April 22
From my brain
Contents |
2009
Me 05:14, 22 April 2009 (EDT)
Trazodone, is a helluva drug. At the very least, it's confusing as hell.
The neurologist told me that I need to fix my sleeping pattern. I take the Traz at 9pm, and try to go to sleep thereafter. Now, if the pain is hitting me, I'm often up until midnight one way or another (either just awake, or tossing and turning in bed on Wifey, keeping her awake). If I take the pill around 9 or 9:30, don't sleep until midnightish....I sleep until 10am.
Last night, I felt like crap by dinner. I had taken one Perc at 3:30ish but by 5:30, the pain (pressure / bloated pain at the liver area) was overwhelming...and so I took a second one. Dinner was fantastic (both due to Wifey's cooking skills and my bread which we had with it -- see below), and by the end, I was satisfied...and oddly not in pain. Oh yeah, that second Perc.
I hadn't realized quite how much on-and-off pain I'd been in that afternoon because once the pain was completely gone.....the floor came out from under me. I feel like crap because I was only barely cognizant of TheBoy while he was doing his reading assignment. His reading is coming along great, and I was dimly aware of praising him for it all (hopefully it wasn't so dim for him...he really is doing great). However, by the time he was on the chapter book (which he has to read and write 3-5 sentences based on it), I was so out of it I had to lay my head on the desk.
There are times lately that the pain is all that's keeping me awake and alert. My body is actually exhausted, but someone jabbing a needle into your stomach, putting pressure on your stomach, or having a constant feeling like a cell phone is on constant vibrate up against you tends to keep you awake. That was the point I was at. The pain gone, and my body said, "Check please!"
TheBoy finished his reading at some point and said, "Oh, OK, that's it, I'm done! Can I have snack before the sentences?" I said yes, and he bolted. At that same time, Wifey asked if I was going to be coming up to bed right away tonight. She meant that in the effect that she probably was going up with [[Princess] herself, and was going to turn the lights off eventually or something. Instead, she got me mumbling, "Yes. Daddy is going to bed right now." It stumbled out of me completely incoherently.
After putting in two of my Synthroid, and then spitting them out because they were not two of the Trazodone, I walked into the kitchen, got the Traz, and went up to bed. I was out probably in less than an hour. I remember yelling at the kids for being noisy, and somewhere thereafter Wifey coming into bed, quizzical about the fact we'd swapped back to our old sides of the bed. (I'd missed spooning at one point, and as I was only able to sleep comfortably for awhile on my right side, I switched to sleeping on the left side of the bed. Lately, I've been able to sleep on both sides relatively easily.) After that though, I was completely dead to the world...until about 3:30.
I tossed an turned for at least an hour and then said screw it and came down here and started this. It's just weird how that Traz works (remember, that was the whole point of this post? LOL). If I take it at 7:30, it fades way to early, and I'm awake early. If I take it on-time, but stay up late, I sleep in like I'm in college again. It's really messed up.
Now though, I'm feeling groggy, and at first I was thinking that I'm full of it and it's really still working. Instead, I'm realizing no, it's because I took a Perc because my side was buzzing when I was waking up. Hmmm...maybe the Traz could work, but it was just the pain that really woke me.
Me 05:34, 22 April 2009 (EDT)
On the side: why am I so coherent in text, but to actually speak "under the influence" of whatever pharmaceutical I'm on, I stutter like an aging heavyweight boxer?
Me 06:15, 22 April 2009 (EDT)
In other news, along with my announcement from the other day, I "still have it" when it comes to bread.
I was searching through rec.food.equipment for some input on a new mixer. I desperately need one and don't want to short-change myself at all on getting one that will last. I got a few decent leads, but through that thread and some googling, I found a very interesting article on a new method of hand-made dough.
It's called Stretch and Fold technique and it was just amazing. Feel free to go watch those vids on the page, but just as he said, when you're making the dough, it just does not look like it's going to work. That first turn of the dough looks like a wet, gloppy mess. The second turn of the dough looks slightly better, but still it doesn't look quite right. The third turn is starting to look a bit better. By the time it's formed into a loaf, it's amazing. It looks like a hard-core kneaded dough.
The best part: there was no back-breaking work involved. None. In comparison:
- Typical method
- Bloom yeast (10-15 mins)
- Measure other ingredients while yeast blooms
- Add ingredients to mixer and knead for 15-20 mins
- Allow to rise for 1.5 hrs
- Form into loaf (or rolls, breadsticks, etc.)
- Allow to rise for 1.5 hrs
- Bloom yeast (10-15 mins)
- This method
- Measure ingredients
- Dump it all into the bowl
- Mix it by hand roughly to get all the flour wet
- Cover and let it sit for 45 mins #1
- Take it out, stretch and fold
- Also at this point, make sure any other flour is wet
- Back into the bowl, cover and let it sit for 45 mins #2
- Take it out, stretch and fold
- Back into the bowl, cover and let it sit for 45 mins #3
- Form into loaf (or rolls, breadsticks, etc.)
The steps are longer, but the thing is: there's no mixer involved. It's all by hand, and there isn't any of that back-breaking kneading that usually is involved when you think of hand-mixing dough.
Quite honestly, I did this because right now, I can't do that standard kneading. The jarring motions of bearing down on the dough on the counter make me cringe even now to think about. I just couldn't do it. This method though, it was more just about walking back and forth to the kitchen than it was anything else.
We had Italian-dressing-marinated pork chops, veggie salad (some cauliflower, tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers and some more Italian dressing), and baked potatoes. It was just Wifey, the kids, and I....and the picture to the right is all that's left. My carboholic children just devoured it with at least 3-4 slices each (although I'm still offended Princess ate the inner bread and none of the crust...that's the best part!).
I plan on running through the whole repertoire of my bread recipes before this is through. I think this going to do amazing things for my bread skillz. :)
2008
Me 07:47, 22 April 2008 (EDT)
Not to self: Don't forget you need gas to get home tonight.
Me 10:43, 22 April 2008 (EDT)
- (10:22:42 AM) Wifey: Hey
- (10:22:56 AM) Me: omg...my wife is greeting me like my friends do!
- (10:22:57 AM) Wifey: Mom and Dad are picking Princess and I up for her swim class any min
- (10:23:01 AM) Me: ok
- (10:23:12 AM) Wifey: Then we will go to thier house for a little while
- (10:23:18 AM) Me: ok
- (10:23:39 AM) Wifey: Then they will come here to pick TheBoy up from school and stay for dinner so we can go to church with them
- (10:23:47 AM) Wifey: They just arrived
- (10:23:50 AM) Me: love you
- (10:23:51 AM) Wifey: Talk to you later
- (10:23:53 AM) Me: anything else?
- (10:23:58 AM) Wifey: Love you
OMG...I've begun to have an online relationship with my wife! LOL
Me 21:49, 22 April 2008 (EDT)
It was good to go to church services tonight. I really wished I could have last night as our intent was to make it for almost all of the services (except for Holy Thursday as we didn't think the kids would make it through all the readings). Tomorrow, if we can afford the gas, we'll make the trip to our normal church for the the Holy Unction service.
Mind you, I'm not as comfortable in MIL and FIL's church service (they're OCA while we're Antiochian). That said, Holy Week is Holy Week, and all the services are beautiful regardless of slight differences in tradition.
I remember way back when I was first dating Wifey and how I was mildly put-off by the smell of incense. I went to one service and the abundance of it startled me (mind you her priest in Cleveland was really into incensing the church). The Roma-phobic ex-Pentecostal kid in me couldn't hack it, and so I didn't go back unless she really wanted me to go to service. When they'd go themselves, I remember thinking of them "reeking" of incense.
It's a bit of a wonder now that I find myself so comforted by the smell now. So much about Orthodoxy is about setting you outside of the world. The hymns are sung in tones that you don't here outside of church. Icons are not true representative paintings of people. And the incense that fills the air is close but not quite like anything you smell elsewhere. It focuses you on what you're there for and that's just communion with God.
By the end of my day today, I was really down about things. I'd spent the last few days "fixing" stuff, complaining that third shift wasn't doing their jobs, and then spending my day running the reports for them. Today it ran fine, and I did the one project I had in limbo because of it. I did another "busy work" project in addition and then...I had nothing. Poor Roxy had to put up with hearing me have a pity party about how much my job sucks because of how bored I am. As the day drew to a close, she said she hoped I at least was able to enjoy church tonight.
I did. Do I feel better about life in general, and All Is Grand? No. That despair though that I was sinking in seems to not be so deep though and I at least feel I can pull myself out.
- Mar...go find a church. Go for Holy Wednesday. You sound like you need it.
