what’s new

What I’ve been up to, only in order of when I remembered it.

1. I had a great birthday on Sunday with a trip to longwood gardens, with my lovely girlfriend. She got me a Mr. Bento lunchbox! It’s like a thermos, but for food!
2. I had my first outing with my ‘little brother’. We played football for an hour in the park.
3. Spent a weekend at my dad’s just hanging out. We celebrated my birthday, Angela’s, and my step-mother’s brother’s birthday.
4. I gave my dad some old-school shaving gear, including a safety razor from the year he was born, a brush, and shaving soap. I then taught him how to shave.
5. We had a great steak dinner, complete with cake, at my mom’s for Angela’s and my birthday.
6. I’ve been volunteering at Manna, helping to package meals for people too sick to cook.
7. I built a bookshelf
8. I started re-doing the floor upstairs with leftover laminate flooring. Unfortunately, there was not enough to finish the job, so I must wait for extra to come in to the store.
9. I had an interview for a permanent job at GSK. I think I like what I am doing more now, but if the offer is better…..
10. My contract has been extended until next August with GSK, so even if #9 doesn’t pan out, I’m good until grad school.
11. I’ve been biking to work a couple of days each week. Usually, only there and back on separate days, 30 miles each way.
As to the future, Angela and I will be in Pittsburgh next weekend for David, and Natalie’s wedding.

update

I’m off the everyman sleeping wagon, and sleeping semi-full nights every night. I feel better overall, except on those nights that I only get 5.5 hours anyway.
I have been getting out to row a few times so far this year, with anticipation for more to come. This is facilitated by my decision to drive to work and thereby saving about 1.5 hours per day to be used otherwise. Additionally, I have started biking again. I started out with a grueling 30 miler home from work into a head wind the whole way. I plan to do a couple more of those next week.

Last weekend I took a trip to Seattle to visit Jared. We did some of the touristy things like go up the space needle, going for a hike in the mountains, and the Pike Place Market. We also went into the library, which is pretty wildly built. We also went on the underground tour, which toured parts of the city that had been built over in order to prevent flooding and improve the sewer systems. I was fortunate that the weather was exceptional, and I enjoyed myself.

Everyman: 6 weeks

It has been a month and a half of sleeping about 4 hours a day. I still tend to miss naps because I am busy, which I think really takes a toll on my mood and general feeling. When I hit my naps, I do feel pretty good.

This week was a pretty great week. Some of the things we’ve been up to:

Last weekend I finished installing the trim in the downstairs.

Angela and I hung some framed pictures, as well as many of out photographs from the summer.

I got back on the river on Friday when I took a single out for the first time this season. The weather was beautiful (and still is today), and I really enjoyed the nice easy row.

Yesterday, Angela and I spent the morning volunteering at the park. We swept up some sidewalks, and picked up trash. There weren’t a lot of people there, but it was nice to see someone else supporting the park. They also had events for kids that had been postponed from the Easter celebration last week.

Afterward, I fulfilled my monthly duties at the Co-Op, which I always enjoy. I stock shelves and sweep up for the most part. I like helping people find things, so I’m learning where everything is pretty quickly.

Finally, I went to home depot to get some materials for some projects. More details on these to follow.

Everyman: One Month

As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted much last week. The sleeping schedule proceeded as usual, until the weekend. Seeing as I had to be social for our trip to Pittsburgh, I did not see napping as much of an option. Instead, I decided to bag the schedule, get some sleep and try and restart this week. Last night I began to ease into it by sleeping 1.5 hours extra, and attempting my naps today. The first one on the morning van ride did not come easily. The nap on the way home went a little more smoothly, but not much. My final nap of the evening was all sorts of cuddly with Angela and Pickle attending.

I am pretty sleepy around 10:30, but I will try to stick it out a few more hours. I am pretty sure tomorrow’s naps will come more easily.tra

Everyman: Day 21 and 22

I can hardly believe that it has been 3 weeks. I think that somethings have been getting somewhat easier, and other things harder. I am now waking up with my alarms, but finding it harder to stay awake after getting up. This weekend, I woke up right on time, stayed up for 4 hours or so, went back for a nap, and stayed there for hours. I don’t think that this is necessarily bad, as I have read that other people have incorporated a longer sleep on weekends, so maybe I could do something similar, as long as I set rules to follow.

This weekend was a lot of fun; we hosted 5 rowers Friday night and went to watch the Murphy Cup regatta on Saturday. I was amazed about how many teams came. Seeing as in my last year, there was hardly enough to fill a small parking lot, and this year it was over flowing, it was a shock. Not only was there a good bit more competition, but CMU did remarkably well. It was very nice to see some medals going home with them.

This coming weekend will be another hurdle as Angela and I will be in Pittsburgh, being social. It’s not terribly easy to just tell someone that you need to take a nap. I’ll figure something out.

Everyman: Day 20

Not the best day in terms of sticking to the schedule. I missed my mid day nap, but took an ‘on-the-way-home’ nap. Once home, I forgot to take another nap! This evening was quite busy, as Angela and I prepared to host some rowers of the CMU crew team before their race tomorrow. I went to BJs for food for them, and us. I am bad at shopping, although some might say I’m good. I tend to come back with ‘extras’. Seeing as there’s a dehydrator waiting at home, there would be something to do with all those ‘extras’. So I bought 4 pineapples, and a box of canned pineapple to experiment with. I’m still striving for the TJs style pineapple rings. Angela also prepared cinnamon rolls to bake tomorrow. I can’t wait to pull those out of the oven!

Everyman: Day 19

I see to be getting better at waking up with my alarm. In fact today, I did so well, I was able to get out the door for work a 1/2 hour earlier. I was also able to come home a 1/2 hour earlier, and used that extra time to bake a spinach bread that Angela found a recipe for. There is still 3/4 of the dough sitting in the fridge to bake 3 more loaves! I also recently got a dehydrator that my mom and I ordered. I tossed half a pineapple on that yesterday to dry, in lieu of trader joe’s dried pineapple rings, which have been discontinued. Here’s hoping for success!

I have been feeling pretty good during the day, but still quite groggy just after waking up in the morning. Although, my post nap stupor today has been much less severe and much less disorienting, so that was nice.

Everyman: Day 18

Today, I woke up with my radio alarm surprisingly. It was set to go off before the hello kitty, and it actually woke me up. This is surprising, because pretty much since starting this experiment, I’ve never gotten up when it was going off. I think I became too skilled at turning it off with the least amount of disturbance.

Something that I’ve noticed about my consciousness…
I apparently wake up in the night, or at least become active to the point that I talk and even open my eyes. I never remember this, and have Angela’s word only. Since she sometimes similarly talks in her sleep, I trust that she isn’t playing mind-tricks on me. Occasionally, I will remember waking up in the middle of the night, though not during one of my odder conversations (i.e. doughnuts). While I am awake, I am fully aware of what I’m doing and even think to myself, “I’ll remember this in the morning.” I guess, my real questions is, do I say this to myself every-time I wake up at night, even when I don’t end up remembering it, or is it some fluke of consciousness that I know ahead of time what I will remember?

Everyman: Day 17

One of the things that I have noticed, and have not yet come to terms with when sleeping like this, is that the flow of time gets very wacky – to say so in the most scientific of terms. The “long” sleeps, of 3 hours, go by very quickly, and don’t yet seem to satisfy quite enough of the “mmm, bed” feeling.

However, the naps feel like they span an eternity. Partially, I think it is because I wake up frequently throughout due to noises, and the fear of over sleeping at work. Also, I think I tend to dream more during the naps. I don’t necessarily remember the dreams, but I get a sneaking suspicion that there was one. This gives me the sensation that hours have passed, and I can’t believe that I’ve only been napping for 10 minutes.

I think that the kicking was on auto-pilot this morning. If memory serves me (but apparently it does not fairly frequently), I was still being kicked as I fumbled with the alarm in my hands trying to remember how to turn it off.

Everyman: Day 16

Another successful wake up, with kicking of course. Today I erged, showered, made breakfast and packed lunch. I have had two excellent naps so far today, and I’m about to embark on the last one. On the way home I stopped and got some chocolate chip cookies from Crispie Sweetie, the local candy/baked goods/soon to be doughnut shop. They were an excellent combination of crispy around the edges, and chewy in the middle, and of course plenty of sweet. I also picked up 2 sets of “American Girl” books for Angela. She is almost done a set of 6 books, about 20 minutes after starting. I’m such a slow reader, I might have finished one in that time.

Time for nap #3.