WordPress Post A Week 2011 topic suggestion #56: 

What keeps me up at night?

Ummm…it might be easier to list the things that don’t keep me up at night:

• Tornadoes – it’s a good thing the hubby is a light sleeper
• The dog barking
• Wondering who got kicked off American Idol – our family is Idoled out.
• Wondering if my husband will like the dusty purple paint color I have picked for our kitchen. He will love it as soon as he sees it.
• What I’m going to fix for dinner this week
• Wondering about the Kardashians and how they are doing in New York
• My awesome kids – they are really good ones!
• My awesome hubby – 20 years this year. I got a great one!
• If Charlie Sheen will get his kids back

Okay, the stuff that does keeps me up at night, here we go:

• Paying for college beginning in the Fall of 2012
• Money in general – Are we saving enough? What do our retirement accounts look like? What if we have a medical emergency? Are we too much in debt?
• What I’m going to do with myself going forward
• Worrying about my driving daughter when she is out
• What disaster is lurking around the corner that would cause one of us to lose our jobs
• I really need to exercise more – how can I make a routine?
• Do we need new windows? If so, how do we pay for them?
• The Middle East – I’ve got to stop watching the news! (I don’t want gas prices to hinder our trek across America this summer. Plus, will Khaddafy (sp?) do chemical warfare on his own people?)
• One of my daughters’ math grade (shall remain unnamed).
• If my husband’s company will continue doing well (I should leave that worry to the hubs).
• Dexter – Maddie’s bird. Poor thing.
• My boy’s baby teeth – they just aren’t falling out on their own.  What is up with that? Will we have to have them pulled? How much will that cost?
• Losing our Health Insurance
• How we are going to avoid Bed Bugs when we go on our vacation
• Blah, Blah…..

There is no rhyme or reason to what makes the list.  Once I get it in my head, it won’t go away unless it gets resolved. As you can tell from the list, most of these items are just ongoing thoughts that I can’t really do anything about and most will remain unresolved!

Well, they just had to ask, didn’t they?!

How do people keep these thoughts from swirling around in their heads all of the time? Late at night it’s just me and my swirling thoughts.

I will say that once I do get to sleep (I generally stay up too late), it’s like raising the dead in the morning. My husband laughs because I hit the snooze exactly 3 times every morning and then I get up.

How do you calm the mind?