Do you have a special pillow?

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two types of people in this world.  Those who have a favorite pillow and cannot sleep unless they have it, and those who can sleep on anything that even remotely resembles a pillow.  I am one of the former.

Whenever I travel, I have to pack my pillow.  Granted, it takes up valuable suitcase space, but hotel pillows just don’t cut it.  It’s bad enough I have to sleep in an unfamiliar bed, but without my special pillow, I wouldn’t sleep at all.  I mean seriously, some pillows are too fat; some too flat but my pillow it just right.  It took me a long time to get that perfect balance of softness and squishiness.  I had to go through two crushed foam pillows, one fiber filled one and a memory foam pillow that was so heavy I could have killed someone had I the desire to engage in a pillow fight!

Now my husband can sleep on any old pillow and he just doesn’t get my pillow fixation. When I make the bed each day I am careful to place each of our pillows on the proper side, but every once in a while I make a mistake.  Since he goes to bed earlier than I do, if this happens I freak out as I watch him peacefully slumber on my special pillow.  What comes next is the planning phase.  I have to figure out a way to remove the pillow from under his head without waking him.  Although the man can sleep through a hurricane (and he has) this is no easy feat.

I pull on one end of the pillow.  He grunts and lets out a tiny snore.  I pull a little more and part of his head flops down.  His eyelids flutter but he returns his head to its lopsided position.  I realize there is no way to do this slowly and try the band-aid removal method.  You know the drill; just whip it off really quick.  So I yank it fast and his head bounces on the mattress, but I quickly move the pillow to my side of the bed.  He sits bolt upright looking at me.  Thinking fast, I tell him that he must have been having a bad dream and threw his pillow to the foot of the bed where I placed it. (The man swears he rarely dreams) In his semi conscious state, he looks at me and takes his pillow and continues his nightly snore fest.  I hug my special pillow tightly and swear I will not make this mistake again, and drift off to my dreams, which now that I have my pillow-- are sweet.

My question to you is this…Do you have a special pillow?

Sleep time savings

So it’s daylight savings time in good old USA.  My question is this…why? I am beginning to think it’s a form of mind control.  I just don’t see how taking an hour away from our day is saving anything.

For the next week or so everyone will be walking around yawning.  We will oversleep and jump out of bed in a panic.  We will come to work with two different shoes on and way too much blush. We will glance at the clock and wonder where the heck the day went, that is, if we remember to even change our clock. In an effort to catch up on sleep we will nod off in front of the TV at 7:30…5:30 in retirement homes.  And since our animals don’t subscribe to any sort of savings time, they are on the pre-savings schedule.

Already late and rushing to get dressed his morning my cat opened my bedroom door and trotted in with her tail held high.  She gave me a look that said, “It’s freaking way past my breakfast time, so let’s get cracking!” I escorted her out.

While I am staggering down the stairs and slopping cat food all over the counter and myself, I am thinking how nice it would be to live in Arizona…where they don’t save any time.  And daylight just stays put

The princess, the pea and me

The princess--and the pea

Princess and the pea story

A few months back I suffered a herniated disc.  I had never experienced pain like that in my life.  I discovered that at some point in my life, I had a compression break in my back. (I’m pretty sure it was when I got thrown off a horse with a few loose screws when I was in my 20’s)  Since the herniated disc episode I have had back issues, maybe its psychosomatic and I’m just more aware of it since I have seen the MRI’s.  Anyway, my husband and I decided to get a new mattress.

We chose a good quality orthopedic mattress from the local warehouse store. It was rated to be medium, not hard, not soft. Memory gel foam is internally situated in the mattress, for comfort and coolness--so they say. Unfortunately they were displayed on their sides so we couldn’t lie on them…that was our first mistake. The first night we slept on it brought back memories of sleeping on the hard ground in Girls Scouts.  Definitely not medium softness.  And what in the heck happened to the pillow top?  Was is stuffed with lead. My husband told me to give it a few days to break in...hmmmm now a mattress was like too tight shoes? After the third night I got a thick memory foam pad to place on top.

Let me explain how I have always slept and try not to laugh. I am aware I'm a little odd and have accepted that fact. When I sleep, I cannot have even one wrinkle on the sheets.  If there is a wrinkle I get up and pull it tight.  If the sheet develops a pill I get up and use the clothes shaver to smooth it out. I must have my flat pillow and my fluffy pillow. Even when traveling my suitcase must have room for at least the flat pillow or I don't sleep.   And due to these rather odd idiosyncrasies, my husband has started to call me the “princess and the pea”.

Well the mattress was more comfortable but now the height was really up there and the sheets would hardly fit.  To put it simply the extra thick pad made "climbing into bed" a reality. So I went out and bought some new sheets that were extra deep pockets.  They didn’t fit.  I bought another set that was even deeper and while they fit, they developed wrinkles at night and I've already explained  how well I deal with that.

The next bright idea I had was to get those clips that hold the sheets down tight.  Have you ever used those clips?  If you haven’t you may in for some infantile frustration. The clips are similar to the ones on garter belts that hold up nylons.  Unfortunately sheets are a bit thicker than nylons.  Got a cartoonish visual of me yet?  After fighting with the sheets for 45 minutes and calling my husband for reinforcements we finally got them on.  And guess what...it worked.  The sheets are on, smooth, and the bed is comfy!

I'm dreading changing the sheets but sleeping well...And if you read the story of the Princess and the pea above, you will know that only a real princess could feel that pea and I married my prince.