New mattress

Yesterday I bought a new mattress.

We bought our last mattress 8 1/2 years ago, while watching TV and having never touched it.  

Spouse has been complaining of back and leg pain recently, and when we were changing the bed linens I noticed that there are 2 distinct impressions in the mattress where we both sleep. 

Not our actual bed, but this demonstrates the body impressions.

Bed companies say you should replace your mattress after 8 years, which could very well be true or just a marketing ploy, but after looking at our 8 1/2 year old mattress, it seemed pretty clear we could use a new one.

I've always been a fan of TempurPedic mattresses because they are memory foam and nearly eliminate motion transfer when 1 person turns over or gets in/out of the bed.  However, during my investigation yesterday I laid down on a couple TempurPedic models and decided it was not the bed for me.  Simply put, even their "plush" model is too firm for me.

I learned that the "hybrid" mattresses have become the most popular.  A hybrid mattress has spring coils in the core with memory foam on top.  After laying on a couple I quickly determined it was much more comfortable than the TempurPedic, and way less expensive too.

Spouse hates shopping in "brick and mortar" stores, so he entrusted me with the task of selecting our new mattress without his input.  We got a Serta iComfort hybrid Applause II Plush mattress from a local, sole proprietor bed store, from which we've purchased guest bedroom beds in the past.  It was a great experience.  The owner/salesman answered my questions, explained some stuff to me (difference between continuous coil and individually wrapped coils) and made the purchase decision easy with his no-pressure style.  They loaded the mattress onto the delivery truck while I paid and as soon as I got home and stripped the current mattress, the delivery van arrived and our new mattress was put in place and the old one was taken away, no extra charge.

Last night's sleep was dreamy (pardon the pun).  I felt like I was sleeping on a cloud!  Spouse was happy with the selection too so it was a win/win.

Preparations

We are preparing to redecorate one of our guest bedrooms.  I feel like I've been saying this forever.  But before we could begin, I needed to get rid of the large desk and the existing full size mattress and box spring.  A couple weeks ago I successfully sold the desk, but have had absolutely zero interest in the mattress and box spring.  

So I've decided to donate it.  Its a little over 20 years old, but its only been as a guest bed and has probably only been slept on 3 or 4 times a year.  The reason we're getting rid of it is because it is a full and the new comforter and sheets we bought are queen.  Once the room has been painted we'll get a new queen bed on which to put the new linens.

So my friend Bryan is coming this weekend in his pick-up truck to pick up the mattress and box spring and take them to some friend of his who runs a halfway house or shelter of some sort.  I'm glad the bed will continue to get some use AND that it will get out of my guest room.  

I'm taking a few days off work soon to paint and redecorate this room, and do some other projects around the house.  Hopefully I won't have too many interruptions from work.  Here's a  sneak peak of the room's new design:

Fall

I keep reading on other blogs about the subtle or not-so-subtle arrival of fall.

Many have talked about the crispness of the air, the changing colors of the leaves, and the cool temperatures. Some have posted gorgeous photos of the colorful spectacle of fall.

But here in southern DE, it does not look or feel like fall at all. The leaves are still green. Yesterday's high temperature was 80 degrees. There's only the slightest hint of fall's imminent arrival in the air at night. Everyone's still wearing shorts and open footwear. Photos taken today could easily be confused for May.

But I'm not complaining. This is what is referred to as Indian Summer, and I absolutely love it. It sort of feels like one is 'cheating' fall. Technically its fall, but it still feels like summer.

What's with this obsession with summer? Really, its the freedom I feel in summer, more than the actual weather. In summer I feel free to throw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and run out the door. I feel free to leave my convertible top down. I feel free to go places after work in the evening because daylight remains so much longer. The actual arrival of fall changes these things and temporarily steals my feeling of freedom.

But there's lots to enjoy in fall, so that makes up for having to wear long pants and socks in the house, and a jacket or coat and shoes when we walk the dog. Plus, I know summer weather and my summer freedom will return again next year.

Oh - our new bed arrived yesterday. Wow, its big. Upon Spouse's strong recommendation we upgraded from queen to king size, so its quite a bit wider than our old queen.

Spouse has gotten it into his head that the king is not as long as a queen. I suggested it just seems that way because of the king's width. Its almost square, as opposed to the queen's rectangular shape. But he's convinced they make kings shorter than queens to save money. After a very long pause I simply said "Okay. You're free to think that if you'd like." I looked online and confirmed that the queen and king are both 80" long. But as my favorite former boss used to say, "Sometimes the juice just isn't worth the squeeze".

Crush du Jour: Lucas Kerr

Tuesday's whining

Sorry if my posts this week are a little weak. Its not a lack of interest, its a lack of time.

Since we're leaving for NYC on Thurs, this will be a short work-week for me. I was hoping work would be slow-to-moderate so I could get all my trip stuff done (mapping out destinations, addresses, phone numbers, etc) and put together some good posts.

But work has been very busy so far this week, and I have barely had time to post anything, much less be worried about its entertainment quotient. I'm also several days behind in reading your blogs, too. Plus I will have to spend lots of time updating all my colleagues tomorrow so I can have a decent time being "off", without my clients suffering. Sometimes I think my colleagues do better when I'm off for an entire week than they do when I'm off for a day or two.

On top of that, I got an email from the company that's supposed to deliver our new mattress that they wanted to deliver on Fri. Of course! Since I work from home its never a problem to have deliveries and service appointments at the convenience of the company. I'm always home during the day. Except this coming Fri. So I called them, and rescheduled for the 'next available day' which will be next Wed.

So I booked our tickets on BoltBus, confirmed my NYC blogger meet-n-greet, and am now in the process of putting together a list of all the places and things we "must see" while in NYC. Our friend Rick has sent me like 12 places we "must see" on our trip. We really appreciate his wanting us to have a rockin' good time. Really, we do! But Dude! There's only so many hours in a day! So I have reclassified his list from "must see" to "try to see". I mean, its not like NYC is going anywhere. We can come back again (especially with $14. round trip fares on BoltBus) and see the stuff we didn't get to on this trip.

To be honest, I am more than a little excited about this blogger meet-n-greet. I invited David Dust, YOU, j*0*e, Jesse, and Silly Billy to meet me and Spouse at a local watering hole. Unfortunately j*o*e and Silly Billy can't make it, but I am really looking forward to meeting the other 3 bloggers. If there are any photos taken that are suitable for posting, you'll see 'em here (pending blogger approval, of course).

That's it for today, boys and girls. As you were.

Crush du Jour: Bryan Batt

Weekend salvaged

Fri evening Jim & Barb officially rescheduled Saturday's block party due to the weather forecast.
But Fri evening turned out very well because our Fri night dinner with 'the usual suspects' was held at Walt & Tom's house, rather than a restaurant. We didn't know until the birthday cake was brought out for dessert that it was Tom's birthday. So the 'surprise' was on us instead of Tom. We had a nice group show up and a delicious dinner. When we got home Spouse watched the presidential candidates debate while I watched 'Burnt Money' on DVD. It was good.

Sat morning Spouse & I walked over to the Blue Plate Diner for breakfast. Owners Mark and Jim, who are also our friends, were there and we talked with them until our food arrived. Spouse had a large omelet with hash browns and I had Belgian waffles. Then we ran a few errands.

Shortly before the Straight Eights car show was due to start at 2:00, he headed into Rehoboth under sketchy skies. It hadn't rained all day so far so the car show wasn't cancelled. We had a great time looking at all of the lovely vintage beauties. Most were the same as last year, although a few were missing, and there were a few new additions. Just as we had completed viewing at all the cars and were looking around for Rick & Nick, we started feeling rain drops. Suddenly we saw car owners run from their conversations to put up their convertible tops. It was sort of comical. We weren't far from where we'd parked so we just ran to our car and headed home. The rain lasted less than 5 minutes, and Rick & Nick later told us that everyone dried their cars off with towels and the car show resumed.

As Spouse & I were relaxing and channel surfing Spouse stopped on the ShopNBC channel. Lo and behold, they were featuring a fantastic deal on mattresses! We watched the presentation and recalled to each other the prices we'd seen while mattress shopping 2 weeks prior. That day's special was $999. for any size, with FREE shipping, and free set-up of the new bed and free removal of your old bed, so we knew this deal was not to be beat.

So we bought it.

The Serta Bellfield Pillowtop Mattress and Split Foundation should be delivered in about 3 weeks. Its an inner spring mattress with a memory foam pillow top. Its not the TempurPedic mattress I wanted but its less than 1/2 the price. Spouse wasn't as keen on the TempurPedic mattress because he found it difficult to roll over, and also heard from some people that it made them hot at night. So I decided to compromise on the mattress, especially since he compromised on the LCD HD TV.

I also compromised and agreed to 'upgrade' to a king bed. Initially I didn't want to do this because we have 10 sets of queen sheets as well as a queen comforter and bed skirt that I absolutely love. But the king mattress was the same price as the queen, and Spouse really wanted the king, so I agreed. Our queen comforter is oversized so we can probably still use it on the king bed. We have 3 other queens that can use the 10 sets of queen sheets.

Hopefully the king will reduce the motion transfer. On our current bed when Spouse rolls over I bounce all over the place. I tell him I feel as though I'm on a blow-up raft on a stormy ocean.

Sat evening Barb & Jim invited us to join them and a few neighbors for dinner. Jim had made a giant cauldron of Portuguese stew and had grilled up some hamburgers and hot dogs. We ate and hung out for a few hours with some of our neighbors and had a really good time.

Sun morning Spouse & I relaxed with our morning coffee and then got started on the house cleaning. I hate doing it, but I always feel so good once its done. A dirty house makes me feel irritated, and a clean house makes me feel happy and carefree.

Then we drove to Dover with the top down to shop at Value City Department Store. We love this place because you can find great name brand merchandise at close-out prices. We had a gift certificate worth $40. so we bought a set of 600 thread count sheets in king size for $39.99. We also picked up a king mattress cover marked $19.99 that rang up at $4.50 - 75% off! Now we'll be ready when our new bed arrives.

Despite the gloomy, rainy forecast, it only rained a few times and for short periods of time, so our weekend wasn't a wash. It turned out much better than I expected. Now, if only we could find a way to make them last longer.

Crush du Jour: Digo Padovan

Frustrating

As I think back on this past weekend, the words frustrating and tense come to mind. It wasn't a 'bad' weekend per se, but it certainly wasn't one of our better ones.

I felt all weekend like Spouse & I were "out of sync", "on different wave lengths", not "on the same page", and this was frustrating.

We've done really well about living frugally since we moved here, knowing that we had not planned to keep our house in VA and therefore remain financially exposed if, for some reason, it didn't stay rented or needed some expensive repairs. So we postponed several purchases that we knew could wait until things were financially different for us. But with the settlement on the VA house this coming Fri, we've been talking about some of the postponed purchases and decided to do some shopping.

We went to 3 mattress stores and tried out a number of beds, as well as got helpful info from the salespeople. I am more sure than ever that what I really want is a TempurPedic memory foam bed, even though it is the most expensive brand. We sleep for about 8 hours every night, so there's no question about whether or not it would get used regularly. Yet Spouse remained unconvinced it is worth the considerable expense. Its not that he doesn't like the bed; he just doesn't want to "spend that much" for it. I don't understand this. You spend more time on your mattress than you do in your car, yet you'll spend 10 times more money on a car than you would your mattress?
And its not that he's waiting for the mattress to go on sale, because they don't. 2 different retailers both told us that TempurPedic does not allow stores to price the mattresses less than what they sell for on TempurPedic's website. They never go on sale, and they are exactly the same price regardless of where you buy them. Spouse's indecision was frustrating to me since I am not undecided at all.

Another purchase we've been putting off is a large, flat screen hi-def TV. To give you an idea of our TV viewing habits, we typically watch TV every night from 7pm until 10:30 or 11pm. We have a 20-year old 19" TV (free) in our TV room, and a 7-year old 32" TV for which we paid $350. in our family room. Spouse has no desire for a larger, hi-def TV. He says "everything on TV is crap, so why do we need a big, hi-def TV to watch crap?" I remind him that although it may be crap, that certainly doesn't stop us from watching it for 4 hours every night. I'm not asking for a huge, 60" TV. I simply want a 37" or 42" hi-def TV. I believe it will make TV watching better and more enjoyable, especially the nature programs we enjoy and the design shows I enjoy.

This weekend we saw a deal on a 46" hi-def 1080p LCD TV on sale 1 day only for $1,299. It was actually larger than what I had been looking for, but thought the price was very good. It would return to its normal price of $1,499. the next day, so a decision needed to be made. But once again Spouse would not agree. He felt that it was still too much money to spend on a TV. The conversation eventually was reduced to his complaint that the HDMI cable was not included, and so I found myself frustrated yet again.

Another possible purchase we've been discussing ever since we moved here 18 months ago is the small vacant not adjacent to our property. The lot is the same depth as our lot, but very narrow. We've discussed the possibility of purchasing it and building a garage (for our use) with an attached living space that would be rented by the week during the summer. There are many non-year-round homes in our seaside town. We are both interested in this possible venture, but the mood became quite tense as we discussed the price for a potential offer as well as the possible circumstances of the sellers. It absolutely escapes me why he would concoct all these various possible circumstances the sellers might be under when he has absolutely no knowledge of them.

Spouse thinks that if we are to make an offer, it should be for the price we feel the lot is worth, regardless of the list price, even if its only 50% of what the lot is listed for. I asked him why he thought the sellers might accept an offer of 1/2 the listing price. Rather than answer that question, he rambled on and on trying to justify his price. I told him there was no reason to convince me of the lot's value, and repeated my question about why he thought the sellers would even entertain an offer of 1/2 the listing price. The conversation did not end well, and I felt so frustrated I said calmly "Fine, let's do nothing. We won't decide on a bed, or a new TV, or the lot. Let's just decide to do nothing!"

Spouse left the house and I sat on the sofa watching the 19" low-def TV. An hour later Spouse returned (from K-Mart) and we decided to go out to eat and then go grocery shopping. Though not quite back to normal, we'd both calmed down and were pleasant to each other. Eating out and grocery shopping are 2 activities we always do together, and really seem to strengthen our relationship. Eating out gives us a chance to talk about whatever is on our minds, and grocery shopping is like a team-building exercise for us; the goal being to shop for the week in an economical manner.

(This isn't us - photo snagged from Google.)

As we drove home from the grocery store Spouse asked "Do you still wanted a divorce?" I never said that I wanted a divorce this weekend or at any other time. That question is Spouse's way of acknowledging the unpleasant conversation that might have led others to shout "I want a divorce!", and checking to see if I am okay now.

In the past I've occasionally answered the question by saying "I'm not sure yet. Let me see if your life insurance is paid up first." This insinuates that, rather than a divorce where our assets would likely be divided in half, I might prefer that he have an "accident" that would result in his untimely death, whereby I would get everything. We both know the steps in this 'dance'.

But this time I decided to say something a little sweeter: "No, I love you too much to give up over something like this." After a short pause he responded in kind: "Good, because I don't want a divorce either."

We will certainly talk about a new bed, a hi-def TV, and the adjacent lot many more times. I believe we both know its not a matter of if, but when. For some reason he's not ready yet, and I can live without those things until he's ready. Its certainly not worth fighting over. As anyone in a long-term relationship can tell you, being in a couple involves compromise. You've got to pick the important battles and not sweat the small stuff.

When your love is deep and your commitment to each other is sure, you know you'll recover from unpleasant conversations and return to being "in sync", "on the same wave length", and "on the same page" again.

Crush du Jour: Tom Everett Scott