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| This is actually a sunset and not a sunrise |
While up I would love to finish that load of laundry or clean the bathrooms or vacuum (as this is the time of day when I have energy); hubby is sleeping (like a hibernating bear) and I am polite. Instead I make my coffee and do the following:
Sip that coffee and check outside in the dark through the porch light to see what might be happening (usually not much)
Check out Facebook (sometimes a fun trip and sometimes a bit disappointing)
Glance at the Google news and then read a bit of the digital New York Times
Do the mini-crossword puzzle from the New York Times (never brave enough to do the real puzzle)
Check my photography website looking for sales or comments
Take a digital class or two from the Great Courses subjects I have downloaded (How to Boost Physical and Mental Energy, Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft, Introduction to Water Coloring, English in America: A Linguistic History, Everything Gourmet: Recovering the Lost Art of Cooking---Some I have competed and am re-watching these videos just for fun and memory.)
Listen with earphones to a program from the BBC In Our Time (probably one of the jewels of the Internet)
and then finally read blogs and write on my own blog.
Today I discovered that the author Malcolm Gladwell has a podcast so I am subscribing to that to fill future time.
I am not sharing this to impress you on the industriousness of my mind or to reveal that I might be a bit of a culture nerd or even to show that I am not as empty-minded as one might think...because I am an elder and no longer care about what people think. I am just sharing to be sharing.
All of this in the hours before the sun comes up. What do you do on an early morning when you cannot get out and about?
I suffer from insomnia several nights a week as well. I think it is just a function of aging as just about everyone I know in my age bracket suffers from it too. sometimes I'll just lay in bed trying to will myself back to sleep thinking that at least I'm resting. sometimes I get up and read til I fall asleep again, usually around dawn. I don't get up and try to accomplish anything because then I'll never get back to sleep.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing
ReplyDeleteI have more energy more often during the night time hours than during the day. I prefer to do crafts in the wee hours. Its therapeutic to cut out pictures from magazines to create collages. I keep them for myself as design examples. Otherwise, I watch documentaries.
I try to stay quiet, but I am not nearly as industrious as you. Sad to say.
ReplyDeleteDuring your busy hours I am sleeping finally. The night owl bit keeps me active until the wee hours.
ReplyDeleteWhen I wake up at four I either thrash around hoping to fall asleep again or I turn on some soft music or I turn the light on and read. I don't have to be polite.
ReplyDeleteI'll try again with Cohen's lyrics: "It's four in the morning, the end of December
ReplyDeleteI'm writing you now just to see if you're better
New York is cold, but I like where I'm living
There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening"
Yep, insomnia happens to me too, unpredictably, sometime not being able to go to sleep, sometimes waking in the middle of the night, sometimes waking way to early. After about a half hour I will either turn on my Kindle and read or get up and surf the computer, usually Facebook and links there to news stories. I also check email and blogs.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I've had more trouble with sleep this last week with waking at 1 of 2 and finding myself unable to get back to sleep. Last night it was probably at least partly (or more) my husband's snoring and making weird noises. I don't do well with loud noises at the best of times and last night I could only think of upsetting things, stuff I'd read in a paper about bad things happening to someone and then i keep remembering them and if I let that go, something negative in my past is next up. I finally gave up at 4:20, came out here, read papers, checked a blog or two, and soon will start to write after breakfast. Oh and i retrieved something I'd had altered at Dreamscope to see what that app had created.. unusable was the answer. I generally sleep well but this last week-- not so good.
ReplyDeleteI usually go to bed by 10:30 and read for an hour or so. Then generally fall asleep until about 7am. Some nights I also wake up at that dreaded 3 or 4 am and get up and make a cup of tea, take it back to bed with me... and then eventually fall back asleep. This doesn't happen too often. There have been a few times when even after the tea, I can't fall back asleep... so I will either clean up the kitchen or read blogs. DH has a croupy cough right now and is finding it hard to sleep lying down so he has spent the last 2 nights sleeping in the den in his chair sitting up. I should sleep better without his coughing... but I find that after 50 years I don't sleep well when he's not in bed.
ReplyDeleteCoffee, read, post to the ACS Discovery shop/point loma page, read facebook...all this when I used to be at the pool. I sure miss the exercise but look forward to a solution.
ReplyDeleteCoffee and get ready for work. Someday i hope to be able to just sit and enjoy the mornings.
ReplyDeleteMy sleeping pattern has started to be in two sessions. I seldom fall asleep before the sun comes up, and then sleep four hours or so, am awake during the day, but fall asleep in the evening around 10 pm for a couple of hours. The 10 to midnight sleep is the one that is filled with all kinds of dreams that I wake up and can remember. My sleep that starts at sunrise is restful, but I never recall any dreams during that sleep session. It works out ok, and it doesn't do me any good to worry about that being my sleep pattern. The only time it doesn't work is when I have an appointment of any kind in the morning. My husband worked nights for 40 years and still has that sleep schedule even after retiring. For many years I always tried to keep normal sleep times because our kids were still home and I had part time jobs through the years. It sure feels good to be retired and sleep when my body wants to.
ReplyDeleteIn the predawn hours when I am still wide awake, I quietly pad around in my slipper socks. I stay away from any news and the computer, both activities keep me awake. Sometimes I may do a bit of quiet, easy housework, menu plan, make to do lists, I like to read books and watch old movies, during which I normally fall asleep before seeing the end. I'm like you because I also like to open the front door and watch the birds, bunnies, and squirrels capering around and check outside on the weather and neighborhood, before turning off the porch light and going to bed. Then it's lights out for me too, for a few hours anyway. I suspect that there are many retirees who let themselves sleep when their bodies want to, now that we finally can.
I love to sleep. Now i have lot of time to relax since schools are closed. I also take a small nap in the middle. Once i get up there will be plenty of work to get completed. But i do it leisurely:)
ReplyDeleteTabor, my hours similar to yours. I like getting up early, now with son here for a few more weeks I try to stay quiet.
ReplyDeleteI scan the computer, make tea, all blinds are open and I look outside, love the sunrise, When alone I do a load of laundry,
vacum and may read. Still healing from Shingles....