2012: Out With the Blahs? I Can Dream!
Rambling about the year.
Sleep
So 2011 was pretty bad, but in a fair chunk of it I was stumbling around in a haze because I just plain wasn't getting any sleep. And sleep debt is really, really, hard on me. I am not sure I am actually recovered from all of the sleep problems.
Lesson learned: do not grit my teeth and keep trying night after night when it's not working. It just makes me sicker, and being all stiff-upper-lip doesn't actually earn me any points in the game of life or really with anyone.
After I said I really needed to turn the machine down, things got gradually better. I don't feel like it's quite enough, but I sleep a lot better than I did when it was waking me up at 2-4am every night. I'm getting almost a full night's sleep, though I still wake up uncomfortable. The dream of eventually adjusting is... well... it may be a slower eventuality. I haven't yet, but it's better, and that's good enough.
So basically what I need to work on with the sleep is better hygeine: going to bed at a more sensible time, not letting myself stay up too late, always remembering to wear the mask. (I sometimes conk out and then wake up because I'm not wearing it, too.)
Declutter: This was a big deal and I think we did a pretty good job of it, though not perfect. The house was presentable enough that we were able to give a Thanksgiving meal without shame and doom. It looks fabulous with a lot of candles lit, almost as if it were designed at a time when candles and gaslight were in.... And the candles can hide a little bit of dog fur here and there. We had a small Christmas dinner with my mother afterwards, and that also went well. Brad's mother sent a nice tablecloth and candles that were perfect for Christmas dinner. If I were organized enough to have my photos sorted, I'd put a photo of that up! But the house was very festive, for us; Brad even found us a small Christmas tree and decorated the house with pine boughs.
Mental Organization: Just getting started here, but it's ramping up. The phones are a major milestone, as they make a lot of other things possible. Really, these very cheap smartphones have made a huge difference. I'm starting to work out ways we can use them to keep organized, to keep our lists with us, to keep in touch. I used to think texting was silly, but having a way to contact Brad that doesn't require the Internet is actually pretty fabulous, given that he can't use chat clients from work, or connect to home, or anything.
This is going to be the major theme of this year, I think. Organizing our work flow to keep the house from sliding back into the clutter morass. Organizing ourselves so we can stay in easy contact without it being a lot of overhead. I want to get more active on open communication services, and continue prying myself away from the closed walled gardens. Getting good at it so we're spending less of the time on the weekend cooking and shopping, and more time having a weekend. This has been really hard on Brad, since I've been so sick I don't make it out shopping a lot, or help with the cooking much. Boo. But if I feel better this year, hopefully that will improve. Last year was one of the worst, and had a really clear cause for that, so I am hopeful for better. One of the things that happened this year was that the food routine got much more matter of course, which has been great.
Friends and Family: I want to do more this year, but we've gotten out a little this year. Brad made it to a little Ars Magica con, and we got to have people over for playtesting. We had a lovely trip to Monterey with Brad's family, a Weird Al concert (my first, and it was amazing), and visits to and from Chez Egg. No doubt other trips that I am completely forgetting as well, though that may be the lot. More this year, I hope? Perhaps we can have people over to our lovely and more or less clean house?
Gaming: Almost all theoretical on my part, though Brad got to play/run a little Ars Magica. I started tinkering with Pathfinder and enjoy it, but I haven't actually played much of anything at all. 3d ate my brain so I stopped playing LOTRO and now I'm worried that it'll be very hard to spin back up. I also don't want to slip back on progress on all of the above; MMOs have a way of making me drift off task. So I need more concrete goals achieved before I can even consider that, which is sad, because wow for amazing RPers there. But the overhead is too high and it's too likely to hit my health and my progress at real life goals. In the meantime, hopefully some other gaming, less intensive, and not 3d. (Or if it's 3d, it's because it's at a table.)
I want to try out some of the newfangled (less newfangled now) systems like Leverage and Gumshoe this year, at any rate. Brad may explore Pathfinder Society play, which sounds a lot like Living Greyhawk.
Jack: STILL in a cone, yes. But his leg is healing beautifully. He has one little bit of scab left that we don't want him to lick to death before it heals fully. He's also in full shed glory.
Sleep
So 2011 was pretty bad, but in a fair chunk of it I was stumbling around in a haze because I just plain wasn't getting any sleep. And sleep debt is really, really, hard on me. I am not sure I am actually recovered from all of the sleep problems.
Lesson learned: do not grit my teeth and keep trying night after night when it's not working. It just makes me sicker, and being all stiff-upper-lip doesn't actually earn me any points in the game of life or really with anyone.
After I said I really needed to turn the machine down, things got gradually better. I don't feel like it's quite enough, but I sleep a lot better than I did when it was waking me up at 2-4am every night. I'm getting almost a full night's sleep, though I still wake up uncomfortable. The dream of eventually adjusting is... well... it may be a slower eventuality. I haven't yet, but it's better, and that's good enough.
So basically what I need to work on with the sleep is better hygeine: going to bed at a more sensible time, not letting myself stay up too late, always remembering to wear the mask. (I sometimes conk out and then wake up because I'm not wearing it, too.)
Declutter: This was a big deal and I think we did a pretty good job of it, though not perfect. The house was presentable enough that we were able to give a Thanksgiving meal without shame and doom. It looks fabulous with a lot of candles lit, almost as if it were designed at a time when candles and gaslight were in.... And the candles can hide a little bit of dog fur here and there. We had a small Christmas dinner with my mother afterwards, and that also went well. Brad's mother sent a nice tablecloth and candles that were perfect for Christmas dinner. If I were organized enough to have my photos sorted, I'd put a photo of that up! But the house was very festive, for us; Brad even found us a small Christmas tree and decorated the house with pine boughs.
Mental Organization: Just getting started here, but it's ramping up. The phones are a major milestone, as they make a lot of other things possible. Really, these very cheap smartphones have made a huge difference. I'm starting to work out ways we can use them to keep organized, to keep our lists with us, to keep in touch. I used to think texting was silly, but having a way to contact Brad that doesn't require the Internet is actually pretty fabulous, given that he can't use chat clients from work, or connect to home, or anything.
This is going to be the major theme of this year, I think. Organizing our work flow to keep the house from sliding back into the clutter morass. Organizing ourselves so we can stay in easy contact without it being a lot of overhead. I want to get more active on open communication services, and continue prying myself away from the closed walled gardens. Getting good at it so we're spending less of the time on the weekend cooking and shopping, and more time having a weekend. This has been really hard on Brad, since I've been so sick I don't make it out shopping a lot, or help with the cooking much. Boo. But if I feel better this year, hopefully that will improve. Last year was one of the worst, and had a really clear cause for that, so I am hopeful for better. One of the things that happened this year was that the food routine got much more matter of course, which has been great.
Friends and Family: I want to do more this year, but we've gotten out a little this year. Brad made it to a little Ars Magica con, and we got to have people over for playtesting. We had a lovely trip to Monterey with Brad's family, a Weird Al concert (my first, and it was amazing), and visits to and from Chez Egg. No doubt other trips that I am completely forgetting as well, though that may be the lot. More this year, I hope? Perhaps we can have people over to our lovely and more or less clean house?
Gaming: Almost all theoretical on my part, though Brad got to play/run a little Ars Magica. I started tinkering with Pathfinder and enjoy it, but I haven't actually played much of anything at all. 3d ate my brain so I stopped playing LOTRO and now I'm worried that it'll be very hard to spin back up. I also don't want to slip back on progress on all of the above; MMOs have a way of making me drift off task. So I need more concrete goals achieved before I can even consider that, which is sad, because wow for amazing RPers there. But the overhead is too high and it's too likely to hit my health and my progress at real life goals. In the meantime, hopefully some other gaming, less intensive, and not 3d. (Or if it's 3d, it's because it's at a table.)
I want to try out some of the newfangled (less newfangled now) systems like Leverage and Gumshoe this year, at any rate. Brad may explore Pathfinder Society play, which sounds a lot like Living Greyhawk.
Jack: STILL in a cone, yes. But his leg is healing beautifully. He has one little bit of scab left that we don't want him to lick to death before it heals fully. He's also in full shed glory.