1742

As long as I can remember, I've had an internal alarm clock that wakes me up a minute or two before my alarm goes off. Well, this morning either I had something important to do at 4:33 in the morning or the system is broken. So I closed my eyes to the glaring SUNSHINE (yes, Germany has about four and a half hours of total darkness right now) and went back to sleep. The next time my "alarm" woke me up, it was ten in the morning! That is so not like me. I guess it's because I've been staying up half the night. The same thing happened to me after my work trip to Houston in February- I turned into a night owl for a couple weeks. I'm not even sure what I do between the hours of 10pm and 2am. Mainly I sit around and scratch feverishly at my poison ivy. Last night I wrapped my legs in Ace bandages to keep from scratching myself to the point of bleeding. That lasted about five minutes. So I tried to put one of Ted's socks over it (sorry honey). I was able to fall asleep that way, but this morning the sock was on the floor next to my bed and there was dried blood on my leg. Oh well, I tried. The good news is, the poison ivy is healing. Luckily, it never got even close to being as bad as my mom's. Someone should tell her to quit growing that stuff in the flower garden. ;)

Back to my day. I woke up at ten, and I can't even remember what I did all day. I do know I went for a run, and that was a major feat today. So anyway, since I'm lacking the details and you don't want to hear them anyway, let's fast-forward a bit. I decided I needed to go to town for some groceries, and I pulled up to the gate and handed the man my ID card. I tried to say hello, but all that came out was a croak. I suddenly went into panic mode. Is this the first time I've used my voice all day?!?!
I looked at the clock in the car. 1742 (5:42pm). I spent the rest of the drive to town replaying my day through my head, trying to decide if it was really possible that I hadn't made a single sound all day long. I didn't have the radio on, so no singing out loud to the radio... Speaking of which, Alison, can you please tell The Hawk that I am deeply perturbed that they cut my ability to listen live sometime within the last month?! Anyway, I pulled into the grocery store, managed to park my car without running over ANY pedestrians, despite being out-of-sorts, and grabbed my phone. The phone! That's it!! Someone called me around 2:30, and I answered! Hallelujah. All was right in the world once again.

Except with my washing machine. Something is definitely not right with that. Somebody please tell me how to get rid of that awful smell in the drum or I'm never doing laundry again. In which case, the washer won't be the only thing with an awful smell.

Time is now 2054 (8:54 PM). I need to start my new bedtime ritual. Hot bath (actually cold bath, or lukewarm at best- does that negate the sleepy side-effects?), lavender lotion, warm milk (I hope that's not the key to success, because I really won't be having anything to do with warm milk), clean sheets, prescription poison ivy cream, boring DVD(s?)....if I start now, maybe I'll be asleep by 1 AM tonight. Sweet dreams!