Lately: Sleep Struggles

Steve has a new work schedule where he spends ~1/2 the week starting very early and ~1/2 the week on nights.  We are not adjusting as well as we'd like.

We're basically on a graveyard sleep cycle, with a couple biphasic sleep days thrown into the mix for the day shifts. It sounds easy when I write it, but the inconsistency has been rough. And keeping vampire hours is a little weird on the psyche (we're a lot less productive) and social life (it's 4am on Wednesday, everyone is sleeping). Luckily, we entertain ourselves pretty well.

And Phoebe is the very best "You're home!" greeter a person could ever ask for. She brings so much joy to each day.

But me, not so much.

All three of us are big nappers though, and it's really getting us through. We sleep at random times and for varying lengths, which I'm sure just throws in more inconsistency, but anything goes when we're trying to catch up on all the zzzz's we seem to be missing.

Every few days, we acknowledge that flipping our schedule back to being awake on days (rather than nights) is probably better from a productivity perspective. But the thought of increasing our sleep deprivation for a couple weeks while we transition...yeah, NO.

So for now, we're okay just gettin' by.

And very content with being so sleepy together.

The end.

I blog you

Hiiiii again.  More than a few of you have asked whether I'm going to keep blogging now that I'm back in the UAE.

When I started this blog in 2016 it was a practical way to keep everyone we love up to date as we moved from Washington state to Dubai. At the onset it was mostly a logistical decision; I didn't want to have the same conversation 15 times with 15 different people (I lazy). But Dubai was difficult in surprising ways and writing also became an important emotional and creative outlet for me. It was fun to share the pieces of our life with you and to hear back from you in the various forms of in person, digital, and text communication. In some ways, I think it brought us even closer to you than before.

But when I moved back to Washington in 2017 things got very meh. I didn't have the energy and rarely the inspiration so writing took a back seat and I focused on other things like Phoebe, and work, and gardening. I could have used the emotional and creative outlet just as much, but I just didn't have it in me.

And now I've been back in the UAE for ~6 weeks and it's been really, really great. The transition has been much easier (more on that later) and the "yay we're together again" glow is still firmly in place. But I just haven't felt like writing and I wasn't sure I'd ever get back to it. If you had asked me last week:

But a few days ago, Steven and I lost someone very close to our hearts. And in all the memories, and sadness, and lost opportunities swirling around I remembered why I started this blog to begin with:
to share
to connect
to be close in mind and heart even though we are far in distance
to love.

I had forgotten, but I remember now.

Recharging

Oh hi there.  I'm still alive, just recharging.

Phoebe and I moved back to the UAE about 3 weeks ago and all is well. We're all adjusting to our new normal (again) and so far it's going a lot better/easier/smoother than last time. I think we're all just so happy to be together again that it's hard to let the 'meh' get us down. Sure, there are weird/crazy/omg-wtf-is-this/annoying things happening - but that's life, right?

But enough of my "everything is great and we're so happy" post. Here's my dramatic glamour shot of Phoebe in the Kirkland WA backyard just before we left. It's probably the only thing we're really missing. And by "we" I mean Phoebe but she makes her feelings quite clear (everyday, multiple times a day) so we're feeling the pain too.

But on the bright side this hotel house is ginormous enough that we play indoor fetch everyday and Phoebe has too many beds and couches to pick from. Although I suspect her favorite thing is the increased square footage for spreading toy fluff. Apparently this is especially awesome right after housekeeping has come by.

So Phoebe's learning the upside of living here, too.