Sane people do the majority of their housework during the day, early evenings or on the weekends. Me...I do mine late at night. The reasons are two fold. First, my hubby works the graveyard shift so he needs to sleep during the day. I cannot be running a vacuum cleaner in the bedrooms or cleaning our master bathroom. There is no hanging pictures and pounding nails into the wall. Big reorganizing projects...well since I tend to drop things and sometimes rather loud and not so pleasant things escape my mouth when the object hits my foot (which I have broken in the past) cannot be tackled during the normal daylight hours. I am able to do some cooking if I close the bedroom door for a few hours to at least muffle the sounds of the mixer but even that gets me into trouble sometimes. My hubby, a man who clearly loves good food, frequently wakes up to the aroma of something good baking or cooking in the oven and then has a hard time getting back to sleep himself. Since he drives a long route at night, sleep is kind of an important thing for him. So I do my stuff late into the night when he is at work.
The second reason, that makes this all possible, is that I have insomnia and strange sleep patterns. Most of the time, even if I go to bed at what most people would consider a normal time like 10 or 11 p.m., I will lay there and toss and turn for hours. I'm lucky if I can get to sleep before 2 a.m. on any given night and it is frequently much later than that. Now, I will say this, if I am allowed to (by his highness Rufus the crazy cat or Caesar the needy dog) I will sleep until about 10 a.m. This is a newer development for me because for years I was still up by 7 or 8 a.m. if I did not have to work and if I did, I was up between 5:30 and 6 a.m.. Do you see how this could pose a problem for me?
I blame menopause on all this...yes, things just got worse after I hit menopause. So throw in the waking up soaked in sweat or throwing covers off and on for hours because one minute you feel like someone cranked up the furnace in your body to the "incinerate heat" setting and the next moment you realize that the temperature in your bedroom is in the low 60's so that you can hopefully sleep and you are grabbing for those blankets again and covering up before you freeze and you have a recipe for little sleep. And yes, I do take natural supplements to help with the hot flashes...you should have seen how much worse it was before I started taking them.
So if you have gotten this far you can most likely guess who the sane one in this house is and who the not so sane one is. My kids always did say I was a bit crazy...well now they can finally justify that sentiment. ;)
My hubby works afternoon to evenings, but is a late to bed guy (2 am). He too, is a light sleeper and his job (train motorman) requires alertness. He also realized he needs 8-9 hours' sleep, and I too have to put off housework. Our son is special-needs, who arrives home by 3:30 each afternoon. With hubby awake by 9-10 (and often he's up earlier because he has restless leg syndrome...then needs a nap), he and I also need 'couple' time (i.e. coffee together, chatting, hanging out). With my dear son, I must be in bed by 9 and I too am in menopause. So I am awake off and on throughout the nights! No sweating ... yet. My housekeeping has no schedule because there is no schedule I can actually implement...even after 31 years as a homemaker :-P. Sense of humor. And firstly, though...God. Keeps me going!!! ;)
ReplyDeleteEileen, I can so relate to you. You have your hands full and trying to balance it all is hard. I pray you do not get the sweating...it is miserable!
DeleteBless your heart... it is so hard to adjust to working in the hours when our bodies are supposed to be asleep. I can only imagine the difficulties that would pose. I've heard the terrible stories about menopause, and oh my friend, I feel so for you, as those years are surely next in store for me too. Cleaning at night would make sense for sure... you are not crazy my friend, you are just trying to make the best of a difficult situation! Much love to you today :)
ReplyDeleteThank you. :) I did the perimenopause for 7 years and then finally hit menopause with ovaries intact. I was finally getting the night sweats under control when I had to have a total hysterectomy and that threw my body for a total loop and made the night sweats so much worse. On the plus side, my mood swings evened out...so there is that. ;)
DeleteOh yeah that was me last night - covers on, covers off, covers on.....even with the supplements I take!
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain! ;)
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