Winter finally arrives...

Jan 21, 2012

here in Pennsylvania!!  I have been hoping for snow since we had a crazy early October snowfall, and finally we have more snow!!  We got about 4 inches of the white stuff today, which means the kids and dogs are all tired out and sleeping quietly now!  


Hubby took the day off yesterday and I forced him to cooperate with me for most of the day.  We organized and cleaned his room, in preparation for a cat adoption later on this winter.  We are adopting a Maine Coon female.  She is a mother, and is currently nursing her last litter of kittens.  We will be adopting her from the breeder after she gets spayed and heals up from the surgery.  I am very excited because she is a real sweetie and also I can't wait to have another pet in the house!

So, by the end of the day Friday we had Bob's room totally rearranged, a cat tower put together and in place, and we even got her litterbox set up (no litter yet, though).  Now we just wait until we get the call that she is ready to come home with us... Hopefully in February.



"So", you ask," why do you and Bob sleep in separate bedrooms??"  Well, it's a funny story really. When we were first married I was a short and stocky 135 pounds, but this was within a healthy BMI for me, so my weight and health were not so bad.  Bob was a Very Loud Snorer.  At first, I just had to get to sleep before him, and then the snoring wouldn't bother me.  In those days I could sleep through anything.   As the years went by, though, he got louder and louder, and eventually developed apnea.  He would make really loud SNORTs during the night which woke me up.  

I then began to really listen to him and realized that he was having apnea, not just snoring.  By this time I had been sleeping with this combination chain saw and snorting bull for about nine years!  I finally got tired of lying in bed and waking him up so he could breathe, only to be kept awake by the snoring.   I set up a bed in and slept in a separate room and started to nag him about his snoring.  Fast forward a few years and he FINALLY went to the doctor, he immediately got a CPAP device after his sleep study.  

As many of you know, this device is not silent, it hisses.  So, I found that I still couldn't sleep with him, it was too creepy to try to sleep in bed with someone who doesn't have audible breathing.  Plus, that CPAP could shoot morning breath 5 feet easily...

The years rolled by and the pounds packed on my five foot frame, and we continued to sleep apart.  About 9 and 1/2 years ago we moved to our current home in Pennsylvania.  I said, "You know, Bob, we could get one of those Sleep Number beds, and sleep in the same bed again! "   Guess what?  After all those years of my suffering through his snoring, he told me "Sorry honey, your snoring would keep me awake!"  

This, coming from the world champion snorer!  

He did, however suggest that I get a sleep study, since my snoring was so loud, and sure enough I now have my own CPAP in my room!  Maybe someday we can sleep in the same bed, but for now I'm just as happy to retire to my own room, which I share with our two dogs.  They love to sleep in the same room with me, and sometimes they kindly get in my bed to keep me warm.

So, very soon Bob will have Belle, the white Maine Coon Cat as his sleeping buddy, and I will continue to "go to the dogs".

I got some great news yesterday!  I have been hired as a temporary employee at a company that is only 10 minutes from my home!  The pay is not as high as I would like, but I am confident that as the price of gasoline goes up, the pay will seem better and better!  I will be working 3rd shift, and I start Wednesday night, which is 4 nights from now.  The plan is for me to sleep during the day starting on Monday, and hopefully I will be able to make the switch without too much trouble.  I have worked 3rd shift once before and sleeping during the day was no problem.   I will be a temp for at least 3 months, but as soon as I am hired on as a company employee I am going to purchase myself some health insurance and see my surgeon!



This is very exciting for me for many reasons, but mostly because I have been job hunting for so long, and this company is so close to home.  Now all I have to do is work hard and learn a lot so that they will hire me on as a company employee when my 3 month probationary period is over.  I am really looking forward to having a work life, and the boys are certainly ready to have Mom out of their hair.  I hope that I will be awake when they get home from school at 3:30 each afternoon, and that seven hours of sleep plus a nap in the evening will be enough to get me through.  

I am going to miss some things, though, like the luxury of going to lunch with friends and having my days all to myself with no agenda.  Having more money for the family, and getting a surgery date that might be sooner, and covered by insurance, are SOOOOO worth it!!  Another good thing, the dress code is very relaxed, so I don't have to spend money I haven't made yet on clothes.  The jeans and shirts I have now will do just fine!

And so, as I continue on my weight loss journey I also embark on the back to work journey, which I hope gets me closer to my surgery date!  What a relief it was to remove myself from all the "job search" mailing lists I have been on.  

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