Okay, I know I'm supposed to say to each their own and respect everyone's personal opinions, beliefs, and feelings, but if you support JK Rowling and her anti-trans crap, you're part of the problem. A big problem. Buying, promoting or praising her shit is just plain wrong. You're supporting a delusional and pathetic hater. Is that what we should be doing as a society? It's no better than all the support Chris Brown got after slugging Rihanna. Was that the proper thing to do? No, of course it wasn't. So why would you want to put money in the pockets of a bigot when there are other books just as good and even better out there? Even if it's already bought and paid for, if you have any of her shit, you'd be smart to burn it! Really, I don't want to hear that bitch's name again. Or about any of the shit she sells.

That HBO accepts her “personal opinion” is also bullshit and they too, are part of the problem. I bet just about anything that if her personal opinion included blacks, Hispanics, or Asians, HBO wouldn't have a damn thing to do with her.

I'm now suspecting it wasn’t allergies that were clogging up my nose the night before last, but too much humidity in the hose that built up in my nose. So once again, I turned the humidity setting down a bit on the CPAP.

Yesterday I ended up perking up to the point that I had trouble falling asleep. Between being up for a long time and constant leaks the last time around, I'm tired. I’m thinking I didn't have the tape applied properly, and I was too exhausted to get up and fix it, so in the middle of my sleep, I took the mask off. It's been nearly a month, and I'm still tired. I really need to see about getting a mouth guard at some point. Then again, I still say I'm chasing something I'm not meant to have. For now, maybe I should try the hybrid again as much as I hate the harness.

I'm even more tired today because my nose woke me up. I wish I had the hybrid on for a minute during my sleep because my nose was stuffy, and I had trouble getting back to sleep and took half a clonazepam, which means being tired the next day. Hopefully, the NasalCrom I switched to will do a better job with nasal congestion without making me drowsy. It never used to, from what I can remember.

At first, I thought, Oh no, I'm going to continue suffocating awake even with a CPAP, but I'm pretty sure it was congestion in my nose. If it wasn't for me struggling to breathe out of my nose after flipping onto my stomach at some point during my sleep, I would have slept okay.

Tom insists he sees signs of improvement, and I thought I was seeing them as well, but now I'm not so sure. He says that I have more energy on days I have energy, and my bad days aren't so bad. He definitely does seem to have a point there. I don't wake up feeling like I ran a marathon in my sleep anymore, either.

With storm season approaching, I may not have a full sense of just how helpful the CPAP is for a few months. Tom believes that for the first couple of weeks, my body was getting used to sleeping with it, and now I will begin to see more and more results. I hope so, because even though my energy levels do seem better at times, this isn't good enough. Not even close. If we suddenly had money, it would be very hard for me to handle moving. I hope he's right and I really do get more energy! Energy won't bring us money, but it will bring me back onto my vibration platform, to the beach, out for walks, etc. I just want to be more active! I don't want to have to worry about having energy on days I have appointments or when I want to do some cleaning. But sometimes I still worry that this is as good as it's going to get and that other things are at play here like my thyroid. It's looking less likely, but there is still a bit of concern that I could have chronic fatigue.

Joy and another doll got new clothes from Walmart, and they look great, especially Joy. Her outfit fits her perfectly.

I just got a great idea for creating a base for Summer Dream. Not only could she fall off the cap she’s sitting on but she's tilted slightly forward. So if we get some baking clay, it would be good to make a base for her that she rests in and that's slightly wider than her so she can't tip over. After I mold it, I could bake it hard.

Something is definitely, definitely up with Jade without a shred of doubt. I couldn't write it off as a coincidence if I wanted to. I moved her to the other dresser and she stopped reacting. While she was on that dresser, I aimed the reader where she was standing before on the other dresser and got no reaction at all, including from Joy, Bailey, and the Adora doll. I don't get anything from Mila either. 

I just put Jade back on the tall dresser, and she's back to being reactive again. I don't know if I could ever adamantly say she’s haunted by the ghost of someone who once lived, like Melanie can and has, but something is definitely up. Let’s just say that, just like with the Phoenix Lights, it’s all wrong in the sense that this shouldn’t be happening. There is no earthly, logical reason I can honestly come up with to explain it. Something is making the reader react. Intentionally. What else could be aware of what it's doing by affecting the reader other than a ghost, as hard as it still is to assume that's what it is that's doing it? I just can’t think of any other logical explanation.

If I ever were to assume it’s the spirit of someone who lived, then we really could be looking at an afterlife of some kind. A common belief is that no energy is created or destroyed but only changes in form. Well, like I said, something’s making this doll react, and it definitely seems by design, and that the happier or more positive the answer is to what I’m saying or asking, the more the thing lights up. So yeah, something’s in that doll.

What? Who? How? Why? That’s the frustrating part. And if we’re going to assume it’s a woman who lived in the 1920s like Melanie said, who is she and why is she here?

It doesn’t freak me out or scare me in any way, though. I think it’s pretty cool. First I had in-person friends, then I had cyber friends, and now I might have a spirit friend. Hopefully, now that I’m on to her, she will always remain friendly. Fortunately, I read that evil spirits don’t typically haunt dolls. So I've got a doll that has preferences and literally prefers one dresser over another, LOL. Interesting, ay? If she’s really been around since Oregon, that’s a long time—although time is supposed to feel different in the spirit world. It’s just an amazing coincidence that can’t be a coincidence!

So, my friend and I were both wrong, and she isn't pregnant after all. Unless, of course, it's in the future, or she was pregnant but had an early miscarriage. She's glad she isn't pregnant, and therefore, I am too. I don't feel comfortable asking her this because she seems to be a little too moody and sensitive for my taste, and I didn’t want my curiosity to offend her or come off as judgmental, but why isn't she on birth control? Or is she, and she just feared it had failed?

I didn't sleep with the hybrid mask last night because it wasn't comfortable and was leaking at the bottom. I mean, I could’ve made it work with some effort, but the thing is, I would’ve had to have the bottom strap uncomfortably tight in order to seal it up well. I can see how Andy would say he waits until he’s just too tired to care before putting his mask on. But if I can help it, I’ve already sacrificed enough and don’t want to put myself out even more.

It has its pros and cons, just like the nasal pillow. I loved having the hose coming from the top of my head, and it was actually easier, even though it was bigger, to sleep on my stomach with it, because of the way it distributed the weight of the mask on my face more evenly. But when I was on my stomach falling asleep and the weight of my head got heavier and heavier, the more I relaxed, it slowly pushed the mask out of place and started leaking. So I said OK, I'm not going to strap myself in any tighter than I already am, and I'm certainly not going to stay in the same exact position all night either.

So I went back to the nasal pillow, and for the second night in a row, I did not have any mouth farts. I had to tape my mouth, but no air tried to escape. Also, this was the second time my sleep wasn't fragmented since I stopped taking allergy medication before bed. I didn't get up to pee or anything. 

I started off with okay energy today and yesterday until I took Claritin. Yesterday it knocked me out, and today it just made me tired. Because I switched to taking it in the morning, I’m gonna have to swap it out for NasalCrom.

I decided not to return the mask, even though it’s not the most comfortable, because it is a good backup if I ever have a bad cold or my nose is running like a faucet. I didn’t use it long enough to know whether or not it was going to blow enough air up my nose to bypass the nasal valve collapse. 

It was also “windier” too, which I didn’t like. Some air is supposed to come out so the pressure doesn’t build up to be too much. When you exhale, that air has to go somewhere. So, because the mask is bigger in itself, it was just a little too breezy for me. So maybe the nasal pillow really is the best fit for me. It’s definitely a lot more minimal than the hybrid, and I prefer two skinny straps over three fat ones. Getting in and out of the thing was much harder than the pillow.

Had a dream that my nail fungus got worse. Gosh, I hope not! Looks like it's actually getting better.

Got some various odds and ends, like a new pack of underwear, rat food, a new mouse for one of the computers, and some doll clothes for Joy and another doll that came in a boring brown outfit.

Tinkerbella's tumor seems to have stopped growing. I never saw a rat’s tumor do this before. Even so, the lovable little sweetie is still getting pretty old. 🙁

Wow, where did all the Florida haters go? Someone posted a wedding picture of a lesbian couple getting married in the park group, and I was surprised by the dozens of positive comments and reactions it got. It's about fucking time!

My sleep was less fragmented because I didn't take anything at all before bed. I hope it stays that way! The new hybrid mask arrived, too. It's going to be a bigger pain in the ass to get in and out of, and I can't reach up and take a sip of water if I want, but if it's going to stop the leaks, then so what? Won't know how good of a seal I'm gonna get with it until I actually sleep with it. 

Didn’t sleep that great because of leaks, as usual. Also, my sleep was broken up quite a bit. I noticed that when it comes to fragmented sleep, if it’s too frequent or too long, it affects my energy levels for the next day. Well, I didn’t wake up too many times, but I definitely was up for quite a while after just a few hours of sleep. Had to take half a clonazepam just to get back to sleep. Tom says he wakes up anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours most nights and that he adapted to fragmented sleep, so this gives me hope that if I can ever find the right mask fit, then the frags won’t be such a big deal for me. Most of the time I wake up lately definitely seems to stem from leaks.

I researched what OTC stuff can cause fragmented sleep and was surprised to find that allergy medications can have that effect, so everything, including my estrogen, is going to be taken at the beginning of my day from now on unless I have pain before bed and need to take ibuprofen.

I’m a little stressed out now, though, because the mowers are coming tomorrow, so that right there is a threat to my sleep. I’ll turn the sound machine up and throw an earplug in, but it still depends on what position I’m in and which mower they use. Fortunately, they usually use the one that isn’t quite as loud. I don’t know—I still feel like I’m fighting for what I’m not meant to have.

I just learned something interesting. You know, something that those so-called experts—doctors who go to school for years—should have told me a long time ago? I don’t know why I didn’t think to research this sooner, but it hit me that there must certainly be other things besides vitamin D that can affect TSH levels. So I asked AI what other vitamins or minerals can lower your TSH, and was surprised when eggs and lentils came up on the list. I had quite a few eggs and even some lentils before I had bad anxiety on the 24th. So now I’m thinking that it wasn’t so much that the medication itself was ramping up in my system, but the foods I ate were optimizing my thyroid function.

Now that I know this, it kind of explains how I could feel like my TSH was too high, then getting too low, then too high again in such a quick amount of time. It’s good to know for labs too, to keep that 100 mcg dream just a dream. So, a few days before I go to the lab on the 3rd, I will increase my vitamin D intake and throw in some eggs as well.

I instructed AI to create a diet for a week that was as balanced as possible, between 1200 and 1400 calories, and good for pre-diabetics, and it includes a carton of eggs a week. I’ll try it when I’m ready to start this diet, and will swap them out if I notice any anxiety picking up.

I also researched foods that can make you hungrier and those that have a high glycemic index, even though most of this is common sense. After the lab, I’m going to treat myself to coffee ice cream, caramel candy, and chocolate chip cookies, and then I’m going to see if I can conquer my weight loss phobia once and for all and not worry about the levo.

The thing I don’t like about Rhonda is that she’s more resistant to doing what I want. She cares more about the numbers than Galileo did, although she did admit that if my weight ever got to 150 or lower, I would need to dose down. It’s just tough because as soon as I feel like I’m headed for trouble, I’ve got to get to the lab ASAP, which isn’t always convenient depending on my schedule. Also, the longer I wait to cut back, the worse it’s going to get. But it would really be nice if I could conquer this fear and get some weight off for the betterment of my health.

I don’t know that I could actually lose weight because I still have Hashimoto’s, and most of us can’t simply diet and exercise the weight off. We just don’t have the metabolism for that. But I’ll do my part and see what happens! Just not until I get to indulge one more time after the 3rd.

I made a quick video of me working with Jade, showing how reactive she is compared to Bailey, for example. I haven’t tested every single doll that I have, but so far, Jade is the only one with this much energy. I moved the EMF reader below, above, and towards the sides of her, and the energy lessened. Most of it is concentrated around her face. I do still get conflicting answers to my questions at times, so I’m trying to figure out how to get her to understand that she needs to give me nothing or just one light if the answer is “no” or “I don’t know,” and then more lights if the answer is “yes.”

I asked my psychic friend how she came to know she was psychic, and she said she went to high school with many students and could always predict who she would pass in the hallway that day. She was also more psychic in the springtime.

With me, I seem to be more psychic in rural areas. I was definitely more psychic in Maricopa and Auburn. As a kid, I would often have feelings that this would work out or that wouldn’t work out, but I didn’t really consider myself psychic at the time. I didn’t know the photo communication thing was a psychic ability either. I knew it was real, but I didn’t understand it as I do now, not that I’ll ever fully understand it. Tom noticed the influencing thing in me as I told her, but the dream prems got more and more obvious the more I had.

I think I got a location confirmation in my dreams last night as to where we may move to. It's New Mexico. No sign of when, though. The dream only lasted a minute, but it was one of those dreams that gave me a feeling that it could be a sign. Hopefully, we'll find out within the next few years. Personally, I don't see how we could get ahead this low income since shit happens in life and things always come up, but like I said, it gave me one of those feelings familiar to those who have dream premonitions. I was relaxed and in bed at the end of the day in the dream and thinking how we were newly minted New Mexicans.

It's a good thing the other dream I remember can't come true because it wasn't pleasant at all. I don't know where we were living, but we had company at the time, and I stepped out of the room and then back into it, and the visitor said there was a big RV next door. I knew in the dream that the house was empty and figured it had just sold. When I looked out a window, I was pretty dismayed to find a huge crowd of people. There had to have been at least a half dozen adults, a half dozen kids, and there was a big black dog in the midst of it all, too. Most of them were engaged in a rowdy ball game of some kind.

I was surprised to have good energy when I woke up, and it's still hanging on. AHI score was a three, even though I did have some leaks and slept the last few hours without the mask. The problem is that after I've been asleep for a certain number of hours, if I get woken up, it can be hard to get back to sleep. I thought about going maskless until the new mask came, but Tom and I both agreed that would be a mistake. That's really asking for trouble and to be tired. Better to be able to breathe and be woken up by leaks than to have issues breathing. Pretty sure an event woke me up at least once after I took the mask off. I just hope I get a good seal with the new mask and that it's comfortable and drives enough air up my nose! I love how with the nasal pillow, I don’t need a nose strip.

Anyway, I'm encouraged by today's energy because it makes me think that the energy I last had wasn't mostly my thyroid ramping up, and also gives me a little hope that I don't have chronic fatigue.

I attempted my first automatic writing session last night, but ended up with gibberish scribble that makes no sense.

Summer Dream is no longer a bride! Since it’s been over a quarter of a century, her dress got pretty dingy, and no matter how much I tried to brighten it up, it just wouldn’t work. So I decided to turn the doll into a bust since she’s all porcelain from the waist up, and detached that part from the rest of her body. The only problem is that her elbows do extend a little below that, so I propped her up on a cap from a bottle of seasoning and placed her flower bouquet in her hands. I ordered balloons in assorted colors to see if I can make a strapless top by stretching part of one over her. I can also use the balloon openings as armbands to hide where the joints are below her shoulders. Meanwhile, the rat is having a blast nesting in the fluffy gown.

Thanks to leaks, it's back to tired I go. Yeah, I knew I couldn’t go a week. The new mask was supposed to arrive on the 27th, but it won't be here until the 30th. Either way, I'm still pretty sure I'm not meant to sleep and have good energy most of the time, so after I try it, I'll choose whatever mask leaks the least and is more comfortable. It would really be good if I could get a good seal with something I could stand long enough to rule in/out chronic fatigue. So far, it seems that if my AHI scores over five, I'm tired. It was a six last night.

Nearly every day, I have some degree of nausea, and I wish I knew why. Yesterday I was horribly anxious, so I skipped my meds today. 

Further delving into our Portugal research has us unthinking the idea. First, he would lose his Medicare, and we would still be required to buy insurance once we were established there, which would mean not saving as much money. Secondly, barking seems to be a bigger problem there than here. Definitely wouldn't want to go back to dealing with having to listen to that shit regularly. The rural areas might not be as bad, but if we're not going to save a significant amount of money, then the trade-off wouldn't be worth it.

I was thinking of attempting automatic writing to see if I can get more information from Jade. I saw a video on how it's done, and I guess it isn't just done to get information from deities and spirits, but to tap into one's subconscious as well. You have to ground and protect yourself first, then meditate, and then, either in the dark or with your eyes closed, sit upright and make circles on a piece of paper until the spirits guide your hand. It still seems like something straight out of a fantasy, ghost, or sci-fi movie, but it's gotten to where I couldn't deny that something is up with that doll even if I wanted to. Too many coincidences—that when they add up, you know they can't be coincidences. You just have to be careful because when you open yourself up as a vessel for spirits, you could be allowing anything in. I guess stating your intention and smudging yourself helps keep malevolent spirits out.

Decided to drop my labeling project on Blogger because there are simply way too many entries to go through and I'm just not up for it and having to decide what's really worth tagging and what's not.

Rutabagas… yuck! I tried them earlier and for someone who likes just about everything, I can certainly say they suck.

I still have energy, but unfortunately, I do think it's because the Levo is building up too much for my comfort. For the first time in weeks, I felt wound up enough to take something for it, although the half a clonazepam I took didn't do much. I hate to skip 10 days before I go to the lab, but I'm going to have to tomorrow so it doesn't keep building up and get worse. The numbers just aren't worth the suffering. It will be interesting to see how much my energy goes down after making a few skips.

I forgot to mention in my last entry that I had a dream I was going to be executed for who knows what. There was a younger couple nearby who were also going to be executed, and I thought how sad it was that they had to die. Then I felt sad for myself and thought, I'm going to be reunited with my mother soon, even if in real life I'm not sure that possibility exists. Not a great dream to have, but I'm not too worried about it.

Even though this is jumping the gun because I still don't know that I'm going to have regular energy again, we've been talking more and more about the possibility of getting the hell out of the US. There's just no getting ahead here when you're retired unless you're rich. Portugal keeps coming up as one of the number one recommended places to go, and the thought is growing on me. The cost of living is low, and it has good health care. We could rent a house comparable in size and price to this one. In fact, it might be even more doable than getting land out west. All you need is to have no record, and you must show that you have a year's worth of minimum wage. All we would need besides that, which we could get from the sale of the house, would be money for plane tickets, to rent a place, and then to purchase household necessities since we’d have to leave everything behind. But this might be cheaper than purchasing land out west, even if it was only 15K or less, than buying a tiny house kit, installing septic, and buying solar panels for electricity, etc. If there were an opportunity to move out west in 2 years as opposed to waiting 5 years to move to Portugal, then we would definitely choose the first option. 

Research also shows that there's a lot less hate over there than here when it comes to GLBT+, women, and Jews, which is a definite pro. Electric cars are also more plentiful, and it's easier to travel there than here. I guess they have a lot more options for traveling around Europe if we wanted to go on vacation and add more countries to our list of travels. They seem to have way more trains.

However, there are a few negatives. Due to the Canary Current, if you're on the coast, the ocean water is pretty chilly. Worst is the dog and boom car stereo situation, especially the dogs. I thought they weren’t pets here! Well, from what I read, they're seldom allowed indoors and aren't considered household pets any more than they are here. Sure, there are some exceptions just like here, but I was surprised to learn that where barking is more commonplace in houses here, you would hear more in apartments there because they let them keep them on their balconies. Stray dogs are an issue there, and there's a lot of barking at night. Even though many of the houses there are made of stone, they otherwise have little to no sound insulation, which means you would easily hear barking coming from neighboring properties. I totally, totally would not want to go back to that chaos! But when I think of the money we could save in the end, it may be worth it. We would just have to see if the landlord would let us do some soundproofing, if only in the windows.

We also talked about US territories, which don't even require a visa to get into, but the problem is that health care is spotty, depending on where you go. Quality and availability can vary. I don't know that we'll ever really move there or even anywhere else in this country, but the idea is very appealing with the exception of all the barking we'd be in for. I guess no place is perfect.

Day three of decent energy. I was a little tired yesterday but not too bad. Can't help but wonder how much is from the CPAP versus my TSH dropping again. I'm not sleeping as much, and my weight is going down again. Whenever I have to make skips, I bounce up to about 158 lbs and drop to 155 lbs when it starts building back up. I still have 10 days till I go to the lab, so I don't wanna push it. I'm gonna stay away from the vitamin D until I have a few days to go.

I don't wanna get my hopes up, but yeah, I definitely feel like I have more energy. Even my eyes feel better. When the fatigue was at its worst, my eyes felt very heavy. As I've said before, I don't want to jump the gun until and if I go a whole week with decent energy, which hasn't happened in years.

It's too bad the nasal pillow isn't working out because I have no problem sleeping with it and I'm comfortable with it now. But the mouth farts still continue. As soon as they started three or four hours into my sleep last night, I taped my mouth and I was OK for the rest of my sleep. AHI was 3.8, so under 5 but still a bit high. I'd like to get it to two or less. Decided to take a chance on a hybrid with a nasal cradle and see if it can seal better and still get around my nasal valve issues. If not, we can attach a full face mask to this frame. It's always good to have a backup anyway.

More good news—unless the woman just didn't know what she was talking about. The other day, I told Tom I had some kind of vibe about his eye surgery costing $250. He said that would be absolutely wonderful, but he's expecting $800 or higher. Then he called to schedule an appointment to get his lenses measured, and the woman he talked to said it would be between $25 and $75! Neither of us believes that, but that would be incredible! It would definitely help us get ahead and move on to other things.

I finally told Pinterest to go fuck itself after its continuation of systematically removing pins that don't even violate their so-called policy. I think their algorithm is just totally out of control. Even after making my boards secret, they still help themselves to whatever. It was annoying enough when they would remove other people's pins from my boards, but my own is basically stealing. This is why I back things up in multiple places, but still. So I'm leaving the account up long enough for them to get my feedback, unless they beat me to it and kill my account themselves. It's been a nice decade, but enough is enough.

Definitely got to get a new mask. We're going to pick one out when he returns from donating. I'll use money from my job to cover it. After about an hour of air leaking out of my mouth, I took off the mask and slept for another hour or so without it until my nose was an issue. I was okay when I put it back on, but between that and fragmented sleep, I'm not as awake as yesterday. So there is a 50/50 chance I'm gonna have mouth leaks whenever I wear the thing. Until I get properly sealed up, we're not going to get an accurate sense of AHI scores or energy levels. I don't expect the mask or the harness to be as comfortable, but if that's what it's going to take, so be it. 

Yesterday's energy was amazing! It lasted all day. Today's AHI score was 10 due to all the leaks. It's lucky I'm not super exhausted today. I worry that the fragmented sleep is going to be an issue in affecting my energy, but Tom’s sleep is fragmented and it doesn't affect his.

I feel like my TSH is pushing down, and I still have over a week until I go to the lab, so I've got to go easy on the vitamin D intake. That could account for some of the sleep frags. My weight is also dropping again, and I'm warmer.

The shower drain was clogged but when I made a few gentle plunges with a plunger, that fixed it.

Yesterday I started to feel a pinch of doubt when it came to Jade, but later in the day she proved that something is definitely up with her. Yeah, I'm learning they have, well, preferences, for lack of a better word, along with varying degrees of energy. Melanie said that not all of them can or want to communicate through pendulums or whatever, so we stick to the EMF reader. I've definitely gotten some reactions to things that correlate with most of my questions and seem hard to write off as a coincidence. Not only does she seem to like the tall dresser in the bedroom better than the long one, but she also prefers to be on the left side. On that side, she's much more reactive. I slowly swung the reader around her head, above it, to the sides, and lower, like by her stomach, and she wasn't nearly as reactive as when it was focused on her face and upper chest area. I just wish I could learn more!  If an entity really inhabits her, who is she, and why did she pick this doll to inhabit? 

Tom and I have been talking about getting out of the US, even though I don't see it ever happening. We may be adventurers in many ways, but I don't see us ever getting that brave. It's just that I really believe the rest of our lives will be spent struggling to pay off one medical debt after another if we stay in the US. Really, we're never going to get ahead with this low of an income. Not in this country. I can totally see how my parents ran out of money in the end. Totally. There are some countries in Central and South America that might be good candidates, but we don't want to live in the jungle either. The bugs and allergies I have to deal with in this subtropical climate are more than enough. If we were ever serious about considering getting out of the country, I think our best bet would be Portugal. It has both a public and a private health system, and the cost of living seems reasonable. The climate may still present allergy issues depending on where in the country you go, but I don't know that it would be anything like here. I love the Algarve region. 

The only negative is that no matter which country we went to, we could never afford to buy or rent a house. Well, I definitely don't want to go back to living attached to others and having to listen to blasting TVs, the thumping beat of their music, footsteps, screaming kids, door slamming, dogs barking, and furniture sliding around. I sure would love the Mediterranean diet though, and I can read quite a bit of Portuguese because it's so similar to Spanish, and have no doubt that with my knack for languages, I could get fluent speaking it within a year or two. Let's just say it would be much more adventurous than moving back out west, even if I don't see us ever pulling it off. We would literally have to dump everything and go over there with little more than just the clothes on our backs. If I thought the rewards would be worth it in the end, I would be willing to do that, but there are so many other risks and unknowns.

In VR travels, I made it from Slovakia to Hungary. I'll be in that country for longer than I was in Slovakia, and even longer once I get to Serbia. 

Still labeling Blogger entries and trying to decide what's worth labeling. Some things are obvious, but I don't want to label just anything and everything and have a mile-long list of labels. I want to label only the people, places, and things that have had regularity or some kind of impact on my life. So I'll probably remove Hanna and Abby's label at some point because Stacey's daughters just don't matter. I don't want to tag someone I only thought of or messaged a few times. But Stacey herself had much more of an impact on my life, of course. Tagging her will also pull up posts containing the California Stacey once I get to them. I'm trying to group things better too. Rather than have a label for Benadryl and a label for Zyrtec and a label for Claritin, I'm just throwing them all under antihistamines.

Started tagging posts on Blogger just for fun. I'm starting with recent posts and slowly peeling back, but I might jump around for variety. It will take a long time to do, but the more I do, the longer the label list on the sidebar will be.

Yesterday, I was horribly fatigued at the beginning of my day, and then I perked up a little. This is typically backwards for chronic fatigue, but I'm still very much afraid that that could be what I have in addition to sleep apnea. Tom's undecided until more time with the CPAP has passed, and I get my lab results in a few weeks. It would be great if something bad came back other than my thyroid which would be easy enough to resolve and restore my energy, but it doesn't usually work that way with me. I don't know about my A1C, but I think all my numbers will be good except for the usual lipid and TSH. I definitely feel like my thyroid is out of whack again because I'm sleeping longer, I'm up a few lbs, I'm cold, and I'm having more fatigue.

I don't know how long it will last, but today I feel like I have more energy and my events are now down to 1.9! This is fantastic, but it would be better if the fatigue could be stamped out along with the events. My sleep is still fragmented, and I woke up hot flashing a couple of times. I might have had some air leaking through my mouth, but I think Tom is going to be right about getting used to the nasal pillow because I don’t remember anything obvious that pertained to leaks. I really hope he's right in that he still feels I'll get more and more energy and that it will slowly see-saw upward. I'm hesitant to get my hopes up. I sure as hell hope I don't have chronic fatigue, as that would be one of the worst things a person could get. Even most cancers would be preferable because they could be cured. But if anyone would be cursed with something so horrible, it would be me.

I had a dream about being in some kind of overnight camp. I was telling people I lived a stone's throw away from Tampa and wishing I'd brought something to write with and asked if anybody had a few pieces of paper and a pen, but not one of the dozens of people in the room said a word.

Then I had a funny dream about the mystery girl. I wonder why she appears in as many dreams as she does. It's not like we've spoken recently. It seems to have been quite a while, and I don't expect to ever speak again. Nonetheless, in the dream, she asked me to record myself singing Sara for her. That would sound horrible, LOL, as I don't have a rock-and-roll kind of voice but more geared towards country and ballads. I did it for her anyway, and she insisted on paying me somehow. I told her she needn’t worry about it, but she insisted on giving me something, so she had a pizza delivered to me after I told her I liked mushrooms and black olives for toppings, LOL.

Summer Dream, a bride doll I've had for over 25 years, reacted on my EMF reader when I placed her on the bed. I took a picture of her and sent it to Melanie to get her take on it, but then, when I turned the fan off overhead, there was less of a reaction, so I told her never mind—I think the fan was interfering with the reader. Yet Melanie said she sensed strong, loving energy emitting from her and that it was worth investigating more, so maybe I'll do that later.

I’m coming to the horrifying realization that my main problem all along has been chronic fatigue. I have all 8 of the core symptoms and 5 of the 12 supporting symptoms. It’s over. My life is truly over. No matter how much I use the CPAP, all it’s going to do is keep me from feeling winded and keep the scary suffocation spells away. It’s never going to restore my energy. I’m always going to be forced to exist but never allowed to live. A fatal cancer diagnosis would have been preferable to this!

Four times, as I was first falling asleep with my mouth taped, air got caught in my mouth and woke me up. So I ripped off the tape and put a nose strip on intending to remove the mask as soon as the mouth farts got to be too much but amazingly, I slept the night through and got an AHI score of just 3. However, due to the chronic fatigue, I’m still tired. I now know damn well I have that. I just know it. :-(

Ran out to Publix for some things yesterday, and also yesterday, my allergies were the worst they'd ever been since moving here nearly four years ago, and we're pretty sure it's the tomato plant so we moved it into the lanai. If I can ever get my energy back and reschedule allergy testing, it will be interesting to see if that comes up.

I had moderate energy yesterday, and today I don't know. My events dropped from 8 to 4 which is great but I'm still having fragmented sleep. Part of it was my fault for trying to sleep without my mouth taped. Definitely going to need a hybrid. I was able to nap later on, and I think that might have helped but I'm not sure yet. I'm still trying to wake up.

During my nap, I had an incredibly detailed, although not very realistic, moving dream. It was so clear and vivid that it made me wonder—was it in another dimension, or could it be a sign of some kind?

For some reason, Tom got a house quickly that I didn't see until we moved into it. I guess it was one of those spur-of-the-moment things that was a really good deal, and he had to grab it while he could. It was a huge four-bedroom, two-story house, and of course, we could never afford anything so big. The only thing I didn't like was how old it was. It was definitely an older place.

The back of the place was right by a large lake. Because it was a windy day, the lake was a bit wavy, but beautiful. I wondered if we could somehow squeeze through the brush in the summer and swim in it. One side of the place had a large gravel driveway. I think it was gravel, anyway. I couldn't see what was on the other two sides of the house, or how far it was from the street or the nearest neighbor.

The house was rectangular in shape, and the top floor had 4 bedrooms, all of similar size, back to back. Downstairs, the kitchen ran under two of the bedrooms, and the living room ran under the other two. The previous owner left some stuff behind, and in one of the bedrooms was a large area rug that was really beautiful and in good condition. I thought about how I could have used it in the last place.

I grabbed my phone because I wanted to get shots of the beautiful lake, but by then it was dark. Tom was off setting up whatever, and then it hit me—with tears of joy—that oh my god, that was our place. All ours! I made a mental note to ask Tom how big it was and what year it was built. 

Because everything happened so fast, I realized what a shock it would be to people when I made my next blog update announcing the move.

I almost hated waking up because the place was so big, old or not, and the lake was so pretty. Plus, I would have had to have a normal amount of energy to make a move like that.

I asked Melanie if she wanted to know about what I picked up on her, and she said only if it wasn't negative. So I told her I suspect Marwa, her two-year-old, is going to have a little sister. She said she's been sensing little boy energy. So we'll see who's right in the end! I'm guessing it will be her since it's her body.

I think I'm actually going to have a thing called energy today! I'm still not getting my hopes up unless I go a whole week with decent energy, but usually when I hit a tired spell like I did yesterday, they last for days before I get a break. So this unexpected break is definitely welcome!

Unfortunately, I'm still having events. I scored 8 last time around, and since I checked and found that the app has an accuracy rate in the 90s, I'm guessing it's unlikely that it counted an event as an event that really wasn't an event. I don't know why I have more energy today since it wasn't under 5, but how I feel is more important than the numbers.

I think I'll have to raise the humidity level back up a notch because I felt like I had a dry throat at one point. Sleep was still a little fragmented, and I think a PVC spell woke me up once. I remember air getting trapped in my mouth a couple of times, too.

Got up and peed and was a little worried I wouldn't fall back asleep, but I did. At that point, I didn't have my mouth taped anymore, but there were no air leaks, so maybe I'll try sleeping without the tape, but I'll have the tape nearby. Just a little bit of air escaped when I flipped onto my back, which is more likely to cause that in that position. But I slept for about an hour on one side and 45 minutes on the other and don't remember any mouth farts.

I really believe that medical expenses are going to hold us back for the rest of our lives. It burns me up and saddens me to think how far ahead we could be right now if only this country had free medical care. But that will never happen. Never. We're too obsessed with being independent. So much of our money has to go to medical costs that every time we get ahead, medical expenses kick us back. I not only don't see how we'll ever be able to move, but I don't see how we could even redo the floors and add some more cabinets in the kitchen if we were to stay here.

Having him home and not having much money is still better than not having him home and having more money. It just sucks we can't enjoy both, and that one has to work so hard for decades just to struggle in the end or to at least not have much extra.

My allergies have been worse, and I've started taking NasalCrom in addition to the steroid spray. That's what I took for the sneezing fits I had in Auburn. It could just be a few days before it works. I know we have to pay for it since it's OTC, but I don't like the prescription spray he gave me because of the way it makes me tired and leaves me groggy the next day.

I sense that Melanie is pregnant with another daughter, but I hesitate to tell her because I don't know if she would want me to tell her this before she gets her pregnancy test, much less the gender.

When Todd was telling me he got picked on in school due to his disability, I definitely felt a twinge of guilt when I remembered the bully I could be in elementary school. Especially when I remember those I picked on, one of whom could only walk on crutches. Her name was Victoria. Kids can be just as cruel as adults. Adults always insist they're so pure and innocent, but they're not.

Even though I write for me first and foremost and always will, I still don't feel all that welcome on Prosebox. I don't know why, but even though I've been public, I just don't feel it. Sometimes I still think I might drop monthly updates and consider the site a backup.

Wow, Jesse died in 2022. Every now and then, a random person I knew pops into mind and I run their name to see if anything comes up on them. His obit came up with thirty-something comments and even some pictures of him that people shared. He was 66 when he died of a “tragic accident.” Tom and I wouldn't be surprised if alcohol were somehow involved with the way he drank. I searched, but I couldn't find any news articles or anything pertaining to vehicle accidents, but there are so many ways you can die by accident besides that. Maybe he was doing a project on his land and he accidentally died that way.

I wonder who will get his property now. I'm guessing his son. Unless the plane craze has now taken over the skies of Auburn, it was such an ideal piece of land, secluded and peaceful, yet you didn't have to drive the better part of an hour to get to stores. 

He drove me so crazy with those damn dogs of his, yet he was quick to fix things and was understanding when we had to split our payments up or pay late due to the recession.

For those of you who don't know, he had an 8-acre parcel of land with his house and a small trailer on it we rented from 2008 to 2013.

Ended up having pretty good energy yesterday, which was two days in a row, but now I'm back to normal. I had trouble falling asleep as I tend to when I have more energy and took melatonin, which leaves me groggy the next day. Woke up a few times just because, then a few more because of leaks. My allergies were acting up, and my nose was stuffier than usual. I'm definitely going to have to try a full-face mask. 

The x-shaped tape didn’t quite work out because I not only had to apply two pieces, but air escaped through the sides. So I had to get up in the middle of my sleep to replace it with medical tape, which seems to work better. I took it off during my last hour or two of sleep, and I'm pretty sure air escaped my mouth two or three times.

The sleep report says I had 5.6 events and just 3 the night before, but it doesn't count the times I woke up for no apparent reason. At least, I don't think it does. I still say it's hopeless no matter what I do, but if this can keep those terrifying suffocation spells away and keep me breathing easier when I'm awake, that's better than nothing. Hopefully, I won't have to wait days before I have decent energy again. I don't know, maybe instead of getting one good day a week, I'll actually get two.

Poor Andy. I just checked in on him for the first time in a while, and I guess he's still being called the F word that rhymes with rag and hurt by it because it reminds him of what he went through in school in his teens. I'm sorry it hurts him, but it goes to show how different we are. He would never believe or accept this, but if somebody were to give me shit for being with women in the past or call me the K word, granted I wasn't bullied as a kid like he was, I would just laugh and be like, yeah, so? Would it really be much different than being called an asshole, bitch, retard, cunt, or cock if it's still said in anger and meant to lash out at the other person?

Unlike him, though, I have become so indifferent to what others think unless I'm close to them and care about them. Again, he would never accept this as the truth, but those who know me (or should know me) know I wouldn't have any reason to say so if it weren't the case. What would I have to gain from it? 

I think most people in general are just a lot more sensitive than I used to be and am now. I realized a long time ago that if I worry too much about what others think, especially strangers, it would really make my life harder. I understand, however, that people can't always help how they feel. The fact that a complete stranger who didn't even know him called him a f*g is still wrong, regardless of how he feels about it.

He said he later approached a Black woman in a grocery store and asked if it hurt to be called the N-word, and she said it hurt in 1972 and it would hurt in 2030 as well. That's why I get twice as pissed when Black people discriminate against gays—because they should know what it's like and therefore they should know better! He added that sometimes a stranger could make you feel better. 

It has always made him feel better to know he's not alone in how he feels. So much so that this is part of why I cut ties with him. I feel bad for him, and he will always have a special place in my heart, but I can't go back to the same cycle of toxicity either. I'm not him. I'm me.

Kind of surprised he hasn't posted a picture of himself after his weight loss. I wonder if he feels he hasn't lost enough yet to be worth sharing.

Melanie still comments on my posts from time to time.

Hmm… I still think V's silence has a lot to do with me calling her out on her selfishness. She never texted me, and I never left a comment on her entry. I was the last one to leave her a text and a comment, so now it's her turn if she wants it. I didn't unfriend her, but I unfollowed her.

Yesterday, I had good energy, although it didn't last the entire day. Today, I seem to be doing better as well. My AHI score is now under 5—yes! This is getting exciting and promising, though I’m still greatly hesitant to get my hopes up too high. Until and unless I ever go a full week with mostly good energy, I don't want to assume my fatigue issues are being resolved.

On the downside, for the first time since using the thing, I had to get up and pee. But hey, if I do that only a few times a month instead of every single time I sleep, great! Part of it was my own fault because, as I was falling asleep, I thought I felt like my bladder might be full, but I was too tired to get up and empty it.

Lastly, I was aware of air trying to desperately escape through the tape on my mouth a few times, and I also woke up just because a few times as well. I now have tape specially made to go over the mouth in the form of an X. Hopefully, this will be just as secure and more comfortable.

Becky says she's breathed through her mouth from time to time and doesn't handle full-face masks well. She said she still thinks I'll adapt through repetition. She can't even nap without the CPAP because her AHI score is 133. That's extremely severe sleep apnea! That's like an event every 30 seconds.