30-Day Blogging Challenge: Your Top 5 Pet Peeves

Okay, I'll admit it, I failed that challenge a long time ago. In fact, it's been so long now that the original link I posted for the challenge from another blogger doesn't even exist anymore, so I no longer have the original list. I believe I ended on Day 8. So I think what I'm going to do is find a new list and kind of jump around; a lot of the topics listed I actually already inadvertently covered in prior posts.

#7 was covered here.
#9 has a similar post here.
#28 is a repeat of #7
#8 was covered in Day 1 of my original challenge, found here
#29 was pretty much answered here

So challenge day 3 seems like a good place to start. I probably have way too many pet peeves because I get annoyed rather easily. I don't have a whole lot of patience for people, especially dumb people. (whoops, did I just say that in my out loud voice?)

#1 Encompasses a lot. LEARN TO DRIVE. Use your damn turn signal. Quit endangering others with your reckless driving. If you're old and you can't see, take a damn Uber. This is not the first time this guy has parked here. He's old, and he obviously doesn't understand road signs. He should NOT be driving.This is something I say a lot "pay the fuck attention". (shut up, grammar police.) Get off your phone, watch for the green light, obey road signs. Why is it so difficult?

#2 People who are oblivious of their surroundings and are inconsiderate of others. I sometimes wonder if I should have grown up in Japan. They are a very conscientious people and are always considerate of others. I hate it when people are blocking entire walkways for no reason, whether with their body or like with a shopping cart. There are people who are just rude and don't care, or are completely oblivious. You're coughing in my face without covering your mouth. You're playing your music loudly in public without earphones for everyone around you to hear. Are you taking up 2 parking spaces because you legit can't park like a normal person or because you don't want anybody to ding your precious vehicle? I don't know about you, but I absolutely hate shopping at Costco on Samples day. It's the epitome of frustration.

#3 People who are chronically late. I can genuinely shrug off an occasion or two, sometimes even I run into unexpected traffic or other issues, but some people just don't care about being late, or are unable to manage their own time to the point of just being late due to that. This kind of bleeds into #2, really. I'm a chronic early bird. I always make sure I have enough time to get where I'm going, even with anticipation of traffic or other issues. I'm considerate of others and their time.

#4 People who can't take direction or know direction. I can certainly get lost from time to time, it's
not like I'm perfect, but damn, people. This is directly correlated to my job, and has only become a pet peeve because it doesn't just happen occasionally, but EVERY. DAMN. DAY. ALL. DAY. LONG.
Ste 202 is next door. With the big HONKING sign that literally has an arrow pointing to the door. The lab is on the other side. With an arrow pointing at it.
I get the Lynne Clark/Lynn Clark mix up. We have an ARNP Lynn Clark and there is a Breast Surgeon Lynne Clark, MD who is in a completely different building. But the issue is not that they get confused, but that some of them get pissed off about it and want to argue with me. I'm sorry to have to tell you this but no, I'm not lying, this is NOT the Lynn Clark you are looking for, and the Princess is in another castle.

#5 While I could name several minor things that irk me every day, like - lady, I'm on the phone, can you not stand directly in my face waiting for my call to finish in order to check you in? There's this thing called HIPAA and more importantly: personal space. But, I'll go with something complicated and big. Intolerance/bigotry/racism. I have no tolerance (am I being hypocritical? lol) for people that don't respect others, regardless of ethnicity, age, gender or social status. Treat everybody with dignity and respect. End of story.

What about you? What pet peeves bug you the most? Let me know in the comments!

Stop Looking

They say that when you stop looking, you will find what you need. I hadn't necessarily been looking; in fact, I was content in my solitude for the most part. I also knew that, despite movies like Isn't It Romantic, the odds of running into my soulmate by dropping papers on the ground and him helping to pick them up, and our eyes locking, and next thing you know we're getting married - kind of a stretch, right? 

So I knew that even though I felt pretty happy about my singleness, I wasn't exactly averse to dating again. I just never felt like putting forth the effort it required to get back into the game - until I saw an ad for a dating website called geek2geek. It's one of those things you find that you never knew you needed until you see it. This was exactly what I was looking for. Being a total geek at heart, I knew that if I found someone with similar interests then we would probably mesh very well. However, after I made a profile I didn't really do anything with it. I took the approach of "they will find me", and it wasn't necessarily because I was lazy or scared, but because I was still content with my alone time. I took the mentality of the "stop looking" advice and just let it be. I don't believe in fate in the slightest; I don't think our lives are already running on a predetermined route that can not be altered by events. I do believe that we have control of our own destinies. 

When I got a message (my first one, after being on the site for probably a month), I'll admit - I hesitated in answering for a couple of days. But then I decided to give it a shot because why not? He seemed nice. He loved Star Trek. Played World of Warcraft. One date would certainly not hurt. And it was because of this decision in my life that everything shifted 180 degrees.

Have you ever heard the saying "when you know, you know"?

I know.

Never in my life have I known this much. Not since Josh. 

The connection we have was almost instantaneous. It has only grown since our first meeting. It's the kind of thing that makes you wonder if soulmates exist, or whether or not you might have more than one in your lifetime. Granted, we are still in the "honeymoon phase" I suppose, and who knows how long that will last, but I feel as though we have a very solid foundation to build on. I'm excited to see where this goes.

It's amazing what you find when you stop looking, huh?

I will not let Hunger control me!

Mindful Eating.

It was safe to say that I was a full blown skeptic. "Mindful" anything seemed kind of like a crock. Except for when I'm out in public surrounded by strangers, where I am particularly mindful of my actions and how they affect others, for my own self it seemed rather... illogical for lack of a better word. I mean, of course I'm mindful of what I'm eating - it's not like don't I know that I'm eating, right?! 

Well, when I finally came to the realization that hunger was controlling me and not the other way around, I knew I had to figure out how to change my habits somehow. I was reading an article, and I forget if I found it in the Greatist blog email or on Myfitnesspal, but she was discussing leptin and ghrelin and the role they play - which I already knew - but then she talked about hunger. She described hunger as a child having a tantrum; and that resonated with me in my dislike of children. I thought: well, I'd never let a 2 year old win a tantrum - why should I let my stomach do the same?

You see, I was giving in almost immediately to even the possibility of a hunger ping. Like I wasn't even sure if was a real feeling of actual hunger before I was jumping up and looking in the fridge for something to eat, and that had to stop. It was almost like a literal switch flipping in my brain. I'm not sure how else to describe it. The only thing I really changed was just employing strategies I already knew - like waiting 20 minutes to gauge if I'm feeling actual hunger before I go to eat. And waiting 20 minutes after I ate before I decided that what I had wasn't enough food. In this way, I am being "mindful". I'm sitting there, asking myself how do I really feel? Is this hunger, or is it boredom? Is it hunger or is it that weird in-between feeling I get sometimes that goes away within a few minutes? 

Using this, plus a couple of tricks to help me along, has allowed me to stay in roughly 1300 calories a day without feeling deprived. I've been doing it for over a week now without changing any of the food I eat on a daily basis (besides drinking less alcohol). I've always known that my downfall has not been what I eat, but how much, because I was letting hunger control me.

The biggest trick that I employ is PYY, or Peptide YY. It is released by your small intestine (normally during digestion) which tells your brain that you are full. Research has shown that coffee, particularly decaf (they know that it has nothing to do with the caffeine) increases PYY production. Unfortunately for you non-coffee drinkers out there, research really hasn't found a substitute; in fact, they don't even know why decaf is more effective at triggering PYY production. And honestly, I'm glad decaf is better for it because using coffee for appetite suppression is not always going to be the best option; especially right before bed.

So trick #1 is Costco, who is my best friend when it comes to large quantities of whole bean coffee, especially decaf, which is hard to find. I use their decaf in both my nespresso machine for a 30 calorie 8oz almond milk latte, and as a cold brew mixed with almond milk and a scoop of Idealshake for a double-whammy punch, usually around 7pm when I'm starting to feel hungry again after dinner.

Recipe for espresso

2 - 2 ounce servings of decaf coffee using an nespresso reusable cup like these:

4 ounces of heated unsweetened almond milk
1 splenda packet
1 tsp of non-dairy creamer
and froth the milk like crazy

Or, you can just make decaf coffee in your drip machine. For me, it generally comes out to about 30-40 calories due to using non-dairy creamer in my 16oz cup (when I make my 16oz cup in the morning with regular coffee, I add a scoop of collagen too, just to get a dose of protein in there.)

For the cold brew, it's very easy to do at home and my method makes it taste exactly like the Starbucks cold brew that you can buy in their bottles, plus as an added bonus you get either 10g of protein with a scoop of idealshake, or you can use vanilla-flavored whey for 24g.

Since I'm not making cold brew for the caffeine, the ratio to coffee/water isn't that strict. I use roughly 150-200g of whole bean coffee (coarsely ground) to a 64oz container (of water) like what you find at Costco with the Mixed Nuts. In fact, the lid is pretty important because you want to shake it a few times during the infusion process. Use filtered cold water, but instead of putting it in the fridge forever, leave it on your counter for 6-10 hours. And that's it. You can filter it any way you see fit. Personally, I have one of these: 

Which makes the process a lot easier.

Cold Brew Recipe:

I use 8oz of cold brew and 8 oz of almond milk, 1 scoop of powder, and 1 splenda packet shaken in Contigo cup. I sometimes also add a bit of water to equal about 20oz. It's freaking delicious. Using the idealshake, it's only 130 calories.

When my stomach is in one of those confused states of "I think I'm hungry but I'm not sure", which happens to me almost consistently after my work lunch, I drink a cup of coffee, and that stops that feeling immediately. It's a pretty cool trick. I also like [light] string cheese as a snack because it's a nice dose of protein and unless you're a crazy person who just bites into it, it kind of forces you to eat it slowly and MINDFULLY (omg).

Anyway, let me know what you guys think of this strategy. Have any of you tried these methods? Have you found that eating mindfully has helped you on your weight loss journey? Let me know in the comments!

 

The prank that almost never was

I was reminded recently of something I did in Junior High that had me laughing as I was re-telling the story to my friend Brenda.

I went to Cedar Heights in Port Orchard, (home of the Raindevils... wooo) and I had a teacher that I had hated from day one, back when he was a sub. His name was Mr. Simonson, and I hated him because he had subbed in the class I hated most - math - and at the beginning of class he'd done something infuriating. He kept moving back and forth in front of the classroom and waiting for people to pay attention, (which I was obviously refusing to do) and he said "I'm going to keep moving because the eye is attracted to movement." and I looked up. And I've hated him ever since (dammit; present me is impressed tho).

Anyway, that's the backstory. Fast-forward to present day JH and now Mr. Simonson was my language arts/homeroom teacher (Pretty sure I screamed nooooooo!! in teen-aged angst when I saw his name on my schedule and begged office staff to switch me to a different teacher). So one day, one of the students was selling fake parking tickets, and I have no idea how or why I decided to buy one but I did. (Maybe I had a little devil on my shoulder telling me who I should use it on). Our classroom was in a portable within clear view of the 2nd floor cafeteria, and I knew which car was Simonson's.

I hatched a plan.

Sneak out there during lunch, and slap that bad boy right on his windshield. I'd never see him find it, but that didn't matter. He parked right next to the portable. I'd be in and out in seconds. No one would ever know.

Except, being a nice kid who never played pranks on people, it wouldn't be that easy for me as it turns out. I walked out there all suspicious-looking and stood next to his car for an absurdly long amount of time. I was hesitating because I thought, well what if his car had an alarm - (it was a clunker, there's no way it would, I know that now) - he was parked feet from the portable window!! He would run out here and catch me! And then he'd think I was vandalizing his car! (I know now that this is my mind being anxious and had no idea this was not a normal brain process.) I remember looking up at the cafeteria windows and seeing everyone staring back down at me. No one probably cared, but I thought they were silently judging me. So, I finally puffed up my chest and quickly stuck it under his windshield wiper and walked away. 

THERE. TAKE THAT, MEAN TEACHER.

(Who wasn't actually mean at all lol)

My first and only prank that almost never was. How riveting!
 

Revisiting "Raising Awareness"

I've been doing this blog for a number of years now, through a tumultuous marriage and eventual divorce, and during a couple of my dating escapades. All through them I've done a couple of "Raising Awareness" posts. I wanted to go back and revisit them to give some people advice on how to cope.

My very first blog post ever was Raising Awareness of Dyspareunia. I was never officially diagnosed with it, yet it was definitely a thing I was dealing with at the time. My life has changed drastically since this blog post was written, and I'm happy to say that it's no longer an issue. It turns out that, despite my constant self-talk of "everything is okay", it was definitely not okay and nothing was going to convince my brain otherwise. Now that I've moved on from my not-so-great marriage and dating a couple of other guys, I can safely say that it was my horrible relationship that caused the dyspareunia. This just proved further that women are emotional beings; they need that connection, that love, that commitment (unless you're just horny as crap and find any guy you can find - which is definitely not me), and if you're having issues in your relationship, that can easily carry over into your sex life. It's quite a relief actually because, if you read the blog post, I was pretty depressed about ever being able to find someone to love me with an issue like that (if I ever needed to). It's good to know that it wasn't a permanent thing.

The next one I wrote was Raising Awareness of Gallstones. This is another happy ending. I finally broke down and had a consult with a general surgeon about getting my gallbladder removed, which was mentioned in an update I made to the original post. It cemented my belief that I shouldn't go through with it. I was never having constant, like weekly attacks. They weren't even monthly. They were easily managed with Vicodin. I brought up my concern of that fact that each person (who spoke about their gallbladder removal) had a different experience in the aftermath. Some were perfectly healthy. Some could never eat fatty food again. Some had to basically live their life in the bathroom after every meal. And, I self-diagnosed myself with IBS (which isn't really hard to do, to be honest. I'm surprised I never wrote a "raising awareness" post about IBS), and my biggest fear was that removing my gallbladder would exasperate my condition. The surgeon obviously couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't. He also told me that it was completely my choice. I chose to leave it in.
Anyway, this is all beside the point. Along with not having any gallbladder attacks, I haven't had an IBS attack in a very long time either, and I'm going to contribute this to my healthy diet. My diet is quite low in fat, which has been known to exasperate both conditions. I do believe that I essentially "cured" myself with a good diet, 100%.

The next post in the series was Raising Awareness of Blepharitis, which is basically the inflammation of the eyelids, and is annoying as f*ck to treat and often reoccurs anyway. I only ever had the issue when I was wearing my contacts because that's when it became very noticeable, and I could not treat the issue (with the antibiotic ointment) with my contacts in, so wearing my contacts at all became a chore. There is no cure for it, but a lot of people on forums and other more legit research articles say that doing one thing or another (like taking fish oil supplements) helps decrease attacks. I found that not to be the case, but let me share my "cure" with you. I have been doing these two things for a couple years now and it basically brought my attacks to zero:

I wash over my eyelids during every shower with a Clarisonic brush. The type of face wash I use doesn't seem to matter. I just think using it to wash my eyelids in this manner helps keep the pores from being blocked and the eyelids from getting inflamed.
The second thing I do is use my own mixture of coconut oil/olive oil/vitamin E oil/almond oil/essential oil blend as an after shower moisturizer for my skin and pay special attention to my eyelids. Coconut oil is probably 80% of the blend (so it stays solid at room temperature) and it has anti-microbial properties. I think that helps keep my eyelids clean as well. I've been able to wear my contacts issue-free for a long time. I'm quite confident that I won't have another flare-up. Also, this moisturizer is pretty bomb and I recommend anyone with dry skin to make their own. I also use it in my hair after I shower as well.*

*I wrote this a long time ago (this post has been sitting in my drafts folder forever) but I figured I can keep it for those that might be suffering; because as of August of last year I actually got the LASIK procedure and although I hadn't had a blepharitis attack in a long time, I won't even have to worry about them messing with my contacts ever again!
 
The last one I wrote about was Raising Awareness of PVCs. There's not really much to mention here besides the fact that I haven't been getting them anymore. It might have something to do with a better sodium to potassium balance. 


 [Hardly anyone gets enough potassium in their diet even when they're trying - a banana has 400mg, and you need around 4,000mg. Even supplements only give you 99mg because they will disrupt your, um, bowels if you have too much at one time. This is why people complain of getting sick when they're using Keto-based BHB salts that bind with potassium.
Also, off topic here but you know that stuff you drink when you're going to have surgery in order to clear your system? Magnesium citrate? Yeah, too much magnesium will do it too!]


Anyway, besides committing to a standalone potassium supplement and keeping my intake of salt pretty decent, I'm getting more potassium in my diet with avocados and such as well. So I'm hoping that contributes to a healthy heartbeat.



Well, I hope y'all learned something today. I'll keep writing more "raising awareness" blog posts if and when I get new shit going on as I get older. I'm sure it's bound to happen.

Infusing Vodka

You'd think it would be a simple process, right? Throw some goodies into your vodka bottle, let it sit in a dark room for 5+ days, maybe shake it every once and a while, and boom; flavored vodka.

But I'm not a simple person. Why not make things complicated? I ask myself. Not really. I don't ask myself that. It just turns out that way.

Honestly though, I wanted some of that Heritage Coffee Vodka I'd bought for my cousin's Christmas present. Heritage makes some of the best infused vodkas I'd ever had - especially for that price. [Their Blood Orange flavor is amazeballs] But apparently everyone else and their mother wanted it too because my liquor store (lol - "my" liquor store. The one closest to me.) has been out all week so I finally decided to just buy some damn vodka and make it myself.

But I wasn't gonna wait no five days. Hells no.

Time to employ the Instant Pot. I thought, well hell, I had a recipe to make vanilla extract in my instant pot and that worked out just fine; nothing is different here except the ratio of alcohol to flavorants. 

So, I took a cup of crushed whole beans and a cup of ground decaf (first mistake) and mixed it into 3 mason jars I split the vodka in. At least I was smart enough to know to give it plenty of room. So, I put a cup of water in the bottom, stuck my 3 jars on the rack, and infused for 30 minutes. I then let it naturally release for 30 minutes and opened the lid.

OK SCIENCE SIDE OF TUMBLR, HELP ME OUT HERE.

The jars were still boiling.

Ok ok, I looked this up... alcohol boils at only 173 degrees. It's weird, but this makes sense. The jars were still hot, so the contents were still boiling. I let them cool for a while, and once they were cool to the touch, I decided to try and cool them off faster by slowly filling up my sink with cold water.

Ok ready, SSoT?

The contents of the jars went nuts. Especially if I tried to run cold water over the lids. They fizzed and boiled like they were super hot. I have a cool video of this, and here's the meme for reference:

I have a feeling that it's got something to do with alcohol being super-cooled, but I couldn't even look this up on Google. I mean, "pressure cooking alcohol" isn't something you can really find on someone's blog. (Except mine, apparently). I let them cool even longer until the entire jar was cold to the touch, and only then did I attempt to remove the lids.

By the way, I had to look up how to remove canning lids on google because they were stuck and I wasn't sure how normal this was. I mean, they were seriously stuck.

So, being afraid for my life (essentially) about exploding alcohol, I finally decided to let them sit overnight before attempting to remove the lids. The next day, it wasn't any easier. I tried heating the lids with hot water, banging on them with a knife, and popping them off using a leaver, but I didn't want alcohol under pressure to fly out all over everything. My last resort was destroying the lids by drilling a hole in the top to release pressure. And you better believe they were still under pressure. I heard the hiss of each jar as I drilled the tiny hole through each lid, and they popped off with no issue.

All that effort and what did I get out of it? Very muddy (thanks to the pre-ground grounds) and strong/bitter alcohol. It wasn't even that much cheaper than just buying the Heritage brand, which tastes infinitely better than this swill.

It still works well enough to mix with Irish Cream liqueur or things like that. But mixing is also very weird. It doesn't mix with my half & half without some effort. It's very strange.

So, you know what I did? I called another local liquor store and asked if they carried Heritage vodka. (It's a local brand and so they don't sell it in big box liquor stores). And guess what? They did. I went out and bought it.

Now I'm happy.









 

Technophobes Beware!

I want to begin by saying that I've started watching Linus Tech Tips, Techquickie, and TechLinked on youtube. He is now my new favorite person. I'm not nearly as advanced in tech as he is, but he's hella fun to watch anyway and extremely entertaining. I've learned a lot already, and I've got like, 5 years of backlogged videos to catch up on.

Tech Tips is more like reviews, typical unboxings, crazy stuff like "we overclocked everything, even the fans!", while Techquickie is more about learning the basics of just about every tech subject under the sun, from how wifi works to an explainer on video file formats etc. Lots of good information there. TechLinked is just tech news, but so much more entertaining. Anyway, that's neither here nor there, but I wanted to mention it and set up some links in case anyone was interested. 

I'm actually writing this because his videos are the reason that I decided to bite the bullet and update some hardware on my PC. I had a few reasons for doing so. You see, a while back I bought a 250GB SSD that I intended to use as my Windows C: drive and allow the larger, 500GB SSD to be the secondary drive that holds all my programs and stuff.

[FYI, I separate these things in case my boot drive were to crash or get infected, I wouldn't end up losing much; all my programs would still be in tact. So I didn't want to just hoard everything on a single drive]

My first mistake was buying a Seagate drive instead of a Samsung one I guess, because basically right out of the box it didn't work right. It seemed to be fine for storing information but something about the boot sectors were corrupted and it would not load Windows correctly or install the million-and-one updates it needed for the fresh install. I tried to RMA it back to Newegg but apparently because I didn't have the original box they said screw you and sent it back to me. So, lesson 2 learned I guess. On the plus side, I was able to use it as my secondary drive to store my programs, but at what cost? I mean, it was already partially broken. The last thing I wanted was for the whole drive to fail. That would suck. 

So as time went on, my "Damaged Goods" D: drive began to fill its 250GB pretty quickly and I was beginning to run out of space, so when I learned about m.2 and NVMe from Techquickie, I did a little more research on the subject. 

 
I had recently upgraded my cpu/mobo/RAM/psu and so I had the ability to run m.2 drives now, and would not only be able to completely remove a sata cable but also an entire set of power cables from my case (thanks to my newly acquired semi-modular power supply). Also, thanks to the m.2 standard of bypassing the sata cable limitation, I could possibly be able to eek out some extra rendering performance for my videos.

So when I got my fancy new Samsung 970 EVO NVMe m.2 250GB SSD, I replaced my C: drive with it and then cloned my D: drive crap onto the old C: drive, and now this damaged Seagate SSD is sitting on my desk like an eyesore. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. It's unusable as a boot drive. Anybody want it for storage? lol

Anyway, so before I replaced the drive I ran a benchmark. I rendered a Good Eats Reloaded episode that I recorded using Bandicam, with Sony's Movie Studio Platinum. It took 31:08 minutes. After I installed the m.2 drive, I ran the test again.

27:22 minutes

Holy shit! Real world improvement! I am super excited. Now I'm hoping when I am finally able to upgrade my video card (I'm running an old Radeon Sapphire HD 7850 with 2GB of RAM) during Cyber Monday this year, I can possibly eek out a couple more minutes. We will see!