Currently in a tent in the West Desert. The weather's not bad. No wind, but pretty cold. Even though there's been a bit of snow in the valley, the desert is pretty dry (aka, no mud).
Rather than bringing a pile of warm blankets and my air mattress, I decided to just bring my new bivy sack along with my new fleece sleeping bag and my old down sleeping bag. I put the fleece bag inside of the down bag and those inside of the bivy sack.
I didn't dare sleep out in the elements quite yet, but here in the tent on my cot (on a thin sleeping pad) I'm quite warm. Now that I've finally learned to take the bag with me when I toss and turn instead of trying to move inside of the bag, in retrospect I think that I should have purchased the mummy bag instead of the rectangular bag. Oh well, I guess I can do that when I wear this bag out. At least with all of that extra material down at the bottom, my feet are warm.
Overall, it's been a nice camp. Now if only I could actually sleep.
Sunday's are probably my most busy day of the week. By the time I get home (tonight it was 7:00 pm) I'm exhausted and am ready for bed.
Luckily, I don't have to work tomorrow thanks to our Presidents.
Laying here in a tent in my sleeping bag, trying to sleep. I haven't resorted to counting sheep yet, but I am listening to my iPod hoping that will help.
I have this real problem when I camp, I never get much sleep. I don't know what it is, but even if I do doze off a little I sleep so lightly that I wake up with the slightest noise.
You would think with going camping nearly every month of the last 16 or so months that I would get used to it and be able to get in a good night every so often, but it never seems to happen.
Oh well, at least I'm not freezing too.
Worked through most of the night last night, so I'm exhausted. Time for bed.
About 3:00 this morning my wife heard the sound that every parents dreads this time of year.
I was only partially awake, but that changed quickly. Our son was throwing up. For the next 3 hours he received two baths, his sister (whom he shares a room with) received one and their bedding was changed at least twice. The great thing is that I have a wonderful wife who understands that I will vomit myself when confronted with it from other sources. So she was very good about cleaning it up and being on the front lines while I cowered in the other room offering assistance where I could.
You would think that after being parents for this many years that we'd learn to not put a sick child in bed with another child. The not sick child will be thrown up on every time.
It was cute at around 4:30 my daughter kept calling for my wife, so I went in to check on her. She wanted to tell me that her brother "didn't throw up on me". I assured her that was good and went back to bed.
My son had some tests at the hospital last night. So I went with him and spent the night there to be with him.
Since he was the patient he was able to sleep in a nice hospital bed. I, on the other hand, was given the privilege of sleeping on the hospital provided Transformer chair-bed. I've "slept" on them before and I never look forward to doing it.
With each of our children's birth I've tried to avoid sleeping on them as much as possible. My wife didn't like it much, but there was just no way that I was going to be able to spend too many nights on those things.
Last night was no different. The tech came in and Transformed it into the "bed". It was uncomfortable enough as a chair and it only got worse as a bed.
It had zero padding on it, so it really was like sleeping on a slab of concrete. The biggest problem was that I couldn't just sleep flat on my back because my shoulders were wider than the bed was. So I ended up trying to sleep in all kinds of crazy positions.
Nothing seemed to help body parts were tingling and asleep, but I was hardly able to get any kind of rest. So when it was over this morning, I came home and jumped into my nice soft warm king sized bed and slept for over 3 hours.
Just a bit of advice for Hospital Administrators out there, why don't you look at getting a partnership going with Serta. Maybe Serta could provide you with some great beds for the parents to sleep on and the parents could subject themselves to hearing the Techs/Nurses/Doctors calling it by name every time they mention it. "Hello sir, here are your linens for your Serta Perfect Sleep Hospital Edition bed. Have good night's rest."
I would think that the parents would love a good night's rest and who knows maybe they'll go buy a new Serta mattress just because during that super stressful time that they child was in the hospital, they remember that they got a great night's sleep on a Serta mattress.
I began work yesterday morning at about 9:00 am and the end of the work day today (33 hours later) I had logged 30 hours. I'm going to bed.
Bedtime around our house is usually full of a bunch of tired grump kids that claim they aren't tired and don't want to go to bed. My daughter is no exception.
When she's tired she is cranky! Many times she'll tell us that she doesn't want to go to bed or get her pajamas on all while crying and sucking her thumb.
That is until my wife or I suggest that she she can sleep in one of our shirts if she'll go to bed. She has a favorite that she picks out every time. It's one that I received a while back that has a large image of Elmo on the front.
As soon as she's able to grab that shirt she happily runs off to her to her bedroom to change and get ready for bed. I think that we may be getting played, but it gets her to go to bed, so I think of it as a Win-Win.
It's been an insanely crazy day today. One of those where you just want to go back to bed (well for those that actually went to bed in the first place).
Thankfully today's tasks are completed and I can go to bed. The best part is that my wife isn't working tonight and I can at least spend a couple of minutes wth her while I drift off to sleep.
