Thursday, March 18, 2010

Caffeinated Tea To The Rescue

Is anyone else having trouble adjusting to the time change? It's been almost a week since we set our clocks forward an hour, and I'm still not adjusted. I normally wake up around 6:30 or 7:00 AM. I would love to get up by 6:00 AM, and am making that my ultimate goal eventually. I always feel like I get a lot more accomplished when I wake up super early.

But, this year, the time change is more annoying than it ever has been. Without the alarm clock, I'm waking up at 7:30 or 8:00. Not late, but later than I'd like. So, we've been setting an alarm clock to help us wake up. The hard part, is getting out of bed. It's so easy to just roll over and go back to sleep. But once I force myself to sit up and actually get out of bed, I'm fine.

I still find myself dragging in the morning, even after my two cups of green tea. So I've been making a mid morning tea that has been somewhat helpful. Guayakí Yerba Maté.

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My mother-in-law gave it me a long time ago. I didn't read the instructions properly the first time, and didn't let it steep long enough. So I thought it just tasted bland, and basically tasted like hot water. The instructions say to let it steep for 3 to 10 minutes. That's a very wide range of time, and I think I did it for the minimum the first time around. I've since been letting it steep for 10 minutes, and it's much stronger.

I'm not sure how much caffeine is in it, but it seems to be much more than my normal green tea. It's a maté tea, which is said to have the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee. Fine by me. I've learned a lot about teas from Tevana.com and plan to make a purchase there in the near future. I've got a few of their teas written down to try out. Some caffeinated, others not. I love tea. It makes the perfect snack if you've got a sweet craving.

So, I'm sipping on my tea, and it's already making me feel more alert. And the other thing about caffeinated tea is it doesn't leave my stomach feeling bad afterward. A while ago, I was contemplating  going back to drinking coffee, but after learning more about the various teas out there, I've made the decision not to go back to coffee. Tea for Tee all the way.

I've been keeping up with my strength training workouts so far this week. Feeling strong and feeling like I'm able to do a bit more. I may add another set of 15 reps to my arm routine. Maybe. If I had 10 pound weights, I might up it to that. But my heaviest weights are 8 pounds, so I'll just add more reps instead. I may eventually look into buying 10 pound weights, but not quite yet. I think 10 pounds will be the max I ever lift, but you never know. There are certain exercises that are getting really easy now with the 8 pound weights. Arm curls and chest flies just to name two.

Still waiting on my ankle to get to 100%. It's getting so close. The only time it hurts at all now is if I put excessive weight on it, like going up stairs. Now and then, I'll go up a step with more effort than normal, and it'll twinge. But not bad at all. I need to keep using ice. I think that has really been the key to getting it to heal up finally. It's been since late December that I've done any cardio.

I mentioned last week that I got offered to write about 20 to 30 articles a month for a person at TextBroker.com. I've not received any assignments yet, but I'm sure I will soon. I've been reading blogs and articles in the meantime about residual income, and am looking into a few content sites to put up my own articles. I already belong to AssociatedContent.com and eHow.com, but I don't have much on them yet. A few blogs I've read said that people can make $1,000 dollars a month in residual income at these sites, particularly eHow.com. How the heck? They must have a ton of articles posted. I have about 10 to 12, and have made about $4.00. Total. Hehehe. I need to get writing.

I seem to get more writing done when I write for someone else, and have an actual deadline. When I just write for me, I tend to put it off. I need to set myself a deadline and get it done. That's the plan today. Work on a few articles for eHow and upload them. I can do those types of articles while I wait for the TextBroker assignments to come in. I'm wondering if I should email the guy and ask him when to expect them. Nah, I'll be patient. They'll come eventually. He wouldn't have asked if he wasn't going to send anything right?

Update: Ask and you shall receive. Well, my instinct to be patient on the writing assignments was a good thing. I just got a boatload of assignments sent to me. I've got 13 articles to write and they're due by next Wednesday. He's very nice and said to let him know if I need more time. Shouldn't be a problem though, but it's nice that he's so flexible.

See what happens when I'm caffeinated? I write a lot. Gets my brain awake, and things just flow. Caffeinated teas are the way to go for me. No bad after effects, and it gives me the boost I need.

Are you a coffee or tea drinker? Have you considered trying the other option? If you drink tea, are you willing to give coffee a shot, and vice versa?

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