Insert Pun Here

I'm tired of insomnia. Wocka wocka wocka!!

My husband? He can make the decision, "I should go to bed now," and do so. There he goes, and he's soon asleep.

My body? It takes that whole "second wind" thing entirely too seriously.
The scene: It's 8pm, my daughter has just gone to sleep, and Seth & I want to watch some TV.

Body: I am soooooooo tired! I could fall asleep right here on the couch!
Brain: No. It's way too early. You know that if we go to bed right now, you'll just be a bastard and treat it like a nap, and I'll be up in 3 or 4 hours.
Body: So, we're not going to bed?
Brain: Nope. Suck it up for a bit.
Body: Ooookay.

3.5 Hours Later:
Brain: Well, it's time to go to sleep now. This is a perfectly reasonable hour to go to bed. Let's do that, shall we?
Body: HAHAHAHA! I do what I want! We're staying up now!

Another 3.5 Hours Later:
Brain: Now? Can please go to bed now?
Body: Nope! You might have to pee again in a little bit, so we better just stay up all night. Why don't you start a movie?

I realize that central metaphor of my stunning drama has fallen apart because at some point, it is my brain keeping me awake, or at least part of my brain, while the rest of me desperately wants to sleep.

This has been going on, what, 8 years? More? I think I need to stop taking classes that don't get me home until midnight. Especially if we get a baby/toddler, I'll need to be partaking in that thing the kids call "sleeping at night."

Oh, I'm stuffed

I completely forgot to write yesterday, but that's really okay, because I'm not sure I read one, single thing. 

Today was a terrific day, and I've read a variety of things. I woke up at 8am, which was not as many hours of sleep as I may have wanted, but I was pretty happy to be awake early.  After breakfast and a bit of World Cup watching, Seth and I went for a run, which was awesome. 

Most of the remainder of the afternoon was spent reading.  Among other things, I started working on C.S. Lewis Remembered, and it is quite lovely so far.  This book focuses on the recollections of people who knew him in a professional setting, especially his students.  Even though I know he was a caring man and took time to write to people, I guess that I still had the stereotypical image of the cranky, English genius, but it seems that was far from the truth.  He was generous both with his money and with his time, helping students and colleagues alike with encouragement and his great knowledge. 

He would always take your little ideas seriously and help make the into something, with the result that young people often felt they had been in amazing form after sitting next to him of an evening.

This sentence struck me, and I realized that I want to be known for being like this.  Especially as I come alongside (sorry, hate that phrase, but it fits) young people and encourage them in their faith and now that I'm moving into teaching more, I want to help people to blossom and make them feel smart instead of just trying to show how smart I am.  This will take some heart adjustments, but I trust God with the tinkering. 

Ah, a read for fun day

I didn't do any homework today, and that was totally fine.  I would have read a little bit for school, but the book I need hasn't come yet.  Other than that one, of which I read as much as I could on Amazon, I'm pretty much done with my duties for this week.  We had an essay due tonight, and I appear to be the only one who has turned it in.  I was going to be all proactive and respond to others tonight, but there are none there. 

I had a lovely, social day, and had a good time at the gym tonight, and I read.  I'm working on Redeeming Love and I mostly like it.  There are sentences & scenes every once in a while that are a tad on the "corny Christian fiction" side, but not many, and I'm enjoying the story. 

This is the problem:  when I'm into a book, I'm kind of okay with not going to bed at a decent, human hour, because I want to read.  I've always been this way. 
I may need the help of nyquil tonight, because I was at the gym later than I expected (doing an  hour of cardio will do that) and I...well, I took a nap.  Kind of.  Fell asleep on the couch.  But I was so tired!!  I could hardly keep my eyes open.  Gah. 

Tomorrow we have a YA event at a park, where we'll be hiking (wandering in the hills, really) for a couple hours, then grilling by one of the lakes.  It should be lovely.

Also, I realize that YA can refer to teenagers, like Young Adult fiction.  That is not this group, though there are some teenagers involved. It's college and other young adults, up to around the mid-30s mark, meaning that I'm too old, but I'm a leader, so there.

Didn't blog yesterday, but slept AT NIGHT

thank you, nyquil. 
I didn't remember about blogging yesterday until I was safely tucked into bed at 11pm, and I decided to stay there, rather than get up & turn the computer back on to blog.  Sorry, blogging goal.

I had a good day yesterday, and I mostly read for school.  I continued to work on Authentic Human Sexuality, which continued to be really interesting and good.  It is really one of the best, most realistic Christian books on sex I've read.  Of course, it's written by a family therapist and a sociologist (my professors for this class), so you would hope it would be honest and realistic.  The section I read was still a basic introduction/overview, so I'll be interested to see how specific issues are dealt with moving forward.

I also started on Beyond Sex Roles, which is a nice complement to the class on women in ministry that I took.  At first, I didn't think it would have anything really new to add to what I learned there, but it's nice because it appears that he's starting from the creation accounts and may analyze every relevant passage in the Bible about men & women.  So far, I just read about Genesis, and I was both reminded of things I learned in my class and shown a new way of seeing some things.  It's pretty exciting.

I wasn't sure that this class was going to be what I wanted it to be, but it's going to great.  I think it's going to be very good for real-life issues in ministry, and just in life.  As I've gotten to know a little about some of my classmates (through our message board), I see that we all have vastly different ministry experience, but we all have similar questions on issues in sexuality that we're bringing to the discussion and we know that the church needs to address these issues more clearly and, well, at all. 

This has gotten old.

I've been mostly incapacitated for about 2.5 weeks now.  Well, not quite incapacitated, but it feels like it.  First, I had a week of asthma that truly sucked.  I've never had what I would call asthma attacks before, but this was bad:  very tight lungs and sheer exhaustion.  Once I finally went to the doctor, I found out that both my inhalers were expired, which is why they weren't helping very much.  New inhalers helped a lot, not that the lack of inhalants was what caused the attack.  That remains a mystery.

Or it was from sickness.  (Sweet, fancy Moses, I just typed "frum" at first.)  I had wondered if my complete exhaustion was just from the asthma or from my body fighting something.  Once Seth got sick, I was quite proud of my body for successfully fighting off his illness.  Then I got it.  Blerg.  I started feeling sick 10 days ago, and I am super tired of it.  I had a good, old-fashioned flu.  Achy body, fever, stuffy head and headache, and cough.  I thought I would be over it by the end of the week, but it won't leave!  I missed my last class, didn't visit family with Seth, and missed church.  Gah.

At my professor's suggestion (she's a sicky who totally understands being wiped out and having to take care of yourself), I have requested an incomplete for this quarter.  I thought I could do it, but my sleep has gotten even more jacked up than usual with this sickness draining my energy (naps lead to being up all night, even though I am completely exhausted), and even when I am up, I can't always concentrate on research.  I was feeling kind of guilty about requesting it, but after I took the dogs to the dog park yesterday, barely exerted myself at all, and came home feeling wiped to have my husband say, "You don't look like you feel good," I decided to go for it.  I'll keep plugging away and get my stuff done ASAP (like, next week), but it will be nice to have the stress off. 

This illness has prompted a number of people to say, "You're sick a lot," which has pissed me off a bit.  It pisses me off that I do seem to be sick often, and it makes me feel like it's viewed as a personal failing on my part to have such a weakling of an immune system.  I don't think of myself as an unhealthy person, but maybe I am.  Or maybe my body just doesn't react well to my previous modus operandi. 

Nevertheless, I am changing things.  Seth's health added into the equation, we need change.  We've already begun changing our diets, and I'm trying to shift it into a higher gear.  I'm having more vegetarian days and I'm planning on loading up on fruit and veggies and just concentrating on eating real food as opposed to processed junk.  I've been doing this for a few weeks already and I do love it.  I've also noticed that, possibly due to sluggishness but I'll take it, I just don't care about eating and food that much, which is a fan-freaking-tastic change for me. 

Wrapping up: I'm hopeful about our food and excited about eating better.  I'm kinda depressed today because I want to be well and go running and I just want my sleep to be fixed already once and for all. 

//end depressing and ranting blog post//

Part of the problem

Part of the problem with my sleep troubles is that due to allergies & a deviated septum, I am a mouth breather. Mouth breathing leads to thirst, which leads to lots of drinks at night, which leads to more peeing. So, I try to go to bed, but then I have to pee. I'm thirsty, too, so I drink water while peeing. Then I toddle back to bed. Wait an hour or so (or less!) and repeat. Do it again later.

Sleepy Bible Verses

It seems that a number of people happen upon my blog when looking for a godly response to insomnia. These are verses that I found years ago, when I was barely sleeping. It was actually when I started this blog, and I'm surprised that I didn't post these back then.

Psalm 3:5 I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.

Psalms 4:8 I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.

Psalms 127:2 In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for he grants sleep to those he loves.

Proverbs 3:23 [If you preserve sound judgment & discernment] ...when you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.

Matthew 11:28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Isaiah 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trust in you.

2 Corinthians 6:4-6 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love;

Romans 8:6 The mind controlled by the sinful nature is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.

I'm currently in a period of messed-up sleep, but I know that it's not the end of the world. Of course, I don't have kids or work to worry about. But pray these verses, and look up other ones about resting in God. It's going to be okay. Maybe some of the things we think are urgent and important aren't that high on God's priority list for us.

The Madness Begins

I'm afraid that I'll quite often be slightly crabby when writing here, due to the lack of sleep and whatnot.
Although, on one hand, I enjoy being up late and being able to read and hang out, I also really would like to sleep when the other people (like my husband) do and then be able to actually enjoy part of the actual daylight before going to work or turning in for the night.

I always feel guilty when I'm not reading my Bible when I'm up late. Psalm 119 continually talks about meditating on the Word day and night and then you'll be wise, healthy, etc. And I believe that and I want to have the desire to just pick up my Bible more often, it's just that I am so tired and just want to vegetate and not think. But I sure make a heck of a lot more time for television than I do for God.

That's depressing. But I'll not be pessimistic (although, again, the sleepiness and crabbiness make that hard...). I'm a work in progress.

I think that this is all for today. Perhaps you won't hear from me tomorrow! A girl must have faith that sleep will come.