It's Valentine's Day. Whether you're the type of person who throws themselves completely into the day or dismisses it as a businesses' money making scheme, or maybe somewhere in between, you got to admit that it makes some sort of impact.

Personally, I am reluctant to buy things for Valentine's Day. I dislike giving away my money to buy presents on a day that has been exploited by shops for their own (money-making) purposes, and Valentine's Day isn't a real holiday, is it?

Well whether it is a 'real' holiday or not and worthy of acknowledgment is up for debate, but it seems to get that acknowledgment anyway. Today I got given an article to read in French class about the origins of the day! (In French of course.)

So I say take this day as an opportunity to make your loved ones days. Write messages to them, ask them to be your Valentine or just wish them a Happy Valentine's Day. The last one especially takes no effort, and is sure to brighten up someone's day.

I have had quite a few attempts at a headache/migraine diary in the short time since my headaches became serious and frequent.

First, of course, was the old 'write down on random bits of paper' attempt. I was by pretty much all the credible websites I could find that I should be recording all these different things like writing down what I ate, the medicines I took and how I was feeling in great detail.

This was a bit too much for me, a teenager that had just started my second last year at school with two subjects being accelerated, so from the last year of school. I thought it would be a bit much for many people. And who wants to think about how they're feeling in too much depth when they feel bad most of the time? I didn't.

Second attempt was an online version. It looked promising. Daily emails reminding me followed by a quick questionnaire. I also promised an analysis of patterns after a couple of months.

I stuck with this one for around 6 months. This method's downfall was that it was completely unsuitable for my situation. It promised an analysis when a pattern emerged, but the problem was that my migraines seem to have no particular pattern. The data was not presented in a particularly helpful way for me to look at it either. There was a calendar which was marked with a bit too much red to be helpful and a very long list of data that was not sorted too well. I concluded that this program was created for people with less frequent migraines than me.

I took a break from recording migraine information for the exam period in November and for my exchange trip in France. But in the meantime I had an idea for something small, compact, and with the dates all written on it...

A mini planner!

I bought it a few weeks ago and created a plan for what to write in it, and it seems to work fine for me.

Something like this:
 (Date already written)  woke:            bedtime:            
morning:        afternoon:        evening:        
breakfast:                    | (medicine written here with time taken)
lunch:                           |
dinner:                         |    <= (supposed to be a ruled line straight down)
snacks:                         | 

It is small and simple, and while it probably is lacking in some areas, I can always work that out for next years'.

And the most important thing... It looks pretty :)