I'm just getting ready to head into night two of Ambien deprivation. I've been seeing my doctor for a few months regarding how tired and fatigued I feel most of the time. Ambien is the second step in our troubleshooting process. It didn't really help me go to sleep much faster and it only helps me sleep better once in a while. Since the effects were minimal I figured I would stop taking it. The problem is that once you stop taking it you get "rebound insomnia", which is pretty bad. You get tired, but can't stay asleep. It lasts two or three nights. I stopped taking it for a couple nights when I was in Boise, but the effects of not taking it drove me to start again on the third night. The only reason I didn't take it in Boise is that they recommend 7-8 hours of sleep, otherwise you can experience memory loss until the effect of the Ambien wears off. I wasn't able to get at least seven hours of sleep so I didn't risk it.

Anyway, since Ambien has several other undesirable side-effects that make me nervous (including daytime drowsiness and addiction), I'm giving it up. Last night wasn't too bad, but that's probably because I was expecting it. Tonight will be more of a test...

The Allreds came over last night. I tried to BBQ some london broil, but I destroyed it with the marinade I used. It ended up tasting pretty horrible. On top of that, Emilie "accidentally" dropped her pasta salad on the floor. It made the whole dinner experience very interesting - in the bad way. Emilie made some root beer cake, which turned out pretty good even though the root beer flavor was so mild that one could argue that it was non-existent. To make this argument, however, there would also have to be one who could argue that the flavor was, indeed, existent. I'm not one for arguing about "root beer existentialism", so I stayed out of it. Even though our hosting skills left room for improvement, we always like having the Allreds over. We played games. We laughed. We cried. We painted easter eggs. Actually, we only did some of those things (it is up to you, the reader, to decide).