'Just Keep Swimming' while asleep, y/n?
Aug. 5th, 2013 03:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrysilla[Oops. I wrote most of this on August 1st, and then saved it, and forgot to finish and post it. Well... extra long post today, yay?]
Two weeks ago I was worried that I was falling into old body-habits, b/c I was doing that most-awake-at-bedtime pattern again. Last week I was crashing out early like I was in the weeks before that. So... yay? Even with chocolate and/or ice cream snacks after sunset. But it was also that much harder getting up in the morning, and 8.5 hours of sleep didn't fix it, and then 9 hours didn't either. Not sure if this was a hangover from last week's (hormone induced?) frenzy, or something else. The pollen count was low all week, at least.
Last Wednesday after work I walked through the West Village b/c it was such a nice day, and I wanted to see what happened. Had a Kind bar first so I wasn't hungry or stressed. I felt OK on the walk, but once I sat down on the train my body/energy just crashed. I guess that's what happens. *shrugs*
Thursday and Friday nite I ran some errands, but was pretty wiped afterwards. On the upside, finally got my Home Depot order, some gf leave-in detangling conditioner (and more gf brands to research), some extra clay (which apparently I didn't need afterall *headdesk*), and some personal stuff I needed to stock up on. One trip involved sales and gift certificates, so yay for that.
Didn't have the energy or motor function to work on more of my costume stuff last week, but was able to catch up on the weekend, and now all of my costume bits are done for "Steampunk Delenn". Belt with buckle, brooch, wire tiara, triluminary, extra handbag. And some extra doodads requested by our Ivanova, w00t.
Four weeks until DragonCon! Squeeeeeee!
I also spent/wasted some time overthinking my DCon grocery situation. In some ways I wish con would get here faster, b/c then I could put my plan into action and see if it actually works, and then stop fretting about it so much.
Went over the financial 'books' on Wednesday, as it was the very end of June. Not perfect, but a good prognosis overall :-) Didn't stick to my budgets 100%, but am still getting closer to that goal. And underspent my income overall, so there was still extra to put in savings aside from my usual deposit.
And it looks like a typical summer month will cost me about $60 in electricity, instead of $120 when I lived in Astoria, so w00t. It takes 1.5 months for them to bill me, so I only just paid late May/June this week. A non-summer month is usually less than $20. Hooray for co-ops and their finagling skillz.
For better or worse, my budget balances out almost perfectly without acupuncture expenses. I swear the spreadsheet looked *smug* about that :-P So unfortunately me and acupuncture are taking a break for the time being. But I emailed my needler about it, and she was already sympathetic about my $$ probs when we talked about it before I went on the break. But I will probably go back next June/July, which seems to be my peak "Oh dear gods migraines and sinuses" season. Now that I know the magic and mystery of long term savings, I can also save for those appointments ahead of time.
Now I can put that extra $$ into maxing out my Roth IRA each year, and whatever is left after that into con savings. If I end up starting to hate cons (will see how DCon goes), it can go into other savings accounts.
I'd wanted to get my emergency-fund savings account up to $10K this year, but just didn't have enough extra cash to make that happen. On the other hand, I may increase my 'net worth' that much by January, so that's OK.
Will limit my fun/extras budget to 2/3 of what it usually is this month, in case emergency extra-stuff is needed (usually, this relates to pest control stuff at the hardware store that I pick up while in anxiety mode :-P). And social dinner-dates tend to spring up and surprise me. Being too tired for fun hobby shopping is helping with sticking to my budget. But can also keep fun-things to a set shopping list (makeup, maybe beads) and $ limit. Also, no fabric until January at the earliest. No, I mean it this time.
Was still a bit over budget on groceries, but spent less on them overall than I have in months. I think this is due in part to me finally hitting the 'stocked-up threshold' of being a regular CostCo member. I won't be running out of non-edibles for a good while at this rate, and won't have to get as much new stuff as often. And rice & corn ain't paleo, but they are cheap. At least I have organic options for those?
This month Ima try to stick with a monthly rather than weekly grocery list, since a) I'm too hot/tired for fancy cooking of uber-perishable foods, b) can buy lots of bulk stuff at CC, c) fewer grocery trips = less temptations for splurging on extras. Had one big CC trip on Saturday, and *might* do one more after the 15th if necessary. So far my monthly groc list is only 1/2 of my grocery budget, so the last minute splurging was probly the biggest problem. There are a handful of things I would have to buy at normal stores, but I'll try to get that down to one monthly trip too. Also, fewer shopping trips = less energy. Yaaaay.
Also, the food plans all come down to my food journaling. So yay for tracking my own data and measuring out what's best for me :-)
Since last week *didn't* smack me with a heatwave, my brain is re-solidifying & I've been able to think about my food sitch with less angst. And read recipes on my rss reader without wanting to throw the monitor across the room.
In September I may finally pick up a slow cooker. Also, now that I've figured out freezer-tetris, I may try making more fruit/veg based sauces and marinades ahead of time and freeze them. Then if I need to slow-cook some pork shoulder with gf/df bbq sauce for a week's lunches, I can just pop in some sauce-cubes (yay a friend recommended that trick) and let them melt in the slow cooker. It'll all be in there for 8-10 hours anyway. Will go back to trying to unlock the Pasanda code too, but maybe with pre-cut lamb next time. Or cheaper chicken. Its really all about the sauce anyway.
In any standard 4-week month, I can probably do two weeks of sausages and two of something more interesting without driving myself nutz. I still don't want to devote all my time/energy to food anymore but I'm not sure if eating the exact same lunch every day for a month will be good for my mental health.
Not sure if I'll go back to making my own beef stock, but I'm still having a hard time finding a gluten free variety. CC has organic gf chicken stock, so that's way more convenient than making it myself, and not that much more expensive really. Less stock in the freezer means more room for sauces and frozen fruit/veg. Tho on the other hand, I don't think the food police will break down my door for using chicken stock instead of beef in my recipes :-P
I've been less-able to deal with making frozen fruit smoothies this summer, not sure why. Is it really that much work to clean the blender after each use so I can use it again the next day? :-P
Also need to do a bit more organizing of kitchen & closets b/c of all the CC stuff. Especially if I'm going to try monthly shopping trips. Still haven't figured out how to put the large rolls of paper products properly *away*, but I have some idears. This weekend I went thru the kitchen cabinets and threw out all the old plastic takeout containers that were broken, overly greasy, or just not tetris-friendly to make more room for bulk food products in my cabinets.
By brain is getting some writing-inklings now that the weather has cooled off a bit last week, but the overall lack of energy did not help. I'm doing my best not to worry, just hoping that come September my brain will work better again.
My bead kit is getting some good use on my lunch breaks at work again, so maybe a carefully-budgeted FMG order will happen this month, cuz I'm starting to run out of materials for seed bead projects. Or maybe I can push that off until September and bring something else in for lunchtime, like my patches-shirt.
Next sewing project is up in the air again. The velvet coat I've wanted for longer, but the Regency coat project is all shiny and new and experimental. The cooler, gloomier weather forecasted for this week will probly put me back into gothy mode tho, assuming it happens.
In the course of thinking over a closet-reorganization, I'm wondering if I should give away some of my old handmade jewelry displays, IE the ones I had stopped using *before* I stopped vending. Once upon a time, I got second hand picture frames from goodwill and made velvet inserts with scrap fabric, so not very expensive to make but annoying to store at present. Will probably be free to a good home that can pay for shipping.
Oh darnit, that reminds me, I still haven't fixed my Paypal account. *sigh* Darn brainfog.
Things worked out logistically for the weekend. I'd put off laundry last weekend, so this weekend I did not have room to start a new sewing project, but then again I wanted to finish all the polymer clay stuff anyway. And I did. Also, I was not overwhelmed by laundry this time b/c no-uber-heatwave, so my apartment is not covered in drying laundry.
I dropped off my fall/winter coats and jackets at a new laundromat, b/c the one I liked closed. And... its a bit sketch. Now I'm regretting giving them the handmade jacket to clean. The store-bought ones would be annoying to replace if lost or damaged, but I'd be much sadder if something happened to my purple jacket. Afterwards I talked with my local friend and there's a less-sketch place I could have gone to, so oh well. On Thursday (or Friday) I'll find out if this was a mistake or not.
Today I'm tired, but in a sleep-deprived way b/c I only got to bed in time for 7 hours of sleep, I had stressy dreams, and then woke myself out of them at a wrong part of my sleep cycle, and so my alarm rang to wake me out of *another* wrong part of my sleep cycle. My energy levels aren't that bad right now, but the brainfog is. But again, in a normal sleep-dep way rather than last week's mysterious wave of fatigue.
As for this week, there's also a Harry Potter fan meetup on Thursday that I might go to if I feel up for it, maybe in my Ravenclaw vest. Otherwise no set plans. Its kinda nice having a wide open week in my dayplanner with so little ink :-)
<3 Chrysilla
Two weeks ago I was worried that I was falling into old body-habits, b/c I was doing that most-awake-at-bedtime pattern again. Last week I was crashing out early like I was in the weeks before that. So... yay? Even with chocolate and/or ice cream snacks after sunset. But it was also that much harder getting up in the morning, and 8.5 hours of sleep didn't fix it, and then 9 hours didn't either. Not sure if this was a hangover from last week's (hormone induced?) frenzy, or something else. The pollen count was low all week, at least.
Last Wednesday after work I walked through the West Village b/c it was such a nice day, and I wanted to see what happened. Had a Kind bar first so I wasn't hungry or stressed. I felt OK on the walk, but once I sat down on the train my body/energy just crashed. I guess that's what happens. *shrugs*
Thursday and Friday nite I ran some errands, but was pretty wiped afterwards. On the upside, finally got my Home Depot order, some gf leave-in detangling conditioner (and more gf brands to research), some extra clay (which apparently I didn't need afterall *headdesk*), and some personal stuff I needed to stock up on. One trip involved sales and gift certificates, so yay for that.
Didn't have the energy or motor function to work on more of my costume stuff last week, but was able to catch up on the weekend, and now all of my costume bits are done for "Steampunk Delenn". Belt with buckle, brooch, wire tiara, triluminary, extra handbag. And some extra doodads requested by our Ivanova, w00t.
Four weeks until DragonCon! Squeeeeeee!
I also spent/wasted some time overthinking my DCon grocery situation. In some ways I wish con would get here faster, b/c then I could put my plan into action and see if it actually works, and then stop fretting about it so much.
Went over the financial 'books' on Wednesday, as it was the very end of June. Not perfect, but a good prognosis overall :-) Didn't stick to my budgets 100%, but am still getting closer to that goal. And underspent my income overall, so there was still extra to put in savings aside from my usual deposit.
And it looks like a typical summer month will cost me about $60 in electricity, instead of $120 when I lived in Astoria, so w00t. It takes 1.5 months for them to bill me, so I only just paid late May/June this week. A non-summer month is usually less than $20. Hooray for co-ops and their finagling skillz.
For better or worse, my budget balances out almost perfectly without acupuncture expenses. I swear the spreadsheet looked *smug* about that :-P So unfortunately me and acupuncture are taking a break for the time being. But I emailed my needler about it, and she was already sympathetic about my $$ probs when we talked about it before I went on the break. But I will probably go back next June/July, which seems to be my peak "Oh dear gods migraines and sinuses" season. Now that I know the magic and mystery of long term savings, I can also save for those appointments ahead of time.
Now I can put that extra $$ into maxing out my Roth IRA each year, and whatever is left after that into con savings. If I end up starting to hate cons (will see how DCon goes), it can go into other savings accounts.
I'd wanted to get my emergency-fund savings account up to $10K this year, but just didn't have enough extra cash to make that happen. On the other hand, I may increase my 'net worth' that much by January, so that's OK.
Will limit my fun/extras budget to 2/3 of what it usually is this month, in case emergency extra-stuff is needed (usually, this relates to pest control stuff at the hardware store that I pick up while in anxiety mode :-P). And social dinner-dates tend to spring up and surprise me. Being too tired for fun hobby shopping is helping with sticking to my budget. But can also keep fun-things to a set shopping list (makeup, maybe beads) and $ limit. Also, no fabric until January at the earliest. No, I mean it this time.
Was still a bit over budget on groceries, but spent less on them overall than I have in months. I think this is due in part to me finally hitting the 'stocked-up threshold' of being a regular CostCo member. I won't be running out of non-edibles for a good while at this rate, and won't have to get as much new stuff as often. And rice & corn ain't paleo, but they are cheap. At least I have organic options for those?
This month Ima try to stick with a monthly rather than weekly grocery list, since a) I'm too hot/tired for fancy cooking of uber-perishable foods, b) can buy lots of bulk stuff at CC, c) fewer grocery trips = less temptations for splurging on extras. Had one big CC trip on Saturday, and *might* do one more after the 15th if necessary. So far my monthly groc list is only 1/2 of my grocery budget, so the last minute splurging was probly the biggest problem. There are a handful of things I would have to buy at normal stores, but I'll try to get that down to one monthly trip too. Also, fewer shopping trips = less energy. Yaaaay.
Also, the food plans all come down to my food journaling. So yay for tracking my own data and measuring out what's best for me :-)
Since last week *didn't* smack me with a heatwave, my brain is re-solidifying & I've been able to think about my food sitch with less angst. And read recipes on my rss reader without wanting to throw the monitor across the room.
In September I may finally pick up a slow cooker. Also, now that I've figured out freezer-tetris, I may try making more fruit/veg based sauces and marinades ahead of time and freeze them. Then if I need to slow-cook some pork shoulder with gf/df bbq sauce for a week's lunches, I can just pop in some sauce-cubes (yay a friend recommended that trick) and let them melt in the slow cooker. It'll all be in there for 8-10 hours anyway. Will go back to trying to unlock the Pasanda code too, but maybe with pre-cut lamb next time. Or cheaper chicken. Its really all about the sauce anyway.
In any standard 4-week month, I can probably do two weeks of sausages and two of something more interesting without driving myself nutz. I still don't want to devote all my time/energy to food anymore but I'm not sure if eating the exact same lunch every day for a month will be good for my mental health.
Not sure if I'll go back to making my own beef stock, but I'm still having a hard time finding a gluten free variety. CC has organic gf chicken stock, so that's way more convenient than making it myself, and not that much more expensive really. Less stock in the freezer means more room for sauces and frozen fruit/veg. Tho on the other hand, I don't think the food police will break down my door for using chicken stock instead of beef in my recipes :-P
I've been less-able to deal with making frozen fruit smoothies this summer, not sure why. Is it really that much work to clean the blender after each use so I can use it again the next day? :-P
Also need to do a bit more organizing of kitchen & closets b/c of all the CC stuff. Especially if I'm going to try monthly shopping trips. Still haven't figured out how to put the large rolls of paper products properly *away*, but I have some idears. This weekend I went thru the kitchen cabinets and threw out all the old plastic takeout containers that were broken, overly greasy, or just not tetris-friendly to make more room for bulk food products in my cabinets.
By brain is getting some writing-inklings now that the weather has cooled off a bit last week, but the overall lack of energy did not help. I'm doing my best not to worry, just hoping that come September my brain will work better again.
My bead kit is getting some good use on my lunch breaks at work again, so maybe a carefully-budgeted FMG order will happen this month, cuz I'm starting to run out of materials for seed bead projects. Or maybe I can push that off until September and bring something else in for lunchtime, like my patches-shirt.
Next sewing project is up in the air again. The velvet coat I've wanted for longer, but the Regency coat project is all shiny and new and experimental. The cooler, gloomier weather forecasted for this week will probly put me back into gothy mode tho, assuming it happens.
In the course of thinking over a closet-reorganization, I'm wondering if I should give away some of my old handmade jewelry displays, IE the ones I had stopped using *before* I stopped vending. Once upon a time, I got second hand picture frames from goodwill and made velvet inserts with scrap fabric, so not very expensive to make but annoying to store at present. Will probably be free to a good home that can pay for shipping.
Oh darnit, that reminds me, I still haven't fixed my Paypal account. *sigh* Darn brainfog.
Things worked out logistically for the weekend. I'd put off laundry last weekend, so this weekend I did not have room to start a new sewing project, but then again I wanted to finish all the polymer clay stuff anyway. And I did. Also, I was not overwhelmed by laundry this time b/c no-uber-heatwave, so my apartment is not covered in drying laundry.
I dropped off my fall/winter coats and jackets at a new laundromat, b/c the one I liked closed. And... its a bit sketch. Now I'm regretting giving them the handmade jacket to clean. The store-bought ones would be annoying to replace if lost or damaged, but I'd be much sadder if something happened to my purple jacket. Afterwards I talked with my local friend and there's a less-sketch place I could have gone to, so oh well. On Thursday (or Friday) I'll find out if this was a mistake or not.
Today I'm tired, but in a sleep-deprived way b/c I only got to bed in time for 7 hours of sleep, I had stressy dreams, and then woke myself out of them at a wrong part of my sleep cycle, and so my alarm rang to wake me out of *another* wrong part of my sleep cycle. My energy levels aren't that bad right now, but the brainfog is. But again, in a normal sleep-dep way rather than last week's mysterious wave of fatigue.
As for this week, there's also a Harry Potter fan meetup on Thursday that I might go to if I feel up for it, maybe in my Ravenclaw vest. Otherwise no set plans. Its kinda nice having a wide open week in my dayplanner with so little ink :-)
<3 Chrysilla