p i x e l s c r i b b l e s – Page 91 – the thoughts and experiences of Heather Meadows

Now if I can just make it through the day…

Last night was not fun, and I hope it’s not an experience I have to repeat anytime soon.

I tried to get to sleep at around 11. Thinking it would help clear my sinuses, I put a cough drop in my mouth. Three hours of fitful sleep later, I awoke feeling like there were gobs of mucus in the back of my throat and with that old familiar hitching in my lungs. Lovely.

I got rid of the cough drop and tried to get back to sleep, but no matter what I did, it was impossible. I got up several times and messed around online, but I was really too tired to enjoy or care too much about what I was doing. Whenever I tried to get back in bed, I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t relax.

Finally I tried the decongestant that worked for me the other day. It dried my throat out, which was sort of a relief and sort of made me nauseous, but I still couldn’t actually get to sleep.

It was around 5 or 6 when I finally asked Sean to please come sit next to me because I couldn’t calm down. He snuggled into bed behind me and wrapped his arms around me and stroked the skin of my back and legs.

And I was able to concentrate on the niceness of that feeling, instead of all the other things that always race through my mind when I go to bed these days. It seems like every night I think about how I wish I was back in the old apartment, or I miss some item we used to own, or I think about how I’ve “chosen” not to worry about having kids since it’s impossible, or I ponder how far away I live from my family, or I wish I could figure out if I want to buy a house here or move away. I think it would be pretty ridiculous at this point to try and claim that stress isn’t a factor in how I’ve been feeling. I’m just not sure what to do about it.

Anyway, I am so thankful that Sean calmed me down enough that I finally slipped off to sleep. I’m not sure how much sleep I actually got, and I feel like crap right now, but I know I’d feel even worse if I hadn’t gotten any sleep at all.

Side note: I noticed yesterday that the veins that normally stick out of my feet don’t, anymore. It kind of weirded me out.

Side note #2: I think, constantly, “Remember back when I could breathe?” or “Remember back when I didn’t feel terrible?” I’m really annoying myself. It’s not that clever, Heather.

Side note #3: I’m going to a specialist tomorrow who will hopefully figure something out about my respiration/pulmonary function. I’ve had friends who’ve said it sounds like allergies and friends who’ve said it sounds like sleep apnea. Looking forward to a doctor’s opinion.

Side note #4: Why am I so sweaty all the time?

Beauty secrets revealed

My Boss: Hey, I like your hair! What’d you do differently?

Me: I took a bath, then slept on it.

Totally hot

Young Bruce Wayne yes.

Can I keep him?

I saw the table I want on HGTV

So I have the TV on in my office today, and I’m flipping between the US Open and HGTV. There was a show where two 22-year-olds were buying their first house after living with their parents and saving up money like crazy. Neat story. The two of them had two inspirational decoration pieces that the guy’s parents had brought back from Japan. One was a wood carving of a Chinese character that meant good health, good life, or something. The other was a painting that looked to be in the Chinese style, at least to me. The guy said he was definitely interested in “Oriental” designs–I think it’s still okay to say “Oriental” when you’re talking about decorating, but it seems weird to me.

The narrator kept referring to the new homeowners as “Grasshopper”, as though kung fu had anything to do with Japan (I think the Shaolin monks might have something to say about that). Meanwhile, the designer decorated the kitchen cabinets with horrible renderings of Chinese characters, but at least he had a sense of humor about it–he mixed the traditional “honor” and crap like that with stuff like “candy” and “chicken”.

The thing I was most interested in was the dining room, where they laid out bamboo mats to cover the ugly floor and then put in a low table. The designer made the table by hand, and he designed extensions for it so it could be used at a height that’s normal for westerners.

I have been trying to figure out how to design a table with extensions for awhile now. I would prefer that the legs either fold out or be latched under the table, so the extra legs don’t take up additional space in the house. I want either a black table, to go along with all my black furniture, or a more traditional natural wood, stained/lacquered? table.

It was neat to see someone actually doing something like what I want, even if in this case the extensions had to be stored.

I’ve also thought about putting down bamboo mats in my dining room, but it doesn’t seem like it would work right with the kitchen entrance. Plus the chandelier just doesn’t go with a Japanese style room, so I’ve been loath to decorate it at all.

Maybe someday when we move I’ll have the Japanese-style dining room I envision :)

I also want a Japanese-style bath…

Dilated

I’m at home waiting for my pupils to, uh, de-dilate. It’s taking forever. Then again, it’s been forever since I’ve had an eye appointment, so I guess fair’s fair.

When I’m good to go again I’ll head back over to the eye place and see about getting my new glasses–it’s kind of hard to select frames when you can’t see them–and then go to my regular doctor to force him to figure something out about my allergies.

After that I’ll finally head in to work.

Bleh, I’ve had way too many doctors’ appointments lately…

Meds

In case you’re remotely interested, here are this week’s meds. Prescriptions, vitamins, the whole nine yards.

I swallow each day’s portion all at once.

The pink pills are Benadryl, to be taken before bed. I take the rest of them in the morning.

Next year I’ll be 30, but from this it looks like I’m two or three times that, doesn’t it?

Childhoods

It sounds like there’s a lot more to this story. I’m looking forward to seeing what V posts tomorrow.

Wisdom

“I’m ready for something new and exciting in my life,” I said, posing dramatically. “And you have to help me.”

“Go to bed,” Sean replied.

Well…fair enough.

Saturday

Wow, I have a lot of time

I got up at 5 am today because I needed to update some videos from last night’s football coverage for work. I was thinking I would just go back to bed after that and sleep away my weekend like usual, but once I was finished working (it barely took any time at all) I really wasn’t tired anymore. So I stayed up and cooked Sean some bacon, sunny-side-up eggs, and grits.

I have finally learned how to cook bacon properly! It’s only taken me, what, 15 years? What I’ve been doing wrong all this time is getting impatient and turning the heat up too high. Also, apparently it’s best to start with a cold pan? I learned that tip over at Cooking for Engineers.

Sean thought the bacon was awesome. So I was very pleased. I also ate two pieces and liked them a lot better than the oh-so-crispy bacon from the other day.

After eating breakfast, Sean went to bed. I had cleaned the kitchen while I was cooking, so I fiddled around online a little, but ultimately decided to get my walk over with before it got too hot. The sun was already rising.

Then it occurred to me: why not go biking instead? It’s the weekend and there’s plenty of time. So I detached the bike from its stand, carted it out to the car, popped a wheel off, and slid it into the back. Let me say that it is much easier to get the bike in there once the front wheel is removed!

I went up to the Greeneway. I figured that would be best since it’s a solid surface and quite shaded, which would both help me since I hadn’t biked in quite some time. I also intended to go to work after biking and see about rearranging my office, and the Greeneway is quite close by, whereas the Canal entrance I like to bike from is on the complete opposite side of town.

I decided to start from the Rapids parking/Martintown Road entrance, where the bridge is, because I honestly didn’t know how far I was going to be able to make it, and I really wanted to be able to reach a goal, like the Pisgah Road end of the Greeneway. Getting the bike out of the car and reassembled was a breeze, and then I was off.

And wow. I knew it was going to be bad, but I was still unprepared for how winded I felt right at the beginning. I countered this by slowing down. Back in the day I would try to stay above 8 mph (12 was optimal); today I averaged about 6.4. But I was able to make it all the way to the end, and I only stopped to rest once in the middle.

I was right about the shade being beneficial. It actually felt like a nice, cool spring morning. It apparently rained last night, which probably helped (and added to the “springy” feel). The upshot is that I wasn’t uncomfortable at all, especially when I was moving. It felt like there was a cool breeze.

I also had my Outspokin’ water bottle with me and I made sure to stay hydrated, drinking lots of water when I stopped for a break and when I got to the end.

The ride back was what I’d been waiting for. As longtime readers and Greeneway frequenters know, it’s downhill. It’s not hard to get to 12mph downhill, which I did. I also rode no-handed the entire way, save for when I had to cross the street or pass people.

I may be out of shape, but I can still ride a bicycle no-handed, damn it! :D

Riding no-handed forced me to pedal pretty much the entire time in order to better keep my balance, so while the workout on the way back obviously wasn’t as high-intensity as the way up, it wasn’t just me coasting along, either.

It did feel great, though–the cool air whipping around me, my arms at my sides, my feet casually pushing the pedals.

In all I rode 3.2 miles, which sounds really pathetic to me, but it’s a first step. I was pretty pathetic back when I originally started biking, too, and I got to where I was pretty awesome after awhile. It’ll come back.

I did go to the office after that, and I did pull my desk away from the wall, but then I noticed some cables going into my video encoder that don’t exist on the other wall. I’ll have to look into what those are and see if it’s possible to have them on the other side of the room. I have no problem with running two CAT 5 cables across the floor and lying a big rug over the cords, which I will have to do in order to have enough internet connections at my desk, but I don’t want to get ridiculous with it.

My office is large, but the shape is problematic, as I’ve mentioned before. Ultimately I want to be able to sit in a corner with my back to the wall so people aren’t constantly behind me, but it seems like it’s going to be very difficult to achieve that.

After seeing the extra wires, I decided to leave things as they were until I had consulted with the IT guy. So I shoved the desk back into position and headed home.

I got here at around 9 o’clock. 9 o’clock! Look at everything I’ve done today, and all way before I would be going into work on a weekday. Today I don’t have work…so what am I going to fill all those extra hours with?

Well, I’m thinking about finally driving out to see the dam. I’m also considering going to Lincolnton.

For now, though, I’m going to stay in the cool and rest a bit, eat a bowl of cereal, and watch some Touch, which I started watching yet again the other day.

Never mind

So I got involved writing a critique of a poem Jered wrote (actually I gave him the poem as a “homework assignment”), and now the sun’s like way up and I’m sure it’s hot as hell out there. I think what I’m going to do is just stay in, work on lunches and dinner, maybe watch some anime, and try to go over to the Y on my lunch break. ;P

Tonight’s going to be interesting; I’m supposed to do some work for my regular job at around 11:30pm. This will happen every Friday for the rest of the football season. Originally it wasn’t going to be me doing it, but I’m a control freak and ended up volunteering, since it involves using my work computer.

Normally, of course, I would be asleep at that time. So we’ll see how this goes!

4 o’clock fluke

On Wednesday I woke up at 4 o’clock. I was able to cook breakfast and dinner, as well as get in a workout and do some freelance work as I’d done the day before.

I tried to do the same yesterday, because I planned to go to my freelance job earlier and I wanted to get some sort of workout in before that, but I ended up getting up at 5:30, which didn’t seem like enough time to work out properly and still manage to feed Sean. I did go to the grocery store instead, though, and on my way back I got Sean a couple of breakfast biscuits from McDonald’s. But I barely had time to put anything away, I didn’t cook that night’s dinner, I was only able to pack a lunch because there were still some leftovers from Wednesday, and the kitchen was a mess.

This morning I woke up even later, at 6:30. I called the guy I’m doing freelance for and told him I couldn’t make it today. The purpose of getting up early was to get in a workout, get my meals prepared, and spend time with Sean, not to have time for a second job. While I will appreciate the extra income, the other things take priority. I’m still easing into this, as evidenced by my inability to get up ridiculously early on a consistent basis, but I don’t want to let the important things slide.

Disenhearteningly (which is apparently not a word), I awoke with that same raspiness (also not a word) in my chest and throat. Lovely.

(I’m enjoying Firefox’s spell-checker. But come on, I think it’s past time for spellchecker to be all one word.)

I’ve been feeling pretty good this week, overall.

I did get the lab results back from the doctor, and I’ll go and talk with him about them on Tuesday. My cholesterol is high. My thyroid is borderline. The endocrinologist called me back to ask that I add a complete metabolic profile to the labs she requested, which I will be having drawn sometime next month (I have to start the progesterone on the 1st, and then have the labs done on day 2 or 3 of my period).

In response to the cholesterol I am trying to figure out ways to include more veggies in my diet, and less meats. It turns out I can steam frozen veggies in the microwave at work pretty easily, so if nothing else I can always grab a bag from the freezer to put in my lunch. I’d love to eat more salad, but it seems like when I buy bagged salads they go bad before I eat them. Now I’m considering the tried and true head of lettuce method.

Today’s lunch is going to be a BLT, I think, because I have leftover bacon from Wednesday and I just bought tomatoes. No lettuce though…

As far as my productivity, I feel that it’s up, but there are still things I need to deal with, like getting the desk in the second bedroom disassembled so a work friend can take it, dealing with the weird smell in that room, finding a smaller desk to put in there, and assembling our second media cabinet for the living room. I’m also planning to rearrange my office at work soon, which has kept me thinking. It’s really an awkward space with awkward furniture; hopefully the idea I have in mind will work out.

Speaking of working out (har), I’d better get outside for my walk before it gets too much hotter.

New schedule

I woke up this morning at around 4 o’clock. Due to a combination of not really feeling tired and Sean’s talking and laughing floating through the door, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I’d set the alarm for 6, thinking that if I woke up earlier I’d go ahead and get up, but when I thought “earlier” I was thinking 5 or 5:30, so this seemed a little ridiculous at first.

Still, I got up, and went ahead and put on my workout clothes and put up my hair. (It’s long enough now that I can do those goofy pigtails on either side of my head, which I do in order to lessen the sweatosity. Sure, sweatosity’s a word.)

Then I cleaned the kitchen, which just involved getting everything in the sink into the dishwasher.

I asked Sean if he was hungry and if he wanted breakfast or dinner. Even though for him this would be his last meal of the day, he always wants to have breakfast in the Circadian morning. So that’s what he asked for. This sort of put a crimp in my plans to make a dinner and then pack up my half for lunch, but I improvised and cooked breakfast and dinner at the same time.

Breakfast consisted of eggs, bacon, and pancakes made from the batter I’d made a couple days ago. I thinned the batter out with some milk and the pancakes seemed to turn out better. Does my batter need to be left in the fridge for awhile and then thinned, or is this just due to the Bisquick being a little old? In any case, I also considered grits, but I decided the preceding was plenty of food.

For dinner, I found a recipe in my Taste of Home cookbook for meatloaf, so I whipped that up, even chopping an onion for it. I used part of the onion in the eggs and put the rest in a Ziploc bag in the fridge. Unfortunately I don’t have a loaf pan so the meatloaf went into a cake pan…hope it’s not too dry.

I also made some sour cream and chive scalloped potatoes a la Betty Crocker, starting them later than the meatloaf (they take less time to cook–though I guess I don’t really need to have everything come out at the same time when I’m cooking in advance. Habit, I suppose).

I’ll top all that off with broccoli. Sean says he doesn’t want to take his dinner to work, so I’m taking frozen veggies with me to steam in the work microwave, and I’ll make his veggies tonight when I get home so he’ll have them when he gets here at 11:45.

As soon as the sun came up I went on my walk. It was longer than I thought it was; I got back at 7:30, which meant either I would have to leave things unfinished or go to my freelance work late. Freelance took the hit because I wanted to have time to dress, pack lunches, and finish this post.

After the freelance work I’ll head to regular work, just like yesterday.

This seems like a pretty decent schedule. The rush towards the end isn’t great, but I’m trapped by the time the sun comes up and the time the freelance place opens. Then again, I won’t be doing freelance work every morning, so I suppose it’ll be okay every once in awhile. Weather.com says the sun rose at 6:55, which is later than the 6:45 I was assuming, so that explains the rush a little. I don’t guess this is going to work as well once fall gets here.

Another issue is that I’m really not all that hungry in the morning, so most of my lovely breakfast remained uneaten. Then again, I suppose that’s good for my diet ;> I think I’ll shift to cooking breakfast just for Sean tomorrow (it’ll be good to ensure he’s getting at least two square meals) and grab a bowl of cereal or Slim-Fast for myself.

Good news! You’re wearing contaminated clothes!

China – The leading exporter of biohazards

Scientists in New Zealand have found formaldehyde, which is used to give clothing a permanent press and to prevent mildew, at levels of up to 500 times greater than that considered safe for humans in woolen and cotton clothing made in China.

Research by the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that exposure to concentrations of formaldehyde of 20 parts per million (ppm) can cause eye, skin and nasal irritation, respiratory problems, asthma, and cancer. Consumers normally are advised to wash and air clothing before wearing it for the first time.

That’s just a little scary, isn’t it? Would washing the clothes first get rid of the formaldehyde? I normally do that, but there have been times when I haven’t…

Sheesh, you can’t eat the food exports and now you can’t wear the clothes. Time to start paying out the nose for everything :>

Women prefer pink

Researchers speculate that because women largely picked colors close to the pink end of the blue spectrum in a study, this means that women have evolved to prefer those colors.

The participants were grown women, who’ve been indoctrinated into their culture(s). Don’t you think nurture might also have a part to play, not just nature?

Of course, the news article might have left out some reasoning, just like they left out where the sample came from (just England? English-speaking countries? Around the world?) and how many people were sampled. (“A group”…sounds comprehensive!) And we do have to consider that this is just the researchers’ theory. But are they even looking into the environmental possibility?

I would redo this study with babies. And I would redo it on people from a multitude of different cultures.