The Rose's Grove

It was terribly hot for here yesterday (96 F and sooooo huuuuuumid), and the clouds had rolled in thick over the afternoon, so I thought a thunderstorm was possible, but not certain because they're fairly uncommon here. The Boy was playing with L up in his bedroom, and I wanted to take a bath later so I decided to take the recycling out. Hauled a few armloads around to the back of the garage... and started to feel big fat raindrops coming down. Just a few, but they made me smile. And then flash, BOOM. Got another armload out, then stood in the dribbling warm rain for a minute. Drip drip drip... and I can't resist standing with my arms outstretched, hands and face turned up to the sky. 

ursula asked me to talk about my Brave Little Toaster icon (seen above). Happily, it is an icon I actually have a fair bit to say about. XD

( Contains childhood movie obsessions, Battlestar Galactica, a stray cat, and animism... )

Comment if you would like me to ask you about one (or more) of your icons!

fiachairecht asked "What is your favourite sort of nonfiction to read, and why? Any recs?"

My favorite type of nonfiction to read is history books, specifically domestic histories of the middle ages through the 19th century. I love the ancient world, too, but it's harder to find domestic histories in that era, and I tend not to go out of my way to find them in quite the same way that I do the later periods.

( More details, and also recs. )

Just signed up on Pillowfort with the same name there as everywhere. 

Not sure how much I'll be using it, because the UI is really... um... yeah. But I'm there. If you're there, too, you should hit me up. ♥

So, folks who have known me for a while may be aware that I have a weird but generally benign heart condition: I've had frequent heart palpitations since my mid-twenties. Not a huge deal (as these things go, I guess?), I've been put on heart monitors a few times and while the first time I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation the second, much longer and more advanced monitoring concluded nah, it's just harmless palpitations. Which, cool. I definitely prefer that to a-fib, which is actually scary and potentially life-threatening because it can cause stroke due to blood pooling in one of your valves.

Anyway. The nearly ten years since this started happening to me have been a progressive journey of figuring out what brings on the palpitations, because even if they're harmless they're jolting and uncomfortable and generally suck (for those who've never had one, it feels like your heart sort of doubles-up on a beat or jumps).

Things I have learned cause me to have palpitations:

- Coffee
- Black tea
- Green tea
- White tea
- Even the smallest degree of dehydration
- Possibly stress?
- Too much sodium
- Black licorice
- Licorice root (as found in many herbal teas)

Now, the last two sound kind of weird, but I knew my mom had the same issue (my mom's whole family basically has this thing with the palpitations), and someone somewhere, sometime, had at one point said something like how that made sense that I couldn't have black licorice because it made your heart beat faster or something. I forget, now. But today I was flipping through news articles on my phone, and I found this:

FDA Issues Pre-Halloween Warning About Black Licorice.

Turns out for people over 40 (keep in mind that I've had this problem since I was 25, but, whatever, my family's weird) "the candy contains enough of the sweetening compound glycyrrhizin — derived from the licorice root — to significantly lower the body's potassium levels," causing problems with heart arrhythmia.

My mom has somewhat lately developed a weird condition where her body can't absorb potassium. Which I am now thinking might possibly be related to the glycyrrhizin sensitivity. And the dehydration and sodium-intake things, of course, would be related to electrolyte/potassium processing as well. So... that's a thing to talk to my doctor about, potentially.

Snagged from a bunch of folks:

1. How did you name your pets?
Theoden was named "Jupiter" when I got him from the animal shelter, and as appropriate as that was for a big, rather round, buff-colored boy, it didn't shorten well for calling. At the time Lord of the Rings was my most overwhelming fandom, and particularly the Rohirrim, but "Eomer" didn't work... which made me think of his resemblance to Bernard Hill as Theoden, and that stuck.

Our other cat, originally The Boy's, is Random. Because his acquisition of The Boy was very random. :)

2. Poirot or Miss Marple?
Neither, really, but I've probably seen more Poirot.

3. Do you have a FB account too?
Yeah, but I tend to avoid it mostly.

4. Books - hardcover or paperback
I read mostly on my Kindle and from the library, nowadays, but am perfectly happy with whatever. Slightly prefer paperbacks for being less heavy and also generally cheaper.

5. Mobile: Windows, Android or Apple?
I didn't get a phone at all until very late, and when I upgraded to a smartphone I was very happy with my Palm Pre. Currently have a very old iPhone, but planning to switch to Android whenever I finally convince myself to upgrade.

I have updated my icons to remove the old fannish ones I wasn't using anymore, and include some new ones that I think I will get more use out of. Nothing fannish yet, though I might trade a few old ones out for that later. We'll see.

In other news, Theoden (my cat) seems to be recovering nicely from his surgery... mostly evidenced by the fact that he jumps up on my desk to try to find food that I might have left there, and starts chewing on stuff and crying and being annoying about 2 hours before he's supposed to get dinner. So that's... good? For a certain definition of "good." XD

I'm also trying to get caught up to where The Boy is at in S-Town, which is tough because he listens while he's on his commute, and I don't have a commute anymore. But it's a very enjoyable and mind-bending story, and good listening for while I knit in the evening.

My goals for 2017, in no particular order:

- Be more positive and grateful for what I have in my life, even when I'm sad for some reason (or no reason).
- Go to the gym (or do commensurate physical activity like hike, etc.) 3 times a week.
- Write at least 750 words a day.
- Write on original work 4 days a week. (3 days are allowed to be fanfic. Or more if I also write at least 750 words on one of the original works.)
- Hit my freelance income goal for the year (it's low, but it's my first full year full-time).
- Post to my blog at least once a month.
- Spend less time looking at social media (Tumblr, Twitter, FB) and more time doing useful things like practicing guitar, working on my calligraphy, drawing, writing, etc.
- Practice the guitar at least 5 days a week.
- Write down all the books I read in the year.

That last one is important to me because I get almost all my books out of the library, now, especially fiction... and I already have a tendency to forget most of what I read a few weeks after I've finished it. I think this is a tendency honed as an English major in college--it was only beneficial for me to remember the millions of books that I read for English, history, anthropology, classics, and assorted other similar classes for 10 weeks at the absolute most, and I read so damned many that it benefited me if my brain just dumped the info after being tested on them. ...Or it could just be that I'm a quick but not a very deep reader. Pick your poison. I can read a lot of books... but if you ask me the last ten books I read I'll probably get through three or four tops before going "Uhh.... and a bunch of other stuff?"

Then again, if you ask me what the last three movies I saw were I'll probably only get to two before kind of blanking, so maybe I just have the memory of a goldfish. Who knows. I'm not especially concerned either way. It is what it is, and it means I can reread books (and rewatch movies) quite happily if I like them.

Questions!

( 2 sets of questions under the cut )

If you want questions, just ask and I'll give you five for you to answer in your own entry!

I'm bored. So have a meme, gacked from akashasheiress:

The problem with LJ: we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Old hat, but hey - if you have any thing you want to know (or, you know, just want to entertain me on this very boring Tuesday) ask away! ♥

I really need to get back into the habit of saving my writing to Google docs so I have something to work on during lunch if the internet fails to entertain...