Sleep Deprivation and Why My Husband is the Best

Good morning!  The last week has been slightly hectic, and I apologize for my subsequent blogging hiatus.  Every time I started a new post I thought, I got nothing.  Don’t worry… I have returned :).

On Friday night our youth group had a lock-in at church–50+ people, all night, no sleep.  The night was full of: manhunt (similar to hide-and-seek), dodge ball, movies, a ghost tour, duct tape games, and lots of food.

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The object of the duct tape game was to tape someone so that they hang on the wall for the longest once the chair is pulled away.  The winner (the girl on the right in the above photo) said her winning strategy was simple: wear pants.  Great life advice as well.

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Part of the “ghost tour”… it’s not everyday you get to wear a gorilla costume 😀

 I had a blast, and I think all the youth did as well, but I spent the rest of the weekend recovering from the lack of sleep!  Spoiler alert: when I don’t get enough sleep, I become helpless, and Andrew is a saint.  I crawled into my bed around 8:45 AM and slept until 12:30 PM Saturday.  When I finally shuffled myself downstairs to the kitchen, my sweet, sweet husband handed me a bowl of overnight oats.  Before he’d gone to bed Friday night, Andrew prepared my breakfast knowing I’d be too exhausted to function Saturday morning.  How sweet is that?

After very slowly eating breakfast, I was ready for a nap.  (Yes, one hour and the process of eating oatmeal zapped all my energy.)  I hobbled back upstairs, crawled back into bed, but could not seem to fall asleep.  I started thinking about soup.  It was a little chilly, and I was so tired, and soup sounded like just about the greatest thing in the world.  But how can I get this soup?  I’m upstairs in bed.  Do we even have soup in the house?  I decided my only option was to call Andrew’s cell phone (he was still all the way downstairs at this point).  I called and sadly heard his phone vibrating on his bedside table.  Dang.

I hobbled back downstairs and stood in the kitchen, where Andrew had pulled out the rubber gloves and was deep cleaning the sink and counters.  After a minute he turned and looked at me.

“Hi honey.  How are you doing?”

“I’m tired.  Let’s make soup.”

“We can make soup, but I don’t think we have everything we need.  Do you want me to go out and get you some soup?”

“I don’t know.  I think I need a shower.”

Andrew went back to cleaning because he’s an awesome husband, and I made the trip upstairs to take a shower… where I fell asleep.  When I finally got myself ready to leave the house (it took longer than you might think), Andrew walked upstairs to change clothes.  He picked up his cell phone.

“Did you call me at 1:30?”

“Yeah.”

“Where were you?”

(I patted my side of the bed.)

“You called me from the bed?”

“Yeah.  About the soup.”

“What about the soup?”

“That I wanted some.”

“I didn’t have my phone with me.”

“…I know.”

Sleep deprivation at its finest.  God bless that man for being patient with me. 😀

We ran a few errands, acquired all the ingredients for this soup, and made my sleepy dreams come true:

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Mmm.  Soup.  🙂

Sleep was the theme of the rest of the weekend:  fell asleep on the couch Saturday night, slept in Sunday morning, fell asleep on the couch again Sunday afternoon…

Andrew and I both took off work today because my lack of sleep stole our weekend, and we have some good things planned for the day (that’s not entirely true… we are planning to plan some good things for the day, but so far we haven’t made it past, “Sleep in and eat breakfast.” 😀

Have a great Monday!

Sleep deprivation:  do you become as helpless as I do?
What did you do this weekend?
Have you ever worn a gorilla costume?

 

Sleepy, Stressed, and Snotty

 

(No, Snow White did not discover two new dwarfs ;-))

If we spoke yesterday, you likely said something to me along the lines of, “You sound exhausted!” or “You sound a bit snotty!” or “You’re too young to sound this worn out!”  After a crazy-busy weekend I was met with a hectic week at work (which, admittedly, was at least 65% my fault,) which meant I did not take my usual post-retreat rest day to let myself recover physically.  This is the cycle I’ve been in the last few days:  complete as much as possible at work while feeling especially tired (having not caught up from the weekend,) blow my nose about once every 15 minutes due to allergies, have trouble falling asleep that night because I need to blow my nose and am thinking about everything I need to do at work, wake up at 2:31 a.m., blow my nose, toss and turn until 3:17 a.m. because I am thinking about everything I need to do at work, wake up to my alarm feeling more tired and more snotty, skip working out due to tiredness, and repeat.

Generally when I feel less than 100%, medicine is not my first choice of remedies.  When I feel sickness coming on, before I do anything else, I rest.  I sleep in, skip a workout, and allow my body to heal itself.  More often than not, this is effective.  My second step is to see if Traditional Medicinals has a tea for my ailment.  Usually, they do.  (As a side note, their “Throat Coat” tea is pure magic. )   When rest and herbal teas fail, I’ll take medicine.

Rest has been an issue for me this week–I have too much to do to take a day off, and I am not sleeping well at night, which is making me more tired.  TM’s relaxation teas are great, but don’t get the work done, and their “Gypsy Cold Care” eases symptoms, but does not remove the pollen from my surroundings.  Last night, therefore, I called for backup.

8:45 p.m.–I took Benadryl.  I know some people take the stuff regularly to sleep, but I do not!  The last time I took it was about six years ago when some allergen made its way into my eye, which started swelling like crazy.

8:55 pm.–Dreamland.  I vaguely remember Andrew getting in bed, and the next time I woke it was 7:01, and my alarm was sounding.

Over 10 hours of mostly uninterrupted sleep.  My sinuses are a bit clearer.  Amazing.  I feel a little more equipped to take on the day!

I would like to give a quick shout-out to Andrew, who made an awesome dinner by himself last night so I could do nothing, AND brought me some just-because flowers.

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Swordfish and Swiss chard + brown rice (what, you don’t eat swordfish on a Tuesday night? ;-))

 

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When you start feeling sick, do you take medicine, rest, or both?  Do you workout when you aren’t feeling well?