Spring Cleaning or “Cleaning Springs”

Today was the first day in awhile where I have felt good all day (It is 5:37pm and I got up at 10:30am).  I did a sleep study Monday night (perhaps another post – we will see) and had to revamp my sleeping schedule in a week from bed at 4am to bed at 9pm.  That, in itself, was a task.  Then, the night of the test, I went to the hospital, test began at 10pm and she got me up at 5:30am and said it was time to go home!  Jeez!  So, I went to breakfast (quiet at 6:20am), home, bed at 10am-2pm, then went back to bed last night at 1:30am and got up at 10:30am.  I had just finished a sleeping cycle (dream finished and woke up), which is supposed to be the best time to get up and feel good no matter how much or little sleep you have had.  I have not been very tired at all and have had 3x the normal energy I have felt in quite awhile.  So, what grand thing did I do?  I CLEANED MY KEYBOARD!!!

That may not sound like much, but it took 1 and 1/2 hours to finish!  I would advise you all to do it at least 1 time a year.  It had been 1.5 for me and it was interesting…

Steps:

1. shut down your computer completely (not to sleep – shut it down, no electricity going to keyboard!)
2. get your alcohol (rubbing, not drinking!), q-tips (about 20-30), and a couple of gauze pads, and something thin and flat and small.  I had a throwing knife (don’t judge!), but a steel nail file would work.
3. put some alcohol in a small container (holds < 1/4 c.).
4. dip or pour some of the alcohol on the gauze pad and wipe all the top of the keyboard down pretty good.
5. use the knife (or whatever) and remove (pry carefully) up the space key (this will, probably, be the dirtiest).
6. using the knife, easy, scrape up all the hair (pet), and stuff into a small pile and then use a dipped q-tip to pull it out from the keyboard.
7. Be careful how many keys you take out at once (you have to remember the proper order to put them back in!!!).  I would suggest 4-6 at a time and lay them in order and face down nearby.
8. after cleaning the keys and their spaces thoroughly tip the keyboard upside down and shake or tap/shake so that the excess stuff falls out.
9. after the alcohol dries (minute or so – blowing on it helps) replace the keys.
10. repeat 6-9, taking out 4-6 keys, mainly the ones you use the most, until done.
11. for a gamer, like myself, I ended up removing the following keys:  spacebar, backspace, arrow keys(4), main enter key, both shift keys, cntl and alt both sides, a,w,s,d,e,r,z (control keys for games), special window keys, tab.
12. When done, make certain all is dry and clean mouse well (I have a roller ball mouse, so it was dirty and I clean it once a week or so).
13. turn computer on.
14. open up a blank word, work, or some type of writing document.
15. type in all the letters (small and caps) as well as numbers and test all the keys you removed and the mouse.
16. if all is working, you are done!!!! yeah – take this time to smell the keyboard – it won’t smell this clean for awhile.
17. if all is not working – well, sorry for your luck – lol.  I have been there and done that.

That has been a lot of my day so far.  I hope to get more done, but we will see.  I managed to do odds and ends along with this task.

Have a great day!

Namaste,

Scott

Do I Hear Bells?

This has been a long, long week.  I don’t sleep well on a normal basis.  This week, being the teenaged person that I am, I stayed up too late on a couple of nights and stay extra late with Dad (probably those same nights).  I still had my normal MWF routine with Mom, so sleep was rather rough until Friday night (or, more precisely, Saturday morning).  I hit the bed around 4:30am, read until 5:15, then passed out around 5:30.  From there it was sleep off/on until about 1pm.  I got up and took my sugar reading.  Seeing the 164 show up (130 is the upper border), I took my other meds and lay back down.  I slept heavily and woke up around 7:00pm.  I promptly got up, took my sugar, which read 110 this time, and decided to eat.  I kept the carbs down more and decided to have Raisin Bran.  In getting ready, I knocked a glass to the floor, covering the kitchen in shards.

Now, came the deal:  I am diabetic.  Cleaning the kitchen floor is much more difficult when you MUST make certain EVERY shard of glass, a potential foot-loss problem, is cleaned up.  I swept the floor twice, then mopped it twice with the Swiffer cleaner.  That and wearing Clogs for the day has, so far, kept me glass-stabbed free.

I tell you all that to tell you why I am writing about today at 8:47pm when the idea came at 1pm.  I looked out the bathroom window this morning to see … SNOW!  This was not the expected day-ruining downfall I expected.  This was very light, big flakes, and softly falling white stuff.  You know, the stuff Christmas morning is made of.  So, I share with you 2 pictures I took out said bathroom window and tell you people who live in 50-110 degrees all year that you don’t know what you are missing.  Yeah, it could be 5-6 feet of packed nastiness, but this almost makes all that worth it.  Add to it the fact that I can walk this winter and can dig myself out in much less time than last year, as well as simply move around in it better, and you have a pretty darn good winter expectation coming up.  Doesn’t hurt that the NWS says we should have less snow and higher temps here all winter (well into January, anyway).

I know we don’t ski here and I know we don’t spend weeks digging out.  Those two extremes put us in the middle of the snow mess/beauty.  Enjoy the pics:

I know, you can’t see the falling stuff, but it was falling, light, white, and fluffy.  Still, even with the dingy day (overcast), it looks nice to me and brought back all kinds of memories – like hearing the Christmas bells at church or on the TV or radio.

Namaste,

Scott

A Short Collection of Catch-up Thoughts Early in the Morning

source: Google Image search with license for reuse. Click on pic for page.

I wasn’t going to write anything tonight (well, now, last night), but as I looked over the week and the writings and just my life in general, I decided I would do something short and, for me, to the point.  I decided just to let you in on what’s going on and what’s new.

First, I have taken to a new game.  No, not a video game this time (I am still on Skyrim and am at level 41.  I have never been here before).  No, I am talking about the old-fashioned “Dungeons and Dragons” – “D&D”.   I found a site, roll20 and fell in love with it.  The site has taken the board game and, instead of making a video of it, they have brought the table to the Internet.  They have a virtual table and dice and you play just like you used to – roll dice and move and talk in groups (via Raidcall and chat on the site and Skype).  It is addictive, once a week for me – Mondays 7pm-11pm.  I am a Rogue (thief in the older language) and help my group of 3 others through what may be months of playing.  Check out the site.  It is fun and educational.

My vegan diet is going well.  I have lost just under 10 pounds in 4 months and my blood sugar is doing well.  My blood pressure was around 104/48 several times and they may need to remove or reduce one of my meds!  Great!  I find out in December.

I am feeling better for the most part.  I still don’t sleep well, but manage to put in about 9 1/2 broken hours a night.  I still have some nights where I don’t get to sleep until dawn, but it all works out in a few days.  I have been sneezing today and have some sinus problems and a headache, but I don’t think I am getting sick, just tired and the weather is changing here – hard.

I am getting to read some of your posts, though not as many as I might have hoped.  Yes, I know it is a choice, but I need to do these other things.  Just know I think about a lot of you all the time and save the links so I can do, at least, some as time permits.

Finally, I am now doing about 1/2 – 2/3 of the cleaning of my house.  I still hope to have someone in once a month to give it a thorough going-through, but I am doing a lot of it on my own and that is a huge improvement.

By the way, I have taken a liking to Peanut butter (organic), sauerkraut, mustard, and Italian dressing or rye.  Don’t ask, but I do like it.

Guess that’s it.  Love you all…

Namaste,

Scott

My Home to Be!

Today, I would like to speak about my future. What I am trying to do to make it a good one. Mostly, I would like to focus on my house, my home.

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I have accepted the services of a new house cleaner. She comes to my home once a week and works very hard cleaning, sweeping, vacuuming, and straightening the six rooms I live most of my life in. I can feel the differences now after only a few visits.

The house smells fresher, the dust content is lower, the air is brighter, and the house looks much neater. I used to clean and scrub and keep the house in basic order. Since the stroke, this has been near an impossibility. She manages to get most of it totally done in about 3 hours.

She is scheduled for 4 hours. During the last hour, we (I) choose a small project in one room and we work on finishing that particular area.

This week it was the dresser in my bedroom and a box kept under a chair. We went through the 6 drawers and I got rid of a lot of the clothing items that I should no longer wear. Any socks that had holes in either one of the pair, clothes that were a bit tight, clothes that were “out of date”, and almost all of the older clothes in the box.

When that was done, we had all of my clothing items (foldable) in my dresser arranged nicely, the box now contains some bedspreads and sheets, and the chair was removed from the room (to eventually leave the house). This freed up the area in the bedroom that held all the excess clothing (2 baskets) and the area with the chair now looks much neater. The bedroom looks much bigger. To top it off, she changed the lights in the overhead lighting and put in three bulbs instead of one. The room is brighter and doesn’t make you just want to crawl in bed and sleep from being depressed.

Wow! Probably not, but I can dream!

I am now looking forward to each week as the house will continue to progress until it is much less laden with “things” and is more of a home than a house.

People will be able to visit and I can, perhaps, have some of my semi-famous dinner parties (maybe more of a pitch-in now).

It is interesting what a small task completed each week will make in a life. I have great difficulty now (post stroke) doing these things. Having someone at the house whose job it is to push me a bit and to do the stuff I can’t do is just a Godsend.
Is there something you could benefit from with a bit of help brought in?

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Namaste,
Scott