On sleeping in, then and now

I went to bed last night really looking forward to sleeping in late this morning, like until 9 or 10 am, maybe even 11 - noon perhaps. How wonderful to sleep 'til noon! But no. Despite having gone to bed totally exhausted and sleepy and having had my sleep interrupted numerous times through the night, mostly by Jim, I couldn't sleep a wink past 6:30 and finally gave up and got up about 7:00. Just a bit ago, I was lamenting to Margie about how I seem to be losing the ability to sleep in, no matter how tired I am or what I have done. My career has been marked by frequent deadline pushes of 24 to 52 hours straight - no nap, no break, no stop: just go until the job is done. I hated it and I loved it and what I loved most about it was that afterward I could just go crash and sleep for 12 hours straight - even longer, sometimes. No more.

I try to avoid such extreme pushes now but I still wind up doing some pretty big stints and then I go to bed looking for a good long sleep in, but it seldom seems to happen. Margie said when she was a kid, she always saw the old people get up early - now she was beginning to understand. I witnessed the same thing. I always thought the older people had better habits than did we sloven young. Now I think maybe they wanted to sleep but couldn't - just like me now. Just now, a good three hours plus after we got up, we heard little footsteps pattering down the hallway. It was Jobe. He had slept long and good and late, yet was up before his brothers, mom or dad.

The curtain, by the way, is not to keep light out but to hold a little more heat in.