Woke up twice in the night, once around 3:30 and once around 6, due to various body pains that need not be discussed (not heart-related). Then I snoozed until 8 and lounged around in bed a bit before getting up.

• Got up, had protein shake, took morning meds
• Dawdled online until it was too late to have a walk before therapy
• Showered and dressed; my nice jeans fit again!
• Went to therapy and had a very nice session
• Came home and messed around online some more
• Had a lunch of yogurt and trail mix
• Walked a 5k! (I could have done a shorter loop but I felt like going farther, and the trail is flat so it wasn’t difficult)
• Showered again; I was sooooo sweaty
• Ate the leftover peas, about 1 cup

Sean came home while I was eating the peas and said, “Wanna do sushi?” Of course I did. “When?” I asked. “Now?” But alas, it was a little after 4pm, and they don’t open until 5:30. So I called and made a reservation for then, and finished my peas.

• Started editing the story I wrote yesterday
• Went to dinner and had sashimi

At Sushi Huku the sashimi platter is a combo that comes with miso soup and salad; I couldn’t eat either of these because the soup and salad dressing both had a ton of sodium. Sean ate the miso and I took a couple bites of lettuce. The sashimi was fantastic, though.

At the end of the meal they gave us little bowls of flan, and I did eat that! It was a nice palette cleanser, and if MyFitnessPal is right, there wasn’t an exorbitant amount of sodium in it.

• Came home and ate a brownie while continuing to edit my story
• Put my story into Google Docs and invited a couple people to comment
• Went to bed at around 12:30am

• Got up, had protein shake, and took meds
• Dressed in workout clothes
• Went on a 35-minute walk (I think maybe the last 2 minutes can count as a cooldown)
• Took shower and dressed in shorts and T-shirt

When I got changed I tried on a skirt that Mom got me from Modcloth as a birthday present. When I first received it back in May or June or whatever, I couldn’t zip it all the way up. Today I could! And it looks pretty cute. I think I will take it on my upcoming New York trip.

• Wrote ~700 words on a short story
• Got a chai latte and protein bistro box for lunch
• Continued writing for hours
• Ate the leftover half of that Mediterranean salad for dinner
• Ran an errand to Kroger and got a sweet tea to increase my Writing Energy

Note 7:35pm: As of right now, the story is at 3297 words, which is incredible for me to have written in one day. Then again, I haven’t written anything in weeks. I’m going to try to write more.

• Wrote until 11:30, finishing at over 6000 words
• Took bedtime supplements and went to sleep

It’s September 26, day 13 since I started trying to eat less sodium and take walks every day. I haven’t managed every single day but I’ve done a lot of walking. I haven’t walked yet today because I had a doctor’s appointment at 10:30; I will go a little later, I think.

My period is over; it ended yesterday and I am very relieved.

• Got up, showered, and dressed in normal clothes
• Had protein shake and morning meds
• Went to the doctor

The doctor visit was just to catch my PCP up on all the Happenings™. And also one little tiny kinda gross thing that doesn’t need to be mentioned. It went fine and I am home again.

• Ate half the salad I bought last night, so as to not destroy my sodium count for the day
• Read stuff online until Sean got home
• Cooked a dinner of grilled chicken, boiled peas, and mashed potatoes, all with no salt
• Ate dinner and took meds
• Purposefully avoided watching the presidential debate
• Went to bed around 11:30pm

I did not go on my walk. I thought I’d go after I cooked dinner, but in retrospect that plan made no sense.

I am still on my period. Will it last until Wednesday? This is day 13. If it lasts till Wednesday it’ll be a 15-day period. That’s…pretty long

• Got up, had shake, and took meds
• Did two loads of laundry
• Got dressed in workout clothes
• Took 30-minute walk with 5-minute warmup and 3-minute cooldown
• Showered and dressed in regular clothes
• Heated up leftover steak from last night

Note 2pm: It looks like my period may be over! Thank goodness. Now to bolt down some protein before heading out with Charles and Heidi.

• Ate leftover steak from last night
• Switched wallet and such to my camera bag, filled a water bottle, and headed out
• Went to the Atlanta Greek Festival with Charles and Heidi

Note 6:15pm: It was awesome. They seem to have a whole new building this year? Or are making use of a building they didn’t use before. In any case, the vendors were all set up in a large ballroom, and it was far easier to navigate. In the past they’ve tried having them in the classrooms of the cathedral building and outside next to the stage, and neither of those places really allowed for good traffic flow, so this was great.

I had a chicken plate. I skipped the white bread roll (digestive issues) and the green beans (way too much sodium) and ate most of the chicken, about half of the rice, and the whole piece of spanakopita. It was really good. After that we went and got pastries (I got three pieces of baklava, one for today and two for other days) and then went back to the vendor area so I could buy a bowl I had spotted earlier. It’s gorgeous FYI:

I also saw an amazing matryoshka wooden apple with the most meticulous, beautiful artwork on it. It was the best of all the matryoshkas I saw. Unfortunately it was $200, so I did not get it.

• Came home
• Ate a piece of baklava
• Picked up Wendy’s for dinner, since the Greek food was at like 4:30

I thought a salad would be safe, sodium-wise. I was wrong. The salad I chose had 1070mg of sodium, which given what else I’d eaten was not going to happen. Thankfully I had also gotten a small chocolate Frosty, so I ate that instead and saved the salad for another day.

• Went to bed at 10pm

Whoops, I forgot to even make a post yesterday. So here’s September 24, 2016

• Got up, had protein shake and meds
• Snuggled with Sean for a long time
• Showered and got dressed; wore my size 8 shorts that I am really happy fit me again
• Went to brunch with Sean; did pretty well on sodium
• Basically goofed off on the computer until dinnertime
• Went to Aspens with Sean for dinner; wore a nice dress

Note: We had a nice date because of Sean’s birthday, which was the day before. I splurged a bit on dinner but I did make sure they didn’t use salt when seasoning my steak. They gave us a Happy Birthday slice of red velvet cake for free and we also got apple cobbler. I had some of each.

• Took my meds at the end of the meal as I had forgotten they were in my purse; almost lost the tiny heart pill when I dropped it but when I stood up it was somehow in my chair
• Drove home as Sean had had some drinks
• Goofed off online until bedtime

September 23, 2016. Period: Day 11.

Ugh.

• Got up around 8:30
• Took morning meds and had shake

Note 9:45am: I feel crappy. I don’t want to do anything. I need to do things. I am going to force myself to do things.

• Did a task I had been foolishly putting off
• Went on a 35-minute walk with a 3-minute cooldown
• Got a phone call that greatly relieved me about the task I’d been putting off
• Took shower
• Got dressed; discovered my size 8 shorts fit me again!
• Made myself some over-medium eggs (they broke) and toast
• Ate some Whoppers and got uncomfortably full ;_;
• Drove up to the doctor’s to get some paperwork filled out

Note 2:50pm: I found out that my kidneys are actually worse than they were in the hospital! Fantastic. So I need to drink a lot of fluids, but if I gain any weight I have to not drink a lot of fluids, on account of: heart failure. Double fantastic! I love the thought of being on dialysis

I am exhausted and as soon as I get this paperwork to HR I am going to bed.

• Organized paperwork and sent it to HR
• Got Sean’s paycheck out of the mailbox, drove to the bank, and deposited it
• Divided a bag of trail mix into single-serving baggie portions (95mg sodium each)
• Napped from a little after 5 until just before 8
• Ate a yogurt and some peanut M&Ms for dinner (I need to get some sort of meal system going)
• Picked up Sean from the airport at like 11pm
• Got in bed sometime between midnight and 1 but didn’t get to sleep until around 3

Tomorrow Sean gets home, and it’s also his birthday. I want to do something nice.

• Got up at 7:30am
• Weighed myself
• Drank protein shake and took morning meds
• Did a bit of reading and chatting
• Went to the lab to have bloodwork drawn
• Went to breakfast at J. Christopher’s, where I had the “South Beach” and discovered that two pieces of Canadian bacon have more sodium than two pieces of regular bacon (probably due to density or something)
• Went to Costco and got protein shakes; while I was there looked for a big pillow to use for sitting up in bed, but did not find one
• Went to Walmart for eggs, rice, and snacks; did not find a pillow there either, but did get a Kylo Ren candy fan because I am an adult

The candy doesn’t have any sodium okay

• Came home and put groceries away, mostly; took it slow carrying the bags down the stairs
• Sat down to rest a bit; read stuff online
• Warmed up the second portion of the dinner I made yesterday; took my dinner meds and ate dinner while watching Batman v Superman: Ultimate Edition
• Watched three episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine with Kathryn
• Watched a friend’s art stream
• Went to bed at around 11:30pm

Here’s my junk for September 20, 2016.

• Slept in until around 8:30
• Took meds and drank protein shake
• Sat around online all morning

Note 11am: I am now going on my walk, damn it. Need to get back on track.

• Walked 30 minutes with a 5-minute cooldown
• Rested
• Showered and got dressed
• Ate the rest of my personal pan pizza for lunch
• Made a couple of Important Phone Calls
• Relaxed and read stories
• Got a protein bistro box and a chai latte from Starbucks for dinner

Note 6:30pm: I have just learned that the fruit and cheese bistro box and the PB&J on wheat bistro box both have one more gram of protein than the protein bistro box. Why is it called the protein bistro box? hahaha. The fruit and cheese one has basically equivalent sodium, so I can switch things up a bit in the future! The PB&J one has 100 more milligrams of sodium, so I’d have to watch it with that one.

• Had mealtime meds with dinner
• Basically sat around reading all evening
• Went to bed around 11pm

Catching up; here’s September 19, 2016.

• Did not exercise
• Did not even change out of my pajamas
• Spent all day on the computer reading stories
• Thought about watching TV but did not

I guess the only thing I accomplished was moving my computer from the master bedroom back into the office. I took it slow so I wouldn’t strain myself.

For food I basically ate a ton of snacks that we had in the house, and finished the sashimi from the day before. By dinnertime I was really craving pizza so I let myself have some. I ordered a personal pan pizza and ate half of it. I went a little over on sodium, but not horribly so.

This was not a great day. Hoping to get back on track. Maybe I needed some rest. I dunno.

I’ve fallen behind on these, so here’s what I did on September 18, 2016.

This was a fairly busy day. Sean and I had to go to an appointment and then I had to take him directly to the airport. We realized somewhat belatedly that we hadn’t done laundry, so we threw a load into the washer, got ourselves cleaned up, and then put the laundry in the dryer while we went out to brunch. We got back, got him packed, and headed off to our appointment. Success.

I did not do any exercise this day that I can think of. But I did log my food in MyFitnessPal as I’ve been doing every day.

For dinner I took myself out for sashimi. I had used up most of my daily sodium on brunch (I somehow forgot what “cured” means when I decided on the citrus cured salmon). Raw fish with no rice and no soup beforehand is pretty low in sodium. I went to SunO afterwards and had some shaved ice, which is also low in sodium but high in sugar. Oh well.

For September 17, 2016, here’s some stuff.

• Woke up naturally at around 7:30 (after going back to bed around 3:30).
• Had protein shake and took morning meds.
• Ate some trail mix and fiddled around online until it was time to go to JapanFest. (I had to stop reading chapter 21 of Under the Ruins… right after a Very Exciting Scene and I am looking forward to getting back to it)
• Drove to JapanFest. Briefly wondered if it was wise to drive on the interstate, but did fine.
• From around noon till 2:30, walked around JapanFest with Charles and Heidi, occasionally stopping for rest breaks. It was fun but extremely crowded. I am counting this as my exercise for the day; it was a lot of standing and moving around, even if it wasn’t strenuous. The best part was getting to see Kumamon, the mascot character for Kumamoto Prefecture.
• Somewhere in there I ate lunch. I gave up on guessing which Japanese food would have the least amount of sodium and just bought prepackaged stuff: curry bread and mojimi red bean cakes.
• I got home around 4 and Sean was just then having dinner, so I ate some snacks and took my heart medicine with them.
• Basically relaxed for the rest of the day. Ate macaroni and cheese at 9pm.
• Went to bed at 11:45.

Stuff for Friday, September 16, 2016

• Due to staying up late, slept in till 8:30
• Drank protein shake and took morning meds

Note 10:05am: I am really depressed this morning. Mainly because I wrote a short story yesterday and did not get flooded with accolades overnight. I hate how dependent I am on praise/validation. I’m hoping my walk will help.

• Dressed in workout clothes
• Went on 30-minute walk with 5-minute warmup and 5-minute cooldown
• Rested and ate a yogurt
• Showered, and actually shaved!

Note 12:23pm: Okay wow, they say exercise is good for depression and it is true. I pushed myself on my walk, not too hard but enough—I walked up steep hills and even jogged a little. The weather was beautiful and when I was done I felt great. I didn’t care about my story not getting comments anymore. I felt very positive about the future and my ability to do things if I try. After resting I took a shower and felt good enough to stand there and shave my legs, which I hadn’t done in quite some time. It’s so nice to wear shorts again.

I’m going to lie down a bit, but I’m still feeling good. I’m glad I had that walk.

• Took a nap for about an hour and a half
• At Sean’s suggestion, went up the road to Smoothie King and got a Greek yogurt smoothie for lunch
• Did some reading
• Felt kind of cruddy so went back to bed at about 5:30pm…and slept until 12:30am! o_o
• Got up and quickly ate a Lunchable so I could take my mealtime meds

Note 1:37am: Well, I have destroyed my sleep schedule probably, but I feel okay. I didn’t really eat enough yesterday, but since I overate the day before, maybe it balances out. This weekend is JapanFest and I’m going to go, but I won’t be as active as I have in years past I guess! I may have to leave early, even. We’ll see. I’m also not sure how eating will be, I usually have lunch there but I have a feeling all the food will be really salty. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow.