#WeekendCoffeeShare. In Careful Measures

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Welcome to my Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Allison at eclecticali.wordpress.com!  You may have whatever you like, me, I’ll only have half a cup.  I’m trying to be healthy by cutting my coffee intake, you know, to help myself fall asleep at night and keep calm during the day and to relax when I want to.  Last week I had a screenplay deadline just because I wanted to do something new.  The end of last week involved catching up on editing that I’d missed and trying to de-stress.  No matter what, I could not turn my brain off.  This week, I tried some adjustments.  In true Bridget Jones fashion, (Minus the musings over men and the quirky, partying friends) I’ve recorded my self-analysis daily.  Here’s how it went:

Day 1, Sunday:  Drank- 1/2 cup.  Felt: Normal, but I went to church and had forgotten my offering on my dresser.  😦  Still, I felt quite normal once I got there.  At lunch, I felt fine.  Thoughts were a little calmer.  However, this was not a workday.  Let’s see how tomorrow goes.  By the way, I went grocery shopping that evening, and they didn’t have my flavor of the V8 energy juice 😦 (Fueled by green tea).  I was beside myself.  Still, we’ll see how it goes…

Day 2 Monday: Drank- my last V8 green tea energy juice with a little cranberry and half a cup of coffee.  All I could see was a half-empty cup.  Still, I felt fine during the day, but I sure felt tired at 8 p.m.  However, I got at least 30 minutes of editing in before that!

Day 3 Tuesday: Drank- Less than half a cup of coffee.  However, I had bought a Starbucks refresher drink made with green coffee.  So in the morning, I felt good. I’m a person of set routines, but I did plan ahead for this one.  Unlike finding out my favorite yoga class was moved forward an hour, so I can’t eat dinner until 8 p.m. on yoga night.  Must adjust…

Day 4 Weds.: Drank- 1 whole cup of coffee, my gift to myself. Or, maybe a crutch.  I was up late the night before, since my son, who rarely has conversations with me, wanted to talk.   Then, he put on a movie, Point Break.  I said it was okay, but I’d likely fall asleep.  I did, but later than usual.  My bedroom is the closest to the living room, so t.v. and movies can be heard from there and we normally have all of that off at 10 p.m.  This was an exception; I plan to be back to the 1/2 cup goal tomorrow.  Being there for our kids is what mothers do.

Day 5- Thurs.: Drank: 1/2 cup of coffee, and a little bit of Energy V8 with orange juice.  This was a rather carbonated V8.  I do not prefer that; still, it is certainly better than drinking too much coffee.  My energy level was fine all day, though I did feel tired when I got home.  I felt like it was 90 degrees today.  One thing I am noticing with the decrease in coffee is that I seem less tense in my body.  That could be a motivation to stick to the decrease.

Day 6- I subsisted on just half a cup of coffee and some V8.  I figured by Friday I would be pooped and need more.  I felt tired in the afternoon, but it could be due to the very light lunch and lack of time to finish off that apple.  😦 Don’t worry, I made up for it by having beef with my Thai Ginger Stir fry.  Yum!  I stayed up at least until midnight because my boyfriend and I were watching Hostiles.  Man, that movie was great!  Conflict main character, morally slippery supporting characters, trying to love your enemy.  It really reached me.  That, and I love Christian Bale.  I also think Rosamund Pike plays shock and grief oh, so well.  That just may be her niche.  Do you see how I snuck in a movie review?  If you can handle blood and violence in gritty Western style, you should check Hostiles out!

Day 7- Sat.:  I had most of a Starbucks bottled frappucino, because, well, it was free.  My boyfriend had it left behind by his visiting cousin and gave it to me.  Oh, they are tasty.  Caffeine-wise, I am probably off of the wagon for the day.  Perhaps I’ll get more editing done for my sequel, Undercurrents in Time.  I have forty-five pages left to do, so maybe I’ll channel the extra caffeine energy.  It’s all good!  Going forward, I am not going to measure my intake.  Still, I plan to have more half-a-cup days and will let myself drink the whole cup when I feel I need it.  Perhaps this will calm my 20-open-computer-tabs tendencies.  Maybe? 🙂

How did your week go?  Am I nuts to try to decrease caffeine intake?  My mind is still pretty active.  Caffeine is a friend to me that I sometimes need to distance myself from.  Where do you stand with caffeine?

Visit other coffee shares and share yours at Eclectic Ali May 5th

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Weekend Coffee Share. Writerly Bits

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Welcome to my Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Allison at eclecticali.wordpress.com.  How shall I “spit out the butt ends of my days and ways?”  That’s my nod to T.S. Eliot, by the way, from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  But I digress..

I just got my manuscript back for the sequel to Detours in Time!  I’ll be madly busy for at least a month now.  It’s okay!  I live for this.  I also have the cover planned out.  Woohoo!  It’s a beauty.  I can’t wait to show you all.

Not only will I have that to do, but I entered a screenplay contest, just as a learning experience.  The contest includes feedback, so I feel as if I can grow from this and improve my writing in another genre that could open up a whole new world of doors for my writing journey….This contest starts the day after my son’s twenty-second birthday.  So there will be some celebrating in the next week as well!  Yes, I am so grateful he made it this far, and grateful the 21st birthday only had to happen once.

Work is also a very busy place right now as we gear up for state testing.  Lesson plans have to be tailored since one test will start next week, and classes will be a little shorter.  Yet, we are still getting them ready for the English test that is the week after.  Added to that mix is the sudden case of Spring fever all the kids seem to have.  Uggghhh!  Wait, did I tell you all yet how much I love a challenge?  Okay, it’s a little stressful, but I do have a massage scheduled this weekend, and I am considering another salt-water float for a few weeks from now.  I have big goals, but one of them is to maintain balance, I promise.  Deep breaths.

In the #dogstagram world, my canine Bixby almost has 1,000 followers.  Find him at @bixby_fluffikins if so moved!  Yes, I have been networking there.  Sometimes it’s the perfect escape when I put my feet up after work.  I have my own Instagram for my life and writing journey, but it is receiving maybe weekly attention.  It will get a burst of energy when I publish my sequel.  All that, and I still read books, though not as quickly as I used to.  I just posted yesterday about an interesting read called Auroria, a book I highly recommend.  Here is the link to the blog post, which is now part of a regular series on my blog posted at very irregular intervals: Books You May not Know of….

So I just now realized my post title is a reference to Bridget Jones.  Did anyone catch that?  ;’)  I am just full of the Literature references.  All of this makes my weekend feel very Lit!  (Sorry, teen slang reference).

I hope you all have a great weekend and next week is wonderful as well!  How are things in your world?

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