New Lamp

As Amy is well aware my ability to wake up in the morning and my mood are greatly affected by light. Several years ago Amy bought me a sunrise alarm clock which was a welcome addition to our bedroom. That clock worked fine until it's little computer brain got fried by one of the numerous power outages we have. We had it fixed once. The second time it just didn't seem worth it.

After most of a year without the morning advantage of the sunrise clock I bought another. This came with several other bells and whistles. I didn't need the bells and whistles, particularly not the aroma therapy option, although the ambient noise options are at least amusing. In addition the light had a basic problem - the light isn't bright enough and didn't help wake me up.

So with the shorter days of winter fast approaching I went in search of a replacement. I found a gizmo that any lamp can be plugged into that is supposed to turn the light on gradually simulating sun rise. This meant that I could use any lamp.

Last weekend I went lamp shopping. I knew I wanted a wall lamp with a cord (as opposed to one that gets wired into the household wiring), to free up space on my night table. My first stop was the big orange store where I struck out. There were only a couple of options that fit my criteria and I just didn't like them. After a stop at home I headed to the lighting specialty store near our house. There I found this beauty, and I got a great deal (25% of the original price) on it. I mounted it on the wall on Monday, and plugged in the timer gizmo. The good news is the light is coming on in the morning and it's been much easier for me to get up, and I'm not as grouchy. The bad news is that the timer gizmo is not doing what it's supposed to be doing. It is turning the light on, but it's not doing it gradually. I'm going to play with it a little more, but I may have to return it for replacement.