Counting Sheep

I could not sleep last night. We are talking laying awake from 9:30 p.m. until about 12:30 a.m. I do not know exactly when I feel asleep, I just know when I finally did check the clock it was 12:15 a.m. I have NO idea why but my brain would not shut off. It was thinking about every little thing I have to do in the next week. I tried my usual meditation and listening to my breathing, obviously that worked great, yeah not so much. That usually works. Then I tried relaxing my body, one body part at a time, starting at my toes. That didn't work either. I tried every trick I know for falling asleep and it just would not come to me. I am pretty sure sleep was evading me for three reasons, well maybe four.

Reason Number One: I did not have my usual cup of bedtime tea. I really like Celestial's Sleepytime Vanilla. I know, there isn't proof that these work, but hey they seem to work for me. Just drinking them when they are warm and I'm all cozy in my jammies just relaxes both my body and mind. It's like that cup of tea tells my body we are winding down for the night.

Reason Number Two: I did not read before bed. I usually read every single night, I have since I was a kid. Why? Because it helps me to fall asleep. Last night however, I had done some Yoga before bed meant for relaxing and getting ready to sleep, which I do several nights a week, I felt tired enough to just climb in bed. WRONG! I shut my lamp off and my brain was running a marathon. I thought I would try some relaxing techniques and I would nod off, nope. Nice try though, my brain was saying to me. At least I know not to look at the clock, because then you just start stressing about how many hours you have left that you could be sleeping and it just keeps you awake longer. You see I need to read because it lets my mind stop thinking about what I need to do and focus on the story. Then I just read until my eyes wont stay open, and I'm good. I'm asleep, well except for last night. I shouldn't have been so stubborn and just turned my light back on and read for a half hour, but I was in a game of will power with my self last night. I sure showed me. In retrospect, that would have been the logical thing to do. I just kept thinking "No, you will go to sleep"

Reason Number Three: I just could not get comfortable. I had a little bit of a queasy stomach all day so it did not help either. Usually just snuggling up to Nick would get me to fall asleep, but his bony little butt was digging into my nauseous tummy. So that didn't work like I had planned. I tossed and turned.........and tossed some more. I tried chewing some Tums, (hey that is all I had) but that did not work either.

A Possible Reason Number Four: I am not a big consumer of pop and caffeine but yesterday, as I was running errands, the desire to have some Dr. Pepper hit. I swung through the McDonald's drive through to get one and saw that all sizes were a buck and I was super thirsty. I got the large one. This was at about 11:00 a.m. I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but like I said I don't get a lot of caffeine on a daily basis and I am guessing that might have been close to a shock to my system.

So sometime after midnight I finally fell asleep, to be woken up just after 4:00 a.m. when Nick was cuddling and groping me in his sleep. I think I finally fell back asleep around 6:00 a.m. when Nick went to work. Ella got up at 7:30 a.m. This is going to be a very long day, I will not be getting another Dr. Pepper either, just in case.