I walked through the day in a fog. My body seemed heavy and my head felt thick. I did succumb to a nap in the morning, but in the afternoon I just tried to keep moving. I figured mowing the lawn, weed wacking, pulling weeds, and clean up would help fight off the jet lag — which feels inversely proportional to the activity of the body. In other words, the more active my body, the less I feel the effect of the jet lag.
Unfortunately, there are sedentary tasks to do like following up on emails, tax prep (since Eric’s passing, I’ve outsourced this), and Swedish language learning. With effort, I managed to stay awake until 9:00 pm, but I had to go to bed before Anya was done with her homework.
I think I figured out the email notifications for new blog posts. If you’d like to have your email receive a message when a new blog post is posted, just email me at mamaany@gmail.com. Please put “blog notification” in the subject line.
Here are more travel tips related to airplane travel:
- I prefer over-the-ear headphones for long airplane rides. For a birthday a couple years ago, I received a pair of fold-able, noise-cancelling headphones with a volume control in the cord. After a couple hours of earphones, earbuds, or on-the-ear headphones, my ears get sore. So, these were a great gift, especially because I’ve been quite busy and have the opportunity to catch up on all the movies I missed while on a couple 9.5 hour flights!
- I put the headphones in a firm lens case I found at Goodwill. It also has a zippered pouch to include an adapter (two mono jacks to one stereo plug-in) and a splitter (in case two stereo plugs ever want to listen to one program or iPod, etc.).
- I keep a small pouch with a molded foam eye mask, which gives enough room for eyelids to blink without rubbing against the eye mask. The eyelid irritation bothers me and does not let me rest as well. I figured this was a good investment in good sleep. Without good sleep, I am more susceptible to getting sick. So, I figure this is worth it (even though I seem to lose eye masks on occasion).
40 or 4,000 winks in a good sleep mask! - In my small pouch with the eye mask, I keep the foam ear plugs. I cut these in half so they aren’t sticking out so far. I’ve found that full-sized ear plugs get knocked out or rubbed out when I move my head–and then the noise wakes me up. These half-sized ones don’t. I can still pull them out. The half-sized ear plugs do tend to get dropped or lost, so I keep a couple extra handy in a very small zip lock bag in my small pouch.
- I’ve also attached half-sized ear plugs to a little elastic cord and looped the cord around the back strap of the eye mask. If one does pull out, then I just follow the cord from the back of the strap and put it back in.
- Another gift was a J-pillow, developed by a British flight attendant.
The “J” pillow 
How the “J” pillow works. - With my eye mask, ear plugs, and J-pillow, I push my seat back as far as possible and put any carry-on luggage (that was under the seat ahead of me during take off) right in front of my seat (under my knees). Then I put pillows under the small of my back and stretch my legs into the space under seat ahead of me. I’m only 5’6″, so this works for me. Sorry tall folk, but you get more perks in the rest of life.
- As I passed the 50-year mark, I started using compression socks for the long flights. I try to stay well hydrated, but I don’t want to collect the hydration in my ankles. They do make a difference.
So, a few more travel tips to consider.
With blessings,
Beth