Allergies, Insomnia, and Cleaning the Basement

Really rough night last night. Throughout the night, I kept waking up to blow my nose. My throat was really raw as a result of my nose running nonstop, and it felt like every five minutes I had to get out of bed for more tissues.

I found myself trying to get back to sleep each time, but my nose, in tandem with my throat, made things incredibly unpleasant. Finally, after several attempts… I got out of bed around 3:45 AM around 3:11 AM.

On the positive side, I remembered something I needed to do for work. And in the early morning haze of insomnia, realized that I forgot to factor in yesterday’s holiday. I thought I had an additional day to work, but I realized I didn’t.

So – I pulled out my work laptop, and started my day a few hours earlier than normal. Long day.

Fun note: Mid-morning, I had a meeting on the floor below where I work. As I was making my way back up to my desk, I had a large coffee in one hand and my laptop in the other. I totally missed the first step (the first one!) and looked like I was one of those fancy horses at state fairs, showing how they know how to count. My balance got thrown off, and I almost ate it right there in the stairwell.

Amazingly, I got through the day with no actual harm to my person. I was thinking of leaving early, but the day got away from me and I hopped the Metra for my usual commute home. Part of me was worried I’d sleep past my stop, and wake up somewhere deep in Southern Illinois… but I cat-napped between stations, and woke up in time. A dangerous game, that. I really should have just stood by the doors, to prevent myself from nodding off and missing my stop.

At home, I took another cat nap and woke up with Bob arrived. We (I say we, but it was mostly him) cleared out the remainder of the kitchen floor. I moved a lot of the excess wood outside, and we talked about our rough plans for the things we needed to do for the basement still.

While we were planning, Liz had suited up in her work clothes and was tackling cleaning the basement area (below where we and been working all week, on the kitchen). It was a mess down there, but she really cleared the space up well!

The floor is visible once more, which is crazy given all the debris that’s fallen down there since we started pulling up the kitchen floor.

Long, long day. I don’t know how Bob keeps these early hours, and I have no idea how parents of newborns do it. I used to be a bit better managing sleep dep, but today I was definitely feeling like a hot mess.

Related:
Tearing Up the Kitchen Floor: Things Are Getting Real
Cleaning the Basement, Part 1
Cleaning the Basement, Part 2