REM - Stand in the place where I live.

So life continues with its unabashed craziness. Both of my kids have come down with strep so I'm sending out a big old "thank you" to the parent who refuses to keep their kid home from church when they are sick - you have caused me to think outside the box as far as childcare goes this week, as well as discover just how miserable DramaQueen can be when her fever reaches over 102.5. Its these wonderful creative and enlightening moments that cause me to think of you and wonder if you are sleeping well tonight. May you enjoy a life of bad hair days.

But with a few doses of that magical elixir known as Penicillin, we are on the road to recovery and looking forward to a night of sleeping again. And I have suddenly become full, nay flush with hope. Because I have made a decision. A decision that I have been pondering for several months - and this is where this post goes from normal woman makes decision - to 9 miles of crazy woman shows her obsessive disorder's impact on her life. And this monumental decision is - TO GO TO THE DOCTOR. I'm really and truly beyond exhausted and I've been this way for several months. Lets say a minimum of 90 consecutive days of exhaustion because I can't sleep worth a phooey. I can GO to sleep without any problem. Generally the problem is I can go to sleep even if its not an appropriate time. . .like when I'm sitting at my computer working, or when I've only been out of bed for an hour, or um. . .driving my car. And I can stay asleep for as long as the kids will let me - and sometimes even past that point. But I don't rest when I'm asleep. I have crazy chaotic dreams that cause me to be just as exhausted when I wake up as I was the night before. Like - serious crazy crazy.

I'm in the grocery store. I'm looking for an extremely large container of chocolate so I can make fudge. Lots of fudge. The store doesn't have the brand I'm looking for and I'm searching everywhere. There are other brands, but for some reason I simply cannot make the fudge with the other brands. I'm searching through huge buckets of chocolate for the kind I need and all of a sudden I'm panicking because the horses won't have enough fudge. Because now there is a stable (in the grocery store!) with horses that I'm trying to get ready for a big storm - get blankets and blinders and I know nothing about horses so its just weird stuff that I'm trying to put on the horses and lead them into the underground storm shelter before the hurricane hits. They are generally not wanting to go into this weird bomb/fallout shelter that I'm trying to drag them into and the people around me are getting agitated over the horses and its starting to storm and the power goes out and rain starts falling through the roof onto our heads and I have to just forget the horses and run into the shelter myself. Above me I can hear the horses running around and neighing in fear and chaos and I'm guilty guilty guilty that I didn't get them down there and there is a loud roar that I think is the hurricane but I turn around and its a race car. Lots of race cars - my husband is driving one and Dude is driving another one and Ahh-nald is driving another one. My husband and Dude are trying to beat Ahh-nald because he is evil.

And then I mercifully wake up. So, after spending months of having dreams like this (not exactly - just generally chaos, stress, guilt, huh? type dreams) I'm very very tired. And our Bible study this week was on work and rest and one of the questions was "Do you get enough rest?" My answer was an emphatic "NO!" and I was shocked to discover that most other people in the group answered that they might be tired for a short time, but generally feel OK and rested. Do you mean that being exhausted isn't just a by-product of being an adult? REALLY? So at the urging of my friends I made an appt with my doctor. The really huge news - I'm going to the doctor KNOWING that I'm overweight. Normally I refuse to go in until I get down past my "Oh Crap" number - but when I called to make the appointment, he could see me on Friday. Like in 2 days. There is no way I'll be down to reasonable by then. But I'm going anyway. Wish me luck. And Sleep.