Sleep... conspicuous by it's absence

[the_eggwhite]

It's that time of year again. My sleep pattern has vanished again (as it tends to do in winter) and I'm finding myself getting less and less sleep. My mood and memory are starting to slump, too, so it's time to fix it.
Here's the plan:

1) Curfew time again. Setting an 11pm curfew, barring planned occasions or compelling reasons to stay up. It's annoying, but it works. It'll take me a while to get it to work properly, though.
2) No booze. I'm going to go teetotal again for a bit, I think.
3) No caffeine. Okay, so I never really started on the caffeine again after last time I quit, so this is no great change.
4) Exercise. I'm going to try getting regular walks in again - they help with the whole sleep thing, but have been on hiatus due to poor weather.
5) Lighter food consumption.
6) More creative work - either making stuff in the garage, fixing things or sketching.

Assistance or company will be appreciated with any / all of this, as it makes me more likely to actually do it.

First steps:

First step for #4 - Going for a walk at lunchtime. Unless it's pissing down, I'll wander over to the park. - It was dry. I walked in the park.

First step for #5 - Resist the lure of the work canteen, and get something light whilst walking instead. Eat more simple, home cooked food. Pasta & sauce is always good. - I had pasta and tomatoes for lunch. More than I should have, but hey.

The first step for #6 - I'm going to build myself a homebrew desktop visualizer out of a cheap webcam, an old anglepoise lamp and some white LEDs. For the uninitiated, this is basically a "webcam on a stick" that can be used for capturing a desktop, a sketchbook or a non-digital document without having to put it flat and facedown on a scanner. The main use for me will be to share or capture the sketching process as well as the actual sketches - handy when you like to use sketches to explain things. If it works out okay, I'll be making a second one to use at work (so I can share live-sketching with overseas co-workers) and may be prepared to make them for other folks, if anybody's interested.

I have a webcam on order... and I'll either buy a cheap ikea lamp for £8-9 or use one I already own. The ikea ones are better, but the one I already have is convenient, free and currently unused. I may need to get some sugru (or similar) to attach the webcam properly to the anglepoise arm... but I can experiment and see how things go before I spend money on it.

Comments

[evilref.livejournal.com]

I may need to get some sugru...

Now I've learned something. :-)

How is it supposed to be pronounced? Something like suu-gruh?

[eggwhite.livejournal.com]

I think the answer is "reluctantly". Your guess is pretty close to mine...

[evilref.livejournal.com]

My guess is informed by the claim in Wikipedia (confirmed on the official site) that it's an Irish invention, and the name comes from the Irish word súgradh (playing).

But I wondered if you knew of an official pronunciation, you see.