Eat and Sleep

Packing my lunch for work is essential to keeping me on track. Even when I do bring my lunch I can easily be tempted to eat out. Therefore, I am working on making my lunches extra appealing so I will want to eat them. I didn't prepare as much this week as I needed so this morning I was scrambling to make something I had on hand sound delicious.

I settled on making a batch of our buffalo chicken (chicken breast chunks seared and sauteed with buffalo sauce). I chopped up some cucumber and red onion and dressed it with a yogurt ranch dressing. It was inspired by tzatztiki sauce. I assembled it on a wheat pita.

I wanted to love it...I didn't hate it...but I just wanted to love it.  I think I might have made an herb mistake. Went to the herb bed planning to find some dill or maybe sweet basil. Instead, I chose lime basil. It is new to my garden this year. It doesn't have a lime smell, but it didn't translate as well into the taste. The herb flavor was too strong. I think I am going to have to do a little research for better ways to use it - I don't want to give up on my lime basil after one try.

I can't remember the last time I ate a banana as just a banana. Usually I eat them in a smoothie or on my cereal. One of my favorite ways to eat them is in a peanut butter and banana sandwich...but that is a little risky when I use bread. Oddly, if I roll the banana up in a flour tortilla with the peanut butter I don't have the same reaction. It seems much more satisfying than bread.

In all the resources I read about effective ways to lose weight, getting enough sleep is always on the list. Unfortunately, I don't sleep that well. I have no problem falling asleep. However. by about 2 a.m. I am waking up, tossing and turning and never get back into a good sleep.

We have slept in a full size bed since we got married. And I had that bed for about 10 years before that. I know it is "tiny" but I loved it. It is a solid maple bed made in the 50s - when things were made to last. (You can see the bed here.) I bought it and a matching dresser second hand. Part of why I liked it was that it was from the exact same line as the bedroom set my mom got in high school - she has a bigger dresser and a dressing table, as well. Sadly, over time the side rails on the bed have warped a little so the bottom slats wouldn't stay on as well as it should. We decided it was time to replace it. And since we were replacing it how about an upgrade?  We debated between getting a queen or a king. When we realized the queen is only about 5-6 inches wider it made us seriously consider the king, which is 24 inches wider than the full.

I would like to go on record of saying that mattresses are ridiculously priced. My poor husband fell in love with a $5200 mattress...it was so out of price range there was no talking me into it. We hoped to get the mattress and box springs for around $800. We spent quite awhile at that particular store.  We told the salesman our budget and "sampled" several mattresses. The salesman was friendly and helpful but not overbearing. I would have like to buy from that store, but we couldn't quite get the price we needed. I was surprised how much wiggle room he had to negotiate. We liked a set that was originally on sale for $1500. He got it down to $1200 pretty quickly. As we were getting ready to leave, he said "Hypothetically, if I could get it down to $999 could you do it?"

Mattress shopping is a serious and exhausting business. Do you know how cruel it is to let a woman lie down on a bed for a couple minutes and then make her get up? Some mattresses I knew immediately were not the one, others I couldn't tell the difference. It is a significant purchase and I didn't want to make a mistake. But how much can you really know from a few minutes of awkwardly lying on a bed in the middle of  a store?

Ultimately, we ended up buying the mattress and box springs from Sam's Club for my desired $800. A special thank you to my sister for meeting us a couple times at Sam's Club where she is a member. And I repay her by posting this picture? Truth is, I think she looks adorable.

Once we made a decision we rented a UHaul and brought it home. The UHaul was a little less than having it delivered, but we got it on our timing. If we had ordered online we would have had to wait about 3 weeks.

My sister and husband assembled the bed. Notice it is the woman reading the directions.  I know, I know I am being terribly sexist, but you know what I am talking about, right ladies?

The mattress exchange. Wow!  The behemoth made our old bed look tiny.

We bought the new low profile box spring. It is 4 inches shorter than a standard box spring. I didn't want the bed to be super tall. At some point I might want to raise it up a bit to use some storage space under it. At one store, the saleslady tried to sell us the two pieces of the king box spring separately at $319 apiece - all the other stores sold them together for $300 or less. She was super frustrating - she wouldn't leave us alone and kept pointing out super expensive beds even after we had made our budget clear. I finally just had to say "I am sorry, but there isn't anything even close to our price range." As we attempted to escape, she made a less ditch effort to show us a couple that were closer to our price, but still so far away. I know they probably work on commission, but talking people into something that can't afford is just plain wrong. Respect the budget. 
I don't know how it happened exactly, but my fabulous sister and husband did all the work while I took pictures :)

I am very happy how well it fits in the room. I know it is a bedroom, so the bed is going to be the main feature. I just didn't want the entire room to be a bed.

And look, Meg, it is going to be a pretty big jump from the doorway to avoid the hot lava :)

It is time to say "Good night all"  I have some serious sleeping to do!!