Last night I was wired. WIRED. Will was working late at studio, the kids were in bed and I was pacing the floor. So I decided to sew. Might as well use my time wisely. Since my awakeness had a sort of crazy-exhausted-but-can't-close-my-eyes kind of vibe, I decided it probably wasn't the time to start on Evelyn's uniform, I actually need that to hold up for a long period of time so I needed to be able to focus. Instead I made my tunic. I'm pretty pleased with it, although somehow the neck edging would not work out (might have been my brain not really functioning correctly) so I had to wing that a little. I may still go back and add it in, but I kind of like the wider neck. I do really like the pattern. It's comfy and fits well and I like the style. The next time I get to a fabric store with a sale, I'll probably get some corduroy for a fall version. It would also look killer a few inches longer in some kind of crazy raw silk as a dress. But I really don't have the occasion to wear something like that, so that will have to wait until I have a more glamorous life (ha!)
See the thing is, I'm a tea girl. I know that I have many a times professed my undying love and addiction to coffee, and I am totally dependant on it to get my day started, but at heart, I'm a tea drinker. If I had to be stranded on a deserted island with only one hot drink, I'd have to choose tea. I'm guessing that on this deserted island I could wake up at my leisure since there would be, you know, nothing else on the island to occupy my time, so I could deal without coffee, but not tea.
I think it truly is genetic. My grandmother was English and so my dad was raised in a home where tea was the answer, or at least the first line of defense, to all things. Bad day, nasty weather, exhaustion, surprise, good news...all met with tea. That, in turn, was passed on to me and I seem to be passing it along as well since Briton loves him a good cuppa tea. Also, the older I get, the more comfort I find in a cup of tea, it's like my security blanket.
So imagine my surprise in realizing, after having had a cup of tea almost every evening for the past 25 years or so, that tea, or caffeine at least, seems to be at the root of the recent foray into insomnia I've been dealing with . I know, I know, Duh. But remember, I've been drinking an evening cup of tea for most of my life with no problems. It's only been over the past few months that I've been stricken with an inability to fall asleep before 2 am.
A few weeks ago I had a little encounter with heat exhaustion, skipped dinner,dessert and tea, drank a gallon of water and promptly fell asleep at ten in the evening. Best night of sleep I've had in months. The next night I returned to my normal routine and I was back to my old insomnia tricks. No tea the next night - sleep again. Problem solved. Except I really like tea. I really like a specific tea. And no where. No where in all of New York (ok, I only looked in the grocery stores near me) could I find my tea (Barry's, in case you were wondering) in decaf. Eventually I discovered that Amazon carried it, what did we do before Amazon?-and a box arrived a few days ago with my lovely tea.
Which does not help my occasional it's-humid-out-I-must-have-a-coke habit, this was last night's culprit. Hopefully the no caffeine after lunch rule will eventually sink in and I'll get back to going to bed at a decent hour on a regular basis. At least Eliza and I got some new duds out of it.
Aging, man, it sucks.