Night Shifts

Hello everyone. Sorry I haven't written in so long. I don't feel like it was an overly busy week, but I was plugging along, minding my own business, and suddenly it was Saturday night. I don't know how it happens.

You may have noticed that J and I have not been having very many Kiwi adventures in the way of traveling lately. If you were wondering why, wonder no longer: J is working evening and night shifts! Sometimes he is gone from 12:30pm to 10:30pm (evening shift), and sometimes he is gone from 7:30pm to 6:00am (night shift). As you can imagine, what with having to fit in sleep at some point, that makes it hard to go anywhere. He has mostly been having weekends off, but it's not really worth heading out of town when he has to sleep most of the day.

The absolute most frustrating thing about these shifts, however, is when they change. Learning to be nocturnal is hard enough, but when you have to do it in two days, then switch back three days later, and then switch again at the end of the week, it is exhausting. I have noticed that J isn't sleeping as well as he usually does, and even on the occasion that he gets enough sleep, he still seems tired. Fortunately, he is being impressively positive about it, and the times that we are both awake and at home are nice. J's work is very good about paying their employees extra when they work at night, and so at least we know that we will get a monetary benefit for him dealing with these hours. J finds that more comforting that I do, but since he's the one who has to become an owl, his opinion is the one that matters.

As for me, I can still get plenty of sleep, but I find it hard to be at home "relaxing" while trying to be totally silent so that J can sleep. I know that many of you will find this shocking, but I am not naturally a very quiet person. When I am at home alone, I sing Disney songs at the top of my lungs, drop things, have long conversations with Holly, and make noise in all kinds of glorious ways. So it is hard for me to be quiet all day long. I'm sure that if/when J works night shifts once I have started working, then that will be a lot less of an issue, but it is a bit of a pity for now.

J has one more week of night shifts, and then his schedule is undecided. We are crossing our fingers for day shifts, but we'll see what happens.