Archive for October, 2009
Heartburn
OK, so I did some research on the interweb on this heartburn thing. I have had it for a maybe a year now. Maybe even a bit longer. But it is in waves. And one thing I figured out myself is that if I get less sleep, it gets worse.
One of the different solutions was sleeping a bit more upright, but that is not the case for me, since I never have problems with it during the night (whenever I wake up) or in the mornings. So we count out that one.
The other and probably easiest way for me to prevent it, is watch your diet. And the last one is surgery. But let’s not go there. It’s not that bad.
So wikipedia gave me this under “dietary modifications”, meaning watch these products:
- coffee and alcohol
- antacids
- foods high in fats
- eating 2-3 hours before bedtime
- large meals
- carbonated soft drinks with or without sugar
- Chocolate and peppermint.
- Acidic foods: tomatoes and tomato-based preparations; citrus fruits and citrus juices.
- Cruciferous vegetables:cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts.
- Milk and milk-based products containing calcium and fat, within 2 hours of bedtime.
So here we have a list that actually is giving me a headache as well. Actually not, I should be happy I found this, since I get a high score on the items I consume. I’ll explain:
- coffee: daily, but I went down from 6 cups a day to max 3
alcohol: that is max. once a week a bottle of beer or a glass of wine, so no worries there - don’t use them, so no problem
- I guess that happens sometimes
- almost every day
- every day
- I stopped drinking that stuff years ago, so that is not a problem
- we’re not going to discuss the amount of chocolate I consume every day here. I am Belgian, that should explain it.
peppermint: not so much - tomatoes on my plate/bread every day
- cabbage and broccoli at least once a week
- milk, milk, milk … I love it. And so do our kids.
So…. 8 / 10 ….. mmmhhhh …. Maybe I should change my eating habbits. The good thing is that I can start right away with this. The only problem I can see is the chocolate. But my health is worth a bit more than some good taste and a full belly in the long run. But at least we have a plan now, we’ll stick with it and report back in a few weeks to see if it improved.
Note to self
I have to write this down. Not that it is easily forgotten, but I just have to. I think it eases my mind a bit. And hopefully I will do something about it as well.
Do the following things:
- Learn to go to bed earlier than 23:00
- Start running again
- Try to figure out why I have heartburn so often
Speed
This is a very nice chart of different internet speeds in the world and connected to that, the average price tag in respective country.
4th place over here. I knew it was a good place to live. I can actually give you a few more reasons, but more about that another time.
Drummer Boy
Not so sick anymore as you can see. He was having loads of fun with it n Sunday. And as Linda said today, if we buy a house one day, we might get one for him as well…
Torture
There are different methods for this. But one of the 5 methods used by the British government in the 1970s was sleep deprivation. Usually keeping the victim awake for a couple of days and when finally allowed fall asleep, suddenly wake them again. Now in my case it wasn’t that bad, but still….. I am not trained for this. So, how did we get there ?
Zeb got a fever last Sunday and this of course throws his sleeping rhythm out of balance. So we get about 5 hours of sleep during an average night. The problem with this is that it is not in 1 continuous block of 5 hours, but divided usually in 2 or 3 blocks. Meaning that I never got more than 3 hours of sleep in one stretch. 3 or 4 days like that is no problem, but come Friday night and it is starting to really wear me down.
Getting the clockworks over to wintertime wasn’t something I was looking forward to if he wasn’t getting back to his normal sleeping pattern. It wasn’t too bad last night, but not 100% there yet, so I cross my fingers for tonight. But I have a good feeling.
1 Week of this was a very long time. Tired minutes felt like hours, hours felt like weeks. And even sometimes (I have to admit), the longing for sleeping was bigger than the hunger in those dark hours.
The unthinkable
OK, you can only read this if you understand Swedish. Not really fair to all of you. But what it comes down to is that now that photographers do their yearly trips to the schools here in Sweden, one photographer decided to retouch a photo (take away a birthmark) of a six year old girl without asking the parents.
Just.not.acceptable.
I finally made it…
Got a new project today. Just a short one, probably this and next week. Nothing more, nothing less. But the funny bit is that it is at a customer everybody in town has been. And the reason most of the people guess why I moved here in the first place ten years ago. So yes…. finally.
Not that it even had been on my to-do list…..
