January 8, 2008 ---- Eight days into the new year and it appears that the one resolution that I could actually keep wasn't even made. So in the interest of actually keeping a resolution, I would like to amend my list and add one more resolution.

In 2008 I resolve not to sleep for more than 45 minutes at any given opportunity.

I think I can keep this one. In the first eight days I think I may have slept a total of 16 hours and no single session consisting of more than 45 minutes.
The symptoms of sleep deprivation are:

• exhaustion - without a doubt...
• fatigue - I just got out of a meeting at 10:30pm and fell into my truck.
• inability to concentrate - my attention span has decreased to a point that
• short-term memory loss - after awhile you forget you can't remember stuff
• difficulty speaking - I can't even understand myself and find myself starting a sentence with; "They...." and then just trailing off and I have no idea what I was going to say seconds after the sentence was formulated.
• feeling older than you should - well.... I'm 48 and after the life I have led I should feel about 58 but instead I feel about 49.... I guess I'm lucky in this aspect because I am so tired I have begun to feel giddy for absolutely no reason... like that "free" feeling that you got when you were young and the bell ending the school day rang and you busted out the door and ran down the hill toward home and your strides were so long that it seemed that you were actually flying between steps. Another sign of sleep deprivation might be writing really, really run-on sentences about strange feelings from your childhood.
• body aches - It actually hurts to type a capital I...ouch
• being accident-prone - Apparently I have suffered from sleep deprivation since the third grade.
• making avoidable mistakes - This could explain a lot.... a whole lot.

I am past being cranky. I am past the headache. I am past the muscle cramps in the shoulders, calf and thighs. I am just freaking tired.

Sorry for the whine fest but at 4:00 this morning I had one dog between my knees because it was thundering and she has storm issues and I had a dog standing on my chest scratching a hole just below my throat because she wants to self medicate. (She is a Phenobarbital junkie. I think she actually knows when she needs her pill early.) At this point I would let her if she had thumbs and could open the pill bottle.