Sunday Gratitude – 11.I.2026

This post has been hanging open on my desktop for weeks – please forgive me. At the moment, I feel very much like I’m hitting a wall, that my body needs some sort of reset or I’m going to crash. I’m sure it’s been more than a decade since the last time I’ve woken up feeling “well rested” and my philosophy has always kind of been, “Well, I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead.” After all, the kids are only young once, right?

Then, totally out of the blue, I was diagnosed in October with high blood pressure. No, not run-of-the-mill high blood pressure, but “call 911 right now because we can’t believe you’re not having a stroke” type numbers. I felt totally fine; I had biked over thirty miles just two days prior. And so we’re working on getting that stuff better. No need to push up that “sleep when I’m dead” date.

On one hand, it’s kind of lousy that I got sick over Christmas break. On the other hand, it was the first time since my oldest was born, I think, where I could just gear down to minimums. All five of my kids are now old enough that they don’t need help with bathroom things or finding snacks/feeding themselves when they are hungry. I didn’t have to be up and out the door before sunrise, and I was going to make the most of it.

What I did not expect is that after about 3-4 days of taking it easy, I would get hit by a huge wave of exhaustion, as though now that my body was getting something closer to a decent amount of sleep, it was going to come after me for the rest of the sleep debt, in full. Nearly a month on, I’m still feeling it, and I’m really trying to sleep better in general, but if I’m home and tired, just letting myself nap a little. So I’m struggling with this, but I have to get a handle on it because it can’t keep going the way it has been. And as if to drive this home, one of the “comedians” who I follow on Instagram actually did have a stroke right around Christmas, a guy not a whole lot older than me, and he’s lucky he survived.

I got a Garmin fitness tracker thing a few months ago and it’s amazing the amount of information it tracks. One thing is sleep, and there’s a metric that they call the “body battery” which considers different factors to try to estimate how much energy your sleep is giving you and how much you’re using through the day. It’s quite interesting to see how very often, no matter how much I sleep, that number just crashes in the middle of the day, which usually correlates pretty well to how I am actually feeling. After months, it’s kind of occurred to me that I shouldn’t be hitting rock bottom every single day, and that it’s probably not good how early I often hit it. I think seeing this as a number and a chart has helped.

Of course, this January has been particularly unsuited for outdoor activity, particularly riding a bicycle. It was so cold here on Friday that all three of my kids’ schools called off, and I’m actually a little surprised that it’s not getting called off tomorrow. Maybe the guideline is that if the high temperature is positive, school is a go? (I took these pictures of the sunrise over Lake Michigan in Kenosha on Friday, when it was -11F. Absolutely gorgeous how the water steams up there. However, even layered and bundled, I couldn’t stand outside of the car for more than a minute or two before my fingers – in gloves – started hurting from the cold.)

I really am grateful for a lot of things, despite the frustrations. Mind you, there’s more than my sleep deprivation going on.

I wrote most of this on the 11th, but didn’t post it, probably because it wasn’t finished and I was falling asleep. It’s not a full list, to be sure, but it’s what I have at the moment.

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Christmas (new calendar) really did kind of pass in a blink. My youngest and I were sick (for the second time in December) and usually I’d be kind of annoyed that some of the break was “wasted” by being sick; however, this time, I was thankful that she and I could just be sick without having to run around and be places and do stuff. I could actually sleep in! It was amazing.

I’m thankful that once we were feeling better, we actually did do some stuff during the break. I’m thankful that the family of one of my daughter’s friends invited us to go bowling, which was incredibly fun. I could not believe that the girls on the one lane – two of whom were nine and two of whom were five – could play three rounds together with enthusiasm. I’ve even worked in a bowling center, and rarely have I seen younger kids last more than a game or so before letting the distractions get to them.

I’m thankful that I one of the things that was really stressing me out the last couple of weeks has been resolved, I think.

I am thankful for people just being patient with me while life still seems to be crazy.

I went to a friend’s house this past weekend, really had a good time, looked up and noticed it was almost 2am. I was not planning to stay over, but it probably would have been dangerous for me to drive at that point, and it probably would have freaked out my friend a little bit, considering that my drive would have been at least an hour and a half.

Also, I would be remiss in forgetting to mention that I am incredibly grateful for warmth in the middle of this cold snap. I am missing being outdoors, but I’d be feeling much worse without a roof over my head and a functioning heating system.

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