Vacation!! please??

I'm fried.  I'm toast.  Stick a fork in me, I'm done.  I need a vacation.  An honest to goodness vacation.
And I know I'm going to offend several people when I say I need a vacation without having to be somewhere, visit someone, with specific people, without deadlines, or schedules or pressure to do or be anything.
Yes, I'm talking about not being pressured into visiting friends or family in far flung locales.  I'm talking about escaping with my two boys somewhere with limited connection to the outside world.  No friends tagging along or being visited.  No family outside of the three of us either.
Don't get me wrong, I really, really want to take the boys up to Canada to visit Michelle while she's still there and time is running out quickly for that.  We need to, and I really want to, visit Oklahoma.  It's been almost 3 years since we've been and it wasn't for happy reasons last time.
But, I've just about had my limit of the guilt and the nagging and the "when are you going to visit" that comes with trips like these.  Trust me, we're not not coming to see you because we don't want to.  We're not coming because we just can't squeeze it into the budget, or our calendar and yours just don't mesh, or both, or we're just plain out of vacation time.  (Heck, Gak doesn't even get paid vacation time.  He takes a day off, and we loose a day of income in his pay check, which is pretty painful these days.)
Yes, we love you all.  Yes, we want to spend time with you and visit and see the sites and all those fun and wonderful things.

But I'm done.  I'm tired.  I need to stop moving, if even for just a long weekend.  I need to be able to turn off my phone and the computer and even the TV and just disconnect from the outside world for a few days.  I need to spend time laughing and playing and relaxing with my boys.  I don't want to have to catch a plane or worry about when we have to be where or anything like that.  I just want to be able to relax, be spontaneous with where we go and what we do, if we do anything.
Kind of like what Gak and I did for our honeymoon.  I had only been traveling for work less than a year, but I knew that I didn't want to have to deal with planes and schedules and all that crap.  I just wanted to do things on our on schedule, a relaxing trip away from everyone.  And that's exactly what we had.  The only thing we had booked was 2 nights at a bed and breakfast in Charleston.  Other than that, when we felt like we were done for the day traveling, we stopped and found a hotel.  It was great, it was wonderful.  We had a great time hanging out while we were driving and seeing a few sites.  It was very relaxing, even with stupid women in their little Beemers cutting me off at the gas station.  Even with the news about Hurricane Katrina.  (And to think, we were seriously considering New Orleans for about a week or so, until I decided I'd rather do that in a long weekend, then spend a full week there.)

So, I'm sorry Nana, we're not traveling to OK soon, maybe in the spring we'll have enough socked away to be able to afford it.  If you think it's expensive to get out here, we've got to get 3 people out there, not one.  I'm sorry Michelle, it looks like we just won't make it up there, and it really saddens me.  I've been to lots of places in Canada, but not the capital yet and I really want to see it, and would love to spend the time with you, but not right now.

All is not bleak though.  I have two one day escapes planned for August (can it be almost August already??). The 2nd Amma, Boo and I are heading down to Delaware for the day because "family" will be visiting.  We'll then be heading down on the 8th again as well.  This time because more of the same family will be in town.  I'm looking forward to it so very much.  Gak also managed to get 2 days off in August, and I'm not sure what we'll be doing about them.  So, if you don't hear from us at all for a couple of days in the middle of the month, don't come looking, we won't answer and no, we don't want company.  (Well, I don't other than my two boys... but....)

I hope those little breaks are what I need.  I'm so very tired and very tired of being tired.  I'm cranky and short tempered (more so than usual...) and what little patience I have is frayed and threatening to disappear all together.  Not a good thing when you have a very active, happy and rambunctious 2-year-old son who is learning the power of "no" amongst other things.
I know my lack of sleep and my problems sleeping haven't helped things any.  I've been on a quest (a Grail Quest it would seem at times) to be able to see someone about this and hopefully get some real answers.  First it was the doctor I didn't like.  Then it was not being able to find the numbers of the other doctors I had suggested to me.  Then it was the whole change in insurance (three cards in 7 months... 2 within a month...) with the whole corporate thing and my old corporate deciding that everyone had to change plans in 2010 to begin with.  So, yeah, here's hoping that in the next few months I'll be able to find a doctor I like and trust and can get some answers.  Here's hoping I don't have to pay an arm and a leg to get those answers.

But... speaking of sleep, I should probably start winding down and wandering in that general direction.  I've been up since 5 and had a rotten night's sleep to begin with.  My eyes are heavy and my mind is getting even more fuzzy than usual.  I'm off to read a few pages and collapse.

Peace to all and may your vacations be guilt free and your sleep sound.

Sweet Dreams?

OK, so it's been almost a week since I last updated.  I just haven't had the time or the energy.  I was also hoping to have pictures to add to this post, but no such luck quite yet.
Anyhow, last week was a snowy and odd week.  Between Tuesday night and Wednesday night we got somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 22 inches of snow.  Pile that on top of the 8 to 10 inches we had gotten on Saturday, and we're getting pretty darn close to 2.5 feet of snow in 4 days or less.  Yes, I know, some people have received that much over night this winter.  It's been a long time since we've seen that much snow that quickly.  In some places the plow piles are taller than Gak!  Oh, and building owners or tenants who don't put salt down or clear ice that is being formed on the really nice warm morning a few days later and the entire roof is melting, should be shot.  Especially if they're on the "dark" side of the building.  And your neighbors have toddlers or small children.  Yes, I'm glaring at you people 2 doors down, the ones who didn't even shovel after the first snow on Saturday.
The snow meant I worked from home Wednesday.  I was actually pretty productive all things considered.  I just couldn't stick my head out of the bedroom door unless I wanted to be tackled by a little boy who wasn't feeling all that great and was very excited that his momma was home.  Boo had developed a cough Friday night or Saturday of the first snow.  It wasn't getting a whole lot better, but it wasn't really getting worse, but we took him to the doctor Thursday morning anyhow.  It's just a cold, especially since he has no fever.  I think this is one of the worst ones he's had.  He's normally a pretty healthy little kid, especially since he's in day care 4 afternoons a week.  He'll have a drippy nose from time to time, but vary rarely does he ever get really "sick".

This weekend was a pretty fun one though.  Saturday was a pretty normal day.  We did laundry.  We played.  Boo napped.  We did the grocery shopping and came home.  Yep, pretty normal day.  Sunday was a big day though.  Sunday we went on a series of adventures.  Our first stop was Ikea.  We went for some boy bedding, a new lamp and some other odds and ends.  Oh, and bed rails.  We managed to escape with only spending about $70.  Our next stop was Micro Center.  They were having a sale on hard drives.  I've been ignoring the bad sounds my drive has been making upon boot up (and thus just leaving it on...) for quite some time now.  I picked up a "green" Western Digital Caviar Green 500 GB drive for about $60.  A 1 TB drive (yes, that's terabite) drive was about $90, but I decided the 500 GB would do.  Especially since the music and photo files I have now are less than 16 GB.  My biggest memory hog comes from the games I play.  (And why am I so terrified to change out the hard drive?  I've already decided that I'm just going to start "fresh" and not copy anything directly from the old drive to the new.  I've got my install CDs... what's the big deal?)
Our third stop of the day was Amma and PopPop's.  This wasn't just a visit for the the boy to get a chance to play with his PopPop.  Nope, we were on a much more serious mission.  Picking up his "new" big boy bed.  Yep, you read that right.  Boo is big enough, and we think ready, to move into a "real" bed.  My old twin bed that I used for about 10 years and my brother used for another 6 or so at most is still in great condition.  So, my parents said we could have it for Boo.  (Actually, quote from Mom "the more furniture you want to take out of the house the better.")  We're also going to get the drawers that go under the bed (couldn't fit them in this trip) and my small white book case as well.  We don't have room for the book case until Boo moves out of the crib 100%.
So, Monday Amma and I did some running around when she came up.  I had off for President's day, but Gak had to work open to close.  We went on a sheet hunt, since the bedding we got was a duvet cover, top sheet and pillow case set (oops no bottom sheet).  (Of course it turns out that I had a twin fitted sheet that was navy blue already.... but that's another story.)  We also did something even more important.  We signed both Boo and I up for swimming classes at the Y.  I will be taking water aerobics on Tuesday evenings and Boo and I will be swimming together on Saturday mornings.  I'm not sure I can tell you how excited I am about this.  The pool in the new building looks fantastic!  I'm really looking forward to getting some pool time (and Momma time) in but even more excited about swimming with my boy.  Hopefully he'll love it and he'll learn that swimming can be lots of fun and that the water isn't that scary.  I just wish I could afford full memberships for the family.  It's like $300 down and $60/month.  Then both of our classes would be much cheaper.  Although, if Boo really loves his class, and I like mine, I may be able to spring for program memberships, which after about 3 classes will pay for itself.  The only down side is I (and Gak) wouldn't be able to use the rest of the facilities any time we wanted.  They have a very nice weight room and even provide child care for full members while you're in class/working out. *sigh* When we win the lottery.  Oh, wait, that would require us to play the lottery.
So, back to my main thought, my baby boy is moving into a big boy bed.  I'm both happy and sad about this. The bed isn't set up yet, but the mattress is in the right place on the floor and made up.  He seems very happy that it's there.  Both Monday night and last night, he's thought about sleeping there, but when I would get up to go close the door, he'd pop up and come running and crying to the door.  So, into the crib he'd go, and cry for about 5 minutes.  I think it more has to do with the fact that he didn't want to go to bed than sleeping in a big boy bed.  I may have to move his bed time back to 8:30 instead of 8.  He's been very energetic at 8 still.  We will see.  We're not taking the crib down until he's fully moved into the bed.  I hope that will be before June though, just in case we decide to move out of this apartment.  I really don't want to have to set up the crib just to take it down again quick.  (It's a bit of a pain....)  Oh, we've also pulled up the foam tile floor from the living room and moved his toy box into his bedroom.  We'll be putting the flooring back down in his room once we get the bed fully set up.  The biggest question right now is, where will we put Lee, that wonderfully huge puppy his Aunt Abi got him for the holidays.
Oh, and more on sleeping.  Mom was talking with her doctor, who was my doctor for about 20 years almost, about my issues with the sleep doctor I saw.  Well, to make a long story short, he really thinks that sleep studies can be very helpful and wonderful, but only if you've got the right doctor.  He knows a couple of good ones and some not so good ones.  Unfortunately, they're down near Mom.  (The only reason I stopped going to Dr. C. is because I live too far away for it to be convenient... but I really like Dr. F.)  He was more than willing to give me the names and numbers of the doctors though.  So, after some deliberation, I'm calling my old doctor for some references and I'm going to cancel the sleep study that was scheduled for Sunday.  I've also taken matters back into my own hands a bit.  I've started taking melatonin before bed.  So far, it seems to be working fairly well.  I'm still waking up in the middle of the night, but only twice or so, and the sleep I am getting is better sleep.  I'm not quite so exhausted by the time 8:00 rolls around and I can actually make it to 10:00 without totally falling on my face at 9.  We'll see.  Some people have said it works great, others have said it worked well for them for about 2 weeks and then nothing.  At any rate, I should probably still see someone about this, especially if the melatonin stops working.  Wish me luck.  I'm still a long way from feeling better, but at least I'm getting better sleep.  Now if only I can get my attention span back.
I'm now running late because I rambled on.  I'm off to work!

Peace to all and may your transitions be good and your sleep sound.