I read recently that it is vital to good health that you sleep enough each night, and that you should also sleep at the same time each night. For instance, if your body requires eight hours of sleep, as the average person’s does, you need to be sure that you have a consistent bed time, or you run the risk of moving yourself into diabetes.
Dear Husband is in the early stages of diabetes. Some time ago, he decided to be good to himself, and most nights he goes to bed at 9:00. On very rare occasions, he will stay up later, but not too often. He needs less sleep than I do, and he also gets up earlier than I do. He rises at 4:30 during the week. As a business owner, he wants to be ready to start the job on time, without having had to rush to get there.
In my head, I KNOW that I need to be in bed by 9:00. I want to be rising at 5:00, so I need to be asleep at 9:00. Despite the fact that I know it, I still mess around with my going-to-bed times, and payback is HELL.
Sunday night I was up until 1:00 working on a project for my exercise class. We’re sending boxes of comforts to the troops overseas. I needed to get things into boxes and fill out the custom forms, and get the boxes ready to be moved to the trunk of the car. At the time it seemed like I needed to be doing those things that late at night. It never occurred to me to go to bed, and risk getting it all done early in the morning.
So, on Monday, I dragged through the entire day. I chose not to nap during the day so that I would be tired, and ready to sleep at 9:00. Of course, it was the exceptional night when DH stayed up until 10:00! I hit the bed and was asleep in minutes….and at 11:30 I was wide awake! What the heck is going on with my body??
I dragged myself out of bed, and went to work in the office and listened to a book on disk. It was close to FOUR this morning before my eyes were finally getting heavy and I was able to get to sleep. I’ve been dragging around today, trying not to nap, so that maybe this evening I’ll be able to get to sleep.
My hours are off. I really want to be an early morning person. It just works well. I get to see Dear Husband for a bit, I get dishes and laundry done early, and I’m ready to work in the garden when warmer weather arrives. Sleeping late makes it tough to get into the groove of the day, and I find I waste a lot of morning time when I sleep late. I don’t understand why my body is fighting me on this issue, but I wish it would give in, and concede to my wishes!
If you have any tips to make sleep easier to find, and to keep, please let me know. My sheep are getting thin from all the exercise they’re getting jumping over the fence. *G*

January is filled with a LOT of chores that I really don’t like!
I just HATE to take down the Christmas tree. I’ll stall most of the year repacking the Christmas decorations, and have to dust them off before they can be put up again. It takes me so long to get all of the Holiday things in place that it seems a shame to have to pack them all up right away. I’m keeping one scrawny, fake Sitka spruce up for the entire year, so that I can show off the ornaments that my quilting bee has given me. That takes some of the sting out of facing the new year.
Today I spent several hours sorting papers. I have a large plastic bin under the knee hole of my office desk, and all my paid bills, and cards, and items that don’t seem to have any other place accumulate there during the year. I sorted through all those papers and began to pull them into stacks that made sense
I have all our paychecks, deposit slips and checks in one group. In another I have receipts for prescription drugs, to back up what should be on my computer. There’s a stack of invoices or receipts that will be used for taxes. I have a stack of things pertaining to gifts given last Christmas. And the largest stack of all holds paid bills. There’s also a smaller stack of things I wish to punch and file in our personal information book.
So, this is the start of gathering information for tax season. I don’t usually have this part started so soon, but in the back of my mind is the thought that it might be nice to have the data pulled together BEFORE we go off to Florida for a week. Then, I should be able to sit near the water, read my book and just be a lounge lizard!
We use Quicken to organize our checking. Luckily, the categories make it easy to pull data together for taxes. Our CPA sends a planner to guide my data gathering, so I’m less likely to overlook something we need for taxes. Unfortunately, Elegante Mother has not let me put her checkbook on the computer, so I’m searching her registers for information for her taxes, too.
I need to schedule time to quilt. I find that if I don’t claim a chunk of time and tell everyone that’s what I’m doing, that my time gets eaten up with household chores, or things for the others that could have been done some other time.
Chores…….I don’t even like the word,, now! I want to be CHORE-FREE! What about you?