Friday, February 6, 2009

five minutes more

My favourite alarm clock is broken. Actually, my next favourite is also broken. Even my least favourite doesn't work. I'm sure it has nothing to do with my anxious reaction to the rude awakening. Or my continual use of the snooze button, the best and worst invention on any alarm clock.

Now I use my cell phone, which has an alarm feature and a person on the other end who gives me a wake up call every night. I know. Shouldn't everyone get a wake up call from their place of work? And if I'm not there an hour later they call back to make sure I didn't fall back to sleep. Which sometimes happens (see above).

I used to always believe that if I didn't have my 9 hours of sleep I was useless. I've learned that I can indeed be useful on less than that. But it can be a struggle. Sometimes, I feel like I am always struggling.

My work schedule is so erratic that it is hard to have any set routine for sleeping or eating. It is a good thing I live alone so I can make my own schedule and change it on a daily basis.

I do not like being awakened by music, or inane drivel from the radio, which often just infiltrates into my dreams, nor one of those clocky deals where the night table accessory rolls around all over the room and forces you out of bed to find it and beat it into quiet submission.

No, my favourite alarm clock has a light that flashes for five minutes before a gentle alarm starts up which increases in intensity before the minute hand finally reaches out and slaps you silly.

Well, that last bit might be made up. I've not tested things that far.

25 comments:

  1. Sorry about your clock..that sucks!
    I am not useless without 9 hours..just incredibly, incredibly bitchy! LOL. Why can't we all get the perfect night's sleep every night?

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  2. I need my sleep but rarely get as much as I need. Alarm clocks became redundant when we had the children and are only just making a reappearance!

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  3. That is a cool alarm clock. I have an internal one built in, it wakes me every day around 3, 3:30 sometimes I fall back asleep sometimes I don't, it's like a daily ting so I don't notice it anymore. How did you do that special effect to the picture?

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  4. I love that clock, very retro! Did you get it at Restoration Hardware? They have one like it, I think. Or maybe it's L.L.Bean. I know I've seen it a catalog.

    I have insomnia quite often, so I'm used to functioning on 4 or 5 hours a night. If I could get 9 hours of sleep, I could probably conquer the world!

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  5. Well, Hannah, the bitchiness comes later, once I am fully and annoyingly awake after too many hours. Before that, I am just ... groggy.

    Maybe it's because I am getting older, but I am in awe of women, Katie, who can still get through a day of work or school when they have young children.

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  6. Hi, Lucia, I used to have a good internal alarm clock that woke me up at 3 hour intervals - at least I knew I could get my 8 hours in stages!

    Google "snow effect blogger" and you can set it up there. Very easy. It will appear on the whole blog but, I changed the background colour, so now it is only on the photos.

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  7. Now, why doesn't it surprise me that you recognized that clock, Susan?! Yes, it is from Restoration Hardware. And I LOVE it. And, as you will also know, it was expensive enough to warrant a visit to a clockmaker to get the alarm button fixed!!

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  8. Retirement is great I don't need an alarm clock anymore.I get up when I feel like it whether that is 5:30am or 9am. I will need to set one for Monday though as we have to leave at 5:00am and although my inner alarm clock will probably wake me I like the back up just in case.

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  9. VioletSky - just don't have your cell phone too close to your head at night...all those nasty little invisible rays in the air seeping into your brain...the same goes for digital alarm clocks...

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  10. I am excited for you, Vic, for this holiday! I am fortunate that most of the time I can just sleep until I wake up. It is much more restful on the body.

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  11. I much prefer analog clocks, Delwyn, but, oh dear, I do have that cell phone at the edge of the pillow for easy reach - I only think of those harmful rays from using/talking on the phone, not just having it there... hmmm another good reason to get out of bed to answer it!

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  12. How do you do that snow stuff? I want one of them! - great photos again.

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  13. Oh yes, another with snow envy!! Thanks, Alden. Google 'snow effect' and you too can easily have blogger snow.

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  14. Good luck finding the right clock. I got tired of the beeping and now do radio. It's the young cool hip station and when it pops on it's always the girl or guy dj talking really loudly, saying something inane and 4 out of 5 times, it scares the bejeebers out of me.

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  15. Oh, no wonder, Restoration Hardware. They have the coolest stuff.

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  16. Sanna, one should always repair, repair, repair the things one loves. :)

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  17. Yes, don't they, Ruth?! Now if only there was one a wee bit more in my area...

    SusanI found a clockmaker who says he can fix it.

    Now I think that would be a scary sight, Geewits - I used to have a roommate who sat bolt upright and screamed when awakened suddenly. That scared the bejeebers out of the rest of us!!

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  18. I have a plain old alarm clock that bleeps irritatingly at the other side of the room, so I have to get up to shut it off. It works and it always wakens me, much to my disgust sometimes, but at least I am always n time.

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  19. Yes Irene, I need to do that more often - slept in again last night...

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  20. How about one that alarms and then runs away from you and hides? I always thought that would be great for my teenager but then her friends gave her an annoying SCREAMING alarm clock for her birthday and it still doesn't wake her. It wakes everyone else in the house, but not her.

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  21. I hate my alarm clock, all alarm clocks really. They are the devil's spawn.

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  22. Now, Kylie, that clocky that runs away when you press the snooze button is really the 'devil's spawn' and Jazz I wish my body could just adapt and wake itself up when I need to be awake so we wouldn't have to depend on things like screeching noise.

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  23. That's a great looking clock. But I don't like alarm clock so n principal - it offends me that I have to be awoken and I usually push the snooze bitton at least twice. (But I have mine setto radio so i get music.)

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  24. I LOVE the snooze button. My sister is the one who got me hooked on it when we shared a room as children/teenagers, but now I can rarely ever get up without at least one snooze, usually two, sometimes three.
    And I often feel like I'm struggling to stay awake too. Thank GOD for coffee.

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  25. I also feel offended that I be awoken (or awake, I love sleep)CotW

    Noha where have you been - snoozin'?? I've missed you, girl!

    I go for the 3 - 4 hits of snooze button - every time. I'm pathertic.

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