A new place to rest my head.....................................

(my) Mister and I have changed rooms again... Sort of...

Last June, when we gave up our room to add an additional resident, we moved all of our stuff downstairs and started sleeping in my sister's room. She only uses the room when she visits summers and holidays, so this wasn't a problem. I never knew how hot that room gets with the door closed, but it was way more than I was comfortable with. If I were to leave the door open, the cats would visit in the middle of the night and wake me up. Once I am awake, I am up for the day, so this system didn't work to well.

I figured if I was going to have nightly visitors, I might as well be comfortably cool, so I decided to move our bed into my craft room.

First you have to understand that the term room is far from accurate. What it really is, is an area of the basement that stores all of my craft items, my sewing machine, ironing board, seasonal clothes, books, and anything else that I don't want others to mess with. That is on the far end of the basement. Before you reach that part, is an area called my "exercise room." This area has my treadmill, ellipical trainer, weight bench, free weights, and a couple of cat litter pans because I can't figure out a better place to put them. This area also houses the furnace, washer/dryer, and freezer. I tell you this, because it makes the next part of the story more interesting.

My sister's room housed a double bed that found it's home when we purchased a queen size Tempur-pedic matress. This is a bed that has a motor under the box springs to make both the head and the foot of the bed go up and down. It also has a vibrating system to relax one to sleep. Bottom line, the dumb thing is HEAVY! In order to give us more sleeping space, I decided to move the Tempur-pedic into the craft room. I don't know why, after all these years, I still can't have the patience to wait for help, but I convinced myself that I could move the bed myself. Once brain has talked the rest of me into something, there is no turning back.

Twenty minutes, several bleeding knuckles, buckets of sweat, and a multitude of swear words later, the bottom portion of the bed was in place as good as it was going to be. Problem with this, was there was no space to move in the area, so I had to move the dumb thing back. Why do I do these things to myself? Had I waited for (my) Mister to get home, he would have ignored my nagging why he patiently measured the space, the bed, the walls, ceiling, and anything thing else he could think of ()kay, maybe not all of that, but when one is nagging not so patiently, it would seem like it), to save us from all the trouble I brought onto myself. Me, being me (once I got the bed back where I started), let brain convince me it wasn't a total waste of time because I got a really good work out moving the bed twice in one day.

So the two of us began sleeping on the double bed in the craft room. While better than the queen size there still was little walking space around the bed. When I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, I had to creep around the end avoiding a shelf and a chair (not to mention several cords on the floor). Then the tricky part began. I had to reach out and find the pole of the weight bench, duck so I didn't hit my head on the lats attachment, immediately curve my hip to avoid the pole that stuck out from the chest press weights, while at the same time reaching out in front of me to move the punching bag out of the way so I didn't smack into that, and then be sure and not take too many steps before turning or I would stub my toe on the laundry basket. Since I sometimes get up several times in the night, I got pretty good at this whole thing.

This lastest a couple of months before I had the great idea of moving the bed into the living room. Again, room is somewhat of an over statement. Part of this area really used to be a bedroom for my son, and the other part was (my) Mister's den. When we started the business, we tore the wall between the two area out so we would have room to have a sofa, TV, etc... as our place to get away from the business. Once we moved the bed into the living room, it was a quick right from the bottom of the stairs, thus anyone coming and going went practically past the foot of my bed. My youngest also had to pass whenever she entered or exited her bedroom which is in the far corner of the basement (and has walls, two doors, an emergancy window exit, a ceiling, and flooring since spring in case you are interested). The good news is while I had farther to travel to reach the bathroom, it was far less hazardess to my health to do so.

With the remodeling done upstairs, we finally got to bring the big screen TV up from the basement. This left a big empty space in the corner of our downstairs living room. Two days ago I got the bright idea to move my bedroom into that space. Now I have walls on two sides of me, and a privacy screen at the foot of the bed. This is the most seclusion I have had in months. When the animals try jumping up on the bed, I yell at them to "get out of my room." My youngest told me last night she like the way I think of this space as my "room." I explained to her that sometimes one just has to work with what they have. This is where one's mind comes in.

I feel blessed to have any space to call my own. Some people only have a cot in a shelter, a space under a bridge, or a park bench to rest their heads. While they rest, they still must protect their few belongings least someone steal them from them. Forget having a toilet a few feet away, and what about a place to shower and/or brush one's teeth? There but for the grace of God go I.

I like to think that I am not all about possessions, and yet I am extreamly grateful for having a house that is comfortable, a husband that works hard to provide for us, and a family that loves and appreciates me. Count your many blessings today, be thankful, and pray for those less fortunate than you.