My way?

Why can't we sleep? I woke up at about 4am this morning and tossed and turned and then finally got up at about 7, checked my Facebook and guess what, a bunch of comments about people having lousy sleeps. I sometimes wonder if there is something in the air, or maybe it's the moon?? Now I'm drinking coffee and eating corn muffins that I baked last night.

I know, I don't have too much to say these days. My friend T is getting sicker and to be honest we (those who love her) are all dealing with this fact the best way we can. I think my friend Robin described it best when she said "we are all feeling undone". I feel undone. I can't really talk about it here, it's too much.

This Saturday I am going to a wedding show with my newly engaged Sister-in-law. I always scoffed at wedding trade shows but I think this one may be right up my aisle. Indie I Do. Check it out!

Speaking of weddings, my goal this week is to set a date. I know I have already left some things too late to plan our wedding for this summer. I am hoping it won't matter as I am not having a traditional wedding but honestly a lot of stuff is already fully booked for this year in the wedding world. All the more reason to make it an "alternative" wedding.

It will be a wedding though, as opposed to an alternative to a wedding like we've had for the last 20 years.
I am mostly interested in getting married without spending bucket loads of money. That would be pretty alternative.

Going to bed?

This is the view from the foot of our bed. Pretty isn't it? I'm having a lot of fun trying to capture different light and using different settings on my camera. This is my favorite room.
Today is a tired day. Looking forward to crawling into that bed.

Are you up?

I love this mechanical swimming girl at Kits Pool. The wind makes her swim. It is so beautifully made and her swimming movements are so perfect. I wonder who made her?

Things are going okay here at Belly Acres. I'm trying to keep it real but a lot of it is just fucked up. And a lot of it is really exciting and cool. Problem is, I can't talk about any of it here. It's too personal. For the moment anyway. Once things become resolved I promise I will let you in on it all. In the meantime, I could use a proper nights sleep.

With the heat and the fact that our bedroom is just soooo messy I am not getting decent sleeps and that must be resolved. I am thinking a lot about a new bed. I'm not saying our bed is bad it's just not good or bad. It's adequate. I keep hearing about new types of mattresses, rubber, foam, air, combinations of regular and memory foam. I even dream of going to a king size format but just the thought of having to by all new bedding discourages me. Even though I know we could fit a king bed in this bedroom you just never know about the next place we will live in. It would suck to have to change back to a queen. Still, all that room. Sigh.

When I first moved out on my own I had an old used mattress and box spring and we slept on that for the first 5 or 6 years until it became obvious that we needed to do something about it. We went to Sleep Country and bought a new bed that we couldn't really afford. They were nice enough to let us make monthly payments and the deal was done. I remember pushing the old mattress down the stairs to make room for the delivery of the new one and watching it practically disintegrate as it tumbled down the stairs. I don't even want to think about the dust mites.

On the day of delivery I waited with much excitement for our new landing pad to be delivered. I was so excited. Finally the guys showed up moved the bed into the bedroom and started to set it up. One small hitch, there were 2 box springs instead of a box spring and a mattress! I was so disappointed but the delivery guys just sorta shrugged and said I would probably get the mattress in a couple of days. A couple of days?! I'd thrown away the old bed and now they were telling me they couldn't help me for a couple of days. Well I was having none of it. I called the store and spoke to the guy who sold us the bed. I was pretty pissed by this time and he didn't really seem to care enough. That's when I decided to tell him if I didn't get my bed, that day, that I would be on the phone to head office so fast that heads would be a-spinning. We got our bed that very day, funny how it wasn't all that hard for them to accomplish after all. What should have been a happy exciting experience of buying our first large purchase together was marred by incompetence and poor customer service.

You've all heard the jingle, "Sleep Country Canada, I'd buy a mattress anywhere else."

Any suggestions? Do you love your bed? What kind is it and where did you get it?

Did you feed the cat?

As I mentioned in an earlier post I am house/cat sitting in White Rock while my MIL is abroad. I have been able to spend quite a bit of time here at the condo and a funny thing happened the other morning. I found some nice fresh LOCAL strawberries in the village and I bought a big basket. These were delicious strawberries, red all the way through juicy and sweet. I started cutting them up and realized I couldn't possibly eat them all. I decided to take the rest across the hall the the people who my MIL had arranged to feed the cat when I couldn't be here, let's call him Parquet.

I knocked on the door and the gentleman of the house opened the door and invited me in. I sat and visited with him for about 10 minutes. He told me some stories about his life, how he had worked as an electrical engineer in just about every corner of Canada. I enjoy visiting with old people sometimes, he is 86, let's call him Bill. One thing I started to notice almost right away was that he had a really hard time remembering things, he couldn't remember the name of one of his kids, it never did come to him.

Later that evening the lady of the house, let's call her Edna, called and apologised for forgetting to look after the cat. I told her there was no need for her to look in on him because I had been there the whole time. My MIL has already been gone a week. She asked me if he could come over and see where everything was so I took her through the process. I showed her where the food was and explained how much he was allowed to have, all the details. When she was in the condo she just started going from room to room and checking out the decor and commenting on the better view etc. I explained that wouldn't be needing her until the weekend and I would call her and let her know. Eventually, she left.

The next morning I am sleeping, like a baby. One thing I haven't mentioned is that it's just so quiet and the air so fresh, I am having some of my best sleeps ever. Anyway, I'm dreaming away when I hear the front door open and somebody walk into the apartment. I didn't panic or anything I just hollered out, "Hello!" It's Edna, she walks into the room I'm sleeping in, a very small room and stands there and asks me how I am, and sorry she forgot when she was supposed to feed the cat. "Not today, because I am here, I will call you when I need you . Thanks though." She then walked through my room into the sun room and started visiting the cat. She seemed a little confused but perfectly at home. Se walked back through my room stopped and talked to me again and finally decided to leave. I just lay in the bed, I couldn't move because of my pajamas problem. I don't wear them.

Edna was just supposed to feed the cat twice while I was back in the city. She went through at least double the amount of cat food she was supposed to feed him. Parquet is a fat cat and he ate too much. Now he has started barfing. Last night and just now.

I like cats way better when they are not barfing.

I hope he is okay.

is it time to wash the sheets?

I woke up just before 7 this morning, took a deep breath and realized that my bed smelled like a used jock strap. (I'm guessing here) It smelled like a sweaty boy. My guy refuses to sleep naked unless I render him thus and just hunkers down under that down comforter and sweats out all his toxins. It drives me crazy because my side smells like flowers and sugar cookies and his smells all sour and assy. I'm not all crazy about changing my sheets every 2 days like Oprah although I would if someone else was changing my sheets. I don't do it once a week either because I get really attached to the bedding I am using and usually wash and put it back on the bed in the same day and I need a full day at home to do the job. Even though I have a nice set of bamboo sheets that are quite lovely I recently bought 800(!!) count sheets and now I feel like a princess. I mean, how dare he stink up those nice sheets. So now I feel like I have to splash out another chunk of money for a summer weight quilt and a nice silk or bamboo cover. I am turning into a fucking princess in the bedroom, I swear. Today I cleaned up my clothing carpet, vacuumed and washed the floor and found a new place for the bed. Now there is more room and we both have access to a window that opens for individual comfort. When he came home from work and saw it he panicked because it's different but then said he would have to get used to it because I was in charge of such things. He's learning!
That reminds me of a funny story. My Mom used to rearrange, tidy and organise all the time. She was a stay at home Mom and she always said she was never bored for one minute, she truly felt that running the household was her full time job but it was probably more like two full time jobs. Anyway, my Dad was in the habit, in the old days of going out for a few drinks with the boys after his softball games or such and I think Mom was probably a little pissed off and decided to rearrange the bedroom. Dad came home late and drunk and probably thought he could sneak into bed and she would never know what time he got in. He went to sit on the bed to take off his socks and slip into bed in the dark. Of course he ended up on his ass because Mom had moved the bed. He fell hard as one would, thinking you were going to land on a nice soft bed and finding nothing but hard floor. I don't think she ever let him forget that one we laugh every time she tells it. I love that story.
Today I am a domestic goddess! I cleaned everything and made a healthy, yummy dinner too. When I got back from my walk after dinner the dishes were all done. Niiice.
Tomorrow is hump day, not for me mind you. I don't have a real hump day, I like all the days but maybe I will get humped. That'd be okay too. ;-)