Monthly Musings – September
Sippy cups, second brains and secret codes
Welcome to monthly musings! This is a once per month email (not my usual programming), where I share random things that have tickled my fancy over the past four weeks. Some will be related to the content of this newsletter, and others…well…won’t be.
Hope you enjoy a little glimpse into my world!
Hello friends,
September has been a busy month; Bean started a new year at school and celebrated his sixth birthday, and Blueberry is becoming an incredibly feisty young lady, able to speak almost sixty words.
Mr S and I got back to work after our lovely family break, and I got first hand evidence of a recent health hack working to my benefit.
Attack of the sippy cup
What started as an innocent shopping trip to get Bean some more school socks, turned into a bloody mess.
Blueberry bashed me in the face with her drinks beaker and split my bottom lip so badly that I looked like I’d gone several rounds with Mike Tyson.
Wish I’d taken a photo to share with you, but I was too concerned with not bleeding all over the shops’ clothes.
Anyway, that night I couldn’t do something I’ve been doing for the past 10 months or so – sleeping with mouth tape on. I wrote about it a couple of months ago here.
Now, it might sound weird but hear me out.
Since wearing mouth tape each night, I have found myself:
Getting better quality sleep,
Not snoring (Mr S’s testimony, not mine),
Not feeling thirsty or having a dry throat when I wake up,
Rousing quickly in the morning from a slumber state,
And most importantly of all – supreme focus during the day even though I still wake throughout the night to nurse baby Blueberry.
What kind of sorcery is this?
The mouth tape helps me breathe only through my nose during sleep.
I hadn’t realised how beneficial this has been for me until I slept that night without the tape over my bashed lip.
Throughout the night I woke several times (probably due to my own snoring as well as Blueberry needing me) and I was incredibly thirsty.
The next morning, I felt like I’d been hit by a bus.
That day, I soaked up some healing red light and went straight back to using the tape and hoping that it didn’t disturb my broken lip. Then, as if by magic, I was back to feeling great again.
Seriously, words don’t teach. If you’re curious, you should give it a go. Who knows what unfilled potential you’re leaving on the table by unwittingly mouth breathing during your sleep.
This is the tape that I use. It has two rolls, and even after 10 months, I still haven’t finished the first one.
I’ve just finished reading…
Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain.
This book opened my eyes to a whole new world of organization. I had no idea that I was so sloppy with my notes, until I read this.
It’s a great structure (if you like that sort of thing), to keep your notes organized in a way that allows you to recall them and connect them easily. Perfect for keeping track of your many projects.
Personally, I’m going to find it challenging to spare the time to switch over all my thousands of notes to capture them in a more organized way, but it has got me thinking about using this system for future notes.
I found this interesting website that allows you to see what other peoples’ second brains look like and how they use different apps and organization techniques to keep them productive. There are a few famous names on there, but lots of normal people like you and I too.
This months’ AI experiment…
To coincide with the start of the new school year, I had an idea to get Bean to read a little bit more each day by creating a code for him to crack each day before he gets access to the TV.
It’s been working well, and he’s finding it fun.
To make it super quick I used ChatGPT to create me a simple alphabetical code system that is also educational for him.
My prompt was: Can you create me a secret code using numbers from the alphabet, which is educational and suitable for a 6-year-old, please? (I always use my pleases and thankyous even for AI – I want to be on their good list when they take over the world 😐).
That’s it for my musings this month.
What have you been up to?
-Selda
Sorry about the lip, interesting that it led to better sleep 🤔
Building a Second Brain has been added to my to read list. I’m currently going through the 5AM Club, and considering trying it out for a while. Have you read it? I’m currently in the beginning of it, and I’m not sure how much I like the style.
Love the creative use of AI to assist in educating!