You know, it's much easier to keep my blog up to date when Blogger cooperates. Sometimes it has issues at the most inopportune times. This has been the case this evening.
I think it should be a rule for the makers of fruit snacks that at least one piece of each flavor be required in each packet. I bought two boxes of Star Wars fruit snacks earlier this week, and having polished off the better part of the first box, I've yet to open a packet that contained all six flavors. The distribution could be managed better, that's all I'm saying.
I decided to try a little experiment and give up pop for the calendar month of April. I'm not entirely sure why I decided to do it now, except that I've been gradually cutting back for quite some time, and this just seemed like the next logical step. It used to be virtually all I would drink; before I gave it up entirely, I had myself down to two servings per day. I don't plan on never drinking it again, because, let's be honest, it tastes freaking great. I just want to get to a point where it's not always the first thing I think of when I want something to drink. If it happens to take a little of the roundness off my belly in the process, well, so much the better. Of course, I'm not planning on giving up potato chips, popcorn, or fried food (although I do aim for at least a certain degree of moderation on such delights), so I'm not expecting much in that department.
In the absence of pop, I have to drink something, don't I? I drink a fair amount of water as it is, but I would shoot myself if that was all I was drinking. I need my beverages to have some flavor. So far, the main replacement has been lemonade. When I was at the grocery the other day (the same night I picked up the Star Wars fruit snacks, incidentally), I bought some new Gatorade lemonade. I wasn't sure about it, as I've never been particularly fond of Gatorade, but I thought I would give it a try. Actually, it's pretty good. It's better than drinking water all the time, at least. It isn't all that easy to find a pop substitute that isn't almost as bad as pop itself in terms of sugar content, but Gatorade is a good one.
At any rate, this is my seventh pop-free day. In my original plan, I was going to let myself have some on Fridays, but I've changed my mind: no pop until May 1 (the only exception would be if I would order it as part of a mixed alcoholic drink--say, Malibu rum and Coke). I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. Brandi thought I would have headaches, but I haven't had any yet. I do have to say, though, that I find myself dragging a lot earlier in the evenings than I normally do. On weeknights, I would generally get into bed between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m., and I wasn't always tired even then. This week, I've been stumbling into bed around 11:00 to 12:00, and falling asleep immediately. It's probably better for me, but it's also irritating, as I now have even less time than usual to do the things I want to do.
Besides, I'm not entirely convinced that getting that extra sleep really is all that good for me. My sleep cycle has always been erratic, but one thing I've definitely noticed is that I function best with about five to six hours of sleep per night. When I get more than that, I tend to drag through the day, and I often have stretches where it's hard to keep myself awake at my desk (although the lack of work certainly doesn't help either). When I was going to sleep between 1:00 and 2:00 and getting up between 7:00 and 8:00, I was pretty alert throughout the whole day. Even in the mornings, which is extremely rare for me, as I'm a night person by nature. Hopefully my body will learn to deal with the reduced amount of caffeine intake, and I'll be able to get back to my regular schedule.
Of course, it's baseball season now, which means that I'll be taking more naps. I love turning on a Reds game and falling asleep in front of it for an hour or so. I can catch the first few innings, sleep for a bit, then wake up in time for the end of the game. It used to bother me that I would almost always fall asleep in front of a game that I really wanted to watch, but now I embrace it. An occasional catnap is good for the soul, I think. Especially if I can time it so I miss one or two at-bats by Jason LaRue.
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