What Happened Then, What Happens Next

Okay, so let's talk about what happened yesterday: To quote myself answering this question for a friend, "It was a first day to end all jobs."

As first days on jobs go, this one was something of a disaster from start to finish. Yesterday began what was supposed to be a full week of paid training to prepare me for a job as an e-tech person for a local company. According to rumor I picked up from a fellow trainee, we were starting in the middle of a pay period, and I would be paid the same day I am to move into my new apartment. YAY!!! I needed that extra money right then. I prepared carefully: I made sure all necessary paperwork was filled out and printed off, went to bed at a decent hour the night before, and got up and out the door on time yesterday morning. The bus arrived on time and dropped me off on time. I made it to the intersection where I was supposed to turn. That's where it all fell apart.

First, I walked a block and a half in the wrong direction. Walking in any direction is difficult for me, because I have chronic back pain due to a bulging disk in my lumbar spine and degenerative disease in the lower lumbar-upper sacral spine. That's the area below the small of the back and above what I lovingly call the bohunkus. I cannot walk continually for more than two or three minutes without the pain ramping up, and once it gets to a certain intensity, there is nothing else for it but to sit down. If I continue to push past this point, I set myself up for the pain to continue for hours after, even if I stop walking and do not do a significant amount of walking anymore the rest of the day. So it was not good for me to walk in the wrong direction.

I had to retrace my steps and go back to the intersection. I stopped there and got water from a gas station before proceeding on my way in the right direction. It was only a block that I had to walk, but along this block, which is rather long, there is no sidewalk on the side of the street where I needed to be, the ground, though mostly covered with grass, was uneven and on an incline in places, and in some spots there were leaves that would prove treacherous in wet weather. Having broken a bone in my left leg at the knee because of a fall after slipping on pine straw after a rain shower, I pay especial attention to tree debris on grass, and I intensely dislike having to walk over mounds of it. I fare much better on sidewalks. Since there wasn't one, and the ground was as I have described, and since I was now in considerable pain from walking, I had to actually stop and sit on a retaining wall along the way. It was the second time I'd had to do this, having stopped on the way back to the intersection from the wrong direction to sit on the side of some steps in front of a building.

It was after I got up from the retaining wall that I then made the mistake that cost me the most time: Seeing a spot where the wall petered out, low to the ground and only slightly inclined upward, I left the side of the road, cut through a parking lot, and went to the side of the building I was trying to enter. The building is very large, with bits that angle in and out, and all on one level. I thought to get into the building from that side, or be able to walk around to the front and get in. Well, between stopping now for longer than I was going, going to every door I saw only to find that I couldn't get in that way, and having to sit down a couple more times, I didn't get through the right door until almost an hour after the training class was to start. Had I stayed on the path and kept going, I would have found the door maybe 15-20 minutes earlier. Looking back, this mistake seems almost a metaphor for what happened next.

I was finally escorted from the security desk in the lobby to my classroom. There were not enough computers for the people in the room, and of extra chairs the only one left was a hard, formed plastic chair, the kind with bolts to hold the seat and back piece to the metal legs. They're very uncomfortable to sit on for more than an hour or two at the best of times, and I sat on one for most of the training day. At the lunch break, when I approached the trainer about something, I discovered the information pretty much sent the rest of the day downhill.

It went like this: When I first went to the company for recruitment and to be interviewed, the recruitment manager told us that the e-tech hours of operation were during a 12-hour span during the day, with shifts to be set sometime during those 12 hours. I'd indicated in writing on a form I was given to complete that I wanted to work no later than 4 p.m. At the time that I interviewed for the position, no mention was made to me of when I would actually be scheduled to work. However, the project supervisor asserted most firmly that the hours were something quite different, and I would actually be working considerably later than I thought. There were day slots that were being reserved for those new employees who were the top performers their job during the first 90 days.

Here were my objections:
1. With my current physical condition and the difficulties stemming therefrom, I did not feel that I would be able to safely navigate the block between the building and the bus stop in the dark.
2. The buses run differently at night, potentially making it more difficult for me to get home if I worked a night shift.
3. I have already researched the area where I will soon be living, and I currently know that the most direct way for me to get home is to walk from a major highway down a street for some distance to my apartment. I do not want to do that at night in my current condition, for reasons of safety as well as decreased physical ability.
4. There was another contract that already had a few day slots, but they required weekend work, and because I play for a church one weekend a month, I need Sundays free, but the choice wouldn't be mine to make.
5. If a few day slots are being held in reserve, that means they exist, and it seemed to me unfair that the work schedule according to their needs was being portrayed has having no day slots available. Either they don't have them, in which case they should have made that clear to everyone, or they do, in which case, it should be no hardship to them to fill them and let me have one.

I pleaded my case based on the first three objections, and the best solution at which we could arrive was for me to hand in my newly-acquired employee badge and hope that they could work something out and call me back. Although I'd like to think that will happen, and I hope it does, I will not be surprised if it doesn't. After yesterday, I feel like a failure; the more I think about it, the more colossal a failure I feel; because I think I panicked a bit thinking about the lateness of the proposed hours. Had I been a little more clearheaded in that moment, I would have instead opted to do some researching and thinking between then and now, and I might still have a job. Feeling like I needed to make a decision right then, however, I took the path of caution and so I find myself back where I started. It's a rather sick feeling. I want it to be awhile before I feel this way again.

However disastrous it was, it was also a valuable learning experience for me, showing me some issues I need desperately to resolve before I begin a new job search, and today I began working on them in earnest. My new plan of action is as follows:
1. I will call my prospective property manager to check on the status of my apartment application and find out if I may go to see the apartment I will be renting. I will attempt to navigate the distance from the apartment to the highway to see exactly how much effort it will take. At some point before I move, I will also ride the route again to be sure my online research matches with actual happenstance.
2. I made appointments today with an orthopedist recommended to me by my chiro and with an optometrist whom I've seen before. When I go to them, I will take with me application forms which I will ask them to fill out and sign confirming visual and other disabilities.
3. The applications are for service through a local transportation program that provides two levels of discounted taxi service conjunctive with the bus routes. I will complete my portion of the forms and submit them to the program manager and pray that I qualify for the total service.
4. For my health's sake, I will continue my efforts in the starch/sugar challenge (which have gone a little awry lately) and the sleep challenge, and after I have seen the ortho, I will begin an exercise challenge as well. Nothing strenuous, but if I must exercise, I find that I like stretches and exercises that are simultaneously relaxing and breath-driven, like the floor work in yoga and pilates. Hopefully I will find some moves I actually like.
5. In terms of employment, it is now time to "push the paradiggum" and "step away from the box" as was said by a nutty professor in a commercial I liked that did not run for very long. Recently, I was (I hope lovingly) accused of selling myself short by someone whom I like a little more than I hope that person knows. I realize that my brain is metabolically scrambled right now, but those parts that are still functional will now be bent toward lengthening my selling points and parleying avocation into vocation. From those who know me well, I welcome ideas, complete with practical points of implementation and suggestions of directions for first steps. These will either be in conjunction with or in place of more typical work-a-day moneymaking efforts. I look to those who love me to gently encourage me and pray hard for me, that I will recognize opportunities when I see them, have the wisdom to know how to work around the sticky points, and have courage to grasp them when they happen.

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

So it's been a couple weeks since you last heard from me—and boy, what a difference a couple weeks makes!

Some things you don't know about me, as background: In 2005 I was laid off of a job that I loved and through which I felt that I was doing a wonderful service to the public. I was dealing with information of a somewhat medical nature, which appealed to me because I have always been fascinated by medicine and the workings of the body. When the unemployment payments ended, I took the first job that offered itself, doing telephone interviews for surveys. The work was not steady and paid me considerably less than I was making on the previous job. When I was assigned to a survey for which I would work two months and be out of work one month, I decided to apply for Social Security Disability based on my congenital legal blindness and put some time to good use studying to be a medical transcriptionist.

In theory this was a sound plan. I wouldn't have to worry about where the money was coming from while I was studying, and when I was finished, I would apply for a job making good enough money not to need the disability payments. There was only one problem about which no one warned me and which I didn't discover until I graduated from the medical transcription program I'd chosen and passed with flying colors and began looking for work: You have to be very, very careful which MT program you choose. If the one you choose doesn't offer internships or isn't part of a company that will hire its own graduates to give them experience, and you live in an area where most of the local medical facilities have already switched over to digital dictation or dictation via speech-recognition software, then you are going to have a most hellacious time getting hired. Medical transcription companies abound, and they are fighting over experienced transcriptionists, who are leaving the business in droves. However, those same companies will not hire anyone who doesn't have at least one year of on-the-job experience—meaning they will not hire me. Since I cannot get hired, I cannot gain experience. So, reluctantly, I began looking for other work than medical transcription.

Then, three months ago, my finances took a hit when my disability payments were cut by nearly $500! I'd been getting just enough to pay all my bills, buy groceries, give money in church, and have some left to play with if I only played a little bit. Suddenly I didn't have enough to pay the bills, or I wouldn't have had if I hadn't agreed to help out a friend by playing piano at his church one Sunday every month. Suddenly, I not only needed a job, I also needed to cut expenses.

The biggest bill I have is my rent, so it stood to reason that I must look for a cheaper place to live. I needed to find it by the end of this year, because my lease is up, and I must either sign another lease or go somewhere else. One of my uncles having died two months ago, my grandmother lost in him a son, a roommate, and an on-site caretaker, and her house seemed the obvious alternative if I couldn't find housing and a job by the end of this year. I set the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday as my deadline to make a decision and determined that by then I would do the best I could about at least finding subsidized housing by then. I prayed to Father God and began looking.

I hadn't been looking very long by the third week in October when a tip from the office manager of one low-income housing community directed me to the number of the office manager of another such community in a different part of town. When I called, in the middle of the one day that the office manager was available, to inquire about available units, I was briskly informed that one was available, but I needed to come fill out an application for it, as availability was based on first-come, first-served. After ascertaining that she would be there until evening, I immediately went over and filled out the papers right there in the office. Just this past week, I went back with the application fee and the additional paperwork she requested. Pending approval of the paperwork and a couple other minor bits of the process, I now have a new address, just in time for Thanksgiving!

So what about work? Well, two days after I completed the application for the apartment, I e-mailed a cover letter and resume to a local employment agency, just on a whim. The company e-mailed me back the following week to invite me to a job fair, to which I was to bring a copy of my resume and at which I was to be prepared to be interviewed. On the appointed day, I showed up, properly prepared, and I ended up interviewing for two different jobs! I ended up with the lower-paying one, because I wanted to be sure I would still be able to get home after my shift was over, I do not drive, and I live in a city where the buses do not run all night. With my lower stress tolerance due to hypothyroidism (learn about it by searching my archives for the post I did about it), I think that it will be the better job for me. I begin training in the morning!

That's a lot of change in a very short period of time. And of course it will affect my sleep challenge. From now on, to be at optimal performance, I have to make sure I establish and maintain a routine that gets me in bed at a decent time every night so that I can get up in the morning ready to begin each day. Up till now, I've continued to be inconsistent about it, but that all ends tonight. Just as soon as I finish this post.

But I'll let you know how things go with all these changes in my life. Wish me success in handling all this!

A new place to live, a new job, and all by the deadline I set! Thank You, Lord :-).

This Just In . . . !

Hi, folks! I'm now famous—well, sort of. I'm featured on curlynikki.com doing a review on a product I won from her during her recent Birthday Challenge that she did to celebrate the one year anniversary of her blog. Come check me out, and see what I think of the product I reviewed. Maybe you'll want to try it.

While you're there, check out her brand-new natural hair forum. You can link to it from the Community tab at the top of her page. I've already posted there a few times. Stop by and join the fun!

Heady Thoughts In The Wee Hours

The following has already been posted on Facebook as a note. I hope my non-Facebook readers enjoy this as well. Due to technical difficulties that are not my fault and a wake-up time that mostly is, I'm only just now posting it here.

Heady Thoughts In The Wee Hours

I really should not be up this time of night. It's the wee hours. I was supposed ot be in bed almost two hours ago. Remember my challenge: To be in my nighties and winding down by 11 p.m. and have the lights out by midnight. I'm in my nighties, but that's about as close to bed and sleeping as I have gotten this night.

Instead, I have been reading posts from the hair blogs listed in my blogroll, which you can see to the left of this post if you're reading it from the blogsite. If you're reading it on Facebook, you'll have to go to my blogsite to see the roll.

Hair is such a fascinating topic for me. I have derived much pleasure and much grief from mine throughout my life. A lot of the grief has come from, among other things, having it break from mistreatment, having people close to me dislike what I chose to do with it, and having my scalp hurt and burn from too many harsh chemicals and too little sensible TLC. A lot of the joy has come from, among other things, discovering products and methods of styling and care that do my hair good when I do them, having my hair grow longer and longer, and discovering that I can easily sacrifice a few hours a quarter year to snip off damaged ends if it helps the rest of my hair to feel silkier and retain the rest of its length.

Right now, I've got a head full of plaits with the ends coiled around themselves, all ready for bed, except that I put too much oil on, so I have to sleep with a plastic bag on my head tonight—what remains of tonight. The oil, unrefined coconut oil, was mixed in a spray bottle with Suave Naturals Tropical Coconut conditioner and water. I store this bottle, a jar of coconut oil, and a jar of raw shea butter mixed with honey and olive oil on top of my cable box with a thick, glossy restaurant menu under them to protect the cable box. The cable box keeps the oils warm, which makes them easier to use. I've tried to return to the nightly habit of my longer hair days of plaiting my hair before bed. I moisturize my hair and oil the ends as part of the ritual. The intent is to keep moisture in my hair against the dryness that comes with being indoors with the heater running as one necessarily does in winter. I think it's working.

I'm more consistent about this, especially now that my hair, which broke off badly two years ago, is showing lively signs of trying to grow back to the shoulder length it was before I lost so much of it, than I have been about going to bed on time. One day, I will tell my hair story in its entirety. I will also post more things about hair, as the effort to maintain length as it grows longer is yet another cygnet I want to bring home. But for now, I think I've done wa-a-a-a-y too much transgressing with the staying up already. I'm going to bed now.

A Rather Random Day

Today has been a rather random day for me. Last week, our pastor challenged us to find ways to “be the Church”; that is, to find ways to demonstrate the love of Jesus to those close to us. I live alone, and I do not socialize much—okay, at all, except to speak when we see each other in passing—with my neighbors. I do not drive, and I did not go anywhere today.

Which is not to say that I have not had an interesting day. A certain noted pastor out of the west coast has a widely-watched and long running broadcast on one of the several Christian cable stations available to me where I live. I enjoy listening to his sermons, and I happened to tune in to one today. He took his text from the Song of Solomon 2:15, talking about little issues in our lives that have a negative effect on our faith. Since he spent the whole hour talking about unforgiveness and its impact on our lives, I gather that this is actually a sermon series, and I would have to stay home from church a few more Sundays to catch more of it. No matter. The lesson today was thought-provoking enough. The grudges we hold, irrespective of why we hold them, count as extremely little by comparison to the debt of wrong Jesus could have held over us, yet He chose to forgive us, and it cost Him so much! So for the comparatively little we do to each other, no matter how often it occurs, He asks that we forgive each other. In our eyes some sins seem huge, and He understands this. But not even the absolute worst, most horrific things we can do to each other, and choose to do with frightening regularity, weigh anything at all compared to what He died to forgive in every one of us. Furthermore, unforgiveness is an anchor that ties us to hurt and will not allow us to move on. So for our own good, and so that we may obtain forgiveness from the Father when we need it (and we need it all the time), it is imperative that we learn to live a life of forgiveness with each other.

I have managed to make progress in serving a friend, however, although it may be up for debate if this counts as “being the Church”. She brought me material for curtains and throw pillow covers about two years ago, but she bade me wait on her word as to when she wanted them made. There has been no rush on anything, and I have since completed the one set of curtains she requested, but back this summer she asked about the pillows. I had not made very much progress on them at all. The reason I cited was depression. If you have been following this blog for any time, you may recall me talking about symptoms of hypothyroidism, with which I have been diagnosed. Depression is one of the symptoms, and it can be quite debilitating sometimes, making it hard to purposefully think at all, let alone concentrate on anything. Having no pattern for what she wanted me to do with the pillows, I had to devise one all on my own, and I simply could not come up with a way to execute it. To complicate matters, the material is plaid, which requires special attention to measurments. Trying to figure out how to do it was overwhelming. Then a few days ago, the thousand and one thought fragments I'd devoted to the project finally coalesced into sense, and I spent some time putting together ordered instructions for how to do what I needed to do. I have spent this weekend cutting the material, and it is during a break from bending over the table that I am writing this. At the rate I'm going, I hope I'll have three beautiful pillows finished by next weekend.

In the background is the sound of a cash register ringing. Not a real one, but It is making me money. No the money isn't real either. If you've been on Facebook for a day, you know it is littered with apps. There are quizzes, all manner of cards to send, ways to tweak your profile, and games galore. I currently run two farms, an aquarium, a place in the city, and two restaurants, all from playing with interactive apps on FB. To be more precise, I run all of that except for one of the restaurants, which is currently running me. The potential exists for all the apps to become addictive, and this particular restaurant is highly interactive. Since getting up this morning, I have “served” 1650 slices of Triple Berry Cheesecake, 615 bowls of French Onion Soup, and well over 200 bowls of Super Chunk Fruit Salad. I just put out a platter that will eventually serve over 1100 slices of Homestyle Pot Roast, and in a few minutes I will lay out some 800 servings of Spitfire Roast Chicken. Still in the kitchen are another 200-plus servings of soup and more fruit salad. I have “cooked” and “served all this between getting dressed, watching my sermon, eating breakfast and lunch, cutting out fabric, and washing and prepping dry beans for cooking. My last task in this restaurant today, after I serve up the chicken, is to put on more chicken and beef to “cook”, then I'm done. From now on, the only things I prepare for my “patrons” are those things that are based on a 24-hour rotation. The customers will be served, and once it's gone, I'm “closed” until the next day, when it's time to serve up what I put on the prevous day. Whew!

As for my cooking in the real world? Well, being a bit short on groceries, I'm having to wax creative with the aforementioned dry beans. After they're seasoned and cooked, I'm adding to them some mixed vegetables from the freezer, some more mixed vegetables that I prepared from frozen just yesterday, and, sorrow of sorrows, starch. It is in the form of some slammin' mac and cheese I brought home with me from a visit to my parents' house and stashed in the freezer, right before I started my starch and sugar challenge. I say it is to my sorrow that I'm adding this cheesy goodness to my beans and vegetables, because I have definitely seen positive benefits, including weight loss, from adherence to the challenge, and I don't want to lose any of that. Having already made a large quantity of hummus, my plan is to eat that with fruit for breakfast and have the bean dish, which I'm going to loosely call pasta e fagioli, because that's more or less what it is, for supper.

Well, the interactive chicken is up, I'm waiting for the soup and one more bowl of fruit salad, and my hyperactive restaurant is going on autopilot! The good news: I've advanced another level!.

A Sleepy Head

So last night was the first official night of my sleep challenge. My goal is to consistently be ready for bed by 11 p.m. and have lights out my midnight.

I was late on the first part of the challenge, primarily because I got home from Bible study hungry but then spent an hour on the phone talking with a friend. It was around 11 p.m. by the time I finished eating the late night meal I made of the left-over chicken and veggies from supper. But by being too tired to do anything to my hair before bedtime, I caught up and did indeed have the lights out by midnight.

There's more to being ready to sleep, however, than being in the bed in the dark. I am the sort of person who finds it necessary to wind down and relax before I can actually sleep. And last night I found it particularly hard to wind down because I had a lot on my mind. So I know it's important to calm the mind as well as the body in preparation for sleep.

One thing that has worked well for me is to have an external focus that is soothing. For some people a white noise or other sound generating machine is excellent for this. I've never owned one of these, but there are models that allow you a variety of sounds to play, including ocean, stream, wind, rain, and other nature sounds. The nature sounds I prefer to hear are the soughing of a gentle wind and the soft tapping of rainfall. As overcast as it was in my local area last night, I'd have loved to go to sleep to the sound of rain.

When the weather won't cooperate with me, however, I frequently turn to the sound of music to induce a sleepy head. The choice of music is very important for me. Although I am a serious beat-head, liking music with rich, complicated percussion and intricately harmonious instrumentation that is almost as rhythmic as the percussion, it can't be anything too uptempo, or I get revved up instead of winding down. The euphony of well-crafted music engages my mind and gives it an orderly path to follow away from whatever chaos might otherwise clamor for my attention. A frequently-played selection in my bedroom is Vineyard Music's Best of Acoustic Worship in which bongos and the occasional jingle of a tambourine provide the background over which the rhythmic strumming of acoustic guitars and syncopation of fingers dancing over the piano provide all the color to be complemented by harmonious voices raised in worship that is both comtemplative and passsionate. This recording works equally well, I find, as music by which to perform yoga, Pilates, or any other type of exercise that involves slow, deliberate movement with breath.

The right sound is not the only thing that induces sleep, however. Some people rely on warm milk or chamomile tea, both being touted to have properties that help one relax and go to sleep. I frequently drink milk in the evenings, but then I like milk and will drink it anytime, at any temperature. For sleeping, I like it with honey in chamomile tea, or I will drink just the warm milk with honey or agave nectar, or by itself. Other things that are said to induce sleep are other dairy products such as cheeses and yogurt, soy products, seafood, meats, whole grains, legumes, eggs, and some nuts and seeds. These foods are rich in tryptophan or have some affect in the body that contributes to sleepiness. Tryptophan is the amino acid associated with turkey. Foods not to eat before bedtime are simple carbs and caffeine. Caffeine revs you up, and simple carbs do not contain the calm-inducing tryptophan to go with the crash they can cause.

Another way some people achieve a sleepy head is to use supplements to regulate their brain. There are many herbs and neurotransmitters in potable form that a person may try in order to go to sleep. I've already mentioned tryptophan derived from food. It can also be taken in supplement form. Other good supplements are calcium, serotonin, any of the B vitamins, St. John's wort, and the aforementioned chamomile.

However, the thing that will probably help all these things be more effective is having a regular routine, which is what this sleep challenge is all about. Once the body becomes used to going down at the same time every night, the body's natural rhythm will send signals at the appropriate time to cause a person to get sleepy and be ready for sleep when lights-out time arrives.

So here's to a sleepy head every night!

Time Challenge: Sleep

Time Challenge: Sleep

Consider this passage from Proverbs 6:6-11:

“Go to the ant, you sluggard!
Consider her ways and be wise,
Which, having no captain,
Overseer or ruler,
Provides her supplies in the summer,
And gathers her food in the harvest.
How long will you slumber, O sluggard?
When will you rise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to sleep—
So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler,
And your need like an armed man.”

I've done well so far in my starch and sugar challenge. Effects I've noticed so far include:

• Improved mobility upon rising after prolonged stillness

• Decrease in bone pain

• Weight loss

• Excessive sugar consumption causes a high, with symptoms of slurred speech, dizziness, and nausea when the sugar is paired with starch

• Excessive starch consumption causes crankiness, anxiety, and a general sense of feeling bad, with symptoms lasting for several hours

When I do desire starches, it's usually pretty easy to talk myself out of it by reminding myself of how bad I feel when I consume them. I've discovered that I don't like feeling that way. As for sugar, I treat it the way I treat caffeine: I take a little when I need it for alertness, but then and special occasions are the only times, and I'm careful not to overindulge. I have a sweet tooth, so keeping a handle on it has been crucial, but by no means difficult.

I feel confident enough in my current way of eating that now it's time to send another cygnet home.

So beginning October 5, I will officially begin the practice of a consistent bedtime and wake-up time.

I find that I function most optimally when I go to bed by midnight and sleep till around 8 a.m. I seem to need to wind down before attempting to actually sleep, and it takes me 15-30 minutes to actually get going once I'm awake. My difficulty is that I do not always observe a consistent time for these activities. Sometimes I go to bed but then play a game on my cell phone, listen to upbeat music, or read until two or three hours later. Some mornings it's after 10 a.m. before my eyes open for good for the day.

This causes inconsistencies not only with my sleep cycle but with the productive hours of my day. Since I'm a little slow to get started but like to be fed and out on any errands by mid-morning, and I must wait for at least 30 minutes after taking my meds before I can have breakfast, it becomes important that I get up at an early enough time to accomplish all this in a relaxed fashion that allows me to enjoy the morning as I'm preparing to enter into it And, of course, it's important to take some time in the morning to connect with Jesus, time I steal from Him and myself by my sluggardly ways in the morning.

This has to change for the better.

So starting October 5, my goals are (1) to have my teeth brushed, my hair finished if I've washed or otherwise tended it, and my nightclothes on by 11 p.m. and myself in bed with lights out by midnight, (2) to be awake by 8 a.m. and up for the day by no later than 8:30, and (3) to do this consistently every day.

I've set the first two goals before, but I've yet to meet them consistently over longer than a week or two. This time, consistency will be the focus. As with the previous challenge, I will report back on my progress and on things I observe and learn along the way. Look for tips and tricks I discover on helping to maintain consistency, reduce the chances of insomnia, and get the maximum benefit from my sleep during the night so that I am in better shape to put more effort into and reap greater results from my days. All to the glory of God, of course!