Well it's sometime around 2am - my own personal Witching Hour. I think something out there does not feel that I should be able to sleep straight through a single night. Rhiannon has been sleeping through the night on a pretty decent basis for the last week or so, which I thought meant that I would also be sleeping through the night. No such luck. If it isn't Rhiannon waking me up, it's Dave's alarm clock going off at some god-forsaken time (like 2, 3, 5am). Since he actually has to get up then, I can't complain about that. If Dave doesn't have to get up until 7 or something, then the dog will decide that his bed isn't quite comfortable, and will wake me with his noisy attempts at getting his blanket in the perfect position - again, at 2am. So what happened tonight? Was it Rhiannon? Was it Dave? Was it the dog? No, folks, tonight it was the stupid Alphabet Pal toy - one of those Leap Frog deals that is supposed to help Rhia learn her ABC's. It has 26 legs, and each one has a letter, and if you push on a leg it says the letter or color, or whatever. Dave helped pick up the bedroom as I was getting Rhiannon in bed, and piled a bunch of toys in a corner. This mountain of toys shifted just enough so that the stuffed tiger started pressing on the "L" at 1am. I wake up to it saying "L" in its creepy child's voice. Wha..? What was that? Did I hear something? It's silent just long enough for me to start to drift off again. Then... "Thanks for learning with Leap Frog! Bye bye!", then immediately, "L". I woke up, and tried to deny that I was actually hearing it. "Thanks for learning with Leap Frog! Bye bye!" "L" But it went on, and on, and on. That was 2 hours ago, and I'm still awake. That's why it's such a pain in the ass to get woken up - I don't just wake up and then go back to sleep. I'm up for hours. It's enough to drive me to tears sometimes. I'm so freaking tired. Yeah, yeah, boo hoo, get over it.

Anyway, I found a new project. A couple, actually. One is playgroups, the other is Tightwadding. The playgroups thing came about because I feel a compelling need to meet actual people. We moved to Vegas in July, and we have made friends with one couple (our neighbors, totally cool folks). So I invited some people over tomorrow morning, so we'll see if anyone shows up. I might have a couple more playgroup mornings next week. I found out that one of the moms on a local online group (Radical Moms! LOL) I belong to lives right by me! What a trip! I've probably seen her. LOL I'm nervous about meeting new people though. For one, I'm generally a very shy, private person. Once I get going though, I can chat with the best of them. So I'm literally terrifed of this whole thing. One reason it's good that I offered to host is that I can't back out at the last minute, which is my most favorite technique to avoid social situations. I decide it's time to get out, I say I'll be at such-and-such gathering, then back out when it comes down to actually going. No way to do that when people are coming here!

My other pet project right now is Tightwadding. What is tightwadding? Why, it's a way of life of course! :) The Tightwad Gazette was recommended to me for its plethura of money-saving tips. Since we are definitely on a tight budget now that I'm done working, we need every single one. I'm doing all sorts of things to save us money:

• Using cloth diapers for Rhiannon (which reminds me, I'm off to put them in the washer)


• Cooking from scratch (Dave loves this one)


• Only using the dryer to dry the diapers and Rhia's clothes, I'm air drying everything else

I'm also not going to buy any more cleaning supplies. I've discovered that I can clean my entire house with vinegar, baking soda, and ammonia! I cleaned my tubs last week with a baking soda/salt combination as a scouring powder, and it actually works!

OK, maybe the sleep gods have decided that I've done penance enough for this evening. I'm going to go see if 2 hours of lost sleep is a sufficient sacrifice.