Insomnia

Man oh man, this insomnia thing is just kicking my butt. I haven't been able to sleep very well for the last few weeks and so I end up spending my nights either puttering around on the computer, working on projects around the house or laying there in bed, waiting for sleep to happen.

Last night (Monday night) I even took some Melatonin to try and help me fall asleep. Well, technically I guess I should say to help me fall back to sleep. I was really tired on Monday night and conked out around 8:00 when the kids did. I was awake again around 9:30. It was so disappointing. Then I couldn't fall back asleep, so I took some Melatonin around midnight or so. I finally fell back to sleep around 8:00, but woke up around every 30 minutes until 1:30 when I finally just got up for the day.

My schedule is so wonky and it is driving me crazy. I can't stand this! I hate sleeping during the day time when I don't have to work nights (which I'm not right now!) but I can't sleep at night and I sleep fitfully during the day. This is just not working for me! Gah!

Okay, so moving on...when I work on projects at night I have to make sure that they are relatively quiet projects. I'm not the only one in my household who sleeps like crap. We have kids who get up in the middle of the night and change sleeping locations. Tonight alone, Natty came downstairs to the living room while I was taking a break from the project that I was working on and asked if he could sleep on the couch in our den because he had a nightmare. I'm sure he would have just taken the couch in the living room but that's where Hubby and Boo put each other to sleep tonight. (awww, so cute!) So anyhow, Natty went down to the den to sleep. Before that, I had been working on my project and came up to the living room to take a break and found JoNo in my chair. I promptly sent him back up to his own bed. And before you think that I showed favoritism to Natty, let me assure you that had Natty been in MY chair, he would have been promptly sent up to bed as well. No one gets Mama's chair. Just the way it is.

So, as I was mentioning, my project. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the closet before I got started on it because I wasn't really sure how much time I was going to spend on it or if I would even get it done. But surprise surprise! I made a HUGE mess in my room when I emptied that closet out! I took EVERYTHING out of the closet. And when I say everything, I mean E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. The closet is roughly 4'x5'. To the right side of the closet, there are shelves and cubbies that take up about 2' of the 5', which leaves an open floor area of 3'x4'. Let me just start out by saying that the shelves and cubbies were PACKED full of miscellaneous stuff. Okay, really, who am I kidding? The closet was packed full of miscellaneous stuff. I had no clue what was in there. The only thing I did know was that the pile of "stuff" in there was taller than me. I'm 5'4". Yeah. Stuff and stuff and more stuff.

So, I started with the spot right in front of the door and worked my way down to the floor. By this time, I had acquired a sizeable trash pile, three totes that held items that belonged in different areas (kitchen, living room and kids toys), and a clear floor area in the closet. Oh - and I had "lost" my queen size bed, most of my bedroom floor and a card table under the mountain of stuff that had come out of this closet.

Since the main area of the closet was clear, I grabbed a chair and stood on it to get totes and boxes and more down from the upper shelf (the one that is like six and a half feet off the ground! Then I started in on the shelves and cubbies. What a workout!

First of all, I want to tell you some interesting (or perplexing) things that I found. First, I found six rolls of Christmas wrapping paper left over from the after-Christmas clearance sales from 2008, so I took those and stuck them into my Christmas tote that was in my room anyhow waiting to have a home cleared out for it in our basement. Only one thing at a time, please!

Let's see...what else did I find? Oh - I found two air mattresses. One twin, one queen. I know one of them doesn't hold air, but I can't remember which. They are both laying on the floor next to my bed at the moment because I am trying to decide whether I want to test them both out and purge the one that doesn't hold air, or if I want to just go ahead and get rid of both of them since we never use them anyhow.

Hmmm...I found lots and lots of clothes that I am going to have to wash because I have no idea how long they have been in there and it was dusty and yucky in there from being neglected and having more and more crap thrown in on top. At the bottom of the pile I found my mother-in-law's old vacuum cleaner that she had given to us when ours stopped working about two years ago. She had just gotten a new one and figured she could part with this one. It doesn't do the greatest job but it is still a decent vacuum. I plan to put it out in the garage to use on our vehicles once I get the garage cleared out. For right now, it's tucked back into the back cubby area, where it fits wonderfully. I might even just keep it there and vacuum the cars out in our lower driveway, which isn't far from our bedroom and has an outdoor outlet right there anyways.

But the real kicker, the one that really took the cake for the finds...a used pregnancy test. The cap had been put back on, by the way. But the thing of it is, this test was most likely taken in, oh, February of 2007. That is the most recent it could have been taken. Let me also point out the fact that we moved into this house in December 2008. So not only is this test 4 years old, but it flippin' moved with us! I just don't know. I mean, I remember keeping it for a short while in our master bathroom, but really? I thought I had thrown it away. It just boggles my mind. And just for the record, the test has been thrown away.

Speaking of throwing things away, this is what the closet yielded:

• 3 kitchen size Glad Force Flex trash bags full of trash
• 3 hot wheels race car tracks with missing pieces
• 1 or 2 air mattresses that may or may not hold air
• 1 folding chair that has a severely torn seat
• 2 full boxes of papers and cardboard (really it's for the recycling, but I didn't want to make a whole separate category for recycling for that one little bit)

 Then things that got moved to another area:

• books to my bookshelf in the living room
• books to the kids' bookshelf in the living room
• medicines (still within expiration date) to the cabinet in the kitchen
• vhs tapes and dvds to the entertainment center in the living room
• kids' toys and stuffed animals to their floor of the house
• a set of 2 stacking shelves which I repurposed - you will see this soon in another post

Things that got put back into the closet:

• questionable laundry bagged up and ready to be taken downstairs as I work on laundry today
• 3 table legs that go to a kiddie table that belongs to the little ones. I think the 4th leg is in the basement and I know the tabletop is down there for sure.
• sports cards (in binders and sleeves or in cases)
• a few board games
• 2 small totes of keepsake items and pictures
• a small tote of bags (backpack, messenger style bag and rolling duffel bag)
• a small tote of cords that I am going to have Hubby go through. He knows what we need to keep and what we can toss out. I'd just toss them all and end up having to buy a replacement one. I don't want to have to do that. I already had to buy a VGA cable (I think that is what it is called) to hook up our new monitor to our new computer tower earlier this year. Guess what I found in that tote? A VGA cable. Darn it! That was a waste of $15 right there. Wonder how much money I have truly wasted in this one closet alone. Eh, scratch that. I probably don't want to know.
• and 2 empty laundry baskets and 2 empty totes

So, the closet probably wouldn't look incredible to some people, but if you had any idea just how much crap was crammed in there, you'd understand. Seriously. I know it still needs work, but it is soooooo much better than it was before! I am really pleased with the amount of work I got done in there tonight. And maybe, just maybe within the next few weeks, we will be able to start using the closet in a more appropriate manner. Just sayin'. It's a goal.

And for the record, I'm still not tired. Grrr. Hopefully that means that I will be able to get a lot accomplished today! It's worth trying anyhow! Or at the very least, get our bedroom back to normal before Hubby goes in there to get ready for the day (kinda seriously doubt that will happen though!)

Oh - and how perfect is this?! Rachel Anne's Small Thing for today was to just start something. Don't get caught up in the details, don't over-analyze, don't wait for the perfect time or the perfect opportunity or the perfect plan. Even if it isn't the right time, the right plan, the right whatever...Just get to it! And, as you have read above, that's exactly what I had done this morning. Woo! Love it!

Oh - and that gave me a quick and easy 40 points for doing what I had already done today! Yay! My monthly total is now 320 points! I still need to bake something from scratch to earn points either today or tomorrow. That particular "assignment was from last Thursday and she gave us a full week to get it done, and I'm quickly coming up on the end of that time frame. I may be back later today with another Small Things post. We'll see!