restING, resolvING, and laughING with my mouth full

So, I could go into a big explanation as to why I haven't posted in so long, but I won't. Life has just been busy, now I'm on break and my laptop was the last thing I felt like looking at for awhile.

Anyway, I'm still on break, and its lovely. This has become one of my favorite times of the year. As much as I love all the hustle and bustle and glory and excitement of Christmas, I love this quiet, lovely, restful time afterwards. There's something about it. The slow putting away of an old year, and the bringing in of  new one.

For break I have simply been resting. Resting. In all its many forms. I would like to say I'm one of those people who do only  wholesome things with my break like, meditating, prayer, or even just reading (I've done a little of all of those things). But, I can also safely say I have watched every episode of 30 Rock (while eating McDonald's most of the time) and rewatched the episodes I found to be particularly hilarious. Laughing out loud...by myself, in my sweats, probably with my mouth full. It.was.glorious.

 I have been cleaning, here and there, little by little--putting away some Christmas decorations, reorganizing a cupboard here, and a drawer there. I think every stitch of clothing in our house besides what Dave and I are currently wearing, is clean.

I've been knitting. Working on that lovely kid mohair wrap. Its a creamy natural white, on wooden needles (I usually use metal) and something about that combination of the cream colored fuzzy yarn, and the grainy wooden needle is lovely to look at as I knit.

I've been sleeping. A lot. Whenever I want for however long I want, and staying up as late as I want.

It has all been wonderful. So very wonderful to just rest. Rest.

It has been this time of the year, that has slowly, year after year, developed into my own little sabbath. Kent recently shortened Christmas break in attempts to get us out earlier in the spring. While I know that once spring rolls around and I am done by the end of April, I will be elated, I sort of miss the extra time in the middle of winter.

I love this time to recharge, refresh, create, vegetate (hence the 30 Rock marathon), renew, and even prepare for the busyness ahead.

I love this time to reflect. I always say I'm not resolution person, but I think I secretly am.

I've been thinking about what I want from the next year. I know I want simplicity, I want rest (which I am still trying to figure out how that fits into the wild amount of work that comes a long with this final semester of classes and then student teaching in the fall...ugh...who wants to think about that right now!).

I want to be a resting place for others too.

I know one small goal I plan on moving towards in order to be that resting place, is listen more and talk less. Simple, maybe difficult. ??? Most people just want to be heard. I have ears. So I guess I'll try and  listen. Words are precious too, and that's just it. We use them like they aren't sometimes. I want my words to be valuable, to always leave people better if possible.

So, listen more, talk less.

So, that's it, break so far. Rest. Resolutions. Junk food. I have one more glorious week left.

Happy New Year everyone! I've really missed this online community and plan on being around more often if I can.

Image Credit: Somewhere on pinterest.com...

sleepING and not....mostly not

So lately...I don't sleep. Ok, maybe a little. Maybe four hours a night. Two on a bad night. Six on a good ("good night" occurring maybe two or three times in a month). It's awful. I don't mean to complain. I swore to myself I wouldn't use this blog as platform for complaint, but I really haven't been doING much worth blogging. I've been trying to slog through each day in a tired haze.

I've tried so many things. Warm milk, stretching, reading, counting sheep, reading about sheep (which is actually interesting to me, so I realized that wouldn't work for me). I pray. Which has been good actually. I've cut out caffeine completely, although I never drank much to begin with. I've tried not napping, but gave up. It didn't help. I still didn't sleep. I decided that if I could get some sleep during the day, it was still better then none all day. I even took a pregnancy test to make sure that wasn't the cause. Big sigh of relief...it is not.

Today, is actually a rare extra extra good day. I slept from 1:30am-7am and I fell back asleep for another hour or two. This is the best I've had for awhile. I'm hoping its the beginning of the end. I really really really hope its the beginning of the end.

Not sleeping is miserable. My whole body hurts sometimes because I'm just so tired. I'm sorry for anyone who has had season's of no sleep. Be it mom's, or other insomniacs like myself, or nightshift/swingshing workers.

It's taken over my life. I've skipped a class or two on bad days, for fear of falling asleep behind the wheel. My house is a mess. I fall asleep while reading for school. I feel so unproductive.I feel grumpy over silly things like facebook statuses, other drivers on the road, the fact that mail hasn't come yet. It's not an excuse for grumpiness, but it sure amplifies it.

I've had so many opinions about this given to me. "You must be stressed." You're right, I am...I haven't slept for a month or longer (I've lost track)...wouldn't you be? "Just wait until you have kids...you don't know what tired is..." Maybe. But for some reason, I think I do know what it is. I don't mean this disrespectfully. Sometimes I wish I wasn't sleeping because of kids. At least there would be a reason. I know that I am lucky in some regards, because at least my schedule is such that if I can fall asleep for a few minutes during the day, its ok. I can move my own schedule around with the exception of class times.

Again, I'm so sorry for using this for a platform to complain. It's just that this has been my life. I'm just ready to sleep again.

Next week is spring break. I'm going to try Motrin PM to get me back into a normal sleep rhythm. I think over the weekend, I will let myself rest and sleep as much as I can to "catch up". Then during the week I will try the PMs. I wait until break to try this because typically drowsy medicine makes me sleep much longer than the average person. If that doesn't work, its time to see the doctor I suppose. I'm also going to start running again. That should help...right?

Thanks for listening. I promise...this will be one of very very few complaining posts. I know that I'm blessed with a warm bed to at least try to sleep in, and a man I love sleeping beside me. I just know I would feel a whole lot better, if I could just sleep.