Wednesday, March 9, 2011

A Pause for Gratitude

Sleep. This may sound like a silly thing to be grateful for, but bear with me.  Do you get too little sleep far too often? Me too.  Sometimes it's even my own fault, I stay up writing, knitting, or reading too long, then I pause and the clock says 3:00 am. THREE A M!!! I have to be up in 3.5 hours, what was I thinking?

The last week and a half though, I've been doing my darnedest to burrow down int0 my nest of blankets, drink some soothing tea, and slip into dream land quite a bit earlier.  I say this lightly, but I may have been a little sleep deprived as one night I crashed out at 6 pm and didn't wake at all until 10 am the next morning.  Thank goodness it was a weekend, right?

So, let's be grateful for sleep, everybody.  Let's give ourselves permission to just rest. Not be productive 110% of the time, spending all or any free time we ever get thinking "Oh gosh what COULD I BE DOING right now?"  My week of going to sleep at a normal time every night and catching up on massive amounts of sleep actually gave me a a whole lot more focus and energy during the hours I was awake.

I am certain my kids and husband were grateful for a not overly tired and cranky mom banging around too. I noticed that one thing that is so obvious when you aren't horrifically sleep deprived, that I actually get a whole heck of a lot less done when I'm exhausted.  I just end up trudging around, whining and complaining, or getting frustrated as I stub my toe for the fiftieth time as I reattempt something that I failed (also fifty times).

Now, I know when we all become mamas and papas, we understand we're trading in sleep and such for loving a new little piece of love in our loves.  That is awesome.  But when that little bit of love allows us to throw in a couple extra winks, once in awhile, lets be grateful and set the to do list aside and head to bed.

Sleep.  Beautiful sleep. Let us all appreciate sleep.  What are you grateful for today?

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