Tough Times

For well over a year now, I’ve had the luxury of having access to 10 hours of overtime every week, and I’ve taken nearly all of it.  But with the recent and severe downturn of our industry, it seemed inevitable that this gravy train would have to reach the station sooner or later.  Well, the conductor just announced our next stop, and its just ahead.

Starting on Monday, I’m back to “measly” 40-hour weeks.  I suppose, in a sense, its both a curse and a blessing.  Its temporary, as there’s plenty of work for me on the horizon, but that work is dependent on getting stuff from our colleagues in France, and France essentially doesn’t go to work in the month of August.  So, as summer heads to it’s close, I’ll actually be enjoying the extra time, rather than lamenting the loss of the extra cash.  I’ll have more time to spend with Carrie, as well as tackle a number of other projects that need my attention.

The crazy part, to me, is that its going to feel quite odd getting home at 3:00, as opposed to 5:00 as I do now.  I’ve taken a few “early” days here & there during this OT run, and its amazing what those 2 hours can do for one’s spare time in the evenings.  I hope to make the best of it, while it lasts.

B Needs Sleep

For what seems like months now, but in reality is probably more like a few weeks, I’ve had a recurring issue with not sleeping through the night.  Without fail, I wake up 2 to 4 (and sometimes, though rarely, more) times a night, and while I fall back asleep within a matter of minutes, its still extremely exhausting.  Given how I’ve been feeling as a result, I liken a 2 minute interruption of my sleep to about 15 minutes of lost sleep.  So, if I wake up 3 times a night, that’s akin to going to bed 45 minutes later, which is a lot.  If that happens 5 nights during the week – which has been the case this week – that’s a loss of 3 hours and 45 minutes.  Not cool.

I’ve been proactive about the situation, ensuring I avoid caffeine in the afternoon, getting exercise 3 times a week, making sure its not too warm in the bedroom, not falling asleep to the TV and even taking a shower before bed.  None of this has helped.  Last night was the closest I came to a normal night of sleep, and that’s only because I was already dangerously exhausted before going to sleep 2 hours after my bedtime as a result of playing softball until almost 9.  Even so, I didn’t sleep through the night.

I’m not particularly stressed out, either.  Well, as this shitty sleep streak builds, I’m becoming more and more distressed, but its not like I’m lying awake at night worrying about getting sleep.  On the contrary, falling asleep is not generally a problem.  Its just that I can’t stay asleep.  And this shit is getting old, fast.  My productivity at work is suffering somewhat as a result, and that really bothers me.  This is especially true now, as I’ve got two deadline-intensive projects cooking that require a considerable amount of “busy work”, and I just don’t have the focus and energy that I need.  I mean, I’ll get it all done, but its a daily struggle, to say the least.

And what’s more is that I have stuff that needs attention at home.  Completing the fence rebuild is a high-priority, simply because I need to get that finished before the snow hits.  I’m thinking that I’ll knock out half of that project over the next two weekends, and save the rest for mid-to-late September, when it will be cooler and I’ll have more time.  And hopefully by that time, which will be after our much-needed weeklong vacation, I’ll be sleeping better, and as a result, more rested (and less likely to cut an appendage off).

This weekend should be interesting.  We don’t have anything major going on, but I do have a few personal goals in mind.  I have to try to watch Nixon again (the disc was “dirty” when I tried last weekend, so I watched Platoon via On Demand instead, without attempting to clean the disc first), so that’s 4 hours gone.  And we have to start preparing for our camping trip.  You know you’re “old” when you begin preparing for a trip 4 weeks out.    But really, its necessary.  If nothing else, we have to set the tent up in the back yard and label all the poles and what-not, since the instructions are MIA.  Last year’s camping trip saw us struggling to get that damned thing up as it was getting dark, and I don’t want a repeat of that shit.  Ugh.

But, if nothing else, I just want to get one fucking night of uninterrupted sleep.  Stay tuned…

The Chronicles of Nausea: The Virus, the Scripts and the Coasters

When’s it gonna end?  First, I was feeling off toward the end of last week.  Then came this passed weekend’s illness that left me couch-ridden.  I recovered well enough though, and the vacation went quite well.  Because I’m not as immune to motion sickness as I was when I was a child, I sometimes elect to take Dramamine before a long day of riding, just to be on the safe side.  Its never fun ruining all or part of the day because you feel like shit.

Anyhow, Tuesday went well, with plenty of sun and riding and enjoyment.  In the afternoon, Carrie and I left the park for lunch an also to pick up my prescription for Protonix at Target.  I had actually run out on Saturday, but my heartburn wasn’t problematic at all until Tuesday, and even then it wasn’t unmanageable.  Nevertheless, we got the meds and were back in the park for the evening.  Toward the end of the day, I was feeling a tiny bit nauseated, though not enough to really impact my mood or anything.

Tuesday night was terrible, as I slept like shit.  There were kids partying at the hotel until well past 4:00AM, and I was up probably 3 or 4 times with an annoyed bladder (one of the downsides to drinking “enough” water .  On Wednesday morning, I came down with a rather sudden bout of pretty intense nausea.  I wasn’t sure what the cause was at that point, but I just figured that lots of coasters and crappy pizza and park food were the cause.

Then today at work, about an hour before lunch, I started feeling crappy again.  Its still with me, though the intensity has waned somewhat.  A text message to Carrie confirmed my suspicion that the most recent afflictions – both yesterday morning as well as today – are likely due to my meds.  I had dealt with similar symptoms when I started on Protonix, and because I lapsed in taking them between Sunday and Tuesday, those symptoms are back.  Awesome.

So, I’ve effectively been nauseous, off and on, for almost a week now.  Yay.

Cedar Point Mini-Vacation Forecast #1

Mini-Vacation Hangover

As a gift to myself, I took Friday off to make this a 3 day weekend, and man am I ever glad I did.  I spent Friday mostly doing jack shit, getting some gaming in and basically being a lazy slob.  Saturday was mostly more of the same, though Carrie and I cooked a pretty sweet dinner, along with a wonderfully delicious cake and a brief serenade.  And we woke up on Sunday after the sun came up.  That was awesome, though how pathetic is it that such an even makes me so happy? 

All-in-all, it was a pretty good weekend.  Not amazing, but reliably good the entire time.  We got to relax, I got to game and we even did some housework yesterday.  We finally found a food solution for Sebastian that allows him to eat without being in too much pain, so that means he wont die (or become more annoying) before we get him to the vet.

All that said, I’m feeling a bit like I don’t want to be here right now.  I feel mentally rested, though would have liked to stay in bed for another hour or so.  Here’s hoping the post-weekend fog lifts soon. 

Finally – a restful Sunday!

For the first time in quite a while, I feel rested following the weekend.  I’m tired and could easily take a nap, but I’m not to-the-bone exhausted and feeling miserable like has been the case recently.  Its probably because of the awesome Sunday Carrie and I had, which consisted of getting out of bed before 6 (if memory serves – I didn’t pay much attention to the clock) eating breakfast by 8 and bouncing around the house getting small, easy tasks done.

At around 12, we headed out to Best Buy so I could spend my B-day gift card I received from her parents and then on to go ice skating at 12:30.  When we got home at around 2, we decided on pizza and salad, after which we took a nap for a little over an hour until around 4:30.

The rest of the evening consisted of us doing nothing, more or less, with me formatting and reinstalling XP on her PC and getting it on the network, and her doing some baking.  We didn’t get to bed until around 10, which is late for us, but even with that, I still feel more awake and energetic than I have in I don’t know how long.

That’s good, too, as I was worried I was gonna be tired, a problem that would compound itself this week, as I have 2 hockey games to watch, both of which are later than normal.

Oh, and go Wings!

Chaostivity

I’ve already been more productive in 2 hours today, so far as moving some of my projects forward is concerned, than I have in any full 10-hour day this week.  Its not that I’ve been particularly lazy or unproductive, but rather one of my projects has been consuming my world in chaos.

In fact, my entire world has been consumed in chaos for what seems like months now.  Come to think of it, it has been months!  Carrie and I started ‘officially’ looking for a place to live back in mid-February, and ‘unofficially’ as far back as December, though there was a respite during the holidays, which are chaotic on their own, and especially so this year.

But as my biggest project at work moves forward, it will become both more time consuming and less stressful at the same time, which is a trade-off I’m more than happy to live with.  And with the housing situation finally mostly settling down, that will also become less stressful.  We’ve still got a lot of unpacking and organizing to do, as well as some Spring cleaning, but compared to what we’ve already been through, that aint shit!

And then there’s Spring…  It seems as though we may finally be turning the proverbial corner, and this weekend looks to be the first ‘real’ taste of Spring.  Weekdays don’t count.  Well, at least not until I get an office with windows. 

To top it all off, I’ve just requested a vacation day for May 13th, so Carrie and I can go redeem our Cedar Point season passes.  And hell, since we’re gonna be down there doing that, we might as well ride some coasters too. 

Season Pass Redemption

Cedar Point posted their 2008 season pass redemption details, and holy shit am I excited.  Having ‘free’ access to that place is going to be incredible, to say the least.  It makes what would be a $200 day (for two people) become half as expensive.  This, combined with my doubled-for-2008 vacation days makes it so we can go on a whim if we choose.

We can drive down to process our passes on or after April 16^th.