Sharing My World 64

Share Your World – January 16, 2016

Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed?

My closet door is in the rafters in the garage.  It’s one of those folding in half ones with little wheely things that screech along an overhead runner.  The runner is also gone, along with the lower left hand side holder for the pin that kept it in place at the bottom.  I sincerely hated that thing.  In its place I now have a curtain rod and a curtain flat against the opening, almost flush with the wall.  It’s pretty much always closed because sometimes looking into my closet can be a strange mix of depressing and frightening.  Nothing would want to live in there, so I have no worries about anything popping out from behind the curtain to disturb my sleep.

Do you take the shampoos and conditioner bottles from hotels?

Yes I do, because they’re just going to throw them out anyway.  They’re the perfect size for travelling to places where I’m not staying in a hotel. And if I don’t go anywhere I eventually throw them out myself, saving hotel staff the trouble. When we had a dog I used to use them on him  when he had a bath.  What a strange thing to remember.

What is your usual bedtime?

Anytime between 8:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m.  Sorry I can’t be more specific.  There’s just too many variables.  What I’m binge watching on Netflix, what I’m reading, how much coffee I drank too late in the day, whether or not I can keep my eyes open. I do aim for ten/ten-thirty but it’s hit and miss.

Do you like to use post-it notes?

OMG post-it notes are the absolute best notes on the planet.  If you ever want to give me something nice, forget the flowers and go for a big package of rainbow coloured post-its instead.  I am so serious about that it’s not even funny.

When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper?

Years and years and years ago when there was really no other way to communicate over long distances other than by telephone.  I used to write to my parents sporadically because my mom was so good to write to me,  but my letters were done on the computer in large font and printed, with only the odd hasty p.s. and a scribbled signature added by pen.  I treasure what I saved of her cards and letters but I fear the handwritten note will soon be history.  Cursive writing and beautiful penmanship will be an oddity from the past.  None of us will remember how to spell anything without auto correct.  We will converse in short forms and emoticons with questionable grammar.  One day we will forget how to talk.  Ok now I’m thoroughly bummed.

Any phobias?

I don’t like large deep bodies of water.  Even as I typed that I had to take a big breath of air.  I’m sure in a former life I either drowned or suffocated.  Or fell off a cliff.  Into the ocean.  I also don’t like extreme heights.  I cope with these fears with funny little mind games and try not to dwell on how silly I’m being.

How tall are you?

I used to be 5’4″ but I’ve shrunk an inch apparently according to the people who last measured me at some medical facility or other.  Maybe my posture got worse.  Maybe my younger taller self was delusional.  Anything is possible.  I used to love wearing three-inch heels or wedges or platforms way back in the day and gazing down at the tops of short people’s heads.  My ankles were less than thrilled about that though.  Can’t remember the last time I wore anything with a substantial heel.  Would probably break both my legs at once if I tried it again.

Optional Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

The weather is completely bearable!  Hovering around zero Celsius.  There’s a bit of melting and freezing going on so the sidewalks are not exactly safe, but I’m not using them anyway.  They are my latest excuse for staying inside. One of my many varied and far-fetched excuses if you want the truth.  Some of which make very little sense but I stubbornly cling to them anyway.

I am looking forward to making Rice Krispie squares to use up the bag of marshmallows left over from Christmas baking.  But they will have to wait until we finish the brownies I baked yesterday in a serious chocolate craving fit.  They are sweetened with dates and orange juice, no added refined sugar.  So I feel maybe half the normal amount of guilt eating them.

It’s always a bonus when you can cut your guilt in two.  I should make a list of ways to do that…..

Under The Bed

(http://sha-1.deviantart.com/art/Under-the-bed-II-154800409)

A comprehensive (because I like adjectives) list of things I believed were under my bed during my early childhood.

1. Alligators (this was long before Mercer Mayer wrote a book about it)
2. Bad men wearing masks, ready to grab the ankles of children foolish enough to forget to take a flying leap halfway across the bedroom after waking up in the morning.  These same men were never around at bedtime.   It was just the mornings you had to worry about.  So I assume they only worked the day shift.
3. Anything that mysteriously went missing, including socks, siblings and money.
4. Dust Bunnies the size of tumbleweeds. (No child worries about that – that’s more    a present day thing). Scratch number four.

I know, it’s not a very long list.  I advanced fairly quickly to scary things lurking in closets and on the roof.

Under the bed became a great place for shoving things when you needed to tidy up in a hurry.  So I guess it got too crowded under there and the alligators and the masked men were forced to move on.

Bedtime Cookbook

How far shall we flash back this fine Friday?  More than a lifetime for some of you, and just a drop in the time bucket for the rest of us.

What is more delightful than two recently bathed children with shiny clean hair all ready for bed?  Sitting together, sharing, being super good so bedtime will be delayed.

This was not a rare moment.  My mom often remarked on how well my kids got along with each other.  That changed for a while in their teens, but really, underneath the growing pains, they have always remained good friends.

I know it looks like the reflection of a halo on my daughters head, but don’t let it fool you.  She had her un-angelic moments.  And I never realized my son had such expressive toes.  I think that might be our polar bear hide on the wall in the background.  Hard to believe now we ever had such a thing.  But this is the NWT in the late 1970’s.  We didn’t know any better.  And that awful brown colonial furniture was in every government house.

One other thing I noticed in this faded photo is that the book they’re reading is not a kids book (although they had lots of those I swear). It appears to be a cookbook.  My poor children.  Is this what I gave them instead of reading them a bedtime story?  I can imagine the two of them pointing at the pictures saying – what is this yummy dish called?Mom has never made anything this awesome for us!  Maybe she doesn’t know how!  Maybe she doesn’t really love us!

Hey, they’re alive and clean.  Looks like it was a good parenting day to me.

Like a Stone

William Powell Frith – Sleep

March 23rd Daily Prompt:  Mr. Sandman 

What kind of sleeper are you? Do you drop off like a stone and awaken refreshed, or do you need pitch black and silence to drift off to dream?

(I know this is yesterdays prompt, and I would have done it yesterday if I hadn’t needed to take so many naps.  It’s the only sane way to spend a Monday.)

I am a marathon sleeper.  If sleeping were an Olympic event I would be a high ranking favourite, a definite contender for the gold.  I have been in training my entire life.  When I was a baby my mother said her envious friends were sure she must be sedating me.  She could plop me down on any flat surface while she visited and drank tea and I would stay happily passed out until it was time to bundle me up again and take me home.  It was anyone’s guess what color my eyes were for several months because they were so rarely open.

I don’t remember ever being freaked out by bedtime as a child.  Or as an adult either.  So when I gave birth to a daughter who couldn’t seem to figure out how to sleep for more than four hours at a stretch until she was six months old, and then bumped it up to six hours between midnight and six a.m. until she was almost two – well that was enough to make me totally rethink the parenting thing, never mind my new zombie-like personality caused by sleep deprivation.  She was the kind of kid who would jump up and down in the middle of the room and sing and dance to stay awake.  After that I had a less confusing child who restored my faith in the existence of our family’s powerful sleep gene.  I never loved my son so much as when he would look at me with his forlorn little face at the end of the day and say “Is it time to go to bed yet?”

Although pitch black silence is nice for inducing sleep, for me it’s not a necessary requirement.  My grandma could fall asleep anywhere and so can I.  A loud noise or the phone ringing or incessant and annoying snoring (not mentioning any names here) will wake me up easily enough, but if I’m not sufficiently rested I will be ridiculously cranky until you shut up and go away and leave me alone.  Or give me coffee.  That also works.

Maybe I was a raving insomniac in a past life and in this one I’m making up for all that lost sleep. Sleep is such a lovely thing.  I don’t understand why we all don’t do more of it.  Although I’ve heard there are people who would like to do that and can’t.  That makes me feel like one of the lucky ones.   It’s like my brain has an off switch triggered by simply closing my eyes.  Is that a blessing or a curse?  I don’t know.  Maybe the mysteries of the universe can only be solved at 3 a.m., in which case I probably won’t be the one doing that.

But I’m sure this talent for dropping happily off into dreamland and staying there for hours has to be a true indicator of an untroubled mind, right?

Anyway, don’t think too hard about that.  Just agree with me.  You’ll sleep better.