It's a start

10 minutes, 2.8 miles, 15 miles an hour, after adjusting the seat and handlebars in such a way that my back and knees didn't hurt like they did before. My butt though, well, I'll have to get used to it. The plan is to get on it every other day (except Sundays), so Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, adding 5 mins per day. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, the plan is to start the day out with yoga. And I'd like to add walking in there as well, now that my feet are doing better, and if that makes them worse, start doing both yoga and biking each day other than Sunday. Think that isn't too ambitious?

Yay, I'm free!!!

Don't get me wrong, I do like my job a great deal, but it's nice that I don't have to go back for FOUR whole days. Sometimes you just have to get away for a bit, you know?

My phone is telling me it's time to get on the exercise bike. I am eyeing it warily, but I think I'll try. :)

Well, drat!

I set three alarms, but even so, I woke up at 5 minutes till 8, about an hour after I normally do. I almost made the bus that comes after mine, which would have made me just 15 minutes late, but didn't, so I'll get to work about 9:15. I'm supposed to be there at 8:30. I usually get there about 8:15 and hang around for a bit before clocking in. I've called both managers, talked to one, and that's about all I can do until it's time to head out for the next bus.

It's the last day of the pay period, so I'll have to take that 45 minutes as PTO unless I can stay longer. I have so much to do today, for both jobs. But there's nothing I can do till I get there, I guess.

I'll be so glad when the work day is over.

On the other hand, I have clean clothes to wear, right? :)

Okay, so it took till almost 2:30 am with the folding

But the laundry is finished, so I can cross that off my list, and I am going to bed. That's four loads/one large hamper in a granny cart (thank goodness for that cart--I hate toting laundry to another building, and it makes it easier.) Putting away will wait for later. Everything's folded with tomorrow's outfit on top. I'm glad everything dried well--I only had eight dollars in quarters.

Hope you have a good tomorrow, and pleasant dreams.

These sorts of cases make me sad, and sick

YKWIA told me about this one...

Stanford man accused of shaking 6-week-old infant: Baby was in critical condition Friday with hemorrhages in skull, eye

"After confessing to shaking the 6-week-old victim, the subject was arrested and charged with assault 1st-degree," the arrest citation, dated Aug. 24, reads. "The victim is currently at UK medical center in critical condition with four broken ribs, subdural hemorrhages in the skull and both eyes have hemorrhages. If the child lives, it will probably have some degree of brain damage."

And then I saw this one tonight...

Mother Charged After Infant Daughter Found Dead In Laurel County

Deputies conducted an investigation, and determined that the baby had been left with the mother's boyfriend's brother early on Saturday. The mother and her boyfriend told the boyfriend's brother that her other child had been critically hurt in a motorcycle accident and was in the hospital in Tennessee, and they needed him to watch the baby.

It was determined that the child had not been hurt, and that the mother and boyfriend had in fact been partying for 2 days. The boyfriend's brother had no experience in caring for a newborn infant baby.

Deputies located the mother and her boyfriend later in the night driving in the vicinity. The boyfriend ,Johnathon L Haynes, 32, was arrested and charged with DUI, and several other traffic offenses. Also taken into custody was the mother of the baby, Rachel E. Kilburn, 29, of Cutshin, Ky.

I find it inconceivable that anyone would treat a tiny baby this way, and it's sad that so often those who make horrible parents have no trouble conceiving, while those who want a child desperately cannot. And it takes a sick individual to shake a child near to death. Oh, it just sickens me. And none of these adults were young kids themselves, but rather in their late 20s to early 30s. Who parties for two days at that age, especially with small children???

YKWIA called me around 11 pm and woke me up

So I'm actually doing four loads of laundry right now, since I'm not mega-sleepy and I figure I'll be finished by about 1 am. It was probably easier than staying in bed and getting up at 5 am to do it. I am looking forward to clean clothes, as I was getting down to things that did not belong in 90 degree heat or colours I don't normally wear.

It's technically my night to go out and give a libation, but I have no wine and very little oil or honey. I'm afraid my period came a bit early and so I wan't prepared. I do still have the mead; it might suffice. Red wine is better, but honey wine might work.

I need to call the pharmacy tomorrow and check to see if they can get me more of my Novolog; I'm on my last pen. This time the doctor put in a prescription for two boxes rather than one, so I shouldn't be in danger of running out after this.

You may notice a few somewhat extraneous things are missing from the sidebar. YKWIA complained about the load time for the blog, so I'm trying to pare things down a bit. I need to go through the links on the blogroll; some are no doubt broken.

I think I'll check the news and see what's going on in the world. If I don't write again tonight, have a wonderful night.

I am sorry, I'm terribly behind on my writing

Tuesday I went to the ophthalmologist and had a field of vision and pressure check. As far as the former goes, I'd rather have a blood stick than that, to be honest, but it came out fine. The pressure is still holding the same as last time, a bit high but not so high that I have to have eye drops or anything. And so, it turned out pretty well. I was really busy at work and came home and did some stuff around the house but basically petered out before I could really sit down and write. But then I wound up talking on the phone for in the wee hours of the morning for over two hours.

Fortunately I was able to sleep in a bit the next day, though, as I had taken off work to celebrate a birthday with friends. I got up, went to the bank, grabbed a couple of egg and cheese biscuits, and headed to their house. We went to Masala, the Indian restaurant over by Fayette Mall, which was very good and priced very reasonably. As far as taste I thought it much better than what I had at Tandoor a few weeks ago. The mirrors were a little disconcerting; it was like being in a hall of them, and difficult to determine reflection from reality. But the food was good, the service was attentive, and it was nice to visit and have a meal and conversation. Afterwards we went to the mall to catch the bus back, and did a little shopping along the way. We went back to their house and I visited and helped make two derby pies. I got home a little after 11. I didn't get to sleep though, till about 1 am. So I'm tired tonight and seriously considering a nap, although that laundry is not getting any done on its own, and I wound up wearing velvet pants in 90-degree heat. It wasn't so bad this morning, but I'm thankful I got a ride this afternoon.

Now I'm home; I've watered my purple pepper plant, eaten a little, and like I said, the bed calls to me.

I'm still playing catch-up at work, and I hope I can get everything together tomorrow, as I am off Tuesday, making for a four-day weekend. :) Here are a few things I want to get done at home between now and Wednesday:

1. Do the laundry, of course
   
2. Take my aquarium hood to Animal House, a pet store, where they're going to check my starter and ballast, both of which are cheaper to replace than the whole assembly. [Had to put that off till later; they were closed on Tuesday when I was going to go.]
   
3. Work on those CDs I pulled out the other day and put them in some semblance of order
   
4. Straighten up just a bit in the living and dining areas
   
5. Take out the trash and recyclables
   
6. Check to see if Brenda has any conflicts due to the holiday with playing the game
   
7. Do the game notes regardless
   
8. Game
   
9. Start back with yoga
   
10. Watch a DVD I have out, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
    
11. Get some information about some jobs at work to one of the people I talk to on the bus
    
12. Watch the premiere of series 7 of Doctor Who
    
13. Get some of my library books read
    

That's all I can think of for now. I think it's doable. :) Okay, I really am going to go take that nap, but set different alarms to make sure I don't sleep through the rooster one on my phone.

Thank goodness for Wikipedia

What I'm actually trying to find is a particular song of Pat Benetar's, which is unfortunately not on the Greatest Hits album I just got (Amazon's got a great sale on Mp3 albums for $5 apiece. Since I had a dollar credit, I got it for $4. And it really does have a great selection of songs on it.)

And it turns out I could neither remember what the album I was looking for was, nor could I find the CD itself. So where does one turn in a situation? Wikipedia, where I was able to recognise the album name from the discography (Innamorata), and the song, 'Dirty Little Secrets'. Here's a live performance of it:

Found this on an old CD while going through my music tonight

The Cthulhu game was called early today

so I got home about 7:30 pm, and immediately laid down. I'd been up since 4:30 am, cleaned house, gorged myself on healthy snacks (veggies, almonds, and string cheese, grapes, although as usual I had too much of the latter two. I'm up very briefly because I woke up in pain (it was time for my foot medicine and also my long-acting insulin, so I got up and took those, got a little water, and tested my blood sugar, which was actually quite good. I had taken my other long-acting insulin shot at the bus stop early this morning, taken the short-acting throughout the day, and also took several supplements I've had around the house that are supposed to help with sugar metabolism and diabetes. Since the insulin alone isn't quite doing it, and my doctor seems to think that we should push it up every few months and that's sufficient, I thought this might be an alternative, although I'm a) going to tell him I'm taking them and b) keep a very close eye on my blood sugar. The supplements are things like: cinnamon, fenugreek, alpha liproic acid, B12, and CoQ10. I got them last year but never regularly took them (some are very large). I'm not a big supplement fan--I think some it of it hooey and others just pass through the system. But these are either designed to disintegrate or are powder inside thing glycerine capsules. The plan is to eat the cinnamon with yoghurt and take everything else, at least for a few days, and see if that helps.

What has been helping is my vitamin D supplement. My energy has been much better since he upped my dose. I'm on 50,000 IUs a week now, after a week of it daily. That I do for six more weeks, and then go back to my regular 1,000 IUs a day. But I'm not just coming home and collapsing out of abnormal fatigue like I was.

Even so, things came too early for me to be particularly productive in the newly-found free time. I'm going back to bed and getting up early to do some chores before work (or at least that's the idea). Hopefully the pain reliever I took and the foot medicine will help with the aching and pain I've got going.

I've dealt with chronic pain every since my knees started bothering me in high school. Then in my twenties I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia (or as my friends facaetiously call it, fibrous migraines). I have osteoarthritis in several areas. So I can't say I've been pain free for much of my life. But you learn to deal, of course. But it's getting worse as I've gotten older, and my weight is by no means helping. I know my joints and feet would feel so much better if I lost weight. I've been eating healthier for some time now, but if anything I've gained (a side effect of the insulin, unfortunately), and that's been frustrating. Exercise may be the best thing I can put into the mix, although I hate to say it, it has to be the right kind of exercise that doesn't hurt too much, so walking, which is ideal normally may be out. The pool is closing after next weekend, and I never seemed to really feel like getting in, no matter how much I like water. I think it's really because I'm embarrassed by my weight. So I guess the exercise bike is my best bet, although even my knees protest that. But they're just going to have to get over it to eventually feel better. I've tried to make small changes and make them habit, and I've done pretty well, but the exercise thing has been a void. That's going to have to change. I'm going to have to change.