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March 7, 2021 11:57 AM

How to get more sleep at night

I was dealing with insomnia for about three weeks during this past month. I know quite a few people that have had trouble sleeping throughout their whole lives. But that's not me. When I go to bed, it takes me a few minutes to fall asleep, and then I usually end up sleeping more than 8 hours. I feel restless if it takes more than 5 minutes for me to fall asleep.

So you can imagine how maddening it was for me to not be able to sleep. I would wake up after a few hours of sleep and just stay awake for hours more, feeling so tired, but not being able to do anything about it. So, I did what I always do when I'm having a problem: I asked people for advice.

Just take some melatonin!

Nope, nope, nope, that's a last resort.

Try meditating.

Man, meditating is hard. I tried this over the past summer when I found myself consistently waking up way earlier than I wanted to. I don't think I ever figured it out.

Use a humidifier.

My nose gets stuffed up every night (and this is a problem I've had all my life) but it definitely makes it harder for me to fall back asleep. I think the increased humidity helps.

Take it easy.

Yeah, I know. I know this is mainly caused by increased stress. I cleared a lot of things off my plate at work. I started taking naps during the day. I took a break from most of my side projects. I think it helped.

Get more exercise. Do some yoga.

Taking long walks, helping a friend move, making my runs longer--that all was to the effect of getting more exercise. I think it helped. I thought about the yoga thing, but yoga is boring.

Turn the heat down in the bedroom and use a weighted blanket.

Okay I think this actually helped a lot. I turned off the heat completely in my room, and I started sleeping with three blankets. Thanks co-worker.

Call me at night to get your thoughts out.

"I know this is a saying, but I mean this literally. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Thanks sister.

I don't think I feel completely normal again, but it's a lot better now. Better enough for me to write a blog post about it, and for me to make some ascii art.

          .-~~-. 
         /  .", \
         \ ;  ;  \
    {`'~.,-.,',-~-. 
     '. ;   : .,_,' 
       `'._.'`~.   !
      ,' ,'`'.,.'  |  .-~'
       ~'          |,'  .'
              `~-. |'-='
              '.  '|
         ,.,.,.,`='|,.,.,

A lot of the times when I try to make ascii art, it's
a huge struggle. But this, this flower, let's call it a
daisy, just kind of came together.

March 20, 2021 10:32 AM

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the Great Glass Elevator

Yes, I'm still dealing with sleeping issues. It's not nearly as bad as before, but it lasted long enough that I read all of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator during my sleepless hours at night.

I kind of love that the first book starts off like this:

These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr. Bucket. Their names are Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine.

And these two very old people are the father and mother of Mrs. Bucket. Their names are Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina.

Love the fact that Dahl just calls them "very old people" and the fact that their names are "Joe and Josephine" and "George and Georgina". Little things like this amuse me when I'm reading.

I remembered the story pretty well since it's so popular that two movies were created from it. The book is actually a lot simpler than the movie, which I appreciated. In the original movie, there's a scene where we think the final golden ticket has been found, but it was actually a fake. There's also a scene where Charlie and Grandpa Joe sneak into another room and drink this fizzy drink that they weren't supposed to. It was kind of weird, because Willy Wonka clearly noticed them "breaking the rules" but it was like "eh, whatever, you still win." I thought it was a weird addition to the movie.

But I'm talking about the book. Charlie is 100% wholesome in the book. The book is simple and silly which is my favorite kind of book.

Now Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator is something that I think I had only read once or twice in my life, so there was a lot I didn't remember. But I have to say, this is even more ridiculous than the Chocolate Factory. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I can see why this sequel isn't as popular. There's a kind of racist section of the book. There's some more adult humor in it. Maybe it gets a little too political at times. There are really two separate stories that just get hastily strung together in the end.

But hey, in my bouts of insomnia I was laughing at all the insanity in the book, especially during The Nurse's Song. (Google it if you're curious.)

I really enjoy Roald Dahl's writing style. I think it influenced my own when I was in middle and high school. Maybe if I read more of his stuff I'll be inspired enough to figure out how to end a story I wrote many, many years ago.

May 16, 2021 12:26 PM

Ascii art

I first learned about ascii art back in the days of AIM when I would talk to SmarterChild. My middle school self thought that this chatbot was so cool. Obviously it was programmed to just talk to you, but it also had some other fun content like facts and games. It had a section filled with ascii art, and I spent one day just looking through every single piece of art it had.

After that, I went googling around to look for other ascii art, and I stumbled upon a really cute story which is something that I still consider one of my absolute favorite pages on the internet. Unfortunately it doesn't exist anymore, and it took me a while to even find that link. Thank goodness for the internet archive.

I was so inspired by "Fixed Width Days" that I wanted to create my own ascii art. I had created a site on GeoCities where I would put all the ascii art I typed up. Unfortunately, that doesn't exist anymore either, and it was taken down at a time in a my life where I guess I had other distractions, so I didn't save anything D: One of these days I'd like to present my own ascii art story.

                          _   _
       .-~-.       .-~-. ( `v' ) .-~-.       .-~-.        
`-...-'     `-...-'       `. .'       `-...-'     `-...-'      
                            "
    Because I have to put some amount of ascii art
    in a post about ascii art

Until then, I'll keep making little pieces of ascii art here and there. I don't know anything about art, but there's just something I find so satisfying about using text to form pictures. I feel the same way about websites that look like they haven't been updated since the 90s. I've always wanted my own space on the internet that captured this feeling (while still somehow being mobile-friendly, because I guess that's important :P) and I think I've finally been able to do that with this personal site.

May 17, 2021 10:01 AM

Cleaning out the raptors

I did some electronic spring cleaning yesterday, and I found some old blog posts. Nothing too exciting, really, but I added them to the appropriate places in the blog. There isn't a convenient way to get to them (yet), just keep click click click-ing Older >> until you get there. Or change the url.

I also finally created my own 404 page, so you no longer see "raptor not found" if you go to some page that doesn't exist. I don't really understand Mojolicious' branding. They use clouds as the default icon, but the default 404 page is a dinosaur. Speaking of clouds, I really need to create my own icon.

May 17, 2021 6:19 PM

The food blog before the food blog

This is a set of 9 10 blog posts that I wrote in 2018, detailing the food the I made and ate over the course of 9 10 weeks. I had a very specific goal of having a $30 a week food budget, and I basically failed that because I always do :P I had considered just inserting these entries at the time that they were written, but I decided I wanted one long-ass blog post instead. With commentary!

Weekly Food Review 1: 8/10 - 8/17

Welp, one week in, and I've already failed to stay within my food budget. It really wasn't too bad considering I did stay under $30 in groceries, but I gave myself a special birthday treat and I was also obligated to get coffee at a programming meeting. (Girl Develop It! I miss those meetups)

90% of the meals I make are from Budget Bytes (If you've never checked out this blog, you need to. It's amazing. I think it actually changed my life.) So this week I made three different dishes:

• Greek Chicken Pasta Salad (4 meals)
• Yellow Rice Chicken Skillet (5 meals)
• Sesame Glazed Salmon and Green Beans (5 meals)

If you actually read through those recipes carefully, you'll notice that I stretched out the chicken skillet to 5 meals--one of the meals just didn't have much chicken, and I supplemented it with an egg. I actually still have one more meal of this left. I also really stretched out the salmon meal, but that's because I bought over a pound of salmon and a pound of green beans.

I don't know if it was because I ate way too much in the two weeks prior to this, but I was feeling really hungry a lot of the time. For next week, I'm going to plan four dishes and make the portions a little larger. I know, I still need to stay within my budget. Salmon was about a third of the grocery bill, so I think I can replace that with something cheaper and more filling. For this first week, I didn't actually think about how much each meal would cost, nor did I utilize much that was already in my kitchen or think about what foods were on sale.

My eating out meal was at a fancy restaurant because I had a $30 off birthday coupon! (Man I also miss birthday coupons) Of course I still ended up spending a lot on it because of tips. I've already committed to a meal out next week, but I'll actually try and see if I can keep my grocery bill under $20 for this next week.