Wellness: Sleep By 11pm For June Challenge

Image credit: Unsplash

This post was updated daily and completed on 7/1/2020.
Jump to final thoughts & results.

Hello, now that I have your attention with the adorable kitten image, thanks for joining me on this challenge. Mwahahaha.

As you may be aware, the last challenge I gave myself was to cut out excess sugar from my diet. That one, I had no idea how long I’d track it for and also no idea what I was doing, and I didn’t even realise it was a challenge to myself until the last day. Needless to say, it was a spectacular fail!

This time though, I’m actually setting myself a challenge. Why? Because it’s hard. And I want to do it. And I want to be kept accountable.

I’ve been sleeping late recently and it’s just wrecking my health. I nursed the worst headache I’ve had for a while today after sleeping at 3am last night. I then took a 3hr nap in the afternoon and my head still hurts. It wasn’t even like I was doing anything important. I was just watching anime. Clearly I lack self-control and it’s a problem.

Challenge Details & Goals

Through 30th June, my challenge will be this:

> Turn off all electronics by 10:30pm to prepare for bed
> Be in bed by 11pm
> Wake up by 9am by the end of the first week, 8am by the end of the second week and 7am by the end of the final week.
> Note sleep time (night before) and wake time (day of) etc. using a sleep tracker app to track data. I am using SleepWatch.

I aim see how sleeping earlier affects my fatigue/lethargy, headaches and will also do a weigh-in every 7 days. Also, Jacky will eventually have to go back into the office for his job (maybe as early as next month?) so I want to be able to wake up early to make us breakfast and pack a lunchbox for him like this woman does for her husband — I’ve been inspired!

This means changing my wake up time from 10am to 7am in the next few weeks. I’ll be setting alarms to begin with, but ideally by the end of the 3 weeks I’ll be waking up naturally around 7ish. I need a good 8-9hrs sleep/night so that means going to sleep around 11pm. They say it takes 21 days to build up a new habit, and I have exactly 21 days of this challenge.

Please do check back in to see how I get on and keep me accountable. I’ll be updating this daily and will do my best.

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Horticulture: Propagating Trader Joe’s Basil Plant

This post was last updated on 10/2/2020.

We went to Trader Joe’s on Friday and bought home a pot of basil. However, it started dying almost as soon as it got home. Turns out supermarket basil is made to look great as a clump but will die shortly because it’s a bunch of individual basil clumps shoved together that will fight for root space and nutrients.

The solution is apparently to separate these clumps into new pots. I tried, but honestly I could not. When I pulled my basil plant out, the roots had woven themselves around many times tightly. I didn’t want to destroy all the roots, so gently loosened the soil as much as I could and planted the entire thing into my largest pot.

It turns out you can also propagate basil easily, so I trimmed off some of the stems and stuck them in water. They were dying anyway so may as well try. I’ll let you know how they get on. Check back for updates!

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Recipes: Favourites & To-Try List

Image credit: Unsplash.com

Edit: This post was last updated on 3/1/2021.

These are favourites that I’ve found online that I either want to try or have already tried. I’m noting them all down so I don’t forget and can easily find them, and will add to this as I go along. Let me know if you’ve tried any!

Breakfasts

  • Dip ‘n’ Share Eggs – I make this every couple of weeks or so. We love it!
  • Easy Skillet Breakfast Potatoes – this was genuinely so quick and easy to make. I threw in what I had in the pantry: butter, garlic clove, salt, pepper, rosemary, paprika. Jacky doesn’t give this score liberally but he rated it 10/10.
  • Fluffy Pancakes – these were genuinely easy to make and tasty, and for once I did not find it too sweet. However, when she says ‘fold’ the wet ingredients into the dry ones she actually means ‘gently whisk’ (per her video and what I found in my attempt), and when she says ‘medium-low’ heat, I found it worked better when the heat was closer to medium than to low.
  • Sea Salt Dark Chocolate Granola – to try.
  • Tamagoyaki – I made the sweet version but mine turned out a little burnt on the medium-high heat. I just used a regular pan so think I poured too much mixture in, meaning I had to wait longer for it to cook enough for me to start folding. It tasted good though! Just the right level of sweet / salty balance.
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Finance: Marcus by Goldman Sachs Review

This post was published 6/5/2020 and edited on 6/16/2020.

I said I was going to rave about Marcus, so here we are.

As mentioned in my previous finance post, we opened up an 11mo no penalty CD and a High-Yield Savings Account (HYSA) with Marcus by Goldman Sachs. If you haven’t read it yet, check it out to find out our thought process behind choosing those specific accounts. If you’re interested in opening up your own, click here for the CD and click here for the HYSA.

I’m now officially a Marcus fan. Here’s why:

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Food: Shwe Myanmar Review [Delivery]

Restaurant: Shwe Myanmar Burmese Cuisine, Livermore

Delivery service used: DoorDash
Date ordered: 28th May, 2020

Dishes ordered:

  1. Crispy Yellow Tofu – $10.00 – 9.8/10
  2. Shwe Myanmar Tea Leaf Salad – $12.00 – 9.5/10
  3. Eggplant Curry – $12.00 – 9.8/10
  4. Coconut Rice – $3.00 – 9.8/10

Portion sizes: Good. The eggplant curry was a little more substantial but the other dishes were sized for one portion… or it could have just been due to us being SUPER hungry that we pretty much wolfed the entire thing down.

This is one of our favourite restaurants and before the lockdown, Jacky and I used to eat there every other week. It’s a family-owned small business and the owner is so lovely. I feel like the portions are slightly larger in the restaurant, but perhaps it’s also because we go there so frequently they just see us and give us a little extra <3

That said, the crispy yellow tofu typically comes as 8pcs according to the menu, but we received 12! I think it’s because some of them were ‘older’ and had been re-fried, but I really appreciate them giving us the extra pieces, and the re-frying made them even crispier. We love this dish; without a doubt it is the one item on the menu that we absolutely must order every single time.

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