Everyman: Day 20

Not the best day in terms of sticking to the schedule. I missed my mid day nap, but took an ‘on-the-way-home’ nap. Once home, I forgot to take another nap! This evening was quite busy, as Angela and I prepared to host some rowers of the CMU crew team before their race tomorrow. I went to BJs for food for them, and us. I am bad at shopping, although some might say I’m good. I tend to come back with ‘extras’. Seeing as there’s a dehydrator waiting at home, there would be something to do with all those ‘extras’. So I bought 4 pineapples, and a box of canned pineapple to experiment with. I’m still striving for the TJs style pineapple rings. Angela also prepared cinnamon rolls to bake tomorrow. I can’t wait to pull those out of the oven!

Everyman: Day 19

I see to be getting better at waking up with my alarm. In fact today, I did so well, I was able to get out the door for work a 1/2 hour earlier. I was also able to come home a 1/2 hour earlier, and used that extra time to bake a spinach bread that Angela found a recipe for. There is still 3/4 of the dough sitting in the fridge to bake 3 more loaves! I also recently got a dehydrator that my mom and I ordered. I tossed half a pineapple on that yesterday to dry, in lieu of trader joe’s dried pineapple rings, which have been discontinued. Here’s hoping for success!

I have been feeling pretty good during the day, but still quite groggy just after waking up in the morning. Although, my post nap stupor today has been much less severe and much less disorienting, so that was nice.

Everyman: Day 18

Today, I woke up with my radio alarm surprisingly. It was set to go off before the hello kitty, and it actually woke me up. This is surprising, because pretty much since starting this experiment, I’ve never gotten up when it was going off. I think I became too skilled at turning it off with the least amount of disturbance.

Something that I’ve noticed about my consciousness…
I apparently wake up in the night, or at least become active to the point that I talk and even open my eyes. I never remember this, and have Angela’s word only. Since she sometimes similarly talks in her sleep, I trust that she isn’t playing mind-tricks on me. Occasionally, I will remember waking up in the middle of the night, though not during one of my odder conversations (i.e. doughnuts). While I am awake, I am fully aware of what I’m doing and even think to myself, “I’ll remember this in the morning.” I guess, my real questions is, do I say this to myself every-time I wake up at night, even when I don’t end up remembering it, or is it some fluke of consciousness that I know ahead of time what I will remember?

Everyman: Day 17

One of the things that I have noticed, and have not yet come to terms with when sleeping like this, is that the flow of time gets very wacky – to say so in the most scientific of terms. The “long” sleeps, of 3 hours, go by very quickly, and don’t yet seem to satisfy quite enough of the “mmm, bed” feeling.

However, the naps feel like they span an eternity. Partially, I think it is because I wake up frequently throughout due to noises, and the fear of over sleeping at work. Also, I think I tend to dream more during the naps. I don’t necessarily remember the dreams, but I get a sneaking suspicion that there was one. This gives me the sensation that hours have passed, and I can’t believe that I’ve only been napping for 10 minutes.

I think that the kicking was on auto-pilot this morning. If memory serves me (but apparently it does not fairly frequently), I was still being kicked as I fumbled with the alarm in my hands trying to remember how to turn it off.

Everyman: Day 16

Another successful wake up, with kicking of course. Today I erged, showered, made breakfast and packed lunch. I have had two excellent naps so far today, and I’m about to embark on the last one. On the way home I stopped and got some chocolate chip cookies from Crispie Sweetie, the local candy/baked goods/soon to be doughnut shop. They were an excellent combination of crispy around the edges, and chewy in the middle, and of course plenty of sweet. I also picked up 2 sets of “American Girl” books for Angela. She is almost done a set of 6 books, about 20 minutes after starting. I’m such a slow reader, I might have finished one in that time.

Time for nap #3.

Everyman: Day 15

Up at 4:15 with a hearty kick and directions to the location of the alarm, followed by a morning constitutional in the form of erging.  Next, we created waffles for the masses (Angela, and her friend Megan, visiting for the weekend), to critical acclaim (or so we’d like to think).  The 9:15am departure window for the art museum whiled away, as the villagers napped.  Rather a more realistic 10:45am seemed to better suit the populous.  The new schedule took the people to Love Park, and the art installation in front of the municipal building, which included various game tokens, such as dominos, checkers, bingo numbers, sorry pieces, and monopoly tokens (wheelbarrow, top hat, and the iron), as well as various chess pieces. The piece is titled “Your Move“

From there, the king’s entourage, took him to Reading (pronounced Redding) Terminal Market (once the end of the Reading railroad – think monopoly).  There we dined, and we were pleased by the bounty of Deliah’s fried chicken and macaroni and cheese.   This paltry offering was washed down by pistachio and “Gadzooks!” (chocolate, with chunks of peanut butter) flavored ice cream from “Bassett’s Ice cream”.  We were pleased.  We don’t know if the others were.

Yes, I used the royal ‘we’.

Extra time: Erg, waffle production.

Everyman: Day 14

I seem to have a serious issue with waking up on the weekends. Today, the damage was about 3.5 hours. I feel like this is almost resume worthy obstacle overcoming. I not only slept through my usual alarm clock on the bedside table, but also my cell phone. Oh, and that annoying hello kitty alarm clock, yeah, the one that was across the room. I will be skipping my morning nap, seeing as I slept through it.

Tonight, since there are no more ‘big guns’ to whip out, I will try some more subversive tactics, such as drinking copious amounts of water before bed. That way when I do wake up, I’ll be up and out the door! Let’s hope this one doesn’t backfire!

Everyman: Day 13

Today was a good day on the plan.  I hit my naps, and slept pretty well through them.  I think that tonight will be a true test.  I did not do well last weekend in waking up when I ought to.

Observations: I find that I am more alert while I am supposed to be awake.  I used to find my self nodding off all the time, now I do it much less.  I think part of that was that before I probably thought, ‘oh, I could be sleeping now’ whereas now I think ‘it is not yet time for my sleep’.  I do start to get very tired a short while before my naps.

Approximate hours slept since the beginning of the experiment:  57  That’s 4 hours a day, with 5 hours of indiscretion.  Typical 8hr/day schedule: 104.  104-57 = 47 hours extra that I’ve been awake.  Nearly 2 whole days in 2 weeks.  Time to up the productivity, I’d say.

Everyman: Day 12

Waking up to death kitty belting out happy sounding music from across the room sure did the trick.  Now my biggest hurdle is remembering to take my naps!  After 2 days of forgetting to take my evening nap, today I forgot to take my lunch time nap.  To make up for it, I pushed it back till I was on the train ride home.  I wonder how many times the driver had to yell into the speaker that we were at the last stop before I woke up and got off?

Today’s extra time:  Push-ups and pull-ups with a morning shower and shave.

Everyman: Day 11

Another day waking up after the alarm goes off, without recollection of the alarm going off.  I need to move it across the room for tomorrow.  That, and I probably should lie back down before heading to work, especially while closing my eyes.

I admit, I’ve been dragging the last couple of days.  I still think that I suffer from inconsistancy in my timing, but hopefully that will be leveling out.  I even forgot to take my evening nap yesterday until only a couple of hours before the big sleep.  I don’t think that did much to improve my energy in the scant hours between.

Big thing done today:  More laundry.