The Knitting Spy

Lately, I have been in a rut.  It's a happy rut, but a rut nonetheless.  I have been doing very little but knitting, thinking about knitting, sewing for knitting, blogging about knitting, and watching Chuck.  It's a happy routine which I hold dear, but it's starting to affect me.

The Guy and I received the first season of Chuck for Christmas from my sisters.  We knew we would like it, but with all the other awesome shows out there (read: HGTV reruns) we just hadn't had time to watch it.  Once we had it in our hot little hands, we could not stop.  We quickly went through the first season and immediately ran out to buy the next one. 

We eat, sleep, play with the dog, and watch Chuck. 

And it's GLORIOUS.

However, these last few weeks, I have started to notice a change in my dream life.  Lately, there have been  a lot of spies and espionage.  It's been fun.  Sometimes I'm a spy, sometimes I'm watching the spies in my dream. 

This morning while I slept, I dreamt that I was the spy.  I was chasing a bad guy, saving the world from utter destruction -- you know, doing spy things -- and, suddenly, I stopped, picked up my knitting and thought Thank goodness that's over, I can get back to things that really matter.

Nightmare on Robin Place

Since moving into the new house, I have had an increasing number of weird and bizarre dreams.  I am sure it has more to do with the moving, the wedding, the chaos, and the stress than it does the actual place, but the dreams have been there.

The first week, I dreamed of a see-through little girl standing by my bed waving at me.  I jumped out of bed, ran into the kitchen and pressed my body up against the wall so she could not find me.  The Guy was standing in the kitchen watching with utter confusion as I peeked back into the room and -- upon seeing the girl again -- flung myself back up against the wall.

Welcome to marriage, Sweetie!

Just before Christmas, I had another dream.  In this dream, I was helping to bring back to life people who had died in the Holocaust.  While this is a noble and wonderful thing, in my dream I was doing it so I could assist in torturing them all over again.  Merry Christmas!

But it is this last week I feel sorry for The Guy having to share a bed with me.  We finally had two days off (in a row!!) together and The Guy was looking forward to getting to sleep in past 3am.  I ruined that, however, when I had a nightmare at 3:15 that caused me to sit straight up in bed and scream "NO NO NO!!  DON"T!!"  He told me it was just a dream and I went back to sleep.  All was well, but The Guy was awake for the remainder of the day.

The next night, I jumped out of bed at just after 3am, crept to the door, flung it open and crept into the kitchen.  I was acting like a spy, trying to be covert so the intruder didn't see me.  I was sure I had heard the front door open and we were going to be murdered in our sleep.  Again, The Guy woke me up and told me it was a dream.  He did tell me later that day that the side gate had swung open in the wind, so that was what woke me up.

I was bound and determined I would not destroy his last night of sleeping in.  I went to bed at a decent time and took my sleeping meds.  Then, shortly after 3am, Monty started crying and barking in his sleep.  He was having a nightmare.

I think The Guy is going to make us sleep in another room soon.

Up all night

I have suffered from insomnia for years. Actually, for the most part, I've enjoyed it. I'm awake when other people aren't. I get things done at weird hours. I enjoy the silence and the sunrise. I don't have as much problems with night shifts, etc. I mean, apart from being tired ALL. THE. TIME.

In the last month, I have slept. I reverted to a normal sleeping schedule and I got a good nights sleep. I had two weeks of day shifts. Then I went on holidays for two weeks. Then getting settled in the house, we started a new routine. I was sleeping. I thought the insomnia was gone.

Silly me.

Last night, for the first time in recent memory (Yes, I have a goldfish for a brain) I could not sleep. I went to bed at 10:30pm -- a little later than "normal" (which should read normally but it looks wrong) -- and I lay there. The Guy had long ago gone to sleep, so I was trying not to disturb him. I lay there. And fought the need to fidget. And toss. And turn.

After an hour of climbing out of my own skin, I got out of bed. I puttered, I read, I lounged. I didn't internet, because I have been trying to cut that out. I tried to sleep on the couch. I tried to sleep on the floor. It was achingly exhausting.

At 2:30am, an hour before The Guy's alarm went off for him to head to work, I finally fell asleep. Face down on the spare bed without removing the covers. I finally slept.

For four hours.

If I don't sleep tonight, I am going to punch a gopher.

Insomnia and character building can bite me

Every inch of my body is tired. Each cell aches with exhaustion, each joint moans with fatigue. My body cries out for the relief of sleep. And my brain... well, my brain says "Not going to happen, Bucko." My brain is really obnoxious like that.

My brain is working on things. The last week of great highs and dismal lows. Insignificant, nagging details and monstrous, clawing events. I am powerless to stop it, so I lay here - body aching, mind running. I lay here. Exhausted beyond all comprehension, yet wide awake and alert.

This week has been full of great news, terrible news, and great and terrible letdowns. Offers in on houses: the acceptance of one - Kelly has sold her condo and bought The Guy's house, the rejection of another - what could have been our dream house, and the offensiveness of an offer on my house so low I would be paying them. Great news of finalized invitations created by my wonderful and helpful cousin, printing, organizing, and finally feeling like I have a grip on some of these wedding plans.

I know I am learning from these experiences. Patience and faith - two of my weaknesses. If you ever think to pray for either, stop yourself now. How do you learn patience? You wait. FOREVER. Okay, not forever, but certainly until you think you will physically keel over from the waiting. How do you learn faith? But having NO CONTROL OVER ANYTHING. By knowing you can do nothing to change the situation. You can only wait for things to fall into place. You can only learn by doing. And the doing? The doing sucks, my friend.

But I am trying. Trying not to give in to my worry and doubts. Trying not to break down into a mess of irrational tears and temper tantrums. Trying not to say "Hurry UP!!!" or "Anything is better than waiting!" Because that is not true. I have to remember to believe that things will work out. They will. They always do. I've seen proof of it time and time again. However, the best things to work out TAKE A FREAKING LONG TIME.

I am so tired. So very tired.

Why I'm awake at 2 this time.

I have spent the last two hours in the throws of multiple versions of the same nightmare. The topic ranged from a female monkey being murdered (alliteration - whee!) to a mother going to a bar and being mauled by a mob (alliteration again? I didn't even mean to that time.) The suspect/protector ranged with each nightmare in a way that Freud's mind would even have been blown. And in each version, I try to call out to give warning to someone and end up choking because my mouth is so dry. Then I wake up in a violent manner that scares the dogs only to immediately fall asleep to start over again.

This is what happens when I forget to turn the heat down when I go to sleep. Oh, that and when I eat 3 lbs of dry ribs for supper. Oh, and when I watch a scary show before bed. But, it has turned into a blog post, so really, I shouldn't complain.


I'm participating in NaBloPoMo. Because I think I rock and feel the need to share it with the world. It's true. Really.

No sugarplum dreams

Most people I know have these elaborate dreams of other worlds and excitement. I do not. My dreams are at best mundane and at most ridiculous. I had two such dreams last night.

In the first, The Guy was furiously mad at me. I had upset him greatly. This is funny because we haven't had even the smallest disagreement. I blame this on our conflicting work schedules. I am sure if we spent more than two hours together a week we would find something to fight about. However, the fact he was mad wasn't the strangest part. It was the reason he was mad.

I had ruined his fashion show. This is a man who wears jeans and T-shirts. His idea of dress up is one of his many shirts that his co-workers tease him are made from picnic table covers. So, him in a fashion show seems silly.

I blame this dream on the fact that yesterday I accidentally texted Janice that he was coming to dinner "too fancy". I meant to say he was coming to dinner as well, but my cell adds random words I can't explain.

In my second dream, I went to visit my mother. I tend to have frequent dreams where my mother is alive. In the dreams, I don't even notice this is an oddity. It's not until after I am awake I realize I could have asked her pressing questions or just revelled in the time we had together. What did I do in this dream? No, she didn't tell me to make Lyn's lunch again. This time, I did her dishes.

I don't even do dishes in real life. Why did I feel the need to do them in my dream? My mother was clearly annoyed that I was going to clean so she suggested we play pool instead. In her life, I don't remember my mother ever playing pool. In her afterlife? Apparently she is all about it.

Two dreams and I have the ridiculous and the mundane. I am going to go back to sleep and see what else I can come up with.

I got dreams, dreams to remember

I have bizarre and weird dreams. There was the incident with me and Colin Firth in a horse drawn carriage. There was the one where Mom told me to make Lyn lunches. There was the one where Dad released his new CD at Walmart. This one... it's along those lines too.

Last night I dreamt that my brother and I were at the mall. He was criticizing my bad makeup job (it was too smeared and, apparently, he had told me that before) when we saw a thousand pound man. This guy wasn't shopping, he was sitting in the middle of the hall and eating. Being overly curious, my brother and I went over to talk to him. Mid-way through the conversation, the man turned into my friend's grandmother and took off her bikini top. I wasn't shocked or disturbed. Instead, I turned to my brother and said "For a thousand pound old woman, she has great breasts."

Night shift messes with my mind.

It's genetic

Today, I was at the chiropractor. We were chatting away and some how got on the topic of napping. I admitted how much I love napping and how I think it should be regulated into the work day. He mentioned how funny it was I said that as he had been talking to another patient earlier today about napping. He stopped there and said, "Come to think of it, it was your sister!". Lyn had been there that morning.

Sleepy time blues

I'm glad to see all the good conversation my late night ramblings created. While I was sleeping away today (with the help of a nice blue pill), you all were very busy. Good, good.

I slept 9 hours today. I was happy. Usually, nights mess me up totally and I sleep for 3 or 4 hours and then have a nap in the afternoon. But after the horrible mess of not sleeping yesterday, I knew I needed to do something. Hence the little pill that I rarely rely on b/c of the totally wipe-out effects it has. Lyn says she came into my room a few times today to deal with the dog - who likes to sit like a centurean (that's a guard, right?) on my bed and bug me every few hours - but I never stirred.

I feel much better. Only a lingering of the headache (almost migrane but not, thank God) that was there yesterday and none of the oogy side effects like being able to hear myself blink and move my eyeballs (really quite disconcerting to hear that inside your head). I mean, its ridiculous. I am on meds to avoid my constant headache (which I had for 2 yrs straight before going to the DR) and to avoid the migranes. However, forget to take the meds? Insta-migrane. Boo hiss.

I decided to list random facts about the way I sleep. For those of you who have shared a bed with me, you'll already be aware. For those of you who haven't? Meh, you might someday, I might as well warn you.

1. I sleep on my stomach. Face down, right leg sticking straight out, left bent slightly to the side. I then tuck my arms underneath me. I look ridiculous. Or so I'm told.
2. I grind my teeth. Only when I am stressed or over tired, but its LOUD. And I wake up with a killer headache and my jaw hurts. I have actually woken people up. I have a permanent bruise from Ky elbowing me every time I woke her up when we were staying together.
3. I only sleep a few hours at a time. Then I wake up, turn over or whatever and go back to sleep. I don't know of any time I have slept through the night. My mother swore I never did.
4. I have to have silence to sleep. I used to have to have silence AND darkness, but good luck finding that when you work nights and sleep days.
5. I love pajamas. I have more pjs than regular clothes, I am sure. And I love pj pants. Hey, Ky, did I show you my new pants? They tie up on the side.
6. I have to set my alarm in increments of 15. I cannot set it at 8:17. Can't do it. I couldn't even sleep if I did.
7. I sometimes talk in my sleep. Mostly I say "No", "What?" or "Come in". But usually loudly and out of context.
8. My dog sleeps with me. Usually curled up in front of me, under the blankets, near the pillow. Unless she's mad and then she sleeps in her kennel. I used to have a single bed and two dogs (a lab and a terrier) - it was crowded, so this doesn't seem too bad.
9. I need 9 to 10 hours of sleep a night just to function. I can live with 8, but I can't on anything less. And usually, it takes about 12 hours just to get the 10.
10. Most the time, I would chose sleep over food. Even chocolate icecream. Unless I can eat it in bed.

Dreams

The other night, I woke up after having a really bizarre dream. I wanted to remember it b/c it was so weird and I lay awake trying to remember to remember it. And now, days later, I realize I haven't got a clue what it was about. I mean, I even wrote my entire blog entry in my head before I went back to sleep (okay... that sounded weirder than I intended). And now? Nothing. It was along the lines of the dream where I was in a horse-drawn carriage with Colin Firth and a car drove by and was suddenly covered in Cheeze Whiz. And I looked at Colin and said "Did you see that?" And then I woke up.

That got me thinking of re-occurring dreams that I have or used to have. The one I remember from my childhood was sitting on my rose carpet and flying around to visit the houses we were going to move into. I would wake up on the floor, on my rose carpet, sitting with my legs crossed. I am sure I have more of those, but I am so bad at remembering them. At the time, in my dream I'm like "Oh, I've dreamt this before", but then in the morning I can't remember.