My Brain on Books XII

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I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo ten times and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love.  I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids. If you happen to be doing NaNo this year you can find me there as joywrite

This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two.  Including mini-challenges unless required to have a separate post..   


Be sure to scroll to bottom of this post for advice on how to ward off those scary nap attacks. You won't be sorry.

1:00am - Food may have revived me but I'm thinking it mostly just revived my appetite which was light all day and suddenly I had the ravishing munchies.  And I started getting into things I haven't been interested in in weeks.  Late night snacking is probably more about being tired than about being hungry.  Exactly the kind of mistranslating of body and mood signals that probably helped get me in the fix I'm in.

Acknowledging this I went ahead and took all of my night meds except the Trazadone while I was snacking.  The traz sits on the mousepad awaiting my decision.  I hate to quit but my eyes are starting to burn.  I promised my husband that when the signals of fatigue got significant I would not resist and especially would not push the Traz beyond 3am.  That is the one most likely to bring on irresistible drowsiness within thirty minutes to an hour.

I could switch to an audio book but that didn't work all that well last October.  I kept dozing off and missing stuff and having to back up and then relisten to stuff I remembered before hitting the stuff I missed and that just made it more likely I doze again.  Besides I don't have an audio book in progress and don't want to start one now that I'd be unlikely to get to spend much time with over the next two weeks.  That would be pointless.

I think this is me trying to talk myself into the rational healthy choice of taking the Traz and going to bed. I've got two big as in HUGE days coming up and after this day tomorrow needs to begin with at least 8 hours of sleep and Monday should as well which means I would also need to be asleep not long after midnight tomorrow night and I haven't even started packing.

Well.  I'm going to go ahead and try reading for a few minutes to see how it feels.  But I'm going to do so with the intent to listen to what my body is signaling with respect...  There is still that part of me that fears laying down and finding sleep elusive.  I have long hated laying awake in the dark with nothing but my racing anxiety fueled thots.  With the meds that is muted somewhat but I still often take more than half an hour to fall asleep or repeatedly startle back awake.  In the past this would be my excuse to get back up and reengage in a project or book or video or game or or or or...anything to distract me.

So then.  If I hang on I'l check back in when I take the Traz at 3 so if there is no update by 3:30 that probably means I gave in much sooner and was already too brainfogged to string words together here...

MIDNIGHT - well I just passed the halfway point in Finding Lilly.  I'm beginning to suspect I won't get much farther.  If for no other reason that it wouldn't be doing the story justice to just slog away at it out of a duty or determination to make it to the finish line--and not even the finish line of the story but just the finish line of the thon.

Am going to get a snack and reassess things.  If food alone can revive me then maybe..

9:00pm - Mom has gone to bed and I've just finished cleaning the kitchen from the two meal preps today.  I spent about an hour reading aloud to Mom after dinner from A New Song which is the fifth book Jan Karon's Mitford series.

Just before I had to leave the netbook to go fix dinner I stopped by the thon hub to enter the name of the book I'd finished and while I was there scrolled thru the hours since I'd last been there at 8am.  Last October I spent more time on the hub or other blogs than I did reading.  This time I seemed to be too into the reading to think of the fun over on the hub.

I saw some things I want to take a closer look at later.  Whether that might be before I sleep or after the thon is over...  Can't imagine when I'll have the time for it tho as tomorrow once I'm awake I'll have to start packing for the trip to Phoenix OR and Monday is the trip and let me just say once I'm there and back in my husband's arms again for the first time in a month...weeell  hanging out on the thon hub won't be top of my list.  Maybe the first day he has to work while I'm there...

Anyway, while I was on the hub just before six I saw that I'd won one of the drawings.  I couldn't take the time to look closer.  I hope it isn't dependent on me responding inside a certain time frame today.  If so, oh well, I think I'd rather pass than take time from my reading.  I don't  know how much time I'm going to have left.

I had to cut off the stimulants at 4pm 13 full hours before the end of the thon.  And I'm supposed to take my Trazadone no later than 3am so the likelyhood that I have until 5 is slim.  I still feel like I'm going strong but I did yesterday at this time too and then at 11pm started crashing and that was after an 8hr sleep.  I got less than six this morning before I began at 6am.  In spite of being exhausted by 11 last night the pre-event anticipation still kept me to antsy to sleep until well after midnight.  Thee have been thons in the past that I had already been awake since noon on Friday and then was still awake at noon on Sunday.  Not allowed anymore.  Or at least I'm not allowed to encourage it or support it with stimulants like caffeine or energy drinks and I can't ditch the meds that make me drowsy so...

Time's awasting.  I'm off to start an ebook ARC.  Finding Lilly by Lisa D. Ellis.  I'm anticipating loving it.  It is probably in the genre chiclit.  Story of a marriage in trouble due to the different grieving styles of the two parents after the death of a young child.  It is also under 200 pages so there is a chance I could finish it before I have to quit.  Giving me two novels read cover to cover in one thon for the first time since I can't remember.  So I better get started.

5:30 - Just finished Curse.  291 pages since 8am or 333 since 6am.  It has been a very long time since I've done that.  And with a tree book with smallish difficult font too.  Which is why I'm choosing not to continue on to the next book in the series today.  My eyes would not soon forgive me.  So for the rest of the thon it will be ebooks and/or audio.

I've got to go start dinner for me and Mom.  And after dinner read to her for an hour or so.  Then I'll be back to check in before starting the next book.  Which I believe will be an ARC ebook Finding Lilly by Lisa D. Ellis

4:00 - Between noon and now I fixed lunch for me and Mom and then sat with her while we ate.  Then had an hour vid chat with my husband.  Then back to Curse for another sixty pages which leaves me with sixty or so to finish.  Hoped to have finished  by time to fix dinner but I've promised Mom to read to her before and after dinner and she has just woken from her nap so I need to check with her.

I'm amazed at how many pages in a sitting I'm getting read this time.  And in spite of the late start and the interruptions for lunch and vid chat I've already read more than I had by this time in either of the last two thons.  More than I had in the entire week preceding.

This augers well for the future if this is because of the meds and the other work I've done for my health and mood disorder in the last two months.  Hope blooms.

I may not be able to check back in again until after Mom heads to bed around 8ish.  If not it will be because I'm reading to her then fixing and serving dinner and then reading to her some more.  From Mitford 5--A New Song by Jan Karon

NOON - Just reached p170 in Curse, 2nd book in Wicked series.  Must stop now to make lunch for Mom and me.  Toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.  After lunch, if Mom wants I'll read for awhile from the A New Song, book five of the Mitford series.

8:00 - Finished Witch by Nancy Holder and Debbie Vituie.  Was on last 40 pages when started this morning tho.  Will play on hub for a few and then get butt off mini-tramp and feet on it for a few.  Then time for first cup of coffee.  Then....   Will decide when sitting down with coffee ...

6:00 - Intro Meme

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
-- Longview WA USA.  Small port town on might Columbia River.  This was my hometown and I'm staying at my Mom's this month.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
-- Finding Lilly by Lisa D. Ellis.  an ebook ARC I'm doing a blog tour for in late May
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
-- veggie platter and hummus
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
-- I'm visually impaired so cannot compete on level pages or books read but I've always had a 'talent' for staying awake around the clock so I've came to my first ten Dewey thons with the determination to be one of those who made it the whole 24.  This year I can't do that.  My 'talent' aka mood disorder is now being medicated and I've got to learn to give sleep more respect.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today?
-- in light of that I will be limiting caffeine to two cups of coffee before 4pm and will use zero energy drinks.  I already missed hour one as I promised to not use alarm in order to wake in time.  And may not be able to make it to 5am Sunday as must take meds by 3am.

another thing different is that I'm on duty today with my elderly, visually impaired mother.  I must prepare lunch and dinner for her and will be spending part of afternoon and then again after dinner reading aloud to her from the Mitford series.  Something we've been doing several times a week since my visit began in January.  We're nearing the end of book five. 

6:00- Just woke up.  Will start reading soon as my eyes unglue.  Gotta go check in at hub.  as you can see this is my twelfth Dewey thon.

The book I'm starting with is Witch by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie.  But have only 30 pages or so to go and then would be starting Curse, the second of their four book Wicked series.  These books were loaned to m by my young niece several years ago and I'm trying to finish them in  order to return them to her while I'm back in the Rogue Valley next week. That gives me until the 9th to read three more.    No I"m not planning to spend the entire read-a-thon on the one story.  I've always been a grazer with these thons.

5:00 -   I've promised not to set alarm in order to be awake by 5 and as I type this I can tell I'm not going to get laid down in time to guarantee waking without alarm by 5.  I've always prided myself in being able to do the full 24hrs it was a special talent of mine :) but this time I must not make that the priority.  I must get decent sleep before and must keep med schedule as close to intact as possible which might make reaching 5am Sunday iffy too.