"Gonna be a Long Night, It's Gonna be Alright, On the Nightshift"

It's currently 3:36 am and I am officially bored out of my mind. Bored enough to reference the Commodores in my post title. Maybe bored isn't the word...just restless, and I'm not sure exactly what to do about it. 

I started working nights this week, for the first time ever. Everyone has different suggestions for how to stay awake or sleep at weird times, but I figured I'd just wing it and see how it goes. It's going. I'm only about half way in and I'm already struggling to find ways to keep myself occupied...thus this post. 

I was pretty tired at about 7 pm, so I decided just to put in my trusty earplugs and go to sleep and see what happened. I woke up at 11 (with a horrendous kink in my neck/shoulder which is unfortunate) when Sam was coming to bed and here I am.

11:30 pm: Started a load in the dishwasher

11:40 pm: Watched about half an hour of Cabin Fever

11:45 pm: Brewed a pot of coffee

12:15 am: Cleaned the boy's bathroom 

12:35 am: Watered my houseplants and did a little dusting

12:45 am: Painted my fingernails

1:00-2:45 am: Perused Pinterest which led to some Tumblr browsing (that never fails to kill a few hours) and checked up on current events

2:00 am: Looked up how to perfectly cook a hard-boil egg, searched for tasty crockpot soup recipes, and got some snacks ready for my shift tomorrow night
2:20 am: Researched the areas in Switzerland that I'd like to explore when I finally get the chance (Grindelwald seems like just my cup of tea as well as Lauterbrunnen, Zermatt, Interlaken, and Saxony in case anyone is asking)

3:00 am: Shopped for a kayak (why are the neutral kayaks always more expensive? Maybe I don't want bubblegum pink or sunset orange...maybe I want a deep olive green and I don't want to pay $500 for it...apparently that's too much to ask)
3:10 am: Peeled the hard-boiled eggs mentioned earlier and found that they were not "perfectly cooked" as promised. Started softening the cream cheese and ricotta for the spinach and chicken stuffed shells that I'm going to prep and freeze for dinner over the weekend

I have some laundry that needs to be folded and put away, but I can't figure out how to do with without disrupting Sam, oh, and note to self, grab the coconut oil and teeth-bleaching solution out of the Master Bathroom Wednesday morning so I can do a deep conditioning treatment on my hair and bleach my teeth while taking a detox bath next time. 

It's amazing how many things you take for granted when it's light outside...and when you can make as much noise as you need to. For example, I'd love to go for a stroll outside right about now, but our neighborhood doesn't have sidewalks or street lights because people complain about light pollution and not being able to see the stars. Needless to say, our night sky is pretty spectacular, but that's not helping me right now. I tried walking across the street once about a month ago, and thought I was going to die. I couldn't see a damn. thing...I'm not even kidding. It took me about 15 minutes to walk 20 feet, and once I reached our driveway and into the porchlight "glow zone", I saw a huge scorpion making it's way across the walkway, and realized that my life was in danger walking around in the pitch darkness. 

I can't exactly go hiking or mountain biking or kayaking in the dead of the night either, and even with a full moon, do you know how many nocturnal predators there are out there?! No thank you. 

Also, we have a fabulous clubhouse on the golf course that houses a gym and the pool that I'd just love to be utilizing right about now, but it's only accessible from 5 am until 8 pm in the winter, thanks to some douchebag that probably got drunk and threw up in the hot tub and got everything put on lockdown. Let's not get into that though. I'm a little bitter that we can't just use our HOA key fob and get in 24 hours like at a hotel or something...but whatever. I'll probably ride my bike over promptly at 5 and get my sweat on at the gym for a little while, we'll see how I'm feeling. It should be relatively light outside by that time, so maybe I'll just hit up a trail instead and enjoy some fresh air and watch the sun come up. Now that I'm working for Sedona Fire, I have access to any of the workout rooms at any of their stations, but I don't really feel like driving 20 minutes to go to the gym, and I'd hate to wake the guys up when they are trying to sleep. There is a 24-hour gym about 5 minutes from my house, so I think I'll be picking up a membership there shortly. I'm actually looking forward to it because I'm sure there won't be anyone around so I can watch what I want and wear what I want and do what I want without fear of judgement :) The only problem is that I have to pass Denny's on my way home and, though not ideal, Denny's has pie. Denny's is open 24 hours.  

I really wanted to start editing a new family video from the last year and this is the ideal time to do such a project, but since my old laptop died, I don't have any of the pictures or footage for one, so there's that. 

There's only so much TV you can stand to watch in the middle of the night...it's pretty much all infomercials. I learned how to make soup in the NutriBullet and watched some kind of skin care presentation, but those get pretty old the 4th time around. I had a kitchen remodeling program on HGTV giving me some company for a little while early this morning, but even that turned into infomercials. Remember back when there used to be music videos on in the middle of the night? I wouldn't mind watching some music videos right about now. 

It's downtime like this that leads me to do things like cut bangs and buy things I don't need off of the internet.  Hopefully things will click in soon and I'll figure out a routine. Wish me luck...