Excellent!

I slept soundly last night but I often have restless nights when I have things on my mind or if I wake up and think of something that I need to do first thing in the morning. I will write myself a note on the pad by the bed so that I don't have to remember that something all night but sometimes it takes awhile to go back to sleep.

I am like you, Donna. A light sleeper. I hear every little thing going on, unfortunately. Having a fan on for some numbing noise does help a little bit. I can't sleep if it is too quiet.

I do sleep with a fan on (good) and kittens on my feet (sometimes good). For the really bad nights i do use ambien. or sometimes i just sigh and read on my laptop until dawn.

I usually take 2 benadryl to help me sleep and I use earplugs and a sound machine for white noise, but I still wake frequently. I read somewhere a study that was done about the color of light and its affect on sleep and they found that red lights don't interfere with sleep but others - white, yellow, blue and green lights do. We switched our alarm clocks to red lights - maybe that might help a little for you, Jilly. We have other lights that we just cover with something before we go to bed at night. Sometimes the moon shines through a really high window in our bedroom and that can keep me awake. I don't mind at times, because it's actually relaxing to look at through the tree branches. I used to use an eye mask, but it wasn't comfortable. Instead I keep a small handtowel towel bunched by my face to block out additional light. Whatever works, right?

Yup sound machines are great helps. I have an air filter that runs so it's dual purpose - it makes sound and it cleans allergens out of the air. I definitely cover all glowing lights in the room with socks or other items. I aim for pitch black. I have double shades plus heavy curtains on all our windows.

Donna - is there no way to get a curtain up there, on rails?

last night I counted and there are 14 tiny colored light sources in here. Most of the lights are green and blue. Two of them are red.

The alarm clock is one of those huge sized digital readouts in green.

When Dan leaves, many of these light sources will go with him, but not all. The clock, though, is his. I won't miss that one.

I took an ambien to get to sleep, since I was a little worked up emotionally. I was buzzing like a bee. But the ambien worked nicely.

I got to bed way too late. I have too much on my mind lately. Then I overslept "big time" this morning. I have not slept until after 11am in a very long time. I am just tired and worn out.

OK i need to have a night where i don't take ambien to get to sleep. my head has been racing too much and now it's too many days in a row i;ve had to use the meds.