Sane at last!

A few weeks ago my doctor had me start taking Effexor for anxiety.  For the first few days, it kept trying to make me wake up at 6am, even though I was still tired.  And then, at night, it gave me insomnia.  To think I had been worried about it making me drowsy! HA!

As far as what it is intended to do, it's working pretty well.  Being anxious at nothing seems to be a non-issue now, though I still have a pretty pronounced physical reaction to being genuinely nervous about something.  Also, it has helped with my winter fatigue a bit- I'm still tired a lot, but without feeling like I've been force-fed Benadryl and had lead weights strapped to my ankles.  It's a healthy tired, if you understand the distinction.  It happens every year, really- I spend the winter trying to hibernate and getting a series of nasty colds.  Last year I even lost my voice for 4 days because of a cold. 

Of course the kids have responded by completely going off their bedtime schedule and bouncing off the walls until 10 at night, especially December, who recently seems to think that sleep is for lesser beings in general.  Halloween and a series of family parties haven't helped the issue.  I got them to bed on time last night, but only just, and only because the exhaustion was finally catching up to them.  Darius in particular is dependent on his sleep- he went to bed at 8 last night, and it's 9:30 and he's still snoozing away.  Hopefully it doesn't mean he stays up late tonight.  Fingers crossed, right?

Also! I'm addicted to crochet, and to expensive yarns (because I refuse to wear anything made with this, it's really rough and itchy and only good for making stuffed toys) and because a lot of cool patterns I've found are not crochet at all, I recently attempted to teach myself how to knit.  It takes forever, but I can do the basic knit and purl stitches.  I fail to see how knitting produces all those cool things I see on the interwebs, though.  And it makes my hand cramp, because I haven't figured out how to hold my yarn and keep defaulting to how I do it for crochet.  Which makes it get in the way.  So that's on a back burner once more, but there are plenty of crochet patterns for me to throw myself at.  Like the baby set I'm making.  (Not pregnant, wanted to try something with sleeves that didn't require a lot of yarn/time. So there.)  And I have a huge pile of sweaters and jackets I want to make.

Of course somewhere in all this I have to find time to take care of the house, raise my kids, do homework, actually attend my classes, go grocery shopping, cook, participate in family events, keep up on my TV shows, and sleep.  Guess which ones get shafted. (Not sleep!)

Speaking of, my daughter is being incredibly cute and I must go pay attention to her.