Well, it’s about 8am and I have stayed up all night again. Thing is, I’m not too tired yet and that’s good I think. I figured I’ll try and stay up until about 8pm (ideal) than go to sleep and sleep through the night which would be great to get me back on track, but I’m thinking I’ll probably start getting REALLY tired fairly soon. I’ll try and push it out to 2pm if I can than take a nap until about 5pm than I should be able to sleep from 11pm to 7am as a “regular” nights sleep. *Crosses fingers*

I REALLY REALLY need to knock this off. I guess it’s all sort of become a habit over the years I think. Started out with taking care of babies and being up off and on all night long with them and Patrick out to Sea, makes it kind of rough without any help so I guess I got kind of used to the waking up every 4hrs during the night so I never really slept that long for awhile until I’d say after Clarissa was born and we were on Shore duty so I guess that’d be a good 4 or 5 yrs of 4hr blocks of sleep. Than I guess when we were re-stationed to Washington and hubby was in VA at schools and I was in an apartment I got in the habit of not sleeping well at night if at all for about 6mos since my bedroom window would not lock and the apartment managers answer was a large dowel in the window. It was safe enough I suppose cause I never got broken into. Than from then on I have just been pretty much nocturnal for the most part. Yes that’s rather “crazy” considering I’m a mother of 3 children and I try and be available for them also. So I guess there’d be days I’d go on about 4hrs of sleep total. So, basically I guess the last time I had a “normal” sleep pattern would have to be almost 11 or 12 yrs ago. Yikes!!

I figure that there really is not any reason to have this upside down sleep pattern now though. No point in it that I can really see. Maybe the loneliness factor during the day and maybe not wanting to dealing with all the kids being in school now. Maybe a sort of “empty nest”?? I guess I could look into a part time job maybe. Hmm… I REALLY have to have the sleep thing fixed though for that. Or maybe the job would fix the sleep thing. “Which came first? The chicken or the egg?”

I am finally going to be able to go see my family for the first time in YEARS. I haven’t seen my dad since Timothy was 2yrs old and he’s never met the girls at all. Hard to believe it’s been 9yrs. I’m excited to see my Dad, but also worried. I was a “late in life” baby so it’s hard to think of him old, but he’s going to be 77 in January, which is not THAT old I suspect, but still I haven’t seen any pictures of him over that time either. My Mom’s 75th birthday is coming up on the 16th so we are flying down to see her but going to stop in Arizona first and see my Dad for the day on the 9th than drive from there to my brothers on the 10th and than my Mom should be at his house on the 10th also and I’ll see my Sister too she’s flying in from TX. Only one I won’t see is my older brother who can’t come cause they are opening up a portrait studio out of their home. So, let’s see it’s been 9yrs since I’ve seen my Dad, about 2yrs since I saw my Mom (She flew up in 2003), and almost 5yrs since I’ve seen my younger brother or older Sister. So, basically “IT’S ABOUT TIME!!” Seems like there was always something coming up or just no money to actually make the trip, but finally it’s going to work out. Last year Patrick had 2 weeks leave for the first time in 4yrs and he ended up making chief and they brought him in off leave to do all the Selectee stuff. I was really proud of him and all, but soooooo angry that I was getting shafted again.

I really need to figure out how to get rid of all the anger. Never really thought about myself having an anger-management problem since I don’t explode, but after going through the journal entries and just being so unhappy for so long I think I IMPLODE. I wonder if that’s possible. I’m an imploding wallower, nice combo I’m sure.

Let’s see what to do…Everyone is still sleeping like normal human beings do and I’m trying to stay awake. The morning was really pretty. It was all dark outside while I was watching TV and I could see outside from the couch and watched the sun coming up. It was really pretty with the sparsely leaved trees silhouetted against the barely light, blue sky. There were not many clouds really that I could see and than as it got lighter it got cloudier. It was all still pretty, but it’s going to rain again. This is Washington so no real surprise. hehe

“We don’t tan, we RUST”