OK….here’s the thing about my life: I help Nate get to sleep….and part of that is that after we’ve said our prayers, I usually (always) fall asleep with him.

Then, I wake up an hour or two later…so that I can start my evening and have a good solid block of about 15 minutes where I try to stay awake on the couch….and enjoy some quality adult time.

Now, at 4:35 the next morning, I’m sitting here…exhausted….in the quiet house before anyone else is awake….exhausted….not even going fishing….just sitting here waiting for the coffee water to get hot…exhausted…writing this blog.

And….somehow, it feels like a victory if the house is quiet for a moment.

The only part of that quiet that can make my quiet alone time a pleasure is knowing that soon the scene will change….and things will be noisy again….and these little guys will be needing to get some juice or get to school or climb up onto a lap.

Quiet time that I can be selective about is OK.

It feels good to be able to be selective at all.

(That’s the little guys I’m talking about…..Isaac doesn’t crawl onto my lap anymore.That would be kind of creepy.)

So when I say “late to bed, early to rise”, it’s really just me turning a phrase to amuse myself.

I should say “early to bed, then get up and look around, then go back to a different bed, then…early to rise”.

That would be more accurate.

I go to sleep really early…even if nobody tells the “big boy/man” that it’s his bedtime now.

I sleep…just in a weird disjointed way.

We’re in the “overtime” period at the post office now.

That means that even though the workload is increased because of Christmas, we’re supposed to figure out how to do the job without going over our evaluated time.

So, in spite of all the safety talks, I guess that we’re supposed to drive like bats out of Hades and get back to the post office LICKETY SPLIT….(without throwing any packages).

Overtime is something that the Union got for us….but management doesn’t like it, so they strongly (STRONGLY) discourage us from getting it.

I wish they’d just pay us our evaluation….let us work hard….and stop riding us about something that we don’t have any control over.

People like to buy things at Christmastime….and we deliver a lot of packages….and it takes longer to get the packages out….and it’s dangerous when you can’t see out of your overstuffed vehicle…and….blah, blah, blah.

It’s like this every year.

I had a couple of packages stolen up on my route the other week….but it turned out that one of the ten-year-old neighbors took them.

Good to get them back…but a pain for me.

I take it too personally…like it’s my fault if some little thief thinks that he needs to take someone’s Barbie Roll-a-Round.

What’s a little boy need with a Barbie Roll-a-Round?

Nate’s up.

It is an exhausting amount of work to carve out a “stolen moment” of quiet time.

 

“river (cover)” Cee-Lo Green