We have had several lady beetles and stink bugs get into our house over the past couple of months – much to the cats delight. (Note: I have always called them lady bugs but now that I work for an entomologist, I have learned that the correct term is lady beetle.🐞) Recently, the cats kept staring at the kitchen cabinet; I assumed there was a bug but I couldn’t find anything. Finally, Kenn got involved with the search. It turned out that there was no bug – there was a bat in cabinet. This is the second time we’ve had a bat in the cabinet. In both instances, the bat has been removed and released outside. Now to figure out how they keep getting in!
I woke up with Talking in Your Sleep by the Romantics playing in my head – probably because I’ve been planning to write a post about somniloquy. Of course, I had to take a few minutes and watch the linked video and I have to say it – there’s no hair like 80’s hair.
Kenn has always talked in his sleep. He stopped for several years but over the past year or so he has started again. It’s not uncommon for me to be awakened by one of his middle of the night conversations. Unfortunately, it’s usually just a few words here or there, not enough for me to determine what he’s dreaming about or who he’s talking too. He rarely has a recollection of any of these nocturnal chats.
Image courtesy of depositphotos.com
The weird thing is, I’ve started talking in my sleep as well. Prior to the past few months I might cry out in my sleep if I were having a bad dream and Kenn would wake me up, talking to me long enough to (hopefully) keep from going back to the same dream. (I don’t often have bad dreams, but when I do, they usually involve spiders.) Several times in the past few months I’ve woken myself up while yelling at someone in my dream. (I rarely yell in real life. I guess I get it out of my system in my dreams, LOL.) Last week I dreamed that I was pregnant (!) and that Kenn had intentionally made plans to be somewhere else when the baby was due. I woke myself up telling him quite clearly “If you aren’t here when this baby is born, I don’t think I can forgive you.” My pronouncement did not awaken Kenn, who would like to go on record as saying that he would never do anything so terrible.
My subconscious must have been working overtime. In addition to my morning mental musical selection, Kenn said I woke him up this morning talking in my sleep. He said I was carrying on a full conversation with someone. I didn’t wake myself up this time and don’t remember what I was dreaming so I have know idea what I was discussing.
It seems there is no definitive cause for somniloquy and while it is definitely not anything to be concerned about, I do find it interesting that both Kenn and I are now sleep talkers. I wonder if this is one of those ways in which long-time partners take on similar characteristics?🤔
Do you talk in your sleep? If so, is this a lifelong tendency?
Several years ago I became the proud owner of a set of cat butt magnets which still decorate my fridge until this day. Thanks to a random Amazon recommendation, I found the superhero cat butt magnets shown above in my Christmas stocking. I think they are hysterical; the Hulk and Iron Man are my particular favorites. I also have no idea why Batman is the sole DC representative amongst this collection of Marvel superheroes.🤷♀️Our fridge is quite… eclectic.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I used too, but I never stuck to them which then caused me to beat myself up for my presumed “failure”. (Don’t worry. I used to be the Queen of Negative Self-Talk. Nowadays, I’m more like a lady-in-waiting.) The only exception to this rule is setting a goal for the number of books to read in my Kindle app.
I am an avid reader and have been as long as I can remember. If you had asked me several years ago if I would ever make the change from physical books to ebooks, the answer would have been a resounding NO. However, the transition began slowly before I retired. Trying to juggle a purse, lunchbox, and book among other things when going from the car to the office and back was a pain. Since I’ve always got my phone, converting to reading using the Kindle app was sort of natural. Eventually, I noticed that the app tracks what I read (duh) and prompted me for a “reading goal” at the beginning of a new year. Not having any idea how much I actually read, my initial goals were guesstimates at best.
According to my Kindle app, my reading stats for the past few years are as follows:
2019: 41 titles read (no goal set)
2020: 160 titles read with a goal of 45. It seems I don’t estimate well, LOL.
2021: 156 titles read with a goal of 100. Better estimation, but still on the low side.
2022: 114 titles read with a goal of 125.
2022 is the year I learned that the Kindle app does not give you credit for re-reading books. (Seriously Kindle? What’s up with that?) Since I did a lot of re-reading in 2022, it’s time to crunch the numbers and find out how many book I actually read in 2022. *cracks knuckles*
Two new books came out in Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series, so of course I re-read the first 13 books in the series in preparation.
A new book came out in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling Trinity series so I re-read 14 of the 15 books in her Psy-Changeling series and the first 5 books in the Psy-Changeling Trinity series. (I skipped one book in the original series because I really don’t like the hero in that book.)
A new book came out in Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series so I re-read the first 12 books in the series.
A new book came out in Faith Hunter’s Soulwood series so I re-read the first 5 books in the series.
Side note: I don’t always re-read a series when a new book comes out. It kind of depends on how long it has been since I read the series or since a new book released.
So, let’s see:
114 books counted by the Kindle app
13 Guild Hunter books
14 Psy-Changeling books
5 Psy-Changeling Trinity books
12 Mercy Thompson books
5 Soulwood books
163 number of books actually read in 2022
Booyah! Take that Kindle app! Yes, my competitiveness is making itself known, LOL. Just for giggles, I set my reading goal at 125 titles again this year. However, based on the computations above I may bump it up to 150.
So, are you a reader? If so, do you set any sort of reading goals? And, ebooks, physical books, or both?
Well, it has taken almost three years, but Kenn and I finally contracted COVID. As with many couples, Kenn and I are opposites in many ways. Our recent illnesses have brought some of those differences to the fore. Most notably, when I’m sick, I want to be left alone – just check on me every now and then to make sure I’m still breathing. Kenn, however, wants to be babied.
My symptoms began on New Year’s Eve and I wound up in the doctor’s office on January 2nd with a severe ear infection. Since January 2nd was a federal holiday, Kenn didn’t work and was available to take me to the doctor. However, he was back at work on Tuesday and Wednesday leaving me to my own devices. I stayed on the couch (with a variety of felines) with an assortment of tissues, cough drops, and cold medications scattered in strategic locations throughout the house. Kenn’s symptoms began shortly after he got home on Wednesday evening. He decided to test Thursday and… duhn, duhn, duhn
Yep, it’s positive
We didn’t even have to wait the whole fifteen minutes; it was showing positive within about 3 minutes. (Had this been my test, Kenn would have said that I was just being competitive.) Friday morning he called the doctor who, in turn, called in prescriptions for cough medicine and an anti-viral. Cue the difficult part of this process – picking up the medications. I was now on Day 6 of my illness which meant I no longer needed to quarantine and while I was feeling better, I was still weak/washed out but I pulled on my big girl panties and made the drive to the pharmacy. (Yay for small towns, short distances, and drive-thru pharmacies!) I did not burst into tears when I was informed that they only had the cough syrup; the anti-viral was out of stock and they didn’t know when they would get more. I made it back home where Kenn made a call, found the anti-viral at another pharmacy, and made the arrangements to have the prescription transferred. Afterwards, he went to bed for a well-deserved nap.
An hour or so later, I went to check on Kenn. He was awake and feeling pitiful. He was glad I had come to check on him because he needed to cuddle. I am not cuddle-averse, especially when I’m already sick and not going to be exposed by said cuddling. (Long story.) I cuddled Kenn until it was almost time for me to go pick up his second prescription. He was feeling miserable so I hoped to encourage him by telling him that, since his illness was progressing much as mine had, he would probably be feeling better by the next day. His response? “I’m not going to survive that long.” Siiiggghhh.
Now, Kenn has said on more than one occasion that I’m not very sympathetic – and he’s right. I’m great with empathy; sympathy not so much. At this point, my already limited sympathy was running low. “Are you serious? You should have said something earlier so I could take out an insurance policy on you. And, you do realize that I survived on my own while you went to work and I’m here babying you and you’re not going to survive? I’m going to go get your medication. I hope you’re still alive when I get back.” Spoiler: he was. He was also contrite and apologized for “irritating” me; he said he was just kidding around. Whatever. I’ve been around him long enough to know that the drama gene is strong in his family and it’s always strongest with Kenn when he’s sick so I take his “just kidding” with a grain of salt.
Personality differences aside, I’m thankful that our COVID experience has been easy. The absolute worst part for both of us has been the lack of energy that we’ve experienced. It has now been ten days since my symptoms started and today is the first day I’ve been able to be up and around for more than a few minutes without needing to sit down and rest. Also, I’m a night owl so it’s not unusual for me to be up until midnight; while I’ve had COVID, I haven’t been able to stay awake past 10pm. My plan is to go into work tomorrow. Weevil counting isn’t strenuous and if I don’t have the energy to stay all day, I won’t. Even more importantly, I’m planning to cook supper tonight. I haven’t cooked in over a week because standing in the kitchen for 30 minutes to an hour has been a no-go. Wish me luck! (Edited to add, I survived both cooking dinner and my first day back at work!)
Belated wishes for a happy holidays and happy “mew” year to you!
When the stress of the holidays started piling up, I decided a few things had to give – among those things were my blog posts. However, I’m already scheduling posts for next December just to keep that from happening again,
Linda Lou's Life 