Sun Up

In the summer, when the days are longer, do you ever notice that you just naturally wake as the day dawns? Sure, if its the weekend, you might turn back over and go right back to sleep, but your body, at least as I understand from science/medicine/whatever, has a natural sleep/wake cycle.

Since its now pitch dark when I wake up in the morning, I have a hard time getting up. I've decided to employ the assistance of a nifty device called the Sun Up. It's essentially a visual alarm clock. I hook it up to my bedside lamp and tell it when I want to be awake.  I also give it the interval I want to use; in other words, how quickly do I want the "sun" to rise.

The first morning I used it I kinda blinked awake and wondered what woke me up. It was a much nicer awakening than the harsh beeping of my alarm. The second morning was a similar feeling of calm and slowly coming alert. I did notice however, that I wake pretty quickly. The interval was set for thirty minutes and I was awake ten minutes into the cycle.

I think I like it. Why start my day being jolted from whatever sleep I managed to slip into only a few hours before? Especially since its pretty much gonna be dark here for the next six months.

Yippee

Dark Mornings

It’s edging into fall. I can feel it. The nights and mornings are starting to get cool and crisp. Not to mention its dark when I wake up now. 

I hate that it’s dark when I wake up. 

I’m not a morning person anyway, but toss in warm and soft with the dark and it’s a recipe for a snooze disaster.

I have this great down comforter that I really love. It's light weight but super warm. The only thing I don’t like about it and, in fact every other down comforter that I’ve owned, is in spite of their promises that the feathers won’t drift; that their box weave construction will keep the down evenly spaced, it most certainly does not. The foot of my comforter is all bulky, near exploding, with fluff and the top is all thin. I get a little claustrophobic when stuff is in my face, so it’s not a horrible thing, but still. It looks funny when I make my bed.

Being super smart like I am (snicker) I think, okay, I’ll just flip the comforter around and eventually the feathers will drift and space themselves out again.  This doesn’t happen. Ever.  Why the heck not is what I want to know!?!

Anyway, said comforter is totally soft and warm and wonderful.  When combined with the memory foam topper that hugs my body, a cocoon of amazing is created. It's only a sense of responsibility and the knowledge that my cocoon of amazing would disappear without the smelly green stuff, that forces my body out of bed on those dark, cool mornings. The promise of a hot cup of caffeinated deliciousness might help as well.

I toss and turn a lot and often can’t sleep, but I love my bed. Only one thing could make it better. I’ll let you muse on that. ;)