I took Viv down to the mechanic last night & had her brakes & exhaust checked out. If they were to do (correctly) everything that was needed, it would have cost over $800. The car isn't really worth that much, except maybe to a collector. I asked them if they would be willing to just install brake pads all around, regardless of the rotor's current condition. They said they could, but that there would be no warranty. I told them that would be fine, it would at least get her through a couple months, so she can save up more money, so they agreed to do it. So, brake pads front & back, and the hardware kits, installed, will be about $150. Unfortunately, she doesn't have that kind of money built back up yet, so she gave me $40, and I'm going to pay the rest for now. She's going to pay me $50 or so each paycheck to pay me back. I probably should just let her deal with it herself, but without a car, she can't make it to work, can't make money, etc, and it snowballs, and I'd feel guilty letting that happen if I could easily prevent it.
In a flash of insight that might be referred to as "well, DUH!!", I put a couple things together this past weekend - I've been complaining about having really bad headaches on a fairly regular basis for quite a while now. I read an article the other day about caffeine withdrawal & headaches - now, I've read these before and never thought twice about it. I realized two things though - 1) I remember I never really had headaches like this in the old place (well, not on a daily basis like now), and 2) I never started drinking coffee on a regular basis until I moved into my new place. I once more worked out my average daily caffeine intake and came up with a range anywhere from 700 to 1200mg/day, and leaning more towards the 1200 mark. I've no idea why, but this time, something clicked in my head about it - in the mornings I'd feel like shit, and I would get up and have two big cups of coffee (the mark on the coffee pot said 3 1/2 cups). While at work, I may have one or two 20oz diet mountain dews (my fave!), and I'd feel pretty good for most of the day, but around 3-4pm, I'd start to get those terrible headaches, so I'd pop 800mg of Motrin to get me through work. I'd usually come home around 6-7pm and make another pot of coffee (again, two big cups = 3.5 on the coffee pot) and I'd feel pretty good again for a while. I might go out for a bit at night, and would go to bed feeling reasonable, but would always wake up with the same terrible headache.
When I looked at the time frames, it occurred to me that approximately 6 hours after having had my coffee was when the headaches would happen. I'd been trying to medicate them away, but in all likelihood, I was going through caffeine withdrawals. I decided on either Saturday night or Sunday morning that I wasn't going to consume caffeinated drinks anymore. I actually had zero caffeine on Sunday (not even any chocolate!), and both yesterday and today, I allowed myself one 20oz diet dew, which is less than 100mg of caffeine. I'm still having some headaches, but I assume that's to be expected, and I figured, what the hell - I've been getting constant headaches anyway, just quit cold turkey & get it over with. It's going pretty well, all things considered. It hasn't really affected my sleep yet, but I'm having some trouble getting going in the mornings. What I notice the most is that my back/neck issues are taking much longer to relax/resolve after getting out of bed than they used to, so I'm hoping that will go away rather soon. One of the unexpected side benefits to this is that, at least at this point, I don't seem to be too keen on drinking too much; one or two maybe, but the idea of getting drunk doesn't sound appealing. Of course, that may change once I've got this caffeine issue out of my system, but if it doesn't, that'll be helpful towards getting me back on track with the workouts.
Now, if only I could get a handle on my pitiful (nonexistent?) dating life...
5:27 p.m. - 2012-05-01
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