Exhausted

Scrubbing kitchen floors on hands and knees is not a great thing when you have degenerative disk disease and lower lumbar arthritis. 

After that, I cleaned the guest bathroom. 

And then vacuumed the guest room, the living room and hallway. 

Will wait until family is here to move a chair in the living room to the guest room. 

Even I have my limits. 

I'd call myself Cinderella but then I'd just have to find glass slippers....

A New Place To Sleep

So the bed is here and set up and all dressed. This is a temporary dressing until I decide how I want to redo the room.

I am currently in a gray and black kind of design... the picture on the wall behind the bed (that I didn't get in this picture from my iPhone) is a picture of a lavender field.. so the pale gray plays on the pale lavender.

It's a queen size and ohhhhhh sooooo comfortable-- gel top--- and I splurged on good pillows as well and the first night is done. They said about 3 days to get it to conform to me but last night was great. I woke up to no pain this am... at least none in my back.

I needed help with this mattress.. It is not like other mattresses where you can sit it up.. it's heavy. And I made the mistake of putting it upside down to begin with.

A request for help and the subsequent discussion with some friends ended up with an 8 am harangue and I am not in junior high school anymore... I just refuse to give in to that emotional blackmail.

Voices from the background no longer matter to me and I am just not going to let that control me any more.

I am free and I am going to revel in the fact that I am making my life into something that suits me. Just the way I want it.

And if the voices in the background don't like it? Well guess what? You don't have to. You don't have to have anything to do with me. Ever again. You don't have to know what I do, when I do it, who I choose to do it with.

It is my life and I am allowed to live it! My way!

PS I just heard something today: "If a psychopath isn't manipulating someone, they aren't having any fun." That struck me as hysterically funny.

Splurge

As many of you know, I have degenerative disk disease and lower lumbar arthritis.

To say I am in constant chronic pain is not over dramatizing the situation. 

Some days are better than others but for the most part all nights - well, suck. 

My mattress is very old and it probably wasn't top of the line to begin with. But I've made do. 

Good mattresses are expensive. 

There used to be a brand that was designed for my particular pain issues. 

Should have bought it when I found it 18 months ago. Because it isn't sold here anymore. 

And if you think buying a good mattress is expensive, try ordering one online and having it shipped!  Ha! 

Fast forward to my very recent house refi. Now I normally wouldn't have done it, but it lowered my interest rate about 1.75%. And a substantially lowered house payment. Now my interest rate is never going to go lower than it is now. I can see the rates getting ready to go back up. 

My bank rewarded me with a gift card for going through the process. And it paid for all of the new queen size mattress and box springs. I had to add about 75 bucks for the plush mattress protector (gotta protect the investment after all) and tax. 

Yes, I could have put the card to gas or groceries or something but I thought long and hard about it. 

Two weeks ago, as an example, I spent three full nights awake because of the pain and the lack of the mattress to provide me the proper care and support. 

More and more studies show the need for adequate, recuperative sleep. 

I can tell you quite honestly I don't even know what that feels like. 

But I have a job that I love. It requires me to be on my creative game daily. It requires attention to detail and facts. 

Try doing that well when you haven't slept in days. 

I realized that the good a day can be is based on how well one sleeps each night. 

A good mattress that helps you sleep helps keep you healthy and should be considered an investment. 

So today found me trying them out. I sat on one very high end and it was so uncomfortable that I knew I didn't even want to lie down. 

I tried two the salesman recommended. They were ok but didn't fill me with much excitement. 

About ready to leave, I made another pass and found one that looked amazing. I read the notes and started to feel a flicker. I reached out and touched it with my right hand and was very pleasantly surprised. It felt awesome. 

So I sat my purse aside and laid down. 

Amazing. 

Not quite as good as the dream mattress, but it didn't miss it by much. 

The sales guy sold one right before me and we were all talking about it. The sales man has the same bed and also suffers from low back pain. He said it takes about three days to conform to your body but after that it supports you so fully that he doesn't even toss and turn. He wakes up in the same spot he falls asleep in. 

Music to my ears as all I do is toss and turn and trust me, you don't get rest that way. 

Yeah I could have done something more wise in some people's opinions, but you know what? 

This was unexpected money and it had not been previously budgeted for. So I'm not going to feel guilty for replacing a 20 year old mattress that didn't meet my needs. To buy a reasonably priced mattress that has the potential to help make my sleep patterns turn to the positive 

Now the picture above isn't a true representative of the one I bought. I grabbed a web pic. You can bet I will snap a picture after it is delivered Friday! Should have taken one in the store. 

What was I thinking? Oh yeah, about how much I wanted a nap. 

Accidentally Trendy

We all know I don't normally follow the trends.

 For one, that can get expensive.
 And an even bigger two-- I generally don't like something if everyone else does.

Call me crazy.

No, go ahead. It's ok. It certainly wont be the first time I hear it.

 I can wait.

Having said all that, I think I might be on the fringe of a trend here folks.

 I am in the process of planning a party for July 27.

 There is even a theme-- French Country Cottage.

 (Cute right! I know!)

But in scouring the web (yes, I mean you Pinterest) I found all sorts of pretty french country tablescapes that included the blue mason jars.

I thought to myself, wow those look cool. That would look great holding pretty flowers for my party. I thought while out at thrift stores and the like I would keep my eyes open for a good deal.

Then I looked in the display cabinets in the kitchen... stuff my Mother, z'l, had collected over the years.

Are you ready?

There were all sorts of mason jars... some white and some blue.

Even better? There were different styles of blue mason jars. A tall skinnier one that I've never seen before but is gorgeous and several smaller blue.

Yes this evening will find me on hands and knees looking in the far recesses of the two cabinets to see what else might be hiding there.

So I'll end up being a little trendy after all.

Quite accidentally.

Rainy Break

So far I am on day three of my mini break. Only two more days remaining. 

And it has rained almost every moment of the break. 

And it's projected to rain for the rest of it. 

That means I can't mow the yard. 

And it means the back pain is off the charts. 

At least the work supplies have been bought and dropped off at the office. 

So now that all of the stuff has been removed from JP's room it is time for me to get started on setting the guest room back up. And since I can't work outside I can focus on the guesty!