Counting Sheep

I am so tired today. It has been creeping up on me gradually for a while. Started with a cold I had a couple of weeks ago that made it difficult to sleep and then I seem to have got out of the habit of sleeping properly.

I have no trouble nodding off quickly at night (by then I'm dark tired and fall asleep as soon as my head touches the pillow) but then I wake up early in the morning, not fully rested but unable to get back to sleep.

One night is fine but this has been going on too long - I am looking so tired and every year of my age.

No good eating well and exercising if you still look like the living dead.

Not sure what to do about this. Any ideas?

Finishing Touches

A whole two years ago we remodeled the back of our house and the old kitchen became a utility room while we made a much larger kitchen in the old dining room. I loved my new kitchen and wanted it to be perfect but I never got around to getting kitchen curtains to complete the room decoration.

Now the kitchen windows are large and not overlooked (they just look out into the garden. They have beautiful plants on the window sill but I always thought curtains or blind would finish off the kitchen nicely.

However two years on, it isn't going to happen I can see. The room could do with repainting again already. It still looks good but I can see that a lick of paint would be good - all that greasy air and steam plays havoc with any kitchen decor and I can't see myself paying a lot for curtains or blinds and hanging them up there.

So if you redecorate a room, don't do what I did and be sure to finish it right away. Just don't get too used to how the room is without the finishing touches or you might never get them.

Actually I think I know

Actually I think I know where all my time goes - it goes on chores!

Just an example today.

It's a lovely day. I go outside into the back garden to sit with my coffee for a break from my work on the PC. On the way I notice there's enough white washing to do a load of laundry. Then I get outside and I see the cracks between the patio stones are besieged by weeds so I get out the little knife tool thing I use for that. By the time I've done that my coffee is cold!

I make myself a new cup and settle myself down on the garden chair - mmmh bliss - and then I look across at the other recliner and notice the cushions are getting a bit grubby. Should I wash them or buy new ones? So I spend a bit of time as soon as I come in finding out about patio cushions.

So I have done quite a lot as you see but it's nothing that I had especially planned. I seem to drift from chore to chore - it all gets done - laundry gets washed, gardens get weeded and patio cushions get bought - but I'm not following what I had planned for my day.

Gotta get better at that!

Where Does it All Go?

When I gave up my Dilbert cubicle four years ago I thought I would have loads of time.

What a shock to find out that doesn't seem to be the case and now I wonder how I ever had time to fit in any work at all!

It is so true that work expands to fill the time available (Parkinson's law?). No sooner have I had my morning coffee than it is time to pick up the kids from school, sweep the dust under the carpet and make dinner for poor hubbie (who is thankfully, despite the credit crunch, still doing a Dilbert)

So it was not the evil JOB taking up my time after all - it was ME (Yikes!) to blame.

Still I am happier now than I was then, less stressed (though poorer financially), things do get done and I no longer have to dread Mondays...more soon