Dreaming about Bed

I'm an eight to ten hour girl when it comes to sleep, but lately with all these intriguing blogs mixed with homework and research, I have been lucky to get a solid seven hours sleep. And for me, one hour makes the world of difference. Even when I was pedaling my little heart out in my fifty minute spinning class this morning, I must have yawned at least five times. My heart was pounding and I was definitely breathing heavily but I still managed to feel sleepy, sleepy enough to yawn. What's more, I don't yawn in the most graceful or attractive way (not that many people do but I'm pretty sure that my yawns beat all others!) and y eyes tear up and the bottom part of my face tends to get a little red (don't ask!). It's a real nuisance.


Also, I live in the attic of a really gorgeous old house but my small, country-cottage style attic bedroom has three great big skylights that the sun starts to flood through at five thirty in the morning. Yes, waking up to a bright and sunny rooms makes for a cheerful start to the day, but when one yearns unbroken, deep sleep, the sun can be rather detrimental. For me, It's a no-win situation. Oh and by the way, my newfound fan is a miracle worker regarding sending me off to sleep. All I have to do is lay in bed, tune my ears into its soft and consistent buzz and BOOM, I'm gone, long gone into the dream world. Also, its coolness is comforting and brings me back to life in an English boarding school where the rooms were chilly (which was at times an understatement as on several occasions I recall seeing my breath upon waking in bed or eating brekkie in the dining room!). Fans also bring me back to my younger years in Asia where they were nothing less than an absolute necessity.


Anyway, enough about fans! Onto beds...


I have a heavenly bed in my little attic room. It's a twin bed but that does not bother me in the slightest. You see, double, queen, and king sized beds are undoubtedly luxurious, but when I'm alone I fear that the boogie monster or a lonely ghost will join me on the open half and the mere thought give me the heebie-jeebies. At home, I have a double and although I still fear the company of ghosties, my two dogs are there to protect me. Only thing is, despite the bed's infinite amount of open space, both dogs enjoy to splay their wooly-mammoth like bodies out on either side of me and sandwich me in to the point that I cannot move a muscle. It is cocooning but after eight hours, not being able to shift from side to side makes for a sore back. And I am most definitely a shifter. And a kicker. And a sleepwalker!


So, amid all this sleep talk, my main point of this posting is to present an array of mouth-watering beds that I would like nothing more than to curl up in with a DVD playing on my laptop or with a classic book in hand. The first photo is of my bed in my attic-room at University and the rest are, well, just plain old dream beds. But beware: don't proceed to ogle these photos if you are 1) sleepy 2) chilly or 3) not coffeed up!

This last picture makes me wonder how much better my boarding school experience would have been if the dorm rooms looked like this! We slept on dodgy wooden bunk beds with stiff and stained mattresses. The thin, wooden ladder rungs were agonizing to climb up and down and it felt as if the entire structure could snap with too heavy a collapse into bed. Not too pleasant a bedtime experience to say the least. This dorm room is infinitely more homely looking than our gloomy grey and dull blue decorated ones with hideous pale-flowered hospital-like curtains. I love the whicker trunks and the nice and puffy duvets. For some reason, at school, mine was always flat and lifeless. Perhaps it was revolting against the bed it had to lay on! The whicker baskets would have been a great accessory to have in our dorm rooms at boarding school as the house-rules stated that each girl was only allowed three small teddy bears MAXIMUM! For youngsters, this is a near impossible rule to follow as choosing your top three teddies is like asking a grown-up to choose their top three household items. Yeah, hard, right!?       

P.s. My secret to a good night's sleep: a warm and soothing, camomile scented bubble bath just before hopping into bed (preferably in an old claw foot bath tub with floating rose petals and several tea lights...oh, and a box of chocolate truffles too!) 

One last thing, here are some pictures of my heavenly bed at University. Mmmmm...

My English Cottage Oshkosh Baby

Here's a little preview of what my baby WILL wear one day. I insist. These clothes are infinitely nicer than most contemporary items that babies sport these days. I much prefer the Old English-style romper, Irish sweater, linen dress kinda look. Although blue and white striped oshkosh overalls are an absolute must. No child should grow up without a pair. They're just plain old classic.


I love the little sheep on the cream Irish sweater and the adorable duckies on the yellow cotton dress. Simplicity is best as children don't tend to cope well with many layers and loose bits and bobs. I am also a fan of pale colored baby clothes, although I know how much of a risk this poses! It seems to me that babies in soft colored clothing merely scream for drips of chocolate ice cream to land upon them. Oh the price of beauty!        


Nevertheless, I am also an advocator for the funky, eclectic look (as the adorable boy in the last picture represents) and I will only encourage my children to choose what they want to wear. After all, children have such great imaginations and choosing their own outfits is a great way to let them express their inclinations and creativity. In my opinion, one of the most fascinating things is seeing a child walk down the street wearing frog wellington boots with stripy tights, a tutu, Irish woolen sweater, and a tiara, followed by another little girl wearing a prim and proper dress with ballet flats. Allowing a toddler to choose his or her outfit is allowing their identity to blossom. 

Um, WTF, Patrick Mohr!

Wow, this catwalk is a shocker. I mean, what the fudge was the designer thinking! Perhaps I am mistaken but bald, skeletal, and old man/ alien-ish women don't seem like the best specimens to be presenting one's fall collection on. It's almost a misogynistic outlook on the designer's behalf. Patrick Mohr is renowned for his out-of-the-ordinary catwalks, but this show seems to go a little too far. He has crossed the boundary between inventiveness and sheer ugliness. On one occasion last year, Mohr's models were suntanned body builders, and for another show, he used silicon-breasted transvestites. Yikes, what a character!  

   

Tree Houses, a Diverse Crew of People, and Sunflower Cupcakes

Today, the mixture of tree houses, eclectic people, and sunflower cupcakes would hit the spot. Although, the chores I have been occupying myself with on this lovely Saturday, such as returning sour milk, paying parking tickets (a total of four that date back to December...woopsie daisies), and returning my blockbuster video (well, actually, the lady just called saying I returned the box without the DVD inside...again, woopsie daisies) have been quite the joy...NOT! What's more, the fan is still exposing it's gnarly blades at me. I best get on that pronto. Maybe finishing assembling it will be my afternoon "treat"...Oh boy, that does sound splendid, doesn't it!?  

     

Why Did I Wear Body Lotion Today?

It was hot today. And I mean HOT. Like cookin' a chicken breast on the street kinda hot. So hot that I could barely function. Seriously. 

I spent what seemed like an entire decade trying to assemble one measly fan this evening. You see, I've been putting off opening the fan box (for about, hm, two days) as my eco-friendly friends seem to be getting the better of me, but today I reached my limit. After all, I'm pretty sure it's not a good thing when just sitting at your laptop reading news headlines makes you break out in a post-intense-workout kinda sweat. My bum was practically slipping off the seat and I had to constantly scooch back up every thirty seconds or so. And that brings me to the reason behind the title of this posting: NEVER WEAR BODY LOTION ON A HOT DAY! You'd think I would've learned this little note-to-self after the terrible experience I had after I decided to lube up before a hot yoga class as I spent the entire hour and a half slipping all over the place like a hopeless puppy on linoleum flooring. It seems that lotions and oils have the cheeky tendency to trap heat into the body on sunny days, almost as if they're plotting against us. Beware! Anyway, about the fan, it's now spinning contentedly in the corner of my room. Only thing is it has no cover! Yes, that's right, out of the corner of my eye and about 4 feet away from my face, I can see a sharp, open blade savagely spinning away, screaming for my fingers to inch their way closer to it’s razor-sharp teeth. Well, maybe my imagination is going a little wild (by the way, for me, craziness is known to be a side effect of brutal heat) but it most definitely is not put together as instructed. You see, the job is only half done as I was midway through when not only the silly protective grill thing decided to pop off, but my sweaty hands took a turn for the worst and I could no longer control the screwdriver. It was like trying to open a door with a key when your fingers are stiff from the icy cold weather...but, in this case, it was the opposite case. My fingers were so hot and clammy the screwdriver was just slopping around between my heat-swollen fingies like a wet sausage. I must say, it was quite the tormenting experience. I mean, taking more than an hour to assemble a fan on hot summer's day is like thirsting for water after a long hike in the glaring sun and then seeing your water bottle in the car, but the car's locked and you've lost the keys. Wow, I am on an analogy-roll tonight! Anyway, the point is that the fan's up and running and doing it's thing BUT missing its sharp blade protection. And for me (especially at the rate my day's going) this is NOT the wisest thing to have near my body. I'll let you know how many fingers and toes I have in the morning but promise me you won't freak out if I say four and a half.  

Moving on... 

The latter part of my day consisted of a 'treasure' hunt. But before you get too excited, the treasure was not chocolate Easter eggs or a bundle of golden coins, but a CREDIT CARD! The hunt started in my wallet; nope, then my desk; nope. And then thing's began to get a little more frantic. Clothes started to fly out of my dresser, pockets were turned inside out and back again more than a million times, cupboards were scoured with a huge and heavy Policeman like flashlight, my bed was frisked, and the trash bags were completely and utterly violated (bear getting it's mitts on the trash style). Still no luck. At this point, I was hungry, tired, fed-up, HOT (of course), and maybe just a little itty bit worried. But then I called my (wise-ish) mother. She said, "Well, Hannah, I hate to say it but you have to THINK about this verrrrry carefully." Think! Oh no, shock horror! Needless to say, I went downstairs and thought. I thought a long time (well during all the TV commercial breaks during my hour-long episode of House hunter’s International) and then…I had an a-ha moment. Up I popped and stealthily made my way into the kitchen. At this point, I was thinking, "No way, Hannah, you couldn’t have, that would be just too ridiculously silly..." But apparently, it was not silly enough for me. Yes, I hate to confess, but I placed my credit card in the FRIDGE…next to the mushrooms! Don't ask.  

Anyway, to wind-down from this eventful day, I decided to look up beautiful things that make heat much more bearable. Here's what I found: