Yoga Butt

Tonight felt like a bit more of a thinking kind of night.

I did some yoga (breath work only - though I may have gotten a bit too relaxed. I think I fell asleep at the end). I'm checking out Yogaglo.com right now. I like the organization of their classes better than myyogaworks.com (you can browse by teacher, duration, style, and level and they also have some lectures as well). It even allows you to set goals to meet (# of classes or # of hours per week) and tracks them. You can even create a queue and schedule what day you want to take a class.

In addition to what I've already listed, they even have classes modified to accommodate your cycle (you are never supposed to do inversions during your period). I don't know if most ladies take that into consideration or if they are just trying to get yoga butt.

Speaking of yoga butt, I didn't even know that was a thing when I started doing yoga. My yoga experience has always involved old hippies. There were never super skinny Lululemon clad ladies practicing yoga, but here in SF they appear to be the only people who practice yoga.

Justin and I discussed the possibility of me taking antihistamines in addition to strict diet to get things under control (and allow me to eat MOAR DIFFERENT foods).  This conversation was held over a bowl of Pho. I had asked for no jalapenos but alas there were jalapenos in it. So far, so good. No reaction to the Pho or jalapenos. This could be huge because I could totally start eating fermented hot sauce again. It's delicious and I have missed it terribly!

Obviously I don't want to take benedryl every day again (I did that for years and still was a mess), so I started looking into natural antihistamines. I stumbled across the blend of Lavendar, Lemon and Peppermint, which is supposed to be a natural antihistamine/anti-inflammatory blend.

Well, I don't have any gel caps currently, so I whipped up the LLP blend in a base of coconut oil. Topically, it is applied to the soles of the feet 2x a day. Even if this does nothing for my allergies, I will have soft, nice smelling feet!

I may try doing the the LLP blend internally using the gelatin capsules, but for now I am going to do the topical application.

I also started doing some rough sketches for another idea I have to add to my skull series.

365 Days of Zentangles - Day 32

Day 32.

Done.

It's almost midnight.

Went to work, went to school, did the dishes did my tangle.

Considering the exhaustion I have felt every evening for the last couple of weeks, I am surprisingly awake for almost midnight.

I took the easy way out and drove to work yesterday and today. That's really the ONLY thing I've done differently in the last couple of weeks. I can't say for certain that it is why I am less exhausted but really, I'm only walking 3-4 miles a day normally.

365 Days of Zentangles - Day 15

Our community garden group was supposed to have an open house today. It rained (Yay! it makes SF far more tolerable), so we had to cancel.

Instead, Justin and I spent the afternoon at the vet with Pi. We're not entirely certain what happened to her foot but it looks like this:

Of course, she had hair on her foot this morning and it was actually even more swollen than this when we got up. There happened to be a few pain killers left from when she had her teeth cleaned in July, so I gave her one before we took her to the vet.

It's not broken (there were no visible fractures in the xray, which I will post later because they look cool). So we've got a week of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and pain meds.

We think her toe might have been caught in the blanket (crocheted) or in the speaker grill of the ugly chair upstairs.

Oh, we also went to Blick (no purse - last time they told us all bags, including purses have to be checked. I asked if we had to check our pants because we had pockets. They didn't think it was as funny as I did.) I got some transfer paper to try out.

As much as I had hoped to get all sorts of design work done today, I wanted to bake. And bake I did. Best GF pie ever.

Stiff Neck (no more)

I have to admit I'm a bit of a nerd about ergonomics.

I think it stems from a combination of RSIs (repetitive stress injury) at an early age and a Human Centered Design class I took a few years back.

I had symptoms of carpal tunnel by the time I was 22. I had carpal tunnel release surgeries on both wrists by the time I was 25. I used to think that was pretty young, but people are showing more and more signs of RSIs at earlier and earlier ages. Like the 16 year old who developed carpal tunnel from her 100 text a day habit.

In addition to carpal tunnel, I've had DeQuervain syndrome (inflammation of the tendons in the thumb - also known as gamer's thumb or texting thumb. Or if you want to get really old timey, you can call it Washerwoman's sprain). My left thumb has never been the same, while my right thumb seemed to recover completely.

I've had tennis elbow (and I've never really played). I've had trochanteric bursitis (also known as dancer's hip).

While part of these issues stem from chronic inflammation and autoimmune issues, another contributing factor has been poor ergonomics.

The one size fits all approach to furniture (both home and office) doesn't work. We spend a tremendous amount of time being stationary in workstations or furniture that is not designed to fit our bodies.

I have to say that even after suffering from workplace related RSIs, there wasn't a lot of thought put into preventing these issues for others (or preventing flare ups for those who have already been affected). I worked in workers' compensation law for a while and the solution always seemed to be to find new employment for people who had been injured instead of really evaluating the workplace to see how it could be modified to prevent injury.

As the final project for my Human Centered Design Class, I built a workshop that was customized to be the right fit for me in a standing position. Here are some slides from my final presentation where I discussed how to determine the standing height of a workstation.

Factors in Determining Standing Workstation Height

Observations taken from my initial workstation

Analysis and Zone of Convenient Reach calculations based upon original workstation

Analysis and Zone of Convenient Reach for redesigned workstation

I have been working at a standing workstation since 2010 now and I love it. I no longer have my workshop, but my desk set up at home is standing. I have my monitor placed upon a shelf well so it is at eye level.  I do not have to look downward at my monitor, thus reducing strain on my neck. 

Okay, so you've made it this far and are probably wondering what the heck this has to do with art, design, school or 3D printing. It has everything to do with all four of those things. 

I started a new job recently and lets just say our furnishings are spartan. We are sitting at folding tables. We do have office chairs (though I've traded mine in for an exercise ball). A lot of people are working on laptops. Small laptops. Myself included. 

The first week was misery. A 13 inch MacBook on a folding table is a recipe for ergonomic disaster. I managed to procure a mouse and full size keyboard at the start of the 2nd week. I placed the laptop on a couple of boxes to raise the screen, even if just a little. I ended up getting a monitor shortly after that. 

It's better than it was, but by no means ideal. My monitor is still about 3-4 inches too low and I am looking downward, putting extreme stress on my neck. 

So this week, I will be designing a monitor riser that fits the foot print of my monitor exactly (as space is a premium and I don't have room for the standard monitor risers). I'm going to incorporate a bit of fun into it (at least fun for people who love office supplies) and include space for my post its and my pens!  

I'll post pictures this week of the design and the final product.