Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon

The forth 24 hour Read-a-Thon is scheduled for this weekend--Saturday 5AM to Sunday 5AM PST.

I didn't think I was going to be able to participate this time but a way just opened up. I've been helping my sister with the post surgery/post stroke care of my Mom since just before New Year's. I just learned that my Mom will be spending Sunday with my brother's family and my sister will devote the day to mother/son activities. Which leaves me free to sleep off the Read-a-thon fatigue duty and guilt free Sunday.

I may not be able to devote the full 24 as I've been riding the sleep deprivation roller coaster since news of Mom's fall just before Thanksgiving. Plus I'm not going to push the evening KP duties onto my sister's overflowing plate even for this. But she has given her blessing to my participating as much as possible on Saturday. It sounds like a mini-vacation. a get-away into story!

I also have four giveaway drawings closing at noon Saturday and my usual practice for them is to spend the next hours compiling the list(s) and sending notification emails and putting up the winner's post. But--thinking off the cuff here--I could start compiling the lists today and then have only the Saturday morning stragglers to add on later. I could also put together a draft of the winner's post with only the names missing and then do the drawings, plug the names into the draft and publish it as the read-a-thon closes Sunday morning. The notification emails might have to wait until after I wake up Sunday afternoon.

I'm also trying to figure out how to get some sleep beforehand and still be awake by 5AM with my eyes unglued. My schedule here this month has been much as it was at home--sleep from 5 or 7AM until noonish. In other words I'm used to laying down about the time I'm supposed to be sitting down to read for this. In fact last October that schdule bit my butt because I could not manage to sleep a wink in the hours before the read-a-thon started so I went past 24 hrs awake shortly after noon that Saturday. I made the full 24 though.

And if I do get to sleep Friday night, there is the matter of how to be awakened in time. I can't very well set my alarm in the room I share with my Mom four hours before her usual arising!

I am so glad Hannah (WordLily), Ana (Nymeth), and Trish (Hey Lady!) are keeping the read-a-thon alive in Dewey's honor. During the last one--my third--I was feeling so blessed by the experience, I was planning to promise to help out with the next one but then I jumped right into NaNoWriMo and then news of my Mom's fall was followed within days by news of Dewey's passing...

Reading, writing and sleep time have been in limited supply since then. Sometimes I'm not sure I'm even the same person I was last October.

Some read-a-thon participants have sponsors who donate to a charity in proportion to the number of pages, books, or minutes read in the 24 hours. I don't know anyone who is flush enough to ask to sponsor me but what I can do is plug one of my favorite charities now and repeatedly on Saturday: Reading is Fundamental. And in their honor--and to give me a chance to repeatedly refer to them in my updates--I will spend some chunk of the day reading children's books. Some of my childhood favs are still floating around this house. I might even post some pics of them.