Insomnia

Since my birthday last week, I've had a single night of real sleep. I don't know what's wrong, but every night it's tossing and turning, waking every time I manage to fall asleep. I'm trying everything I can think of:

Cutting back on caffeine; not that I drink a lot of it, but I've cut back to the one mocha or macchiato of the morning. No caffeine after noon.

Eliminating alcohol: drinking even a little bit seems to keep me up at night.

Going to bed earlier, getting up earlier. Trying to maintain a consistent pattern. Although it's hard to get up earlier when you haven't had much sleep to begin with.

Having Don sleep in the living room, to avoid the snoring. Didn't help, although it helped his neck a lot. But I still didn't sleep. And it was even worse without him there, I think.

Sex.

Hot baths or showers before bed.

Avoiding the tv before bedtime. You know, all the colors and noise and ideas. Last night we just never turned it on.

And I'm still getting outside with the dog everyday for a little fresh air and exercise. This is basically every physical thing I can think of, and none of it has helped for shit. I'm not upset or emotionally worked up over anything. Not depressed. Not stressed out. Everything in my life seems like it's going ok, so I really don't think it's an emotional issue. And I don't usually have to be at work until 11:00 in the morning, so even not sleeping at night isn't as stressful as it might be-- you know with that "Oh crap it's 3:00am now and I have to be at work at 8:30 which means I have to be up by 7:00 at the latest which means that I won't have even 5 hours of sleep which means I'll probably screw something up at work and get in trouble..."-- none of that, even.

I know that insomnia can come with the onset of old age, but I wouldn't think it'd be like, "Ding! 26! Time to stop sleeping!" I'm getting just enough every night, maybe 4 hours or so, to stay sane and not completely lose it. The good news is that I'm definitely getting an increase of hours at the bank to almost-full-time, so I'll be able to quit Job #2 at the end of February. I'm thinking that might help, because I work until midnight 3 times a week, which might be messing with my sleep cycles. Although why that would only start now when I've been working there since November I've no idea.

I'm also getting some new responsibilities at the bank soon-- opening accounts, doing wire transfers, that kind of thing. I don't know if it's an actual promotion or raise or just more work, but either way I'm glad. I'd rather be learning new things, trying something new than just doing the same-old same-old. The idea of another raise already is almost scary, like too much good news or something... although I'm sure I'll adjust to the idea quickly if it happens!

I spent all weekend cleaning the house and sorting out my room. My room! The second bedroom of the house, also known as the study/library/sewing room/guest room. It's where all the extra boxes of stuff have been stored since the move, mainly boxes of books since we don't have bookcases here. It's all sorted now, all boxes have dissapeared except for two remaining cartons of books that just won't have a home until we buy shelves. My desk looks great in here, and I have a new worktable, too-- it will be a sewing place soon but right now is the jigsaw puzzle table. It's just a hollow-core closet door from Lowe's ($30!) on top of Don's sawhorses. Cheap and perfect.

Pictures of my wonderful little room to follow, as soon as I can get it together to take picture and post them.