Song: N/A
Mood: 6
Nightmares: 3?
I fell asleep very quickly last night. Unfortunately, nightmares woke me up a few times (life jackets again) and I ended up having a panic attack in the living room after one of them. I try to be quiet and stealthy when I’m freaking out, but sometimes I can’t help but wake J up. J has said on numerous occasions that I should feel free to wake her up if I need to talk or I’m having a rough time, but I try very hard to keep from disturbing her. I feel really bad when I do.
I gave up on getting back to sleep a little earlier than usual and wandered around the house for a little while before I sat down and had breakfast.
It was raining so I didn’t go for my walk this morning. It had stopped by the afternoon – I probably should’ve gone out then, but I was occupied with other stuff.
My exercises didn’t go well at all. My legs were twitchy this morning. Usually it happens at night but I couldn’t keep still. It’s not hard to guess how mindfulness and meditation goes when you’ve got to move around every 20 seconds. I gave it a try, though.
After I gave up on my exercises, I almost went back to bed but my twitchy legs and a desire to accomplish something kept me from it. I went out to the garage instead.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve been out to the garage, and everything was kind of weird. There’s a coat of dust over everything – tools, planters, garbage bags, shelves, welders… everything. The truck and motorcycle looked odd; sure, both of them are often dirty, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them dusty from lack of use before. Looking at them as they sat there silently made me feel bad, so I gave them both a friendly pat and moved on to look for some tubing. I should really do some research and get a new battery for the truck. It’s not good to leave it sitting for too long. Same with the bikes. I need to add that to my “should do” list.
I found the plastic vacuum tubing that J mentioned and I think it might do the trick for my little project. I also looked through my collection of steel and took stock of what I had that might work.
I went back inside and started playing with the electronics side of things. I spent HOURS on it, with far too many interruptions where I went through the house chasing ghosts. The good news is I can make the buzzer from the smoke detector beep if I use two of the leads and a circuit that generates a pulse (I used a 555, and yes, I had to look up the pinout). The bad news is that I haven’t been able to make it work yet using the third lead and a transistor. My goal for this is to make it as simple as possible and run it off either a single 9V battery or a pair of C- or D-cells. I used to do a lot of stuff with PIC microcontrollers and some of the things I built with them would run for weeks on a 9V battery. With what I’ve got in mind, the batteries should last for even longer. That’s the idea, at least. So yeah… the whole project comes down to beeping and I haven’t been able to make it do that yet. I’ll try again tomorrow.
J and I hung around this evening and watched some more Parks and Recreation. We’re almost done the second season and it’s been very good. I’ve heard about tons of people idolizing Ron Swanson, and I can totally see why – he’s a neat character and is played very well.
Tomorrow is my appointment with Dr W. I haven’t seen him in two weeks and I would rather not go out there tomorrow. I don’t expect there to be any medication changes and it’s unpleasant to talk about everything going on, especially when I get to do it again (and in more detail) on Thursday. Still, it’s got to be done, and I’ll do it. But I still don’t want to.
Aside from the appointment, I think I’m going to work on that same stuff tomorrow. See if I can get the beeper to beep again. Oh, and I should probably give the kitchen a once-over, too.
So that’s about it for today. I’m pooped and will be heading to bed very shortly.
Stay safe.