September 4, 2021, 11:00 PM

I have to drive tomorrow. The distance is long enough that I will have to be alert enough to get there and back in one piece. The cargo I am delivering is priceless. Knowing this, I looked over my bottles of spells and potions, working out in my mind the correct formula to let me sleep and wake up in the morning, not feeling like I had just drunk a case of ale.

I said a prayer while walking up the stairs hoping for at least six hours or, better yet, ten hours of solid sleep. Knowing how minds work, I promptly tried to forget how vital the needed rest would be.

September 5, 2021, 5:00 AM

Chiding my body for not sleeping longer than six hours, I assessed my brain. Were we working today? It was going to be a busy day. I need a clear head and a body that worked for at least another seven hours without any potions or spells. I decided we were in a place that had potential.

I started my day as I do most days by entering into the wizard's contest. Throwing spells left and right, I won several rounds and lost a few. I ended the tournament with a win, and in ruffly the same place, I started. I was happy with the result for today. My brain received a good workout. I was content.

With the house still quiet, my mind drifted back to a conversation I had had the morning before. My mind was transported to a small village. The roads were made of cobblestone. Street lights were fitted with warm lightbulbs that illuminated the shops running up and down the small street. No cars were allowed on this little side street dotted with comfortable-looking benches.

More research was needed for the venture. Off to scour the internet I went. I had some false starts in my study until I hit upon the likes of Winnie the Pooh, where I stopped and found a gold mine. I quickly bookmarked a few ideas I had uncovered while listening to the pitter-patter of tiny feet upstairs. My alone time was coming to a close.

The next four hours were filled with life's mundane chores to survive another day.

I was wilting. The drive to drop off the important cargo still had not happened. I knew I was down to the wire when it came to the amount of energy I had left for the day. Conversations flew back and forth, and within less than an hour, I was pulling out of my driveway.

The drive to the destination took an Alice in Wonderland turn quickly. North became East, and West was lost on us all. Fifteen minutes into the drive, I took a sharp right and came to a screeching halt in an abandoned parking lot.

Taking out my phone, I yelled to the lesser god Trinny of Google Maps to wake up. "WHERE IS HIGHLAND AVENUE?" came screeching out of my mouth as soon as I saw Trinny was awake and listening. Calm as a cucumber, Trinny told me to take the next right in two hundred and fifty feet. The rest of the trip was made in silence except for Trinny softly chirping out which way to go.

With the priceless cargo dropped off with a hug and a kiss, I made my way back to my car, feeling waves of exhaustion flying through me. I told my body it had another thirty minutes to hold together, and once home, it was free to fall apart. My body decided to take the deal as it really had no choice.

The ride home was a mixture of seeing old haunts for yarn and every Harly Davidson bike ride along the country roads while they hop from bar to bar on a Poker Run. Knowing what it is like to ride in a group of fifty bikes down a country road, one small slip from someone can cause a chain of events that you never want to witness.

I was cautious to keep enough room between me and the bikers out for a Sunday drive. I made it home a tad frazzled but in one piece.

Before I had left on my drive, I had noticed a few friends were sitting and having a chat. I had not been able to talk to anyone in days, so I looked to see if they were still there. They were. Grabbing my headphones and not realizing how extremely stressed I was, I sat down and joined the conversation.

Not long into the chat did I realize warning bells were going off in my head. "ABORT! ABORT! You are not fit to be with people right now," kept repeating in my brain. I left the conversation shortly after to go lay down and take a nap.

The good things about naps are many. If you do fall asleep, you wake up and get to start your day all over again. Sometimes this is needed in life. Another good thing can happen when you lay down and do not fall asleep. Your mind calms down enough to show you what an ass you just were.

It gives you time to process why you were such an ass and figure out the best way to make amends to those who had to put up with you. Granted, no sleep is involved in this nap, but lessons are learned, which is sometimes more important than sleeping.

I took a deep, cleansing breath and put my headphones back on. I broke into world peace being discussed to apologize for my behavior the last time we talked. From there, we decided to blame it all on my Hubby for no particular reason, but someone had to take the blame, and it's a spouse's job once in a while to shoulder the responsibility for things they had no part in. It made perfect sense to me and still does.

Once blame has cast, the conversation took a turn for the wild. I laughed until I had tears leaking out of my eyes. The stories stayed with me late into the night and are still making me smile. The drawing above is a small part of the story that was discussed. It was the last thing I did before passing out last night to a beautiful full eight hours sleep.

And that, my friends, was my Sunday.