Friday

Benadryl. It just works. Fell asleep before 10 pm, woke up well after 4. I will take it.

Last night in the hot room with the too-small bed that we have been most grateful to have; I can't imagine what we would have done without my folks being able to host us for the past month. Not that gratitude improved the sleep, unfortunately. But we both went with "better living through chemicals" last night and are both feeling pretty human this morning.

Mostly all packed. It "just" needs loading into a trailer, and I won't be participating in that, because I have work. 

Ate Skittles yesterday afternoon. Had hypoglycemia at dinner. I really need to stop doing that. Starting Monday, after we get at least a working bed in the house, I will be getting back to proper eating patterns. Dinner last night - sweet wine and a salad with chicken and cheese and commercial honey mustard dressing - did not help the hypoglycemia much. It will be nice to have control over the commissariat again as well.

156.0 again this morning. We have not snacked much this summer, and that has helped a lot. But I am hopeful that getting settled will reduce stress for a while at least, and maybe allow me to drop a few from there. 

Anyway, road trip this weekend. And then, home. At last.

Thursday

I fell asleep easily enough last night - and well before 10 pm. Woke at 3:18 am, unfortunately. I guess 6 hours is better than the 5 from the night before - at least, I feel more alert today.

And somewhat less stressed. We have signed all our closing documents and wire-transferred our closing cash to the title company, so we have a new house, with a 15-year mortgage with payments only 2/3 of our previous one. I like that part. One more thing off my milestones to worry about for this move. Now, we just have to get there with our stuff, meet up with our other stuff, get the cable installed and the washer and dryer delivered, unpack, fly back here, drive the dogs down, and put my sister on the plane home. Practically nothing left to do.

Eating pretty normal yesterday - 2 ears of corn for dinner. I am not in control of the menu, and refuse to be a pain about not wanting to eat some things. 156.4 this morning and not too surprised.

One more night in the hot room with the small bed, and with all the other stuff falling properly into place, we should be back in our own bed on Monday night. Tuesday at the latest. I certainly hope so.

Wednesday

No words. Too tired. 156.0. Chinese for dinner. Salad for lunch.

Sleep destroyed by dog's illness; fighting past 10 pm to get her out of hypoglycemia that has just popped up. The possibility exists that I am NOT leaving town this weekend, but will have to stay with her to keep the testing and medicating routine strict. If she's stable tonight and tomorrow, we're probably okay, and I think she will be - we were at the end of her bottle of insulin and it tends to get stronger toward the bottom. 

I got to sleep after midnight. I hurt all over. What sleep I got is courtesy of a Benadryl taken after 10 pm, so I figure I have a couple of hours of medicine-head left this morning.

Oh, and I have to work late. Life is sucking pretty damn hard right now.

Tuesday

Benadryl is saving me right now. Just as hot last night; took one around 7:45, and was out cold by 9:30 and didn't so much as twitch until well after 4 - and then only for a second or so. Woke up for good around 5:20. Very much what I needed, and taking it earlier did the same thing again - let me wake up without the fuzzy-headed thing.

Eating ended up kind of weird yesterday - no breakfast, lots of almonds, lunch (Qdoba, so not awful), starvation-fueled Skittles purchase, burger/potato-salad/salad/beans dinner, ice cream with peaches. Everything but the Skittles was okay - and they were needed because after lunch I began feeling hypoglycemic of all things.

I did weigh myself today - I skipped the gelatin. 156.6. So I'm doing okay and would be doing better if we were not camping out and had our own food.

Not much longer. We have decided to leave Friday after dinner, in order to sleep in an air-conditioned motel room and to allow my parents to sleep with their door open and the A/C unit in a helpful location. I have to work that night, but can certainly do it from the road.

Monday

As promised, I have not weighed myself since Friday. I had 2 nights of decent sleep since then, and one that certainly qualified as its very own circle of hell. That would be last night.

It never cooled down last night. Probably partly our fault; we spent the morning bringing our possessions up from the basement and putting them in the (already darn warm) garage, and let warm air into the house in the process. When we went to bed, the temperature on the main floor was still 83, and I don't think our room, with the A/C thingie running full blast, was much cooler. Got to sleep around 9:30, though. And woke at 1:18. With a grinding tension headache and the sheets soaked in sweat. Since Lee was awake at that point, too, I put the A/C back on for a while, which did not help the headache. A while later, I got a wet washcloth and spent about an hour letting it lay on various bits of me where the major blood vessels are close to the skin. It worked, but by the time it worked, it was after 4. Woke again at 5:30 because the alarm wasn't going off - as a radio - and got up an hour later. I guess that adds up to about 6 hours of sleep, give or take, but I feel like crap this morning.

Eating over the weekend was uneven; for "dinner" on Saturday, I had a plate of 7-layer bean dip with chips, for example. Yesterday was breakfast (omelet and hash browns), cheese/nuts, and BBQ for dinner. Generally pretty real-food, healthy stuff, but not wholly paleo. I am considering reintroducing (dried seed) beans occasionally once we get settled, since the "fiber is actually a good thing" message seems to have reasserted itself, and they have both kinds, I believe. But I will probably soak and prepare them from dried myself (review the WAP instructions) so I know what's in them.

I will probably go with Benadryl again tonight; it has been successful in overcoming the heat issues so far, and sheer willpower is simply not cutting it.

Friday

157.8 this morning. Stress. Has to be; we aren't eating much differently from previous weeks.

Slept better last night; I took a Benadryl around 7:30, and then stayed up until 9 pm, more or less. Fell asleep pretty easily, stayed asleep with a brief awakening at 2:30, woke up clear-headed. I think perhaps all these years I've been doing it wrong. Chalk up a little learning to a very bad day.

I nearly didn't weigh myself this morning; the kitchen and the scale are at opposite ends of a staircase, and the dogs come first; if I don't get up early (like 5 am) and weigh myself then, I have to drag 2 drinks (tea and gelatin) upstairs with me so I can weigh myself when "empty", so to speak. Very inconvenient at the moment. Possibly adding to stress. In which case, I think it might be a good idea to stop checking until we get settled. Anything I can take off that load has to help. 

Okay, done. There will be no more weighing until I am in my own house. 

We had socializing last night, and will again tonight - Lee's doing the rounds of all his friends to say good bye. Last night, it was pretty much the last thing I needed to do - and his choice to sit outside in 90-degree weather where the sun hit us directly as it set was not helpful either. I didn't say anything, and I asked him if he had a preference before offering my opinion (I think info on that resolution is elsewhere), and he volunteered after that it hadn't been the best choice. It didn't matter that much, though - having to spend time making chit-chat with near strangers is rather a problem for me, and interestingly enough, we went to dinner with me expecting to have only 2 other people to deal with, only to find it was 4. Not good. But I think tonight may be the last of these incidents. And I know these folks a bit better, so it may be fine. Still more stress that I'd prefer not to add just now.

Weekend coming up. Packing, I think (for a change?). Maybe another movie, maybe not. I hope it's restful.

Wednesday

157.0 this morning; I blame Mexican food with uber-salty green chile. Had a stomach-ache at bedtime last night; something wasn't right. Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• lemon jello water
  
• the usual supplements
  
• scrambled eggs with ham and cheese in
  
• almonds (a lot; I was hungry)
  
• a handful of cashews
  
• chips and salsa
  
• a margarita
  
• 3 cheese enchiladas with green chile
  
• a small bowl of strawberry ice cream
  

I think that was it. Sleep was okay; woke up around 3:30ish, fell asleep again around 5, and woke with the alarm at 5:30. This would be the new normal. Also known as fucking exhausted.

Miscellaneous mortgage stress yesterday; the appraisal came in lower than our offer, but not so much so as to muck with the loan terms, so we're leaving it alone. Lee interpreted my having stated an opinion on what to do as my having decided what we were going to do, and got all pissy at me. I talked him out of it, but that was really pretty much the last thing I needed at the time.

I hate mortgages. I really hope this is the last one we ever have. It's just incredibly aggravating and even though we're trying to rush this one through in under a month, it drags on, a new bit of fun every day.

Tuesday

I can do this. I can survive another couple of weeks. It's just getting hard. Forgot my phone at home this morning, because there's simply not enough room to create a routine. And I'm a creature of routine, so not being able to get into one is making me pretty crazy.

156.4 this morning - guess that's a routine. Yesterday went like this:

• tea with cream
  
• lemon jello water
  
• the usual supplements
  
• scrambled eggs
  
• turkey sausage
  
• almonds
  
• white wine (a glass and a half)
  
• pork chop
  
• salad with blue cheese
  
• green beans
  
• Omaha Steaks twice baked potato with butter
  
• 4 chocolate almonds
  
• cheesecake with berry sauce (I ate the crust)
  

Sleep was okay. We got to bed later than usual, but I woke up at quarter to 4 anyway. My brain started working on getting the closing funds in the right place at the right time, and that was it. Lee'd made a couple of inaccurate statements about the time needed to do a wire transfer last night, and being me, I had to solve it. Instead, not a problem, as I confirmed this morning. Grr.

Stomach's a bit unhappy this morning. Probably the cheesecake crust from last night; I don't see anything else particularly offensive. And I'm really tired. 

The fact remains: I don't have a choice about how life is going just now. And I need to give a hike to the big-girl panties and get on with it. At least we finally got the car title last night, so that's one thing off my list of stuff to stress about. And we don't need 3-days' notice for a wire transfer, so as long as we get the final figures before we sit down to sign stuff, and we remember to move the money out of the Money Market into checking a couple of days before closing, I think we're fine.

This is normal. This is what normal is right now. It's all I've got. So stressing about it is counter-productive.

Monday

Huh. After what I would term a not-so-great weekend for eating, I weigh the same as Friday: 156.4. I'll take it. 

"Not so great" included things like movie popcorn and about 7 dark chocolate peanut butter cups from TJs, all in one sitting (the Minions movie). Followed (after dinner) by chocolate almonds, cashews, and potato chips, in a cup together. Maybe I should just say that yesterday wasn't so great for eating. Whatever. I don't think I'll go into details.

We bought a near-silent fan on Friday, and it has helped a lot with sleep. We go to bed cool and wake up cold. Which is good, I think. Far better than waking up in a muck sweat multiple times. Not that it's been terribly effective overall - the sleep, that is. I took a short nap yesterday around 6 pm, and was struggling all evening to stay awake. I think we were full out unconscious by 9.

In 2 weeks, I will be doing this in Texas, although likely in a hotel room, at least 2 weeks from today. Depends on whether we can get the Comcast transfer to work in advance, and if we can get the cable internet stuff rigged up on Sunday night. So we have our work cut out for us, I would say. 

All in all, I guess this period hasn't been quite as bad as I'd anticipated. But I sure will be glad to get back to my own bed in a house where I control what goes in the food. Where the chairs fit me, and there's room to spread out a bit. That will be nice.

Friday

Ate lunch yesterday. 156.4 this morning. Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• lemon jello water
  
• the usual supplements
  
• scrambled eggs
  
• turkey sausage
  
• chicken enchiladas with green chile
  
• steak
  
• baked sweet potato with sour cream and butter
  
• Southern-style green beans
  
• 5 chocolate almonds
  
• ice cream
  

Complete crap sleep last night - woke up for good around 4, I think. Lee thinks it's because it's too hot. I don't think that anymore, I just think we're about done with the small bed in the uncooled room, and can't even fake the appearance of sleep. We're looking at about 2 weeks; we leave to head South on August 1st. 

Weekend coming. If it's like previous weekends, I'll eat too much of the wrong stuff and weigh more on Monday than I do today. And I know we're going out to breakfast somewhere tempting tomorrow. Possibly also to 2 movies. Hoping for the best.

Thursday

156.0 or a bit less today; here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• lemon jello water
  
• the usual supplements
  
• scrambled eggs
  
• turkey sausage
  
• potato chips (a vending bag)
  
• about 6 Life Savers
  
• a glass of red wine
  
• chicken enchiladas with green chile
  
• salad with commercial italian dressing
  
• 5 chocolate almonds
  
• a small bowl of ice cream - mixed strawberry and vanilla
  

I have the remaining enchiladas with me for lunch today; good thing, since I'm out of almonds.

Sleep was adequate. My back still hurts, but less than yesterday morning, although more than yesterday afternoon. It's definitely my parents' furniture. Not much I can do, really.

Starting to think a bit about how we will eat once settled again. Supposedly there's a farmers' market handy, which will be good. I want to cook dinner more; not having to leave the house in the evening for food has been a rather nice aspect of our little interlude at Mom and Dad's house. But that means that I have to be more organized about it. I should have about 3 months of complete working from home to do before my current arrangement is likely to end, and maybe in that time, I can get it figured out. I hope so. Maybe it's time to do some menu planning again.

Wednesday

Lee got me a massage last night, to work some of the kinks out. I walked out of it feeling as if I weighed half what I walked in weighing, and able to stand up straight. Drove home. Sat on the couch. And went to bed with most of the kinks back in - they're worse this morning. A bit over 2 weeks more of this. I will be a hunchback by the time we drive away.

156.0 this morning. Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• lemon jello water
  
• the usual supplements
  
• scrambled eggs
  
• bacon
  
• almonds
  
• a glass of red wine
  
• ham and potato casserole (with cheese, and supposedly thickened with rice flour)
  
• fruit salad with Miracle Whip dressing
  
• 5 chocolate almonds
  
• a small bowl of strawberry ice cream
  

I'm so annoyed that my back felt great last night for all of an hour. It's better than yesterday now, I think, but not good. In addition, despite taking potassium and magnesium both morning and evening, I had 3 ankle cramps last night, at least 2 of which I had to get up and walk off. 

I know there's an end to this. But it's hard to see. And honestly, it could be delayed. Which would be simply awful. I had the massage therapist work on my jaw last night, and she pretty much disassembled my face. It seemed to have worked - at the time. But it was feeling locked up a little bit again this morning. 

If this is the new normal for us, right now, I don't like it much.

Tuesday

Ow. Nasty knots in my back. Erector spinae if I had to guess; more pain along the spine than under my angel wing. I'm unable to lift my head up, and waiting for the aspirin to kick in.

That said, I'm at 156.4. Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• lemon jello water
  
• the usual supplements
  
• scrambled eggs
  
• bacon
  
• almonds
  
• 2 pieces of low-carb crust pepperoni pizza
  
• salad with commercial italian dressing
  
• 5 chocolate almonds
  
• small bowl of strawberry ice cream
  

This is pretty much the pattern on weekdays. It seems to work well. Sleep is as good as one can expect in not-our-bed, but I think the bed is what's killing my back. We have a foam topper on a very hard mattress, but the topper is so soft that I sink into it unevenly. I'm spending some time today looking up what causes these knots - maybe I'm dehydrated or something. I hope it's something I can address without changing the mattress.

Ah well. Onward.

Monday

Weekend's eating included Mexican food, potato chips, and a trip to White Fence Farm (cornbread dressing, bean salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, and a corn fritter). 157.8 this morning is no surprise.

Sleep continues to vary. I seem to be coping with the heat a bit better, and am not just drained today, but I didn't sleep terrifically well last night. And Lee's starting to have sciatic nerve issues. We have less than 3 weeks at this point, if all goes well, and it's killing us.

I continue to find my jaw locking up, mostly on the left side. The jaw muscles on that side are really tight and hard; will it relax once the move is done? I sure hope so. Otherwise the search for a good massage therapist becomes pretty darned important.

Guess I will try to focus on work and treat life as if it's normal. It's what I've got at the moment.

Thursday

Um. Wow. Seriously exhausted today. I feel like faceplanting onto my desk. And ache all over. Very bad night of (non) sleep. Although I slept. Two occurrences of leg cramps, woke up abruptly around midnight for no obvious reason, and thrashed from about 3 am on. Fell asleep again around 5, and the alarm went off at 5:30. 

Oh, and I have a deployment tonight, so bedtime won't be at 9 - in fact, it starts at 9. Some days, life just sucks.

156.2 this morning. For some reason, my body is having a setpoint adjustment or something. Which I'm fine with, obviously. I rather figured that this summer's stress-and-chaos mix would have led the other way. I'm guessing that it may be a dearth of evening snacking.

Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• lemon jello water
  
• some supplements (same list as Tuesday)
  
• 3 pieces of Cheddar cheese
  
• almonds
  
• a glass of red wine
  
• a handful of cashews
  
• pork chop
  
• potatoes o'brien (fried with onions and peppers)
  
• broccoli
  
• fruit salad with miracle whip dressing
  
• a finger of Scotch
  
• 5 chocolate almonds
  

Long list, many sketchy choices, weight loss. Oh, and my feet are still swollen up, so I'm heavier than I would be if all was well. We are mostly eating "Real Food", though - maybe that's helping.

In theory, the next couple of weeks should be more stable. We won't be traveling again until the end of the month. May be able to find and act on a routine. That would help me, I think.

Wednesday

Yowza. Got a better night's sleep last night than I've had in a while; still, woke up at 4 am on the tail of a nightmare involving a ghost that wouldn't be exorcised. Hope the new house isn't haunted (if that's what it's about, that is). Eating yesterday was less than stellar, involving a trip to McDonald's for lunch. However, 156.6 this morning. Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• lemon jello water
  
• some supplements (D3, K, Magnesium, Potassium)
  
• almonds
  
• double quarter pounder with cheese, no bun
  
• fries
  
• a glass of red wine
  
• green chile cheese enchiladas
  
• black bean salad (had corn and bell peppers and onion in it, not sure what else
  
• 5 chocolate almonds
  
• small amount of vanilla ice cream
  

A shorter list than the day before, when I (theoretically) didn't eat. 

I took more electrolytes (Mg and K) at bedtime, and had only one cramp, and that one just as I was falling asleep. It didn't interfere, much. Thank goodness, it's been cool here since I got back, which has helped a lot with the sleeping.

I read something the other day - probably Mark's Daily Apple or Robb Wolf - about a theory that stress levels can be decreased by perceiving a situation as "normal", more or less. I tried that on the way home last night, in traffic. It may have worked - I don't know how high my stress levels were beforehand. I will keep doing it, though, since it's cost-free and might help. I was unable to overcome the stress from Lee's wanting me to be his travel agent, though. That always irritates me - being his safety net when he forgets to do things. Talk about "normal". It may be irritating, but it's very "normal" chez nous.

Onward.

Tuesday

I stepped on the scale twice. Put my glasses on. It didn't seem right. But it said 156.8 this morning. I knew that I was carrying water yesterday, and granted, I ate almonds and dinner, and that was it, but I didn't think it was 3-1/2 pounds of water.

Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• lemon jello water
  
• almonds (probably 40-50)
  
• a handful of roasted cashews
  
• a glass of red wine
  
• chicken with some sort of sauce on it (italian - it included a little flour)
  
• peas
  
• a small baked potato with butter
  
• salad with commercial ranch dressing
  
• 5 chocolate almonds
  
• vanilla ice cream
  

Considering that the day really was "almonds and dinner", barring the cashews, that's a long list. In any event, it got rid of the water.

Somewhat putrid sleep last night - woke up twice with horrible leg cramps. Makes sense - haven't been taking potassium or magnesium since before leaving for Houston. I got up and put magnesium oil on both calves at about 3 am, but was awake from then on. The dogs got me up well before 6, and I got to work over a half hour earlier than normal. I will probably be wobbly tonight again. It is what it is, and it should be calming down at the end of this month. I do hope so.

Monday

Spent the last 4 days in Houston, not eating much, really, but not great stuff. Everyone insisted that we try Tex-Mex, or drink at odd hours. I had a couple of glasses of Prosecco at 11 yesterday morning, for instance. Nice, but not Paleo at all. Anyway, 159.2 this morning, swollen feet, probably the usual drill.

I didn't eat breakfast today, for convenience, pretty much. When it's just me in a house I'm used to living in, I tend not to have time or inclination to cook in the morning. When it's just me in my parents' house, well, forget it. Everything I do takes too many steps, because they've put things in places that don't work with how I function.

Anyway, got a fair amount of exercise, looking at houses (found one, too), and kept falling asleep in the car in the afternoons - I may have hit my sleep debt limit or something. Got home at 11 last night and slept pretty well, but obviously not for long enough. I feel fairly alert this morning, though. So I'll survive. Back to the regular routine for a few weeks, then will have to figure out the logistics in an entirely new place. Maybe around Christmas the stress will be down a bit. Maybe.

Wednesday

I guess I'd call it (insert long pause here), well, shoot. I can't think of the word. In any event, we are about to lose one email service with our move, and it was the only one I could access from work. I give the other one a last try figuring it won't work, and it works. Too complicated, this life we live.

157.2 this morning. Weekdays are better than weekends. For me, anyway. Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream, only not very much (I spilled the entire cup on the bathroom counter)
  
• lemon jello water
  
• the usual supplements
  
• scrambled eggs
  
• turkey sausage
  
• almonds
  
• low-carb crust pepperoni pizza
  
• salad with commercial Italian dressing
  
• a glass of wine
  

I think that was it. Yesterday was so long ago. I slept well, but can feel the need for more just sloshing around in my brain, getting in the way of everything. 

Still working on getting the temperature at night more bearable. It occurs to me, though, that sleeping warm is probably quite Paleo - early man did not have A/C, after all - so I should be able to figure it out. But it's an odd transition from sleeping in our swamp-cooled home with a full-on duvet all night, to sleeping in my parents' spare room with no climate assistance at all, and just a sheet - for starters, the weight is different.

Hot flashes have decided to return. Damn them to hell. This is just not a good time for that crap.