Octopus Overlords

Holman wrote:Oh, I know the waking up isn't weird. The miserable ideation is what bothers me.

My wife does this a lot. I can wake up, but I go back to sleep quite easily (with a few exceptions). My wife just ruminates on all the pressures in her life.

I usually go to bed around 12:45-1:00, after giving my son his last meds at 12:30 and then getting things in order a bit. I usually wake up around 4:00 (give or take an hour) to settle my son after a seizure, and then I go back to bed. My wife's alarm goes off at 6:00 to start getting stuff ready for kids, so I typically wake up then and drift in and out of sleep until 6:45 when I get up to help the big kid get on the bus. If I were sleeping straight through, I'd be getting close to 6 hours, but that almost never happens.

LordMortis wrote:I've always attributed it to my sleep apnea. I get too much sleep and yet not enough. I irregularly fall asleep anywhere between 19:30 and 00:00.

Are you getting that treated? Treated sleep apnea counters that effect. Also, unless you have a special reason, you should try and make your sleep times consistent. Sleeping at a different time every day can screw up your whole system, too.

ImLawBoy wrote:

Holman wrote:Oh, I know the waking up isn't weird. The miserable ideation is what bothers me.

My wife does this a lot. I can wake up, but I go back to sleep quite easily (with a few exceptions). My wife just ruminates on all the pressures in her life.

I usually go to bed around 12:45-1:00, after giving my son his last meds at 12:30 and then getting things in order a bit. I usually wake up around 4:00 (give or take an hour) to settle my son after a seizure, and then I go back to bed. My wife's alarm goes off at 6:00 to start getting stuff ready for kids, so I typically wake up then and drift in and out of sleep until 6:45 when I get up to help the big kid get on the bus. If I were sleeping straight through, I'd be getting close to 6 hours, but that almost never happens.

I know you have unique circumstances, but you know you can't keep that up forever, right? That's the prescription for an early grave.

Blackhawk wrote:

LordMortis wrote:I've always attributed it to my sleep apnea. I get too much sleep and yet not enough. I irregularly fall asleep anywhere between 19:30 and 00:00.

Are you getting that treated? Treated sleep apnea counters that effect. Also, unless you have a special reason, you should try and make your sleep times consistent. Sleeping at a different time every day can screw up your whole system, too.

I try to be consistent but I exhaust. I was treated way back when, which is how I know I suffer from it and I am not being my hypochondriacal self. I've tried about 2 dozen different masks and nasal pillows for the CPAP but I can't keep a good seal and the air blowing on my face prevents me from sleeping, like a water torture. I've tried a mandibular appliance but the tension on my jaw keeps me from staying asleep. Also, I try go grind my teeth in some insane way and the appliance does funny things when I do, which wakes me up even when I am exhausted enough to fall asleep through the tension. I've thrown thousands of dollars and a lot of time at trying to get treated.

Right now my best hope for mitigating my problems is consistent weight loss. I have no one to blame but myself for me weight.

Put an exercise bike in front of the tv, and catch up on your backlog of choice. Start with sitcoms if you need to work up to hour(ish)long dramas.

LordMortis wrote:
Right now my best hope for mitigating my problems is consistent weight loss. I have no one to blame but myself for me weight.

Grab your camera and come on down to my gym.

stessier wrote:

ImLawBoy wrote:

Holman wrote:Oh, I know the waking up isn't weird. The miserable ideation is what bothers me.

My wife does this a lot. I can wake up, but I go back to sleep quite easily (with a few exceptions). My wife just ruminates on all the pressures in her life.

I usually go to bed around 12:45-1:00, after giving my son his last meds at 12:30 and then getting things in order a bit. I usually wake up around 4:00 (give or take an hour) to settle my son after a seizure, and then I go back to bed. My wife's alarm goes off at 6:00 to start getting stuff ready for kids, so I typically wake up then and drift in and out of sleep until 6:45 when I get up to help the big kid get on the bus. If I were sleeping straight through, I'd be getting close to 6 hours, but that almost never happens.

I know you have unique circumstances, but you know you can't keep that up forever, right? That's the prescription for an early grave.

You do what you have to do. I get more sleep now than I did a few years ago, even before the twins were born. I watched all of Battlestar Galactica on Netflix at 2 and 3 in the morning sitting up with my son at one point, so we're in a way better position now than we were back then. The hope is that things continue to improve.

Besides, you know it's normal for an adult to go to bed at 8:00 pm, right?

ImLawBoy wrote:Besides, you know it's normal for an adult to go to bed at 8:00 pm, right?

I do - which is why I'm shocked when others go to bed later.

I have 7 and 10 year olds. I think I finally got regular, full nights of sleep when the youngest hit about 5.5. One day I told her I was so tired and it would really help if she'd spend the whole night in her room alone. That night she did and the next morning asked if I felt better - it was very cute (and refreshing!). From that point on I think I only got a handful of visits on days she watched something particularly scary on tv. It's been heaven since then.

We have no kids in our room. The oldest can't move on his own, and the twins are still in cribs. As far as I'm concerned, my bed is for me and my wife - kids stay away! (That's the way it was when I was growing up, too.)

I don't often watch network TV but last night I tried one (designated survivor). I thought the show was good enough to watch again but I won't. 6 minutes of show and 4 minutes of commercials. Now I remember why I quit watching network TV.

ImLawBoy wrote:We have no kids in our room. The oldest can't move on his own, and the twins are still in cribs. As far as I'm concerned, my bed is for me and my wife - kids stay away! (That's the way it was when I was growing up, too.)

Oh yeah, the kids were never allowed to sleep in our room. But she would come in and get me to help her get over bad dreams 3+ times a night. We never slept in their rooms either - just calm them down, rub their backs, and leave. But it's really hard to get restful sleep when you are up that often (obviously preaching to the choir with that comment).

I was terrified of the dark as a kid and so I pledged to myself that I'd always wake up and help calm them down if they had a problem with it. I did pretty good keeping that pledge too.

dbt1949 wrote:I don't often watch network TV but last night I tried one (designated survivor). I thought the show was good enough to watch again but I won't. 6 minutes of show and 4 minutes of commercials. Now I remember why I quit watching network TV.

I only ever watch recorded shows for the same reason. That's what the Skip button on the remote is for.

I wake up most every morning (night) at 3:00 or 3:30. I might have a little bit of worry about things or I might just dwell on what I need to do at work that day.

But mostly, MOSTLY I just have songs go through my head. Sweet catchy evil ear-worm songs that won't leave me alone. Last night it was Mudhoney. Ever listen to Mudhoney? They have really catchy songs!

Usually I can read for a half-hour and fall back asleep for another two after that.

my preferred bedtime is after 2am, but after one too many mornings of not being able to make it into work because of total exhaustion, i am now working on dialing that back a bit. on the weekdays, at least. i can't function in industrialized American society like this anymore.

I'm told by older and wiser types that there's only a brief period of rest between being awakened by kids' nighttime demands and lying awake worried by teenagers' nighttime social behavior.

My natural sleep schedule, if not constrained by external schedules, puts me to bed around 1:00 AM and up at 8:30 or so. Two days a week, though, I take the kids to school, and that means getting up at 6:15, about five hours after I fall asleep, which isn't enough (if I go to bed two hours early, I stare at the ceiling for two hours.)

It's only two days, though, so I am not going to redo my whole week's schedule for it. I just try and take a nap for an hour or two after I get home.

My ideal sleep schedule is 11:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. followed by 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

What's crazy is how often I'm able to pull this off.

Homecoming King turns over crown to his best bud with cerebral palsy.

Stephanie Corneliussen

Yes

Well, hey, I actually got a decent night's sleep!

Technically the sun is not up yet.

EDIT: That girl has perfect natural lips and cat eyes as I call them. mmmm

EDIT2: Is there anything more of a ripoff than something with the Dyson name on it?...Cant think of one.

Holman wrote:My ideal sleep schedule is 11:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. followed by 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

What's crazy is how often I'm able to pull this off.

It's been well over 20 years since I've been able to fall into a natural sleep schedule. I'm guessing it would be something like 03:00 to somewhere between 10:30 and noon. As it goes now, I'm exhausted by 18:00 and either pass out tired by 19:00 or end up restless until 23:00 and generally get out of bed between 06:30 and 07:10 (for which I will be late to work on a work day). I am conscious of being awake usually around 03:00 and then cycle with consciousness on an ever more frequent basis until I get out of bed in search of coffee to begin to function. (I only drink coffee until 10:00 for fear that later consumption will make my sleep even more restless)

Target pulls kiddie cart trial:

You’ve probably been to a store that has child-size shopping carts: they’re a popular amenity that my five-year-old self would have enjoyed. Target recently decided to give mini carts a try in a few dozen stores in Minnesota and in New York, and has now removed them after only about a month.

What happened? Target’s official explanation is that it really values customers’ opinions, and customers apparently didn’t like them very much.
...
Looking deeper, it turns out that the kids liked them just fine, but the wide aisles and sheer size of a Target store combined with tiny children was not a good combination.
...
It’s unfortunate, because the carts are adorable, with little dog mascot flags. Unfortunately, children are tiny candy-eating monsters of destruction.

I wish just one training exercise in my entire career had been this cool: CDRUSSTRATCOM CONPLAN 8888-11 "Counter-Zombie Dominance"

LordMortis wrote:(I only drink coffee until 10:00 for fear that later consumption will make my sleep even more restless)

I know a guy who can't get to sleep unless he has a cup of coffee at bedtime.

He's like Archer with alcohol: "I'd stop, but I believe the cumulative hangover would literally kill me."

All the stars aligned, and we had the ultra-rare trifecta of theater tickets, available babysitters, and dinner reservations yesterday. We were going to take Little B 7.6 to see "Beauty and the Beast" at noon, drop her off back at home, go a nice dinner, then go see "The Last Ship" at 7:00. It's been a good 6 months (at least) since we've had this sort of "fancy date", as Mrs. Skinypupy puts it. We were both really excited for it.

About halfway to the first theater, Little B says "My tummy doesn't feel so good"...which gave us just enough warning to find a gas station restroom before the explosive diarrhea hit. After a frantic trip to the closest Target to buy her some new clothes, we obviously decide to bag the first play. Bring her home, load her up with children's Immodium, and let her take a nap.

About an hour before the babysitter is supposed to show up for the evening date, Wonder Twin 3.3a says to Mrs. Skinypupy, "Mommy, my ear hurts". She reaches down to look at him, and damn near burns her hand because he's so warm. Off to the Instacare with him, turns out he's running a fever of around 102 with a gnarly ear infection. We ended up sitting on the couch feeding jello and gatorade to two miserable kids all night.

See, this is why I never try to actually plan anything nice.

Skinypupy wrote:See, this is why I never try to actually plan anything nice.

That's why our plans tend to be: We'll try to do something Friday if nothing comes up. If we actually buy tickets or make reservations something is guaranteed to come up.

It is also why we tend to average a date night about twice a year.

...and when we do actually get to have date night when we get home there is a 45 minute debrief with the babysitter(mother-in-law) through which the wife gets tired and sobers up so I don't get my end of the bargain.

Well, that went further than I planned.

We haven't had a date night in a couple of years. Which is made even odder because my oldest is old enough to babysit the other two. I.e. we can just leave the house whenever we want now.

Turns out I'm not all that interested in dating my wife, and apparently the feeling is mutual.

I've liked Green Day since the mid 90's and their Dookie album.

The ceiling in my classroom fell in for the second time yesterday. After the first time they cleaned up the mess but did not repair the leak in the roof. So, when it rained over the weekend I got more ceiling tiles and a pond on my floor. The roofing company did not come yesterday. They are supposed to be here today. They had better because it is supposed to rain every day between now and Sunday at least and if that happens with the leak still there my pond will become a lake and I'm gonna stock that bitch with fish to give myself something to do since I won't be able to teach in there (bouncing from room to room right now as it isn't usable).

Daehawk wrote:I've liked Green Day since the mid 90's and their Dookie album.

I can't stand Green Day in general, but adore their "American Idiot" album for some reason.

My wife doesn't believe in the honeymoon stage of a marriage. She thinks it should be that way forever.

dbt1949 wrote:My wife doesn't believe in the honeymoon stage of a marriage. She thinks it should be that way forever.

Send her on a permanent vacation?

A 3 hour tour.

to the moon, Alice

Science is the Devil...

The Portland chapter of The Satanic Temple has succeeded in its efforts to bring an after-school program to a Portland elementary school.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports (https://goo.gl/MUIRrA) the organization has been approved to begin a program on Oct. 19 at Sacramento Elementary School.

Finn Rezz, one of the group's leaders, says their program focuses "on science and rational thinking," and it will promote "benevolence and empathy for everybody."

The Satanic Temple has been targeting schools that have a Good News Club.

That club is put on by the Child Evangelism Fellowship, "a Bible-centered organization composed of born-again believers whose purpose is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living."

That's fantastic. The Satanic Temple is a great organization (read up on it if you aren't familiar with it.)

Puppet Golden Girls

That sound you just heard was hepcat squealing with joy.

My Chief has been out of the office all week, and my VP is out on vacation through the rest of the week. It's a good thing there's no work from home policy so I can sit alone in my office after my hour-long drive in to take care of everyone's needs that are thirty minutes away at headquarters.

Of course, if I complain about it, they'll just threaten to make me work at HQ.