Sleepless in Orlando

Last week I read Arianna Huffington's challenge to get more sleep in 2010. As a poor sleeper, sleep, or the lack thereof, is always on my mind. (Particularly around 3 p.m., when my brain announces it has had enough thinking and checks out for the day.) So I already had made "get more sleep" one of the changes I shall make for 2010. I know the importance of sleep, how it helps the brain function and helps cells repair, and how lack thereof impedes everything from clear thinking to weight loss. I vowed to make getting enough sleep a top priority in 2010.

I just forgot to get every living creature around me on board with this.

Last night wasn't too awful - I was in bed and asleep by 9:30. My comfortable deep sleep was interrupted at 3:30 by the soft, insistent woofs of a small dog, bitching in the dark. Profanity and instructions to go back to bed were ignored. This is the same small dog who decided he didn't want to sleep in the big bed last night, and instead climbed into his own bed. Well, at 3:30 a.m., his bed was cold, and he changed his mind. Okay, after some woofing and some swearing, I scooped him up and dropped him on the bed next to me. Some scratching of the blankets and a really powerful fart, and he fell silent again, until 5:30. 8 hours - fair enough. 9 or 10 would have been better, but I do have to get up really early during the week and I actually prefer not to screw up with my sleep patterns by sleeping later. 8 hours is great. I can live with that.

The sleep of the night before wrecked my Saturday. On Friday night I went to sleep around 10, but the 3 a.m. interruption didn't come from inside the house. The compressor for the HVAC system, which sits in the backyard near the house, is, unfortunately, located close to one of the bedroom windows. We also have a rodent population here. Friday night, perhaps attracted to the warmth coming from the unit on a very bitter cold night, one somehow squeezed inside. Where there are spinning fan blades. Yeah, that's a sound that will wake you from a very deep, happy sleep. I identified the sound immediately because this has happened at least once before. This time, I was not able to fall asleep again. I tried very hard, but it just wasn't happening. I was up at 4:15.

I huddled in the house all day yesterday - it was freezing and sleeting, I was exhausted and cold, and I made up for it by eating all day. Exercise? 10,000 steps? Hah. I did walk to the fridge several times. Nap, you ask? Like a lot of bad sleepers, I am also a bad napper. I have to be running a fever to be able to nap, and a nap usually leaves me more tired, not refreshed. It sucks.

But I had 8 hours last night, and today will be better. It will still be cold, but the sun will shine. I will get out and run errands in the sunshine, including a shlep to the dreaded IKEA. I know, a lot of people LOVE IKEA!!! but to me, shopping there is a cross between visiting a Home Depot before a hurricane and a theme park on a holiday weekend, and 90% of their stuff is butt-ugly. There, I said it. It's the 10% that isn't that gets me in there once or twice a year. This time, I'm going for these: bottles for my kombucha. My son recycles beer bottles for his, and I have some empty beer bottles and a bottle capper gadget, but then I saw these resealable larger bottles and thought, "Hmmm." For six bucks, I'll try bottling both ways and see which is more convenient. My first batch of kombucha was delicious - I flavored it with fresh ginger, and it tasted just as good as the expensive bottled stuff. My second batch is brewing on the counter even as I type.

And of course, IKEA does have some cute kid stuff, and a few little things for my impending granddaughter may have to come home with me. After all, it's a long way to go for six bucks' worth of glass bottles. :-)

No problem getting in my 10K steps and then some today - just hiking around that store will do it.