The Seventh Inning Stretch
© Joan Archer
For me, the Seventh Inning Stretch this year has turned me back to practicing the yoga I gave up years ago. I have bleached my hair blonde (keeps the Husband on his toes!) and I have come a long way towards being better organized. I have also refined my "What's Really Important vs. What's Not Important At All" meter. I have also been watching The Diet much better, and getting out at least once per day for a walk. (ALONE!) I have been a good soldier about getting myself fed on a regular schedule, and I have been trying very hard to keep to a regular sleep schedule. This, for me is the most difficult.
I love to sleep! But late at night, when I've gotten everyone else off to bed, the house calls to me and says, "You know, the bathroom could use a quick going-over, before you go to sleep." and an hour later, as I prepare to sweep and mop the bathroom, kitchen and dining room (shortly before I get out the vacuum to do the living room) it occurs to me I have only three or four hours left before I have to be awake and alive again. I could be the poster child for "Ladies, Don't Let This Happen To You!" I have discovered, through trial and error, that housework will definitely wait for you to get some sleep, before you are there to tackle it again. I have had to really re-focus myself time and again, to decide what is really important is that I am awake enough during the day to accomplish what I need to get done. I need to get breakfast for the guys, I need to get Jasper and Tor educated, I need to be there to get dinner started, eat with the family, and get the laundry done. Yes, the bathroom needs a going over, but it will look just as nice if I clean it at 7:00 a.m. as it will if I do it at 12:00 midnight. Hard to believe (especially at 12:00 midnight) but it is true. I probably believed otherwise because at midnight, I am too tired to be thinking rationally, despite what a system full of caffeine is trying to tell me. So, now I just go to bed. If you think it is easy for me to do this, you don't understand the Type A personality. At first, it took me two hours to let go and just sleep. I've gotten better at it since then!
