Top Ten Things To Do When You Wake Up In The Middle Of The Night And Can't Fall Back Asleep....

Top Ten Things To Do When You Wake Up In The Middle Of The Night And Can't Fall Back Asleep....

 

Top Ten Things To Do When You Wake Up In The Middle Of The Night And Can't Fall Back Asleep....

 

In honor of my beautiful new friend, Vonna.

1. Thank God for the sleep you DID get, 'cause it may be all you're getting. Seriously. I have been known to go to sleep at 11pm, wake up at 1am, and I'm up for the day! Who can manage on 2 hours of sleep? Not me. I am a grumpy mac grump grump all day. But it's not my fault. I will stay in my corner if you stay in yours. Deal? Deal. Quit looking at me. Blah.

2. Don't call anybody, unless it's an emergency. An emergency does not exist ONLY because you can't sleep.

3. Get online and see if anybody else is up. With the rampant frequency of insomnia these days, you can probably find an ally in your awakeness. Well, apparently that is not a word, because it has a squiggle line under it. I am using it anyway, in my rebelliousness. 
   
   
4. If you must get up and eat, don't eat EVERYTHING and leave the stuff nobody wants in the pantry. (Why haven't you thrown the stale cereal away before now anyway? Go on and do it now.)

5. Clean. Yes. If I KNOW I am not going back to sleep, I clean. You will need to do the quiet things, though. Don't vacuum. Wash a load of towels. DON'T wash tennis shoes or something that is going to bump around and make noise. Dust. Fold clothes. Quiet cleaning. Because you know you are going to want to nap tomorrow.

6. Read. My FAVORITE thing to do, besides writing or going to thrift stores. Usually what I write in the middle of the night is sheer brilliance or total crap. Mostly the latter. And thrift stores are not open 24/7.

7. Watch YouTube. However, I have been known to get into some weird places on YouTube at night. Like the videos where they are lancing things. I will assure you, you will not go back to sleep after seeing THAT.

8. Catch up on things you have DVR'd.

9. Clean out your purse, purge the pictures off of your cell phone of the inside of your purse, roll quarters...you get the idea.

10. Match your socks.

Now this is just a partial list, quickly jotted down off of the top of my head. I hardly EVER sleep all night, so I have lots of other things I do, but these are the ones I can think of right now. Oh, and watch cats on YouTube. Y'all know that is my go to. I can't have cats because my family is allergic, so I vicariously own all the kittens on YouTube.

What do y'all do? Let me know in the comments!!

joy!

Vicky

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Sunday

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Sunday

     Today is a day of rest and reflection. Church, naps, catching up on reading...a day to spend with family or alone...doing whatever you like.

     In his book, The Rest of God, Mark Buchanan discusses the Sabbath in a new way. He makes it clear that it is an Old Testament tradition with right now applications. We NEED a day of rest. Our bodies, minds, spirits..all of our soul needs a break from the everyday. I encourage you to read it.

     Sunday is what all the other days are all about. Devotion to God, others, and ourselves. Keeping our physical house in order is just the beginning! We need to use Sunday to get our spiritual house in order...and find balance for the week.

Love and joy!

Vicky

Don't miss the other days! Click the link below to go to the main page where you can find every link for the week!

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Seven Days of Routine Reflection

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Saturday

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Saturday

     Back in the Dish Towel Days, Saturday was reserved for baking. Makes perfect sense. Tomorrow is Sunday. Everyone is going to want a big slice of pie or piece of cake after a good Sunday lunch. The preacher might even be over, and you're going to want to impress HIM!

     Or, it might be visiting day, and you need a baked good to go visiting an elderly friend, or someone home from the hospital, or somebody that's just had a baby. Lots of reasons to bake!

     In our house, my daughter Emily does the baking. She loves cookies and cupcakes. I did try to re-create my Aunt Nina's Coconut Cake for Christmas last year with my sister, and we did fairly well. It was beautiful, (see actual picture of said ccake below), but it did not taste the same. She baked her own special ingredient in it...her love.

 

     On this day, we can think about serving others, just as we did earlier in the week. To me, pies and cookies and cakes beg to be shared with someone who needs a “food hug”. That's why, in the South at least, we take food to new neighbors. It's a warm “welcome to your new home”. It's why we celebrate with wedding cakes. It's why we take cakes just warm from the stove to a grieving family. It's an act of love.

     Whoo...I wish I had a Coconut Cake food hug right about now.

Joy, y'all!

Vicky

Don't miss the other days! Click the link below to go to the main page where you can find every link for the week!

Dish TowelDevotions ~ Seven Days of Routine Reflections

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Friday

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Friday

     Today, we are cleaning. Oh, how I dread cleaning my house. I LOVE a clean house. I LOVE when my house is clean. I just don't like to clean house. I am reading a book entitled, “Write It Down, Make It Happen”, and she suggests making a free-flowing list of things you want to come true in your life. Her advice is to just start writing, without thought to money or time, and without regard to listing them in matter of importance. Just write as it comes.

     “I want a maid.” was number one. “I want Emily to to find a great husband and a job she loves, and have children who are as good to her as she is to me” was number 15. Now, that's just wrong. Understand, there were some lofty goals numbered 2-14, but, y'all...pray for me. My list needs some work.

     Cleaning on Fridays. I am sure this stems from having the house all busy and such during the week, and while you have been picking up, you really want to deep clean before the weekend so you can enjoy time with your family. I never really do DEEP DEEP clean. The spiders need somewhere to live and I am nothing if not a benevolent lover of all God's creatures. Plus, I have a “good enough” mantra. My house is always “good enough”. Nothing stinks, we don't REALLY have spiders, (just webs occasionally), and who came up with the saying, “You could eat off of her floor” in reference to a real domestic diva?? Nobody is supposed to eat off the floors! Plus, if it came right down to it, you probably could eat off of mine. However, you cannot live off of popcorn and Fruit Loops.

     While you are cleaning this week, thank God it's Friday. Thank Him for a house to live in that is just dirty, not made of dirt floors. Thank Him for friends who can pop in and not care at all about the condition of your house because they know the condition of your heart...and right with you is right where they want to be. They can move a stack of newspapers if they have to, or wait for you to wash a coffee cup. It's a place for you to keep a clean heart before God and your family. One day your kids will be grown and will all move away. Those floors and windows are going to be there forever. AND your kids won't be there to do them for you. See how that works??

joy, y'all!

Vicky

Don't miss the other days! Click the link below to go to the main page where you can find every link for the week!

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Seven Days of Routine Reflections

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Thursday

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Thursday

 

      Thursday represented shopping day for most homemakers. Now, I still hold true to this one. I do it because the sales papers come out on Wednesday, and by Thursday I can have my menu/grocery list made for the week and if I am really feeling froggy, I can have coupons matched up!!

     Obviously, today is ALL about provision. Whether you can fill your cart with rib eyes and lobster and expensive sundries or you have $40.00 to “make it work” for a family of 6, the vast majority in America DO NOT GO HUNGRY. And that is a blessing we forget. Nor do most of us LABOR to grow our food. We don't raise a cow from a calf, then send it off to the butcher to be prepared. We don't fish on Sunday and fill the freezer. We don't toil all hot summer in the garden and “put up” vegetables for the Fall. We go on Thursdays or another day into a climate controlled, well-stocked, brightly lit supermarket with nice sales people eager to help you find the cream of whatever soup. There are beautiful flowers available, ready for your vase, bagged salads ready for your table, a delicious rotisserie chicken ready to build your supper around. You can even buy a gorgeous red velvet cake that you could easily slip onto our own cake plate and take to the church potluck and pretend you made it just that afternoon. Not that I have ever done that. But I have HEARD that some unscrupulous people have actually done that. Shame.

     Today, clearly, we need to THANK GOD we are living in a world of plenty. We are IN the land of milk and honey, folks. Look no further.

     So, while you are pushing your buggy down the aisle where you have 30-40 choices of CEREAL, think of the children in the world who will get one bowl of a sticky porridge concoction for the day. “While other folks go hungry, we're doing very well”. I don't want to get all guilt-trippy about it, but we do have it good. Just pray for those who don't. You might want to talk with your family about looking at the grocery budget and shaving off 10% to send to a good, well-researched charity where you know most of the money you send actually makes it to the field of service.

Be thankful for what you can do for your family, and be generous to people who cannot. That's my Thursday challenge!!

joy!

Vicky

Don't miss the other days! Click the link below to go to the main page where you can find every link for the week!

Dish Towel Devotions ~Seven Day of Routine Reflection

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Wednesday

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Wednesday

      Today on the 1940's homemaker's schedule is mending and sewing. Obviously, she had done the clothes on Monday and Tuesday, so she knew which ones needed mending. In addition to the maintance and upkeep of the families wardrobe, most women made the families clothing, right down to the underware in some cases! If not making clothes, she might be quilting or embroidering.

      Now, I made a quilt top one time with my best friend Tracy. It was not much, a simple block pattern quilt TOP. Her Granny quilted it for us, and Tracy kept it for her hope chest. (That is a thing in the South...a hope chest. I'll save it for another post!) I have tried to cross stitch. I don't have the patience for it. Knitting seems like fun, but again, patience is not a virtue I possess.

     So, as far as mending/sewing day does, here is how I will structure it:

     I will thank God that when our socks wear out, we can afford to buy new socks instead of me having to learn how to darn. Emily actually LIKES holes in her jeans, so I'm golden there: Thank you God!

     On Wednesday, do I have any relationships to mend? Do I have anything with loose threads...words unspoken which need to be said? Have I had a bad day in the previous week when I was angry and my words “ripped” at someone unintentionally OR intentionally? I will ask God to show me, and I will mend those holes I caused. Are any of my friendships getting thin? Do I need to patch up or reinforce a relationship before a hole rips through?

     In a proactive way, I can can work on my patchwork of friendships. I have friends from all over now, thanks to the world wide web, and I can continue to offer to be there for people right here from my cute little house in the suburbs in the heart of the heart of dixie!

     See the remainder of the Daily Dishtowel Devotions here on the series opening page:

Dish Towel Devotions ~ Seven Days ofRoutine Reflections

Love and joy!

Vicky

Womb Mates ~ Happy Birthday to US!

Today is my birthday. I share it with Elizabeth Taylor, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and John Steinbeck. Oh, and my twin brother, James.