Yesterday, I overslept.  Yep, me who wakes up before the alarm.  It must have something to do with having 3 sick kids who keep getting up in the night!  But oversleeping wasn’t my fault!  You see, I set my alarm clock to go off at the correct time, it’s just that my alarm clock isn’t kid-proof.  At somepoint on Monday, my clock was unplugged, or reset or something.  When I reset it, right before bed, I set it for 9 something - AM, not PM!  So the next morning, when the clock thought it was 5 PM, the alarm didn’t go off.  I really need to get an alarm clock that they can’t mess up!

So today, I woke up at 4:30, well before my alarm was to go off, and couldn’t get back to sleep.  I guess I am just paranoid about oversleeping again.  I probably won’t have to set the think for another month!

It would seem, that being a home-owner, husband and father, I have a never ending list of ‘jobs’ to do!  Today, while my wife and two older kids are out skating (ice skating, we are in Minnesota and it is January for Pete’s sake!)  I am at home, with work to do.  I have housework, a little ‘homework’ for my job, the honey-do list, etc.  You name it, it seems like I have it to do!  Luckily, I don’t really have anything REALLY hard to do.  I put new lic. plates on the van, I (tried) to fill the hot tub with more water.  Unfortunately, I never finished my work in the fall of putting the garden hoses away, so they are frozen!  They will thaw in a few hours in my workshop, so then I will finish that job.   I also started dinner in the crock-pot, fed the third child and put him down for a nap.

 I have also been working on a little problem with work.  It’s difficult, since I don’t really have all the same programming tools that I have there.  I could have them, but it would require some capital outlay on my part, which I don’t have right now.  If anyone would like to finance a license for PL/SQL Developer for me, I am taking donations!

I guess I never knew how relaxing my weekends were when I wasn’t working, and now that I am working, I never WILL know how relaxing they are supposed to be.  Not until my kids are grown and gone, maybe.  I am sure that my wonderful and beautiful wife will ALWAYS have something that she wants me to accomplish, instead of what I want to do.

 Enough of this silliness for now.  I need to go check the hoses! (She will not be happy if there isn’t enough water in that thing!)

My children, like so many others, have been blessed with Fisher-Price toys that make noise.  There is nothing good about these toys.  They don’t teach them anything, well anything good. The toys are great at teaching the children how to annoy Mom and Dad all day long.  They teach them at a young age how to ‘push my buttons’ until my face turns red and I blow up like a trick cigar.

But I digress, this is not what this post is about.  The toys are possessed.  Not in the classical sense, they have battery possession!   For those who have not been blessed with this phenomenon, let me explain.   When the batteries start to run low on juice, the toys SEEK attention.  Just to let you know they are about to die, so hopefully you will replace the batteries.  That’s right, they make their sounds WITHOUT ANYONE PRESSING THE STUPID BUTTON!  It is a little freaky, sitting in my basement minding my own business,  and out of the blue: “I hear an alarm! Let’s go to the fire!” - (Fisher-Price firetruck), or “Looks like it’s time to power down for the night.” - (John Deere Johnny Tractor).  The toy is sitting in a box, with other toys.  No one pressed the button.  Sometimes a different toy answers! “Looks like it’s time to power down for the night.”, - “The wagons full, time to head to the barn!” Freaks me out! I suppose that I could just walk over and turn off the offending toy, but another would just start up then. I will only get concerned when I start to answer them; “Yes Johnny, it IS time to power down!  HAHAHAHA”

There is something about memory that sucks, I just can’t remember what it is right now.

Seriously, my memory is horrible.  I am especially terrible with names.  Please don’t introduce me to anyone, then expect me to remember their name within the next five years, because I won’t.  Actually I will, if they do SOMETHING, such as act like a jerk, or are really mad about stuff.  Then I will probably remember them.  For other things, like a book, or recipe, I will remember just enough to figure out I don’t remember ALL of it.  Very frustrating.

I guess the point of this post is that I HAD a REALLY GOOD thing to post about last night when I was getting into bed, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was, just that I had SOMETHING to post about.

Now, that sucks.

For Christmas, my wonderful wife got me a Sound Machine, to help me sleep.  It also has an alarm, clock, iPod dock, and radio.  It plays six different sounds from nature, to provide a little ‘white noise’ when sleeping.  I prefer either the babbling brook, or the rainfall.  Anyway, with my new job I need a good alarm clock to wake up and get to work.  The problem is I haven’t heard what this one sounds like yet.  No, not because I don’t hear it, it’s just that since getting the job, I haven’t slept until it goes off!  I always wake up 10-15 minutes BEFORE it would go off! The only time I have actually slept until the alarm was on a Saturday.

I just read a book where the author stated that when you are really excited about something, you don’t need all the ‘outside’ stuff to get it done.  You will just do it, and it will be easier than if you aren’t excited.  I guess I must be pretty excited about my job.  It doesn’t really seem like work, and I don’t seem to need an alarm clock! I may be too excited about it, because I seem to think about programming ALL the time.  I even DREAM about it (not always, but enough).   I just wish that I could remember my dreams better, I write some pretty good stuff in there!

As for the sound machine, it’s great.  It helps me to sleep, so I am happy.  And hopefully, I will never get to hear that alarm!