Tag: Sleep

Lazy Saturday

~ riggledo ~ 4 Comments

It’s been a very lazy Saturday here in the Riggledo household.  I haven’t been to bed before midnight (and usually much later) in more than a month and sitting here at the end of my second week back at work since my most recent vacation, the late nights have taken their toll.

I’m sitting in my living room, in my recliner with my feet up.  I’m wearing sweat pants, a t-shirt and a fleece, Old Navy pull over.  There’s a throw blanket covering me from just below my chest all the way to my feet and it is an electric blanket which is plugged in and turned to high.  My laptop is– well, on my lap and my geriatric cat is curled up in a ball on my shins, sleeping and probably dreaming that the laptop will go away and free his preferred spot for him.  For the first time in weeks it is actually 70 degrees in my apartment and, just to be clear, that’s the warmest it’s been.  (On a couple of occasions in the last two weeks I’ve actually had to break out the space heater which I never use because it draw so much energy that my electric bills triple when I do, it’s been that cold.)

I am cozy and I do not want to move.  I’ve actually fought off sleep a couple of times already today.

It’s been a pretty good week, personally, filled with fun, social interactions, and personal accomplishments.  Dinner with Lil’B on Monday; Lunch with K on Tuesday; finally made it to the Library to pick up that book they’ve been holding, on Wednesday; Thursday I had my weekly noontime meeting with the little advisory council for my Emergency Response Team program; and yesterday I had a lovely, long lunch with my friend Chantelé to celebrate her birthday.

It has also been a week of completions. One of the reasons I’ve been up so late and getting so little sleep is because I’ve been working on a baby blanket for a friend of a friend.  Michelle asked me if I would make the blanket for someone she knows, and I’m always happy to do it as long as the requester supplies the yarn (that sh-stuffs expensive, yo!)  I finished the blanket earlier this week.

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Baby Blanket, hand crocheted by yours truly.

 

I’ve also been at the office late every day this week because I’ve been working on the first round of edits on my manuscript, hereafter called by its name, “The Teacher”.  I guess if I’m serious about getting this thing published, I should start treating it like it’s real, and that means, among other things, calling it by its name.  I found it easier to do this stage of the editing process, red pen on print out copy, sitting at a proper desk and not stretched out in my recliner.  As of about 7:15 last night, I have finished that process and now I have to go through and translate those edits to the soft copy.  And I need to get on it because I have eleven days until the first meeting of the writing group I’ve been talking about.

I’m super excited about the group, and also a bit nervous.  I won’t know anyone going in and that’s never a pleasant experience for me.  Plus many of the people involved are already published authors while I’m just a little blogger/writer with a small audience, a dream, and a not particularly mainstream manuscript.  I know it’ll be an excellent, educational experience, if nothing else; it’s just the buildup that I dread.

Tomorrow, I spend the afternoon with Lil’B and I really have no idea what we’re going to do.  I think it’s supposed to rain so we’ll be looking for something indoors.  Normally, that means movies, but I’m not sure there’s anything for us to see.  I’ll figure that out in the morning though.  For now, I’m just going to sit back, relax, and watch my Dotor Who (original series, season 21) DVD from Netflix followed by the Rock Hudson movie in my Netflix instant queue that’s about to expire, and then call it a night.

It’ll be lovely.  I’m already yawning and it’s only 6:45.

Proper Grammar and Raw Nerves

~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

I had this brilliant post formulated in my head for today, but I kept putting off writing it for no good reason whatsoever, and now I can not really remember exactly how it was going to go because I am just so tired, which is ironic (I think – unless it is not ironic but merely a coincidence – I am not really sure I know how to use the word ironic properly) because the post was going to be about how I am so tired.

I do not even mean physically tired, although I absolutely am that!  I am mentally tired; exhausted might even be the right word.  I am not even sure what to say.  Things have just been taking their toll on me.

The last time I attempted to go back to school, in 2002, I ended up in the deepest depression I have ever experienced.  I felt like I was under so much pressure and that there was so much for me to do with not enough time to get it all done.  When I started thinking about going back to school this time around I had very real concerns about whether this would happen again.  To be fair my depression was essentially undiagnosed at the time and I wasn’t under any sort of treatment for it.  These things are different now.

I went into this round of adult education with my eyes as wide open as I could make them and I have been very watchful and alert to the potential pit falls and road blocks I might encounter.  There have been many, sadly, and I’ve been very fastidious in my efforts at managing the situation, but recent weeks have brought many challenges.

My last post really stirred some things up inside me; more than I would have expected.  And now, on top of everything else, my emotions are — I was going to say that they are out of whack, but maybe they are in whack for the first time in a while, I don’t know.  I know it is new and that I am struggling to deal with it and I do not much like it.  I feel like one big raw nerve, not so much irritable, though I am irritated with some things, more so…

I said in my last post that I do not cry.  By and large, that is true, although I did well up a little when I reread the post after my awesomest and most loyal reader commented that, “Maybe you don’t cry… but I do, and I am.”  I feel like I could cry.  I feel like I should cry.  I feel like I need to cry and maybe if I did, I would feel so much better… But I do not and I do not know why.

There is a lot going on inside me that is taking its toll and there is a lot going on around me, things that are completely outside of my control, that are just rubbing my one big raw nerve all the more raw-er.

I’m not sleeping because…

Um, well…

Because I’m not going to bed, honestly.  I don’t have any problem sleeping once I go to bed, it is the getting to bed that is the problem.  So much to do and not enough time to do it all and almost like a child, I am afraid I will miss something if I go to bed.  Only instead of being afraid I’ll miss some experience or some fun activity, I am afraid I will not get “it” all done.  I’m afraid I’ll miss something.

And then I do go to bed, much later than I should have, and I sleep soundly, as far as I can tell, and when the alarm(s) go off in the morning, it is all I can do to drag myself out of bed and into the bathroom to get ready for work and then I am late for work (more so than we are all already accustomed too) and then I have to stay later and then I’m later getting home and the whole cycle starts again.  And so, yes, I am also physically exhausted.

Maybe the physical exhaustion is contributing to the mental exhaustion.  Maybe the mental exhaustion is contribibuting to the physical exhaustion.  Maybe it is the chicken and the egg scenario.

I know it is temporary. I know I will get through this, just like I always do.  I know that the class will end and I will have fewer stressors and things will get back to normal, such as normal was.

But Lord, I could use a nap!