tryptofreeze

I changed this from “invent new recipes” to eat better, but the recipes would be a part of that anyway. I’m hoping to restructure my diet to meet these new goals. They may sound a little weird, but I have good reasons. This entry is just to remind me why I need to do this.
1. Minimize added sugar – no soft drinks, nothing made from corn syrup, and any cake/cookie should be made from scratch, possibly using Agave instead of sugar. Why? Because added sugar spikes my GI, makes me tired and destroys my skin.
2. More vegetables – more salads, and more of the vegetables I like and that make me feel better. Why? Because it makes me less tired.
3. More Omega-3’s – flax seed, and those oils that are really good for it. Why? Because they make me able to think clearer.
4. More multivitamins – More vitamin D, more calcium, more Iron, more Potassium, Magnesium. Why? Because the trade-off to restricting my diet is I’m already deficient in these.
5. Less caffiene – I always think I need it in the morning, and then I can’t sleep.

I think that’s it.

It’s not so much the time I’m in the shower, but the fact that the whole routine takes me about an hour, which I don’t have. I have to pack my clothes and go down to where the shower is, which adds about 10-20 minutes, but I think I could cut down overall if I was better able to to track the time I was spending in the water itself.

There are lots of reasons I should try getting up earlier than the rest of my family members – #1 is the quiet. I figured out why all my muscles hurt- it was because I’d been drinking soft drinks (non-caffienated, mind you, but still) before I went to bed. Now I’ve stopped drinking soft drinks period. We’ll see if any of this helps.

Well this is off to a tripping start… I have to get up early for school and at first I was pushing it back more and more but now I’ve started falling behind by ten minutes every day. Part of it is I wake up and all my muscles hurt so I don’t want to get out of bed, but I need to get up early so I’ll keep working at it, I guess.

I’ve started by forcing myself to go for an aimless drive every Friday. It’s not much, but I have to do something.

Well, maybe… this is sort-of a companion to “eat better,” because I need to get up earlier to get more things done in the morning, like cooking. Also, it helps me to get up before everyone else is up. Could be a good habit to have, anyway. I’ll see if I can make it 21 days.

I ordered my books this week. punches air victoriously

I don’t have access to the tools right now. I doubt I’ll make my own deadline… Plus, I decided to revamp the comic site.

I’ve been finding new foods I like lately. I’ve also discovered while staying with someone else that I possibly undereat somewhat (I’m used to cooking all-lean recipes, I guess?) and could probably handle a few more calories in a day. I’m going to try to come up with recipes that work on a sliding scale. (most calories -> less calories) If that idea works for anyone else we could swap recipes… :) I also have food allergies so these will hopefully be friendly to many of the major ones.

So, I think I’m going to start with some gelatin-based items and some lunch bars maybe that I can make from scratch. Need to go shopping for the ingredients.

A lot of things. My little brother is 9 years younger than me. He spends most of his time by himself or with me. I just thought I’d put this goal in to remind myself that as of right now I do have a responsibility to watch out for him.

I had the website for my comic up for a while, and then I realized I’d kind of messed up one of the pages so I deleted it from the folder, then that made the site look sloppy so I just took the whole thing down. Now I’m trying to revamp it and upload it again.

I’m going after this research first. Most writings on THIS subject are not-so helpful for me, but I like these:

http://www.coachville.com/tl/thomasleonard/karla/formsCD/161keystotimemanagement.pdf

http://www.taylorintime.com/timeforadd/

http://www.stacksandstacks.com/blog/2009/05/07/the-ultimate-time-management-tool-for-adults-with-add/

http://www.faslink.org/adhdtips.htm

So, I’ve never actually been diagnosed with ADD, but I’ve been noticing for a while now that these are the only “time-management” articles that approach things in a way that makes any sense to me. In all other places, the articles on time management (and organization in general) seem to be written for people who already have pretty good handle on it. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that not everyone struggles with finding everything “of equal importance” but that’s something I’ve been struggling with, and they talk about it at length in these articles.

Anyway,
These are all excellent. Anyone else who needs help with time management might want to take a look.

I think I might have to do it sooner, now that I think about it…

This is all just theoretical… but what I’m thinking of doing is trying to “reverse” the school-work-load that I normally get. That is to say that the 2nd half of the semester is usually spent studying A LOT and trying to fit in as much stuff as possible of the things I have to do while all the things I normally do for fun or a stress release are pushed off to the side. A goal for this year (or at least the first semester?) might be to reverse that process—to shoulder the workload I normally have at finals and shift it to the first couple weeks of school instead. I’m not sure how to explain it…

I’m at the point where I feel sufficiently guilty for letting other people drive. I’m celebrating this, somewhat, because it says to me that somewhere along the line I made the transition from being terrified of driving to just finding it an irritating chore (and consequently, I would feel guilty because somewhere inside me I’ve concluded that I’m perfectly capable of driving myself and am just being a pest) Whoo! It’s nice when guilt is a GOOD sign!

Okay, so what I meant with this goal was that somewhere along the line, usually about halfway through each semester—I start feeling like I’m “losing control” of everything. My grades slip and then all but go to hell, I start losing sleep, feeling distracted… and so on… by the end of the semester I’m usually miserable, completely exhausted and stressed out of my mind. I don’t mind the stress so much, I know it’s a part of life, but I wish it didn’t have to get so bad, so that’s what I’m doing… Now I just need to come up with a fight plan.

I’m not really thrilled with myself for this…

Okay, I’m not sure about this… but I’ve got a concept for my personal site and a possible deadline. I’m thinking it would be a good idea to have it done by August 18th. (We’ll see..) Here goes.

I have not had much success in this area of my life. I would LIKE to get better grades, but I’ve sort of adapted this “anything’s better than… / beggars can’t be choosers” policy, and that’s fitting given that I can’t control everything… but I might try to accumulate some better study habits anyway. I think one thing I’ll have to start with is trying not to procrastinate so much. I was thinking about making a goal to try and complete all projects (tests are a little harder to measure) one day earlier than I might normally. Is that doable?