Night Shift Type A Personality

So folks, as much as I would like to deny it, I have a type A personality (at times, but especially at work). The other night (I can't remember which, a side effect of working nights is losing all sense of the date, day of the week, or time of day), I realized that I have not been sleeping enough. I have been moody (shocking I know), overly emotional, disoriented, and paranoid (especially about sleeping in my very safe apartment).

After much evaluation, I came to the conclusion that I was only getting about 5 hours of sleep on my days off, which is the direct result of me trying to keep a day schedule on my days off. After working my last 12 hour night shift, I would sleep from 9-12 and then take a nap from 2-3 and 6-7. Then I would try and force myself to go to bed at 11pm so I could wake at 9am so I could feel "normal". The result, is that I have deprived myself of sleep for too long and am now having a hard time sleeping due to paranoid delusions that there is some crazy demonic presence in my apartment (lack of sleep combined with to many late night episodes of Ghost Hunters and TAPS will do that to you). Note: I don't actually think there is anything demonic in my apartment, but when you are tired and you see something "move" out of the corner of your eye, the imagination runs wild!

In an effort to fix this lack of sleep and the ensuing problems related to that, I have set myself a pretty rigid schedule for sleep, eating, exercise, and even vitamins. Thank you type A personality I have inherited from my mother (its not a bad thing mom, really). Anyway, I thought you might be interested in this schedule, and feel free to beg, borrow, or steal anything that fits for you if you work nights too.

Sleeping:
Work Days: 9am-5pm
Transition Day (first off day following my last night shift): 9am-3pm, nap early evening if needed
Off Days: 4am-12pm, nap if needed mid afternoon.

Eating:
Work Days: B 5:30pm, Snack 9:30pm, L 1am, Snack 4:30am, D 8:15am
Off Days: Whenever I want, but am only allowed to eat out twice a week, not every day
*No processed foods on work days!*
High protein B and S. Balanced L and S. High Carb D

Exercise
Transition Day:5pm
Off Days: 2pm
No exercise on work days (sleep is much more important)

Meds/Vitamins:
BP Med: 5:30pm
Fish Oil/Multi Vit: 8:30am on work days and whenever I eat B on off days.

You will notice I have not assigned bathroom visits....somethings just shouldn't be scheduled!

This has gone into effect as of last night, so I haven't tweaked anything yet. Hopefully, this will get me up and running better in the next 2 weeks or so. I have also applied for a day position, which if granted, I won't actually start until next summer; but hey, at least its something to look forward to.

Well, I think I should get back to work. Good night (or morning to you day folks).

Snail races and other things single people do to entertain themselves

So...what do a bunch of single 20 somethings do for fun on the 3rd of July....we have snail races! Actually, we had a BBQ for community group, THEN we had the snail race. The house we were at had a ton of snails, and one of the guys thought it would be fun to have a contest to see which snail was the fastest. Out came the fingernail polish to adorn the particularly lucky snails...they were covered in dots, a smiley face, and several styles of racing stripes. It was then decided that we needed a finish line, so the ribbon basket was brought outside and a nice pink ribbon was adorned with "finish" and stakes between two twigs pushed into the grass across the sidewalk. The contestant were lined up and then off they went! Smiley took the early lead, but then Norman put out the slime and pulled ahead. The race was antenna to antenna the whole time, but Norman won by a fraction. After a round of cheering, he was given the place of honor in the bushes, where he would be safe for a while. There are pictures and a video floating around, so when I can get a hold of them, I will post them here.

The other entertainment that us single people like to enjoy is making fun of the other members of the community group who are singing old school worship songs while playing bongos and keeping time with sticks. They were inside the house, singing away, while 5-6 of us (me included) were outside snickering at them and remembering how dorky we were in junior high and high school.

Fun times!

Anyway....my life is boring, hence the need to race snails. Work is going well, although I have not been overly busy for the past few weeks. I think I've read 3 books in the past two weeks and that was only reading them at work! I shouldn't complain, as there are days when it is super busy, but it sure makes the nights really long!

Not much else to say...so I guess I'll get back to work...I mean reading my book :-)