8 posts tagged “mornings”

It's annoying enough to find yourself stirring to a bright sky and a cacophony of birds at 6am, but it's most aggravating when it wakes you in the middle of dreams where you're visiting with loved ones you only ever get to visit in dreams any more.  Though they say we only remember the dreams we are woken from, so I guess without all this early morning bright and busyness I wouldn't remember these visits I've been enjoying for the past several days.  But then, I wouldn't be starting each day with this bittersweet melancholy if I couldn't remember these dreams either.  I've heard it suggested that visitors in the dreaming usually have a preferred time for visiting, and now I'm wondering if I woke up every day at 6am how many similar dreams I'd remember.

I managed to get back to sleep yesterday, and actually got a couple of hours of sound sleep after a night of tossing and turning.  That meant a late start to the day though, which meant yard work later in the morning than I'd planned, ...which meant more intense sunlight beating down on my shoulders.  I was an idiot and didn't put on sunscreen.  I only meant to be out for about fifteen minutes, and that turned into about thirty.  And then I spent some time in the sun hanging laundry on the line yesterday too.  By the end of the day, my shoulders were a pretty good pink.  You'd think, with my fine Irish skin, I would learn to always sunscreen-up before going out, especially this close to the summer solstice.  But even now I'm thinking if I go out early enough, I won't have to put that goop all over my skin.  *sigh*  I will put it on though.  I hate it, but I know I need it.  Mean, mean sun.

So I finally got my old flower bed cleared of waist-high wild growth and filled back up with compost on Sunday.  Earlier in the season I'd planned on laying out a perennial bed and planting according to plan.  It's been so damn humid though, and it's so very unpleasant to be outside in it, once the bed was ready for planting, I just randomly sprinkled all of my flower seeds in there.   All of them.  I put in the packets I bought new this year and anything I had left from previous years, including some large packets of wildflower mixes.  It's my mystery garden now.  Tiny green bits are already peeking up.  I've very curious to see what grows.  I'm going to have to weed it *VERY* carefully as things start growing.  Fortunately, I'm quite familiar with all the weeds I just finished pulling out of the ground there, so I should be able to identify and evict those.

I've also started digging my garden for misfit plants.  I hate it when all of your seeds germinate and you have to cull the herds.  I also hate pulling plants growing where they aren't supposed to, especially when I'm curious as to what's growing.  So this year I'm clearing out the mess that used to be our blackberry brambles, and putting a misfit garden in.  I've already transplanted some stuff there.  This will be another fun experiment, seeing what survives the transplant, and what becomes of it all.  I'm pretty sure I have some pumpkin growing from pumpkin guts I composted last year.  I'm going to have to move some zucchini and cucumber over to the misfit garden this week too, as all of those seeds decided to try growing this year, and there's just not room in the veggie garden for them all.

As for the blackberry brambles, they've migrated into the tiger lilies by the garage, which is the perfect place for them, since the lilies are abundant and I won't have a weedy mess growing under painfully sharp brambles.

The tiger lillies by the kitchen window are back this year after being choked out by morning glory vines for a couple of years.  I got tired of that damn non-flowering vine choking out my lilies last year, and asked Craig to spray the vine with a topical poison.  It worked perfectly.  The vine is gone, and my cheery orange friends are back and blooming this year.

Enough yammering about my yard.  I'm going to go have a seat out there in my favorite spot and enjoy a bit of this morning, as long as I'm up, before it gets too hot and sticky out.  Don't know if I'll do more yard work today or if I'll give my shoulders the day off to fade a bit.  That would be the smart thing to do, but the siren song of progress is so hard to resist.  For the moment though, iced coffee, seed for the birds, my favorite seat and a few more minutes thinking about loved ones (much loved!) I sadly don't get to see anywhere but in dreams any more.

The title says it all.  Those are my feelings on summer. 

It seems also appropriate that I got up at 6:30am this solstice day ...on a FRAKKING SUNDAY!  The heavens should not allow the longest day of the year to ever occur on a weekend.  It's just mean to turn the sky up to full-bright at such an ungodly hour on a day of the week when it's perfectly acceptable to sleep in!

Craig is to blame too.  He left the house early-squirrely to get up to Monroe for a hamfest.  bah!  I hope he's having fun.  He'll suffer my wrath when he gets home!  ...Actually, we'll likely just take a nap together, which will be rather pleasant.

So, I've been up for over an hour already.  I've filled the bird feeder, done the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, made myself some coffee and watched this week's episode of Top Chef Masters.  (LOVE that show!)

I think I'm going to make myself a pancake and some eggs, then go dig in the garden for a bit before it gets too hot.  I also need to clean the bunny room and get some laundry going, then I'm going to build my solar oven prototype, and maybe by then Craig will be home, and it will be nap time.

Don't much like summer weather, but YAY for the days getting darker again!

I hate mornings.

Oh, and I just found out the only rabbit vet I've been able to find within an hour and a half's drive has moved to Germany.  *sigh*   Her former office has recommended another place I've never heard of but which isn't too far away (about a 40 minute drive).  I'll have to call them at 9am and try to get an appointment.  I hope they're good.  Jasmine doesn't appear to be at all uncomfortable, aside from the occasional sideways stumble like her balance is way off.  Her breathing still sounds wet though and I really want to know what that trembling spell was on Sunday.  I'm really hoping this is just a bad head cold.  I've read rabbits get pneumonia as frequently as humans get head colds.  Please let this be something that will clear up easily with some tasty, sweet medicine.  Please, please, please have a rabbit savvy vet on staff!!!

But yeah, damn I hate mornings!  I can't wait for the cold, dark weather so I can sleep in the peaceful darkness under a pile of comfy blankets in a house devoid of morning pollens like the gods intended!!!  ARGH!!!

I woke up way too early today.  Why was the sun out at 6:30am???  I'm very much looking forward the the summer solstice and the retreat of the sun.  I don't do well in mornings.  I'm slightly dizzy and very queasy, and my brain is filled to overflowing with incomplete thoughts that are jumping all over the place.  That's just me in the mornings though.  I figure I'll try to journal a bit anyhow, because I'm not accomplishing anything else pacing the house and trying to remember what it was I thought I'd do.

I read a bit about responsible consumerism in someone's blog recently that has really stuck with me.  The blogger made the point that everything you have ever consumed is your responsibility in it's creation as well as in it's afterlife.  Things are created and sold because there is a want or need.  If you bought it, you're responsible not only for it's creation, but you also own that thing forever.  Unless you can recycle something or find it a second life with someone else who will use it, your things are yours even if they're accumulating in a landfill somewhere.  There is no "away" in "throwing away".  It's still your stuff.

Think about it.  Think about every bag of garbage set by the curb weekly, every scrap of old clothing you've tossed, every broken or "out-dated" bit of electronics you've trashed, every page of junk mail, every bit of plastic, every orange peel and egg shell.  That's all your crap still.  No matter where in the world it sits, it's still your responsibility.

How much should we take in?  How often do we think about where all this stuff will end up when we tire of it?  I read the thought that started all this thinking a few days ago, and it's had a pretty significant effect on my life already.  There were some crafting books I wanted.  I stopped to think about it though, and I have my own weight (very likely more) in crafting books already, most of which I don't even crack open once a year.  What would I do with these new books?  I'd page through them, garner some inspiration, then put them on my shelf and wonder once in a while if I should get rid of them.  I didn't get the books.  I didn't add the new magazine subscription that tempted me and, in fact, I've resolved not to renew the two subscriptions I do have.  (Well, the paper version at least.  I will keep the digital subscriptions I have.)  I've seen a few other things I wanted too, but I keep pondering, 1) how long these new things will feel significant to me and 2) what will happen to them when I do grow bored with them.  I keep coming to the conclusion that I don't need this stuff at all, that I'm being manipulated in every possible way by a terrifying marketing machine.

We have been conditioned to be consumers.  We live in a culture of planned obsolescence.  Nothing is built to last, and what is built to fuction as long as possible is still designed to fall out of fashion.  Our microwave broke last week, just up and quit completely.  Now, I think it's obvious that I'm a bit of a hippie, always looking to do what's best when it comes to materials and the environment, and yet for a week I've been shopping for a new microwave.  It took almost a week for me to stop thinking, "It's broke so buy a new one," and instead consider, "It's broke so I should get it fixed."  I'm slightly disappointed in myself that it took so long to think about fixing rather than replacing, but isn't that how we've all been conditioned to think?  Stuff is relatively cheap and replacing it is so easy.  Whine about how expensive things are all you want; they're still not so expensive that we think about maintaining/repairing what we have before we consider replacing it.  "Come on!  If it's broke then of course you're justified in buying more.  Buy more!  Look!  It's shiny and new!"  argh.  Craig took the cover off the microwave yesterday and it definitely needs a new fuse.  The rest of the electronics look to be good still.  With any luck, a few dollars spent on a new fuse will have the thing working again.  How many people never think to look for even simple repairs any more though?  I mean, if it didn't even occur to me until after a whole week of shopping (and I HATE shopping!), ...?  "It's broke; replace it" is just how we think these days.  It's pretty scary.  Bring back the repairmen, I say!

I forget what I was watching, some news segment on our current economy I think, but I saw a guy state that Americans are used to "living like gods", and we have to find some way to maintain that lifestyle in our economy.  WHAT???  How about we give up the delusions of godhood and learn to live like humans again?  Doesn't that make more sense?  It does to me.  It makes all the sense in the world.

I have so much bouncing around my brain these days, and the current theme is "What really matters?"  I'm not just talking about things.  I'm talking about activities, thoughts, relationships.  I only want the essentials right now, only the things I really feel I cannot live without.  The closer I get to just the essentials, the more clearly I feel I can see things.  I don't want distractions.  I'm finding that even the work I used to consider rather unpleasant is more enjoyable when I remove the distractions.  And, boy-howdy, have I ever spent the first 30+ years of my life surrounding myself with distractions!  Weeding them out, seeing them for what they really are, that's tough work.  It's worth it though.

It's a *TON* of hard work acquiring and maintaining a good attitude, work that needs to be done every day, multiple times a day.  Some days it's harder than others.  This is one of those days.

I think it was the morning news that set me off.  I hate this campaigning crap that goes on for *years*.  Does the word "change" even mean anything any more, what with the way it's been thrown around with nothing offered behind it, nothing defined?  I'm ready to punch the next politician who says he/she's "for change" and just leaves it at that.

...argh.  Am grouchy.  Am trying.

I'm so sleepy again/still.  Still not sleeping quite right.  I think it's the weather.  We got a lot of rain last night, and I do believe I was aware of every drop that hit our window.  In recent nights I've been really warm and too sleepy to realize I could just kick off some blankets.  Last night I was cold, but too tired to realize I was one blanket away from warm comfort.  argh.  I'm throwing down the caffeine here and still can't keep my eyes open.

I hate mornings.  I hate politics.  This morning I hate a lot of things.  I've been having arguments in my head constantly for the past three hours.  This is one of those days you start out a mile behind the starting line, but I'll get there.  I'll wake up.  I'll adjust my attitude.  I'll get some stuff accomplished today.  I will not be grumpy all day.  I am not lazy.

This is the earliest I've been up in a couple of weeks, and I'm sneezing more than I have in a couple of weeks.  My theory that I'm allergic to morning still stands.

I usually fall asleep pretty quickly at night, but I get about 2-3 hours of deep sleep (a good nap) and then the fitfulness starts.  Around 2am I start to ache and sneeze and get too hot/cold and my nose runs and I start thinking about something and can't stop and I have to pee and my asthma kicks in and...  Then right around 5:30-6am, right before my husband's alarm goes off on weekdays, I fall into the most comfortable, blissful, snuggly sleep of the night.   Right before it's time to get up, dammit!  Why can't I have the fitfulness in the morning and the deep, luxurious sleep in those hateful early hours of the day?  Most mornings I literally have to fight back tears and tantrums because it's time to get up.  Most mornings I've been in and out of bed and consciousness for hours and am finally getting that restful, restorative, peaceful sleep about the time my feet need to hit the floor.  It's fantastically cruel.  Mornings hate me, and the feeling is mutual.

I am not a morning person.

I cannot adapt to being a morning person.  I went through many years of school and reporting for work at 8am and never, ever developed the ability to function with any kind of clarity or efficiency in the mornings.  So to all those people who think I'm just lazy in wanting to sleep in all the time, SUCK IT!!!

The earlier I get up, the more congested and nauseous I am.  Yes, every morning, nausea, all my life.  If I can sleep in til at least 8, it's not so bad, but anything before that is unpleasant to say the least.  It's never seemed to matter what I eat the night before or how early or late I last ate.  If I can sleep til 9am, I not only feel strong in my stomach, but my head is clear too.  I don't understand any of this, but it's the way it's always been for me.

So this being at work at 8am thing is driving me a little buggy this week.  I'd still rather work a full day than just afternoons, but I'm really starting to need some sleep ...badly.  It doesn't seem to matter how tired I am, come 9-10pm, I'm feeling my best of the day and wanting to clean the house from top to bottom or workout or give my brain a huge helping of something smart to figure out.  But, that's bed time.  My every day goes something like this:

06:30am - Wake up to the alarm, running on total auto-pilot
07:00am - Force feed myself half a bowl of cereal, despite feeling like it's all going to come back up any second
...(shuffle and yawn and blow my nose and slurp coffee to no avail, only at best half aware of the world around me and really wishing people wouldn't even try to talk to me)
10:00am - Finally start to feel like I'm waking up
11:00am - Have my first real burst of energy for the day
...(go about my day, whatever that entails)
10:00pm - Get my "second wind" and my biggest energy burst of the day...right about the time I should be going to bed  :(
11:00pm - Finally force myself to lay down
12:00pm or later, sometimes much, much later - Finally fall asleep
...wash, rinse, repeat...

I don't hate mornings.  I know it's a lovely time of the day.  I just hate participating in mornings.  It's not my cup of tea.  I was not built for mornings.  I've tried to adapt and have *never* succeeded.  Mornings, feh.