For Dan’s birthday, we got him a Wii. I tried to get him a “wee kitten” but that didn’t go over so well. In fact, he made me promise that I would:

A) not buy him a kitten
B) not buy him any sort of new pet, for that matter
C) not have the waiters sing to him when we went out for his birthday dinner and
D) not buy him a kitten. For reals.

With this outrageous stifling of my gift giving creativity, I decided to get him an amp for his car. But then we heard that he has a ruptured ear drum and buying him an even louder stereo system is probably not going to help that. So finally, the Wii was decided upon.

I made him set it up so we could play together. He set it up and then remembered that he had a WOW raid to do. So while he was raiding, I was practicing my skillz in boxing.

Let’s just say, I am the next George Foreman. (The boxer, not the grill. I just didn’t want to list Mike Tyson who bites ears off because that’s gross. I can’t believe I justified this joke. Punchline FAIL.)

Spring always seems to be a little crazier for everyone. Warmer weather and spring fever take hold, causing all of us to overbook ourselves with plans and activities. One girl who’s not letting chaos rule her life? My sister that’s not a sister, Michelle. On April 30th, she’s going to board a plane for Hawaii, where she plans to live with her mother and stepfather. Actually, she’s only planning on living with them for a few months until the renovations on their 2nd home are done and then she’ll be moving into her own place on Oahu. She put in her 2 week notice over 2 weeks ago, so she’s job-free right now. She sold her car within 24 hours of posting the ad. She’s boxing up her stuff and giving things away to friends and charities, all in preparation for the big move. This is a great opportunity for her to get a fresh start on her life, but I am insanely jealous. When I told my mom I wanted to drop everything and move to an island, I got no response. Apparently my mother isn’t willing to buy a house in Hawaii just to make me happy.

I’m deprived.

Anyway, this means that Dan and I will be living alone again. The house is way too big for us, so we plan on closing all the upstairs rooms, turning the A/C upstairs up to at least 85 and living our lives on the bottom floor. The only thing I’m worried about is the cohabitation  of our cats and my parents’ dogs. Even if we could get them used to each other, I’d still worry about the cats making a break for the doggy door. I don’t want to leave the dogs outside during the hot summer days and I don’t want to lock the cats up in unairconditioned rooms. Any suggestions on how to work this out would be greatly appreciated. I looked into buying a giant dog pen that we could put inside the doggie door, instead of on the outside the way “normal” people do it. That way the dogs could still come in but wouldn’t be able to kill the cats. Mental images of the dogs pulling the pen out of the wall or of giant 12′x12′x6′ structures in the middle of our kitchen detered me. I’d be ok with the 2nd option, but I’m fairly sure my parents would think I was nuts. And I’m sure I don’t even need to describe the looks Dan will give me.

Dan is working an awful shift at work recently. Every year at inventory time, he ends up working overnights or on weekends. This year it’s been midnight until 9am. By the time he actually leaves and picks up some food, it’s about 10am when he gets home. He does some chores or errands, checks his email, eats and surfs the internet. I’m sure there’s at least an hour of WOW in there too. Then he goes to sleep and I wake him up when I get home, around 6pm. We eat dinner together and go through our normal evening routine, and then he heads off to work. This is about the time that I should go to bed. Instead, I find myself wide awake and unable to sleep.

It’s not that I fear for my safety. We have yippy dogs that will alert me if anything moves and nosy neighbors that report vehicles coming and going. We have heavy duty locks and my sister is home, so it’s not like I’m by myself. I just can’t seem to fall asleep. It’s more about the fact that I don’t feel snuggly and comfortable when he’s gone.

I tried letting the cats in to sleep with me. Normally a purring kitten is my sleeping pill, but even they didn’t lull me to sleep. Possibly because Max is so heavy that he knocks the wind out of me, Gucci meows loudly if you’re not paying enough attention to her and Oscar likes to attack blankets. Specifically the blanket I happen to be using, even if there are others nearby.

Next I tried going to sleep while Dan was still there. Sorta tricking myself into thinking that I would be relaxed all night if I started out with him being home. When he left, the noise from the door closing woke me up. Nothing I did could make me fall back asleep.

The third night I tried boring myself to sleep. I turned on Bratz, thinking the movie would make me drift off, but instead I wasted 2 hours of my life watching teenagers whine about not being cool. Then I spent a good 30 minutes drafting a letter in my head to the producers, with a breakdown of how much money they owed me for wasting my time and brain cells.

By the 4th night, I was so exhausted that I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. I started to read a magazine article about the proper way to clean silk plants and how to organize a sock drawer. The magazine got too heavy to lift, so I opted for TV. By this time, my eyelids started to droop and I was drifting off. I quickly switched off the lights and the TV and prepared myself for a full 8 hours of sleep.

An hour later I was still awake and was cursing that I had moved even an inch to turn off the light. This week, if I start to fall asleep anywhere I am not moving. I don’t care if I end up sleeping in the bathtub.

It’s gotten so bad that Dan bought me a case of Monster from Costco. When Husband willingly buys me enough energy drinks to jump start a car battery, you know that my sleep hours are seriously lacking. I tried telling him that he was saving money because truth is, I would have bought them every single day. Instead of paying $2.29 each, we paid $1.09 a pop. I *TOLD* him I was frugal.

Minus when it comes to buying crafting supplies, of course.