Knitting up that old ravell'd sleave of care

Tonight I hope to sleep the night through and wake refreshed. Lately, I either don't fall asleep or fall asleep for a few hours then wake up for a few. It doesn't help that I can't resist turning on my phone and opening my Kindle to see if anyone in my family has written an e-mail or if any friend has either posted something on Facebook or "liked" a post of mine.

I got back out my light-thingy, as the technical jargon goes, to help regularize my sleep schedule.



After I came back from my travels in April, I had favorable jet lag, and then the days started getting wonderfully long and the mornings beautifully light. Now the sun does not come up quite as early, and it's been a long time since I travelled into an earlier time zone, so I need to train myself to wake up again with this light.

It has a timer so that the light turns on after my alarm (aka my cell phone) rings. I see that and think, "Oh, good, now I can wake up," then my eyes roll up in my head and I start snoring. Fortunately I have a small furry backup alarm that sticks its nose in my face and perhaps even gives me a hearty kiss. Being woken by a kiss makes me just like Sleeping Beauty.

Anyway, I am mostly getting up on time, but I want to get up more easily and feel less tired during the day, so I'm trying to train my body to sleep for 8 or more hours a night. Here I go.

Mowed the lawn

That always gives me a sense of accomplishment.

Ordinary time

In the past two weeks, I've had beloved visitors, first my brother then my sister and her husband. I've been relaxing and enjoying the family time.



Yesterday, my sister and her husband left, bringing a close to the family visits for a while--of family out of town that is; the nearby family is still get-at-able. Now the festive season is over, and I return to ordinary time. Fortunately--or I should say providentially--my ordinary life is one that I enjoy.



Today I went back to work. A good number of my co-workers are on vacation, so it was a relatively quiet day, a good day to clear paperwork off my desk. Over the next few days, co-workers will return, and soon work will be busy. That's good, too.

So I guess I have many blessings to count.

All living things are messy

A cousin of mine put up a quote on Facebook by someone named William Leal: "It's all messy. The hair. The bed. The words. The heart. Life..."  It reminded me of something I used to say to myself at a certain stage in life, which was, "All living things are messy." If you have living plants in your house instead of fake ones, the pots will leak when you water the plants and ruin rugs and wood finishes. If you have a dog or cat instead of a stuffed animal, the dog or cat will pee on the carpet, poo on the floor, vomit on the upholstery, and shed their hair on every surface in the house. (Also, I can testify, smear their nose on every window in your car.) Babies are messier than dolls. You and I are messy. We do all the same things dogs and babies do, albeit in a more contained fashion. (Okay, maybe we don't smear our noses on the car windows.) So, if we are going to have any living things in our lives--plants, animals, friends, family--we will always have messes. And if we are alive, we will be messy.