Sleep? Me?

I have worked night shift since 1990. (minus 4 years at a job that was M-F 8-5) My reasons for working night shift in the beginning were my kids. Since I was afforded the convenience of living with my parents after my divorce, my parents were there to oversee my little angels at night while I was at work. I would get home, ship them off to school and sleep until I went and picked them up from school. My body got accustomed to sleeping very little, even though I was often tired. I did this for 11 years before I decided to get a day job.

I don't think I ever got used to working days. I would sleep about 4 hours a night and be up around 2 or 3am every morning. I finally went to the doctor and was prescribed sleeping pills. I fell asleep faster, still got up after 4 hours, and felt icky because of the pills. I only took about a weeks worth before I got tired of feeling icky after I woke up and also since they weren't helping me sleep any longer.

There are many days where I could probably sleep longer if I tried hard enough. But I've developed a sense of wasting time as I've gotten older. I feel like if I sleep longer than, say, 6 hours, I'm wasting my entire day. I rarely sleep longer than 5 and normally average around 4 and a half. Day or night.

I had a 7 hour marathon sleep last night. Stayed up till my normal 130am time, went to bed, got up around 6am for a bathroom break and decided I could probably lie down for a few more minutes. Those few minutes lasted till about 830 this morning.

With the extra sleep, I'm hoping to get a lot done today. I need to make the time to mow my yard once more before Winter really sets in. I need to finish up that corner so I can move on to the next. I need to do so much...

One thing I have learned by living on my own... it's sure a lot easier to get things like yard work done when you have someone sharing the chore with you. And it's a lot more fun, too. And it's a lot easier putting that chore off when it's only you that depends on it getting done. If I had to name just one downside to living by myself, this would be it.