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Our neighbors and their BIG bed

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Earlier tonight, as my husband and I were having dinner our dog started howling at the door.

We got up to investigate the noise that had startled her. It turned out that our next door neighbours were in the midst of struggling to get a brand new mattress in their front door.

They weren’t having an easy time of it. For some reason they had decided to buy a king sized bed … even though their house (identical to ours) is very small and a king sized bed will probably just about take up most of the master bedroom.

Anyway .. since they were having such a hard time getting the mattress – a latex mattress BTW, inside their house, we decided to try to give them a hand.

It’s actually a good thing that we helped because we had to lift the mattress over the upstairs banister in order to get it to the top floor. It would never have made the turn at the top of the stairs without all of us lifting it up otherwise.

So I presume that they’re now putting their new bed together. I think with all that lifting and building they’ll probably be tired enough to sleep tonight. I hope their new bed is comfortable!





Thinking about going back to work

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I’ve been feeling a lot better over the last couple of weeks.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog or perhaps my main blog you’ll probably remember that I’ve been off work on (unpaid) medical leave for almost five years due to a severe Crohn’s flare up.

During my time off my back also started to act up – probably as a result of not being as physically active as I used to be, and last year my migraines suddenly came back – really bad, with extended visual auras, 24/7 dizziness, brain fog and massive pain.

The good news is that for most of this year my Crohn’s seems to have been settling down. My back has been a lot better as well.

Then in Mid August I saw a neurologist (after having an MRI) and he suggested that I take an anti-convulsive for my migraines – yes it sounded odd to me, but the drug is supposed to help those with migraines and tada … within a day of starting the new medication (Topamax) the constant migraine that I’d had for at least three straight months started to ease off.

The new medication has lots of side effects – I feel kind of dopey, my hands and feet tingle, and everything just tilts every once is a while … but the migraines have disappeared. I’m a little headachey here and there but I think this is going to work.

If the side effects would die down and if the migraines stay away, as well as the Crohns I might either be able to return to my old nursing job in the ER or if that doesn’t suit me anymore maybe try looking for a more suitable health care career that works with health issues.

Last year I didn’t really think I’d ever return to work. Now I have new hope that I might just be back to work by the end of the year or perhaps by the start of the new year. I’d be happy if that happened!

Do you read before bed or go right to sleep?

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I imagine that I’m not the only person in the world who can’t get to sleep unless they read a book before going to bed. Ok I don’t mean a whole book – but at least a few pages before dozing off.

Are you like that? Or are you more like my husband – a person who falls asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow and if you’re not asleep within seconds you think there’s something wrong? That’s the way my husband is, anyway! I keep telling him that it apparently takes the average person 7 to 10 minutes to fall asleep when they go to bed, but if he doesn’t fall asleep within a minute or so he’s up and he thinks he has insomnia.

Me on the other had – the only time I can’t sleep (for the most part) is if I don’t have something to read before bed. If I try to go to sleep without reading I just toss and turn and lie awake for hours. Whereas if I pull out a good book – preferably a murder mystery or a horror story I can be falling asleep within a few page turns. I guess you could say reading is my sleeping pill. It’s definitely a sleep aid.

Needless to say I’m always looking around for book bargains, checking out Amazon books for new listings or to see what the tops sellers are etc.

I actually bought a Kindle in May and I stocked up on public domain books and free or “inexpensive” ebooks, so my reading list is full for a while … well … unless I see a good deal on a book from one of my favorite authors I suppose.

A traditional 10th Wedding Anniversary Gift

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Some close friends of ours will be celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary next month and we’ll be helping them celebrate by attending a party held in their honor.

Now all I need to do is figure out what to get our friends as a tenth anniversary gift ?

I spent some time online earlier today doing a little research. Did you know that a 10th wedding anniversary gift is supposed to be aluminum?

Now I know that people don’t always buy wedding anniversary gifts according to the exact anniversary a couple is celebrating – well, with the exception of the 25th (silver) and 50th (gold), but I decided to try and find a traditional 10th anniversary gift.

It didn’t take me long to come across a website called “Paper Roses”. They have a wide selection of traditional wedding gifts. Believe it or not I actually found aluminum roses. They’re really cool looking! They look quite real.

I finally settled on getting them an aluminum vase. They can use it for aluminum roses if someone else happens to get those for them, real roses or other flowers. It’s quite nice and I think they’ll like it. Best of all – it’s a traditional gift that is absolutely perfect as a 10th wedding anniversary gift. I’m sure they’ll be pleased.

Do you try to buy traditional anniversary gifts for your friends or relatives too?

Saving money on our home and car insurance

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I guess I didn’t mention it on this blog, but near the beginning of August our car just up and died! My mother in law was driving it when a plug or something fell out of the transmission and all the transmission fluids came out in one big gush.

After having the car towed to the garage and trying to have it fixed we learned that the transmission casing was pitted and that we’d need a new transmission. Since our car was 14 years old we couldn’t see putting close to $3000 into the car so … we bit the bullet and decided to buy another car.

I guess we could have leased a new car or looked around for a really good financing deal on a new car, but we decided to get a used car.

The new used car is a 2006 Pontiac Pursuit – very similar to the Pontiac G5’s.

I guess we’ve had our new vehicle for about two weeks and so far so good. We love driving it and it seems to have great gas mileage.

Oh and when we called our insurance company to get our car insurance changed from the old car to the new car our rates actually went down a little bit. Not much … but a few dollars a month. I think when our new contract starts in January it will be about $10 a month lower.

Oh and when we were talking to our insurance agent he had some ideas for lowering our home insurance costs too (we have home and car insurance with the same company because combining the two offers a further discount at some insurance companies) so now we’re paying approximately $10 less a month on our home insurance as well.

So when everything kicks in next year we’ll be saving more than $20 a month on our car and home insurance thanks to

1. getting a newer car
2. having a clean driving record
3. never having made any claims on our car or house and
4. making a couple of simple changes like upping the deductible on our home insurance from $500 to $1000

My husband and I are smokers (yes shame on us), however, we’re planning on quitting in September. We mentioned this to our insurance agent and he said to let them know when we quit as they offer a smoke free discount. We can get an additional 3% off our home insurance.

It might be worth calling your home and or car insurance company to see if they have any ideas as to how you might save a few more dollars each month on your coverage. I know we’re happy with our additional savings because our bills just went way up what with the new (used) car payments we’re going to be making each month, so any way we can save money or cut costs – all the better!

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