I walked home from work today during a gorgeous, sunny southern California morning. Lovely weather. It was a five mile walk, but flat the whole way, so it was easy. Even so, by the time I got to the service center, I was exhausted. The place I'd left my car doesn't do tires (who knew?), so they filled my tire with air and sent me up the street to a good tire shop.

They patched it, and as I was about to pay, the man at the counter said that I ought to get 2 new tires 'soon'. How soon? He said it would all depend, and he didn't feel comfortable saying 'a month' or 'two months' or whatever. I said that they could go ahead and change them out now. So I waited about 40 minutes for the new tires, paid, and went home to get ready for bed. I was so exhausted from my walk, the stress of the drive on Sunday, and the lack of sleep Sunday. Got home, showered, set my alarms for 10:30 pm, and climbed in bed at 1pm.

For the first time in days, I slept like a log - didn't wake up, wasn't restless, nothing. Even had a dream that I remembered, which is a first since I started working nights. When I set my alarm for 9.5 hours of sleep, I didn't think I'd really sleep that long - I figured I'd wake up around 9-9:30. Nope. Even with sleeping for as long as I did, I am still just wiped out, and I think I could have slept another three or four hours.

Anne asked me if I could help her with an errand tomorrow, and I told her that I couldn't because I have to sleep. I could tell she was disappointed, but I have to be very protective of my sleep hours, and I also don't think that she 'gets it' when it comes to working nights and getting enough sleep. I don't know who does get it, come to think of it.... I know that I have dinner plans for tomorrow evening, and that I need to be reasonably well-rested, which means that in order for me to get 8 hours of sleep, I have to be asleep by 10am.

At some point this week or next I need to put my car back into the shop and get some transmission and other work done - it'll be so nice to have it all fixed!

I read something last night that indicated that lack of sleep can mean a 40 % increase in cortisol levels, and that cortisol levels are associated with increased fat around the middle. Great. So now it's even HARDER for me to lose these last 10 pounds. I'm working on it, though, diligently. Easter weekend I may have eaten a few things I shouldn't've, but all in all, I did pretty well. And I'm down three pounds from where I was this time last week. And the study on cortisol reinforces everything else I've read about working nights and not getting enough sleep - basically, I need to take really good care of myself for as long as I'm doing this....

Tonight when I got up I made some eggs with chopped onion and soy cream cheese - yummy. I would have liked to have thrown some spinach in there, too, but I didn't have any. Realized I haven't been to the grocery store in a week and a half, so I'm out of several things. That will be remedied, but probably not until the weekend. I've got fish and salad and a few other things, so I'll make do. I still have a lamb chop for lunch tonight, and salad. Almonds and pumpkin seeds for snacks. Good stuff.