My WakeMate came in the mail yesterday.* What is a WakeMate, you ask? Well. It’s this thing, you see, and you wear it while you sleep, and in the morning you can see exactly how restful your sleep actually was. Also it keeps track of your sleep patterns and the idea is that it can tailor your wake-up time to your sleep cycle so you wake up feeling all chipper and refreshed.

Also, it’s very stylish and I think I will wear it during the day as an accessory.

(I kid.)

I was super excited to try it out since I wake up every morning feeling like I got run over by a truck. Sleep is supposed to be restful, right? I mean, I’m not a morning person under the best of circumstances, but between Not So’s insomnia and the kid leaping into bed with me every morning to snuggle (have I mentioned just how many elbows and knees he has?) I feel like I’m trying to sleep on an amusement park ride.

Anyway, so. I’ve tried tracking my sleep using things like YawnLog, but it’s hard to be objective about things like sleep. I’m pretty sure, for example, that the nights when I’m like I totally didn’t sleep AT ALL I probably did sleep, some. Maybe.

But the WakeMate will answer the question once and for all.

(Have I mentioned how much I love gadgets?)

I set up the app on my iPhone, which was pretty easy.

There was a certain amount of turning things on and off (and having to go to a specific page on the WakeMate site for instructions, since the little card that came with the device was somewhat exceptionally vague – probably because there are different instructions for each gadget you can sync it with) but once I got it all charged up and discovered on my phone’s Bluetooth I was ready to go.

Then I just had to, you know, sleep.

Here’s where I’d start talking about how my night went, but it would be a lot easier for you to just, you know, look at the chart:

Yes. In fact, I slept like crap. Sure, I was in bed for 8 hours and change, but it took me 23 minutes to fall asleep! And I woke up 24 times in the night! No wonder I feel like a zombie.

The device itself was remarkably unobtrusive. I barely noticed the wristband while I slept and there were no incidents of me yanking it off and throwing it across the room (which was a thing that happened to my retainer in high school, about which I apparently harbored extreme ill will).

I can’t wait to find out how I do tonight.

*Do I seriously have to mention every time I post about a product that I don’t do sponsored posts? Seriously. People do not give me things. And if they did, trust me, I would state that upfront.

I’ve been searching for a way to carry around my iPad without looking like a complete tool, and I think I’ve finally found a solution that’s both practical and freaking adorable: the iPad Clutch from Happy Owl Studio.

Looks like a cute little purse, right? BUT THEN:

AND ALSO:

*Happy Owl Studio is not in any way sponsoring this post. Although if they wanted to send me swag, I certainly wouldn’t turn it down. Hint.

Usually my New Year’s resolutions are sort of cribbed together at the last minute and comprised of various levels of wishful thinking. Not this year! This year, I’m taking All The Reasons 2010 Sucked (TM) and using them as a base for some make-my-life-better resolutions. Not unlike a roux. A roux of suck.

Life-related:

1. I will write for two hours every weekday.

2. I will EXERCISE. (Yes I know, this is on my list every year.) Not So got me a 5-class gift certificate to Barre 3, my absolute favorite exercise studio anywhere ever, which means I totally don’t have any excuse to slack. At least for a little while.

3. I will set up a budget and stick to it. 2010 (Which Sucked (TM)) was the year we went into crazy debt when business dried up, and though it would have sucked any way you slice it, having some backup in the form of savings would have kept me slightly more sane for the duration. I think. Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe money problems will ALWAYS make me into a crazy person. Clearly the only solution is to become disgustingly wealthy.

Work-related:

1. No more friends as clients. Friends + work = not mixy. (This is not to say I don’t become friends with my clients. I love that! But the other way around is just a recipe for doom.)

2. No more working for the weekend. Loverboy may have rocked the red leather pants*, but I vow to save weekends for other things, like sleeping and hanging out with my husband and my kid. And crocheting, which I did way too little of in 2010.

3. No more working on the cheap. I read somewhere that designers should do projects for full price or for free – never at a discount. Initially I scoffed, but now I’m kind of thinking that article was onto something. I’ve got sort of a half-baked plan to set aside a certain number of hours for pro-bono stuff that maybe I’ll offer to worthy causes or something. Something.

4. I will hire some sort of accounting/bookkeeping/numbers person to deal with the stuff I don’t know how to deal with, i.e. anything related to taxes. DONE! Look at that, it’s barely the new year and I’ve already checked something off. Woot!

*Yes. I totally just made an early-80s Loverboy reference that no one under 30 will get. I AM OFFICIALLY OLD.

Yes yes, rotting my child’s brain, tech taking over the world, gamma radiation turning us all into spiders. I KNOW.

I’m beginning to think raising a techie kid is as controversial as raising him atheist. Which we are also doing.

Wanna talk about how we co-slept?

So here’s the stats, for those of you playing along at home:

Word count as of yesterday: 19,087

I’m still ahead of schedule, but the last couple of days have been slooooow going. It’s not that I’m getting bored or anything, but I think I need to do a little bit more work on my time management skills. Today, for example, I’ve had my writing window open since I booted up my computer* but I keep clicking over to the “work” window. Which – I’m at work. I’m working. I get that. But when I can’t focus on writing or working, nobody wins.

But the bottom line is, the book is coming along FABULOUSLY and I feel crazy good about it.

*Yes, I actually had to boot up this morning. My laptop is all good things, but the ONE problem I have with it is its tendency to freeze the hell up and not respond to keystrokes.

So I’m doing NaNoWriMo again this year. Oh, did I forget to mention that?

Here’s a fun fact about me: I go a little crazy when I don’t write. And I haven’t been writing for a while, so you go ahead and do the math on that one. The last three days I’ve been writing around 2000 words a day and I’ve been in a great mood. Surely the two cannot be related!

This all started when I had an epiphany about work vs. writing, and the epiphany went thusly: I own my own business. I set my own hours. What’s stopping me from scheduling time to write? Because before, when I’d try to work on a book or start a new story or what have you, I’d make it like my reward. Finished all my work for the day? Great, I get to write!

But any small business owner will tell you, the work is NEVER done. Never. This isn’t like having a day job, where you put in your eight hours and then go home and decompress. This is more like having a baby (except one that doesn’t give you colds or pull your hair or spit up on you, if you’re lucky), in that it’s ALWAYS on your mind and there’s ALWAYS something more you could be doing.

But, like having a baby, the parts that rock REALLY rock. I can work from anywhere. I don’t have to go into the office unless I feel like it. I don’t have to log hours or call in sick or worry about overtime. I can work in my pajamas if I want to. I can take off in the middle of the day to pick up my kid at preschool. I can work early, work late, take a Friday off and work on Saturday instead.

And I can set aside two hours every morning to write.

Yeah. My life pretty much kicks ass. (Running tally: 7729 words and counting.)

It’s a well-known fact* that I never win things, but the other day that all changed: I won an iPod Touch (and 5 WPTouch Pro licenses) from Brave New Code!

(Of course I immediately entered every contest I could think of, just in case I was temporarily, what do you call it, lucky.)

The iPod itself came all the way from Canada. Did you know that they put French directions in Canadian iPods?

I’m seriously in love with it. Seriously. And unlike the Android, there are TONS of great kid apps that Ellison has decided mean it should belong to him. Not a chance, kid. (Except that he’s so cute all curled up on the couch with his little tech gadget, just like mommy and daddy.)

So, yes. I am a winner. I win things.

*Not actually a fact.