looking for the positive

Day four of my month of gratitude, and I'm tempted to whinge, so let's see how I go finding the silver lining ...

• I'm a bit overloaded with work at the moment - partly because there's a lot of it coming in at the moment, but partly because I'm having trouble getting back into the rhythm of solid work days, after having the kids around all day for six weeks. The positive is that I have lots of work, which means I'm earning enough to pay the bills and put some aside towards the Europe trip. Every job means that trip is a little bit closer :)
• The children's activities notes (for school and after-school activities) are coming in thick and fast, with the accompanying requests for payment. Today's notes equal several hundred dollars. But I'm grateful that I have plenty of work to pay for everything, and that the kids have all these opportunities available to them :)
• I need to pay out over $1100 for a CPAP machine of my own tomorrow, and return the hire one. Again, I'm grateful that I have enough work to be able to buy the machine that's making a big difference to my sleep, energy levels, mood and life in general :)
• My sister and her family are moving from Sydney (3 hours away) to near Brisbane, Qld (about 15 hours away by car) on Monday. It's been a quick decision (the removalist was only booked this week), and I won't be able to get to Sydney to see them before they go (Miss Tizz and the X-man are particularly disappointed not to see their cousins). BUT - there's email, the phone, and potential seaside holidays - they'll be 7 houses back from the water, and a short ferry trip from several islands :)
• My calendar is rapidly filling up with work, meetings (work and school related), children's activities (they're enrolled in swimming lessons plus one other after school activity each week), and my Italian course (Monday nights for this term). On the plus side, it seems the more I have to do, the more organised I become and the more I can fit in without it being too much of a burden. I get a lot done when the calendar gets busy, and yet somehow it all fits in and the ensuing sense of achievement is worth the effort :)

 I had a lightbulb moment this week - bleeding obvious, but I have been so much in a rut I'd completely lost perspective. I realised that going to bed at midnight or later every night is not normal, at least not when you have children who are up by 7am (and that's quite a reasonable, civilised hour for the day to start!). But it's what I've been doing for years, and it has to stop. So it's almost midnight now, and I'm heading for bed, and the plan (how I love plans!) is to bring bedtime forward to something like 10.30 or 11pm, or earlier if I'm tired. Goodnight!

it's a miracle!

I'm posting before midnight! Now that's a change! Got to make a serious effort to get to bed earlier, because (despite the CPAP) I'm feeling tired again. Lack of sleep (especially good sleep earlier in the proceedings) is an obvious culprit, and I have no more excuses.

And besides, I've been a right cranky cow this weekend :(

Ok - goodnight, and I'll try harder to write something worth reading tomorrow.

plans for the year

I'm not going to call them resolutions, because I'm not very good at keeping resolutions and then I just feel like a failure, but I do have some things I'd like to do in 2010.

1. The trip to Europe is the biggie. There are times when I don't know if I'll be able to save enough in time, but I'll be doing my darnedest to make it happen.
2. Sort out my superannuation. In cleaning up my desk today, i found statements from three different super funds, none of them with a huge amount in them, but it's silly to be paying three lots of fees. So I will be rolling them in together, after I update my name on two of them, and work out where to put it all (any advice gratefully received - this is not my forte!).
3. Sewing. I'd like to have a go at refashioning old clothes hanging in the back of the wardrobe, and making new things. I'd like to finally figure out how my overlocker works, after having done nothing more than hem some wipes with it when the kids were babies. I've made a start on clearing the sewing table, and there's not really too much more to do to make it usable - I just need to do it.
4. Get some value from the Questacon and National Gallery memberships we have before they expire (May 2010 for the national Gallery, May 2011 for Questacon).
5. Make more things from scratch - food and other products. I've collected and researched a lot, and now I need to put some of these things into practise. It's about saving money, not relying as much on processed items, organising my time better, and showing the children that there are alternatives.
6. Read more books. Real paper books. I want to make a serious dent in the linear metres of books I have stacked by my bedside.
7. Spend less time online. My work is computer-based, my friendships depend on online contact to a large extent these days, but I really don't need to spend as much time as I do playing games.
8. Get more sleep. I have a very bad habit of staying up late at night and getting by on far less sleep than I should. I've been doing it for years, and it's all caught up with me recently. So I will be turning into a pumpkin around midnight, and then trying to bring bedtime back little by little.
9. Get healthy - 5 + 7 + 8 + more activity, especially as my energy levels increase. I've been remarkably lucky healthwise to date, but I need to take into consideration that I'm now 44, and take a bit more care. Or a lot more care.
10. Get organised. This is something I struggle with. I like the idea of being a free spirit, but I know it's easier to be spontaneous and creative and fun when your environment is calm and running smoothly. And no-one can make that happen for me but me.

They're in no particular order, and there are a lot of connections between all these things. I'm not going to attempt to change everything at once - tried that and failed miserably - but take it step by step and make it happen.

where did today go?

I managed to cross a few things off yesterday's list, but the day seemed to slip by in a bit of a blur. Might have something to do with only managing a couple of hours on the CPAP machine last night, before waking and not being able to get comfortable with it again. So I took it off, and slept, but obviously not well, as I woke with a headache and pretty much feeling like I have every day for the past six months or so, except a few nights this week.

Clearly the machine makes a difference, so I will persevere.

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day are all shaping up to be very social occasions. It will be fun, but by the end of it I will be well and truly ready to crawl into a hole for some alone time. I'm not very good at extended socialising, and this time of year demands a lot of it. I'm going to try to throw myself into it and enjoy it, and reserve some quiet recover and recharge time where I can.

hot and bothered

And not in a good way, either.

It was hot today, and then it was hot and windy. And dusty. And my brain turned to mush - the kind where you can't remember your own phone number or your children's teachers' names.

So I did what I had to do, and not much more. And then I had a nap.

CPAP update: second night was definitely better than the first. Went to sleep much faster, and didn't panic so much when I woke early in the morning, but still took the mask off at that point. So I think it's just a matter of getting used to it. I'm feeling a bit better in the morning than I have in a long time, although I'm still tired during the day. It will take time - long term sleep deprivation can't be fixed with a few hours of decent sleep.

only blogging because i said i would

My head hurts, and I'm tired. It's been hot (with more on the way tomorrow), I haven't had any coffee today, and the CPAP is going to take some getting used to. Took forever to go to sleep last night, and I woke about 4.30am in a panic and had to take the mask off.

Ok, whinge over, and heading for bed for a relatively early night, and to try again.

Christmas shopping is all done, at least the presents - the food for Christmas day is still to be bought, but that's a bit of a last minute thing. Might suss out options like shopping online and extended trading hours, and try to avoid the madness that is Christmas eve in the supermarket.

Miss Tizz has asked if she can skip the last two days of school - there's not much happening, so we've agreed - but the X-man wants to go tomorrow as the kindergarten children are singing for their Year 6 buddies. But he'd like an early mark please :)

There are a few things to pop in the mail tomorrow, presents to wrap, and a room to rearrange to accommodate a bigger table for Christmas day, but I think we pretty much have it under control.

Oh, and Santa rang tonight and has arranged a special visit on Christmas eve for two kids who are not quite sure whether he's real ;)

i'm planning on sleeping tonight

I had an appointment at the sleep clinic this morning, and was fitted with a CPAP machine and all the bits that go with it, packed into a bag not much bigger than a laptop case.

I don't know how long this will continue. In fact, I don't know if it will even work for me yet - I guess I find out about that tonight. I'm hoping that I will get the sleep apnoea under control, achieve a better quality of sleep, reduce stress, increase energy, lose weight and so on, and be able to go off the treatment, but I know that isn't always the case, and this could be a lifelong thing.

So here we go ...

mortality check

My sleep study results arrived today, and it's not good news. I have severe obstructive sleep apnoea. Severe.

Untreated, OSA can lead to cardiovascular problems, including heart attack and stroke, so it's something I need to act on.

The diagnosis does explain a lot of things though - constant fatigue, sleepiness during the day, waking up with headaches, breathlessness, foot and leg swelling, mood disorders, weight gain, and the list goes on. 

The recommended treatment is with a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine, which pumps air through a mask to keep the airways open. What I'm hoping is that using the machine will allow me to sleep better, therefore I will have more energy (and so be capable of increased activity and not need to eat extra just to keep going), less stress (remember what Jon Gabriel said about stress and cortisol and weight?), thereby allowing me to lose weight, which should help take pressure off my airways while I sleep. So the theory is that I won't need the CPAP machine forever.

It all made me realise that I may not be around forever, but I sure can be a bit more vigilant about my health to ensure I'm around for a long while yet. And it starts now.

sleep

Went along to an appointment at a local university sleep clinic today, and came home with a case of contraptions to wire me up for a sleep study tonight. While there, I had an interesting discussion with the doctor about the relationship between sleep (and the lack of it), sleep apnoea, stress, weight, the Gabriel Method, and husbands who think they don't have a problem. And I think the student who was there is going to look into the Gabriel Method for herself.

So not much of a post tonight, because I'm heading off to wire myself up and hit the hay. Amazingly enough, it's not even midnight, and I'm actually yawning (although perhaps not so amazing given that Miss Tizz had a nightmare at 1am this morning and ended up in with us for the rest of the night, and the X-man lobbed in at some appallingly early hour). *Yawn* Goodnight - sleep tight!