Update for 7/17/2016

Project updates

• Math relearning – I spent most of last week’s time on this project learning Git, a version control system, which helps you keep track of the changes you make to your files, so I can post my code on GitHub, which is a code sharing site that uses it. I have a little more of that to learn, and then I can decide on my basic folder and file structure and start on the actual programming. I’m going to extend this phase of the project to this week so I can get all that out of the way.
• Wiki – My mind has been doing the thing where it squirms to get out of the cage of whatever I’ve been working on for an extended period, and this time that mostly looks like collecting a bunch topics to start wiki articles about, so after this phase of my math project, I’ll probably try posting something on a few of those. My vision for the site is to collect my thoughts and other products on a large variety of topics, so it would be nice to actually see more of that happen, especially since there are several topics that are of central concern to me that I’ve barely addressed on the site.
• Diet – At long last, my cholesterol blood test is this Monday. I’ve told my boss I’m coming in late because I’ll need some extra time in the morning to run my home blood test for comparison, which will have the side benefit of giving me a clue about my results right away. Whatever the outcome, I’m going to keep limiting sugar and using substitutes, so last week bought sucralose (cheap) and xylitol (expensive) and mixed the remnants of my other substitutes together. Cooking experiments: my usual muffins, baked for 20 minutes and with sugar-free blueberry preserves smoothly mixed into half of them, which turned out pretty well; and grilling chicken, asparagus, and squash on my George Foreman grill, which I’ve had for years and used about once.
• Ulcerative colitis – Okay, I’ve decided to try the gluten-free thing, which really I’ve been doing for at least the past couple of weeks, so I’ll go for another month to see if it clears up my symptoms. If it doesn’t, I’ll try going off dairy for a week because of this old-ish study, though it’s the only place I’ve seen milk connected with UC.
• Daily routine – I didn’t try moving my devotions and exercise to the mornings last week because I want to see how I can organize my evenings better using ATracker, an easy time tracking app I started using last week, which is already giving me a better idea of where my time is disappearing to. I did managed to exercise some, which for now will consist of walks, push-ups, and planks (as a replacement for sit-ups, which I’ve never liked).
• Spirituality – Read a little more of Culadasa and Merton and listened to a little of The Pursuit of God. I tried a meditative devotion early in the week but ended up sleeping through most of it, which really I was expecting, and I was okay with it because Richard Foster is, but of course I don’t want to make sleep a regular feature of my devotions/meditation, so maybe that’ll be motivation to regulate my sleep better. I’ve wanted to experiment with aromatherapy for a while, and this meditation stuff seems like a good excuse, so this weekend while I was buying xylitol at the Vitamin Shoppe, I looked around the aromatherapy section and decided to base my meditation combination on patchouli, because it smells exotic but not too weird and I don’t already associate it with other things, though I want to do more research before I buy anything.
• Anime – I watched an episode of Tamako Market, which was funnier than I expected.
• Video games – I haven’t played anything in a few weeks, but the augmented reality aspect of Pokémon Go intrigued me, so this weekend I started that, though I probably won’t play it much, since Pokémon is the kind of game that has never interested me.

Life updates

• Work – An interesting opportunity came up at work on Friday, but I don’t think I should say more about it here until things are more certain.
• Worship team – My team played this weekend, and for the first time in a few months we had a full team, thanks to some kind substitutes. Having all the instruments really makes a difference.