The Sandcastle

Most of our married life Dave and I have had queen sized beds. Even our very first rented place had two queen sized beds. Of course we both slept in the same one–we were newlyweds. We didn’t even have sheets with us for the other one since Dave was in flight school for just five months so we only took with us what we could pack into a VW bug.

When we went full time RVing our first motorhome technically had a queen sized bed. The couch unfolded to reach a couple benches then the table dropped between those benches and back cushions from the bench seats went on top of the table to make a queen sized bed. That quickly became too much work to do each evening and morning so we stopped dropping the table and just slept with our feet one on each side of it on our u-shaped bed. We bought twin sized comforters to make that possible.

Our second motorhome also had a queen sized bed–over the cab. Those of you who know me know there’s no way I was climbing a ladder to get into and out of bed. So, Dave slept up there and I slept on the couch which we later converted to a daybed.

Our most recent motorhome came with a king sized bed. With absolutely no room to get beside it to get into and out of it. So, before we even took delivery of that we had the dealer convert it to a queen sized bed.

Last month, once we delivered that RV to the consignment dealer to sell for us, we headed home, staying in motels along the way. Most of those motel rooms had king sized beds. And we discovered we love king sized beds! So we started discussing the possibility of buying a king sized bed for our new apartment.

But moving a king sized bed is a challenge we weren’t sure we wanted to tackle. Especially getting one into an elevator for delivery to a third floor apartment. Then I remembered that a king size is the same width as two twins. And that you can buy a bed bridge to fill the gap between them. So we decided to buy two twins and make our own king sized bed.

When they finally arrived, Dave had a bad cold. The second one in a row–the first being in his throat and the second being in his sinuses. For weeks we had both been suffering from it and the loss of sleep caused by his coughing and snoring.

So we put our new twin beds in separate rooms. And discovered that works for us since we sleep different hours anyway. Now, Dave can go to bed and I can stay up reading and computing without waking him when I finally go to bed. And he can get up early and have breakfast without disturbing my sleep. It still seems odd to us not to sleep in even the same room let alone the same bed but, for now, this is working for us.

I like my new bed. It is very comfortable. So comfortable I have trouble getting out of it in the morning. But, when my dream starts including toilets as it did this morning I know it is time.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. Note that my bedside touch lamp now has a shade.

It starts, of course, with the Internet. After all we are geeks.

So we begin at IKEA’s website. And we open tabs for items of furniture we like. Then we begin weeding them out. Then we add our favorites to a list. Which soon looks like this:

Then we take that list to the store and see what those items look like in person. Then we cross some things off the list and add others. And we take notes on some things such as how tall is that chair arm and how tall is that end table thus how well will they likely work together.

Then we take a break and go to Houston to deliver our RV to PPL Motorhomes there.

Then we come back to Minneapolis and go to the store again. We find more things to consider.

Finally we make a list of the items we think will work best for us that are actually in stock at our local IKEA. As we travel through the store one more time we get items from our final list entered into the store’s computer system in three different departments. We go to checkout to pay but they don’t want enough money. Something is wrong. The last clerk entered our items but did not save the entry. A phone call fixes that and we blithely hand over our credit card for more than $2000. Which is not bad for an entire apartment’s worth of furniture.

Then we take that receipt and the picking list to another counter. There we spend another $100. For that, other people will pick all our furniture off the racks, pack it into a delivery truck, and deliver it right into our living room. More than 700 pounds of furniture we don’t have to handle until it is home.

Then we spend the better part of three days doing this:

 

I read the instructions as we inventory the parts then I walk Dave through the steps of assembling our new furniture.

Then we go back to IKEA and buy accessories.

After discovering that apartments don’t come with nearly as many cupboards and cubbies as motorhomes do we make another trip to buy another end table which we haul ourselves this time. It takes both of us to move it from the shelf to the store’s cart. A good Samaritan helps load it into our car. At the apartment, Dave drags it from the car onto the bottom shelf of one of the grocery carts the apartment keeps for use of us residents. Then he drags it off that shelf onto our carpeted floor. What can I say; we are not used to lifting huge 75 pound boxes. But, it is now home and assembly begins again.

Then we order what turns out to be a huge TV from a different vendor. This time UPS delivers it to our living room. And the maintenance man is here doing small fixes as we are ready to set it up so he offers to help lift this time. We like our maintenance man. Thanks, Paul.

We have been in this apartment nearly two weeks but I think we are almost done now. I hope.

TTYL,

Linda

Computers only speak binary. Their language has only two numbers. That means every switch in a computer is either set to zero or one. Everything  is either off, in which case it is 0. Or it is on, in which case it is 1. That’s it. Either a 1 or a 0.

Today is November 11th. Of the year 2011. The eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of this century.

That is commonly written 11/11/11.

So at eleven minutes and eleven seconds after eleven o’clock today, commonly written as 11:11:11, our whole world will be turned on.

TTYL,

Linda

As we get settled into our apartment we need all our energy focused on that. But we still need to eat. And I prefer to do that within the parameters of my new way of eating as much as possible. One solution is breakfast sundaes like this:

Except they aren’t quite as decadent as that sounds. Or looks.

Here’s one version as ingredients then in the bowl:

 

Here’s even more detail of another one:

 

For those of you who really want the details it is 1 cup of 1% cottage cheese, 1/2 to 1 cup fruits of your choice, and 2 Tablespoons chopped nuts. I prefer walnuts but sometimes use slivered almonds or pecans.

All that for 7 points plus in case you are tracking those.

Yummy.

TTYL,

Linda

 

When we decided to live fulltime in an RV we sold almost everything we owned. Since RVs come fully furnished we had no need of that houseful of furniture so it all went to various new homes.

I did keep my favorite lamps, though, as they are not making that type anymore. Mine have no switch per se. Each lamp base is the switch. You just touch any metal part of the lamp to turn it on. And it has three levels of brightness from just a standard light bulb. Touch once you get dim, again to get brighter, and again to get brightest. One final touch will turn it off. I love these lamps. When I am sleepy I don’t have to struggle to find a switch, just touch the lamp and be done.

As RVers we bought a camp chair (we already owned one), a bar stool, and a TV tray but no other furniture.

So they day we got access to our apartment our living room looked like this:

Two camp chairs, a TV tray, and a lamp with no shade. Not what you’d call fancy.

But this was the view from those chairs that evening:

 

I think we are going to like this location.

TTYL,

Linda