Self-Control by the Baloonatic

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Self-Control by the Baloonatic

I have vague memories of Christmas as a child.

My parents didn’t have a lot of spending money, and my Dad was converting our house from a one floor schoolhouse to a two floor home, so it was always in a state of construction. This meant a lot of our Christmas presents were not new, but were often second hand. One year we all got skis, with poles and boots. One year it was bikes.

When it came to the items, I was often quite clever at finding the places in the house where my parents liked to hide things. I hated the suspense of waiting until Christmas or my birthday to find out what I was getting. I just couldn’t do it, so I found that place at the bottom shelf of my parents’ closet one year where they had hid a box of what seemed to me like treasures. It was full of clothes for Barbie dolls. It didn’t matter to me that they weren’t new, and some of them were obviously homemade. They all seemed beautiful and I couldn’t wait to dress up my dolls and show them off. So I woke up eagerly on Christmas morning, eagerly anticipating getting this present. And to my dismay, it wasn’t there. I had been punished for my lack of self-control by my parents forgetting this present and neglecting to put it under the tree. I can’t remember how they reacted when I pointed out this lack, but I do know that it was the last time I went searching for my presents before Christmas morning.

As in most things, the best revenge for a parent when their child does something wrong occurs when the same thing happens to that child as a parent. My son inherited my lack of self-control. Boxes of Lego would arrive and be hidden, only to be found and opened by someone who just couldn’t wait. It got to the point where I ended up having packages sent to my wonderful next door neighbor, Mrs. Winnie, who held onto them for me until the big day.

Self-control is still something I struggle with to this day.

With some things, it isn’t hard. As a Canadian by birth/American by choice, I still prefer Canadian chocolate bars and will buy large amounts of them when I travel back to the land of my birth. But I don’t have trouble hanging onto them, using them as occasional treats and rewards when I’ve accomplished a difficult task. I can make them last because I know that they won’t be replaced easily. Now my son, on the other hand – he even found them when I hid them in the freezer in empty pierogi boxes! But bring chips or cheese popcorn or ice cream into the house…. After all, you don’t want them to go stale or get freezer burnt. Better to eat them quickly so they don’t go bad, right? And I’m sure I’m in the majority of the readers of this blog who, after starting a book, will find themselves late at night saying “Just one more page… one more chapter… one more part…” Or getting on your phone/tablet/computer at night with the intention of getting to bed on time only to find that you got distracted and it is well into the wee hours. The lack of self-control has resulted in many sleepless nights and not so productive days afterwards, as well as many pairs of pants that either don’t fit at all or are uncomfortably tight. And let’s face it, the lack of self-control can lead to much worse fates than that.

So now, as the year has ended and a new year begun, my goal is to continue to make improvements in this area. If I can’t turn off the electronic gadgets at a reasonable time, then maybe I can stop from turning them on. If I can’t resist the call of the ice cream or bag of chips, then maybe I can stop buying them so that they aren’t in the house and tempting me. If I can’t stop from turning the next page… ok, no point in kidding myself. Who has that much self-control?

125 thoughts on “Self-Control by the Baloonatic”

  1. I go from being distracted to being asleep in my chair and back again too easily. Last night I did get an increasingly unusual bedtime of intended time (8pm) and only woke a few times for minutes.
    not really on topic, but I had a bizarre dream last night (so bizzare I recall some of it!).
    I was wandering around my grandmother’s place’ for some sort of reunion (too warm to be Xmas unless it was some Gorebal wormening summer-like December) and everyone had Solar panels for power, but they were all beat up and missing large sections, held together with duct tape, scattered about on roofs and the ground, and I was shocked any of them worked.

    Like

      1. I still do that and I’m being treated for apnea. Probably should have a follow up sleep study. My Fitbit sleep shows good (for sleep) oxygen at night. Still have the middle of night wake up calls (between bladder/hot flashes and animal wake ups) but getting full eight for all of that.

        My sleep drop offs seem to occur after eating, or I need to eat. Yet my A1C is 5.5 (I have to eat something like Cinabon to trigger super high BS, so not that, spike yes, but not above 160). Need to eat is lowish (but not critical) BS.

        Yes. Constantly bringing it up to my physician. It is a PIA.

        Like

  2. I recall as a child how exciting it was when my parents went grocery shopping! All sorts of good things came out of the bags, and the next days meals were special. I guess expectations were high as a child, and shopping holds no joys for me now. My grandies, on the other hand seem to have captured my earlier joys.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Freshly baked, crusty on the outside, soft inside, very slightly sweet, with a bit of butter? That’s the good stuff.

        I like bread, but am picky about it. Also, forget to eat sometimes. This can cause life problems. Once had an alarm set so to remember to EAT FOOD at least once a day.

        Doofus is good about reminding me, though. Lately, he’s taken to staring at me if I don’t eat when he does. Pointed staring, in fact. Possibly related to the fact that I don’t sleep and get grumpy when I forget to eat.

        Like

  3. I found out quite a while ago that self control was a choice, just as trying to array and manage the congregation of excuses for the lack of self-control, er, well the lack of good choices, and preponderance of guilty pleasures, that poisoned my life and those around me. However, acting on that early revelation was not particularly associated with success despite the knowledge, and only after layers of guilt, self-punishments, martyrdoms and self-flagellations did I begin to make choices that supported making more good choices and guide and honor self control and long term, [struggling for right word – contentment, happiness, success all seem just not quite right] and feeling right about those choices. It started with personal intimate relationships, then professional, and much more recently diet and exercise for fitness and health. Still haven’t mastered the sleep, screen, keyboard and paper pages challenges though.
    While I have not had an ADHD issue, I married and divorced one who had a very severe case complicated by personality disorder, and two sons with severe ADHD and fortunately no personality disorder. The Mom still has no phenotypic self control though underlying this I suspect are choices based on maladjustment to severe abuse as a child. The boys who had once required over the top dose levels of Adderal and similar drugs did much better after they escaped the orbit of their mother, and structured their lives to success, one with and one without medication, as best I can tell.
    At any rate, having a reason to make good choices is the foundation, but caring for that reason, nurturing it, and most importantly establishing and growing a structure to support all that (I’m seeing that school-house of your youth looming) has been my route to success. As far as not forgetting medication, the morning ritual, the pill box loaded with a week’s supply at all times, right next to a calendar so I can see what day it is and register whether today’s meds are still in the box added to the adverse recognizable results of pain and ennui if missed, works pretty well for me.
    If you figure out anything for reading and writing, let me know.

    Like

  4. I manage the “stay up all night scrolling” by putting my phone in “night mode” at 9 pm. This makes the screen shades of grey instead of color, so scrolling Instagram isn’t as much fun. Fortunately for me and my insomnia, the kindle app works just fine without color.

    New topic – my mother told me of the time that she and her sister found the wrapped Christmas presents, unwrapped them to see what they were getting, then wrapped them up again. Grandma Witch was not fooled, but all she did was put those inexpertly wrapped gifts under the tree. Mom said it spoiled the surprise, so they never did it again.

    Like

  5. If I can’t resist the call of the ice cream or bag of chips, then maybe I can stop buying them so that they aren’t in the house and tempting me.

    This. I don’t have either in the house for exactly that reason. A bag of Doritos used to make a perfectly fine dinner – and then they changed something (or my tastes changed) and I don’t even like them, now.

    Cheese (even spray cheese!) and crackers doesn’t count. That’s just a deconstructed grilled cheese sandwich, without all the butter so it’s even healthier than grilled cheese!

    Liked by 1 person

    2. My son shares your love of cheese and crackers. He will demolish a box of crackers in a day or two. I’m ok with them occasionally and only a few at a time.

      So far the chips and cheese popcorn bought on sale for the holidays are still mostly tucked away. I do not want to have to buy bigger pants! It’s been off to the gym or long walks with the dog every day, and cutting down on everything else.

      Like

  6. Many years ago, I had Civilization installed on my then current Mac. After the second time I sat up playing it till my eyes were physically raw, I uninstalled it . . .

    Like

    1. Tetris. I had Dan uninstall it. Later it was Mah Jong. It was so long ago it was on CD. I had to give it to Dan to HIDE from me. Found it five years later, but the addiction was past.

      Like

    2. Civ 3 is still my go-to game when I want to zone out and not think about things for a few hours… or a day…

      Like

      2. The Babylon Bee had an article about escaping the dreary real world by immersing oneself in “Fallout”

        Like

    3. At least one version of Civilization had an “Are you sure you want to exit the game?” cancel prompt that read, “Just one more turn…”

      😋

      That game is notorious for keeping people up “just a little longer…” right up until the crack of dawn. Or even longer.

      Like

    4. I identify with pretty much everything in this post, including hunting down Christmas presents in advance. In my case though they were often books, so even though I wouldn’t be surprised when I unwrapped them, I still had the pleasure of reading them afterwards. I knew better than to start reading them when I found them, because I would hate having to stop before my parents found me.

      Just before reading this post I was looking at my credit card balance, trying to decide whether I could afford to pull the trigger on the two eBay auctions I’ve been watching for the past 10 days. Spoiler alert: I decided I could. But, I assuaged my guilt at spending the money by proceeding to cancel my subscriptions to four different streaming services before they could auto-renew. I still have a couple more to cancel, but they don’t charge until later in the month. Why did I subscribe to so many? Because why subscribe to one, if you don’t subscribe to them all?

      The only reliable way I have found to control my diet is to not buy the things that I shouldn’t eat. Because, if they are in the house eventually I will eat them, often in a single sitting… once I start eating those tasty, tasty carbohydrates I can’t seem to stop until they are gone. I have managed to limit my chocolate consumption by training myself to enjoy dark chocolate, and only buying the single-wrapped candies. Something about having to unwrap each one seems to satisfy my need to “finish them all”. If the candies are loose in a bag, my brain wants to finish the entire bag in one go, but if they are individually wrapped then just one is enough. Or three, if I buy the Lindor Dark Assortment bag: one “Dark”, one “60% Extra Dark”, one “70% Extra Dark”. Since there are three types, my OCD doesn’t want them to be unbalanced, so I can’t have just one or two at a time. But three at a time is still better than a bag at a time, right? I make up for it by not having those very often; I have other single-wrapped chocolate for my regular “after meal” dessert.

      I’m just glad that I recognized early on my addictive tendencies, and managed to avoid gambling, alcohol, smoking, and drugs. Over-spending and over-eating are bad enough, but with enough effort and practice I have found ways to control them, or at least manage them.

      Like

    5. Technofog has a piece up about the Epstein info revealed yesterday.

      https://technofog.substack.com/p/the-epstein-files-john-does-identified

      Clinton is mentioned, but not directly incriminated. One of the Pritzkers is, however. Technofog notes that many people revealed are not even associates of Epstein, but rather are people who were assisting victims, or doing similar things. There’s even one name that was only brought up for a witness to say, “I never met that person.” So be careful when you hear that someone is mentioned in the documents.

      The trolls are out in force. Technofog posted much of the above in a Twitter roll. And the comments quickly filled up with claims that he was avoiding “evidence” of gross wrong-doing by Trump while associating with Epstein.

      Like

    7. So many hours lost/enjoyed in video/computer games. Asteroids, Defender and Gauntlet ate quarters many a day. Empire and Hack on Vaxen, Star Trek on the DEC-20, Civilization (1) and X-Com on early PC’s, Katamari Damacy on the PS2, Elite Dangerous and No Mans Sky on my XBox all had their time. Something about the feedback from a computer game is far more enticing to an Introvert/Odd than traditional addictions. I think it is some of the same feedback loop that makes gambling addictive for some.

      Like

  7. Heard one of the theories of autism is that it is a tendency to hyperfocus. That can be very useful, but also means breaking out of the thing you’re doing right now can be very unpleasant, even if you really want to do the other thing. It’s harder still if it’s something you aren’t thrilled to do.

    Another thing is it may be better to find ways to focus on wanting the other thing as opposed to not wanting the first thing. It may be easier to chase something you want, than reject something you want but shouldn’t do/have.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Not every. Uh. ADD. Sometimes hyperfocus. Sometimes not. Dan has hyperfocus. I have NO focus. Dan isn’t even slightly autistic, btw. Me? I don’t know. If I am it’s masked by early socializing.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. When people here “autism spectrum” (can’t speak to things like ADD so I’ll stick with the one I knoew) they think a linear range from “a little bit autistic” to “extremely autistic” but it’s more complicated than than that. It’s a spectrum of traits that individually can be more or less. I like to think of it as a sound engineer’s mix board. You’ve got all these “sliders” of different autism traits and individual ones can be set high or low. Thus the saying “if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person” because we’re all different.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Oh, and the slider positions can change from day to day, or even minute to minute. For example, normally, I have no trouble with verbal communication. But there are times I get hit with selective mutism and I can’t get words out of my mouth.

          Like

    2. I should add though that the fact that all my veteran fans say if I had served I’d be languages, i.e. nukes for people on the spectrum who scramble digits…. tells me people are seeing SOMETHING.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. Oh, that kind of makes sense– if you can finally manage to get the “Ignore This Input” trick to work, you… ignore that input.

      IE, hyperfocus.

      Like

      1. This can also affect your health, especially with long term conditions. You train yourself to “play through pain”, until your body reaches for the Sequoia-cluebat.

        Like

        1. Even if you’re ignoring the pain, it still has a cost, too.

          My mom has had a huge improvement in her general health every single time she gets some decent pain management technique instead of just “dealing with it.”

          Like

          1. Speaking of the freaky stuff…. I can’t remember where it came up, and was in person so I can’t search for it, but at least some folks with ADD/ADHD symptoms as kids are effectively treated with pain medication.

            IE, at least some cases of “disorder” are instead “long term, untreated pain that is suppressed so much it doesn’t register.”

            I suspect that some cases of pain killer addiction may also be this, based off of seeing how my mom responds when a so-long-she-could-ignore-it pain is removed. (And in myself for things like when I pulled encapsulated glass out of my foot.)

            Liked by 1 person

          2. In my case, it was a nearly fatal pancreatitis from a gallstone blocked pancreatic duct that I ignored for 10 weeks in 2008.

            Liked by 1 person

          3. I just subcontract through Cox Communications…..

            http://ace.mu.nu/archives/407742.php

            “It’s True. Your Devices Are Listening to You,” said a page on the CMG Local Solutions site, which has since been pulled down. “With Active Listening, CMG can now use voice data to target your advertising to the EXACT people you are looking for.”

            I loved this bit the best:

            “Is Active Listening Legal?

            We know what you’re thinking. Is this even legal? The short answer is: yes. It is legal for phones and devices to listen to you. When a new app download or update prompts consumers with a multi-page terms of use agreement somewhere in the fine print, Active Listening is often included.”

            Think the FBI isn’t taking advantage? But hey, we’ve all been assured that having the government benefit from theft by deception is all good because “Muh voluntary private business” is in the middle.

            Oh, and people who claim it’s voluntary: these agreements are all or nothing. How many apps can you live without?

            Like

      2. Yes, or it may be that one can only handle a narrower band of inputs so anything other than the primary things you’re focusing on fall off the radar.

        I know my mother eventually stopped giving me any task list that had more than one instruction on it. I’d always do the first one and forget the rest. But if she gave me a task that required a bunch of other tasks to get done first, that I could handle just fine.

        Tell me to take the laundry out of the drier, move the washer into the drier and put another load in the washer, and I’d empty the drier. Tell me to put a load in the washer, and I’ll move all the laundry through so I can load the washer. That was just how I functioned.

        Liked by 1 person

  8. I have an abundance of will power. What is more challenging for me is managing my limited supply of “won’t power”. (No, I won’t do (thing) right now.)

    And a key to that is good habits. Because good habits are challenging to create and sustain, and bad habits are a cast-iron-birch to change. What we make habit we do.

    Like

  9. For the longest time, arguably up until I was in my early 40’s, I had near-zero self control when it came to buying “stuff.” Bills would be paid a couple days late, gas would have to be watched like a hawk, even one time my breakfast (and only meal) for the drive home from GenCon (Milwaukee) to Detroit, MI was a McDonald’s Chicken Nugget BBQ sauce packet.

    Just the sauce.

    I’ve managed to mostly curb that lack of control by making a monthly budget and putting in bills as soon as I know what they are and when they’re due, and which week they’ll need to be paid so as to not be late on them. Of course, now, that’s led to a new “lack of self-control” issue, if you will. I tend to now almost obsessively check the various sites for our bills vs my budget spreadsheet to make sure I’ve got the right amount and due date, right up until I’ve paid it.

    And then I tend to keep checking, waiting for the next bill…

    Foods though, interestingly, I have more self-control now than I did as a kid. Used to be, I could go through a new bag, a full size bag, of potato chips or the like in one sitting and not even think about it. Now? Put some in a small tupperware bowl, have those, and I’m done.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. It’s easy to have self control over potato chips. Just have your cancerous thyroid removed and enough radiation to kill the spit glands in your mouth. 1 chip and it’s like eating a package of saltines. If it’s a gulp of liquid to 1 chip, rapidly kills any interest to the next one.

      Like

    2. Sounds familiar.

      “Bills” budget gets skimmed off the paycheck into an account. Dittos “save” for contingency/emergency. When I get a surplus on either I can move it to the “spend” one.

      Long term save/invest is another skim. As Mr. Hammer says “Cant touch this (funky beat)….”

      I pay myself an allowance. It goes in a money clip. When empty, spending stops. If its a credit card buy, I have to move “spend” back to “pay”. Auto-pay is a blessing, in that the bills are always paid on time, but can be a pain-in-the-ash when something grows unexpectedly, so I do have to monitor them.

      Works for me. Almost any decent system works if you work it. An allergy to debt is a plus.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Quicken, or equivalent, for the win. I have all the auto bills (with high amounts) set in the accounts they are paid from, as well as income streams (except what gets pulled from IRA’s, that varies too much). I regularly download charges from credit cards. This way I know who (if not what) and where our money goes. Super high spend month, at least I know why. Jan 2024 credit card is going to be high, between Christmas, and second half of the garage door (going in now).

        Like

        1. I can relate. We are finally where we can breath and not worry about what happens if we lose income. Oh if our income disappears now, won’t be happy (would be very, very, unhappy, angry – 3 pensions and 2 SS, so odds are low, but not impossible). We’re to the point where we can touch the penny pinching savings we squirreled away without penalty (taxed, sure).

          Liked by 1 person

      3. I do something similar to budget my expenditures: Paycheck comes in, auto-transfers immediately go out to named shares in the account, with the amounts being some percentage of the yearly expenditures in that category.

        Write a check or make a debit charge, transfer money from the relevant share to the main checking share to cover it.
        Pay with credit card, transfer money from the relevant share to pay the card.

        … it almost works perfectly, too.

        Like

        1. Not quite how I do it. I just enter high estimate amounts, to actual (house, cars, etc.) for monthly bills in to the accounts they pay out of. Track the actual amounts as I learn of them. Track actual expenditures (mostly credit card). Then after the last card closes, tell hubby how much I need extra to pay the largest card (until Biden, that was actually $0, most months, except *February (~$800), rarely **April ($0), *August (~$1500), **November (~$2500), whatever is winter golf trip or we went on vacation extra), but that doesn’t include whatever cash (mostly him) is taken out (he pays cash for fuel in small town north of us on the way through). Before we had the buckets to pull from, I too, budgeted appropriate monthly dollar amounts for the semi-annual, annual, guesstimates, by transferring the monthly amount into savings. Now I just keep a $2k balance in Savings for JIC mid month shortfall. For example if the only thing I need to pull money is to pay for insurance, pay that out of savings, then next month add that to the “I need amount”. Or since insurance is due mid month, and is more than early deposits, transfer out of savings, then add that amount to pay back savings from the monthly pull.

          The only thing I can guaranty is how ever I manage this, will drive my husband crazy, if he has to deal with it. It is 100% my logic. Makes sense to me. Anyone else? Not so much. Trust me. Not just this. I’ve heard “That makes sense, now that you’ve explained it. It works. Not how I would have done it.”, even professionally, a lot.

          ((*)) Insurance
          ((**)) Taxes (Federal, State, Property)

          Like

    3. Fritos. Fritos were my doom. Now I don’t buy them, so I don’t devour them. Unless someone leaves a few little bags of leftovers in the work room at Day Job. crunchcrunchcrunch

      Liked by 1 person

      1. My kryptonite food is Nilla wafers. For reasons I can not fathom (honestly they’re sweet and crunchy but there are many FAR better tasting things in the world) I am unable to control myself when presented with a box of them. Similarly with Reese’s peanut butter cups (especially the mini ones) I will eat them until only the wrappings remain. Neither enters the house other than in highly restricted quantities.

        Like

        2. Reese’s peanut butter cups
          ……………..

          Usually have box (Costco) of these in the freezer for son. I’ve learned (mostly) to leave them alone. It helps that with most super sweet trigger items for me, if I indulge I get sick. I am not diabetic or even pre-diabetic (per tests). Cue Cinnabons, I buy them for the guys, I rarely touch them. Did get a box of large ones for the guys, and a box of small ones (two = 1/2 big one) for me for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day breakfast. Worked for two breakfasts, guys had to finish out my box. Pizza is now on my “no way” list. Had it last night (our pizzas are meat heavy). BS spike (> 160, < 180, < 120 in two hours) flatten me. Nope. I’ll get a small chicken salad, thank you very much.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. You’re not diabetic, but something in your bod doesn’t like sugar.

            I remember, many years ago, getting into an argument with someone who insisted that what you ingest doesn’t have an effect on your gut until it gets to that point. Uh, sorry, your whole body has a bunch of interconnected triggers, and after the 10th or 15th time of “eat this, suffer immediate consequences,” you figure out that your stomach sends signals to clear the hatches when you do certain things.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. There are lots of things that absorb through the lining of your mouth and on down; alcohol and nicotine being two better known of them.

              Like

            2. something in your bod doesn’t like sugar.
              ………………………..

              Yes. 100% Or carbs. But I can’t go without some carbs or my BS doesn’t go up at all. Gee it is so much fun to all but faint, have my BS checked and it is 50, when I just ate. Then I get told “oh, just need to find out what works and stick to that!” Grouse. Sure. Until “that” doesn’t work anymore. Right now it is a balance of carbs to protein.

              Like

          2. There seem to be several variants of the food addictions. Salty and crunchy carbs is one, Sweet and carbs is another (My Nilla wafer issues), Fatty and sweet is another ( Reese’s), and then there is the three way type, sugar, carb mix (donuts say). I’m certain someone somewhere will throw protein into the mix but I haven’t seen that. Well other than my wife pregnant with first daughter. Wife wanted med rare to rare beef (would have eaten it three meals a day if she could have gotten it). Though I blame that on anemia/ Iron Pica, redheads have a real tendency to anemia.

            Liked by 1 person

  10. I have learned that, for me, for food and drink, what I see is what I consume. So just putting the not so healthy snacks in a drawer works surprisingly well. Once, we had two birthday cakes (there were two birthdays). The one in the clear box vanished, the one in a cardboard box did not.
    I used to wait to pay bills with the weak theory that I got a little interest in the meantime. But it really works best for me to just pay them (or at least schedule them) asap. Most are now on autopay which , if your income allows, is super.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. In a way it’s cheering. In Europe people go QUIETLY mad at being indoctrinated with things that are anti-reality. here they go loudly insane. And unfortunately sometimes murderous. Not in support of shooting innocents, but I think culturally it means we’re more resilient.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Pm media is reporting he was another victim of the trans cult. Via citizens free press.
      Interesting, that’s two alleged trans shooters in schools. I doubt he was maga, this story disappears real quick. Really screws with the narrative.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. No surprise. They were emotionally troubled, and they were told that going ‘trans’ would solve all their problems.

          It didn’t.

          Probably made them worse.

          Next stop: shooting spree.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Well, first you need a dark room….

            Heh. I kid. Dark helps, but actually I find one of the most effective ways for me to get sleep is to take a hot shower and make sure I warm my feet thoroughly, and then get into bed as soon as possible after drying off. Not hesitating to write a thought down, no matter how tempting, because if my feet get cold again it can take hours to warm them back up enough to sleep. Ugh.

            Also, contrary to what you might expect, a small dose of caffeine can be helpful, in that it lets you concentrate enough to go to sleep, instead of having your brain hamster-wheeling after every stray tumbleweed of a thought.

            Like

            1. Same here re: cold feet preventing me from sleeping, but my solution is to wear socks to bed, and change my socks the next morning. (Or, sometimes, forget to change my socks, and go through day 2 with stinky feet: oops.) Where I live, flooring is usually tile rather than rugs, so I’m wearing socks around the house anyway, so it’s easy to wear them to bed: I just don’t take them off when I get changed at bedtime.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. If one can’t stand having socks on in bed (I know I can’t), leg-warmers are a good compromise.

                Insulating your calves and ankles is remarkably effective at keeping your feet warm.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. We have an electric blanket. Unfortunately it warms more than just feet (dang hot flashes). Started as a compromise between heavy blankets (multiple) and not, early in the marriage, when I froze at night and he didn’t (two controls, always). Now, except for my feet, that has swapped. Need to try just using the warm-in-the-microwave baggy and use for feet. Not only that, it would be portable. In general socks don’t help, my feet are still cold. If clean fresh socks do help, they have to be removed sometime in the middle of the night.

                  Like

                    1. Our current cats cuddle with our son. I do have the dog, but she doesn’t cuddle on my cold feet (the brat).

                      Like

              2. One can buy really funky/neato/LOUD socks for sleep. To ensure changing them, get ones you wont wear outside, or super thick ones that really do not fit in “outside” shoes. Oversize slippers take care of household-wear needs.

                If one cannot abide socks in bed, one can use a small blanket, folded in half, crosswise along the bottom of the bed. You are making the equivalent of a leg/foot only sleeping bag bottom.

                An electric heating pad at the foot area is another possibility.

                Liked by 2 people

              3. I sometimes resort to that, but the danger is my feet will get too hot during the night. I try to use slippers or reading socks and keeping myself warm so I go to bed with them warm and bare.

                Like

          2. I’m in the same boat as your…er…friend. I love sleep, but I never get enough of it. I’m wired for night, not day. Unless something’s wrong — either sick or just too far behind on sleep to function anymore — I pretty much can’t force myself to go to bed any earlier than midnight/1 am. Left to my own devices, I spin up at about 10:30 pm and rock and roll through about 3 am. Up at about 11 or noon, ready to rock again. But I am almost never left to my own devices, so I stumble through the 8-to-5 job routine on far too little sleep.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Son is that way. In a lot of ways his last job was good for him as swing shift – 4 PM – 3 AM. Until it wasn’t. Part of that was making supervisor and being always severely understaffed but required to match the output of fully staffed day shift. That and constant 60+ works hours. While he was paid for every hour to the half hour, it took it’s toll health wise. His current job is more $/hour than he was making as a supervisor on swing shift differential, but without the required overtime (less money overall). Over all PTO compensation less, especially since < 5 years, and how PTO is earned and paid out. OTOH four holidays are paid which used to require PTO hours if you wanted them paid even if the shop was shutdown for the holiday. Much more healthy. I can understand the last, 100%. Current job is 6 AM – 3 PM, M – Th, with Friday often 6 AM – 12 PM if you’ve gotten in your 40 hours. You can work overtime, until 5 PM, but it isn’t encouraged. Friday and Saturday nights he often doesn’t go to bed before 1 AM.

              Like

        2. Ditto. If for no other reason if I don’t go to bed by 10 PM, I won’t get up before 10 AM, which means I won’t go to the gym. I need to go to the gym to exercise. Then I will take the dog for a walk. No gym. No walk. Puts me further behind here, but, sorry guys, getting where the gym is needed just so I can do stuff. Used to be I could ignore exercising and then just go do stuff. Not anymore. Plus I want to be able to get up off the floor without needing physical aids. Given up not having to use my hands. At this point losing weight because I’m exercising would be a bonus.

          Liked by 2 people

    1. Yep. Helping people is good. Feels good. Problem is, there are a rather lot of professional parasites out there. Good folks rarely want free help. They want to earn their way out of it.

      I mostly avoid such by being a rather curmudgeonly person. Social life tends to cut into reading and writing time. And the latter two are rather more important than the former, most days.

      Liked by 2 people

  17. As it is proved by my posts here, I have no self control. Honesty will set you free. That’s the only thing free about it.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Four AM this morning. “Just one more page…”

    It is somewhat easier with a book that is chaptered. I do wish that Jerry Boyd would do so – although if it cramps his style, I’ll understand it if he does not. I’ll just soldier on.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. A thousand page book (or even smaller) new release that I have been waiting years for. “I will make it last. I will. I will. I will. I will.” Reality? Lasts maybe two days. Maybe. (Cough) “Battleground” J. Butcher, Book 9 “Bees” (for short) D. Gabaldon, most the books I buy through the Sunday promotions (aw, heck, may not start immediately, but when I do, I am lucky they last 24 hours). I am so bad. Not a whole lot better on re-reads either.

      Liked by 2 people

        1. Battle Ground lasted more than one day only because I can keep the pledge at least one day. It did not last two days.

          Like

        1. I worked the release party for book five. At 2AM, we checked out all the employees who had reserved a copy (like me) and then I went home to bed. Went to work after a day off, and at the register people were asking me if I’d started it yet. “Nope, I’ve finished it. And so has my husband.”

          Liked by 1 person

          1. IIRC, that was the volume that we went to the release party for. Myself, $SPOUSE$ and both daughters finished it around 7 AM, I believe. (Each of us HAD to have our own copy – family civil war was not desirable. Cruciatis curses would have been deployed.)

            Like

          2. Ah, the fifth volume. It was not the clerks discussing a scene in the book store shortly after it released that I remember so much as the customer who told them that she thought the last paragraph would reveal it had all been a fantasy on Harry’s part while he was under the stairs.

            Like

      1. “He does, he just calls them books…. #41 now….”
        Was a reply on “just one more chapter” Jerry Boyd books. Sorry it didn’t post where it should have.

        Liked by 1 person

  19. I only managed to fool my children on one Christmas. It was going to be a socks & underwear Christmas. But I had sent the true prize to my parent’s as we were going there for Christmas. As to self control I don’t have much myself. As a diabetic I have so many restrictions that I want to splurge most of the time. But I do try. But for some reason cherry pie is my Waterloo.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. There is tangible proof that I have obtained the self control necessary to navigate a somewhat “normal” life in the fact that there are relatively few dead people amongst the population listed under the title “folks that have mildly annoyed Dan today.”

    The things I oughta do more of, like writing, are evidence that there are gaps in the coverage that that self control concerns.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. I find the list of people who can kiss my rosy beige keister is getting longer as I get older. (Except Biden. I don’t want him anywhere near my rosy beige keister).

      Liked by 4 people

        1. Well, my Ancestry sample came out “Western Europe,” “British Isles,” (Sctoch and Irish, more Scotch, and a touch of Wales) and “Scandinavian.” I pretty much personify, “whitebread.”

          Like

            1. Eh. I just figure we all came ultimately from the African continent. Paths that diverged, merged, crossed over briefly, wandered all over the place. Genes that became useful, or obsolete, depending on where people ended up for a time.

              Like

                1. I’ve read some of those papers on “parallel evolution” – and not found them all that convincing.

                  (Doesn’t mean that the migrants from Africa didn’t interbreed with the genetic cousins they found – that being what we do…)

                  Liked by 1 person

    2. Boy, talk about history repeating…

      Update the names and the numbers and you could give that speech today and no one would blink.

      Liked by 1 person

  22. I suffer from waking up at odd hours like many here. In my case, the times seem to synch with when I lived/worked elsewhere, another time zone. In particular, I lived in CH for years and I wake consistently when over there, I’d be getting up to go to the lab. In the Central Time Zone, I worked for a tech company and had to rise at 02:00 to get to the computer lab to get time on the new prototype system. Yep, notch that one up. Now I’m owned by a feline, a rescue, who thinks that 04:30 is an excellent time to be fed and played with. I’ve kind of got the playing stopped, at least my participation, and I drop 3 pellets of food for a “snack” and he’s happy. Sometime I can even go back to sleep intead of reading ATH.

    Like

Comments are closed.