many chia seeds, at least for now.
I didn't run across a lot of scientific study web pages about chia seeds yet, so, I guess at some point, I should probably try specifically looking for some.
I guess I'm probably not very caffeinated at the moment, since I skipped tea yesterday, and only had a Barq's caffeinated root beer then, which seemed to give me plenty of energy.
Definitely feeling like I could go back to sleep.
Finally slept sometime between 3:15 PM and 8:07 PM on Nov. 24th. Have been kind of tired, but wasn't woken by thirst very much, and my right eye was annoyingly gooey and itchy rather than dry. Turning on my room's 2nd lamp seems to make a big difference in how alert I feel. Will probably have tea soon, and already had 1 dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bar.
Never got around to having blackstrap molasses+vegetable juice lately, but planning on it later today.
I wonder if I might have avoided that migraine days ago if I hadn't changed my caffeine routine by eating a lot more chocolate than usual for a few days (chocolate-covered pretzels). Fortunately, haven't had any headaches since that last migraine.
Didn't do much more with VirtualBox and my Puppy Linux Setup Kit yet.
But, I'm very glad I can now easily get started on that anytime I want, and I no longer have to do without copy and paste between my real and virtual systems. And I finally can use VirtualBox's seamless mode, and can drag/drop files from my real system into my virtual system.
The lack of copy and paste - and also the fact that VirtualBoxes running GNU/Linux were terribly slow on my former best desktop computer - were why I was stuck for so long having to use Astroblahhh Desktop in a Windows XP VirtualBox instead of a Puppy Linux VirtualBox.
So, maybe I can finally resume using Astroblahhh Desktop more frequently again, despite not yet making it 100% useable without a web server and without a database server.
I'll also feel a lot more comfortable running graph database servers inside a VirtualBox with no internet access. So, maybe I'll finally start doing more with graph databases too.
Still been trying to get iron despite no blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice, such as by eating Cheerios, meat, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, cashews, etc.
But, I think I felt best when I was also drinking blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice. So, am going to try not to skip that again today.
Yesterday, felt much better after tea. And I finally had blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice toward the end of my day, and woke up feeling good and relaxed, like I do when my magnesium levels have been significantly improved, a feeling I believe I also had after the other times I had blackstrap molasses.
So, I definitely want to continue that daily. I'm guessing the vegetable juice probably helps me a lot too, with its Vitamin A, Vitamin C, 4% of the "Daily Value" of iron, and probably various other things I'm not remembering (or which aren't on the label). So, maybe I should have it in my morning. Or just whenever I feel like it, maybe even more than once per day if I feel like it. I'm hungry for it already.
Maybe I'll also finally try more bean soup made with blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice, garlic, and other things. Still haven't made more of that yet, but, maybe I'll start making more interesting food more often once I have my own ceramic pasta bowl.
Yesterday, did 2 separate minutes of fairly high intensity exercise biking, and scarcely got tired from that at all.
So, I think blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice probably have been improving my sleep somehow, since I think I feel better overall now than I did on the days when I skipped those, though I still am not yet as energetic as I'd like. Getting a bit tired as I write this, but, maybe I'm just bored with writing this.
Tea helped a lot yesterday. Maybe my body is still adjusting to my recent decrease in caffeine consumption, from me not continuing to eat so many chocolate-covered pretzels.
Also watched a bit of Netflix. Found a cooking show which (quite unusually for a cooking show) captured my interest - Chef vs Science: The Ultimate Cooking Challenge. Definitely fun to watch, and much more gentlemanly than this other epic battle of chefs. :-) If it was a series, I'd probably watch the entire series.
And also episodes of Star Trek Continues.
And, as always, so many books to read. So, definitely no shortage of things to help me procrastinate.
Feeling more alert now, I guess because I'm looking forward to that stuff, and also am glad to be nearly done writing this update. Also very glad that I feel like I have enough energy and alertness to work on my Puppy Linux Setup Kit and other projects.
Doing pretty well now, though a bit tired as I write this. Yesterday went so well that not even eating 3 pierogies (containing mashed potatoes and cheese) made me tired, even though potatoes sometimes seem to make me tired.
Still didn't get very much done, though. Read various things, and watched various things, such as some hilarious Epic Rap Battles of History.
And Star Trek Continues, which was awesome, and so nostalgic.
I definitely think I should avoid eating large amounts of chocolate in the future, and maybe I should stop eating those dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bars too.
My headache seems to be decreasing now that I'm drinking my daily partway-filled glass of blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice.
But got a better idea of what to work on next just by thinking things over a bit.
Maybe if check my food log for all the caffeinated things I've consumed over the past couple weeks, maybe it would reveal some interesting patterns. But, too tired and headachy to do that now.
Anyway, I definitely don't like chocolate enough to put up with headaches from it, so, I probably ought to be a lot more cautious with chocolate. Which won't be that hard for me to do, since there are tons of things I like more than chocolate.
Was somewhat sleepier yesterday, and needed tea sooner, but still had plenty of energy.
Today, was somewhat tired since I woke up, perhaps because I skipped blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice before sleep because I got too tired. Drank two uncaffeinated root beers instead. I don't think I got especially thirsty, but I still didn't sleep as well as I seem to when I drink blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice before sleep.
It took much longer than I thought it would, I guess because I've been getting overly detailed, but, I'm pretty happy with it now, and glad to be just about done with it. Too sleepy to publish it right now, though.
Quote (from the second link):
I wonder if things are different than that for men with Non-24-hour Sleep-Wake Disorder or other circadian disorders. (Like maybe even depression or ADHD, since I suspect those might, at least in some cases, be at least partly circadian disorders, judging by articles I linked to in various places in part 1 of my health diary.)
Regrettably (or actually, not at all regrettably), I have no facial hair, so I can't investigate this first-hand.
Not sure what that means for me, but, for a lot of my life, I was probably excessively thin, and at least one person I knew in high school mistakenly thought I was anorexic.
Since quitting tea last year, I gained some weight, but, fortunately, in flattering amounts and places. But I still wouldn't mind losing some of it, even though someone told me I have a body like Sophia Loren. :-)
I wonder if drinking vegetable juice alone might improve my sleep. For a long time, I usually haven't been drinking it, except for when I have it with blackstrap molasses.
At the moment, I feel reluctant to even get out of bed. Would kind of like to go back to sleep, but I suspect if I don't have vegetable juice and possibly also blackstrap molasses first, I might wake up feeling insufficiently rested again.
Still never did try any new bean soups yet. Not about to right now, because I'm too sleepy and not hungry.
Currently having about half a smoothie glass of plain vegetable juice. I think I actually like it more with blackstrap molasses in it. Which is good, since I suspect it's probably healthier for me with it than without it.
Not sure if I'm going to be sleepy enough again soon to go to back to sleep, though. Turning one of my lamps on seems to have woken me up a bit.
Been wondering if maybe I haven't been getting enough Vitamin A, and if maybe that's why vegetable juice seems so helpful.
So, maybe the Vitamin A from vegetable juice helps me sleep better. Maybe lack of enough Vitamin A is also why I've had trouble with (mostly) my right eye being gooey or dry.
I don't think I've been mentioning my eye issues as much lately, but they still come and go, and my right eye has been gooey today, though it seems to be decreasing now. Recently ate some carrots, inspired by my recent reading.
So, that will motivate me to keep getting enough Vitamin A. But only through food, not supplements, because the list of Vitamin A overdose symptoms is very scary.
This other page says:
The upper limit of vitamin A set by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences is 10,000 IU per day. This limit refers to pre-formed Vitamin A, which can be found in foods and dietary supplements as palmitate, acetate or fish liver oil, all of which are derived from animal sources. Although vitamin A is an essential nutrient, an excessive, chronic intake of these forms of vitamin A can be toxic, leading to hair loss, confusion, liver damage, and - we now know - bone loss.
The form of vitamin A that I recommend in our Vitamin Advisor is beta-carotene in addition to other mixed carotenoids. These are precursor forms, meaning the body can make all the vitamin A it needs from beta-carotene, which is not toxic, unlike the animal forms of vitamin A."
Women Can Make New Eggs After All, Stem-Cell Study Hints
New Method of Creating Stem Cells is a "Game Changer"
New stem cell invented that can grow into any tissue in the body, study finds
So, I guess stem cells aren't a miraculous cure for everything (yet?).
Woke up feeling OK at first (despite scary but cool dreams which were like a combination of 2 TV shows - The Flash and Stranger Things). But didn't feel as relaxed as blackstrap molasses seems to help me feel. And eventually I got sleepy again, and my right eye has been quite gooey and itchy since yesterday.
So, I guess I do need blackstrap molasses, not just vegetable juice and carrots. I don't mind, since it makes the vegetable juice taste better to me.
Also finally got another 16 ounce mug like this - had one from Feb. 2012 to July 2015 (when I accidentally dropped and broke it), and I might switch to this one for tea, since that's the amount I was used to for years.
It's actually only a little bigger than the mug I got in early 2016, so I guess "12 oz. capacity" is a typo.
In retrospect, I wonder if I would have been better off sticking with around 12 ounces of tea per day. That was the amount I was used to for many more years than the years I drank around 16 ounces.
However, I still had problems with headaches back when I used to drink only 12 ounces. (Addition, Dec. 4, 2017, 10:34 AM. So, things definitely weren't perfect back then either.) So, maybe what might have made me even better off might have been to make my own custom teabags containing both caffeinated tea and also plenty of decaf tea, to give me some extra theanine to take some of the edge off of the caffeine.
That's what I do now, and I think it has made my tea more enjoyable than ever before. (Addition, Dec. 4, 2017, 10:34 AM EST. Not that doing that eliminates all my headaches. But, theanine seems to have a very mood-boosting effect on me. Maybe it helps with headaches too - haven't really experimented with it much for that purpose, since when I get a (probable) caffeine withdrawal headache, I'm more likely to try drinking fully-caffeinated tea rather than just decaf to get rid of it.
I think what helps most for me to avoid caffeine withdrawal headaches is avoiding random unscheduled caffeine consumption, like significant amounts of chocolate at random times. And I also pretty much never consume more than one cup of fully-caffeinated tea per day. And I mostly try to avoid going for too long without tea, though if I avoid chocolate, it seems like I can maybe get away with skipping tea for a day or so.
And, if I do get a caffeine withdrawal headache - other than caffeine itself helping, I think magnesium, especially this magnesium gel, helps me a lot. Or Advil if all else fails.)
Anyway, here's my food goals VUE map, with a pretty messy and informal design.
I started out by trying to make an "Intermediate Objectives" map, like in the book The Logical Thinking Process: A Systems Approach to Complex Problem Solving, but ended up breaking the rules again.
Didn't expect to spend so much time on it, and it got more complicated than I expected, but, hopefully it will serve to remind me of things I might otherwise easily forget about, despite their obviousness.
Would be nice if I could automate the layout somehow, since there are things that probably should be shown as connected to each other, but aren't, just because I didn't feel like rearranging the entire darn map just for that.
Found this interesting article:
I wonder what gave the scientists the idea of using caffeine for that.
Anyway, I don't know if that means caffeine in general doesn't harm stem cells, but, I find it encouraging.
Found this page which I can scarcely understand at all:
I wonder if I'll ever learn enough about science to be able to understand that page.
Finally having blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice. Hoping it will help me sleep better again.
I can't even think of another food besides this blackstrap molassses (1 spoonful, mixed into a bit more than half a smoothie glass of vegetable juice) that makes me feel like I got a nice relaxing dose of magnesium. The vegetable juice alone definitely doesn't make me feel like this. I wonder if blackstrap molasses has magnesium in a particularly absorbable form or something.
Feeling much better now than I have in days. And the last time I had blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice before today around 12:59 AM was Nov. 28th, sometime around 2:05 PM. And I haven't been taking any magnesium capsules, and also haven't been using magnesium gel, since it's so inconvenient and messy that I avoid using it despite how great it makes me feel.
So, I definitely feel like this blackstrap molassses is really good for me.
And thank goodness I found some palatable ways to consume it - such as by putting 1 spoonful of it into vegetable juice. And it was also good that one time (so far) that I used blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice in a bean soup. I definitely want to make more soups like that again.
And it's an Amazon Prime item, so the shipping will probably be faster than the Amazon page I was linking to and bought from before, which doesn't appear to be an Amazon Prime item.
And, even my lips are looking better - fuller, with better color. Maybe they've been better for a while - I hadn't been checking recently.
And I cooked pasta. And my pasta bowl lived up to its name, since all the pasta I made - an entire boxful - fit in it.
My energy seems like it's fading a bit now, but, that certainly was a much better day than I expected to have so soon, with me back to feeling like I have so much energy I almost don't know what to do with it. Tiredness didn't obstruct me at all, and even boring things didn't give me ADHD-like intrusive tiredness.
And hopefully blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice will keep helping me sleep well enough to have a lot more days like this. I'm still not sure which things in blackstrap molasses are helping me so much - probably multiple things.
But given how good magnesium, especially this magnesium gel, has been for me and my sleep in the past, and given that blackstrap molasses seems to make me feel like I had a dose of magnesium, I'm guessing its magnesium might be a big part of why my sleep suddenly improved so much. And probably the iron helps too.
And probably its other nutrients are good for me too, though I don't know off-hand whether they might affect my sleep or not.
Got hungry and cold, but was too tired to make food, so, I drank a bit of milk and had some walnuts. And turned off my air conditioner, since I was too cold even though it was around 66 degrees.
Slept sometime between 3:15 AM and 10:27 AM. Woke up feeling sleepy, and overheated with my room at 70 degrees. And my right eye is gooey, and has been since several hours before I went to sleep. I wonder if the melatonin from the walnuts hasn't worn off yet, or if I would have been OK if I had gone to sleep earlier, maybe around when I started to get sleepy.
Did have blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice, but it was hours before sleep since I unexpectedly stayed up later than I thought I would. It was pretty tough staying awake, but the conversation was too interesting.
I actually managed to avoid eating any until last night, even though I've had them in my mini-fridge since whatever day in mid-November they arrived. But they're so superb, I definitely want to eat more. Maybe I will right now, since I want to go back to sleep anyway. I feel sleepy enough that I think I probably could go back to sleep without even eating any.
So... maybe some stuff I ate that day other than blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice especially helped me out?
The day before that, Dec. 2nd, I had my usual vitamins, my usual tea (1 and 1/8ths of a teaspoon of 2nd flush darjeeling tea, and 1 teaspoon of decaf Earl Grey in the same tea bag), pumpkin seeds, a lot of baby carrots, and a bit more than 2 bowls of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios.
On Dec. 4th, had my usual vitamins, tea with (unusually) only 1 teaspoon of darjeeling (since I thought, since my new mug seems a little bit bigger, it might be a good idea to compensate for that by using slightly less caffeinated tea - and it's also more convenient not to have to use two measuring spoons) and the usual 1 teaspoon of decaf Earl Grey.
Also had pasta with tomato sauce, parmesan, and some yummy "Italian Seasoning", containing "MARJORAM, THYME, SAVORY, ROSEMARY, SAGE, OREGANO, BASIL" all in the same spice bottle. 1 uncaffeinated cream soda, a dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bar (which maybe I shouldn't have had, but I wanted to stay awake for TV), vegetable juice + blackstrap molasses, then some milk and walnuts.
Judging by my eye getting gooey, maybe that means I need more Vitamin A already. It wouldn't be difficult for me to simply eat more carrots, or yams, or even cayenne pepper. (Except I've sometimes suspected that cayenne I spilled in my room a long time ago, and maybe still haven't adequately cleaned up despite vacuuming some of my room at least once, might be why this problem keeps recurring. But it's odd it's usually only my right eye.)
Feeling less sleepy now. Still haven't eaten any walnuts - maybe I should skip them after all and just have tea already.
Anyway, it's really sad that I'm not cured yet. If I'm still capable of having such a good, energetic day, why is it so difficult for me to keep having good, energetic days? Why can't it just be easy?
Finally having tea (with 1 teaspoon of darjeeling and 1 teaspoon of decaf Earl Grey, in my new, slightly bigger mug), but I don't think I want to have walnuts along with it.
Going to get this measuring glass, so I can more conveniently and more precisely measure how much water and half and half I'm using in my tea. Perhaps I'm so sensitive to slight variations in the amount of caffeine I drink that I need to be this careful. Also, maybe I should try going back to drinking somewhat less than 12 ounces of tea per day, instead of close to around 16 ounces.
It's also very possible that I simply haven't been eating enough. Maybe I should try counting calories to make sure I eat enough. And should try harder to actually implement many more of the ideas I put in my food goals VUE map.
Earlier, watched The Flash on Netflix for a while, but it was kind of difficult to concentrate. But, now, tea is definitely improving my mood, alertness, and ability to concentrate.
I think I'm going to switch back to my old mug, though, since I think my tea stays warmer longer, maybe because less heat escapes out the top of my old mug, which has a diameter of a bit more than 2 and a half inches, while my new mug's top opening has a diameter of a bit less than 3 and a half inches.
Maybe I should get this 10 ounce tea cup, even though that's a bit smaller than I'd like. But maybe that would be a good amount of tea for me, who knows.
Maybe the most useful thing I could do right now would be to finally make my food-related VUE maps a lot more well-organized, with a lot more pictures, and more like a restaurant menu. That might help me make better decisions about what to eat once I get hungry.
Except I'd rather do something more fun and interesting, like keep reading (or at least glancing through or skimming) my tons of library ebooks.
So, I guess my willpower - my ability to force myself to do things I'm not really in the mood to deal with - is still not all that great at the moment, even though I feel more alert and energetic, for now.
Vitamin A (retinol and beta-carotene)
Beta Carotene Conversion - Are You Making Enough Vitamin A? Up to 55% of people might not be!
I sure hope my body is good at converting beta carotene. Would be so interesting to get a genetic test. I at least feel like the carrots, canned peaches, vegetable juice, etc. I had lately probably did me some good, even though I might not have eaten them with fat.
Those sandwiches are best fresh rather than after having sat in the fridge for a while, and I thought I probably ought to compensate for eating rather poorly recently, so I ate the entire sub. It had turkey, lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, black olives, and banana peppers, with Italian herbs+cheese bread. And I added some MSG-free ranch dressing to it, for Omega 3, and because some nutrients (like Vitamin A) might be better-absorbed if consumed with fat. And also for flavor's sake.
Never had banana peppers before, but, I quite liked them, and will get them again.
Fortunately, we ordered this 10 ounce tea cup, so, that will make it easier for me to try drinking less tea. Filling my usual mug only partway makes me feel deprived, so I'm better off just getting a smaller cup.
As I write this, it sounds like the heat is on, so, maybe the furnace is still working.
My right eye has still been gooey and itchy, though not that bad.
I sure hope I sleep better. Not in the mood to deal with magnesium gel even though that might help me sleep better, so maybe I'll just take a magnesium citrate capsule, and have blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice.
The temperature in my room already went up to 63.0 degrees.
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Slept sometime between 1:21 AM and 10:06 AM. Woke up feeling pretty well-rested today. So, it seems I don't always have to drink blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice before sleep to sleep well.
Also, I didn't skip tea yesterday, so, it seems like it didn't interfere with my sleep so much as to make me feel unrested today. So, I don't know if drinking less tea will really be necessary or helpful or not.
All I had yesterday was my usual vitamins, 1 can of peaches, 1 dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bar, tea, the abovementioned Subway sandwich, a big glass of orange juice with it, and 2 Great Value uncaffeinated root beers.
That's not a huge amount of food, so, hopefully that means it won't be difficult for me to keep eating at least minimally well enough to sleep well enough.
My right eye is still a bit gooey, but, I'm going to probably try to consume more Vitamin A from probably mostly vegetarian sources today, and hopefully that will help.
Didn't get much done, but, I was so energetic a lot of the time, I even was in the mood to use my exercise bike for a few minutes.
And even though my room has been around 62 to 66 degrees the whole time, I mostly haven't felt cold. I think I started to feel a bit cold in the evening, perhaps from eating nothing for maybe 8 hours after I had tea. But, fortunately, one of my relatives happened to give me 2 Taco Bell beef chalupas. So, I didn't have to figure out what to eat.
A few hours ago, made the possible mistake of having numerous small Hershey's Cookies n' Creme candy bars, which contain some chocolate. Otherwise, maybe I'd already be asleep.
Ate a lot of baby carrots after that, then a few more small candy bars.
Perhaps I should have cooked the carrots and put butter on them, to possibly increase the amount of Vitamin A I might get from them. But I wonder if all the fat from those candy bars could help with my Vitamin A absorption?
Recently had blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice.
My right eye recently started to be a bit gooey again, so maybe this problem has something to do with sleepiness. But the problem went away again as I continued to write this.
Energy-wise, it was maybe about 85% as good of a day as Dec. 4th was. Which is encouraging, even though I still am not sure how to make every day like Dec. 4th, and can't confidently predict how I'll feel tomorrow.
Maybe I also need to resume more aggressively trying to increase my iron levels, since I might not have gotten close to 100% of the "Daily Value" of iron for a while lately. So, maybe I should eat some bean soup, or at least Cheerios. Oh, and I forgot about all those sesame seeds I have, and the sesame seed tahini I haven't figured out a good way to eat yet. (It's like the sesame version of peanut butter, with a lot of oil.) And I still have some pistachios.
Don't know if reducing my caffeinated tea from 1 and 1/8ths teaspoons to 1 teaspoon was a good idea or not, but, 1 teaspoon did seem to provide me adequate energy yesterday.
I wonder why I have such a hard time staying hydrated. Maybe for some reason my body just doesn't let me know very well when I need more fluids? Also haven't been drinking milk as much lately. But I don't want to mess up my iron absorption by drinking milk too often.
Feeling a bit more alert already. Maybe water helped.
62.8 degrees in my room, but I don't feel too cold. And 20% humidity, which I don't like, but have been getting used to lately. My hygrometer says the 24 hour low was 17% humidity, and the 24 hour high was 23% humidity.
Started my day with vitamins and the last 4 small Hershey's Cookies n' Creme bars I had. That's probably my favorite candy bar. I know that's not the best breakfast, but, they sure were good.
Anyway, this is just the same old bad situation I was in prior to June, July, or August 2014, so, I'm pretty used to having no medical care and probably being unable to afford it if disaster strikes. Who knows - maybe seeing the doctor would have done me more harm than good anyway. I'll just keep trying to solve my problems on my own.
I guess the best thing about this situation is, I no longer have to worry that I might accidentally get myself or my relatives kicked off of Medicaid if I get too much income, either through jobs, or via donations or microdonations.
Have been more alert since then, except now, it's getting darker, and I neglected to turn my room's lamps on, so, maybe that's why I started to get a bit more sleepy again.
Seems like I'm the only one who even eats leftover food anymore. I think my other relatives are concerned about the fridge not cooling as well as it used to. But, I've been OK despite eating stuff from that fridge.
It's 61.5 degrees in my room, so, it seems to be getting colder, probably partly because it has been a bit windy outside.
I'm not sure more exactly measuring the water and half and half I use in my tea is actually going to help me much, but, I guess I might as well try it.
So, perhaps I should have known better than to switch to a 16 ounce mug instead of a 12 ounce styrofoam cup, way back in early 2012.
Not sure how much extra caffeine I was getting as a result, though. I'm not sure my tea steeps as well as or as fast in the kind of mug I got back in Feb. 2012, since with its wider brim, I don't think it holds heat as well as my preferred mug does.
Recently, when using the kind of mug I got back in Feb. 2012, it seemed like my tea was weaker even though I made it the same way I make it with my my preferred mug - microwaved for 5 minutes, and then just leaving the tea bag in instead of ever taking it out. Though I guess another reason it tasted a bit diluted was possibly because I probably used more water and half and half than my other mug permits.
So, who knows, maybe I get similar benefits just from relatively small amounts of caffeine + theanine from tea, thanks to my caffeine sensitivity.
Taking something like Adderall would terrify me - not only because the idea of taking pharmaceutical drugs scares me in general, but because even just caffeine can be so strong for me that I suspect a stronger stimulant might be quite dangerous for me.
Also, I'm guessing Adderall probably wouldn't be as mood-boosting as theanine is for me. No way for me to know, though, because I probably would refuse to try Adderall even if I had the chance to try it.
No wonder stimulants are thought to be so helpful with various ADHD symptoms, which suspiciously resemble many of the symptoms of insufficient sleep - maybe because they actually are symptoms of insufficient sleep!
My sleep issues have always been so extreme, and caused me such unignorable tiredness, that it was impossible to overlook the fact that my absentmindedness, flakiness, lack of motivation, etc. are most likely primarily the result of inadequate sleep. (Especially since those symptoms largely go away when I feel rested or caffeinated enough.)
But, perhaps if my sleep issues had been more subtle, maybe I wouldn't have realized how insufficiently rested I actually was - maybe I would have just been more subtly debilitated, and blamed it on ADHD or other things, instead of sleep issues?
So, maybe I'm not such a rare freak of nature, with my possible Non-24-hour Sleep-Wake Disorder - just more extreme than the average circadian-disordered person who might be (mis?)diagnosed with ADHD or depression.
Guess I'll have tea soon. Maybe I'll actually try an amount closer to 12 ounces rather than 16 ounces, just to see how I feel. Will use 1 teaspoon of 2nd flush darjeeling tea and 1 teaspoon of some kind of organic decaf tea. Will microwave it for 5 minutes in the stronger downstairs microwave, and leave the teabag in the entire time I drink it.
Added my usual approximate spoonful of honey and a little more than 2 spooonfuls of sucanat (though perhaps I should have used less, since there's less liquid than usual). Wasn't sure how much half and half I usually put in, so, since my measuring glass doesn't seem so good for small amounts, I used one of my measuring spoons to put in one tablespoon at a time. It finally started to taste normal to me when I put in 4 tablespoons.
It's definitely a good cup of tea. Still not finished drinking it.
Anyway, some reasons I think it might be good to try decreasing caffeine again are because I kind of did OK drinking only around 12 ounces of tea per day from 2000 to 2012, and the years since I started drinking around 16 ounces of tea were overall not as good, especially 2014 onward.
Perhaps just getting older is partly to blame, but even my much older relatives don't have as much trouble with their energy as I have with mine, so I don't think that's my top problem.
I already tried mostly doing without caffeine from September 2016 to August 2017, but that didn't work out so great for me, so, maybe a small amount which won't mess with my appetite as much will be healthier for me. And maybe it will be better for my sleep too.
Skipping tea on Dec. 3rd and then having such a great Dec. 4th also made me wonder if I slept better simply because of having less caffeine in my system than usual.
Dec. 4th was such a good day that I feel like I must be very close to somehow figuring out how to get better and stay better. I guess I just need to keep trying various things until I figure it out.
And I feel like I have enough of an appetite right now to finally try having some bean soup. Maybe I'll even add some chicken to it, and butter, as well as vegetable juice and a spoonful of blackstrap molasses, and garlic. And spices. And maybe even some other vegetables. Mmm, that definitely seems appetizing at the moment.
I used 1 can of pinto beans, 1 can of butter beans, 1 can of chicken, about 1 and 1/3rd cups of vegetable juice (plus an unmeasured amount of extra vegetable juice from the already-open bottle from my mini-fridge), 1 spoonful of blackstrap molasses, 1 big clove of garlic, half a stick of butter, and some black pepper and salt. And saltine crackers are good in it too, and thicken it a bit, so maybe its wateriness isn't really a problem.
I tried to microwave it all in my pasta bowl, but it didn't heat up enough for my liking, so, I used my 1-cup measuring cup to transfer some into my largest mug, and microwaved that.
Definitely good enough to make again. I'd probably even happily order it at a restaurant.
I guess that's another recipe should make more exact, and then publish. But it seems like it probably doesn't really need to be very exact to turn out well enough.
Mmm, it's good with Italian seasoning too. (Marjoram, thyme, savory, rosemary, sage, oregano, and basil, all in the same spice bottle.)
Storing this in my crowded mini-fridge might be a bit difficult, and it's too late in the evening for my relatives to be hungry. So, I hope it will be just as good reheated. And I hope I don't get tired of it. I guess I could just add new ingredients to it to make it seem like a different soup every time I eat it.
Getting sleepy now, but I have to put the soup away before I sleep. I wonder how much iron I got from eating this. Not really in the mood to drink half a glass of vegetable juice + blackstrap molasses now. Craving milk, actually, but I'll wait a while before I have that, just in case it might interfere with iron absorption.
I guess if I stored some in my largest mug with some saran wrap over the top, all I'd have to do to make that into a meal tomorrow would be to take off the saran wrap and put the mug in the microwave.
Quite sleepy now, and not really in the mood to clean all these dishes and things. I guess if I store soup in my mug, I won't have to clean it! Yeah, I'm going to do that.
Still haven't slept at all yet, and my right eye is still gooey and itchy, and my room's humidity is 16%, but, I've somehow already been feeling better nonetheless. Not alert and energetic - I'm quite drowsy, as I should be after being awake for so long. I just feel better somehow.
Exercise biked a bit more than usual (like a minute or so more than usual), and though it was a bit tiring at first, it seemed to maybe result in more energy later on, which encouraged me to try doing it more often.
My eye issues varied too. Sometimes my right eye was gooey and itchy, and other times, my eyes were fine, and they got dry before sleep.
I don't get as much energy from tea made with just 10 ounces of water and a bit more than 4 tablespoons of half and half, and I don't think there's as much theanine either, but, I've sometimes had so much energy before having tea that it's OK. And I could easily get more theanine just by drinking a big mug of organic decaf tea by itself, or maybe mixed with rooibos ("red tea"), for flavor, and to hopefully provide me other healthy substances that tea alone doesn't provide.
Felt more interested yesterday in trying to get stuff done, so, in addition to reading a lot and watching some TV with family, I pondered how to improve my Puppy Linux Setup Kit.
And definitely interested in returning to what I was working on yesterday - mainly, figuring out how to improve my Simple App Installer for my Puppy Linux Setup Kit.
I don't feel like I'm getting caffeine withdrawal symptoms now, but, maybe I'll have tea earlier in my day today.
16% humidity and 68.9 degrees in my room - warmer than I'd like. So, I guess the furnace is working fine now. And I might actually have to go back to using my air conditioner again even though it's December.
Got very thirsty again while I slept. But, feeling more alert and rested now, probably.
I feel like I might be close to a caffeine withdrawal headache, though, so I better have tea soon.
I put in 10 ounces of water, knowing some of it would either boil away or boil over after 5 minutes. A lot of it did boil over, and I didn't measure what was left.
I used my usual amounts of tea - 1 teaspoon of 2nd flush darjeeling tea, and 1 teaspoon of organic decaf Earl Grey. And 1 spoonful of honey, 1 spoonful of sucanat, and 4 tablespoons of half and half.
Tastes good, but, this does seem like a disappointingly small amount of tea for me. So, I'll probably keep using my preferred mug, which, conveniently, also seems less likely to tip over if I set it on my bed. I'm sure I'll find some other good uses for this tea cup - since it's ceramic, it can be used for baking in the oven, and I can also use it for storage, or to eat soup, if I don't want a large amount of soup.
One of my packages of tea recommends using 8 ounces of water, and 1.25 teaspoons of tea. But it always tasted great to me anyway no matter how much water I used, after I waited long enough.
Also ate a mugful of bean soup, which was just as excellent as it was the other day. However, next time I make it, I'm not going to add butter and garlic until I've transferred some of it to a mug and am just about to eat it, because butter makes my dishes so much harder to clean. And I don't want to microwave the garlic because maybe the fresher the garlic is, and the less I heat it, maybe the healthier it is.
Still didn't get much done today, but if I keep feeling this much better, I'll probably be able to get a lot more done.
Today, I mostly just read a lot, and also watched The Flash for a while.
After reading this page, I decided to try them again, and to try to worry less about various other things I read about them.
Also, I found this page which says Vitamin C can counteract phytic acid. Quote:
So, maybe I'll mix my chia water with grape juice, which I usually drink diluted anyway. I'm also probably going to try to drink that soon before sleep, in the hope that maybe I won't get as dehydrated while I sleep.
Quoted from the first article:
Using a meter, I discovered I was still exposed to unhealthy levels at a distance of 30 feet, so when I'm not using my cellphone, I always keep it in airplane mode and/or inside a Faraday bag."
I scarcely use my cell phones at all anyway, so I probably should turn them off and unplug them, rather than leaving them on and constantly charging in my room. I thought I was probably far enough away for them not to be a problem, but who knows.
Maybe I should even try unplugging my USB wireless internet adapter from my computer while I sleep. Or I could at least disconnect from the internet.
Physically, I don't think I feel any different so far. But, emotionally, I feel better about not wasting electricity on things I rarely use, and which might (or might not) even be harmful.
So, since I'm probably going to go to sleep soon, I had 1 magnesium citrate capsule, some walnuts, and am now drinking grape juice mixed with the water and chia seeds I started soaking maybe around 8 PM. Probably won't drink the whole glass.
Maybe I could try soaking some chia seeds in a glass of vegetable juice + 1 spoonful of blackstrap molasses. Too sleepy to do much now, though.
Now my room is 60.4 degrees. I'm a bit cold now, but somehow not as cold as I was earlier when it was warmer. Sounds like another windy day, so that's probably part of why it's so cold.
I think maybe I want try these Nuun electrolyte tablets at some point. I don't want to drink Gatorade because of the artificial colors and all the sugar. (Addition, Dec. 10, 2017, 1:21 PM EST. Decided against trying Nuun electrolyte tablets because all the ingredients lists I checked contain "natural flavors", which I find objectionably vague.)
Also am wondering if maybe I should try using this magnesium gel more regularly. Would probably use small amounts rather than covering most of my body with it, since I'm not sure I need that much magnesium at the moment, and standing naked in the bathroom for 20 minutes is boring. And I'd have to wait 30 minutes for the water to heat up, because to save money, we usually keep our water heater turned off.
Fortunately, for some purposes, such as cleaning greasy dishes, I can just heat some water in a ceramic pasta bowl in the microwave. That could probably make the magnesium gel more pleasant to clean off, too.
Eventually got kind of sleepy around 7 PM. After that, finally had accidentally a bit less than 10 ounces of tea (plus a bit more than 4 teaspoons of half and half) in my preferred mug, but I'm not sure it helped much. But was watching TV in a darkened room with family, so maybe that made me sleepier than I otherwise would have been. I did start to feel more alert for a while after returning to my room, where I have both my lamps on. (But perhaps that's partly because I ate a dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bar). Have been getting sleepy again for a while. Still programming, though.
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I wonder if that's part of why I get dehydrated so easily. Really tired of thirst interfering so much with my sleep. Maybe that's my top remaining problem. I think if my sleep was better, I'd probably be doing much better overall.
I probably ought to get more smoothie glasses with lids, so I can store a wider variety of things at the same time.
Drank some diluted grape juice + chia seeds sometime in the evening, and am also having some now. No clear ideas or feelings yet on what chia seeds might be doing for me, aside from the fact that I like how they make my drinks seem a bit reminiscent of tapioca. I sure hope they're healthy, since even just the nifty tapioca-like texture they add is reason enough for me to want to keep eating (or drinking) them.
I think I probably am dealing with PMS and some mild caffeine withdrawal.
Also started to wonder if maybe ground flaxseed (warning) was doing me even more good than I realized. Haven't been eating it at all for quite a while now - none since September - though mostly because it's inconvenient and I haven't felt lately like I needed it as much.
Sometimes I'm tempted to try Omega 3 fish oil capsules, especially now that I'm no longer even trying to be somewhat vegetarian, but I'm still worried about the various pollutants in the ocean such as mercury, etc. Maybe I should just take more of my vegan Omega 3 capsules than just 1 a day, even though they're awfully expensive and contain carrageenan.
I don't have excess earwax, but I think I might have excessive thirst (at least when sleeping), maybe excessive urination, and sometimes I have dry eyes, except it's mostly my right eye and it's usually gooey (when tired?) or normal (when more alert) rather than dry.
So, I think I might continue drinking liquids containing soaked chia seeds for a while.
So, that will probably make it much easier for me to store various things. Juice bottles take up so much room in my mini-fridge, so, in the future, maybe I'll just transfer their contents into my smoothie glasses instead.
Looking forward to being able to more easily store a wider variety of soups, and liquids with and without chia seeds. I'll also be able to always keep a glass of vegetable juice + 1 spoonful of blackstrap molasses ready to drink, or to use as (or in) a soup.
What I probably won't store in them is smoothies, because I realized a while back that I like those much better fresh.
Meanwhile, my bean soup was really great every time I had it. Was just as good even after being stored in my fridge in smoothie glasses (or my largest mug with some saran wrap over it) for a couple days.
We were mostly prepared for this, since we got a big cooler some months ago. No ice, but we have a lot of frozen food, so that will probably keep things cold enough.
Currently eating walnuts. I've been tired for several hours anyway, so it doesn't really matter if these make me more tired.
Didn't get as much programming done today. And my right eye has been quite gooey and a bit itchy for the past few hours. But at least it's better than dry eyes.
Noticed that I sometimes get a bit of nasal congestion (on the right side) when my right eye gets gooey.
Slept sometime between 4:49 AM and 1:57 PM. I got a bit thirsty, but maybe less than usual. Yesterday, I took 3 Testa vegan Omega 3 capsules, so, maybe that helped me.
When I woke up, my right eye was so gooey it was blurry, but I cleaned it with some moistened toilet paper. Am going to try to avoid rubbing my eyes with my fingers at all in the future, since I think that might irritate them. My eyes are fine now.
Been feeling mostly pretty alert, though I got a bit tired after a bowl of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios earlier. Now having tea.
Been reading and programming, and watched TV with family. Probably going to keep programming for a while, unless I give into the temptation to eat some walnuts, which will probably make me too sleepy to continue.
I feel like I slept pretty well, and I'm having a much easier time concentrating today than I did last night toward the end of my day, which made programming rather frustrating. Even writing this feels easier than usual.
Yesterday, later in my day, I craved a dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bar, but didn't eat it because it was the last one and I wanted to leave it for the other person who likes them.
We still haven't tried turning the fridge back on. I heard that our cooler has actually been keeping the milk, etc. colder than the fridge has been for a while.
Got my 12 new smoothie glasses with lids. So glad to finally have all the storage I need for a much wider variety of things - soups, soaked chia seeds, ready-to-drink glasses of vegetable juice + 1 spoonful of blackstrap molasses, various other kinds of juice without having to store entire bottles, carrots or celery soaked in water to make them more crisp and appealing, etc.
One of the first things I did to try to save space in my mini-fridge was transferring my mostly full gallon of cow's milk into them. But, to my surprise, that required 6 glasses, which took up more space than the original jug. So, I guess I'm not very good at estimating that sort of thing. But at least now I have a much less vague idea of how many glasses of milk are in a gallon and when I might run out of milk.
Didn't make any new soups so far, but might do so soon, because they're so good and convenient.
Getting sleepier as I write this, so, maybe I should stop writing this and try to return to programming or reading. It probably would be better if our TV-watching coincided with the end of my day, so I could spend more of the time when I'm more alert on more important things, but my recent sleep so-called "schedule" hasn't been making that possible lately.
And I don't want to try to forcibly adjust my sleep "schedule". It's possible and I've done it many times, but it's always only temporary for me, and rather unpleasant, and (I'm guessing) unhealthy. And in recent years I thought it was getting harder to do, and assumed it was just from getting older - but now I think maybe it was harder mainly because of my electric blanket and probably excessive (for me) caffeine messing up my sleep quality. And probably also often not getting enough iron, exercise, etc.
So, I guess decreasing my daily caffeine dose was the right move. I wonder how differently my life might have gone if I hadn't foolishly assumed in recent years that I was probably handling close to 16 ounces of tea just fine. I now suspect I actually probably never fully adjusted to it.
I also think getting more iron in my diet has helped a lot, too. And maybe I wasn't as iron deficient as I feared, since I've improved so much so relatively quickly.
And I feel like even rather small-seeming amounts of exercise (like less than a minute of high-intensity exercise biking) do me a lot of good.
I wonder how long it will take for my sleep patterns to shift to something better. I wish I had an easier way to graph my sleep patterns that didn't involve non-libre Windows software. But, haven't been curious enough to actually try to find (or build) an alternative yet.
Finally starting to feel premenstrual again, and am quite irritable that I have to reboot my computer at some point because VirtualBox recently mysteriously stopped working, and I don't know how else to fix it. Even newly-created virtual machines won't run at all. Not even when I made VirtualBox re-create its config settings from scratch by removing the symlinks to my original settings and existing virtual machine. Still the same error.
So, at the moment, I can't keep working on my Puppy Linux Setup Kit using VirtualBox. So, I guess the best thing I can do for now is take better notes and get a bit more organized so my next partially-manual setup goes more smoothly, with fewer forgotten little details.
At least I'll finally get to see if my slightly modified Lighthouse 64 Puppy Linux 6.02 Beta 2 ISO (which, at startup, lets me specify the RAM disk size) will work as well as I hope on a real computer instead of just VirtualBox.
But, made some progress getting my files a bit more organized, and am feeling alert enough now, even without tea so far.
Might put off rebooting until I get things even more organized.
For my last couple sleeps, I used my sleep mask at least part of the time, and perhaps that helped me, even though sometimes I partly woke up to adjust it.
And have been continuing to take 3 Testa vegan Omega 3 capsules per day, since Dec. 11th. At that rate, it will only take me 20 days to get through an entire pack of 60 capsules, but, perhaps it's worth the inconvenience and cost, if that has anything to do with why I'm doing better lately. (However, on Dec. 4th, one of my best days recently, I hadn't yet tried taking more Omega 3, nor even many soaked chia seeds yet, so maybe my improvement has more to do with me getting enough iron.)
Been feeling quite alert and energetic, despite waking up with a slightly clogged nose again.
Lately, it seems so much easier to think and to do things, and I feel much quicker and sharper. And I don't feel particularly premenstrual today, so far.
After being defrosted, the family refrigerator now seems to be working fine again.
I guess I'm probably still better off with at least a little caffeine rather than none. Still haven't had any yet, though.
Ended up mostly reading and watching TV so far today. Should probably try to get something useful done, but I'm not sure I will today.
Maybe feeling a bit more premenstrual today. Anyway, I might get quiet again for a while because of having to reboot my computer, or just because of not feeling like updating this, but I'm still doing OK overall. Often, the better I feel, the less patience I have for updating this blog post, so my quietness here is nothing to worry about.
Was rather fatigued during it and a little while after, but surprisingly not for long. My energy has fluctuated lately, but was surprisingly pretty good a lot of the time, even though I've often just happened to skip tea. I think Dec. 29th was my best day, since among other things, I got a lot of cleaning done, so my room is finally tolerable again, and I washed all my smoothie glasses and other dishes.
On Christmas, it was very windy, which always seems to make my room colder than usual. It was so cold I was wondering if the furnace was acting up again - it was 52 degrees at one point. But, this is the first year I even had a way to measure my room's temperature, so, maybe that's actually typical for my room in winter on windy days.
In any case, it was so cold I resumed using my electric blanket. Been trying to resist the temptation to keep using it, especially while sleeping, but, was surprised on Dec. 29th when I had a quite energetic day anyway, as though my electric blanket hadn't interfered much at all with my sleep. Still, I'm too wary of it to keep using it.
Fixing up and releasing my VUE-Related Bash Scripts helped. Almost all year, I was using some earlier unreleased versions, but they were a hasty mess and weren't always working properly. But now, I can reliably and easily create new VUE maps using whatever template I want, set aside maps I'm done with, make small images for my maps, and navigate to and browse all my maps despite the fact that I keep them in numerous different folders. Which all makes it much easier to manage my maps and keep them tidy.
And once I can easily install PHP and XSLT again, I'll be able to (again) do even fancier things.
Had blackstrap molasses + a full smoothie glass of vegetable juice on Dec. 27th. Haven't had more since then, nor bean soup including those ingredients, but I should, since I think that was quite helpful, and was part of why I felt like I recovered so quickly from my time of the month.
Surprisingly, I often feel like simply eating Apple Cinnamon Cheerios does me a lot of good.
Had to do without vegan Omega 3 capsules for a while due to a shipping glitch of some sort, so, I tried a bit harder than usual to get Omega 3 from my diet. Sometimes have had walnuts before sleep, and felt like I woke up refreshed. Baby carrots with MSG-free Litehouse brand ranch dressing (which has plenty of Omega 3) might also have helped me. And I finally resumed ground flaxseed (warning) yesterday, and I think maybe that also helped reduce my dry eyes.
And found a temporary cure for my dry eyes in the form of this blog post, which moved me to tears.
I might go back to being quiet, since I've been doing so much better lately that I have much less to vent about here. I'm fairly convinced now that possibly the top factor in my fatigue was not enough iron in my diet, though other things besides iron definitely helped me a lot, too.
So, I think if I keep consuming enough blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice, bean soup, Cheerios, and other iron-containing foods, hopefully I'll be fine.
Here's my website's disclaimer. I'm not a health care professional, just a layperson who sometimes takes an interest in health and nutrition.
By the way, even though my severe circadian sleep issues which might be Non-24 Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder are one of the top factors that ruined my life, I have resigned myself to that probably being incurable, so, I long ago gave up on even trying to force myself to have a "normal" schedule.
My other health diary blog post got so big I encountered a web error one of the last times I tried to update it.
Unfortunately, my cold soon worsened quite a lot after that. And I suspect resuming having tea the higher-caffeine way I used to make it before quitting tea might have contributed to that by interfering with my ability to sleep. Another big factor interfering with my sleep has been my stuffy nose and some kind of throat issues sometimes making it more difficult to breathe through both my nose and my mouth.
I got so scared about how sick I am that I resumed Vitamin D. (I had been avoiding Vitamin D in supplement form for a while due to how alarmingly jittery I sometimes had gotten a while after taking a lot of it, which made me worry that maybe I had overdosed on Vitamin D, but perhaps it was just magnesium deficiency from not taking enough magnesium along with such large quantities of Vitamin D.) Took 8000 IU of Vitamin D today (and 2000 IU yesterday), along with other vitamins.
Yesterday, I tried sitting in the downstairs bathroom with hot water steaming up the room to try to reduce my croup and congestion, but it didn't seem to do much.
As I expected, money problems are again going to stop us from getting the upstairs bathroom fixed in the near future. We have roof trouble, recently dealt with some car trouble, and we still have some refrigerator trouble.
Today, instead of just resting, I'm actually probably going to try to clean the junk mountain room, since we really need to fix the upstairs bathroom for the sake of my health, since I procrastinate about even going downstairs at night because I don't want to accidentally wake up my relative who sleeps downstairs, and I procrastinate about going downstairs during the day because I often don't feel like dealing with social contact, so, I often don't eat as well as I should, and I also procrastinate about brushing and irrigating my teeth and gums, which probably is not only bad for my teeth and gums, but bad for my immune system, because I have gum disease which I believe might have been partly or perhaps even mostly caused by my 3 root canaled teeth.
Now feeling considerably better today than I did yesterday, so, maybe the Vitamin D, garlic, beef/vegetable soup, and even my caffeinated black tea are helping me, among other things, like Vitamin C, Vitamin B Complex, magnesium, etc.
Also, back before I got so extremely stressed out in May/June 2016 that I eventually tried to quit tea in the hope that might ease my fatigue, it seemed like I used to need less Vitamin C to soothe my gums (and I wasn't even taking Vitamin D back then), so that makes me wonder if tea really does help your immune system.
Also, it seems like exercise and standing up and walking around actually helps my nose get unclogged, while sitting and lying down tends to make it worse, so, hopefully cleaning the next room will be good for me physically too, in addition to emotionally comforting me by making me feel like my hope of finally having a working upstairs bathroom again after all these years is that much closer to really happening.
The most fun thing I did yesterday was watch Legends of Tomorrow with my family. It took my mind off my symptoms better than anything else yesterday.
Addition, Sept. 19, 2017, 3:07 PM EDT. Didn't get much cleaning done - ended up watching Netflix, and then got drowsy. But got a bit headachy again, and not so drowsy, now that I've returned to my room.
Today, I figured out a much better way for me to eat fresh garlic cloves - buttering up an English muffin, microwaving it, then adding pieces of garlic to it. Chomping on the bread instead of directly on the garlic keeps the garlic from burning my mouth as much. (Fresh garlic is sometimes so spicy-hot that, for me, it's sometimes even worse than too much cayenne pepper, even though I like the taste of both.) My senses of taste and smell are still very stifled, but it seemed good.
Very relieved that my poor sleep didn't wreck my ability to fight off a cold. Yesterday I felt so bad I was pretty scared, but today I feel like I could defeat this even if I continue sleeping poorly. And especially if I start sleeping better.
Addition, Sept. 20, 2017, 2:12 AM EDT. Managed to sleep longer today, sometime between around 6:15 PM and 1:40 AM. But, slept poorly, though some of my dreams were unusually vivid.
Addition, Sept. 20, 2017, 4:15 AM EDT. Decided to just drink a Barq's caffeinated root beer. Due to my cold, it tastes different, but still good.
Anyway, now that I had a Barq's caffeinated root beer, I guess I better switch back to making tea with a custom tea bag with less caffeinated tea than a pre-packaged tea bag. That tastes better anyway (especially when I don't have a cold).
Addition, Sept. 20, 2017, 5:03 AM EDT. Feeling unheadachy and more comfortable temperature-wise, so now in a much better mood, and getting more eager to do something useful.
Addition, Sept. 20, 2017, 10:15 AM EDT. Got sleepy again, so ended up doing nothing except reading a bit. Fell asleep sometime between 6:41 AM and 9:03 AM. Some vivid dreams, but woke up incredibly thirsty again, and my eyes I think started out dry but soon became gooey.
Maybe the daylight is putting me in the mood to stay awake. Having a Barq's caffeinated root beer now since I don't feel like making tea yet.
Addition, Sept. 20, 2017, 11:30 AM EDT. Another good reason to sleep in the upstairs bathroom is because it's very dark in there, even during the day, since its window isn't very big and is pretty well-covered by a shade. (Here's a helpful web page about the differences between blinds and shades.)
Addition, Sept. 20, 2017, 12:42 PM EDT. I think I might get this cooking thermometer too, to help me figure out more precisely how much longer I ought to microwave things in the 700 watt upstairs microwave than the seemingly higher watt (but confusingly labeled) downstairs microwave.
Here's a research article which says microwaving improves the extraction of various substances from tea, except theanine:
"The typical household conditions only extracted 62% (61 mg/g tea), 76% (24 mg/g) and 80% (10 mg/g) of the catechins, caffeine and theanine, respectively, from the five varieties of teabags analysed. However, using microwave assisted extraction (MAE) by first brewing a teabag in 200 mL freshly boiled water for 0.5 min before irradiation for 1 min in a microwave oven (hot MAE), improved the extraction of the catechins and caffeine to 80% (80 mg/g) and 92% (29 mg/g), respectively, although the extraction of theanine was not affected."
And, judging by the marvelously detailed PDF file linked to from this page (which I previously linked to in my health diary part 1 blog post) - hot water might only be a little more effective than cold water at extracting theanine.
Addition, Sept. 20, 2017, 2:46 PM EDT. Partly cleaned the upstairs bathtub. It definitely feels too warm in that room. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to open the window, since it has these mystifying paint-covered ropes and pulleys which I don't know what to do with. So, I might not be able to sleep there yet.
Addition, Sept. 21, 2017, 2:24 PM EDT. Slept sometime between 3:40 AM and 8:48 AM in my own room. Had some fun vivid dreams. But, woke up with a headache and very thirsty and a bit dry-eyed. Fortunately, it only took a little plain water for those problems to go away, perhaps because I had forgotten to turn the air conditioner back on before I dozed off, so maybe because of that, I got less dehydrated than usual.
I think I had two caffeinated Barq's root beers total yesterday, and no other caffeine, and not even decaf tea, but, somehow did pretty well energy-wise, despite my cold, and despite still not eating as well as I should.
I now have a humidifier - a warm mist vaporizer, since I read that cool mist humidifiers can harbor bacteria, and ultrasonic humidifiers can spread dust all over the place. This page was helpful.
Still haven't figured out how to open the upstairs bathroom window. But, around 3 AM, I briefly opened my own room's big window - which was quite tough because it's very big and heavy, and somewhat inaccessible behind my cheap substitute for a window shade - taped together pieces of blank white paper, which I put up to make the sunlight a bit less bright (but no less aesthetically pleasing), so I can still look at my computers even on sunny afternoons, and also to increase my feelings of privacy, because even perfectly intact Venetian blinds have way too many holes for my liking. I wouldn't mind getting some totally different window coverings, but I'm not sure what yet.
I don't think the upstairs bathroom will be tolerable to sleep in until I figure out how to open the window, so, maybe I'll try that again later.
I seldom go out of my way to try to acquire physical books anymore, since I already have so many books that if I get too many more, I could almost swim in them like Scrooge McDuck swims in money. And lately I've mostly been reading ebooks, thanks to my local libraries' marvelous Overdrive websites which legally let you borrow tons of ebooks for 21 days, at no cost.
Addition, Sept. 21, 2017, 3:58 PM EDT. I didn't realize small tents were possibly so cheap, like only $20. So, going to get this small red tent.
Additions, Sept. 23, 2017, 2:39 PM/3:37 PM EDT. The sleep before last, on Sept. 21-22, I slept sometime between 10:57 PM and 8:52 AM. Not sure how many hours I slept with the air conditioner in fan-only mode, but eventually I woke up, felt too hot, saw the temperature in my room was 75 degrees, and put the air conditioner into cooling mode, which eventually cooled my room down to around 66 degrees.
My only caffeine on Sept. 21st was 1 Barq's caffeinated root beer, and I ate even worse on Sept. 21st than I did the day before that, so, it surprised me that I woke up feeling so alert and well-rested. On Sept. 21st, all I ate was two English muffins with butter and cherry jelly, some carrots, and some cottage cheese.
On Sept. 23 (today), slept sometime between 1:34 AM and 9:42 AM, rather poorly, since I kept waking up because of thirst, and because I got too warm because I didn't always have my air conditioner on. Also, out of habit, continued to wear my usual loose comfortable bra, despite the scary health reasons to go braless. I still have a cold, but it still seems to be on the mend.
Got my hygrometer (for measuring humidity) yesterday. It seems to usually be around 40%-45% humidity in my room, with the temperature around 67-69 degrees when the air conditioner is set to 66 degrees. With the air conditioner off for hours, the detected humidity was around 47% and temperature around 76.6.
The hygrometer seems to adjust to big temperature changes pretty slowly, since when I went up to the very hot third floor yesterday evening, it took many minutes for the temperature reading to creep upward to a plausible-sounding number. It took so long I finally just set the device down, and came back some hours later, and saw that the all-time high temperature on the device had changed to 84.6.
Finally realized that I could actually sleep in the air conditioned neighboring bedroom. The only problem with it is it's kind of gross since our cat's litter box is there. But at least it's a room with an east window, so it might be less confusing to circadian rhythms than my room and the junk mountain room with their big west windows. Both my room and the junk mountain room get the most daylight in the afternoon.
I wish post offices, banks, etc. were open 24 hours a day. The "normal" hours for post offices and banks to be open (like around 8 AM to 5 or 6 PM, and 8 AM to 12 PM on Saturday) are oppressive even to people without sleep issues, since anyone who has to work from around 9 AM to 5 PM doesn't have much time to go to the bank and post office. And who wants to have to wake up early on the weekend, or have to waste any part of their weekend on chores like going to the bank or post office?
Additions, Sept. 23, 2017, 4:49 PM/4:56 PM EDT. Another thing I forgot to mention about yesterday was that it seemed noticeably easier than usual to lift 3-liter bottles of water. Today, that seems more difficult again.
Addition, Sept. 24, 2017, 2:23 AM EDT. Without really meaning to, went to sleep for a while in my own room sometime between 5:39 PM and 9:13 PM. Woke up thirsty and too hot, since I had my air conditioner set to 72 degrees.
Addition, Sept. 24, 2017, 8:58 AM EDT. It was a nice place to sleep until the sun came up. But by around 8:20 AM I was too hot to keep sleeping.
Found a helpful Android phone app called Twilight which basically does for your phone what Redshift or f.lux does for your computer - tints the screen red to decrease the amount of melatonin-stifling blue light. Twilight optionally can dim the screen also, which is useful because even my phone's absolute lowest brightness setting still seemed too bright.
Maybe as the weather gets colder it will get easier to stay in the tent in the morning. And maybe once the sun isn't directly shining on it anymore, maybe I'll be able to go back in there. But, judging by Weather.com, it's probably going to get much too hot.
Addition, Sept. 24, 2017, 12:31 PM EDT. Ended up staying awake because there was something on TV I wanted to watch. Slept braless and have continued to be braless because of the scary health reasons to go braless, and also just to see if I feel better in general. Hopefully gravity isn't harming them, but they don't feel bad.
Addition, Sept. 24, 2017, 1:57 PM EDT. Now that my tent isn't getting as much direct sunlight, it's almost nice to be in again, despite the heat. I might even be able to get some stuff done out there with my laptop. Except I'm still too sleepy and unmotivated, and don't want to bring my laptop out into such heat.
Addition, Sept. 24, 2017, 7:12 PM EDT. Fell asleep for a while in my room, sometime between 2:10 PM and 6:56 PM. Got thirsty and dry-eyed again, and when I woke up, I saw the humidity was 45%. My eyes soon became gooey instead, but still, I'm so tired of feeling like this when I wake up.
Addition, Sept. 25, 2017, 10:31 AM EDT. Again tried sleeping in the tent, starting around maybe 1 AM. But, it hadn't gotten cold enough yet. I think my hygrometer said it was around 70-74 degrees (despite weather reports saying it was around 66 degrees), and the humidity was around 70%-85% at various times.
Still kind of tired, and I still have a cold. I'm tempted to take more Vitamin D, but it seems to be misplaced. Maybe I better just resume caffeine again so I can function well enough to try to get my room cleaned up at least enough so I can find my Vitamin D.
Addition, Sept. 25, 2017, 1:05 PM EDT. Cleaned the junk mountain room a little. Found out my tent isn't quite as bug-proof as I'd like, since a tiny spider got in, probably through the small hole where the "door" zippers meet when the tent is as closed as it can possibly be.
Addition, Sept. 25, 2017, 5:18 PM EDT. Getting this other tent, whose price was $27.99 regardless of whether I or my relative looked at its Amazon page. There were only two color options - blue with orange parts or green with orange parts, so I chose the latter.
Addition, Sept. 26, 2017, 1:05 AM EDT. Been tired and I still have a cold, but hopefully that will be gone soon. Didn't have more caffeine, and didn't locate my bottle of Vitamin D. Just been reading or watching TV.
Addition, Sept. 26, 2017, 9:57 AM EDT. Slept in my own room, sometime between 1:08 AM and 8:52 AM. Got thirsty and dry-eyed, and still feeling tired, and my cold still isn't gone.
Addition, Sept. 26, 2017, 10:03 AM EDT. Suddenly already feeling more alert, don't know why. Increasing daylight from my big window, perhaps?
Addition, Sept. 26, 2017, 12:07 PM EDT. Got sleepy again. Will probably receive the next tent on Thursday. Will also receive more Arbor Teas soon.
Addition, Sept. 26, 2017, 2:23 PM EDT. Been more alert again for a while. I think maybe I got drowsy earlier because I ate some raisins (carbs). So annoying! I think maybe I really am better off as a caffeine addict, so I can eat whatever I want without it making me tired.
Addition, Sept. 26, 2017, 6:08 PM EDT. Been feeling much better and untired, even though I haven't eaten anything yet (except my usual vitamins and the raisins I mentioned earlier), nor had any caffeine. But, still have mostly just been reading rather than getting anything done.
Addition, Sept. 26, 2017, 7:47 PM EDT. Just found out that I like pumpkin seeds, salted and in their edible shells. Hopefully that will help me get more iron in my diet, among other nutrients.
Addition, Sept. 27, 2017, 8:46 AM EDT. Slept in tent sometime between 2:08 AM and maybe 8:15 AM. Being woken up too soon by the sun is as unpleasant as anything else waking me up too soon. Got thirsty and dry-eyed, too, but after drinking some plain water, my eyes are starting to get gooey instead. My right eye was especially gooey last night before sleep.
Addition, Sept. 27, 2017, 9:40 AM EDT. Been feeling more alert at times, but I still want to go back to sleep. But, browsing the web kept me awake.
"While many know dehydration can affect their waking hours, what they do not know is the negative effects their lack of water is having on their sleeping hours. Chronic dehydration reduces the amount of essential amino acids needed by your body to produce a natural chemical called melatonin. Melatonin is created in the pineal glands and its creation is linked to a natural circadian rhythm � that is, a normal sleeping and waking schedule. Dehydration can act as a powerful roadblock to your body�s production of melatonin, making it hard to both fall asleep and stay asleep. This means that drinking an appropriate amount of water literally affects the quality of every hour in your day."
This other page suggests sometimes drinking milk instead of plain water.
"Of course, drinking plain old tap water can help enormously � sipping 12 ounces when they�re fatigued helps almost 100 percent of women feel more energetic within an hour, according to studies at Connecticut�s Manchester Memorial Hospital. But if you�ve been physically active, consider pouring a tall glass of milk (plain or chocolate) instead. �Milk rehydrates better than water because it replaces the sodium, calcium and other electrolytes lost in sweat � and that�s key to quickly restoring your body�s fluid balance,� says Brian Timmons, Ph.D., lead researcher of the McMaster University study. �Plus it�s a great source of protein, so it can actually help prevent fatigue by keeping your blood sugar steady and your muscles well-nourished.�"
Addition, Sept. 27, 2017, 5:06 PM EDT. Slept a while in my room, sometime between 1:12 PM and 4:50 PM. Used sleep mask, and had no idea it was still so early until I took it off. Got thirsty and dry-eyed again, but already getting gooey-eyed after drinking some plain water.
Addition, Sept. 27, 2017, 5:24 PM EDT. Suddenly saw my lost Vitamin E in the mess, and soon found my lost jar of nicely-seasoned Great Value peanuts too. Hoping I'll run across my Vitamin D soon.
Additions, Sept. 27, 2017, 5:42 PM/6:17 PM EDT. Found an informative but annoying list of foods that inhibit iron absorption.
Addition, Sept. 27, 2017, 6:19 PM EDT. Finally found my Vitamin D, but still haven't taken any yet.
Addition, Sept. 27, 2017, 6:52 PM EDT. Just took 2000 IU of Vitamin D, 1 capsule of Nutrigold Vitamin K2, and a full serving of Nature Made magnesium citrates (2 capsules) because
this page says:
"When you're taking magnesium, you need to consider calcium, vitamin D3 and vitamin K2 as well, since these all work synergistically with one another."
Addition, Sept. 28, 2017, 12:50 AM EDT. Perked up for a little while, but got sleepy again while watching TV with family.
Addition, Sept. 28, 2017, 8:30 AM EDT. Took a while to fall asleep and didn't sleep too well, and then the darn sun ruined everything. The temperature eventually got pretty cold, and I had to add some layers while I was half-asleep, but I was well-prepared with three nice soft warm robes (used as blankets rather than worn), 2 sheets, and 1 blanket. But the sun made it too hot quite fast, and also much too bright. I wish I had a thick dark curtain to hang up in front of my tent.
Addition, Sept. 28, 2017, 10:27 AM EDT. Got the new tent, and put it up already, which was much easier than the other tent. It was confusing at first since each tent pole was attached to its opposite end and had to be pulled apart, which I accidentally figured out.
Addition, Sept. 28, 2017, 1:32 PM EDT. Took my usual vitamins, plus 4000 IU of Vitamin D, 1 capsule of Nutrigold Vitamin K2, and a full serving of Nature Made magnesium citrates (2 capsules). Am much more alert now.
Addition, Sept. 28, 2017, 5:04 PM EDT. Getting sleepy again, so, haven't yet managed to copy all the stuff I want to copy to my laptop so I can use it in my tent.
I just read a wonderful, very informative report about Non-24-hour Sleep-Wake Disorder, which was recently announced on the Niteowl mailing list.
"When allowed to sleep on their own cycle, some individuals with N24 will find relief of their symptoms of insomnia and fatigue, at the cost of the ability to maintain a schedule required for social and occupational requirements. However, some people with N24 will continue to experience fatigue, grogginess, malaise and disrupted sleep on any schedule, possibly because of continued desynchronization of their internal circadian rhythms. Recent research has documented that in addition to the central clock in the brain, virtually every cell in the body has a molecular clock, and scientists speculate that desynchronization of multitude of clocks is what underlies these symptoms."
Addition, Sept. 28, 2017, 11:56 PM EDT. Stayed awake because of drinking 1 can of Barq's caffeinated root beer. (Perhaps having more magnesium citrate also helped.) Been feeling much better, and like my cold is maybe 96% gone.
Addition, Sept. 29, 2017, 11:11 AM EDT. Not sure when I went to sleep - sometime after 12:11 AM, but possibly after 1 AM or 2 AM. Kept waking up, but might have slept OK at times.
Addition, Sept. 30, 2017, 1:41 PM EDT. I guess I might need a better microwave, because it just doesn't seem like I get as much of a caffeine jolt from tea made in the upstairs microwave. But, I was more energetic yesterday, though I was feeling a bit jittery and like I already needed even more magnesium, perhaps because of taking more Vitamin D lately.
Didn't feel like going to sleep during the night, nor sleeping in temperatures in the 40's again, especially since I felt like my cold worsened a bit again - my sinuses(?) felt vaguely congested, I had a slight cough, and my voice got a bit hoarse. I almost just stayed in my room.
Addition, Oct. 1, 2017, 1:52 PM EDT. Slept sometime between 2:34 AM and 1:05 PM, in my room, since it was 39 degrees outside last night. Maybe slept pretty well, and started to feel alert pretty soon after waking.
Addition, Oct. 2, 2017, 6:49 PM EDT. My sleeping bag was a tremendous and scary disappointment, because its label had a warning which said:
"CALIFORNIA PROPOSITION 65 WARNING: This product contains one or more chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, and other reproductive harm."
Was in my tent most of the time between 10:49 AM and 5:48 PM, and managed to sleep there, even though it got a bit warmer than I would like, around 74 degrees. Slept OK, and didn't get very thirsty and dry-eyed, even though the humidity went down to something like 27% out there.
Addition, Oct. 4, 2017, 4:56 AM EDT. There was a power outage sometime in the evening on Oct. 2nd, but I don't know when exactly, because I didn't notice it because I was in my tent.
But, it was such a nice day, I soon went out to my tent to read a paper book. Was alert, felt sharp and full of good ideas while programming, and was in a pretty good mood most of the time, probably partly thanks to caffeinated tea, despite only sleeping between around 8 PM on Oct. 2nd to sometime around midnight on Oct. 3rd, and sometime between 6:05 AM and 10:39 AM.
Probably too tired now to move my many blankets, etc. back into my tent, even though I think I can mostly handle temperatures in the 50's, and it warms up pretty soon after the sun rises. And now, my laptop is set up almost as comfortably as my desktop computers, and in the dark outside, I could probably read the screen easily at its lowest and least battery-draining brightness setting.
Additions, Oct. 5, 2017, 4:35 PM/6:38 PM EDT. On Oct. 4, slept inside sometime between 6:24 AM and 1:14 PM.
Mostly have just been reading. But also have been trying out a new way of making VUE notes. Now, for various topics or tasks, I've been making two maps:
My Toughbook CF-C1 laptop's screen is definitely not as nice to look at as a monitor, but, fortunately, I can easily connect my laptop to a monitor because of my KVM switch, which also lets me share the same monitor with one of my desktop computers.
xrandr --output LVDS1 --above VGA1
xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1280x800
Found out yesterday that I like the taste of 2nd flush darjeeling tea more than the taste of 1st flush darjeeling (which reminds me of a green tea).
Addition, Oct. 5, 2017, 4:57 PM EDT. I forgot to mention - yesterday, I had to pay for Apollia.com (which I bought years ago but still haven't started adding anything to yet), and I decided to also buy Apollia.org.
Addition, Oct. 8, 2017, 7:52 AM EDT. I feel so much better drinking caffeinated tea that I haven't had as much to vent about lately.
Haven't been sleeping in my tent as much, due to rainy or worryingly cloudy weather, or due to it being too warm in the day. Also, I think I like it best out there during the day, so I don't have to listen to creepy noises at night like growling cats. I think maybe I like reading out there more than I like sleeping out there.
Addition, Oct. 10, 2017, 1:58 AM EDT. Was quite grumpy and premenstrual for a while, but 2nd flush darjeeling tea greatly improved my mood when I finally drank some.
Managed to put most of my clothes into zippable pillow protectors, and got a lot of them out of the way.
Addition, Oct. 10, 2017, 2:42 AM EDT. It's foggy outside - one of my favorite kinds of weather. And it's reportedly 60 degrees, so, I think I might stay in my tent for a while.
Addition, Oct. 12, 2017, 1:59 AM EDT. Slept in tent on Oct. 10th, and also read a paper book there for a while, since it was a lovely day with a pleasant temperature. Would have slept there last night, but the weather report said it was going to rain in the morning, and it did.
As of around 12:42 AM, finally got my room as clean and organized as I intended (for now). It's actually nicer than it has ever been. My room seems bigger, but still cozy, rather than too big. I can actually walk most of the way around my bed, can use my exercise bike again, and can open my mini-fridge without difficulty. And I can even stand far enough away from my big mirror that I can see myself belly-dance without having to put the mirror on a chair.
It's a pretty comfortable temperature outside - 60 degrees. But, it might rain around 7 AM, so, I don't know if I'm going to sleep out there, because of the possible rain, and also because I'm not really tired yet.
Addition, Oct. 15, 2017, 6:07 PM EDT. Finally, my time of the month started yesterday afternoon, so, I've been extra-tired from that, though mugs of caffeinated 2nd flush darjeeling tea still helped. I also like mixing it with other decaf teas, such as 1 teaspoon of Earl Grey.
In the past several days, have been reading, and aggravatingly, got very stuck on a programming problem for a while, but finally successfully solved that.
At times, it has been surprisingly good weather for being in my tent. Was in my tent most of the time since yesterday evening until the morning, since, surprisingly, the temperatures never got below the mid-60's, and I wanted to see how long my rechargeable batteries would keep my flashlight on while I read a paper book.
At one point soon before sleep, I got afraid maybe I was seeing a UFO in the sky, since I suddenly started to see something large and bright with a weird shape behind some tree leaves which mostly hid it from view.
It got uncomfortably warm and too bright and sunny in the morning, so I moved back inside to my room, and slept much better there after taking an Advil to deal with my menstrual cramps.
Addition, Oct. 16, 2017, 2:54 AM EDT. A bit headachy again. Don't know if it's because of my time of the month, or, perhaps it's from increasing my caffeine consumption, and then neglecting to have tea (or any other caffeine) so far today.
Addition, Oct. 16, 2017, 4:55 AM EDT. Feeling much better and more relaxed after tea, though still a bit headachy.
Addition, Oct. 16, 2017, 6:10 PM EDT. Woke up headachy and mostly stayed headachy for hours until I finally started drinking a Barq's caffeinated root beer.
Addition, Oct. 16, 2017, 6:31 PM EDT. Feeling even better already, now that I'm done with my caffeinated root beer. I probably should have just had some caffeine sooner, or at least an Advil, but, I kept hoping my headache was going to just go away on its own.
Addition, Oct. 18, 2017, 4:14 AM EDT. Felt fine even without more caffeine on Oct. 16th.
Addition, Oct. 19, 2017, 4:31 PM EDT. Still haven't restarted my computer yet.
Addition, Oct. 21, 2017, 9:25 PM EDT. I think maybe I've been a bit more absentminded lately, which I suspect might be at least partly from me losing so much iron due to my time of the month.
Addition, Oct. 21, 2017, 10:19 PM EDT. By the way, I'm very excited to be getting this book soon:
Addition, Oct. 22, 2017, 9:36 PM EDT. Found out from this page that there's a newer version of the above book:
Addition, Oct. 23, 2017, 7:25 PM EDT. Around 6:30 PM, finally figured out how to put my green tent away in the small bag it came in, thanks to this video.
Mostly have just been reading and not getting much done. Oh, and my libido improved quite a lot, though I'm not sure why. But, I hope that means my health is improving.
Addition, Oct. 24, 2017, 5:11 PM EDT. Probably going to try blackstrap molasses soon, since I read it has plenty of iron, which I suspect I need.
Was sometimes more tired than I'd like on Oct. 23rd, even just a few hours (I think) after tea. But perhaps that's because I didn't sleep that well on Oct. 23rd because my two favorite blankets and pillows were in my tent instead of the place I fell asleep - my room.
Addition, Oct. 24, 2017, 6:12 PM EDT. Having tea and already feeling much happier. Having 1.25 teaspoons of 2nd flush darjeeling tea, microwaved for 5 minutes, and haven't removed the tea bag.
Addition, Oct. 24, 2017, 6:21 PM EDT. Found this article with this amusing captioned picture.
Addition, Oct. 24, 2017, 10:17 PM EDT. Still feeling sufficiently alert from the tea, but I think the theanine wore off kind of fast, judging by my mood swings. I guess I could start adding decaf to my darjeeling tea bags more frequently.
Additions, Oct. 25, 2107, 3:20 AM/3:25 AM EDT. Hours ago, had a mug of decaf tea with 1 teaspoon of Mixed Berry and 1 teaspoon of English Breakfast, and have felt much better since then.
Addition, Oct. 25, 2017, 3:13 PM EDT. Slept sometime between 7:19 AM and 1:46 PM. Have scarcely felt tired at all since waking up, but am definitely in need of some tea-induced bliss to make it easier to deal with various things I'm reluctant to deal with and would easily procrastinate about and avoid, without tea removing my tiredness and improving my mood and willpower.
Addition, Oct. 25, 2017, 6:20 PM EDT. Started my day with 5 scrambled eggs and orange juice, and felt a bit tired after (but mostly during) that, but that passed quickly, and my mood and will to get things done were a bit improved.
Addition, Oct. 26, 2017, 1:41 AM EDT. Already been feeling tired for hours. But, perhaps it's because I didn't sleep very well, due to getting very thirsty.
Addition, Oct. 26, 2017, 4:06 PM EDT. Slept rather poorly because of getting thirsty and dry-eyed. Also, I think my air conditioner in energy saving mode - in which it turns itself off and on automatically instead of running constantly - disturbs my sleep too, so, I finally turned it off completely.
Addition, Oct. 26, 2017, 4:22 PM EDT. Perhaps I'll try a modified version of this Iron Woman Gingerbread Smoothie.
Addition, Oct. 26, 2017, 6:22 PM EDT. Still feeling tired. Didn't have vitamins yet nor tea - but, had a cheeseburger from Wendy's for iron's sake, and fries (which I guess might have made me tired, since potatoes seem to do that to me).
Additions, Oct. 26, 2017, 8:16 PM/8:24 PM EDT. Even without having vitamins or tea yet, started feeling less tired.
Addition, Oct. 27, 2017, 3:06 AM EDT. One of my relatives found some blackstrap molasses at a local Giant Eagle grocery store. It definitely is reminiscent of licorice, but somehow I find it more tolerable than licorice. But, it's definitely not something I'm really eager to just spoon into my mouth.
Addition, Oct. 27, 2017, 3:52 AM EDT. Have been in a much better mood, and only recently have started to get tired, like sometime in the past hour.
Addition, Oct. 27, 2017, 4:24 AM EDT. Forgot to mention, on Oct. 26th, I slept sometime between 5:43 AM and 3:34 PM. Starting to feel tired about 12 hours after waking has always seemed normal for me, so, I guess I'm doing OK.
Addition, Oct. 27, 2017, 6:19 AM EDT. My mood worsened a bit again for a while. I wonder if getting enough iron in my diet will eventually (or soon?) ease my mood swings. Once I start feeling like maybe I got enough iron, I'll probably resume using my exercise bike more often, which will probably help my mood even more.
Addition, Oct. 27, 2017, 6:53 AM EDT. Was surprised and dismayed to read on this page:
"In fact, iron deficiency is the most common and widespread nutritional disorder in the world, according to the WHO, which estimates that some 2 billion people - or 30% of the world's entire population - have anemia, which is caused by lack of iron."
Addition, Oct. 27, 2017, 3:03 PM EDT. Slept sometime between 8:09 AM and 2:21 PM. Got quite thirsty while sleeping, and woke up still feeling a bit tired, but, quickly felt better after drinking some water.
Addition, Oct. 27, 2017, 7:20 PM EDT. Got so sleepy I almost dozed off around 5:30 PM while I was reading, but somehow I suddenly got a lot of energy after that, and decided to get up for the day, take my vitamins, etc. Have felt surprisingly alert - much more than I expected after being so drowsy earlier - and did a few very short high-intensity exercise bike rides.
"Drinking coffee lowers the absorption of nonheme iron at the same meal by about 35 percent, but drinking tea can lower the absorption by up to 62 percent, according to a study published in "Human Nutrition, Applied Nutrition" in 1982. "
Addition, Oct. 27, 2017, 7:31 PM EDT. Added another spoonful of blackstrap molasses. The flavor is a lot more noticeable now, but surprisingly to me, the tea is still rather good. I'll probably use less molasses next time, though, since this is verging on too much molasses for me.
Addition, Oct. 28, 2017, 8:06 AM EDT. Been increasingly tired since around 2:30 AM, I guess.
Been too worried about humidity to bring my laptop outside. I sure wish I could put Puppy Linux on my phone, and connect a keyboard and mouse.
Addition, Oct. 28, 2017, 9:04 PM EDT. It has been around 39 degrees outside, but, I decided to try for a while to see if I could stay warm enough in my tent if I used all my blankets, plus sweatpants, socks, a hat, and two fuzzy robes.
Addition, Oct. 28, 2017, 9:51 PM EDT. Wow, there seems to maybe be a lot more iron in this blackstrap molasses than the brand we got from a grocery store.
Addition, Oct. 29, 2017, 1:29 AM EDT. Tried a spoonful of this blackstrap molasses in my tea, but, it does seem to taste different and worse (in my opinion) than the other kind, so, I'm quite tempted to discard my tea now. It reminds me too much of some sort of bad-tasting medicine.
Addition, Oct. 29, 2017, 5:07 AM EDT. My back was still rather crampy at times for hours after I came back inside the house and warmed up. The cramps decreased after I drank some water, but didn't go away completely.
Addition, Oct. 29, 2017, 1:49 PM EDT. My room just seems like a bad place to sleep lately. I get so thirsty and dry-eyed while sleeping in here, even with my air conditioner off and the heat vent as closed as possible. My hygrometer says the humidity is 40%, but I wonder if it's actually even lower than that.
Addition, Oct. 29, 2017, 3:09 PM EDT. Too tired, so it's kind of difficult to function. I guess I ought to just clean the upstairs bathroom or junk mountain room the minimum amount to make enough room for me to sleep there. Maybe the junk mountain room would be better, since at least I can open its window if necessary.
Addition, Oct. 29, 2017, 3:34 PM EDT. Tired, but having tea and am in a very determined mood now. So, I might be able to get a lot done despite being tired. Cleaning is a lot easier than programming, at least.
Addition, Oct. 30, 2017, 2:33 AM EDT. I managed to make a valley in the junk mountain. But, I'm not sure if there's a spot yet where I'll feel unworried enough about a junk avalanche to fall asleep. So, will have to clean more at some point when I feel in the mood.
Addition, Oct. 30, 2017, 5:55 AM EDT. Been vaguely tired for a while, but have been mostly OK ever since tea yesterday afternoon.
Addition, Oct. 30, 2017, 6:53 PM EDT. Was sunny outside in the morning, and I wanted to get a blanket from my tent, so, even though it was quite cold outside (maybe around 40 degrees?), I ended up staying there and dozing off for a couple hours, until it got less sunny and hence too cold. It seems the greenhouse effect of my tent helped the temperature enough that I was comfortable with just 2 blankets for a while.
In my tent, the humidity gradually crept upward the longer I stayed in it, until it was around 47% humidity (I think) when I left it.
Addition, Oct. 30, 2017, 7:51 PM EDT. Seems like the upstairs bathroom and junk mountain room are both around 40% humidity, so, not much difference.
Addition, Oct. 31, 2017, 1:30 AM EDT. Made progress cleaning the junk mountain room. Had tea a while back, which made me feel untired for a while. But now, my body is energetic but my brain feels kind of tired.
No special plans for Halloween. Among other things, going to keep cleaning. Maybe my relatives and I will finish watching Stranger Things on Netflix, but, we're probably more likely to watch The Voice on TV.
Addition, October 31, 2017, 9:53 AM EDT. Finally got my books. My relatives couldn't make it to the post office during the post office's unfortunately limited hours of 8:30 AM to 5 PM, so, I walked there myself. I seldom really like going out, but I really wanted these books, and also figured the exercise would be good for me.
Addition, Nov. 1, 2017, 5:37 AM EDT. Was too tired to read very much, but, still quite excited about the books.
Kept drinking plain water, but I felt like it wasn't helping me much at all, so I think probably I need more electrolytes. Maybe I'll try some of the ideas from this page and this page. Or maybe I'll just drink more orange juice or vegetable juice.
Addition, Nov. 1, 2017, 5:43 AM EDT. Just found out from this page that milk also contains electrolytes.
Additions, Nov. 1, 2017, 5:58 AM/6:00 AM EDT. This page actually suggests using black tea, or green tea, or herbal tea, as part of an electrolyte drink. I guess I could try adding a bit of salt to my tea.
Addition, Nov. 1, 2017, 5:03 PM EDT. Felt better for a while after tea, and 1/64th of a teaspoon of salt scarcely affected the taste at all.
Addition, Nov. 2, 2017, 12:30 AM EDT. Here's a page which gave me a more exact idea of the quantity of electrolytes in black tea.
Been missing my tent a lot, so I searched the web for places with the nicest weather. I read this page, and now I wish I could live in maybe California. However, I definitely wouldn't feel safe setting up a tent just anywhere outside.
Addition, Nov. 2, 2017, 1:52 AM EDT. I wonder if I could be a house sitter. My severe sleep issues cause me to often be wide awake at strange hours, which might discourage burglars.
Addition, Nov. 2, 2017, 4:01 AM EDT. Found an article about milk being better for rehydration than water: Milk and Other Surprising Ways to Stay Hydrated
The humidity is now 40% in my room, which is still lower than I'd like, but I think it feels better.
Addition, Nov. 2, 2017, 4:56 AM EDT. Found this interesting article about milk tolerance:
Addition, Nov. 2, 2017, 11:56 PM EDT. It was such a nice day after it stopped raining that I spent just about all day in my tent. It even was sunny for a while, maybe around noon.
I feel like I slept much better in my tent. It seems like higher amounts of humidity than what's usually in my room are just more comfortable for me. I did get thirsty (since I forgot to bring my water bottle to my tent), but, I think I was less thirsty than I get while sleeping in my room.
I put an extra 2 Weather.com widgets on my phone - weather for San Diego and weather for San Francisco, and so far, it looks like San Diego has more appealing (to me) weather.
Addition, Nov. 3, 2017, 11:57 PM EDT. Managed to artificially lengthen my stay in my tent through a somewhat silly, almost Mr. Bean-like solution - a long extension cord and my electric blanket.
Addition, Nov. 4, 2017, 8:55 AM EDT. Around maybe 5:30 AM, returned to my tent with my electric blanket again, mostly out of curiosity to see how high my electric blanket could bring up the temperature without me bringing in a bowl of steaming hot water. Didn't pay much attention to the outside temperature, but noticed Weather.com at times said it was in the low 30's.
I'm more than halfway done reading The Logical Thinking Process: A Systems Approach to Complex Problem Solving.
Addition, Nov. 4, 2017, 10:56 PM EDT. It was cold but sunny (and hence warmer in my tent than outside), and it got even warmer later, so, I stayed in my tent sometime between around 9:43 AM and 10 PM. Didn't get much reading done - listened to an audio book, then slept maybe from 11 AM until around 9:41 PM.
Addition, Nov. 7, 2017, 12:35 PM EST. Been doing well, though the weather hasn't been good for staying in my tent.
I already feel less lost and confused, now that I have that big tangle in a concept map instead of (mainly) my mind, and also fragments in many assorted other maps, none of which are such a comprehensive yet fairly succinct overview as this one.
I'm in quite a good mood now, despite the fact that I neglected to even have any tea at all today and yesterday, and maybe also Nov. 5th. (However, I did have 2000 IU of Vitamin D and half a serving of magnesium citrate yesterday, and have been continuing to drink cow's milk as much as I want.)
Addition, Nov. 8, 2017, 9:30 AM EST. Finished preparing my VUE map of life goals.
Additions, Nov. 9, 2017, 12:42 PM/12:51 PM EST. We have a bunch of ripe bananas that we need to use up, so, I started reading more again about smoothies, and also soups, since I wasn't particularly in the mood for a sugary smoothie (even if all the sugar is from fruit).
Addition, Nov. 9, 2017, 3:55 PM EST. Spent almost an hour in my tent, reading. It's still nice out there sometimes, as long as my tent gets some direct sunlight.
Addition, Nov. 9, 2017, 6:39 PM EST. Found this interesting page: Possible use of repeated cold stress for reducing fatigue in chronic fatigue syndrome: a hypothesis
Additions, Nov. 10, 2017, 2:50 AM/3:09 AM EST. Have still been having trouble with waking up thirsty and sometimes dry-eyed, though. So, that makes it even more surprising that I haven't felt very fatigued - even on the days when I neglected to have tea. Unfortunately, now I'm starting to feel premenstrual. And I would like to get some more sleep.
I wonder if maybe I can just will my time of the month to stay away, or to be light instead of average or heavy.
Additions, Nov. 10, 2017, 4:10 AM/4:39 AM EST. Soon started to feel more alert after writing the above, even though I haven't even turned my room's light on yet.
In fact, here's everything I asked for - since I managed to easily turn the below URLs into HTML links using some regexes (regular expressions) in the Geany text editor:
And here are the regular expressions I used in the Geany text editor.
Slept sometime between 8:34 PM and 2:12 AM. Still undecided about whether to stay awake, and starting to feel a bit drowsy again.
Addition, Nov. 10, 2017, 8:27 AM EST. Been feeling much better and not tired, even though I didn't start drinking tea until quite recently.
Addition, Nov. 10, 2017, 9:32 AM EST. Found this spooky page: Why do women have periods? What is the evolutionary benefit or purpose of having periods? Why can't women just get pregnant without the menstrual cycle?
Addition, Nov. 11, 2017, 5:50 AM EST. Found another interesting though disturbing article: War in the womb: ferocious biological struggle between mother and baby belies any sentimental ideas we might have about pregnancy
I'm so glad I never wanted to become a mother. I have nothing against babies and kids, but, being poor, I know I couldn't give them the wealthy, opportunity-filled lives they deserve, and I would feel very uneasy just trusting someone else to financially support them, even their father(s) or the government.
Anyway, I think I slept better today and wasn't woken up by thirst as much.
Addition, Nov. 11, 2017, 7:18 AM EST. Some of the above reminds me of this lovely, relaxing song with, be warned, mostly depressing lyrics and many depressing visuals.
Additions, Nov. 11, 2017, 12:54/12:58 PM EST. And here's the same music, but instead of the depressing lyrics sung by one of my favorite singers ever, it has someone else speaking in French.
Additions, Nov. 12, 2017, 7:15 AM/7:24 AM EST. Instead of mostly just reading, I got a bit of cleaning done yesterday and today - but just routine stuff like taking out garbage, rather than making progress in the junk mountain room, etc.
Didn't sleep as well or as long. Maybe it has something to do with me probably not drinking as much milk yesterday. My habit for months has been to avoid it.
Addition, Nov. 12, 2017, 7:43 AM EST. I just found this article from Sept. 21, 2017:
So, perhaps I was barking up the right tree in my older health diary blog post when I said on August 2, 2017:
"I wonder if circadian issues cause ADHD, rather than ADHD causing circadian issues? What if maybe lots of conditions people are (mis)diagnosed with are actually the result of sleep issues/circadian issues?
Addition, Nov. 12, 2017, 9:51 AM EST. Found this page: Calcium from milk or calcium-fortified foods does not inhibit nonheme-iron absorption from a whole diet consumed over a 4-d period
Also might try experimenting with blackstrap molasses again. This great video helped persuade me.
Addition, Nov. 12, 2017, 11:21 AM EST. I kept finding claims on the internet (such as on this page) that blackstrap molasses mixed into milk is delicious. I was skeptical, and also thought that putting blackstrap molasses in milk might be counterproductive, since the main reason I want to consume blackstrap molasses at all is for its iron, and I've sometimes read that milk can interfere with iron absorption.
Addition, Nov. 12, 2017, 11:50 AM EST. Another idea I read somewhere - maybe a YouTube comment - was the idea of mixing blackstrap molasses with orange juice. If I recall correctly, the person said they couldn't even taste the molasses.
Addition, Nov. 12, 2017, 12:58 PM EST. Another page: Blackstrap Molasses for Heavy Menstrual Bleeding
Addition, Nov. 12, 2017, 1:15 PM EST. My lip issues are reminiscent of some of the pictures on this page. But that page makes no mention of iron.
Addition, Nov. 12, 2017, 1:44 PM EST. Getting a headache, perhaps because I delayed tea because I was so undecided about whether to stay awake or try to go back to sleep. Also feeling almost nauseated, so, I guess this is some sort of migraine. So, I guess I better have tea.
Addition, Nov. 12, 2017, 2:22 PM EST. Well, that didn't last long. Scarcely drank any tea yet and am already feeling much better.
Addition, Nov. 12, 2017, 2:45 PM EST. Tea is definitely one of the best things in the universe. :-)
Addition, Nov. 13, 2017, 6:10 AM EST. Slept sometime between 9:22 PM and 4:58 AM. I feel like I slept better today, and am actually feeling less premenstrual.
To my surprise, another thing that seemed to decrease my headache temporarily was high-intensity exercise biking for about 1 minute. My headache came back sometime in the next couple hours, but was never bad enough that I felt like I needed Advil.
Still determined to keep trying to eat blackstrap molasses, since maybe part of why I feel better today is because I had some yesterday. Today, going to try it in orange juice. I also read that you can put it in a cup of hot water, so, maybe I'll try that at some point too.
Addition, Nov. 13, 2017, 9:22 AM EST. Still premenstrual, judging by my mood swings. Feeling physically OK, though. For a while, got quite upset about something going mildly awry.
Additions, Nov. 13, 2017, 5:09 PM/5:12 PM EST. Read a while, and fell asleep again sometime between 11:44 AM and 3:01 PM. Haven't been tired again since waking up (except for the first several minutes after I woke up).
Addition, Nov. 13, 2017, 5:43 PM EST. Managed to finish the glass a while back. I just drank it as quickly as possible without pausing to try to taste it.
Addition, Nov. 13, 2017, 6:15 PM EST. Another great blog post:
Addition, Nov. 14, 2017, 9:37 AM EST. Didn't sleep particularly well, sometime between 3:20 AM and 8:56 AM. Got too thirsty. Out of habit, didn't drink much milk yesterday.
Additions, Nov. 14, 2017, 12:27 PM/12:38 PM EST. Have felt astonishingly untired today, and not very premenstrual.
Addition, Nov. 14, 2017, 12:56 PM EST. EUREKA! VEGETABLE JUICE!
Addition, Nov. 14, 2017, 1:54 PM EST. Didn't realize the canned black beans we have here have so much iron in them. I thought it was 15% of the "Daily Value" per can, and didn't notice that there are 3.5 servings per can. If I had known that, I probably would have tried sooner to make black beans more palatable.
Addition, Nov. 14, 2017, 2:28 PM EST. Still sleepy, so, maybe not sleeping well finally caught up with me. Or, maybe it's just the same old problem of eating sometimes making me tired if I'm not caffeinated.
Addition, Nov. 14, 2017, 4:40 PM EST. Didn't sleep. Feeling less sleepy than before, but still a bit sleepy, and starting to feel more premenstrual, both mood-wise in some ways (anxious, a bit sad), and because of some lower abdominal almost cramp-like (except for not being painful) sensations.
Addition, Nov. 14, 2017, 5:13 PM EST. To my surprise, my time of the month already started just in the past several minutes. No painful cramps yet. Don't know if I should preemptively take an Advil, or just wait and see what happens, for the sake of curiosity.
Addition, Nov. 14, 2017, 5:34 PM EST. Already took an Advil, since I feel like my cramps are starting to get painful, so, didn't want to let them get any worse.
Addition, Nov. 14, 2017, 6:03 PM EST. Definitely should have taken the Advil sooner. I haven't had such bad cramps in a while, since normally, I do take Advil sooner. But I think they've already been fading because Advil works pretty fast for me.
Addition, Nov. 14, 2017, 6:15 PM EST. Finally feeling OK again, though tired. Only partway done with my tea.
Addition, Nov. 15, 2017, 10:01 AM EST. Slept sometime between 1:01 AM and around 2 AM, when I was woken up by the return of my cramps. Took Advil, and managed to fall asleep again sometime between 2:30 AM and 8:08 AM.
Addition, Nov. 15, 2017, 1:03 PM EST. Still no more cramps. I'm guessing they probably won't come back, since they usually don't after they've been gone for a while.
Addition, Nov. 15, 2017, 11:00 PM EST. Definitely wasn't very energetic today, but, before I got really tired, and even before tea, I felt fairly sharp and clear-minded rather than spacy and foggy-minded. Spent a bunch of time reading.
Around 5:19 PM I got an odd symptom I never had before - a fairly strong, sharp pain in the right side of my head, quite different from my usual headaches, which are more like dull, much weaker continual pain. In contrast, this was just a few sharp pains, all in about the same spot, that lasted only a second or so before completely vanishing. And there were only a few of them, maybe 3.
Now concluding my day with half a smoothie glass full of Diane's Garden vegetable juice plus about 1 spoonful of this blackstrap molasses.
Addition, Nov. 16, 2017, 12:31 PM EST. Slept sometime between 1:18 AM and 10:34 AM. Haven't been feeling tired, and I think I might be feeling less weakened than I usually feel during my time of the month.
Addition, Nov. 16, 2017, 7:08 PM EST. Dozed off for a while sometime between 2:58 PM and 6:15 PM.
Addition, Nov. 16, 2017, 7:19 PM EST. My hygrometer says it's 64.0 degrees in my room, so, that's still pretty comfortable by tent standards, though noticeably colder than it usually has been lately in my room.
Addition, Nov. 16, 2017, 8:37 PM EST. Somehow my room is staying at 64.0 degrees, according to my hygrometer, so, maybe it won't get excessively cold, even though it's 37 degrees outside and expected to get colder, according to Weather.com.
Addition, Nov. 16, 2017, 10:41 PM EST. In the kitchen, it was 57.6 degrees last time I checked. Haven't used the oven so far yet.
Still haven't had tea so far today, which might be part of why I dozed off. Definitely am not totally cured of menstrual issues so far - still some mood issues and energy issues. And usually my period on the 3rd day is lighter than this, but, perhaps my 2nd day being lighter than usual made my 3rd day a bit heavier than usual.
Addition, Nov. 17, 2017, 1:08 AM EST. Found this interesting page: Study Links Low Iron to ADHD
Additions, Nov. 17, 2017, 1:55 PM/2:04 PM EST. I think the furnace still isn't fixed yet, but, I don't think it ever got very cold here. I heard that briefly running the oven raised the temperature in the kitchen from 55 degrees to 57 degrees. And when I checked recently, the temperature in the kitchen was 52.7 degrees.
Addition, Nov. 17, 2017, 2:08 PM EST. Found another page about iron deficiency, which mentions chocolate.
"Remember that chocolate, although it contains iron, also contains substances that prevent efficient iron absorption, so don't over-indulge, even though you may feel as if you need an energy boost; chocolate is not the answer."
Addition, Nov. 18, 2017, 12:22 AM EST. It seems our furnace is now fixed. Its motor or something had to be replaced.
"A reason why your room may be hotter than the other rooms of the house is caused by electronics such as computers and TV's. Anything electronic generates excessive heat especially computers. One tip to implement is to turn your computer completely off when not using it. A large desktop computer can actually raise a rooms temperature by as much as 5 to 15 degrees. Lamps and anything containing a light bulb will also generate heat."
So glad my time of the month is probably nearly over. Today was a pretty typical day 4, maybe a bit lighter than usual.
Addition, Nov. 18, 2017, 12:57 PM EST. Slept sometime between 1:32 AM and 12:11 AM. Had vitamins, and am now drinking blackstrap molasses + Diane's Garden brand vegetable juice. Not feeling very tired, and my time of the month seems pretty close to done.
Additions, Nov. 18, 2017, 3:25 PM/3:35 PM EST. I heard from a relative that the furnace was acting weird around 4 AM, but it seems to be working OK now.
Addition, Nov. 18, 2017, 8:43 PM EST. Haven't had tea yet, but, have been OK, and will probably feel great once I do have tea.
Addition, Nov. 19, 2017, 2:50 AM EST. Been feeling so much better ever since tea that I now think it's probably more important for that to be part of my "morning" routine than blackstrap molasses+vegetable juice.
I still have never rebooted my computer yet ever since editing the Lighthouse 64 Puppy Linux 6.02 Beta 2 ISO to make it possible to choose a RAM disk size at startup.
I'll install the VirtualBox Guest Additions software inside my virtual Puppy Linux system to make it so I can access data from my non-virtual system, such as my Puppy Linux Setup Kit, via VirtualBox's shared folders feature. (I've done that before, so I already know it's possible.)
instantly (Edit, Nov. 23, 2017, 4:33 PM EST: actually in about 10 seconds) restore my entire virtual system to the state it was in after I installed Guest Additions and mounted some VirtualBox shared folders, but before I ever ran my Puppy Linux Setup Kit.
Additions, Nov. 19, 2017, 5:00 PM/5:23 PM EST. Earlier today, I found this excellent page, which explains what it's like to live with a major energy-sapping illness, far worse than most anything I've had to deal with so far:
'When other people can simply do things, I have to attack it and make a plan like I am strategizing a war. It is in that lifestyle, the difference between being sick and healthy. It is the beautiful ability to not think and just do. I miss that freedom. I miss never having to count "spoons".'
I guess I'll probably never be totally free of "spoon-counting", simply because of my possibly incurable possible Non-24-hour Sleep-Wake Disorder, which will force me to "count spoons" anytime I have to deal with anything scheduled to take place at a time that clashes too much with whatever time zone my body thinks it's living in that day.
But, at least my overall "spoon total" (when my sleep issues aren't getting in my way) has gone up quite a lot starting last year, thanks (I believe) to things like iron from blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice (which I started just recently) and other foods containing iron, caffeine + theanine from tea, Vitamin D3 (mostly in capsule form) + magnesium (in capsules, or, even more helpfully, as a magnesium gel), and having quit my somehow sleep-disrupting electric blanket back in Sept. 2016.
I'm hoping as my iron levels continue to improve, maybe I'll even miraculously end up with more "spoons" than I've ever had since my menstrual cycle first began when I was a teenager. So many spoons that I might start to worry that some people might accuse me of "spoon appropriation" if I keep using the spoon analogy while being so healthy and energetic (except for when my possible Non-24 gets in my way).
Addition, Nov. 19, 2017, 5:31 PM EST. Found this humorously twisted retelling of the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 12:22 AM EST. Have still often been getting thirsty and dry-eyed while I sleep, but surprisingly, I think I've been sleeping better regardless.
My energy is still not lasting as long as I'd like. I'm thinking tea might better in the middle of my day rather than my "morning", since I need it less in my "morning".
As usual, I read a lot. Also tided up my room, so most of my zippable pillow protectors of clothes are piled in the junk corner.
Made a smoothie from an avocado and 1 can of peaches, and I actually kind of like it. Subtle, rather than overpoweringly sugary.
Asked a relative to get 1 can each of any kinds of canned beans we usually don't get, plus a few random spices we don't already have. Given that beans contain so much iron, and given how well my black bean soup turned out, I thought it would be a good idea to try to find out which beans I never knowingly tried before I might actually like.
Also probably going to get another ceramic pasta bowl soon, since my ceramic chili bowl has often proved a bit too small for my various culinary experiments, and I don't want to monopolize the family popcorn bowl.
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 1:08 AM EST. Yeah, feeling too cold all the time is definitely a possible symptom of not eating enough, according to this page.
Additions, Nov. 21, 2017, 2:17 AM/4:05 AM EST. Since caffeine definitely affects my appetite, that's probably another good reason to have tea a bit later than my "morning".
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 12:25 PM EST. Still been feeling cold and headachy, but got overheated earlier when I put on a fuzzy robe as well as a blanket. 67.3 degrees in my room, and I'm wondering if my hygrometer might be wrong.
Haven't eaten much yet - drank some water, a bit of milk, and ate some plaintain chips. Still remained headachy, so now I'm drinking some diluted grape juice, which I remember seemed to help me a long time ago when I felt kind of like this. Back then, I also ate a few spoonfuls of peanut butter, which also seemed helpful, but I haven't felt like eating that yet.
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 1:08 PM EST. Less headachy and less drowsy now, but still not back to normal. I hate this low humidity - 27%!
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 1:35 PM EST. I really feel like living here is making me sick in a lot of different ways. I hate this weather, among other things.
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 1:38 PM EST. Actually, I don't hate everything about this weather. Currently, according to Weather.com, it's 54 degrees and sunny, and my tent is still outside, so... maybe I'll spend a little time out there, though it might be too cold unless there's some direct sunlight on my tent.
Additions, Nov. 21, 2017, 3:05 PM/3:22 PM EST. Before going out, I started to get overheated, so, going out into the cooler air was pleasant. Had some direct sunlight on my tent, so, it was nice for a while, though windy, and eventually I got cold and headachy again. Listened to an audio book for a while.
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 4:48 PM EST. Briefly dozed off after covering my eyes with the edge of a blanket, which revealed to me that my headache is a light-sensitive migraine. Got overheated again, so took off fuzzy robe again.
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 5:02 PM EST. Feeling a lot better, and drank maybe less than half of my caffeinated root beer so far.
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 5:32 PM EST. Still not feeling right, though I drank most of my caffeinated root beer. Maybe I should try magnesium gel too, though not very much because I'm too cold and can't take a nice warm magnesium bath instead because our only working bathtub is disgusting. And the water probably isn't even warm at the moment.
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 5:36 PM EST. My hygrometer says it's 69.4 degrees, but I'm very cold and feeling tempted by my electric blanket.
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 5:45 PM EST. I put magnesium gel on the back of my left hand and lower part of my left arm. It's stinging a bit, I guess because of dry skin from this horrible dry weather.
Additions, Nov. 21, 2017, 5:52 PM/6:26 PM EST. I wish I had all of my books in computerized form. Overdrive has tons of books, but not everything I own.
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 6:07 PM EST. Yeah, I think the magnesium gel helped already. That stuff is incredible.
Addition, Nov. 21, 2017, 6:34 PM EST. Definitely doing much better now. Energetic from caffeine, and more relaxed and pretty much headache-free.
Addition, Nov. 22, 2017, 12:37 AM EST. Dozed off briefly between 6:48 PM and 7:28 PM, Tried to sleep longer, but soon decided to get up again instead.
I guess if I want to get anything useful done, maybe I need to be more spoon-aware, and less hyperfocused, so I'll be less likely to neglect necessities like food and avoiding caffeine withdrawal.
Addition, Nov. 22, 2017, 3:52 AM EST. Been feeling much better, and my right eye has been gooey instead of dry, and my lips also became much less dry too.
Addition, Nov. 22, 2017, 3:04 PM EST. Slept sometime between 4:40 AM and 2:30 PM. Woke up feeling rested and without a migraine. During sleep, eventually got thirsty a couple times, and maybe only woke twice to drink water. My right eye is a bit gooey rather than dry, and my left eye seems fine.
Skipped blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice yesterday, and didn't even take my usual vitamins until the end of my day.
Addition, Nov. 22, 2017, 6:23 PM EST. Started to almost get a bit drowsy, but turning my 2nd lamp on helped and now I feel fine again.
Additions, Nov. 23, 2017, 4:14 PM/4:41 PM EST. Started to feel a bit burnt out by the time I was done with this blog post, which was plenty more work than simply doing the things described in it without noting them down probably would have been.
Skipped blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice again yesterday, as well as bean soup.
Oops, accidentally added this to the wrong blog post before.
Addition, Nov. 23, 2017, 5:48 PM EST. Kind of sleepy today. Slept sometime between 8:57 AM and 3:34 PM, and got a bit thirsty. My right eye is currently gooey.
Addition, Nov. 23, 2017, 6:22 PM EST. One of my favorite web pages of affirmations I ever found so far:
Addition, Nov. 25, 2017, 2:28 AM EST. On Nov. 23rd-24th, became more alert after turning my 2nd lamp on, and having various caffeinated things, like Barq's root beer, 2 dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bars, and best of all, tea. Ate a bit better than usual - some Thanksgiving leftovers brought home by a relative.
Read a lot yesterday (and a bit so far today), and watched Netflix with relatives - a new (to us) show called The 4400, and the fascinating documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond.
Got sleepier while I was writing this, and am tempted to just go to sleep without having tea.
Addition, Nov. 25, 2017, 10:08 PM EST. Slept sometime between 2:26 PM and 9:20 PM.
Addition, Nov. 27, 2017, 1:23 AM EST. Only slept sometime between 5:36 PM and 10:40 PM, but, I think I slept better then I did during my last several sleeps, since I have felt more rested and not tired so far, even though I haven't even turned my room's lights on yet.
Yesterday, and today so far, I mostly read. Also made a small improvement to my VirtualBox containing my Puppy Linux Setup Kit, but didn't actually really work on my setup kit yet - just gathered some of my scattered setup kit files together.
Ooh, there are new Epic Rap Battles of History that I haven't yet watched. :-)
Addition, Nov. 28, 2017, 1:10 AM EST. Slept pretty well sometime between 2:40 PM and 12:34 AM. Maybe having blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice soon before sleep, as I have been doing, stops me from getting as dehydrated as I frequently used to during sleep. I got thirsty recently, but I think I might have been mostly OK before that.
Feeling a bit confused about what to do next with my Puppy Linux Setup Kit, so, perhaps I'll soon return to the book The Logical Thinking Process: A Systems Approach to Complex Problem Solving, and try to make more logic tree maps in VUE to help me figure that out.
Additions, Nov. 28, 2017, 1:00 PM/2:15 PM EST. Was doing quite well for a while, but started getting headachy, though not as bad as the migraine I had on Nov. 21st. Used magnesium gel on my arms (mostly on my left arm), which seemed like it might have helped for a while. But, my headache came back after I ate my 2nd dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bar sometime before 12 PM. (The other one, I ate around 5:30 AM.)
Read a lot, watched a couple episodes of The Flash on Netflix, but didn't get much programming done, and didn't make any new VUE maps so far.
Found this excellent article:
Addition, Nov. 28, 2017, 2:38 PM EST. Still been a bit headachy at times. Don't know if I should just have more caffeine, or not.
Addition, Nov. 29, 2017, 12;30 AM EST. Headache-free now, but got thirsty and dry-eyed while sleeping. But still slept surprisingly well, I think. Slept sometime between 4:58 PM and 12:08 AM. Feeling alert enough and in a pretty good mood. So, I don't really feel like writing more right now.
Addition, Dec. 1, 2017, 12:38 PM EST. The most notable thing to happen recently was, I found this hilarious Jurassic Park GIF. :-)
The day before yesterday, I had plenty of energy even though I delayed having tea until later in my day than usual.
Been working on a food-related VUE map in a format kind of similar to my life goals VUE map. Still didn't really follow all the rules from the book The Logical Thinking Process: A Systems Approach to Complex Problem Solving.
Addition, Dec. 2, 2017, 5:37 AM EST. Found some interesting articles about circadian clocks.
'"While we don't yet know if human hair follows that same clock we found in mice hair, it is true that facial hair in men grows during the day, resulting in the proverbial 5 o'clock shadow. There is no 5am shadow if you shave at night," says Panda.'
Addition, Dec. 2, 2017, 6:36 AM EST. Skipped blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice before sleep again, and now I'm much sleepier than I should be after sleeping sometime between 9:41 PM and 4:20 AM.
Addition, Dec. 2, 2017, 7:37 AM EST. Woke up a bit more, mostly because I was curious to see if my scheme for avoiding having to go to the downstairs bathroom as often would actually work - a plastic funnel, an empty water bottle, some toilet paper, and a Ziploc bag. Fortunately, it worked! I wish I had thought of that years ago.
Addition, Dec. 2, 2017, 1:56 PM EST. Felt better after the vegetable juice earlier, but eventually got drowsy again, so slept for a while sometime between 10:19 AM and 1:09 PM. Might have slept better, not sure, but I still feel kind of sleepy, so, I guess I'll go back to having vegetable juice with 1 spoonful of blackstrap molasses, since that might be healthier for me and also tastes better to me.
Additions, Dec. 2, 2017, 5:39 PM/5:45 PM EST. Been feeling good and sufficiently alert since tea.
I think I linked to this interesting article before, in part 1 of my health diary:
Anyway, while I was reading about Vitamin A, I ran across this interesting (though scary) article:
"You are right to be concerned about vitamin A toxicity. But first, please note that vitamin A comes in many forms. It is the animal form that is toxic, not plant-derived beta-carotene, which is the form I recommend in the Vitamin Advisor.
Also found this interesting article, though I feel sorry for the poor mice:
Other interesting pages:
However, I also found this sad story:
Here are some encouraging pages:
Addition, Dec. 3, 2017, 10:25 AM EST. Slept sometime between 2:12 AM and 7:53 AM. Deliberately skipped blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice, since I wanted to see if vegetable juice and carrots might be enough by themselves to help me sleep better.
I recently got my own ceramic pasta bowl, so that will make it much easier for me to make soup.
Additions, Dec. 3, 2017, 10:38 AM/10:56 AM EST. Before getting a ceramic mug for tea, I used to use styrofoam cups, which I think were 12 ounces.
Addition, Dec. 3, 2017, 12:05 PM EST. Still so sleepy.
Addition, Dec. 3, 2017, 5:04 PM EST. Slept a bit more sometime between 1:25 PM and 3:30 PM. Still didn't have blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice, but ought to at some point. And also still need to eat better in general - all I ate earlier (before sleep) was vitamins, pumpkin seeds, and water. Still kind of sleepy now.
Finally thought of searching for "stem cells caffeine" (without quotes), since I wondered what caffeine might be doing to my body's stem cells.
Also stumbled across this other article, which has nothing to do with caffeine:
Addition, Dec. 3, 2017, 5:42 PM EST. Searched for "theanine stem cells" without quotes.
Also found this page, which says:
"L-Theanine modulates the activity of several antitumor drugs and has been reported to stimulate self-renewal of human embryonic stem cells."
And this page which says:
"Amino acid analog of glutamine, commonly found in green tea. Binds to AMPA, kainate, NMDA and group I mGlu receptors. Displays neuroprotective and cognitive enhancing effects. Also shown to modify self-renewal properties of cancer stem cells. Blood-brain barrier permeable and active in vivo."
I don't know what to make of all that, but, I hope it's all good.
Addition, Dec. 4, 2017, 12:59 AM EST. Just stayed in bed most of the day, mostly just reading. Also watched a bit of Netflix with family. My energy improved when I ate some canned peaches, but other food later on seemed to make me tired. Didn't have tea because I've been wanting to just go back to sleep.
Addition, Dec. 4, 2017, 7:14 AM EST. Only slept sometime between 1:03 AM and 6:33 AM, and got thirsty and dry-eyed eventually, but, I think I do feel more rested now than I did from my other sleeps.
Addition, Dec. 4, 2017, 7:45 AM EST. Found this other Amazon page which sells packs of three 15 ounce bottles of Plantation brand organic blackstrap molasses for $24.00.
Addition, Dec. 4, 2017, 9:46 AM EST. Still feeling well-rested and alert, and I haven't even had tea yet.
Addition, Dec. 4, 2017, 4:40 PM EST. What an amazingly normal-seeming day so far - normal from years ago, I mean. So much energy, especially after tea. I tidied my room (especially the messy shelves), washed all of my smoothie glasses and 3 of their lids (other than the lost one), and my 3 glass straws (other than the lost one), my ceramic casserole, and my new ceramic pasta bowl.
So, hopefully if I keep having blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice, I'll be well-prepared for my time of the month, and maybe I won't get as wiped out by it as I used to.
Addition, Dec. 5, 2017, 10:58 AM EST. Started to get sleepy around 7 PM, but stayed awake to watch various documentaries (sleepily and somewhat inattentively, even though the idea of humans traveling to Mars is very exciting), and also to chit-chat with a relative.
Maybe I'll be OK if I sleep longer. Or maybe walnuts before sleep are a bad idea for me. But I don't know when else I can eat them. Maybe hours before sleep instead of just before sleep? I like them more than chocolate, so, I don't really want to give them up, but I guess I will if I have to.
Additions, Dec. 5, 2017, 11:17 AM/11:33 AM EST. All I ate on Dec. 3rd, before my best day in recent memory (Dec. 4th), was my usual vitamins, pumpkin seeds, 1 can of peaches (expiring in Dec. 2017), more pumpkin seeds, water, a few plantain chips, 1 piece of pizza with yellow peppers, pepperoni, and mushrooms, and blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice.
Addition, Dec. 5, 2017, 11:28 AM EST. I just had a great idea - I could have tea and walnuts around the same time, and see how alert I feel afterwards. :-)
Addition, Dec. 5, 2017, 1:16 PM EST. Still kind of sleepy, but, turning both my room's lamps on helped. Still didn't have tea nor walnuts yet. Had my vitamins and 1 can of peaches.
Addition, Dec. 5, 2017, 3:02 PM EST. Had a dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bar, and have been starting to verge on a headache.
Addition, Dec. 5, 2017, 3:51 PM EST. I wonder if my upcoming time of the month is already depleting my body's iron reserves. Maybe I should finally try having bean soup again.
Addition, Dec. 5, 2017, 4:40 PM EST. Feeling quite a lot better now, though I still didn't eat anything more yet, and I don't have much of an appetite now, probably because of tea.
Addition, Dec. 5, 2017, 5:28 PM EST. Found these pages about Vitamin A:
Addition, Dec. 6, 2017, 1:02 AM EST. My relatives decided to get Subway sandwiches. So, that simplified my day a bit.
Feeling better overall, but still have been sleepy, I guess because something (or maybe a variety of things) messed up my last sleep.
The furnace might be acting up again, since one of my relatives noticed the furnace shutting off unexpectedly, and my hygrometer said my room was at 62.4 degrees. So, I turned my air conditioner off. I haven't felt cold at all - seems like a nice temperature, actually.
Been thinking I might prefer to eat cooked carrots with butter and salt rather than raw carrots, so, I was pleased to find this page:
"On the other hand, some nutrients become more potent when exposed to heat. That includes the antioxidant lycopene in tomatoes and certain other vegetables as well as beta-carotene levels in carrots."
Addition, Dec. 6, 2017, 11:30 AM EST. Deliberately went to sleep without having magnesium, blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice, nor walnuts, just out of curiosity, to see if I'd sleep better despite not having any of those to help me.
Seems like eating better might be the top reason I slept better.
Have had air conditioner off, but the temperature in my room is 64.8 degrees, which still feels quite comfortable at the moment.
Addition, Dec. 6, 2017, 11:35 AM EST. I actually am feeling a bit sleepy now, but maybe it's because I haven't eaten anything yet.
Addition, Dec. 7, 2017, 3:42 AM EST. Still didn't go back to sleep. I actually somehow got quite a lot more alert after my last update, after I ate 2 pieces of pizza with yellow peppers, pepperoni, and mushrooms. Tea also helped. My right eye even stopped being gooey.
Feeling quite sleepy now, so I guess that's why I'm finally in the mood to update this. Before I got sleepy, I mostly just read and web browsed.
Addition, Dec. 7, 2017, 12:32 PM EST. Slept sometime between 4:18 AM and 11:58 AM. Feeling sleepy. I kept waking up due to thirst. I guess I need to stay better-hydrated somehow.
Additions, Dec. 7, 2017, 12:58 PM/1:21 PM EST. Perhaps I should have seen the doctor while I still had Medicaid. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm on it anymore, because one of my relatives switched to Medicare, and since my Medicaid was somehow entangled with my relative's Medicaid, I assume I no longer have Medicaid. And this happened sooner than I expected, so, I wasn't able to see the doctor at the last minute.
Addition, Dec. 7, 2017, 1:06 PM EST. Feeling plenty more alert now, perhaps of the chocolate. Also in a good mood since realizing that I'm now free to make all the money I want, if I feel like it.
Additions, Dec. 7, 2017, 4:50 PM/5:02 PM EST. Started to get sleepy again around 2 PM. Had canned peaches, and also leftover spaghetti. For some reason, that just seemed more appealing than the idea of eating bean soup, even though I like bean soup and maybe could use the iron.
Still haven't had tea yet. I got my measuring glass today, and figured out that my preferred mug definitely holds 16 ounces when almost full to the brim, and my other mug is also pretty close to 16 ounces, but it has more spare room at the top.
I remember once, way back in 2003 or so, I temporarily used a slightly bigger styrofoam cup than usual for the same kind of prepackaged tea I usually drank, with the same size tea bag as always - and I was quite surprised to find that resulted in me feeling quite a bit more jittery instead of pleasantly more energetic.
Anyway, maybe it's somehow more good than bad that I am so caffeine sensitive. I don't know if I have ADHD, but, a lot of people with ADHD claim to be helped a lot by stimulants like Adderall, which I read is very expensive, and there have been shortages in recent years.
How interesting it is that ADHD might possibly be caused by sleep issues.
Addition, Dec. 7, 2017, 5:09 PM EST. Already feeling much better soon after turning on both lamps in my room.
Addition, Dec. 7, 2017, 6:04 PM EST. Used 10 ounces of water, which didn't boil over even though I microwaved it for 5 minutes. I considered reducing the time, but decided not to.
Addition, Dec. 7, 2017, 9:54 PM EST. I guess that helped my energy a bit. I also had a dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bar. Watched Netflix for a while with relatives. My right eye has been a bit gooey, though. And I have that sort of spaced out feeling I seem to get when trying to gradually reduce my caffeine consumption.
Even though I possibly mistakenly thought I probably adjusted fine to drinking around 16 ounces of tea per day instead of around 12 ounces, perhaps it interfered with my appetite too much, resulting in me gradually becoming more iron deficient and more malnourished in other ways than I might have been in the past. (And trying to be somewhat vegetarian also might have contributed to those problems.)
I'm guessing another thing I should do is try harder to keep getting enough iron. I haven't been trying as hard to do that lately, so, maybe that's part of my trouble lately.
It's currently 61.0 degrees in my room, but, I'm warm enough with my pink fuzzy robe on.
Addition, Dec. 8, 2017, 12:09 AM EST. My bean soup turned out pretty well, though a bit more watery than I might like. Next time, maybe I should just put the beans in by themselves without all the liquid they were immersed in.
Addition, Dec. 8, 2017, 12:34 AM EST. That was easier than I thought - all the remaining soup fit into just two of my smoothie glasses with lids.
Addition, Dec. 8, 2017, 1:24 AM EST. Found this article about caffeine being very bad for most insects, but generally less bad for humans.
Addition, Dec. 8, 2017, 3:05 AM EST. Another interesting article about the effects of caffeine on things other than humans. And humans too.
Addition, Dec. 8, 2017, 5:46 AM EST. Haven't eaten anything yet since my bean soup - just drank a tall glass of orange juice, and a Great Value root beer recently. And some water.
Addition, Dec. 9, 2017, 10:21 AM EST. On Dec. 8th, slept sometime between 5:55 AM and 12:20 PM. Woke up feeling pretty good and like I probably slept better, but, I was kind of tired at first. But my energy kept fluctuating that day.
Today, slept sometime between 2:16 AM and 9:32 AM. Had nightmares, and was very thirsty when I woke up, but, been feeling rested enough and like the quality of my sleep was OK, even though I skipped blackstrap molasses + vegetable juice and didn't eat more of my bean soup yet.
Addition, Dec. 9, 2017, 1:56 PM EST. Went back to sleep again, sometime between 10:49 AM and 1:48 PM.
Addition, Dec. 9, 2017, 4:45 PM EST. My energy has varied, but, I have been feeling quite alert since eating some Apple Cinnamon Cheerios.
Additions, Dec. 9, 2017, 6:09 PM/6:28 PM EST. Finally tried my new 10 ounce tea cup, Using my measuring glass, I figured out it's only a bit short of 12 ounces if filled to the brim.
I guess I could probably get away with putting less tea in my teabag to brew such a small cup of tea, but, I wanted to see how the taste compared to my usual amount of tea (somewhat less than 16 ounces), if I changed little besides the tea cup size, and the amount of water and half and half. Seems about the same, but I think it steeps quite a bit quicker with less water. With close to 16 ounces of water, I had to wait more minutes for the flavor to get strong enough for me.
A while after drinking my small cup of tea, I feel more energized than I was, but I was already pretty energetic before I drank tea. Still craving more tea - not that I need more energy. I guess it's probably just caffeine withdrawal making me want more.
Addition, Dec. 10, 2017, 12:20 AM EST. Still quite energetic and alert, though perhaps it's partly from eating 4 dark chocolate/peanut butter granola bars.
Also have been soaking 1 tablespoon of chia seeds (measured with a measuring spoon, not an actual table spoon, which seems smaller) in water in one of my smoothie glasses.
"Vitamin C appears strong enough to overcome phytic acid. In one study, adding 50 mg of vitamin C counteracted the phytic acid load of a meal. In another study, 80 mg of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) counteracted 25 mg of phytic acid."
Addition, Dec. 10, 2017, 2:57 AM EST. Found some spooky articles about the bad possible health effects of wi-fi, cell phones, etc.
"On average, a person will experience biological effects from a cellphone at a distance of 12 feet.
Addition, Dec. 10, 2017, 3:41 AM EST. I unplugged my Roku too, since that uses wi-fi, and I scarcely have been using it lately.
Addition, Dec. 10, 2017, 4:40 AM EST. Been feeling kind of cold lately, even though my air conditioner is off and it's 65.3 degrees in my room.
Addition, Dec. 10, 2017, 12:50 PM/12:57 PM EST. Slept sometime between 5:08 AM and 12:12 PM. Still got thirsty and dry-eyed, and I'm not sure it happened any later than usual, but maybe. Fortunately, I think I feel rested enough anyway.
Addition, Dec. 10, 2017, 1:06 PM EST. Maybe I should try drinking a lot of milk before sleep, since milk contains electrolytes, and "milk is superior to water and sports drinks at replenishing fluids following exercise."
Additions, Dec. 11, 2017, 2:17 AM/2:26 AM EST. Have been doing so well I was in the mood to program a bit, and did so, to tidy up some of my Bash scripts that I use for dealing with VUE-related things.
Found this article:
"ASAP Science explained that your pituitary gland controls the release of the anti-diuretic hormone (ADH). In normal circumstances, ADH travels to the kidneys where they stimulate the retention of water to keep our body at a happy medium of hydration. Caffeine inhibits the release of ADH, which results in less water being reabsorbed into your body and more being converted into urine. Caffeine belongs to a group of chemicals called xanthine, and these are able to block the body's reabsorption of sodium. When this occurs, rather than returning to the blood stream, the sodium stays in the fluid where it becomes urine."
Maybe I'll trying soaking chia seeds in cow's milk at some point. I wonder if it will be more or less hydrating than cow's milk by itself.
Addition, Dec. 11, 2017, 2:56 PM EST. Slept sometime between 5:19 AM and 1:39 PM. Got thirsty, and felt rather lousy at first, but, have been feeling better and much more alert recently, even though I didn't even have my vitamins yet nor anything else but water.
Wondering if maybe I've been needing more Omega 3 lately. Both flaxseed and chia seeds are reputed to contain a lot of that, and so far I suspect the chia seeds are probably doing me some good, though I think ground flaxseed has more mood-improving effects on me.
Found this page of Omega 3 deficiency symptoms. I don't have most of those symptoms, but, it does mention "Some people may experience excessive thirst and excess urination. Dry eyes and excess earwax buildup may also develop."
Addition, Dec. 11, 2017, 3:17 PM EST. Getting 8 more smoothie glasses with lids soon, because currently, they only cost $10.99 for 4 of them.
Addition, Dec. 11, 2017, 4:32 PM EST. Getting 4 more smoothie glasses with lids - so, 12 new glasses in all - since I probably have room for them in my mini-fridge.
Addition, Dec. 12, 2017, 2:30 AM EST. The family refrigerator stopped working, but, we're hoping that once it defrosts, it might start working again, just like last year.
And, speaking of cold, I'm feeling quite cold now, even though it's 64.4 degrees in my room. Not sure if that means I'm not eating enough, or what. My most recent big meal was spaghetti and meatballs around 5:30 PM.
Watched various TV shows with family. The one that intrigued me most was The Healer. Quite amazing, if that's real. And also very comforting.
Addition, Dec. 12, 2017, 4:38 PM EST. I think the family fridge is still defrosting.
Addition, Dec. 13, 2017, 3:58 AM EST. It seems like my chia seeds soaked in both undiluted and diluted grape juice didn't turn out as well as the ones I soaked in plain water. Not as tapioca-like. I'm reluctant to even drink much of that grape juice now.
Addition, Dec. 13, 2017, 2:16 PM EST. Slept sometime between 5:46 AM and 12 PM. I think I haven't been woken up by thirst in the middle of my sleep as much, but, in the end, woke up thirsty with dry eyes. I drank some water, and then milk, which I think helped more. Haven't been drinking vegetable juice + blackstrap molasses since Dec. 7th, but, maybe ought to resume that, or make some more bean soup.
Not craving even tea at the moment, but probably the earlier I have that, the better, to avoid the caffeine possibly messing with my sleep. Except it will mess with my appetite.
Additions, Dec. 14, 2017, 3:47 AM/6:54 AM EST. Still not really tired, perhaps because I had tea later than I intended, around 7 or 8 PM.
Did much the same stuff as yesterday - reading, programming, and watching TV with family.
Been feeling so much more back to normal lately. Did around 1 minute of high-intensity exercise biking today. Deliberately and for exercise, I went up and downstairs numerous times to wash 10 out of my 12 new glasses, one at a time. And was so impatient waiting for 5 minutes for my tea to finish microwaving that I paced around a while. So, plenty of energy even before drinking tea.
Addition, Dec. 14, 2017, 7:21 AM EST. Been too sleepy to get any more programming done, so, I just read and web-browsed instead.
Additions, Dec. 14, 2017, 4:17 PM/4:34 PM EST. Slept sometime between 7:29 AM and 2:05 PM. Slept probably OK enough maybe, but got a bit thirsty, and my nose was a bit clogged at times.
Addition, Dec. 15, 2017, 12:42 AM EST. Still didn't reboot my computer, since I fell asleep again sometime between 7:15 PM and 11:52 PM.
Addition, Dec. 15, 2017, 3:34 AM EST. Been feeling quite alert (even though I haven't had tea yet), and in an increasingly good mood since I'm finally getting various messy collections of computer files organized.
Addition, Dec. 15, 2017, 5:16 PM EST. Slept sometime between 9:16 AM and 2:12 PM, after feeling somewhat sleepy for hours. Skipped tea, but haven't felt like I'm getting caffeine withdrawal so far. Yesterday, finally had part of a partway filled glass of vegetable juice with 1 spoonful of blackstrap molasses.
Still haven't rebooted my computer, since I still am trying to get more organized first.
Addition, Dec. 16, 2017, 12:34 AM EST. Got a bit tired many hours ago after eating Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, though I got more alert again a while after that.
Addition, Dec. 16, 2017, 3:25 PM EST. Slept sometime between 5:27 AM and 1:43 PM. Still had trouble with thirst and a slightly stuffy nose waking me up.
Addition, Dec. 31, 2017, 1:50 PM EST. My time of the month was later than I expected, and started Dec. 23rd around 7:48 AM. Needed 2 Advils for my cramps in the beginning, but later on only needed 1 more Advil, and, as usual, none after the 1st day.
Still haven't rebooted my computer, but, as of today, I finally made enough useful notes and reorganized my files enough to feel prepared to do so.
I sometimes have had trouble with dry eyes (mostly when I get tired), but, I think maybe magnesium, Omega 3, and getting more Vitamin A in my diet might be helping me with that and in other ways.
Slept sometime between 6:07 AM and 11:25 AM. Felt kind of sleepy while writing this, but, am more cheerful and alert now that I'm just about done writing it. Just wanted to post at least one update here before the year ends.
