I hate being sick! I definitely use the denial approach when it comes to sickness. If I ignore it, it will go away, and I won’t have to interrupt my plan for the day. Between moving, company, travelling, my body has decided to revolt. For days I’ve been fighting congestion, sneezing, watery eyes, and head fullness-but it’s allergies right? Probably not, but thankfully I’m at the end of this cold. I’ve also been warding off a UTI, but then I woke up this morning and I’ve officially lost that battle. So off to the doctor I go this morning! This wasn’t part of my plan today, nor do I really want it to be, but the alternative could make for a miserable Christmas weekend. I’m so glad that it’s easy to get into my doctor! Even with all the handwashing and vitamins, sickness still lurks around. And strangers wonder why I ask them to not touch my daughter? I just don’t get it-I know she’s cute and irresistable, but I wouldn’t go to touch a baby that I didn’t know-especially with it being flu season! I usually hate confrontation, but this is one area that I don’t mind being the bad guy.
Archive for December, 2007
Everyone spends a large portion of their life sleeping (I sometimes wish I could spend more time doing it, but that’s for another time.) So I appreciate good bedding, and I love to make a bed super comfy. Here are some of my favorite ideas/products:
Reviving an old mattress-Our guest bed is pretty old, but I still wanted it to be comfortable. It has the age problem of sagging and divets, but if you were to sleep in it now, you wouldn’t know it. How? Simple, add a piece of plywood between the boxspring and mattress, and then buy 2 egg crate mattress covers (this can easily be found inexpensively at Target etc. or you can try a thicker one from Amazon Add a mattress pad (these are a must to preserve a mattress and adds a little more softness), great sheets, and a down comforter and voila-a comfy bed.
Mattress pad-Now my favorite mattress pad is Hotel Collection-it’s a little pricey but worth the money in my opinion. Can be bought at Macy’s or Amazon.
Sheets-go for Egyptian cotton! The higher the thread count the better, but if you have egyptian cotton, it just gets softer and softer with every wash. If you can buy as a set, you will get a better deal. You can always find sheets on sale-but be sure to check places like Ross, TJMaxx, etc.
Mattress-this is a tricky one! I love my bed, but I wouldn’t say it was a must-have. This totally depends on personal preference. Although I have heard a lot of raves about memory foam, I’ve never slept on one. When we decided to buy a mattress, it was quite the process. Of course you start out thinking it’s just a mattress, but then you sit on each one, and all of a sudden the sticker shock is gone and you have to have a particular one. We ended up with a King Coil pillow top. The important thing here-buy a mattress that doesn’t have to be turned/flipped. You may be better at this than me, but I must say, with all my good intentions, flipping my mattress never happens. As for size-if you are married-go ahead and bite the bullet-go for the KING. It may not fit perfectly in every room, but when it comes to rolling over at night and actually having room to roll over, it will be worth it. Touch is one of my love languages, but when it’s time to go to sleep, I need my space. I’ve never known anyone to really regret having a king mattress, but I’ve heard several wonder why they didn’t get one earlier.
A memory foam topper-is a great way to revive a not-so-good mattress. However, we did try a memory foam topper in addition to our pillow top mattress-and ironically it made it TOO soft. So just a word of caution if your bed is too soft already. For those of you who don’t have a guest room but still have company, an airbed with a foam topper isn’t a shabby guest bed.A foam topper, either memory foam or the cheap eggcrate kind works. It’s a little difficult to store, but takes up a lot less room than an entire bed!
Blankets-I love a good down comforter. When buying, be sure to get the kind that have the down boxed in squares, if you don’t, then you will find all your fluffy down at your feet. Be sure to not go too heavy-otherwise you will get too hot at night.
A heated element-Now that we are back in an area that actually gets cold during the winter–I love a heated blanket. There is nothing like being super cold, and then getting into a warm toasty bed! Once in bed, I have to turn mine off, because I sleep like an oven. I have heard that the heated mattress pad’s work a little better. This would be nice because you can still feel the softness of the down comforter. I have yet to invest in a heated blanket/mattress pad since returning North, but I’m sure once we get a really good cold snap, I’ll be wanting one!
Ahhhh, the perfect pillow–does it really exist? Believe me I’ve tried finding one. You would laugh if you could actually see all the extra pillows we have. I buy them, we sleep on them for a little while, then we are dissatisfied and we try again. If anyone has found a favorite-I would love to know what you like and why. I need a pillow that supports my head and neck, but is still soft. Too soft and I find myself supporting my head with my arm, too hard and it feels like I have to sleep in one position.
Duvets/comforters/and decorating-Now that we are moved into our house-I am wanting to redecorate, and of course that includes our master bedroom. I found a great webstore through ebay called closeoutlinens. They have great prices for high end bedding, although it’s closeout-so you aren’t guaranteed the entire collection. I found one set I liked, and e-mailed them to see if they had two shams, and they only had one, so I went with something else. It’s something to check out though if you are wanting a change!
So for all of you who tend to go cheap on your bedding, let me encourage you to still go cheap, but shop around and get the most for your money. I promise you’ll notice a difference the next time you drift off to sleep.
So after the crazy move to our new house, and then several great days with Kyle’s family, Savannah was exhausted. The first 2 days of this week she slept practically all day and all night. Then on Wednesday she woke up and decided she had an opinion. Now she lets us know when she wants to sit up or when she’s tired of a certain position or gets bored with a toy. In some ways it is so fun to see her more interactive with the world, and in some ways it is sad to see her grow and change so fast.
She really hates tummy time, but her mommy insists she tries at least several times a day. On Wednesday I put her down, and then went to get the vacuum out and actually get something done (since she decided that day to share her opinion quite often, I didn’t get much done!) Anyway, I literally got the vacuum out, plugged it in, started it, and then glanced her way and there she was–on her back! Go baby! Of course I squealed with delight, got the video camera out, and called her daddy. I was able to get the second time on video, but after that she had was done.
She has become increasingly fascinated with her hands, and loves to explore them with her mouth. She has become a bit disinterested with the pacifier, and is showing a preference to her fingers, sometimes one and sometimes a whole hand.
Several weeks ago I bought her a toy bar that straps on her carrier. It has been entertaining for her, but then my mom decided to scoot it down closer to her, and within minutes she began hitting the little toys making them spin and twirl. Now it is truly a fun toy!
She just got back from her third road trip (and she’s only 5 months old!) My sister graduated from graduate school and is officially a counselor! GO SISSY! We are so proud of her. Since her high school graduation, it is tradition for our family to scream as loud as possible when they call her name even if we have been instructed to do otherwise. This graduation was going to be no different. Although there was one thing that we didn’t consider-Savannah. They called my sister’s name, the family roared, and then Savannah screamed in terror. Poor thing, she was truly frightened. I grabbed her from arms down the aisle, and raced outside the auditorium. With big tears rolling down her chubby cheeks and cries I have yet to hear from my sweet baby, she was quickly consoled once she realized that she was in safe arms. If I would have suspected she would have responded that way then I would have taken her out, but my sister’s last name starts with an ’s’, and she found everyone else’s screams and fog horns entertaining. I guess having everyone she knew and loved scream was just too much for her to handle. I felt so bad, but I was glad that she was quickly consoled.
It started snowing today in Johnson City, so she also got to see her first snow! Hopefully it won’t be her last this year!
So my husband’s family arrived last night to celebrate Christmas together and we coordinated Savannah’s baby dedication t o be this Sunday so they can be here. We have been planning this trip for quite some time. Of course in all the planning, we assumed we would be in our house. After the flood (literally in our living room), our plans were thwarted. I remained hopeful that we would be in the house in time though. With each passing day, we realized that we would be cutting it close. Then one delay after another (mostly inspections, which are entirely out of our control), and suddenly Kyle and I found ourselves with a tricky dilemma.
It’s now Tuesday-and we still lacked one more inspection. By the way, family was arriving Wednesday night. So do we move everything over and hope that the inspector comes on Wednesday? This scenario puts us at great risk though, to have all of our stuff in a house that we can’t legally stay in yet. Which if it were just Kyle, Savannah, and me, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but remember Kyle’s family would be here. Option 2 would allow us to just stay put and move when the family left. This option sounded good, except for the fact that we have more company coming the day the family leaves. We quickly realized that there wasn’t a GOOD time to move, we just needed to move. On Tuesday afternoon, we began bringing over everything that we didn’t need to host the family. We hoped that the inspector would come early on Wednesday. No such luck!
We waited in limbo, paralyzed without direction or a plan. Then at 1:30 on Wednesday the inspector came by and gave us the little green ticket that we needed-we could officially live in the house. So what did we do?
We moved everything over. Since we were basically moving on a last minute decision, we didn’t have time to recruit help, nor are most people able to help on such short notice. There were several times during the day that I found myself saying-this is crazy, why are we doing this. There was only twice that I found myself on the verge of tears-but I never broke down. By the end of the day, Kyle and I were physically exhausted, mentally drained, but we were able to go to sleep in our new house. I’m proud to say that everyone had a bed, clean towels, and something that covered the windows. Now if you ask me where something is, don’t expect an answer because I have no idea. The lesson I learned, never move last minute-which entails finding every box, bin, sack, or suitcase and throwing whatever you can find in it, and then taking it to the new place and hoping you can make sense of it all.
The good news….we are in our house! It has been over a year in the making, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears for us all. There is no way I could ever thank my dad for building us such an incredible house. It is a gift of love that we will be forever grateful for. Thanks Daddy, for your sacrifice, your work, and most of all your love.
Hi! My name is Kristy and this is my outlet to share thoughts on motherhood, infertility and life as I know it. To give you some insight into me, I've been married for over eight years to 
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