Where are those dang sheep when you need them?

I have not been sleeping well since MacTroll left on his trip on Monday. Every night I crawl into bed at 9 p.m. after doing the dishes and letting the dog out. And every night I toss or turn until around 2 a.m. I've gotten up at 11 p.m. and written some. I've done late night laundry, figuring if I can't sleep, I should at least do something useful. I've tried melatonin.

I'm not sure what the deal is, but I've also noticed that after only getting 4 hours of sleep, I'm very tired around 11:30 a.m. So I returned from physical therapy on both Tuesday and Wednesday and ate a quick lunch and took a two-hour nap until 1:30 p.m. then I've hopped out of bed, still tired, and driven over to pick up X-man from school.

This morning, I also woke up with a nasty pain in my Achille's on my bad foot. I wonder if it's from the physical therapy exercises. When I go in tomorrow, I'll have to let them know. But here I was planning on going to the pool this morning, but it hurts to walk around even in my walking boot, so I'm resting, instead.

I do have to introduce a speaker at Rotary today and do the reflection. So, I guess I'm going back to bed now and will try to get up and get moving in a couple of hours.

Bleh! I might as well have the cold/mucous thing that the boys have both had in the last week! Since I'm down, I might as well be out! :-P

PPPPPUUUUUUUUUU

Who needs the delusions provided by illegal drugs and copious amounts of alcohol when you can have a household mechanical device malfunction at 2 a.m. awakening you into a fit of the fifth day of sleep deprivation (i.e., before last night I couldn't fall asleep before 3 a.m. and got up every morning between 6 and 7 a.m.)?

My highly trained late night Mommy brain went something like this --"Do I smell fire or is that MacTroll's onion breathe?"

"No, that's fire."

"Wait, shouldn't there be smoke?"

"Oh, god, is it my Fuel Band?" Sniff my Fuel Band, then my iPad, then my laptop and then my phone. "No... Why does it stink so bad?"

"Is it the dog's butt? -- No. How about the cat's butt? -- No."

"What the hell?"

I walked into the hallway. It smelled less. I went into X-man's room. It smelled a bit more.

I decided I wasn't making it up and woke MacTroll. We wandered around the house and it got a lot stronger in the laundry room -- which is over the HVAC room.

So, we head down there. Oh, dear god did it smell. It was kind of a combination burning rubber and metal and dead things. It made my stomach churn. I started to dry heave, so I walked outside. Much better.

We decided it was the HVAC and turned off the air conditioning and the fan. We opened up all the windows and turned on all the fans. But it still made me feel sick.

I decided to pitch our tent.

This is a great plan. Our tent usually only takes me 5 minutes to put up. Last night I swear it took 30.
Then I got everything in it and made X-man come outside with me. I figured if it made me sick, then my child shouldn't be breathing it.

X-man was fine. Yes, he asked me five times if it was going to rain or if bugs would eat him. On top of it, Lily was coming in and out of the house confused as hell as to why were weren't all in our beds. I apologize if her barking once at 4 a.m. and once at 5 a.m. at crazy early dog walkers woke people.

The first time, I let her back in the house. MacTroll tried to make her stay with him. Then, it turned out, she let herself out the back door. Then I put her back inside (thinking it was MacTroll putting her back out because she was whining and annoying him). And she let herself back out -- I didn't wake up the second time, so she let the cats out, too.

Last night I woke up every 45 minutes. Once to a train whistle and coyotes, twice to Lily barking, once to X-man shouting out, "I didn't mean to hurt you!" and twice to let Lily in and out of the tent. At some point, she actually settled down and slept for a few hours on top of X-man's tiny air mattress.

Then the sun came up, and I just left the door unzipped so she could go in and out as she pleased.

In my dreams, I saw my grandfather coming and petting my dog and promising to fix the smell, no problem. Then I insulted a new neighbor who asked for the best place to get a breakfast like one she could get in "Chicago." When she referenced IHOP, I kind of lit into her by asking how a chain restaurant was "Chicago."

Then I had a dream that I could still smell the terrible smell.

When I woke up, I realized it wasn't MacTroll who had been letting Lily out. That she had let herself out... Because the door was cracked open. And I realized, it wasn't a dream, I could smell it. It was coming out of a pipe from the house, but how is that possible, if I turned off the HVAC. Simple, it was coming from our water heater. This is okay, because it doesn't require a Sunday service visit because we have two water heaters. MacTroll turned the second one off, and we went to breakfast. When we came back, the smell was much less on the two floors with open windows.

So he's going to call the plumber in the morning.

But yeah, it wasn't very restful.

Today from 12-3, X-man has a play date with X-man +1 year. And then we're heading over to the Taste if the weather holds out to see the Brat Pack.

Hope to see some of you out there!