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15 minutes – or even less – to get things going

A friend of mine sent me an article a few days ago. It’s called “The 15-Minute Rule”, by Hanna Brencher, guest posting for Becoming Minimalist (which I think I’ll be checking out quite regularly!).

During the work week I don’t spend much time reading things that come my way online. If anything, I barely scan them. But Shamima doesn’t send me a ton of things, so I figured if she sent it to me, chances are I would find it interesting. So today, as the day was falling quietly away and evening was sinking in, I though I’d take a few minutes to check it out.

Not surprisingly, Shamima was correct. That post is right up my alley.

I love the idea of shifting gears and walking into a new year. I love the possibility of a fresh calendar. But I am overwhelmed by all the things I want to do, and all the things I think I can magically begin, just because January 1 arrives at the front of the calendar.

Hanna Brencher

It’s been years – perhaps even decades since I’ve been a “resolutionist” at the end or beginning of each year. I do consider and think about things I want to accomplish and do, but doing that isn’t affiliated with a particular date on the calendar. (The only recent exception being when I ridiculously decided to do 50 new things under 50 different categories during my 50th year – in case you haven’t done math in a while, that would have been 2,500 different things in a year…but that’s a post for a different day…)

Me, if have an a-ha moment about something and feel that I want to commit to it, then I do it as the moment occurs.

But I get it that for a lot of people the whole new year / new me thing could be appealing. And, to me, as long as such resolutions are well thought out and considered, then it doesn’t matter when they are taken on.

Anyhoooooooooo… I’m digressing slightly.

We (for some reason) seem to think that in order to accomplish something we either have to a) accomplish it fully in one sitting or b) have huge chunks of time to dedicate to it at a time.

The reality is that we don’t.

This isn’t new news, but it’s definitely something I/we need to be reminded of from time to time. After all, accomplishing a small thing is better than accomplishing no thing (space intended). (How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Not that I’m advocating the eating of elephants! 🙂 )

Hanna has committed herself to 15-minute chunks of time.

15-minutes is very likely quite do-able for the vast majority of us.

But for many of us it could induce a near-paralytic panic attack.

For some people (I’m thinking super busy parents, for example) even 15 minutes might seem impossible. I remember my friends, when they had little kids, being excited to even get to go to the bathroom by themselves. That minute or two constituted a huge accomplishment. I don’t think they’d have seen 15 minutes as an achievable amount of time. Not at the start of this sort of habit, at any rate.

So, if that’s the case for you, perhaps even a smaller chunk of time would be more appropriate. Maybe pick the thing you want to do and set the time for 5 minutes – or even 1 minute! Hey…it’s your time – make of it what you want it to be!

We’ll never find the time. We have to make it and we have to decide that even the smallest actions are going to matter, they’re going to stack up and contribute to much bigger victories ahead.

Hanna Brencher

I also really liked how Hanna talked about using things we already have.

I’m NOT a minimalist by any stretch, and when it comes to my craft supplies… well, let’s just say I might have a problem. I definitely need to have a bit of an intervention with myself when it comes to that. I mean, even as I type this, part of my brain is trying to convince me that I “need” the box of new supplies that arrived earlier this week and the list I already have compiled of things I still want to get because I’ve seen them used in umpteen YouTube card-making videos.

Even as I work through that, though, I have been making myself pull out some things that I haven’t used in years. I’ve been making cards with all those scraps of paper that all card makers have “because I might need them someday”. Well, I made “someday” come to town and used them!

You don’t need to add more to your already full life. You don’t need to make big investments or buy fancy gadgets to make progress. You just need to clear the space, maybe just for 15 minutes. You just need to start right where you are with what you already have.

Hanna Brencher

I also have a lot of books on my shelves that I haven’t read or haven’t finished. I could tell you of 4 right off the top of my head that I’m at various stages of reading. I keep saying, “Oh yeah…. I gotta finish that book.” And then I think, “Oh hey! I should buy so-and-so’s new book!”

My rule now is no new books until I finish all the ones I currently have. I will then need to give away those that I am not likely to read again. (I have one tall bookshelf for my books and have given myself a rule that I can’t have more books than fit on those shelves.)

Anyway…For me it’s books and crafts. For you it could be something else. Hanna provides examples like cleaning out a cupboard, writing a book, call and make a doctor’s (or other) appointment, etc.

She also suggests that it might not happen every day.

That’s what’s great about this. It’s not a required prescription. Maybe your first 15 minutes (or 5 minutes or 1 minute) can be spent thinking about the thing(s) you would like to do in that time. And the next set can be looking at your calendar (realistically!) to decide when you will do it. (Set yourself up for success, not for failure!)

It’s about you doing things that you need or want to do; not about what someone else tells you you need to do and how long you should spend at it.

As Hanna says (emphasis added):

It doesn’t need to happen every single day. It’s not about getting the 15-minutes down perfectly. It’s about deciding to show up and put something that matters at the forefront for just a moment in your day.

Hanna Brencher

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A wintery walk to clear the cobwebs

I was out early this morning to get to Costco before all the stuff I needed was gone. On the radio they were talking about cross country ski trails within the city and it got me thinking about crisp wintery walks. One of my favourite places in the city is Jack Pine Trail. Conveniently, it’s only about 5 minutes from the Costco I go to so I thought to my self, “Self! Let’s go for a walk after we do our shopping!”

It was a beautiful, sunny morning with a clear blue sky and only about -6*C. I was wearing drive-in-the-car-to-go-shopping clothes so I wasn’t super prepared for it, but I figured even just a few minutes out in the fresh air would be better than none so once the bags were in the car, off I toodled.

And I was right! In fact, other than my legs (jeans are definitely not great wintery walk wear), everything else was toasty and I lasted 35 minutes! Turns out that’s actually how long it takes to do that particular loop (including little stops for photos, that is) and it was timed perfectly because my upper thighs were starting to get a bit numb at that point.

I should tell you, in case you don’t actually know me, that I am about 98% a homebody. The things I most enjoy doing – crafting, baking, reading, writing, watching TV – are indoors things. If there is a gene for that, it would be so prevalent in me that I don’t think they’d even need a fancy microscope to find it.

But there are a few outdoorsy things that I do enjoy and walking on a wintery day like today is one of them.

Beautiful, bright blue sky. Crisp white snow squeaking under foot. Half-fallen trees gently creaking against each other. Echoes of woodpeckers. Stubborn leaves clinging to twigs rustling in the barely-there breeze. Unseen critters scampering about. Cardinals, bluejays and squirrels competing for seeds that other walkers leave behind.

The only thing that could possibly make it better would be the sound of a gurgling brook or the water of a pond or lake lapping at a pebbly shore.

There were also plenty of other folks about, too – plenty enough that I (as a woman alone in the woods) felt safe, but not so many that it felt crowded. And, really, each time I encountered someone (duos and families for the most part), it was quite lovely – outdoorsy people are quite friendly, so there were a lot of hellos and it was very nice to have that interaction, even for just a few milliseconds at a time.

It’s an antidote, I tell you, for so much of what is going on and is a great way to clear out the cobwebs and rejuvenate your mind and spirit.

If you aren’t able to get out for your own mind refresher today, here are a few pictures that might help you place yourself there virtually. 🙂

(PS: I used to know how to put photos into these posts better, but there have been changes in how this is done and I can’t figure it out, so before my total zen from my walk is lost to technological frustration, I’m giving up and they are what they are. 🙂 )

A woodpecker looking for a snack.

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Becoming more aware – Our sphere of influence

I had intended to write more about this throughout last year. This post is long, I know, but it was either long or not at all, and it’s been “not at all” for months because I couldn’t do short.

Part of why I haven’t written more frequently is because I had the idea that as I did my reading, listening, learning and sitting with everything that I would naturally come to these plateaus of a-ha moments where I would have something specific that I could write about and share with you: “Hey – check out this thing that I just learned!”

But, it hasn’t worked out like that. There were just so many things that astounded me or punched me in the gut that I didn’t know where to go with it.

For example, I was floored…totally floored…to learn that the last federally funded residential school in Canada didn’t close until 1996. 1996!!!!! How is that even possible? Surely people knew. And obviously we didn’t care. So many heartbreaking things.

Anyway, there were so many things that I just got kind of paralyzed with it, I guess. A weird kind of writer’s block where, instead of not having any idea of what to write about, I had too many ideas and didn’t know where to start.

However, that is not to say that I hid my head under the sand with an “Oh well – there’s too much and what difference can one person make, anyway?” attitude.

If we were to all adopt that attitude nothing good would ever get done in this world.

So I kept reading and watching shows and videos, going out of my normal way to expose myself to things that would not have naturally shown up in my daily life, or that Instagram’s, YouTube’s or Google’s algorithms figured that a middle-aged white woman wanted to see. (As an aside – I think we all need to do that – we can’t wait for learning moments to just drop in our laps…we have to seek them out.)

Also I’m a firm believer in the power of making changes in our own individual little corners of the world. Specifically in this case, starting with myself. After all, I’m the only person that I have any real control over so the most sensible place to start is with me.

For myself, the thing I’ve been really working on is becoming more aware of my own unconscious biases. I know some people are struggling with that concept, but while it hasn’t always been easy to uncover what they are, the concept itself was easy for me to grasp and accept.

I mean, we have biases – conscious and unconscious – in probably all areas of our lives. At the most basic, they are like preferences. I grew up on the coast of Newfoundland, for example, with the sound of the ocean lulling me to sleep. To this day, my ideal peaceful moments involve being near the ocean (hence my Irish holiday for my 50th birthday in 2019) or at least near some sort of body of water. Conversely, people I know who grew up in or near the Rockies find the same thing with being near the mountains. Had we each been switched at birth somehow and I grew up in the Rockies and they grew up by the ocean, our preferences would very likely have changed with us.

Ditto with the types of food, music, language, traditions and so on that we all grow up with. Even if you celebrate Christmas, my idea of what an ideal Christmas involves is probably at least slightly different than yours.

If my preferences can be influenced by things I’ve been exposed to, then for me it was easy to extrapolate that idea to the opinions – biases – that I developed throughout my life in relation to people of other cultures and races growing up.

While I think I’m pretty awesome 🙂 I’m not, in fact, anybody special. I’m not the only one who has those preferences or biases. We, all of us, have thoughts and ideas about people based on what we learn as we progress through our lives. Some we learn in school and from our families, some at work, some through people we encounter along the way, and so on. Some we might not even be aware of.

The first important step, I think, is for us to acknowledge that we have those biases.

Part of that is realizing that having them doesn’t make us horrible people.

We ALL have them. It’s how our brains work. We are exposed to something; our brain makes sense of it based on previous knowledge/exposure – ideas are either changed or reinforced; and on we go. I’m not a psychologist so I’m sure I’m oversimplifying that, but you know what I mean. 🙂

It’s easier to combat the biases we are aware of. Not so much, though, with the ones we aren’t aware of.

As a next step, then, we can start to look at those things that we are aware of. There are a LOT of stereotypes about different groups. We can start with them. Think of the stereotypes about different groups of people. Think about a race, culture, group that is different from you, and come up with the things that “everybody knows” about that group.

A “nice” one is that “Everybody knows that Canadians are so polite.” Obviously we aren’t all polite and certainly not al the time. 🙂

Once we’ve done that, we can start to dig a bit deeper to see what unconscious biases we have.

Here are some questions that I’ve been asking myself and that might help you on your journey:

  • What things automatically come to my mind when I think about [X group – any group that is “other” than me]?
  • Where did those ideas come from?
  • Are they true? (Hint: No one thing is true about any complete group of people other than the fact that they are people. Hence the expression: We can’t paint everybody with the same brush.)
  • Do those ideas influence what I do or say or how I feel? (Do I cross the street when I seem someone from that group, for example?)
  • Am I willing to learn different things about that group?
  • Am I willing to try to change any of those ideas, beliefs or actions?

I’ve been doing a lot of this type of reflection the past several months.

And, yeah, it’s a lot of work. And nope, I don’t “have” to do it. Meaning that my life, as a white woman, won’t on the surface be negatively impacted if I don’t.

For example, I’ll still have my job. I had no issues recently renewing my mortgage. On paper, my name would put me as clearly white for many, if not most, people. I’ll go to dinner (once that’s allowed again!) and movies; park my car without someone writing a racial slur on it (which happened to a friend in the past three years here in Ottawa); and shop without someone following me around the store (which happens regularly to a friend of mine). Other than occasional sleights and issues because of misogynism and religious intolerance, my life is pretty comfortable and will stay that way.

So I could close the book now and call it a day.

But even though the surface of my life wouldn’t change if I did that, it would definitely impact me negatively as a person if I didn’t do this exploration.

This time last year, I wouldn’t have even thought to mention about how “white” my name is – and conversely how having a “Black” or “Indigenous” name can put someone’s application for a job or financing into a “Not gonna happen” pile. I was aware of those types of things – far back in my brain somewhere. But now it’s in the forefront and I truly believe that makes me a better person – a better member of my community, hopefully a better friend and also a better ally.

There’s still a lot for me to learn. But what I have learned so far has already helped me have conversations with people who don’t understand what this is all about and why people can’t just “get over it already”. I feel much more confident in my ability to explain things and have discussions that, hopefully, encourage people to think about things even just a little bit differently.

And, again, as I said earlier, I can’t change anybody but me. So this is where I have to start – and where I need to continue working.

I can change myself and at least influence things in my little corner of the world.

There’s a lot of power in that.

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Day 14 (Sept 25/19): Charlie has been seen. It is done.

The weather is better today than yesterday. Still quite wet and grey, but not nearly as windy. The sun even poked between the clouds around mid-afternoon. It’s raining again now, but it was still nice to see the a bit of blue if even for a moment. 🙂

I went out earlier with the last bits of rubbish from my stay and then went to see Charlie. Well, his statue. Unfortunately, he was being mobbed by tourists and, while I waited a few minutes to see if I could get a pic of him on his own, I eventually gave up and just snapped a pic of him with a couple of strangers.

Statue of Charlie Chaplin, Waterville, Co. Kerry, Ireland

I should, perhaps, explain what this is all about.

Charlie Chaplin started coming to Waterville in the 1950s as a vacation spot. He loved it so much, he came back every year for 10 years. Not sure why he stopped. Perhaps age? He would have been well into his 70s by then so making the annual trek might not have been as appealing as it used to be.

At any rate, the fact that he loved Waterville has become quite a claim to fame of the place. It’s, honestly, not hard to see why he loved it. It’s a fabulous place. 🙂

They even have an annual Charlie Chaplin Comedy Film Festival.

So, while I am not a huge CC fan, per se, it seemed important that I take at least a bit of a gander at the statue before I leave.

Oh…I also finally figured out why I had passed by it several times and never saw it. There has always been a tour bus in front of it!! No wonder I only ever saw it before at night from behind. 🙂

After my pseudo-visit to Charlie, I went to the Beachcove Cafe again for lunch. The regular guy who I’ve seen there wasn’t there, which was a bummer as I had wanted to tell him thanks for all the great meals. But the food was still great and I decadently treated myself to another slice of that walnut coffee cake. Man, it is sooooo yummy!!! No food photo today, though!

Then I came home and have been catching up on emails and starting to pack since then. The bus to Killarney is 7 a.m. tomorrow so I have to get the packing done today. If I can get at least most of it done now, I can have a relaxing dinner out this evening. And I will have to go out for dinner tonight because all my leftover perishable food has been taken out in the trash!

So this is likely my last post from Waterville. Boy, that went fast!

I have truly enjoyed it. I am going to seriously miss being able to look at the sea from wherever I am and especially being able to hear it.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the ocean has a very rejuvenating effect on me and I feel very connected to it. That has made this holiday exactly what I wanted it to be. 🙂

Next up: Killarney Part 2!

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Day 9 (Sept 20/19): A Friday night learning about the ecology of Lough Currane

Remember yesterday when I stumbled on the community garden?

Well, when I went online to find a link to Tech Amergin for the post about it, I poked around on their site and found out that tonight there would be a talk about a nearby lake – Lough Currane.

Snip from the Tech Amergin website, explaining the talk this evening

I fully realize that this is not most people’s idea of a fun night out on a holiday. But I was quite excited to see it! What an interesting way to learn about a place!

And it was. Quite interesting, in fact.

A bit of a downer, though. It wasn’t so much a presentation of the environmental history of the lake as it was of scientific evidence of the increasing levels of phosphorous in the lake – starting around the 1970s.

The lake provides a lot of income to the area, so this can have quite a devastating effect on the economy.

As Dr. Treacy presented possible causes, I half expected people in the room to dispute them – to kind of defend themselves if they were in one group or another. But nobody did. Of course, I have no idea what the make up of the group was.

In any event, it was really interesting and I’m really glad I went. 🙂

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It’s “About Time” – My thoughts on the movie

As I am wont to do, before I headed out on my travels last week, I downloaded a few things from Netflix. I always download more than I will likely watch en route because you never know when or where you might get stuck or delayed.

One of the things I downloaded was “About Time”. I won’t go into what it’s about – if yo’re interested, you can read a quick IMDB summary here. I’m just going to tell you what I thought of it. I won’t give any spoilers, either, so feel free to read on without any worries about it being ruined for you if you decide you do want to watch it.

I’m not normally one for chick flicks, which this definitely seemed like it would be. It also had a potential “Groundhog’s Day” similarity and I realllllllly don’t like those movies where a character relives the same time over and over again, so that was strike 2 against it. In fact, both those reasons are why it had been in my Netflix list for a while now without me actually watching it.

“Then why did you even bother with it, Lucy?”

Well, I really like Domhnall Gleeson and Bill Nighy. If they weren’t in it, it never would have ended up in my list at all. I downloaded it for the flight et al because I thought that even if I didn’t like it, it would at least be a bit of fluff that didn’t require much brain engagement.

At any rate, as you know, I didn’t end up delayed anywhere so I didn’t need it on the flight or any of my other subsequent travel legs. Last night, though, I was in the mood for a movie, so I put it on.

Quelle surprise!! I thoroughly enjoyed it!! The time travelly bits (not a spoiler – that’s part of the plot snippet for the promo) were not constant or overdone, like I thought they would be. Or at least was worried they would be. And while, yeah, it’s about Tim finding his true love, it’s only partly about that.

It is, as the title says, about time. About how we spend our time and how we value it.

I laughed out loud and I cried. Any movie that elicits both of those reactions out of me is a winner in my books. In the interest of full disclosure, it’s really not hard to make me cry when watching something…it’s the laugh/cry combo, though, that’s the key bit.

In looking for the link for you above, I saw that “About Time” is from the creator of “Love Actually”, so really, since I loved that movie, too, if I had known that before I likely would have watched this sooner. I can even see me watching this again and again, as I have “Love Actually”. It’s a definite feel-good movie.

All that to say, if you are looking for something to watch, I definitely recommend giving this a go! (If you do, I’d love to hear what you thought of it…)

Note: For those interested, it’s rated 14A. I assume that’s because of the occasional smattering of “colourful” language and some semi-nudity/sex-related scenes. If you know me well, you know I don’t like movies that are a constant blue streak of swearing or full of graphic sex scenes. This movie was definitely not that at all. 🙂

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Day 1 (Sept 12/19): On my way continued – the Dublin flight

This post was written on Sept 12/19, just after boarding the Dublin leg of my flight.

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I just boarded Air Canada flight 818 to Dublin from Montreal. I boarded early as my seat is in Zone 2 – one of the special zones. Not zone 1 – I seriously couldn’t afford that – but still: Zone 2. We had our own special line and everything and were able to board when the folks with little children could! Whuuuut???! We even had our own path and entrance to the plane. Livin’ the life, I tell ya. Livin’ the life.

Mind you, I’m in row 1. There isn’t anything in front of me besides the loo, kitchen stuff, storage and the cockpit. So I don’t even know what Zone 1 could have been.

I know there was one because they called out for Zone 1 people and 1 guy came forward, showed his boarding pass and was let on. But I have no idea what he paid extra for.

I remember (from booking my ticket) it was double what I paid. So I’m definitely glad I didn’t go for that. Maybe someone comes to his seat and rubs his feet or sings lullabies to him. It is an over-nighter, after all.

You know what it doesn’t have, though? The twisty-turny air blowy thingy. I love that thingy. Oh well – I’m sure I’ll be fine. 😉

And in any event, it was fun to trot up early.

I normally wait till the very end to board – when most of the squishy, crowded hoohah of “Excuse me. Pardon me. Uh. Oh sorry.” has subsided. I also usually get an aisle seat, which is even more reason not to board early and have to play the get-up-sit-down thing as the people in the middle and window seats by me arrive.

This time, though, I got a window seat. It’s a red-eye, as I said, and I wanted the wall to clean against. I didn’t want to be the one climbing over someone or making them get up so I boarded early. Plus, I knew the seats would be bigger and more comfy – more so than the airport seats – so I boarded as soon as I could.

I will add now that I thought the seat next to me was going to be empty, but a woman came and sat there a few minutes ago. Sluiced in perfume. Oh joy. But maybe it won’t give me a horrible headache and sinus congestion this time – I mean, a 6-hour flight will just zip by, right?

There was a glimmer of hope that she’d move when her travelling partner (spouse, boyfriend…?) came up and said there were two seats together in the back.

She didn’t even hesitate in her refusal. And, really, who could blame her? I don’t think there’s anyone I could possibly love enough to trade “up front” comfy seats for “in back” cramped seats for 6 hours. If our relationship couldn’t survive 6 hours apart, well, that’s even more reason not to make the comfy-cramped trade.

So, while her perfume (which is a lovely scent in and of itself) is rather irritating, I definitely gotta give her serious props for sticking where she is.

Ok…the flight attendant just took my order of beef tenderloin (like how I just slid that in there?) and I’m going to read for a while.

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Day 1 (Sept 12/19): On my way!! (Or…What am I forgetting…?)

Normally, I’m a pretty organized traveler. While I don’t start packing in advance, I have my lists ready wayyyyyy ahead of when I need them.

I am a bit of a list queen, I have to admit. Not because my world would collapse if I didn’t have lists. But because I would forget everything if I didn’t have them. I have discovered this from sad experience.

Enough experiences that you would think I would learn.

I suppose I do learn. But I also forget. (Does forgetting negate the learning?)

There have been too many times when I’ve convinced myself I could swing it. Lists are for sissies!!!

Yeah, well…that’s never worked out for me.

Serious kudos to those of you who can keep everything up there in the ol’ grey matter and access it whenever you need it. That is a gift.

But it’s not a gift I have. So I make lists.

This time, though, I only half sort of started a list a few days ago. And put it aside. In fact I couldn’t even remember where it was so this morning I started a new one.

Did you catch that? THIS MORNING!!!

I didn’t start my list in earnest until this morning. The morning of the day I am travelling.

Man, I am living on the edge!!! (I so don’t live on the edge. I can barely see the edge…And I like it that way.)

Anyway, I got the list done, did all the last errands I had and, right down to the wire, got the packing done.

Hmmm…actually, I was so late packing….yup….there it is.

I was so late packing, I forgot to run through my list to see if I had forgotten anything. And, as I wrote that last paragraph, sitting here at the airport waiting for my plane, I remembered that I forgot my hair dryer.

I had thought about it several times. And even headed off to get it a few times. But as you may recall, I get distracted easily and now, voilà – no hair dryer!!

Oh well!

I’m pretty sure (I say, chuckling at my likely delusional optimism) I didn’t forget anything else…

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What’s that whirring sound? (Or…Am I going to have an expensive plumbing bill?)

I put a load of laundry in the washing machine a couple of hours ago. I live in an open-concept condo so the laundry closet is within easy hearing distance. Most of it isn’t at all distracting or disruptive – it’s just the final spin that requires the volume to go up on the TV.

So, as you can imagine, I’m quite familiar with the sound of the various stages it goes through.

Tonight…well, there was a different sound. There was a new, high-pitched, whirring sound. It wasn’t super loud or anything. It was just … there. And it’s not usually there. So it caught my attention.

The first thing I thought was, “Dang it… I filled it too full.”

Being the queen of efficiency, rather than having to do two separate, small loads, I put everything into the one load. I thought, then, that I had maybe filled it a titch too full. Not crazy full. But more so than I usually do and a friend and I were recently talking about flooding washing machines and such, so my mind couldn’t help but go to a place of “Uh oh…”

I tried to talk myself out of it for a while – “It’s fine. You’re being paranoid. Don’t worry about it.”

But, after about half an hour, the whirring eventually won out and I got up to go check.

I opened the doors and listened. I could hear the whirring still, but it wasn’t coming from the washing machine. It was coming from behind me – the spare bedroom.

I can’t quite say if I was more relieved that the washing machine wasn’t about to explode and flood everything on the even of my much-anticipated trip to the Emerald Isle or more confused as to what the heckledy schmeckeldy could possibly be making that noise in the spare room.

I turned around and looked in. There are no “machines” to speak of in there – the router, a telephone and a TV. Nothing “whirrable”. But the sound was most definitely coming from there.

Huh.

Then I looked further in. The window was open. Ahhhhhh yes.

There was a lovely cool breeze this evening and I had opened both bedroom windows to get a nice cross breeze going – something other than AC air for the first time in a couple of months.

But I had forgotten the windows were open. Oops!

So, yeah…no explosion. No flood.

Just somebody doing some work outside, with what sounded like maybe a circular saw, oblivious to the state of anxiety and confusion they had innocently caused.

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Now I lay me down to…read all night and not catch a wink?

It’s 3:13 am. I have to get up in 2 hours and 44 minutes. I went to bed 4 hours and 46 minutes ago.

Apparently, tonight is not a sleeping night.

I gave it about 45 minutes and then gave up. I’ve been reading since then a blog about sailing from New York to Ireland. The writer skipped what happened after she left the boat so I stopped reading.

At this point, I probably could fall asleep, but now it’s almost too late. That’s the worst with sleepless nights – if I sleep now, I’ll be in seriously rough shape come 6 am! I have a day full of meetings tomorrow, too, so really not fun.

Weird, too, how this never happens except when I have to work the next day. Some kind of sadistic Murphy’s Law?

There are a couple of upsides, though.

First, I’m writing another post! That’s 3 in about 10 hours! That’s gotta be a record for me.

Secondly, I’m writing it in the WordPress app on my tablet. I haven’t done that before so it’s an interesting exercise. Probably not the best idea to do something new when you’re totally baffed, but of all the things an exhausted, sleepless individual could do online when randomly awake in the wee hours of the morning, this is probably just fine. 🙂

And now that I have identified the silver linings of the nocturnal debacle, I shall bid you adieu and decide on my next steps:

To read or not to read

That is the question

Whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous exhaustion

Or take arms against a sea of sleeplessness.

Ok…a little poetic licence there, but that soliloquy does talk about sleep, so I think I can be forgiven. Plus it’s now 3:34 am – a body can’t be expected to be at its literary best at this hour. 😉

I will, however, take my leave of you – you who are, hopefully, nestled in a pleasant world of dreams!!