With this being the fourth time I’ve done the Blogathon, I think it’s pretty likely that I’ll take part again next year unless there’s some conflict (such as the two times I wanted to participate but couldn’t because I was away for the weekend). Because of that I just want to take note of how I paced myself because seriously, although I am tired enough that I’m really looking forward to going to sleep in an hour (and change), I am still feeling relatively peppy and this is by far the best I have ever felt at this point in the Blogathon ever.

I was up for awhile before having my first coffee – I think I had that around 10 am or so. Instead of having a second one shortly afterwards, I treated it like a regular day, and just had some water. I ate at regular times, and had regular things (toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, that sort of thing). I did have a glass and a half of red wine at my friends’ house which I wouldn’t recommend since it can bring about drowsiness but I was okay, especially since I drank it slowly.

I was tired when I came home but still stuck with water at first, then had a small glass of cream soda. I drank a coffee and had a chocolate bar for an energy boost around 11 pm which helped, then went back to water. A couple of hours later I made a cheese sandwich to avoid the trap of snacking on junk food. Then at 4 a.m. I had one final cup of coffee and my second chocolate bar.

I did feel a little queasy for about ten minutes after that, but more water helped and I slipped into the silly and giddy phase.

The thing is, now at just about 8 a.m. I’m still a little giddy. About half an hour ago I accidentally wrote “sleeped” while chatting with Heather instead of “slept” and was so amused by my ludicrous tired-brain lack of grammar that I laughed like a crazy person for a good five minutes – that’s what happens during the loopy phase of an all-nighter, you just can’t stop laughing.

Just now I ate a small bowl of cereal so that I won’t have an empty stomach when I go to bed at 9, a mistake I made two years ago which led to me feeling like crap. The cereal was perfect.

There’s one hour left, two posts to go, and while I am thrilled to be this close to sleep, I am also really happy with how I’m doing. This is clearly the pacing schedule for me!

Oh and hey, look who’s awake!

Well, okay. Sort of awake. I couldn’t have asked for better with the kids. They both fell asleep quickly and easily and all I wanted was for them both to sleep until at least 7:30 a.m. Breanna got up at about 7:45 and now just before 8 a.m. Hayley is still sleeping. That’s pretty awesome.

Can’t wait for my turn to sleep!

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Now that we’re really closing in on the home stretch with only an hour and a half to go, I’m eager to get to the point where I can just go to sleep already. I’m still pretty well awake but I can feel the fatigue and I’m getting close to hitting that wall.

Five things I can’t seem to stop doing no matter how hard I try:

1. Checking the time constantly. It’s unbelievable, I’ll check, wait what feels like at least five minutes, look again only to see that it’s STILL THE SAME TIME. Time has FROZEN!
2. Grinning. I swear to GOD, I just told my friend Heather that I have the biggest, most idiotic grin on my face for absolutely NO REASON* and I can’t seem to make myself stop. Do you know how stupid it feels to sit all alone in your semi-dark living room smiling like a moron? At NOTHING?!
3. Yawning. Big dumb grin aside, I am definitely getting tired and I keep yawning. That’s pretty much the only thing that breaks up the grin!
4. Twitching my leg. I think that may very well be the caffeine. This is why I don’t normally drink two cups of coffee on top of chocolate and pop. No heart palpitations at least!
5. Peeing. I know, I know, too much information but between the pop to give me some sugar energy, the coffee to give me caffeine, and the water to balance it all out, let’s just say that no matter how tired I get, my bladder will definitely help keep me awake until 9 am when the Blogathon ends!

Whew. Oh hey look, the clock STILL ISN’T MOVING!

*Heather told me to take a picture so I did and well, I look like a total crazed lunatic complete with glazed eyes, so no. No picture. 😀

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At a little past 6:30 a.m. I looked out the window to see if it was still raining (there’s a lull) and discovered that morning is really here. There was no visible sunrise due to the clouds so morning kind of snuck up on me.

You can see the reflection of one of my living room lamps in the window. I was too cold from the A/C to open the window since it’s still very chilly outside.

Two more hours. I can totally pull off two more hours. Uh, right?

(Also, it is really weird to sit here, having not gone to bed yet, hearing people in other apartments walking down the hall and going out to start their day!)

If you should happen to find yourself staying up all night long like I’ve done just now, you might think, “ech, I’m not in the mood for the commitment that is required from a movie” and you’ll decide you’ll just watch television. You should be warned that unless you have really good channels in your television package you may be stuck with…

The most inane infomercials that play at Dark O’Clock:

1. Ab exercise programs that require no diet changes, no actual exercise, but will give you a six-pack belly if you put some vibrating, shimmying belt device on. Riiight.
2. Religious “healers”.
3. Really long medication infomercials for cholesterol or blood pressure treatment.
4. Amazing handy dandy super chopper thingy. Okay, well actually I kind of want that one.
5. Phone sex. “Call. Call NOW.”
6. Male enhancement pills, of course. What would the night be without them?
7. Dr. Phil-esque ego boosting programs.
8. Colon cleansers. Yummy, right before breakfast!

Have you ever bought anything from an infomercial? I never have but I’m not even kidding about wanting that chopping thing!

Two and a half hours left!

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This year I’m unfortunately going to have to do without the beautiful sunrise that I’ve enjoyed in the past, along with photos of it.

For one thing, the bedrooms are the ones with the windows facing East so I’d have to risk waking people up to go take a picture anyway (and I’m far too tired and lazy at this point to go all the way downstairs and outside – we’re several flights up!).

But even if I could get a good view out a window, it wouldn’t make much difference. Our forecast for Sunday is 80% chance of thunderstorms and although there seems to be a lull in the rain right now, it’s still very densely overcast at the moment. It’s getting lighter out, but no sun to be seen. Alas.

Here’s a picture of a sunrise I took in January 2008:

Good enough for me!

I’m going to keep things light right about now since I’m starting to get a bit tired again. I thought I’d go back and re-do one of my older posts from a few years ago that people had fun with. Please excuse the superficial nature of this post…

The absolute hottest drool-worthy celebrities in my opinion: (in no particular order)

1. Alan Rickman (but as Severus Snape)
2. Johnny Depp
3. Angelina Jolie (I mean, really)
4. Vin Diesel
5. Will Smith
6. Brad Pitt (he gets better with age to me)
7. Seamus O’Regan (a host on a Canadian morning news show)
8. Thomas Gibson (but as Aaron Hotchner on Criminal Minds)
9. David Cook
10. Adam Lambert (shush, I know, and it makes NO DIFFERENCE)
11. Mark Wahlberg
12. Donnie Wahlberg 🙂

I could probably go on but I think I’ll stop now. I think you’ll note I have a “type” for the most part – tall, dark, and handsome.

No wonder I was attracted to George!

Since I’m feeling silly and loopy (and now finally have a hot cup of coffee to perk me up even more!) I thought this was a good time for…

My five favorite corny jokes: (the last three are best read out loud)

1. Q. Guess what? A. Chicken butt! (the only reason that one’s funny to me is because of the reaction it gets from my kids)
2. Knock, knock! Who’s there? Interrupting cow! Interrupting c- MOOOOOOO!
3. Q. How do you catch a unique bird? A. Unique up on it!
4. Q. How do you catch a tame bird? A. The tame way – unique up on it!
5. Q. What do you call cheese that doesn’t belong to you? A. NACHO cheese! (that’s my favorite of the bunch)

Does it show that I’m the kind of person who also really likes puns? I know. 🙂

Right now I’m at my favorite point of the Blogathon, the part I’ve always loved and look forward to each time – the loopy time! It’s almost 4 am now, I’m tired but I’m also wired up, and so I’ve hit the point where just about anything can make me laugh. I get a little bit silly during this stretch.

I think it’s entirely possible that I look like this:

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I think now is the right time for my last coffee of the night, finally. Because I know that after the loopy and silly phase comes (for me, at least) the confusion and paranoia stage – that’s when I start thinking “Oh my God! I have to post!” only to remember that I just posted all of 30 seconds ago. That’s followed by the bone-shattering exhaustion.

I’m hoping this final cup of coffee will help me stretch out the current phase and put off the numbing tired until the very end when my prize is to crawl into bed for a few hours!

Off to boil water for my caffeine fix!

Please consider sponsoring me while I do the Blogathon for the UNHCR!

There are many great and easy ways to keep track of what’s happening in the world of refugees.

Four places to follow the UNHCR:

1. Directly on the UNHCR website – http://unhcr.com
2. On Twitter* – http://twitter.com/refugees
3. On Facebook – Over here
4. On Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/unhcr/ (I love following them on Flickr, you get a fantastic real look at life in the refugee camps around the world)

They’re all great ways to keep yourself informed, be sure to check them out!

*I think Twitter is what caused my site to crash. The person running the UNHCR Twitter account was kind enough to post a message saying “@sherina is doing well in her 24h blogathon to raise money for UNHCR. Learn about her awesome effort here:” with a link to my site. I think I got a spike of traffic that choked the site – which is really a pretty amazing reason to have your site go down for a bit! No harm done, my host ROCKS and got things back up quickly!