A good hat is a night owl coping mechanism

Time: 7:15 am

How I Feel: Sleepy and annoyed

The next to last alarm out of eight finally woke me. (Yes, 8.) I had trouble going to sleep and staying asleep. 7:15 probably feels really late to a lot of people, but not me.

Yesterday I was getting over the awful migraine I had 2 days ago. I went home from Compassion and went to bed. That was probably 1/2 of my problem last night–I just wasn’t tired when I finally got in bed at 10:40 pm. But, boy did I need that nap!

The world doesn’t realize how difficult it is to be a night owl. Your body clock is at odds with all of humanity. You’re awake and productive precisely when the rest of the world is slowing down. You are annoying to early birds because you’re turning on lights to get work done.

Conversely, you are completely annoyed by the world because they won’t let you sleep until at least 8 am.

When I moved to “Small Town USA” in the early 1990s, the hubby and I pretty much dreaded the holiday season for one reason: it required us to get a sitter on the weekend (That can get pricey for 3 munchkins.) and travel an hour and 15 minutes (one way) to the northeast of us to embark on Christmas shopping at a Fort Worth suburban shopping mall. The first challenge upon arriving there, no matter the hour? Finding a vacant parking space.

Then, there was fighting huge crowds in every store we shopped. I vividly remember one foray into Bath and Body Works and waiting a full 45 minutes to buy stocking stuffers and candles. I’m still not sure that was worth the effort.

Part of the frustration was that our kids’ hand-scrawled Christmas wish lists were often misspelled or illegible. And they almost always wanted the one toy no one could ever get.