Adventures in Wonderland: Found in a Random Binder Somewhere:

Adventures in Wonderland: Found in a Random Binder Somewhere:: "Twelve Thoughts for Today 1) Life is a sexually transmitted disease. 2) Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. 3)..."

Found in a Random Binder Somewhere:

Twelve Thoughts for Today

1) Life is a sexually transmitted disease.

2)  Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

3)  Men have two emotions:  Hungry and Horny.  If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

4)  Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day:  teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.

5)  Some people are like Slinkies.  Not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.

6) Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

7)  Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

8)  All of us could take a lesson from the weather.  It pays no attention to criticism.  

9)  Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?

10)  In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird.  Now the world is weird and people take Prozac  to make it normal.

11)  Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession.  I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

12)  You read about all these terrorists.  Most of them come here legally, but they hung around on these expired visas, some for as long as 10-15 years.  Now, compare that to Blockbuster; you are two days late with a video and those people are all over you.  I think we should put Blockbuster in charge of immigration :)

I am thankful for ME :)

So, I have been left all alone for this thanksgiving and I am oh so grateful.  It's not that I don't like my family, in fact I am rather fond of them.  It's just that there is someone that I rarely get to spend time with that I love and I miss terribly.  That person is ME.  Since the Muk Muk was born I have spent a grand total of 20 minutes with ME in our home.  20 minutes in almost a year.  That is no where near enough time to form a stable relationship.  The last time Me and I got to spend any time together was when I traveled to Surrey to visit my Tanya back in May.  I read a whole, rather large, book on that trip and came home feeling refreshed and ready for the return to life.  But, unfortunately life runs me down sometimes and I need a break, and I am not one of those people to shy away and say "I don't deserve it".  I work hard.  I definitely deserve a good "break" now and again.  

Dust spent a LOT of weekends this summer "away" (gone from morning till night) playing baseball, so he felt I deserved a break.  Friday he packed up the Muk Muk and took her to visit Gramma & Grampa H for thanksgiving and was gracious enough to tell me that I wasn't invited (oh, and he even remembered to buy a turkey so that he could have leftovers when he got back).  So even though he sounds kind of like an ass here, he's definitely not.  He knows me better than I know myself, and he knows I need this time for me.  He even gave me something that I enjoy doing to do (that would be the turkey, cooking and me are also very good friends). 

So, now I've spent the last 24 hours catching up on sleep, playing with my puppies (who I think also miss ME), conversing with my Penguin, watching hockey, reading books, taking bubble baths, roasting turkey, and drinking coffee, the "good" kind.  As you can see, I am not taking this time lightly, I am doing some serious relaxing here.  There is no BS house-cleaning, or errands, or crap like that.  I am being ME, I am loving every second, and I am definitely trying not to waste any time "missing" anyone.

But, despite my best efforts, I do miss the baby snores through the monitor at night, and the big boy snores in the bed beside me.  I got up last night to pee and was confused that there was no diaper to change, or sleepy baby to cuddle.  This morning I could leave my brightly colored coffee cup on the coffee table with no worries that it would get thrown on the floor and broken (FYI I have an emotional attachment to each and every one of my coffee mugs).  I also didn't HAVE to watch Sesame Street first thing this morning (I did anyways, I like Cookie Monster).  After I had a shower, I put on a nice clean pair of PJ's and they have stayed nice and clean all day, there is no drool, food crumbs or snot stuck to them (not my drool, food crumbs, or snot...  Missy B's). 

Mimzy dog is good and keeps "checking" on the baby that isn't here.  She wanders into Muk Muk's room and looks in the crib every couple of hours, and then whines cause there's no one there.  Ninja is sucking up as much love as he can get as he has no competition, and Panda is really just the same.  Penguin on the other hand, is a total HAM!  He's been talking more than normal, and has learned some very bad words (*Thank-you very much Mr. Hyatt*).  He's been molting so he's super itchy, which means I get extra snuggles from him (mostly because I pick at his feathers for him, but extra snuggles are extra snuggles).  ME is doing well.  Same old ME.  ME still likes the same things and pretty much hasn't changed much since the last time we got to spend any time together.  So, if you'll excuse us there is a fresh, ice cold beer waiting, and we need to go and cheer for LA (if you don't know me, I'm not an LA fan, I'm just a Canuck hater).

Sleep... Or lack there of.

I had these wonderful intentions of going to bed early last night and for once I actually followed through.  I was in bed and asleep by 9:30!  But, of course, it was the worst sleep that I think I have ever had and coming from me (the master of horrible sleep) that really says something.  Dustin is like a sleep ninja.  He just goes to bed and says "time for sleep" and his entire body just shuts down and off to dreamland he goes for the night.  Once asleep he rarely wakes up until his alarm clock goes off for the first time.  After 9 years I'm still trying to figure out what his trick is.  He tells me he "just goes to sleep".  Yeah must be nice.

I've had trouble sleeping since I can remember.  It's not that my mind wanders, though I do get bored and start thinking about stuff.  It's not that I don't tire myself out during the day.  It's not that I am not tired when I go to bed.  It's not that I don't have a bed time routine, as I do work so I have to stay on somewhat of a schedule.  And once I am asleep I have no trouble staying asleep.  It's the actual getting to sleep part that I have problems with.  

I have tried everything: doctors, sleeping pills, magic teas, lavender baths, etc.  Nothing seems to work, unless you call making me even more tired and cranky working.  I was always told that a human bean needs 8 hours of sleep to function normally.  So I must not be functioning properly if I was only getting 3-5 hours?  Doctors were mildly concerned about my lack of sleep, as like I said, you need 8 hours to function properly, so there must be something wrong with me.  I had blood test after blood test, answered many many questions and there was nothing wrong with me.  I was doing everything right, but most importantly, I wasn't overly tired all the time.  Lots of times I actually feel more rested after 4 hours of sleep than I do when I actually got 8 hours.

Eventually I just gave up fighting my inability to get to sleep.  I have embraced it, come to terms with it, and even worked with it.  Instead of getting mad that I can't get to sleep, I started using that time for more useful things.  I think this worked out slightly in my favor because now, when I have to get up in the middle of the night with the Muk Muk, it isn't that big of a deal.  I am fully functional on 3 solid hours of sleep, though many days in a row of this makes me a little tired-cranky.  I have also started to make sure that I stay in bed for as long as I can to "rest".  Even though I'm not actually sleeping, I still lay in bed which lets my body rest up for the next day.  This might sound a little weird, but it's been working for me for the last 3-4 years.  I let my mind wander, I work out the worlds problems, I plan my week, and all the while my body is resting and rejuvenating itself.  This leaves me feeling like I got more rest than I actually did as opposed to when I would get up and pace the house and get angry that I was missing precious, valuable, platinum sleep (it also let's me organize my life at the mental level).

Despite my history of "bad" sleep habits, last night was terrible.  I actually got a fair amount of sleep and this morning I am so TIRED!  After three cups of coffee I feel like I was hit by a bus and am still squished on the pavement trying to get up.  My head is foggy, my body is still asleep, and my eyes keep drooping.  This better quit soon, because I have to go to work today and use my brain to make some money :)  Stupid, stupid me thinking going to bed early and getting lots of sleep would work out in my favor.

The Collection

As I have mentioned before we just recently finished re-arranging our home so that the Muk Muk would have a larger pasture to safely roam.  In the process of re-arranging, my bookshelf needed to be moved.  Anyone who has seen my bookshelf or has helped move it in the past pretty much ran away when I mentioned that we might need some help with it's migration from our bedroom to our living room.  

Years ago I asked my dad to build me an entertainment unit.  So, my dad, Dustin and I sat down and designed it so that all of our stuff fit perfectly.  Room for our stereo, TV, video game systems, spare parts, DVD's and CD's.  It worked awesome.  That is until the advent of giant flat screen TV's.  When we bought our big TV the intention was that our old TV would migrate (along with the entertainment unit to our room).  This was all fine and dandy until we bought our hobbit house and we would no longer be able to fit my bookshelves and the entertainment unit all in one room.  There was no way my books were moving out so I came up with the brilliant idea to use the shelves and space on the entertainment unit for my books, get rid of our old electronics and bribe Dustin with new stuff for the living room :)  It worked.  Old equipment sold/given away, brand new surround sound for the living room, and a fancy new home for my beloved books and there they lived until we decided that the shelf needed to migrate to the living room.

Needless to say, my books needed to come off of their giant shelf before the shelf itself could even be budged.  So I spent some time pulling the books off of the shelf and arranging them neatly in order on our bed.  This is the first time I have EVER seen my books all spread out.  I took pictures :)

Andy was nice enough to come and help us move the giant shelf (*thanks*) to it's new home in our living room and then I had to embark on the task of moving all the books from the bed to the shelf in the living room all the while keeping them in my OCD order.  This job could have been easier and would have been done in about 20 minutes if I had allowed Dustin to help me, but he doesn't understand why things need to go where they belong, so I argued to do it myself.  Obviously, I had to finish my task before bed time (as the books were napping on our bed) so it turned out to be a good thing that I had kept them in order in their transfer from the shelf to the bed (otherwise I think it is a strong possibility that I would still be arranging them now).  Anyways, here's the horrid bookshelf that sends everyone running whenever I need it moved.

Lord Hunger Fly

So, I embarked on The Hunger Games.  Interesting plot, moved quickly, slightly predictable though.  My personal thought was that the author did too much bending to her will.  Every time the plot was getting "tough" (as in it was getting hard to go in the direction she wanted it to) Suzanne Collins just made something "magical" happen that would shift the plot back into the right direction.  The overall plot was really good, and I like the dystopian future that she had set up and I will read the following two books in the series just to read more about it.  I'm a rather large fan of the dystopian future books.  Anthem by Ayn Rand = Best book ever.  Also high up on the list are Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and 1984 by Mr. Orwell.

Anyways, as I was making my way through The Hunger Games, I kept having remote flashbacks to another book about children killing each other.  I read Lord of the Flies in two of my English classes, so I've heard my fair share of lecturing on it, but alas I am getting old and I felt a re-read was in order as all I could really remember about reading it was how sorry I had felt for Piggy.  Poor poor Piggy.  So right after finishing The Hunger Games (as I had to wait for Amazon.com to process and ship my order for the next book in the series - Catching Fire) I dusted off my old copy of Lord of the Flies and once again got lost on that island with Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Sam n' Eric.  No one will ever have to remind me to never to get on a plane full of boys from a British private school.

I must say that I was surprised my remote flashbacks were fairly accurate.  Re-reading Lord of the Flies let me see some more similarities as well and I think it would be an interesting thesis topic for someone going in a literary direction.  I'm sure Suzanne Collins has read Lord of the Flies at some point in her life, but maybe not and I do wonder if those similarities were created on purpose or subconsciously.  Maybe I can google it or something....  *googles*...  And upon my googling adventures I have come across several people/blogs/sites/etc. that have drawn similar conclusions to mine: there are definite parallels between these two books, and according to these two I need to watch Battle Royale