Administration
I’ve been re-jiggering my schedule lately, in no small part because I’m having trouble finding the time to finish and post these blog posts (I have plenty started). My mental bandwidth has been a bit lacking lately, and I’ve been working on moving things around in my weekend schedule so I can work on blogging and such then, when day job projects don’t intrude so heavily on my non-work time.
Being able to write these posts on the weekend instead of in the evenings should ensure that they don’t conflict with writing time, and also that they actually get done and posted. Like this one!
Photo(s) of the Week
I was going to just post one, but…that wouldn’t really be fair to the other one, would it? Athena was being her adorable self just begging in the kitchen last week, and Apollo insisted on a hoodie to go out and pee, because he melts in the rain (I don’t blame him – I do too).
Too Tall, Too Short, Just Right?
A few years ago, we bought a new bed. No, I can’t remember exactly how long (pre-2020), but we went in to buy a new mattress because we’d been sleeping on the one my husband’s grandparents had, and it was worn out and hurting our backs (as you might imagine).
We bought the new mattress and box spring (foundation? There are no springs…just sayin’.), and while I was paying for that, hubby wandered over in to the furniture area, and found a bed frame he loved. So, he bought that too. I remember feeling like the salesperson was going to say something about the mattress when we were checking out, and then when he realized we’d already bought a mattress set, he decided against it.
Once we finally got everything home and set up, we realized that with the frame, the standard 9 inch box spring, and the extra thick mattress, the bed was *tall*. As in, higher than my waist. Up to my ribcage. So tall I had to actually step onto the side rail of the frame before I could literally crawl into bed. I’m not tall, but I’m not exactly short either, at 5ft 4in.
The mattress was also much firmer than the “test mattress” at the store, which we learned later is a sales ploy they do, and then when you call to complain that it’s like sleeping on concrete, they tell you to sleep on it for a month and it will break in. Needless to say, it took a good six months and a 4 inch thick mattress pad before I could sleep comfortably on that mattress.
But I digress.
I thought about getting a step stool for my side of the bed, but never quite got around to it. Then after my surgery, I realized I couldn’t actually climb up into the bed with the swelling. Nor could I “roll” into bed, because it was just so high. Once I finally decided I’d slept on the couch enough, I put a stool by the bed so I could stand on that, turn around, sit down and roll into bed like you’re supposed to after abdominal surgery (who knew?).
The thing about having a stool next to the bed, and that stool being on the same side of the bed as the door is that both you and the person who has to walk around the bed to get in and out the door have to remember the stool is *there*. When you’re half-asleep, especially. There were several incidents involving the stool, toes, shins, and me just plain forgetting where it was when I tried to roll off the bed, and nearly missing it (which would have hurt in several ways).
So the last weekend in May (about a week and a half ago), we finally decided to take the box spring/foundation out from under the mattress. For the time being, we figured we’d just sit the mattress on the bedframe (which consists of three narrow slats running horizontal between the two side rails, plus a headboard and footboard). If that worked, we’d get more slats to put underneath it in the frame.
While we both appreciate not having to actually climb into bed (and hubby no longer feels like he might fall and injure himself if he rolls too far), now it’s too short. It sits far enough into the frame that it’s nearly impossible to tuck the sheet corners under (it’s extremely thick and heavy), and when hubby sits on the edge, it compresses down so his legs are on the side rail.
So, the bed has gone from being too tall, to being too short. Plus it sags between the frame slats at the moment, so the support is…somewhat odd.
I did a little research, and apparently there’s a “low profile” box spring/foundation that is only 4-5 inches tall. I took a tape measure in, measured 4 and 5 inches above where our mattress sits now, and I think that would be about the perfect height. They’re around $150 each, so affordable, but it’s been raining so much over the past week and weekend that our truck hasn’t dried out enough to actually go get one (yes, it would come wrapped in plastic, but the amount of rain we’ve gotten isn’t trivial – there’s a lot of flooding, and I wouldn’t want to risk getting water anywhere near something like that).
Hopefully things will dry out enough soon that we can go get a proper, low profile foundation for our mattress, and be done with this whole “Goldilocks” experience. Though I have to say, it did give me a few story ideas. I should probably keep the receipt for the new foundation – I might be able to write it off on our taxes as a “research” expense if I actually write something related. Silver linings!
Writing News
I got a couple of good dictation sessions in last week, but that’s about it. As I mentioned, I’ve been using up my brainpower on day job projects, and it’s a struggle to switch gears fast enough to dictate, or to focus enough to even edit late in the evenings when that happens. But, things should be leveling out a bit to not require so much intense thought now for awhile, so hopefully I’ll be able to make good progress for the next few weeks.
Recommendation(s)
We just finished watching two Netflix Original Series that were really good! If you like thrillers about government agencies and political espionage, check out The Night Agent, and The Recruit. The Night Agent especially is phenomenal – very well written with a few twists I didn’t see coming (something that doesn’t happen often). The acting is very good, too. But they’re both very engaging, and the characters are fascinating – especially Max in The Recruit.
Have you watched either of them? Let me know what you think!
That’s it for this week! If you have a favorite thing to share, or want to recommend a book, TV show, video or podcast, comment below, email me at jamie@jamiedebree.com, or catch up with me on Facebook or Instagram.
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