Sleep Is the Cure

So not only was I at the end of my rope on Sunday (yes, I did rouse myself and get myself to grade that stack!  It turned out to be easier than I thought), but by Friday afternoon, I was officially stupid.  At the end of my last class on Friday, I was saying things that made no sense.  These six-hour teaching days leave me shaky and rattled and mentally buzzing and physically exhausted.  It's amazing how much this schedule has really screwed me up.  And then there was the fact that last weekend I was grading grading grading as best I could. 

So I tried to sleep in on Saturday to limited success.  But it was a snowing-all-day kind of day and so we had a fire going in the woodstove and I also made soup and bread for lunch (neither homemade -- I haven't really cooked in forever now) which also set me up for sleepiness, and we ended up watching Christmas movies on the TV, and I dozed on the couch.  This is one of my favorite things -- dozing and listening to familiar movies on the couch.  In fact, when I'm sick, this is all I want to do.  I did this for much of the afternoon, and then in the early evening I felt great and unpacked two book boxes in the office, went through the dry cleaning and set aside some to take in, and made myself a little stack of Big Project books to read.  Then yesterday I woke up and made serious and amazing headway on Tiny Article, graded four projects, and did the bills.  In short, this sleep thing is amazing! 

I often stay up late because I feel cheated without any me time after Absurdist Child goes to sleep.  I get so grumpy without any me time.  So sleep often gets shortchanged.  But of course this is stupid too, because sleep is so important to one's overall health.  I'm often trying to balance sleep and morale.  (Keeping my morale up is a huge effort since I struggle with moodiness and depression and once I start getting moody or depressed I make bad decisions and am not a very good family member.  The family suffers enough when I have PMS.)  But obviously sleep is so necessary.  I know this realization that sleep is so important should change my decisions, but I doubt they will.  At the same time, I'm excited about some more catching-up-with-sleep potential of the long weekend.  I also have tons of work (gradinggradinggrading, service, and scholarship) to do this weekend, which I hope to do in the morning when it bugs my family the least.  And I am totally getting out there and taking care of my garden on Thanksgiving (though it's forecasted to be raining, but I don't care -- the garlic is going in!!!!).

Happy Thanksgiving!  Among the many things I'm thankful for?  The restorative power of sleep!