Of all of the challenges that I knew I would face entering marriage, I didn't think that sleeping would be one of them. I had grand visions back in high school of how lovely it would be to snuggle up with my honey for bedtime. I would lay down with my body pillow Johnny (named after Johnny Depp of course) and imagine cuddling under my husbands shoulder, laying my hand on his chest and laying my leg over his body. Then I started sharing a bed with the hubs and all of those visions of cuddly splendor went away.
This isn't to say that I dislike sleeping in the same bed as the hubs - I enjoy it very much and it is one of the wonderful benefits of marriage - but it isn't as natural and easy as I thought sleep would be. There are many reasons why this is more challenging than I first anticipated:
1. People take up space. This may not come as a big shock to you, but for some reason I was surprised by this. I went from sleeping in my very own queen sized bed to having to share the same amount of space. While I realize that I only take up about 1/2 of the bed when I completely spread out I like taking my half out of the middle. Unfortunately the hubs and the poodle also both like using the middle half.
2. People move. The hubs doesn't roll over too much in his sleep. He sleeps on his back pretty much the whole night. But for some reason, about a half an hour after he falls asleep, he puts his hand on his forehead. This wouldn't be a big deal except every 15 seconds or so his hand slips off of his forehead and he jerks his hand back into place so it can slide off again. This is pretty loud in the deep dark night. Just imagine somebody rubbing their hands through their hair quickly just 12 inches from your head.
3. People generate heat. During the winter this is actually a nice feature of the hubs. However he has a very fast metabolism and during the 90-100 degree nights of summer this is very unpleasant. We also have different blanket preferences. I tend to get cold much more often than him. Even if we both agree on using the sheet, I will pull the comforter up over myself when I get chilled. However the comforter spans the whole bed and gets pulled up over the hubs. He then will throw his half over me and then I am too warm because I am covered with a sheet and a double layer of comforter. Temperature regulation is quite a problem.
The greatest conundrum of all of this is that when the hubs is on call and I am home alone I can't sleep. I have taken to sleeping on the couch because it feels less weird than sleeping in the bed by myself. Maybe I should invest in another body pillow for those nights on call and go back to pretending that people conform to the shape of my body, don't move and don't make heat.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
A dog's life
It must be so easy being a dog. While my little toy poodle Simba has to struggle through life only knowing about 50 words in the English language and has to communicate his emotions through barking, he has a pretty charmed life. I walk him, I feed him, I pet him, he is allowed to sleep in our bed. And he takes advantage of all of these things.
Over the past couple of months he has decided that he doesn't like it when I try to sleep in. This is a problem because I am out of school right now and I enjoy sleeping in very much. However, I understand. The little guy hasn't been outside since the night before and has a full bladder. He decides at around 6:30 am that it is time for me to get up. I can usually convince him to sleep for another hour by covering my face up with the sheet and petting him until he lulls off into dream land. But after that hour the sheet has inevitably fallen off of my face and the dog has discovered that if he just licks my face I will wake up. At this point I try to get him to fall back asleep, but it's no use. He is awake and ready to go! We go downstairs and he is ready to go outside...or, much to my annoyance, to jump up on the living room couch and fall asleep again. Apparently it wasn't that he needed to go to the bathroom, he just wanted to change sleeping locations. It got worse a couple of nights ago. Apparently he woke the hubs up by licking his face at 1:30 am and 3:30 am. This is a big deal because the hubs doesn't get to sleep in like me - he had to wake up at 4:00 to go into the hospital for his ICU rotation. Of course, if I spent 20-21 hours/day sleeping I think I would want to wake up at 3:30 too.
Simba is also a little bit of a yipper (he's a toy poodle, so I guess that comes with the breed). The ultimate punishment in our home is the squirt gun. Right now I know he can't see anything from the sliding glass door except for leaves shaking in the trees, but he is ultimately finding that those are worth yipping at. We were thinking about buying a bark collar, but decided we didn't want to zap our dog into submission. Then we decided that a squirt gun might be a better option. It's really nice because when he is barking he won't respond to us yelling no. Before the squirt gun came along we had to go and pick him up in order for him to listen. We may be lazy "parents" but this got really old really fast. Now, with the squirt gun, I can squirt him from any window he is able to see out of from my couch. I don't know what is so horrible about water, but Simba avoids it like the plague (I set him on a pool float yesterday that had a little puddle of water in the middle - when his foot touched the water he jerked it back and panicked). When he starts barking I don't even have to squirt him. I just shake the gun with water in it and he stops barking.
When that little white fuzzball jumps up on my lap and rolls over onto his back to have his belly scratched at the end of a long day of sleeping and barking I forgive him for all of his annoyance and am so happy that I finally have a dog.
Over the past couple of months he has decided that he doesn't like it when I try to sleep in. This is a problem because I am out of school right now and I enjoy sleeping in very much. However, I understand. The little guy hasn't been outside since the night before and has a full bladder. He decides at around 6:30 am that it is time for me to get up. I can usually convince him to sleep for another hour by covering my face up with the sheet and petting him until he lulls off into dream land. But after that hour the sheet has inevitably fallen off of my face and the dog has discovered that if he just licks my face I will wake up. At this point I try to get him to fall back asleep, but it's no use. He is awake and ready to go! We go downstairs and he is ready to go outside...or, much to my annoyance, to jump up on the living room couch and fall asleep again. Apparently it wasn't that he needed to go to the bathroom, he just wanted to change sleeping locations. It got worse a couple of nights ago. Apparently he woke the hubs up by licking his face at 1:30 am and 3:30 am. This is a big deal because the hubs doesn't get to sleep in like me - he had to wake up at 4:00 to go into the hospital for his ICU rotation. Of course, if I spent 20-21 hours/day sleeping I think I would want to wake up at 3:30 too.
Simba is also a little bit of a yipper (he's a toy poodle, so I guess that comes with the breed). The ultimate punishment in our home is the squirt gun. Right now I know he can't see anything from the sliding glass door except for leaves shaking in the trees, but he is ultimately finding that those are worth yipping at. We were thinking about buying a bark collar, but decided we didn't want to zap our dog into submission. Then we decided that a squirt gun might be a better option. It's really nice because when he is barking he won't respond to us yelling no. Before the squirt gun came along we had to go and pick him up in order for him to listen. We may be lazy "parents" but this got really old really fast. Now, with the squirt gun, I can squirt him from any window he is able to see out of from my couch. I don't know what is so horrible about water, but Simba avoids it like the plague (I set him on a pool float yesterday that had a little puddle of water in the middle - when his foot touched the water he jerked it back and panicked). When he starts barking I don't even have to squirt him. I just shake the gun with water in it and he stops barking.
When that little white fuzzball jumps up on my lap and rolls over onto his back to have his belly scratched at the end of a long day of sleeping and barking I forgive him for all of his annoyance and am so happy that I finally have a dog.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
It's only $875,000, so affordable!
I'm watching daytime TV right now. I haven't done this in a really long time and I am now remembering why I both love and hate it. The first show that I watched today showed me how to do affordable at-home manicures and hair conditioning. I learned that with a half a grape, a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of oil I can revitalize my finger nails and cuticles. I found out that using an avocado and a banana, mashed together, I could create my own conditioner to revitalize my hair. Imagine my delight when I found out that I had all of these beauty supplies right in my kitchen! I know how I'm going to spend my afternoon.
Then came the hate part of my love-hate relationship with daytime TV. The View came on. Now, I think these ladies tend to be a bit off their rockers. They are all very polarized and are not very relatable. I'm a little bit liberal (I voted for Obama) but these ladies embarrass me almost as much as Rush Limbaugh would embarrass me if I called myself a republican. I was mostly happy with their program this morning however (they stayed away from politics and interviewed Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith about the Karate Kid). Then I got really excited because they said they were going to talk about the upswing of the housing market (Oh goodie! I have to sell my house in the next couple of years! This is fabulous news!). My excitement turned quickly to disgust when I saw the "wonderful examples" that they came up with. The first home was in Tacoma, Washington and cost about $500,000. Okay...the ladies were frustrating me because they said, "Wow!!! That is such a great deal!" But I realize that Tacoma is near Seattle and is on the coast. That would make it a little bit more expensive. One of the next homes they showed was in Pittsburgh! Yay! That is one of the cities that the hubs and I are thinking of living in! This will be great! Their thrifty home example...$375,000. Now I was pissed. This is the midwest and most people don't pay that much for homes. I was just disgusted by yet another example of how disconnected hollywood is from the rest of the nation.
The next segment was about TJ Maxx and Marshalls. I LOVE those stores! However, I became disappointed yet again when I realized that each of their great deals for outfits cost over $300. I don't even spend $300 on my outfit when I go to a formal event. I even go to the sales rack when I hit up Old Navy. Sometimes I find a shirt for $10 and don't buy it because I don't think it is worth it. And I have no idea what Marshalls the fashion person from the View was shopping at, but the last time I went there I bought a fabulous shirt for $7.
I think it may be time to turn off the TV and go read a book instead.
Then came the hate part of my love-hate relationship with daytime TV. The View came on. Now, I think these ladies tend to be a bit off their rockers. They are all very polarized and are not very relatable. I'm a little bit liberal (I voted for Obama) but these ladies embarrass me almost as much as Rush Limbaugh would embarrass me if I called myself a republican. I was mostly happy with their program this morning however (they stayed away from politics and interviewed Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith about the Karate Kid). Then I got really excited because they said they were going to talk about the upswing of the housing market (Oh goodie! I have to sell my house in the next couple of years! This is fabulous news!). My excitement turned quickly to disgust when I saw the "wonderful examples" that they came up with. The first home was in Tacoma, Washington and cost about $500,000. Okay...the ladies were frustrating me because they said, "Wow!!! That is such a great deal!" But I realize that Tacoma is near Seattle and is on the coast. That would make it a little bit more expensive. One of the next homes they showed was in Pittsburgh! Yay! That is one of the cities that the hubs and I are thinking of living in! This will be great! Their thrifty home example...$375,000. Now I was pissed. This is the midwest and most people don't pay that much for homes. I was just disgusted by yet another example of how disconnected hollywood is from the rest of the nation.
The next segment was about TJ Maxx and Marshalls. I LOVE those stores! However, I became disappointed yet again when I realized that each of their great deals for outfits cost over $300. I don't even spend $300 on my outfit when I go to a formal event. I even go to the sales rack when I hit up Old Navy. Sometimes I find a shirt for $10 and don't buy it because I don't think it is worth it. And I have no idea what Marshalls the fashion person from the View was shopping at, but the last time I went there I bought a fabulous shirt for $7.
I think it may be time to turn off the TV and go read a book instead.
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