Memorial Day Weekend and Dust Mite Mattresses

What better way to spend your Memorial Day weekend than to furniture and mattress shop for three consecutive days, right? Ha! At least we can check one more thing off our list.

Eli has not been too fond of sleeping upstairs in his new bedroom all by himself. I can’t really blame him. It is weird and new to him. So he has been sleeping with us in the interim (see photo). I didn’t mind at first, but now I am over it and he needs to sleep in his own room pronto. He often sleeps sideways and I have had enough of his heels in my ribs middle of the night. One night when Eli (who had turned head down towards the foot of the bed) kicked out, he caught Aaron in the throat with his heel which scared us all. He is a rather violent sleeper I must say although he looks so cute in the photo below cuddled up to Daddy.

So we have been furniture shopping for twin beds the past few weeks. We have been going back and forth between twin or bunk. Aaron’s childhood dream “never realized” was bunk beds so of course he wants that for Eli. I am envisioning the aerobic workout involved in changing the sheets on the top bunk so I am probably more pro twin beds. His room is pretty small, though, so we ended up with the bunk beds. We can always break them down to twin if we want. Eli loved them in the showroom…here he is trying one of the floor models out for size.

Since we had to get new mattress sets for Eli, we decided we should wait and shop over Memorial Day weekend in hopes that maybe there would be good sales. Also, while looking for his twin beds, maybe we should go ahead and shop for a new one for us. Our king size was twelve years old and probably “expired” at least two years ago. So for the past three days we have gone from one mattress or furniture store to the next, stretched atop countless mattresses, and driven ourselves crazy. Information overload!

I hate dealing with pushy sales people (but I do sympatize with their need to sell!). Salesman, “What do you think about the Airloom?? Can I get one for you today?” Us, “No thanks, they are really wonderful, yet we really can’t see paying $6,000+ for a mattress.” Salesman in surprise, “REALLY?” Us, “REALLY!” The funny thing about that encounter was that the sales guy was visiting from California and proudly told us those mattresses were made in California as if we would jump on that deal. Aaron and I were laughing about it over lunch. Aaron was acting like he was talking to the sales guy again and said, “So Mark, just for your FYI, the fact that these are made in California is NOT a selling point in this area. We Texans support Texas. You may want to keep that little tidbit to yourself.” We ultimately chose a fabulous (and significantly less expensive) mattress that was manufactured right here in our area (North Richland Hills or Grapevine). Yay, Texas.

Anyway, and I don’t want to make anyone who has an old mattress feel bad, but I was super grossed out by the whole dust mite issue. This is not news to anyone else I am sure, but somehow I blocked it out seeing as how we have been sleeping on a super old mattress for too long. The above California sales guy brought up the fact that old mattresses tend to be a lot heavier than new mattresses because of dust mite poop. Yep, if you didn’t know that, dust mite poop. They eat the skin dander that we shed when we sleep, and live/poop in the mattresses we sleep on. The poop is what people can be allergic to and make asthma worse, etc. Apparently over time this really adds up.

Aaron and I got to thinking…..our mattress IS really heavy come to think of it. Hmmmm…..maybe we should sleep on the couch tonight. HA!

After we decided which mattress we were going with, and from which store we would purchase it, Aaron said he was going to play hardball with the sales guys. As it turned out the Memorial Day sales weren’t good, especially for the kind we wanted. Aaron said to me, “I will tell them I want this and that, and if they don’t want to sell it to me today I will come back when they do want to sell it. And then I will go back home to my dust mite turd mat and have a good night’s sleep.” Oh boy, Aaron has had me in tears this weekend laughing so much.

Fortunately he got some kind of deal, and fortunately they had same day delivery. Whew. At least it was all a comical adventure.

AG and Eli

Some friends of ours had us over for dinner recently and we had such a fun time (thank you both so much!). Their TOO PRECIOUS daughter (Anna Grace) is curling Eli’s hair with a fishing rod in the photo. AG and Eli had such a great time together and at one point ran around the house from room to room squealing and shouting like crazy munchkins. I am used to boys so I sipped my wine and promptly tuned them out. My friend, who I lovingly dubbed “Martha Stewart” some time ago, is not used to boys at this point, and was probably horrified at the ruckus (sorry, wince). She is due with her 2nd baby in about a month, and they do not know the sex of “Lil P”. I told her she is probably PRAYING for another girl after a rowdy night with Eli, ha!

You should have seen Eli and another little buddy (boy) running through our house like banshees Sunday night. We just let them go as long as they are playing well and not tearing anything up. It is always a fine line from one moment to the next with little boys, though. And it is only like that when they get around a playmate and/or are overtired. Eli doesn’t run around our house like a crazy man when he is solo, so it is not nuts 24/7. No worries if you have a boy, Martha!

Scary Stepford Wife Photo and House Update

This pic in our new home was taken on Mother’s Day before church. When I looked at it I thought it looked like a scary Stepford wife photo. What is up with that hair? On the note of hair, I bravely went back to wearing my hair natural curly (and I mean curly!) which I have always detested. It started out one day recently when I was too lazy or too late to go through the straightening process. Aaron, believe it or not, really loves it curly. So do our employees who have told me to wear it curly every day. Not everyone likes it…some look at me and don’t mention it (they are thinking “what the heck did she do, get a perm?”). Oh well, you can’t please everyone I guess. Good for a summer change, and so much easier!

As far as the new house goes, we love it. I am finally getting that broken-in, comfortable feeling that you have about “home”. It doesn’t matter how excited you are about moving or how nice your new house, it is a pretty strange feeling to move to a new place. But that weirdness is fading as we get the feel of the house with each passing day and really settle in. It will REALLY be great when we get in our first wave of window treatments (plantation shutters) this week….we have been living in a fishbowl the past month which is a little awkward. No temp shades for us, no sir, we’ve just been living wide open.

The new abode has not been without its snafus. We are STILL without phone, internet, and television. Yes, you read that correctly. We actually just called last week to get the old phone # re-instated only to find that there is a break in the line somewhere and they have to come out and try to get it fixed (who knows when). We would have known about this issue sooner, but AT&T irritated Aaron in April when he tried to cancel/transfer our existing service from the previous house. You know how these 1-800 phone loop nightmares are…and after sitting on hold on and off for an hour and being transferred from one dept. to another, he finally said forget it.

As far as the television goes….well, come to find out you can’t get cable on this little patch of dirt that our house sits on. You can get it on one side of the street, and across the street, but not right on our specific patch of dirt. Now I realize that other television options are available including Direct TV and Dish, but Aaron is a Tivo man and a staunch creature of habit. Therefore, “we” have been going through the “grieving” process about cable. I can’t recall what all the stages are, but we are past denial and anger. I think we have moved on to acceptance. I do see television in our near future.

We had some friends over for pizza Sunday night, and my friend asked how in the world we were living without television. She feigned horror and asked in front of her husband, “Do you actually have to TALK to each other?” The answer, frankly, is yes. And it has been pretty fun. I told her we have been so busy since moving here that, and I can’t believe I am saying this, we really haven’t missed t.v. all that much. No television has meant more conversation, more productivity, and earlier bedtimes. (Now we do have a little travel DVD player that the three of us have huddled around to watch Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories…my "silly" Spring favorite.) We usually sit out on the veranda every night and spend time with the dogs and look at the amazing view of the church beside us with it’s beautiful stain glass windows. We will miss that view when they build the house next door to us (which will be very soon).

Benjamin Augustus Moore

"Gus" was born March 31, 2009 weighing in at 8 lbs, 13 oz! What a beautiful babe! Looks a lot like someone I know (i.e. Eli) with his cute red hair! Congratulations, Tripp and Julie!

Doggy Day Care

Well, doggy day care is working beautifully. The dogs really love it...they went from pretty much zero activity to playing all day, which is right up Coco's alley. The above pictures were taken right after swimming pool time. (Coco looks like she is about to pounce on a treat somebody is holding.) They don't get to go to the pool every single day, but Coco has been known to make a dash for it when she was not supposed to and make it a pool day anyway. Aaron said all he could hear one time was the doggy day care worker saying..."Coco....nooooo!!" Splash! Yep, that's my dog.

Transitioning to outside dog life is going a lot better than I ever thought it would. Aaron has already trained them...he can leave the door open and walk inside and they know not to come in. If they get to barking at various noises in the night, Aaron can tell them one time to "be quiet!" and they are. I am amazed after all their years as spoiled and demanding couch dogs how well they have acclimated.