A Night Walk is not a good idea, right now. There’s the whole “not particularly safe” clause. And the foot issues. Instead, since it about 1:25 AM EST, and I can’t fall asleep, a mental “Night Walk” will have to suffice.
The sleep issue goes back a while. I sometimes have nights where the mind simply will not slow down. Other times, the mind is quiet but the body isn’t. The current mattress is not helping matters, either, but that problem will be gone within the next 2 weeks. So, instead of laying there, wanting to stab something because sleep is avoiding me, I’ll grab my tablet and I’ll start writing ‘Night Walks’ – nothing terribly profound, just stuff acting as a depressurizer, so to speak.
This first ‘walk’ is just general stuff going on with me, for those few interested. I’ll wait for those who aren’t to exit stage left.
……..
Still here? Cool.
In general, health is ok. After some delays, I got my INR checked last week, and it came back at 3.0 – right where it should be. I’m at 243 pounds: down 20 pounds from when I started actively tracking it (2 years ago, after my physical), but up 9 pounds since June. Not really thrilled about that. If I have to use an excuse, it’s that I haven’t walked nearly as much the last 3 months as I had the first half of this year. I also failed at getting down to 215 by this Saturday. Oh well, keep working out, eating (somewhat) healthy, and wait until the foot problem is further addressed. As for the heart: I had my yearly echocardiogram (echo) a couple of weeks ago. While the nurse didn’t tell me he things looked, I wasn’t visited by a Cardiologist, so that’s a good sign.
Speaking of stabbing something, those who have known me for a few years know that I’ve had moderate-to-pretty-bad foot problems for years. Ankle issues, Tendonitis in my heels and ankle, and Plantar Fasciitis have all shown up on the menu more than once. For a good chunk of 2016, a lot of those issues were, at worst, minor. I was walking 2-3 miles a day, 3-5 times a week, at under 15:45 a mile, goals that I had set for myself in 2015. In June, I started having pain in the balls of my feet, the right foot much worse than the left. I cut my times walking back to about a mile a day, once or twice a week, at about 17:00/mile. That pain soon spread to my 22nd and 3rd toes: the 2nd toe was in almost constant pain, even to touch, the 3rd toe had sharp, shooting pains, and the ball of my foot hurt to touch, much less walk. I went to a doctor, who referred my to a Podiatrist. Him and his staff have a diagnosis of “Possible Tear in the 2nd Plantar Plate”; basically, there is a possible tear in the ligament(s) that connect the toes to the rest of the foot. To add to the fun – and the delayed sleep – Plantar Fasciitis made its unwelcome returned a few days ago. So, my foot has the ankle and heal braced and wrapped, while I’m wearing something called a Budin Double-Toe Splint, until early December, when I go back to the Podiatrist for a follow-up. Early results on that splint: inconclusive.
The best way to describe school this semester is: “frustratingly good”. I current have an ‘A’ for sure (“Cultural Diversity in the United States”) and an ‘I’ for sure (“Systems Thinking” – I’m missing some assignments and one paper). The other 2 classes are too close to tell: Computer Information Technology (CIT) Fundamentals might be a B or C; there is a big group project due this weekend, another next weekend, and there are some ‘contingency point’s that might not have been factored in yet; the other class, Web Development, is at a B but might be an A, once a big HW assignment gets turned in (by Sunday), the Final Project is turned in (in 10 days), and contingency point’s are added. 2 classes also still have a Final to go; Cultural Diversity and Systems Thinking have big papers as Finals. The ‘frustrating’ part comes from the late work in Web Development early, and the zeroes in CIT Fundamentals and Systems Thinking early.
Work, by the way, is better than it has been in 2 years, money-wise. I nearly quit Kinetic but the Labor Day holiday saved that, when work started coming back in. Since then, once I found a pattern that worked, I generally work 2-3 days a week, 12-18 hours a week. The money slack-picker-upper, and sleep pattern killer, is TRIMARC. I only work weekends there but it’s 24 hours total, 6:30 PM-6:30 AM… at MUCH more per hour. What social life I had on weekends is now gone.
School and those two jobs, plus very little going on outside of them, have led to this semester being very mentally exhausting. I am going to have to decide what to do about that, once the Spring semester starts.
For now, I can’t complain about things… too much. I could use, however, about 10 extra hours of sleep, someone to work for me on Christmas day and New Year’s Eve night, University of Louisville Football to beat University of Kentucky and win their major bowl game, a day/afternoon/night cuddling with someone (or more, with no pre-reqs or strings attached), and a fun, successful High School class reunion this Saturday Night. Not in any particular order. 😉
Good night!
The Nexus 