Excessive

I surprisingly did not wake up with a headache this morning, something that doesn't happen as often as I'd like. Lately I've been waking up with very intense sinus headaches (at least I think it's sinus headaches, how would i know?). I'm sure it's related to a nasal spray I've been using for the last few months, but it's always hard to tell, and difficult to know if I should stop using it.

I always have trouble breathing at night, so I'd always buy the nasal strip Breath Rights (but Life brand cause money) and those always helped me breath, allowing me to fall asleep easier and feel more comfortable. The only issue is that they cost quite a bit of money. I brought it up to my doctor and he prescribed me a steroid nasal spray that isn't addictive, has no withdrawl symptoms and is supposed to relax the nasal passageways so that it'd always be easier to breath. After about a month, my tongue would start to sting and feel extremely uncomfortable, and I thought it may be the nasal spray dripping or misting on to my tongue, so instead of two sprays a day, I started only doing it at night. It still worked alright, but it was getting a bit less effective. Eventually I started always having blood in my nose, but that could be because of how dry it is in the house now that it's winter and the furnace is on all the time. On top of that, I'd wake up with these crazy headaches, which I thought were just normal headaches, but they really hurt behind my eyes and where my sinuses (might) be. I've decided to stop using the spray, at least until I can talk to my doctor. It sucks because I'm not going to be able to breath at night, but if I can wake up in the morning with a headache, I don't really care. I'll just use sleeping pills more often.

As I was saying, I woke up this morning at 6am headache free, and did my normal routine. My routine consists of waking up, finding my slippers and robe in the dark and making my way out of my room, leaving Bekki asleep in bed, and Ashe usually jumping up to take my spot. By this point, the coffee has automatically been ground and has started brewing, so I'll stumble to the kitchen, put down my toast (two slices of rye) and once toasting, I'll go to the bathroom, go into the computer room, turn on the lamp and computer, and by that time, the toast has usually popped. I almost always have a bit of margerine and a bit of peanut butter on my toast, with a nice hot cup of coffee.

I eat my breakfast while I browse the internet. Usually check twitter, read reddit, and random other things. Usually around 6:15am or so Bekki will wander in and mumble in my direction. I'll finish up breakfast, get dressed and get my lunch ready (collecting snacks, etc), and by then it's about time to leave. I always hug Bekki and Ashe by the garage exit, and leave in the car. I pick up my Mom at her house, and then we drive in to London for the day.

It may not be everyone's dream, but I'm pretty happy with how my mornings go. I find the routine very secure and comforting, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's one of my favorite times of the day, no matter what. I'm generally the least anxious I'll be all day, usually feeling the most relaxed... it's a nice time.

In programming lately I've gone on a huge spree of learning new things. Kind of out of nowhere I've just gone out of my way to learn things I've always felt like I should be learning, but either didn't have the chance, or felt like it was too hard, or whatever. There are tons of reasons you don't learn things, but I just feel it's really important to always expand your knowledge.

I've learned how to use Laravel 5.2, something I thought seemed really complicated and ended up being very simple. I've learned how and why to use Lumen (basically Laravel light). I've learned how to program in Sass, which is one of the CSS programming languages (it takes your Sass file and converts it into CSS making it way easier to make complicated stylesheets with way less effort). I've learned how to use PhpDocumentor, an application that scans your source files and creates a documentation website based on your comments. The comments you write have to follow their specific specifications, but it creates very helpful documentation, and I'm very much determined to never write any code without comments in the future. Finally, I've also started to learn PHPUnit, a unit testing framework that helps you test your applications. For as long as I've been a professional programmer, everyone I've worked with has laughed at the idea of unit testing, and so I always assumed it wasn't important, and never taught myself anything about it. I had a few weeks of learning unit testing in school, but it didn't really click with me what the purpose was or how it applied to any real world uses. It makes a lot of senses to me, and while I have a far way to go with it, I've started down the road to making better code, and tests to keep things working.

I've also been drinking a lot, but I don't really see it as a problem, other than the fact that wine costs money. I comment code and watch Star Trek while I drink a couple glasses of wine, and I find it extremely relaxing. I know it can't last forever, but... it's nice. It's relaxing and I enjoy feeling a little buzzed, it helps my unbearable anxiety.

I'm also going to be attempting to write more in the next... few weeks. We'll see how that goes. I have high hopes.

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