Well, we survived Thanksgiving.  Barely!

I got off work at 6:30 in the morning on Thanksgiving Day.  I had the brilliant idea of driving straight from work (after picking up Chris and Bear) to my parents’ house 2 1/2 hours south of here.  I figured that once we got there, I could nap for a few hours, then wake up refreshed and ready to celebrate.  That was before I realized that there would be 5 little kids all under the age of 7 running around the house, along with 17 adults chatting, playing piano, playing video games, cooking… you get the idea.  I tried to nap twice, and both times was awakened either by shrieks of kiddie-laughter or someone playing a xylophone right outside my bedroom door.  To say that I was in a daze is in an understatement.  I was up for a solid 29 hours before finally falling asleep around 8pm Thursday night.  Of course, my body was still on the night shift schedule, so I woke up at 1:30am and was up for about 2 1/2 hours before konking out again and waking up at 8am.  It wasn’t horrible, but it definitely wasn’t my best Thanksgiving!  This of course is no fault of any of my family’s – they were great!  I was the one who was a zombie.

I went downstairs to read when I woke up at 1:30 in the morning.  Around 2am, I got the sudden, creepy sensation that someone was watching me.  My parents have a great, big, open house (9 bedrooms) set on close to or just over 100 acres (I can’t remember the exact amount) in the middle of the country.  It’s pretty quiet at night.  Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me!  The hairs stood up on the back of my neck and I quickly turned around, certain that I would see someone staring at me.  I didn’t see anyone, but suddenly I heard this swishhh-swishhh-swishhh noise.  Stealthy footsteps!  I looked again and couldn’t see anyone or anything, so I finally chalked it up to house noises and went back to my book.

About 10 minutes later, I hear someone thumping down the stairs.  Down comes my older sister, Shelly.  Its about 2:15am and she looks pretty groggy, but she asked me, “Have you seen Caroline down here?”  Caroline is my 2 year old niece.  I said, “No.  Why?  Did you lose her?”  I’m thinking to myself, “How do you lose a 2 year old at 2:15 in the morning?”, but I didn’t ask that.  Shelly says, “No, but I just ran into her coming back up the stairs.”

That explains the creepy feeling of being watched!

We left later in the afternoon on Friday, and I rear-ended a driver while waiting to turn onto one of the roads.  Yeah, I could blame other factors, such as Chris asking me for the 2nd time what size of fountain drink I wanted when we stopped at the gas station up ahead (I had already told him that I wanted a diet Coke in the 2nd from largest size, but he wanted my answer in ounces, darn it.  I almost never drink soda of any kind, so I had to think), or I could blame it on the fact that the driver in front of me stopped for no apparent reason while turning out onto an empty road, but I’m still the one who banged into him.  Rats.  Thankfully, no damage was done to his car.  I was just irritated.

We arrived back home and were up for a few hours before I finally fell asleep around midnight.  I didn’t wake up till 3pm today.  Can you tell that I was tired?  And when I woke up, I was certain it was only 9 in the morning or something like that.  That’s 15 hours of sleep, ladies and gentlemen!  And I’m still tired!  I also seem to have contracted the cold that my grandmother and her husband so thoughtfully brought with them to Thanksgiving.  I’m just glad that I don’t have to work till Tuesday night and have plenty of time to recover!

Lessons Learned:

1. Next time, sleep before going to large family gatherings.
2. Always give Chris desired soda-sizes in ounces.
3. Bulk up on Vitamin C prior to spending time in large groups of people.
4. Look for Caroline the next time you feel like you’re being watched.
5. Find a day-shift job!