Things I noticed by sleeping in our guest room…

I slept in the guest room last night.

No. I wasn’t fighting with Joe. We’ve been married for too long to kick each other out. Now if we fight we just go to bed. Like normal. There’s always another day to keep the fight going, no need to ruin a good nights rest. Plus our backs hurt on the couch

Here’s what happened. Our new bed was set to arrive today. It’s a king. Our first one. The old bed was a generous gift and we’ve had it for almost 2 decades. I would have slept in it forever. Why? Two reasons: a) I’m cheap and b) I don’t like to spend money. Joe doesn’t have this issue. But after 25 years of marriage, we’ve figured out how to balance each other out and our attitude towards money totally doesn’t matter.

Just kidding! It causes loads of problems and always will. But in this case he was right. We needed, we wanted, we deserve a big ‘ol bed!

I posted our old bed on a site for free things and it was picked up today. But that leaves us with no bed in our bedroom. So the guest room it is!

I love my little guest room.

It’s so sweet. Pretty color. My kids artwork hanging on the walls. I love it. And apparently our guests are forced to love it. It’s all good.

But I’ve never actually slept there, until last night. Let’s just say I noticed a few things:

  1. There’s no place to easily plug your phone. TRAGEDY. This is the first thing I look for in a bed.
  2. The big decorative clock has the time wrong. I know it’s supposed to be decorative, but it should also work. Staring at the wrong time on a clock drives me crazy.
  3. My head is right by the window. The window is right by a street. The street has cars driving up and down. There’s also critter noise. Really loud critters. Right by my head.
  4. The pillow topper on the mattress is very soft, like super soft. Everyone can’t enjoy that. Don’t some people like firm
  5. Correction on #3. The window was open. I closed it and it got better.
  6. I heard people…. teenagers….ok one teenage boy trampling up and down the halls all night. I heard his door open/shut, his 6 foot frame thumping up and down the stairs. Into the bathroom. Out of the bathroom. THUMP THUMP THUMP. It was like I was sleeping in the hallway of a youth hostel.
  7. I never noticed that our living room was right underneath our guest room. Our living room that has 4 extra speakers built into the ceiling because the 198 ft TV doesn’t make enough noise. It was like sleeping on top of a movie theater. When I told my husband this, he beemed with pride. “A theater? Really?” See what I’m dealing with?
  8. Finally, although I loved the “furry” comforter I bought for guest room bed – it seemed very whimsical and fun at the time – it’s like a sauna when you’re sleeping underneath it. I was dying. I couldn’t breath. I almost died.

Anyway I have some work to do. Some shit to fix. It’s not all bad. The lamps are cute. The accessories are cute. But no place to plug your phone?? Not good.

To all my lovely family and friends who stayed there from near and far in the past few years … I have only one question – why didn’t you tell me??? WHY?? That’s two questions.

Sigh…. you think you know people.

Hotel beds

I landed in Puerto Rico last night for our week long event. As with every travel trip – I unpack, put my bags away and try and settle in for the week.
And when we aren’t working – we’re sleeping.
And because I’m a creature of habit, this is what my bed looks like all week.
I could spread out. I could sleep in the middle. But I don’t. I sleep on my side like a robot.

Thought you’d like to know!

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Instagram insomnia

It’s 10:38pm. I have to wake up and go to work in about a minute. I should be tucked in and sleeping, deep in my REM cycle. But I’m wide awake, going into the rabbit hole known as Instagram. It’s evil. It’s wonderful. It compares only to the black hole of time known as Pinterest.
Lately I’m knee deep in NatGeo on Instagram. You know those annoying magazines that were all over your elementary school library? Turns out – it was full of the coolest stuff ever, photographed by even cooler people. Who knew?
Here’s a blue whale in Hawaii with a local diver, the Grand Tetons in their glory, a stare down by a young bear on the Denali mountains, a sea walrus tribe waiting for a baby to be born, a turtle in French Polynesia and an original point of view of the Pope. Take that People Magazine!
Ok. I need to go to bed. Right after I look at 1,000 more photos. All photo cred goes to the gods at Nat Geo.

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I’ll sleep when I’m dead

Is that not the funniest thing you’ve ever heard? I was whining to my boss about going to a concert on a work night (Tom Petty!). Complaining about losing a few hours of sleep. Ignoring the fact that I’m still young and it shouldn’t kill me to do spontaneous things. This is what she said to me. You’ll sleep when you’re dead. Genius. She said it’s what her mother says to her sometimes. This is my new motto! No more pajamas at 7! No more 12 hour sleep cycles! I’m going to live life!
But then she also said another phrase I love,home is where the pants aren’t. Indeed. I think I like that better. Good night!

Here’s a blurry photo of the concert. It was a blast.

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Peace Out

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Look who’s sitting in the front seat (EVERYONE sits in the front seat now).
Look who’s finished with 3rd grade.
Look who the teacher said she’d miss the most.
Look who’s looking forward to no more piano lessons until August.
Look who told me he no longer needs blue blankie (aka yangster) to sleep at night.
Look who gets bummed when his sister isn’t around.
Look who makes me happy, cranky, giddy, angry, sad, and joyful all at the same time.
Look who is 10 feet tall all of a sudden.
Excuse me while I go cry in a corner.

Let’s not and say that we did

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This is the view from my bed at sunrise this morning (over share?) It was more like a muggy rainrise.
Can’t we all just take a pass on today? We’ll pick it up tomorrow. Really.
What can possibly be so important that I have to get out of bed today??
Besides my job. And my kids. But they have my husband. They’ll be fine. Come on, all the cool kids are doing it. We should too.
No? Crap. Ok, I’ll get up. But we coulda done it. No one would have been the wiser. I bet all the really important people got out of bed – so we’re covered. Today is our only chance – tomorrow the sun will be out and we will feel compelled to be a part of society.
Still no?
Come on! Be crazy with me!!
No? Fine.
You suck.

Pop Culture Vulture – 2013 edition

Here are the 3 things on my television set that keep me from getting the 12 hours of sleep I need at night.

imgres I know everyone’s been talking about this show. BUT it’s just so freaking good. I won’t reveal the juicy, devastating details of this season but I’m telling you – it’s epic. Thank you Masterpiece Theater – I haven’t been this happy since the Colin Firth edition of Pride and Prejudice.

imgres-1 Let’s just say that I was the one person still watching 30 Rock and memorizing funny lines when I heard it was ending this week. This show is the perfect replacement. Mindy is my new Liz Lemon. She gets bonus points for being Indian. Even if you’re not Indian, or don’t know any Indians, or thought she was actually Dominican or something, you’ll love this show. LOL people. LOL.

imgresI know. This show is on MTV. The channel that brought us The Jersey Shore, Teen Mom and other signals of the Armageddon.  But I saw the movie a few years back and I didn’t hate it. I thought it was kind of sad. People online pretending to be other people.  They sometimes have long, sordid relationships where the other person thinks they are the boy/girl of their dreams and…not so much. Mary the cheerleader turns out to be Mike the 50 year old living in the basement. Sad and Dysfunctional.  You take that combo, throw in a big reveal at the end of each episode, and I’m in! Laugh if you will, but as everyone was shaking their head in disbelief over Manti te’o, I just thought to myself,” another victim of a catfish.” See. It’s actually educational.

p.s. the margins on this post aren’t cooperating. I would spend time fixing them but my kids aren’t cooperating either and I’ve chosen to fix them instead.

Nightmare night

Last night was the worst night of sleep ever…how many times can I say the word night.  Here’s how it went – last night:

11:45pm – went to bed after watching the Olympics (go Phelps, Franklin, and the American Gymnastics team!!)

2:30am – woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across…haha.. Apologies to the Beatles. No. Woke up, had some water, checked my messages – realized no one I know writes me after 10pm. Went back to bed.

4:45am – jerked awake from some sort of falling dream. What does it all mean? I’m nervous? I’m afraid? Or was it the tomato sauce at dinner? Went to the bathroom – my husband grumbled and asked if I was OK, then promptly fell asleep – I tried to talk to him and he put his head under the covers. I had important stuff to say.

5:35am – his alarm goes off – it sounds like a fog horn by my face.  I grumble because it feels like an hour before he leisurely turns it off. I am convinced he hates me.

5:46am – he walks around like an elephant, stomping in and out of the room, slamming drawers, clearing his throat and putting on his socks – loudly.  (I think he would have a different story but it’s my blog).

6:00am – he leaves for work. I’m up. Must. Have. Coffee.

Summer Hours

It’s June.  School is over. Sports are over. It’s getting really hot. This is the start of a long, lazy summer for my kids.  There will be camp and travel in their future – but not yet.  My daughter is babysitting a little, and my son gave it a shot with an iced tea stand (a full 1/2 hour, he made $2) but other than that – they have nothing to do.  I am completely jealous.  I’m on conference calls and doing paperwork while watching them putz around.  You know putzing right? It’s like puttering or being idle.  I know we should give them some summer reading and math projects – they should be practicing piano everyday (sorry Ms. Tatyana) – and I know we should encourage them to keep their minds active and engaged. But we don’t.  We let them stay up late and sleep in.  That’s why on a perfectly good early afternoon – you can still find them snoozing.  Come back after lunch – they’ll be ready for the day.

Notice the sun beaming in through the windows, not that they notice.

In here somewhere is my firstborn.  The more time she spends sleeping  is the less time she spends texting.

And here’s the hooligan. The more he sleeps in  – the less he’s terrorizing your neighborhood.