| It’s midnight and I can’t sleep. So instead of just enjoying the quiet hum of an otherwise bustling house, I think. And you know what “that” leads to… I start out thinking about the birthday party I need to plan for my youngest. Then I remember Thanksgiving hits right before his birthday, so I need to mentally and physically prepare for hosting a day full of brothers, sisters, and in-laws, not to mention nieces and nephews with sticky fingers, loaded diapers and missing parents. When thinking doesn’t lull me back to sleep, I get out of bed and shuffle to the living room to watch a little TV (if a documentary on the evolution of the cotton mill can’t put you to sleep, nothing will.) By the time the narrator begins detailing the life of Eli Whitney I begin to take note of areas of disorder in the house. Two light bulbs need to be replaced in the living room, which will require a ladder, which will mean I need to ask my husband where the ladder is, which leads to a ton of questions as to why I need a ladder, followed by a detailed outline of how we will replace each bulb with the most efficiency. Then I notice the baseboards and see how badly they need to be cleaned and repainted. In fact, the entire house needs to be repainted. I wonder if I can find someone to do it. Nope, we could just do it ourselves. Sure that would save money but we’d kill each other or at the very least call each other very bad names. It’s already 2 a.m. and I’m now wide awake. Maybe food will do the trick. There’s still some chocolate chip cookies left over from a Halloween party. Of course, if I eat those, I’ll need to balance it out with something salty like the brand new bag of Salt and Vinegar chips I hid from the kids. No! I shouldn’t eat that junk in the middle of the night. But then when is the best time to eat junk food? After a very satisfying midnight or 2 a.m. snack, I shuffle back to bed. I try to do what all the experts say we should do when faced with insomnia… Clear your mind. So I’m clearing my mind. There’s nothing to worry about. Worry doesn’t help me tackle my to-do list. Worry doesn’t take the mercury out of the salmon I made for dinner. Worry won’t help me lose 10 pounds (neither will the cookies and chips for that matter). Worry won’t pay my children’s college tuition. But man if it did, they could go anywhere they wanted on a full-ride worryship. No! All this thinking about what worry can’t accomplish isn’t allowing me to clear my mind. Clearing, clearing, clearing until I’m almost asleep then, BOOM! The alarm goes off. My husband who snored most of the night is already up and before I can pour the first cup of coffee he says, “You know you’d feel better if you didn’t stay up watching TV.” Now to remember what experts say you should do when your spouse says something completely moronic. by Becky Andrews Email Becky at becky@wilsonlivingmagazine.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Read all of Angel and Becky’s blogs at www.tellingtalesblog.com |
