Musical beds

Sounds pretty kinky. But it’s not like that. I hereby humbly confess that an unfortunate combination of my pregnancy and indecision has forced Josh and me to have slept in each of our four bedrooms. I just keep dictating yet another room change, hoping the next spot our bed lands will be its last. The past year has seen countless room configurations. Josh has been ever-so-patient with me.

Unfortunately, I’m not done yet. I want to upgrade from a full-sized mattress to something bigger. But the only room in the house that will fit a bigger bed is what I had previously dubbed the guest room. And since I’m too good to sleep on the air mattress (we tried it and it won’t suffice), I’m shopping for beds (and a mattress), hoping to make a good and somewhat quicker decision than I usually do.

Oh and to make this a little more challenging, I am trying to keep the bed cost under $1,000, and we need to get creative with fitting a mattress upstairs.

I keep warning Josh that we have yet another game of musical beds on the horizon.

He keeps looking at me as if to say, “Again? Just be sure it’s what you want.”

And I shoot a look back that says, “I’m never sure of what I want. Just move the f*cking bed.”

Here are the beds I’m eyeing [today].

West Elm’s Midcentury Bed Set Acorn

Restoration Hardware’s 19th C. Campaign Iron Canopy Bed

World Market Cute as a Button Bed

Keeping up with the mega-Joneses

About a year ago, while we were in escrow to buy a home, I was spending a lot of time absorbing any decorating inspiration I could get my hands on. I had checked out a Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic book, and in the book she shared how she had sought out and successfully purchased a home that wasn’t even for sale in Malibu. I’m talking about her Casa Sugar, worth $4.4 million.

Then I heard another story of my friend’s brother, who was building a home on the cliff overlooking the water in Santa Barbara and some stranger drove up and said, “My client wants to buy your home,” and the owner said it’s not for sale, and the stranger said, “You don’t understand. Oprah Winfrey will pay whatever you want for this home.”

Thus sold the home.

About a year ago, I fell in love with a home I drove by. It was Spanish-style, with a beautiful courtyard, and I immediately envisioned my kids growing up there. Unfortunately it was not for sale, and I’ll remind you that at the time we were in escrow with another home, and my husband thought this was proof that I was completely insane. But I could not stop thinking about this other home, and my perseverance kicked in. I did some detective work and found the name of the person who lived there. I googled his name, and found his website, and looked for contact info, but not before I was temporarily distracted by his professional videos about his subconscious healing and hypnosis services. (There’s a market for hypno-healing?!?)

Under the influence of the legends of millionaire homebuyers mentioned above, I emailed the guy living in the home I coveted, asking if he wanted to sell the home, and spent the next 8 hours tossing and turning, lovestruck by this home.

The next morning we went to the local coffee shop and while I was trying to convince my husband that this not-for-sale home was the home for us, who should walk in but the hypno-healing spiritualist himself! Feeling like I knew the guy already after watching his videos (perhaps a few too many), I exclaimed, “Joseph? Is that you?”

I probably came across something like Stuart from SNL’s the Californians wherein he exclaims, “Whuuturyuuduhinghere?”

I thought it was fate. My husband thought it was an unfortunate coincidence. And Joseph probably thought it was stalking. And when Joseph told me it was not for sale,  I didn’t have the endless supply of cash to convince him otherwise. My naive hope for that home fell from the sky like a dead duck. I had forgotten to take into account the significant difference between me and those incomparables I was influenced by. Oprah, it turns out, is in a different league.

So I didn’t get the home and I might have lost some points from the “I’m stable” category. I do still go by the home hoping to find a for sale sign. Money draws the fine line between eccentricity and insanity.

Celebrity-Cash.com

Single parenting: things fall apart

Single-parenting while a spouse is out of town is downright difficult. All week I’ve been hearing from my baby daddy about how hard his life is in NYC: “the coffee at that cafe wasn’t that good” and “the library tour was boring” and “I had to finish my milkshake alone.”

I wonder if he was just trying to feign hardship. Or maybe he really is ignorant to what life is like back at the ranch. There are meltdowns, cry fits, lots of timeouts. And then there are the kids.

Baby Rabies put it best here. The week of single parenting is usually a slow digression from super mom on day 1 to despondent alcoholic on day 5. But since my man is out of town for 8 days, and since I’m an overachiever, I have sped through all 5 steps to alcoholic in the 1st few days.

Within 3 hours after dropping Josh off at the airport, I had cleaned all closets, bagged goods for donating, fed and played with the kids, cleaned out files of papers, and cleaned the kitchen. Then that afternoon I took the kids to a water park (for the 1st time in the history of my parenthood).

And if that wasn’t ambitious enough, over the next few days I confidently and independently picked out the stones for our new patio pavers (despite my indecision paralysis). I went to a different stone yard and hauled home the stones to complete another project. Went to Home Depot. Target (twice). Managed to make a dozen meals while not using the stove. Did I mention I am a grant writing consultant? Yeah, been doing that this week too.

But I’m on empty now and still have a few days left. My kids are going about life as usual – normal squabbles, complaints, and demands. But I want to scream, “Don’t you see this is a state of an emergency? Pull your sh*t together!”

And every time my man complains that his food there isn’t that good, I’m about to say, “Just bring that home and I’ll eat it” and then I remember that’s impossible.

He will just have to consume that f*cking milkshake all by his f*cking self. Lucky bastard.