Sleep Deprivation

I have spent most of my life, like most people, being sleep deprived. I am a night person living in a morning world. Until the last 12 years of my working life, I always worked days. I have always put off going to bed. I knew I needed more sleep but I hated wasting all that time getting it when there was so much I wanted to do.

Over the years I have done about every type of needlework there is, I have taken classes in everything from blacksmithing to electronics to sign language. I have volunteered at church and in the community. Sleep and work cut into that time. Since I had to work, sleep was where I cut back to gain more time. We only have so many hours on this earth, why waste them sleeping.

There are consequences though. I have started nodding off in class and ended up with scribbles instead of notes. You know that feeling that you have heard everything that was said and you have been writing the whole time? Well I really was writing the whole time. The problem was that it was all in one spot. I had one spot where I had piled letter after letter on top of each other. If I had been in a cartoon I could have grabbed the tail of it and pulled it out to make sentences of it. But, I just lost all those notes.

When I was working, there were nights that I would fight sleep all night. Most of the time I was OK as long as I didn't sit down . There was one night that I was so tired and running a line that ran continuously so you didn't sit down to do paperwork, you stood at a table designed for that. I was standing at the table writing and the next thing I knew I was flat on my back on the floor and the guy from the next line was hanging over me saying, "How did you do that?" Fortunately, the floor at that place had one of those heavy rubber mats on it. I had dropped off to sleep in an instant and one knee buckled and I just dropped down and rolled out flat on the mat. He wanted me to demonstrate it again! Apparently, it was pretty funny to see.

I learned the hard way to put down my knitting when I start to nod. I didn't at first and I would wake up with a jerk and still having a needle in each hand, I would jerk them out. It wouldn't have been so bad if that is all that I had done but I had pulled the knitting so hard that I started a run in it and sometimes I had to rip back to bottom of that and start again.

I also have a tendency to think I know what I am doing in a pattern when I am tired and I will check it to make sure it is right. The next day when I look at it I wonder what I was thinking when I did. It sometimes is so far off that I could swear someone messed with it after I quit.

Now that I am older and wiser(?) I still put off going to sleep. I can't change a lifetime habit but I found that when you retire and don't have to get up early every day I can finally enjoy being an owl.

Housework? Me?

I hate housework. There are so many other things I could be doing. Fun things. And you have to keep doing it over and over. I have organized drawers, cabinets and closets trying to avoid getting the vacuum cleaner out and running it.

And I have a mother that loves to clean! To me that is just crazy. She always told Dad that she saved him a fortune in psychiatry bills when he bought her "the Kirby". It was huge, heavy and loud. When she couldn't stand the noise any more and the stress level shot up, she hauled out the vacuum cleaner and went over the whole house. By the time she was done, she was calm, the house (which was already spotless) was clean and she was ready to deal with anything else. When the vacuum came out, the rest of us would make ourselves scarce until she was done.

By the time I am done vacuuming, shoving and jerking the thing back and forth muttering, "I hate this, I hate this," I am so irritated and sweaty that I can't find much satisfaction in it. I know I need an attitude adjustment, but it would probably take some heavy duty hypnosis or drugs or something to do that.

My mother always said, "Now don't you feel good having a clean house?" Ok, after I take a shower and sit down and relax after doing all that, I do feel good. But, I would feel so much better coming home to a house that was already clean without having to go through all that to get to that point. Unfortunately, I could never justify spending the money to do that so I never got to experience that particular pleasure.

I have spent my life living in piles. The mail is piled on the kitchen table, books are piled next to my recliner, knitting is piled next to my rocking chair, ironing is piled on the daybed. As long as I live like that I know exactly where everything is. But the minute I start cleaning, I lose everything.

I have a file cabinet that I have tried to keep paperwork in and up-to-date. When I go through and file it, I lable the files with perfectly obvious words that will trigger my memory the next time I look for that info. I don't understand why, down the road a few months or years when I am trying to locate that info, I can't find it anywhere. I try every logical word I can think of that would relate to the info. Much later, when I do locate it, I wonder why I ever thought that the word I used would ever trigger anything, let alone the memory of that info.

Part of the house cleaning problem resolved itself when the rest of the family moved away from here. Hum, I wonder if they are trying to tell me something? Anyway, with them all three hours away, I only have to "mother clean" when Mother is coming. Otherwise it is a lick and a promise and low lights to hide the dust. After making a surprise visit once, my folks now tell me two weeks in advance when they are coming. They learned what dust bunnies are and I'm not talking the little bit of lint you might find in their house. I still don't know how those dust bunnies got in the bathtub.

Daily Routine? What's That?

I was raised by parents that adhered to a daily routine just like their parents did. You would think that 18 years of living that way would influence me somehow. They say it only takes 2 months to form a habit. Eighteen years wasn't enough for me.


And somebody in this family (I'm talking ancestors) had a big-time procrastination gene that I obviously inherited. I don't have a problem putting off till tomorrow what I could do today. Especially when it comes to housework.


But the problem with routine is that you can't have any fun until the work is done. That seems to be neverending though. For some reason, since I retired I feel like I should have more fun time.


When I first retired, I tried the routine thing. I got up early every day and worked all morning so I could take the rest of the day off. That only lasted a couple of months. I'm a night person and I lost so much sleep I ended up napping the rest of the day. Morning people don't understand this and think you are just lazy because you don't leap out of bed at the crack of dawn ready to start the morning routine.


I see the value in routine. You can get so much done. But who wants to do the same thing at the same time all the time? That's like eating the same thing every day. Variety is the spice of life.



So, that leads to excuses for not doing the routine things. My current favorite is, "I don't want to get sweaty." I spent the last 12 years of my working life in a factory job sweating all night. I swore that when I retired I would never sweat again. OK, living in Nebraska that is not possible unless you never leave the house between March and October but it sounded good. Of course that really limits your life. Even with AC in the car you still have to get out in those 90 degree days.



I love to knit which leads to, "I'm knitting for charity (or a birthday or Christmas, etc.) so I should make that my priority and work on it whenever I can. I don't have time for a routine. I have to get this done. Which is fine till you realize that it isn't foggy in the living room, that is a layer of dust on the TV screen that you are trying to see through. I realized this when the sunlight hit the screen. That is why you watch TV in low light. Thank goodness I don't have anyone aroung writing, "DUST ME" on everything.


Routine would also help with the memory. Monday is wash day, Tuesday is ironing day, etc. At least then I would remember what day it is and get places on the right day. You aren't left sitting in front of a dark library swearing that it is always open on Friday, when it is Thursday.

So I have realized that having a daily routine is a great thing. But you have to be predisposed to it or it doesn't mean anything except a guilt trip when you don't have one and company is expected any time. Then you really work up a sweat trying to do everything you should have done already!

Failing and Learning

We are all familiar with "learning from your failures"; we hear it all the time. It is true as frustrating as it is at times.



A few years ago I was taking some classes and things were going well. So, when my lawnmower started clanking I decided to tear it apart and see what was causing it. Another duh moment. What on earth made me think I could fix a mower? I was working a lot of overtime at the time and I think I figured that I could pay someone to mow the yard or put the mower back together if I couldn't.



So I sat down in the middle of the garage and disassembled the mower. I never did figure out what was clanking. I did manage to get to get it all back together with no extra parts left over and a minimum of gas spillage. And, it worked! And it didn't clank any more. But that was just sheer luck because I didn't know what I was doing and didn't really learn anything from the experience.



On the other hand, when I replaced all the innards of the toilet tank not long ago because it wouldn't stop running, I learned what "finger tight" is. Obviously the manufacturers finger tight and mine are a long way apart. I also learned real fast that you don't just assume that everything is good and turn the water on full blast. Having huge bath towels comes in handy.

So, after wrench tightening, and gingerly turning the water back on, I learned how tight the nuts and things have to be to avoid flooding the bathroom.

Another Learning Experience - Home Repairs

Years ago when I moved into my first house, I was just renting, my father gave me some basic tools for Christmas. Hammer, pliers and a couple of screwdrivers. I was able to hang pictures but had never tried anything more. Every once in a while I would decide to "fix" something minor rather than call for help. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. Dad had to come over and bail me out. Finally he told me, nicely, to please call him before I tried to fix it.

This was OK till he moved and I was on my own. By that time, I owned my own home and had to do the repairs having no landlord or Father to call on. So I bought a couple of fix-it books and started on my journey. I was actually pretty successful with what I tried.

By now I had added a few more tools to my hand-me-down toolbox and Dad had given me his old drill when he bought a new one. I kept trying to talk him into buying a new circular saw but he never would. I can't imagine why!

One of my repair jobs came as the result of an argument my daughter and I had. I don't even remember what it was about now. I was a single parent and she was a teenager. Nuff said. Anyway, I was so mad at her that I sent her to her room and after fuming a few more minutes I went to my room and slammed the door! Well, that stupid door hit the jamb trim and popped it off and went right on through the opening about 6 inches. So now I am stuck in my bedroom and I can't get out.

Believe me, I tried to figure out anything rather than call my daughter for help. The nails holding the trim were all still in the jamb bent out so I couldn't pull the door back through. The door wouldn't go out any further. I couldn't even climb out the window because everything was still locked and I couldn't get back in and my keys were in the kitchen. (I've since learned to keep my purse and keys and cell phone in the bedroom with me). All my tools were down the basement. (No, I don't keep them in the bedrom now. There is a limit to what I can get in there).

So, I had to call my daughter. I told her she could come out of her room long enough to get the hammer for me but that if she so much as cracked a smile she would be grounded for a month. She came out and managed not to smile when she handed me the hammer. I sent her back to her room while I got out of my room and fixed the damage. Fortunately, the trim popped off in one piece and was not damaged. I just pulled the bent finishing nails out of the jamb and nailed it back on.

By that time I was over being mad and told my daughter she could come out of her room. She came out and sat down and looked at me and said, "Now can we laugh?"

Wade Before You Surf

One thing I have learned is that I have to go step by step to learn all these things. So all of you who feel the world is whizzing by while you are trying to catch on, join me in a learning journey.

When I first braved the internet, it was just to email and someone else set it up for me. I have Windows XP and I used Outlook for email. I also had an email address provided by my cable provider. This was fine as long as I was home. But I found out that if I wanted to access my email from any other computer I could only see the new messages and could not refer to anything I had saved. So, I had to get another email address. Gmail or Hotmail works. There are also others out there. I also had to learn how to set this up myself.

I didn't have time or opportunity to take a class (which I recommend if possible) so I did the next best thing and bought a book. I underline, highlight and put sticky tabs on pages of vital information. Yup, the book is an inch and a half thick and looks like a porcupine along the top and right sides with all the tabs. But it is an easy book to understand -- it's all pictures!

The book is Master Visually Windows XP. The website address is

http://www.hungryminds.com/ which will take you to Wiley website. Enter the words master visually into their search box and it will bring up alot of books.

This book gives you a picture of the actual page and red arrows with explanation for everything.

So little by little I started to go through this book as I ran into things I wanted to do. I would work on it and if I didn't get it I would leave it alone for a few days and let it jell. Most of the time when I came back to it and started over again, it would fall into place.

For those of you that learn like I do, you will understand this. Take it at your own pace a little at a time. You are never too old to learn if you want to.

The Light Dawns

,This is my first blog. I know, I can hear the groans from all you experienced bloggers out there but there it is. I am doing this out of curiosity. I don't really read blogs as this is all new to me. I have resisted all this computer stuff for a long time but have come to the realization (aha) that to get anywhere you have to know something whether you like it or not (that's a duh moment).

I have been working on my PC for about a month now and what I have learned is amazing to me. I have to say, what I know would not fill a thimble as opposed to those of you with a world of knowledge. But to me the discoveries have been exciting.

For one thing, I got a new PC. My old one was so slow that I would play Majong while pages were loading. I was amazed at how fast they load on the new one. I am learning to do more than email and shop and just surf. I find that I learn the most by figuring out how to undo what I just did and I go in a lot of circles doing it. I don't have a straight anaylitical mind. I take a lot of loops to get where I am going. I have found that if I print pages, open another window for another operation and taking notes on everything eventually it starts falling into place and I accomplish something. Not necessarily what I started out to do but usually as helpful.

This is new so I have to figure out all that I can do with it. This is just a little record of my learning curve.