My preciousssss

Sleep.

I love sleep. Always have. Laying (lying?) down and relaxing on crisp cotton sheets in hot weather, or cuddling under flannel and a warm comforter in winter, what a great feeling.That lovely feeling of stretching out and relaxing. Mmmmm.

Then I had kids. Although they were all pretty accommodating and slept through the night by 6 weeks old, it still meant I had to get up early but that was okay, I just went to sleep earlier. No problemo.
 
Until I went back to work and ended up on second shift, finishing up anywhere from 11pm to 1:30 am.  And had to get 4 kids up and out for the bus before 7. My firmly held belief that once I was up, I was up for good crumbled and vanished. I learned to wake children, make lunches, find homework and watch for the bus without being fully awake and falling back to sleep as soon as they were out the door. By the time just the younger two were left in high school, I was taking a prescription for fibromyalgia that helped me sleep without waking every hour or so, and I told them that they had to get themselves up and out- which they did, thank-you-very-much.

J and I worked out differences in waking methods- he liked using the radio as an alarm, and snoozing for 10 minutes. I hated the country music waking me after 2 hours of sleep. He learned to use the buzzer instead and I used my pillow to block the light. It killed him when I would sleep until 10 on his days off- it killed me when he 'tiptoed' in to get a shirt and accidentally woke me up at 8. 

I recently changed meds to one that gives me a lot more energy during the day and coincidentally gives me insomnia, just at the same time that I started work again. Having to go to sleep when it's light out doesn't help. The good news is that J and I are both getting up at the same time on the days I work. The bad news is we go to bed at the same time.

J is hot. I mean, literally. It's like being in bed with a radiant heater. I'm pretty much over hot flashes, but if I get too close, I can feel my temperature rising. He takes this personally, and I don't like to hurt his feelings, but pretty soon I have to start flapping sheets and hanging my feet out the side of the bed. And that's scary- you don't have your foot out there unprotected at night- everyone knows that.

The end result is that I crave my precious sleep, nine hours is perfect, but I can make do with eight. But what's even better is when I wake up myself, no help from anyone or anything, no dreams being rudely interrupted.  No kids, no dog, no man, no phone, just let me wake up on my own.  We got back yesterday from a  trip to RI, and I reminded J to let me sleep this morning- he agreed.

I woke up first and turning over, popped the poor man right in the nose!

Sorry, honey, you must have been too close.

What, me wrong?

Okay. After 50 years I must admit that perhaps #3 was right- when the bunny goes around the tree and down the hole the other way, the shoelaces may work better. (I can say that now because I don't think she reads this)

Though it sure is hard changing at this point, I do like it when they lie down across my foot, and not go up my ankle to bug me. I guess I've never worn sneakers with shorts as much as I have this summer at work.

With that out of the way, I guess I could mention some other times I've been wrong, but don't get comfortable- it will be an awfully short post! Hardy har har.

Well, getting a two month old puppy when you already have a four month old puppy because "it will be easier to housebreak them together" is not a good idea. The housebreaking was fine, but having two wily, willful husky puppies made it difficult to get through to them that humans are supposed to be the bosses.

If we ever buy another house, listen to J when he wants to offer less than full price. Duh.

Consider carefully when you try to teach your children to be questioning, caring, nature-loving, wondering, unique adults- they just might turn out to be all that and become independent people who grow up and have lives of their own, away from their parents. Just like you did. 

(And of course that last one was no mistake. We wouldn't change any of them. It just stinks a little)

Holy Heatwave, Batman

The heat is not the only reason I have not posted- it's just the latest good excuse. We don't usually get an extended stretch of hot days here in Maine, and this is starting to interfere with my life. Which, of course, will not do. Ha.

J has been kept busy tending his pumpkin patch, weeding, making sure they have water and taking pictures. He's got jack o'lantern pumpkins, little white ones and gourds planted, with sunflowers scattered amongst them, along with his gargoyles. He's also busy recording its progress.

Last Sunday was our 34th anniversary and it was as hot and sticky was it was that day in 1977. I had to work in the morning, but J made a nice steak dinner for us and we enjoyed it and a slight breeze on our porch. He gave me a little duck statue for the porch, and I had given him a whirligig earlier, that I found at the employee store. (You may have picked up on the fact that we're pretty down to earth about celebrations) No picture of the duck yet, but here's his little fisherman.

When J takes pictures, I upload them to the computer and do the resizing and saving. And editing. It used to kill me when we used film and he took multiple shots- thank goodness for digital cameras!  I never know what I'll find. Like 6 shots of this in the middle of his lighthouse shots.

 

Artsy? or trying to figure out the closeup function? 

Say what?

On their recent visit, Minnie mentioned how strangely Sectaurs writes up a grocery list;  "He puts down 'snakes'- what is that supposed to mean?"  J and I started laughing, since J has been doing this for years. I routinely shop for things like snakes and logs- snacks and ziti, although I must admit sometimes I cannot figure out what he meant and the joke loses him an item.

So I wasn't all that surprised last night to pull out some meat to thaw and find my label of 'pork' had changed to 'pork Sallie Annie'.*  

Suuuuch a funny man.

* for those of you not in our age group