Another night (morning) I am awake at 1:30AM, unable to go back to sleep. I gave it an hour of lying in bed, trying to shut my mind off and return to the waiting arms of Morpheus, but no such luck. So, you know what they say: If you can’t sleep, blog.

Yesterday was a Pass Day, so I enjoyed a lazy morning of coffee and digital comics with the dogs cuddled on my lap, then forced myself off the couch at 9AM to work on getting my giraffe themed guest room in order. I had ordered new cherry cubicles to act as bookshelves for my collection of graphic novels (deluxe format stiff covered glossy comics,) trade paper backs (collections of multi-issue storylines,) digest size comics (approx. 6×4 inch miniature comic magazines, usually reprints) and other various comic related books (Comic Buyers Guide, Mythology: The Art of Alex Ross, etc.) These all got packed away when we redecorated the guest room last year, and I finally got around to ordering new shelves. These are great because they were easy to assemble (only needed a mallet) and can be “locked” together with pins or stacked as loose individual cubes. I chose not to connect them, leaving me free to rearrange cubes with ease, down the line.

Here’s what the cubes look like, fully assembled.

I had one row of open cubbies at the top (room for expansion.) Thanks to long distance text advice from my savvy BF, Jim, I opted for staggering my books with a featured giraffe to give it a slightly more symmetrical look:

It took my 5 hours (9AM – 2PM) to get the books shelved and the room organized, cleaned and back together (sorry, forgot to take a pic of the finished room.) I taxed my still low stamina and energy levels and crashed hard, napping on the couch with the pups until the hubby got home. I wanted to do more housecleaning, but I’m apparently a one room wonder these days.

For a rare treat (for us, these days, anyway,) we opted to go out to dinner last night. I mentioned to Jeffrey before he left for work that I was craving Mexican food. Rather than going to the grocery store for the fixings, he suggested he scoop me up after work and head to a favorite local Mexican restaurant with several gluten free options. Sounded good to me.

While shaving in the shower, I decided to go from beard to goatee. The goatee was my chosen face fur for a long time, but once I grew a full beard, (which is paltry by comparison to this guy) I never went back. Until this afternoon:

While I don’t hate it, and it’s fun to change things up once in a while, I already miss my full beard so I’ll be growing it back as soon as my little face hair follicles get back to work.

Right after I finished showering, shaving, and dressing, and just before Jeffrey got home, my Mom called. My cousin was in town and they were hinting they might like to have dinner with us, so I invited them along, courtesy of the Sassybear Shuttle Service.

We had a nice time, the food and conversation were great (as was the eye candy – WOOF!) and it was great to not have to prep or clean up after a meal for a change.

After dropping the ladies off at Mom’s, we headed home, slipped into comfy clothes, and chilled for a bit with the pups before heading to bed. While I slept well for a few hours, my pre-dawn internal alarm clock went off again, so here I am, wide awake, blogging.

We have some early errands to run today, then I hope to do a some more pre-holiday (dudes, it’s freakin’ November already) housecleaning – as much as my energy reserves allow. (I’m mostly better, with some lingering cold symptoms.) I know I still need to rest and fully recover, but “there’s things that need doin’ that ain’t gonna git done by themselves.” Besides, my thoughtful blogger buddy over at “From My Brain To My Mouth” and her spouse sent me this thoughtful Snoopy (um, Peanuts lover here) card:

So that was a booster shot of sunshine right there!

Hope you all got a good night’s sleep. You never know when it may be your last.