What Keeps You Up?

I’ve always been a night owl.  I am the type of person that sends emails in the middle of the night.  It’s when it’s quiet.  It’s when the phone stops ringing, the IMs stop dinging, and the rest of the world (including my children) are sleeping peacefully.

Yes, there are a few of my friends that burn the midnight oil with me, but for the most part it’s just me, kicking butt and taking names.  It’s one of the reasons that I enjoy working from home.  While I am available during business hours and do quite a bit of work then, my hours are customizable.  Meaning, if I get distracted or need to take my car in for an oil change in the middle of the day, I can make those hours up at night.

More often than not, it’s because I’ve gotten distracted.

Before the option of working from home came about, I decided that I was best suited for a 3-11 job.  The problem with that is that (1) there aren’t any 3-11 desk jobs that pay the salary that I want need to make and (2) daycare is hard to come by during those hours.

So I’m grateful that I found something that works for me.

However, I know that when school starts back in 25 days (not that I am counting) I know that my days of staying up until 4am watching cooking demonstrations working need to come to an end.  I will have to arise from my comfy, cozy bed at 6:30am to get Samara out the door.  Matthew, since he’s now in middle school won’t leave until 8.. and don’t think that I’m not counting down until when Sam starts middle school so that I can sleep in an extra hour.

But I’m going to have to get up early.  As is Samara, who apparently got her night owl genes from me, because there are nights that she’s outlasted me.

Knowing this means that I have to adjust a few things.  While I do like to stay up late and work when it’s quiet, I also know that there are certain triggers that prolong my droopy eyes and the desire to fall into bed.

Surprisingly, it’s not caffiene.

For example, I cannot take a shower at night.  It wakes me up.  Therefore, this week, since we’ve not gotten home from soccer until 9 and because it’s so terribly hot, I’ve had to take showers at 9pm… at the earliest.  That’s only if I run in the house and into the bathroom faster than either of the kids.

I also cannot do anything that requires thinking.  So, if I know that I need to be in bed by 11, I can’t work a crossword puzzle, read a business book, brainstorm with a friend, etc.  If I do, my mind kicks into high gear and I can’t shut it off.  The flip side to that is that I DO get a lot of work done.  But I keep going and going like the freakin’ energizer bunny and it’s 4am and I have to get up at 6:30.

I’ve started to notice some patterns.  Like in the summer time, I don’t read as much.  It’s because I’m staying up late.  When school is in session, that is how I unwind.  I’ll go to bed at 11 and read until I can’t keep my eyes open.  I’ve been reading the same book for over a week now.  And I’ve read a grand total of two this summer… both of those while I was on vacation.  (When I was going to bed at 11 every night because I had to get up to go into the office.)

We go back to this routine in 25 days.  Ok, so I am counting.

I know that in the next two weeks, all three of us are going to have to start going to bed early so that we can get our bodies adjusted to our new schedules.  I was hoping that football and soccer starting this week would make us all so utterly exhausted but it hasn’t happened yet.

And it probably won’t.

So how do you handle the adjustment from summer to school year?  And are you like me?  Are there things that keep you up?

Until next time…