My last "short Sunday"

This is my last weekend on the overnight shift.  Next Sunday, I can watch "Mad Men" when it first airs, if I want to.  I won't miss any more evening sporting events on TV, unless I choose to.  (Not seeing the Super Bowl and the NCAA Championship Game was painful!)  I got a change in assignment so for the next three days, I'm still the morning Executive Producer at Local 10 WPLG.

Next week, I move to a day shift and will be the Managing Editor.  Frankly, I'm thrilled.  The past five months have been both challenging and so much fun.  I've stretched brain cells that needed stretching.  

I've learned that I'm probably not ever going to be a great Executive Producer!

It's a REALLY hard job and I have such an appreciation for anyone who works overnights.  One of my talented co-workers, Constance Jones, told me early on that it changes you.  And it does.  

I found myself getting very anxious at around 4pm if I wasn't home so that I could get to bed by 6pm.  Sometimes, when John and I were house-hunting, we would find ourselves in Broward County, stuck in traffic, late in the day.  It really messed me up.  

In the beginning I relied too heavily on Zzzzzquil.  Followed by Monster or 5-Hour-Energy.  Don't even go to that Viet Nam. 

I made mistakes and most of the time, I learned from them.

News stories about how the lack-of-sleep effects always seemed to make it into the health segment of the newscast, probably the result of my own anxiety.

I experienced the AM/PM Freak Out--when you wake up from a nap and have no idea what day it is, let alone the time of day.  And you think you missed your shift and you wonder why nobody called.

But the one thing that I wanted to happen, never did.

I still haven't learned to look at a rundown and see much more than a grid with hieroglyphics that I struggle to understand while my younger co-workers read them like Dick, Jane and Sally.

So this is a good thing.  I'm looking forward to a new challenge.  And to spending evenings with my husband rather than drooling into a pillow while he tries to be quiet in another room.

Life is good.

Stone in love...

Happy 26th anniversary John.  This is a bit later than usual, my days got away from me this year!

Listen to this first, then read the list...


1. “What are you doing here?”  I love how, on the day I got fired from KSHB, you were surprised that I was home early.   You always have faith in me.
2. I loved the 25th anniversary celebration with the kids on the beach in Fort Lauderdale.  Not that I ever expected to be living here a year later…
3. I love that you now know which TV shows or movies I will NEVER watch, no matter how much I hear and read about “True Blood” or “Walking Dead.”
4. I love laughing with you at impatient South Florida drivers.  Beep beep!
5. I love playing in the surf with you and seeing you body surf like a little boy.
6. I love that you went to see “Hunger Games” with me right after it came out even though you had NO INTEREST in the movie.

7. I love that you love South Dakota.
8. I love that you discovered Tree Faces and hope we can find a place to put ours in the new place.
9. I love coffee is ready for me when I get up at 12:05am.
10. I love how we can look back at some of the most stressful times during the past six months and realize that our relationship was tested but never broken.
11. I love that you still like listening to Y-100.  Brittney, bitch.
12. I love packing a lunch, grabbing the umbrella and chairs and just heading out for some sand time.  When we move, we’ll only be six miles from the ocean so let’s promise to keep it up.
13. I love you care about my mom.
14. I love tailgating with you…any sport, any time.
15. I love the Great Toilet Paper Debate.
16. I love exploring with you.
17. I love our daily walks and talks about the people we see while walking.
18. I love that you intently listen to my dad’s stories.

19. I love how we went from a single-family house with a pool to a two-bedroom condo on a golf course.  And how happy we will be! 
20. I love your unreasonable and completely hilarious fear of animals-that-are-more-afraid-of-you like deer, bears and alligators.
21. I love that we figured out early (thanks Priest Lake vacation) that our retirement dream of roving the US in a motor home is probably not grounded in reality…for us, anyway.
22. I love that you protect my sleep schedule.
23. I love that you don’t force me to throw away kindergarten math papers from our kids even though it’s a pain to move the boxes from city to city.
24. I love how you instinctively know when I’m too tired to keep going.
25. I love how you like to be photographed in strange places.

26. I loved getting to the car this morning to find red roses in a plastic bucket along with a note telling me not to drive with the bucket full of water, just in case I was too sleep deprived to figure that out on my own.