Day 19: Facebook What?

The Blahs 
I will admit I fell off the wagon this week. I've had so much pain in my hands and a hideous headache all day yesterday that all I could do was sit and stare at the computer, which didn't really help at all. I finally took sumatriptan around noon and it finally cleared out around 5 p.m. I lay in the recliner for three hours with something over my eyes and an ice pack, both of which did not help. I had Pandora set to Relaxation music. I've used it several times and it is amazing. Still, I'm not sure if it was the medicine or the weather but the headache left. It rained around the same time.

Spending Money
Today, I had a dental appointment for a cleaning this morning. Cha-ching $200. No dental insurance yet. They told me dental insurance was nearly useless since it didn't pay much and if it cost me more than $400 a year it would be a waste. Well, yeah! But what if i need a root canal or extraction or whatever!

Balanced Diet is So Important
You may have noticed the sandwich in this post. That is my lunch. And breakfast. I didn't eat before going to the dentist. I just want to point out that this is a completely balanced meal. Bacon, lettuce, tomato, bread. All four food groups plus whatever mayo falls into... maybe dessert. I was famished and remember again why you shouldn't skip meals. But it was good.

Fastbook What? Flop?
I pointed out in my title that this is day 19 of the Facebook Fast...  which has rapidly degenerated this week. I've been on Facebook too much, particularly since FAST denotes not getting on at all!  My state of mind has not been good. The weather has been pretty much horrible most days - hot, wet, cloudy, hot, wet, cloudy. Too uncomfortable to go out for long. My hands have been very painful and made any writing and even crochet painful. the headache presented visual problems. Yard work was out of the question. I was exhausted for days for some reason. I mean several days. Yesterday was a monster headache  that even my pill had trouble with most of the afternoon.

Light at the End of the Tunnel
I was finally able to continue work on the crochet throw I'm making for someone. It is really coming along and is so pretty. I really like the Hobby Lobby yarn "I Love This Yarn". It comes in a lot of colors and is so soft and warm. I found out this is called Seaspray

I've used three skeins and it is already about 24 inches deep. I have three more skeins left. The width is probably a yard and a half. I think it will be a perfect t.v. lap throw.

That about wraps up the morning. It is 1:35 p.m. now and I'm headed for a nap. I've started needing one about this time every day and I've decided to stop fighting it. I was going to write but since the better part of the day is gone and I'm feeling sleepy, I'll wait a few hours to get to that.

Have a great Humpday and hope the rest of the week is downhill. For those of you in Texas and other areas affected by Bill, do we need to send a boat? I have some duct tape and a tarp.....

Day 17: A Bit of This 'N That

Today has been one of those days when nothing got done. I mean really nothing. My sister's car had to go to the shop at 7 a.m. and Mike, bless him, came over and we picked up her car and took it to the shop. We both came back to my house and both of us crash landed. He lay down on the sofa and I went back to my bed and slept until 10 a.m., something I never do. Aside from the oddity, it was great sleep. The problem is, I slept two hours yesterday afternoon and went to bed around 11:30 last night, so I shouldn't have been that tired.

If you saw yesterday's video, you know I spent my time crocheting and watching Netflix. I'm watching CSI:NY. I watched it the first season it was on but stopped in the second season. I think that is when Jerry died and I turned off the cable. Although CSI: Las Vegas is my favorite show, I never cared much for the NY one and I absolutely hated the Miami show. Still I love Gary Sinise in anything so, I'm going to watch it again. It passes the time when I'm tired.

I had a lot of problems with my hands yesterday. Could hardly crochet. It stormed late in the evening and my hands were better this morning after I got up the second time. They've begun hurting again this afternoon and a brief shower began a little while ago. So unstable weather, as usual is a factor in inflammation.

As for today, after we both woke up, we kind of just hung around trying to figure out why we were so tired and then we went to Sonic for lunch. Mike has shopping to do today so he brought me home and went off to do that. I spent the rest of the day reading until I finished the book I had started yesterday. Then I messed around with my photos, posting some I forgot about.

Sarah is having a good time at her Dad's. I can tell when I talk to her, however brief the calls are. She's just so busy.

I'm going now to download a new book and work on my crochet. I keep thinking I'll work on my writing but at the moment, I just don't want to do that. The crochet is going well, but it is difficult with the pain in my fingers. I suspect that is another pleasure that is soon to be gone.

Good night to you.

Day 16: Saturday Catch Up

Day 14: Working My Fingers to the Bone... It Hurts

I've been doing yard work for about a week now and I'm taking the weekend off. Mike helped me with the weed trimming... finally. I got the yard cut again. Today he came early and we put dirt, a weed barrier, and cedar mulch around the front of the  house. Water backs up against the foundation when it rains and I have always had a concern about that. This is my attempt to prevent some of that by raising the areas directly against the house. Don't know if it will work but it can't hurt.

Besides, it  looks better and will make grass cutting a bit easier here since the mower can't really get close to the house. This is on the west facing part of the house. I want to continue it along the south side, that's the corner nearest you in the photo, and continue along the back (east side) of the house. I just think it will look better and maybe will help keep out mice. 

They've torn the house next door down this week. The large shovel you see is filling in the huge hole where the basement used to be. It has taken three days of shoveling dirt and they're still not done filling it in.  I had no idea it has such a large basement. It was as big as the house as far as I could tell. It must have been very dark down there as I never saw a single window. 

I felt bad for the owner. This was the house she grew up in and her mother, now deceased, left it several years ago to enter a nursing home. It has been empty, although filled with stuff until they knocked it down. She was a hoarder. Even after they removed truckloads of items, it was still stacked to the ceiling in places. 

It will seem strange to not see it there. I suspect they'll sell it and someone will eventually build on it. If I had the funds, I'd buy it but it takes all I can do to manage the property I have now. And it would raise my taxes anyway. It is a lovely tree filled lot. 

I've had a rather good week physically. There has been very little pain and it is one reason I've pushed so hard to get this outside work done. Mike and I stopped at noon today because by then the heat was just unbearable. I came in and showered and we went to lunch. When I got back home I hurt all over. I just piled up in the recliner with a Snuggy and Pandora set to Spa music for three hours. I had to take something for my sciatica and I actually think it eased the pain in my hands just a bit. Not sure about that but it seemed they were better. It is back medicine so maybe not. 

I couldn't go to sleep because I was in pain, but I did doze off and on. Around 5 p.m., I took two extra strength acetaminophen to take care of the rest of my pain. I'm feeling much better now, but I have taken something to help me sleep and will go to bed in about an hour. After I rested a bit, I did a bit of crochet while I watched a movie. Now, I think I'll go back to it and find something else to watch. 

Did I mention it is day 14 of the Facebook fast? I will admit that I've gone on a few times because people keep emailing me or I need to send a message to someone else. I don't like it. I haven't missed it and what is shocking is when I get on I realize how very much I don't like Facebook. I don't look forward to going back to it. I've downloaded a Chrome extension called Block Site and it allows me to block specific sites and I can block said site during specific hours. Yes, I can turn it off and I have twice. I'm being honest about my lapses but despite my sense of failure, I'm doing rather well. My Facebook hours are blocked from 8 a.m. to 7  p.m. at the moment. So, no getting on during working hours. I can change that, but I'm not going to at this point. 

I think this is a good extension. I can block one site or multiple sites. There is a password feature but if you forget your password, you're kind of stuck. So, with my lengthy list of passwords, I'm not taking that chance at this point. However, I think it is a great feature. I know it works because twice earlier this week I clicked on the FB link. I put a redirect command in the blocker and it takes me to my Gmail page. So, it worked. I'm a fairly faithful person and I'm good at keeping my commitments most of the time. I've fallen off the wagon a few times this week, but I'm not going to throw in the towel. 

I've had to tell Mike twice not to use my account to send messages because it is logging my productivity time also. My Rescue Time logs all my computer activity and my productivity is up 62%  since I went off Facebook. That doesn't count my offline activity. I was shocked at the difference. I went from 32% to 62% in two weeks.

I"m signing off for the night, I think. Hope you all have a great weekend. 

Day 12: What We're Drinking In S. Indiana

Well, this is 12 days without Facebook. It hasn't been a total fast because I had to go on to check some emails and, of course, the addiction draws you but I spend less than 30 minutes each time, I think. I haven't missed it over much and, I've managed to get a lot of work done around here.

I've been busy doing yard work, cleaning house, moving furniture, and doing some minor repairs.  Yesterday, Mike and I rearranged the living room. I'm getting ready to move the computer desk out of the house and my nap sofa but several things must happen before that. 

Yesterday, I changed the water filter under the sink because the water had just reached the point where it was nasty. Please understand, we have a water filtration plant here that cleans and filters water out of the Ohio River for us to drink. For years, I drank it without a filter. About 15 years ago we got an under sink water filter and have used it ever since  in the kitchen, on the cold side only. We changed the filters every six months, roughly January & June. I got off track last year and so the filter has probably been on for closer to nine months. I decided to video the process and let you see just what Southern Indiana is drinking.