The insomnia is on me something fierce this winter, possibly due to the erratic weather we’ve had the past year. This summer’s episode was not as severe as some years but right now I’m in the thick of a pretty bad run. I can’t get to sleep much before 3am my time and am waking up at 8am. It’s a good thing the other parent is responsible for getting Cyd to school on time because when these bouts occur there’s not much I can do. Light boxes don’t work, readjusting my schedule works. I stick with what works.

It also appears that I have developed (or possibly have had for some time now) a case of sleep apnea. I wake up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding and both arms extremely numb, and it takes everything in me to get my breathing back to normal. These episodes are not panic attacks though they often lead to panic attacks. I’m making an appointment with my doctor tomorrow to get to the bottom of this. The only reason I now know what’s been happening is that I was lying in bed the other night when my throat inexplicably closed up on me. Quite the shocker, that. With the medication I take to quell the anxiety I must be getting into some pretty deep sleep to stop me from breathing. Scary. But don’t panic, anyone. That’s my job

Yes, I know. I have to stop smoking. The lozenges, in fact, are right here on the desk. I want to be an ex-smoker by Valentine’s Day. No particular reason for that date, it’s just the next holiday on the calendar. I plan to spend three days in bed doing absolutely nothing (a damned shame) until the nictone’s out of my system. Then I plan to bitch and scream at every one who so much as glances in my direction. This may require a stay at a hotel; my neighbors are not prepared for the Ballistic Babs. I have tried to quit so many times before that one of these attempts is bound to stick. I hope it’s this one. Too bad there won’t be a warm body to occupy my time but hey, I can’t have everything :hehe:

I’ve managed to fix the problem with the daughterly gasconade portion of the website so that Cyd’s photos now appear in their own instance of IE. Since I’ve been putting most of her newer pictures in the blog entries themselves I haven’t added anything to her little photo journal since — gasp — 2003! I’ll have to correct that soon. I’m actually thinking of overhauling the way I post all the photos on the site but I haven’t found a design that piques my interest enough for me to code it. Will have to keep searching.

A lurking wolf (who shall remain nameless) mentioned that he is seeing my orange text on a gray background…which is odd since the site is set to default to white. Is anyone else seeing this?