I won't say I was super-productive

at work today, but I did get everything I needed to do finished, despite having to leave at lunchtime for an appointment and coming back afterwards, and knowing that I would, I went in early. Actually, my day started at 5:30 am, by 6:10 I was at Kroger picking up a few things that I needed, at 7:05 I was getting a bottle of gas treatment (my car's running a little rough; I thought it might help clean things inside) and gas. By 7:15 I was at work. It turned out I had a patron I was able to help that early in the morning. I did various things to do with the library and went ahead and worked my referral queue and did the charge reconciliation just in case I got delayed coming back. Then I picked up my friend, took him to his appointment, dropped him off, and got back. I did charge entry for much of the rest of the time. I'm going to save moving the last of the bound journals for tomorrow, when I'm in jeans (I was in a black skirt and cotton sweater today, which would have shown a lot of stuff), and I need to work on an interlibrary loan tomorrow as well, and follow up on a referral that the doctor's office supposedly sent but not to me, and also fill the clinic cart with children's books and mail those book cards and pockets.

But after work, I was super-productive. I came home, turned off the air conditioner, opened the windows, filled the fish tank with a gallon of water because the pump was empty as a stop-gap measure, reconciled my bank ledger (I find I do better with an actual notebook rather than a phone application), paid every bill I could and put in the ones that will come out of this pay cheque. Then I went to Costco, opened a membership there, got a few things like tuna, bagels, orange juice, and a bulk item YKWIA has been having a co-worker of mine pick up for him and reimbursing because for $12.69 you get 40 packages as opposed to Kroger, where the same item has 10 packages for $5.99. He has two packages a day, so that's a significant savings. I didn't get any, but the Frigo string cheese I get for the game came in packages of 60 for $9.99 vs. 16 for $6.79. Guess where I'm going to get the cheese from now on?

While I was in the store, a friend called who was stranded and needed a ride over to a house to pick up some food and then a ride to his home. So, I did that after checking out, and then stopped by Kroger on the way home to get dressing for the tuna (which will go well with the cheese bagels), cream cheese (to go with the cinnamon ones), the makings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, burritos, that sort of thing--easy, ready-made or non-cooking stuff. I haven't given up my desire to cook or anything, I just wanted to get some things I consider staples that I can easily bring to work. I have a new cookbook they were giving out a work where each recipe has just four ingredients, and some sound pretty nice, so I'm going to look through it and see about getting a few things to cook with. Kroger is having their 'A Taste of Italy' special right now and I saw some lovely pasta (I can't remember what it was called) that was very intriguing, as well as balsamic vinegar and pesto from Italy. Costco had huge bottles of balsamic vinegar, which I adore with olive oil and some French bread for dipping.

Now I'm home. I'm glad I went ahead and closed the windows; I was gone much later than I planned, and I don't want someone breaking (or in this case, not breaking) in. So I got home and turned the a/c back on because it was stuffy. Fortunately, one of the bills I paid tonight was an electric bill I'd gotten a disconnect notice for tomorrow. Glad that the date fell okay. I kept thinking I was getting paid on the 14th, not the 15th, and so there seemed to be plenty of time to take care of it.

I found some calcium chews to take this morning that weren't expensive at all, were similar to Caltrate, and had extra D3 in it as well. I already take vitamin D pills, so I need to make sure I don't overdo it. I take 5000 IUs a day. I have some 2000s from when I was taking a lesser dose; I think that, along with the other, should equal out pretty well. I need to see about getting some more B12, since I'm out after this week. I'm not a big supplement person, but I've noticed more energy since I started taking them. So I'll keep plugging along.

So, it's 10 pm and I'm finally sitting down and starting to get tired. I'm going to eat a small meal, listen to some music, do some reading, and go on to bed soon. I'd like to go in a little early tomorrow, as I'm about 2 1/2 hours short for the week and I'm trying to save up PTO. Oh, and I talked to our retirement representative about our pension plan today. I can still draw from it, as I'm vested, after I leave the company. I can actually draw at 55 (in five and a half years), but the benefit will be greater if I wait till normal retirement age. We checked to see if our plan was one where you could draw it out as a lump sum and put it into an IRA, but it isn't. That's okay, though. I can roll my 403(b) into a similar plan (even a 401(k)), though, assuming I can find a job with benefits.

Which reminds me--the perfect job came up, for which I am perfectly qualified, and here in Kentucky. But it's in Pikeville at the osteopathy school there, where they're starting an optometry programme up and need a librarian for that specialty. I can't drive to Pikeville (which is in the far eastern part of the state, I think about three hours away by car), and I have ties here that I'm unwilling to leave. But I have faith that a good job will come up. In the meantime, though, I think it's almost time to start looking outside of the library field. :(

Okay, good night.

It's been a pretty full day

We're taking a break from the game, but I went over and did the normal cleaning and more,  and spent some time with YKWIA. He was giving me pointers on responding to people on OKCupid who message me.  I went home a little before 9 pm,  and I've spent a lot of time since answering questions on that site to help with matching. I'm up to 850 questions answered so far.

I also spoke with my mom,  wished her a happy mother's day,  and got some good news about her health - her cancer is gone.  Yay!

What else?  Oh,  I finally graduated from taking two children's vitamins a day to one Centrum Silver (although the new ones are also chewable). Technically,  I'm not 50 yet,  but I figure I'm a year away,  so if I'm going to take an adult vitamin,  I might as well take those.

Okay,  it's 11:30 pm,  and I'm going to try to get up at 6 am tomorrow and actually exercise before work. I'm getting sleepy,  so I'll sign off here.  Good night.

A successful first day

Well, I started the regimen of horse pills and this is what happened:

My fasting blood sugar was 232 this morning, which is lower than it had been. Now that was before I took the supplements, but I've been eating well the last three days (although I did have a Pop-Tart this morning, as the only yoghurt was lemon), so I'm assuming that had a lot to do with it, plus I was up about half the night working on the house for the walk-through tomorrow.

Two hours after lunch, though, I checked and it was 197. Now you must understand, it has been running in the high 300s, almost 400 after lunch in the same time frame. So, I thought that was pretty good.

I checked my blood sugar before eating dinner, and it was 124. 124! That's four points over norm. At best I am about 140.

Okay, so it may just have been a good day. I'll continue to monitor my levels to see how it goes. I did open the cinnamon/chromium picolinate capsules into my milk. Tomorrow I'll try it with yoghurt instead. I noticed tasting the fenugreek several times in the morning, but it isn't unpleasant. Anyway, we're going to consider it a tentative success.

I just read a book by a man with scary hair

but who seems to know a lot about insulin resistance and diabetes. It's called Take Charge of Your Diabetes, by Sarfraz Zaidi, MD. I wouldn't really call it ground-breaking, like he does, but...he's right, many doctors don't really get insulin resistance syndrome, even though it's been described in the literature for some time. He puts it in easy to digest terms that I think would be useful to the average person, and his plan gels with what I've read about in the medical lit. I understand the role of diet, stress, exercise, medications, etc., in diabetes--at least in theory. I'm terrible at putting it into practice. But the part that I found particularly interesting was his recommendations for various vitamins and herbs that are useful at controlling blood glucose.

Now, my idea of taking a vitamin is Flintstones chewables. I hate horse pills. I don't even take the calcium I should. But I decided to give them a try. I checked to make sure none of them would react with my medications. I went to Kroger and found several 'buy one, get one free deals', which is good, because vitamins are expensive. So I got calcium citrate with vitamin D (not for the sugar issues, but on the recommendation of my gynaecologist), coenzyme Q10, cinnamon capsules with chromium picolinate, fenugreek, alpha lipoic acid, and some sublingual B12, all at the recommended doses. We'll see if they help at all. There was a 'diabetes mix' which had several, although not all of them, but not at the amounts recommended by Dr Zaidi to be clinically effective. I'll be sure to list them when I go to the doctor next. They are meant to be used in association with diet, exercise, medications, and stress reduction. Here's hoping.