Too much time, too much to do...

Took me 7 months but I finally remembered to write in my blog again, even though I was supposed to be writing something interesting each week.
So it's now November and even though I haven't been working or able to find work in this day and age called the recession, I've had a lot to do.
Apart from job searching which takes up a huge amount of time and effort, I have discovered a few new obsessive pastimes, the big one being genealogy.
My sister Mel started it all when she told me that she had bought a book to record the family history. Turns out it was the same book I had bought from a second hand shop a couple of years earlier but had never got around to filling in. Anyway this got us onto wondering who great grandparents were and the obsession stemmed from there...
I love researching and doing detective work. Once you are onto a hot clue its so exciting and you keep digging to find more! You have to be able to think and rethink clues to fit the pieces of the puzzle together and know where to look for tip-offs.
One thing I've learnt is that there are a lot of other obsessives out there (who have obviously finished their family research) who love to help others. I now have others here and overseas who are no way related to me that are emailing me with big chunks of information on my ancestors! It's amazing that they're taking their time to do it and a lot of the time it's unexpected and I'll just get an email saying bla bla bla...etc etc etc...
Some members of the family are hard to find much on and have created dead-ends (for now anyway!) and some of them are easily found...the longest chain I've made so far is 2 lines of great,great,great,great,great grandparents! Both stem from my Dads mothers side. So thats dating back to the 1700's. But it's too fun not to stop there!

Hypnic Jerk

Do you ever suddenly jolt awake when you're going to sleep?
I do and at the time it gives me a fright but I don't usually think anything more of it and go to sleep. Steve sometimes notices me twitching in my sleep too.
Last night when I was just trying to go to sleep, I kept jolting every few minutes so took a sleeping pill because it was annoying me. Today I thought to myself, why do I actually do this??

Apparently it is called Hypnic Myclonia or Hypnic Jerks. They happen when we begin to drift off to sleep as the muscles are relaxing. The brain thinks that we are falling or dying and trys to signal the limbs to wake up. This can happen in the REM stage of the sleep cycle (the eyes often twitch too during this time but we don't notice that.)
Usually only 1 jerk will happen a night but some people have many and that can be called periodic limb movement (PML). It is often caused by over tiredness or stress and possibly medication.
People who jerk awake often feel as if they are falling or have had a falling dream. I have never had a falling dream and dont think I have felt the falling sensation either.

Here are some accounts of what other people have experienced:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-hypnic-jerk.htm

This weeks article of interestingness.....Blythe

Blythe dolls are cool!

They're kitschy dolls in retro fashions, and I want one!

I first discovered Blythe dolls a couple of years ago but I cant remember where. I've never seen an actual doll, but you can find Blythe related accessories such as notebooks and writing sets in places like my favourite shop IKO IKO.

Blythe dolls were first created in the 1970's and based on the paintings of Margaret Keane.
Today Blythe dolls are customized by their owners, who can buy or sew clothes for them. Lots of photos of Blythe dolls can be found on flickr in a range of settings and poses.



To me they have an almost realistic quality to them when seen in the photographs. And sometimes when you see a photo of just the legs or in such a way that you cant see the face, you can barely tell it's a doll.




As I said before, I would love to have one of these and I'd be playing around, taking photos of it lots. But apparently they're quite expensive so maybe I can make a substitute Blythe with a similar doll.






http://blythopia.wordpress.com/

Koalas

"KOALA--Aboriginal name for native bear....
NATIVE BEAR--A small marsupial animal with grey fur and full expressive face (see KOALA)."
(From A Dictionary of Australian Words And Terms by Gilbert H. Lawson 1924)

I love Koalas, they're so cute. I had the great experience of getting to hold one in Townsville and it clung on to me like a baby.

"The koala is a fussy eater, only eating from several different species of eucalyptus (or gum) trees and very occasionally from some other trees such as wattles or tea trees. They will eat the leaves, shoots, fruits, flowers and even, at times, the bark from young branches. Koala bears (think Latin!) eat about 1 to 1½ pounds (450-680g) of leaves a day. That's about 10% of their body weight. The koala can usually get all the nutrients and moisture it needs from the oil in the gum leaves (have you heard of eucalyptus oil?) and the rain and dew which collects on them. Gum leaves are low in nutrition and contain certain chemicals which are toxic to most other animals. Koalas have special bacteria in their guts which enable them to digest these leaves."
http://www.squidoo.com/KoalaBears

A new fact every day/week

I have decided that everyday (or week depending on how much time I have) I am going to post up an interesting fact or tidbit of information or link to an interesting website. Today I have found an interesting site called Squidoo.com. It has all sorts of information on anything you can think of, written by all sorts of people. This will definitely be a useful site in future.

I'll start with an interesting piece from that site....
Tired of your plain old boring toilet seat?
http://www.squidoo.com/ToiletSeats

Tsunami

Today I've been denied yet another trip to Goat Island. We have been attempting to go there for weeks but something always happens the day we plan to go there such as colds, bad weather and now the tsunami warnings. The Tsunami warnings have come after there was a 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chili. All the Auckland beaches have been closed and there have been various strange tidal surges around NZ. Apparently they could last up to 12 hours.

In happier news, I have my new tooth and it's straight and non-fat. So that's good.
But the best news of all is that a couple of weeks ago I went for an eye test to see if that had anything to do with headaches. I found out that I'm short sighted and I cant believe how much sharper things at a distance look with glasses. I had no idea my vision was so blurry. Since I've been wearing glasses, I haven't had any headaches! It's been such a relief! Having headaches everyday made me so depressed-just the thought that they could go on like that all my life... I cant believe I actually found the cure! I'm so much happier now not being in pain all the time.

Fat tooth.

Yesterday I got the prep for my crown (on my tooth). At the moment I have to wear a temporary one until the proper crown is made. The dentist made it straight in line with my other tooth so it's built up on the front to get up to that line. Unfortunately it feels annoying (because of the fatness) but hopefully I'll get used to it. Maybe the real one will feel different. Maybe I shouldn't have gone for the straight option, it doesn't look that different anyway.

How do I change fonts...

I'm not impressed that I cant figure out how to change the choice of fonts on here. Sorry but doing graphic design makes you pedantic about things like that. It was funny today on the way in to town (to collect my visual diaries from Natcoll and see about doing the internship at Creative Bite) there was a car in front of us and its number plate was Myriad and I was like Myriad! And because Steve was confused I had to mention that it was a Font. Lol. Its a sans serif, I use it quite a bit just for random stuff like eg: writing a paragraph like this (if I could actually change the default font. Because using default fonts is a no no.)
Anyway! Before I had the urge to write about the lack of fonts, I was going to say that I had less headaches this week and the few I did have were only 1/10 types. I have to score them on my headache chart from 1-10 (10 being really bad). I went to the physio and had my last acupuncture and massage from her for a while (I'll see how I go) and today I went to the osteopath again, and again got my neck and back clicked but he said it had loosened up a bit since last time. Apparently the back of my skull is pressing down on my two top vertebrae and causing them to push together. He said that after next week I shouldn't need to go back again.
I've still been getting a bit of pain behind my eyes and that could be to do with the vertebrae/muscles thing but it could be eye strain. Steve thinks I might have a lazy eye just because of the fact that I have trouble watching movies on the big screen. I looked it up and apparently lazy eye can cause headaches but it mainly happens in children and they have to wear an eye patch to correct the lazy eye!
Speaking of movies we saw Avatar in 3D the other day. It was really cool but even harder on my eyes with the 3Dness. I have to keep closing them and of course had a headache afterwards as usual.
So maybe I'll see the optician next...

Another Blog

I just started another blog....
http://kristenlearnsphotography.blogspot.com/

Yay for the Osteopath!

As I mentioned in the last post, I've been going to the physio to try to get rid of my headaches. I've had lots of headaches since I can remember but they have just been getting worse and worse and almost everyday. I go to bed with them or wake up with them or both. Sometimes I feel like I don't want to be alive if I'm going to be in pain all the time. So I decided that this year before I find a job I'm going to discover the cause of the headaches and treat it, no matter how much it costs and what I have to do!
Physio and acupuncture doesn't seem to be working the best and I happened to receive a free eco bag in the post from Blackmores (I'd got it off a freebies website)and a letter that said thank you for signing up to the website and here is a link to our online naturopath service. So I contacted the naturopath service about my headaches and they sent me a long email back about why it could be happening and what I could do. It was really helpful and said I should perhaps see another doctor, a naturopath in my area (they can do tests for allergies etc), an osteopath or chiropractor or an optician in case its my eyes. I looked up to see what an osteopath did (as I'd already tried a chiropractor and that didn't help)and decided to try them first.
So today I rang up and got an appointment and went along to the Osteopath. He checked my spine and neck and discovered that some of my vertebrae were locking together and causing my muscles to clench up, especially the ones in the area of my neck where I get the most pain. Then he did the dreaded clicking of the vertebrae back into place, first the ones on my back and then the ones in my neck (which made a HUGE crunch as several had clicked back at once!) and said that was causing a lot of the problems. So I should notice withing the next few days that I'm having no or less headaches. Two more appointments at the most will cure me! Yay!
So I really really hope it does help. I'll give you an update. If not the next stop will be the naturopath.
Until next time...

The first blog of the decade (by me anyway)

Well, I remember from blogging theory class at Natcoll that blogs have to be interesting, well written, contain relevant facts, pictures and links to back up your statements and not overly opinionated. But meh. What will be will be. Its not as if I'm going to be writing a blog on design history or theory this time. In fact I have no idea what I'm going to write. Maybe I can just have interesting tid bits and what I've been up to etc etc.
At the moment I'm starting a blog because I have nothing better to do. I think were going rock climbing after lunch and then I have physio/acupuncture later on so that's what I'll be up to. I haven't had any physio for a few weeks so I cant wait because my neck pain and headaches have been bad lately. But whats new.
I've ordered a Magne-sleep too so I'm looking forward to trying that. I was going to try keeping off the computer for a few days but I cant help myself. I had to check my emails and facebook.

Well, who knows when my next blog will be, so watch out...