My Lifelong Battle with Sleep

     I haven't posted much lately. Ever since I returned from my trip overseas I have been trying to get back on schedule. I've been busy getting certain affairs back in order and trying to catch up after more than a month away. The main reason I haven't been posting, however, is that I have been having more trouble with sleep than ever before. Over the past 3 weeks I have not fallen asleep before 2AM and I've had two nights that I had no sleep at all. So, here I sit after another night of only getting 2 hours of sleep. On the bright side, I did get to see the sunrise this morning.

     I have the world's worst sleeping habits, at least it seems that way. I've had problems with sleeping for as long as I can remember. In elementary school I would often stay awake until 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning watching television or playing video games and then I would sleep until the early afternoon. In my teen years the problem got even worse and in college, between working full time and taking a full course load, sleeping was truly a luxury. As an adult my bad habits continued but I have been lucky that most of my jobs never required an early start time and I could make my own hours. There isn't a time in my life when I don't remember feeling like a zombie in the morning. I have always thought that people who say they wake up feeling rested were full of shit. I have almost accepted that I would always feel like garbage in the morning and there wasn't much I could do about it.

     I've had occasional success with my sleep. From time to time I'll get into a very nice routine, in bed at a reasonable time, up for an early start and feeling energized. But, those occasions have been very few. I'd quickly fall back into old habits. It has become quite obvious to me over the past few weeks that I have a serious problem that needs to be addressed. I've been reading a lot lately on how to obtain proper sleeping habits and over the next few weeks I'll be applying some of the things I've learned and talking about them here. This may not be interesting to a lot of you but hopefully it will be helpful to a few. I know for a fact that I'm not the only one with bad sleeping habits. Also, this will be a good chance to get back to why I started this blog in the first place, a place to explore self improvement. So, keep checking back in to see my progress or to see my crash and burn. Who knows what will happen.

Do you have bad sleeping habits too? Share your story.


Take care of yourself and each other......AND GET SOME SLEEP!

Tasty Tuesday! Late Edition

Yellow Split-pea Soup with Sweet Potatoes and Kale

     This is my first post since returning from Guyana! It has taken a little time to get back in the habit of updating "A Beer with Brad" but more posts are coming. In the meantime try this soup recipe. I believe I've posted a lot of soup recipes on here lately. Apparently I really dig soup and didn't realize it. I'll put up a wider variety of recipes some other time.

     This is the first recipe I've put up that you will need special equipment in order to make. You'll need a pressure cooker for this one or else the sweet potatoes and split peas will take forever and a day to cook. It just so happened that someone gave me a pressure cooker a while back and I have never used it so I thought why not try it out.

     The thing is, this pressure cooker was most likely manufactured in the 1950's (at least that is when the user's manual was printed). Obviously pressure cookers have come a long way in 60 years and they are completely safe to use now. Today, thanks to built in pressure relief valves, there is no risk of a pressure cooker exploding, or creating a new sky light in your kitchen, maiming you, or vaporizing the family dog. But, this pressure cooker lacked all the modern conveniences and safety features. I probably had no reason to fear the cooker while it was on the stove but I left the room anyway and crossed my fingers that I wouldn't have to explain to my landlord why his house had to have the kitchen replaced.

     Honestly I wasn't really curious as to how this recipe would turn out. I just wanted an excuse to use a piece of antiquated cooking equipment. It worked, the meal preparation was pretty uneventful, the soup tasted great, and I will be using the pressure cooker again in the future.

     If you don't own a pressure cooker this recipe may not be for you. There is a way to make this recipe without one but the amount of time it takes isn't worth it. If you have one though give the soup a try.

A fun side note: I scoured the user's manual for any kind of funny anachronistic uses of sexist/racist language but the manual was PC even by today's standards. Kudos Mirro-Matic!

• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 1 1/2 tsp. cumin
• 1/4 tsp. oil (I used olive)
• 2 tsp. ginger paste or 1 tablespoon of fresh ginger (minced)
• 2 tsp. garlic
• 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 8 cups of water (give or take)
• 3 cups of dried yellow split peas
• 2 tablespoons of curry powder
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 large handful of kale, central rib removed, chopped

1. Saute the onions until translucent in a little oil. Throw in the cumin, pour oil over the spices, add the ginger and garlic. Add the sweet potatoes, water, split peas, and 1 tablespoon of curry powder. Stir. 
2. Seal the cooker and bring it up to high pressure (as described in your manual). Cook at high pressure for 8 minutes, remove from the heat, and allow the pressure to come down.
3. When the potatoes and split peas are cooked add the kale, season with salt and pepper, and the rest of the curry powder. If the soup is too thick add a little more water.
4. Cover the pot again and let the kale cook down a little just using the steam of the soup. Do not apply heat.

Saute those onions

Add the potatoes

There is essentially a bomb on top of my stove.

Next add the kale

Take care of yourself and each other...