Ingenuity saves the day....or I mean night.

Every marriage has their share of frivolous problems. Not deal breakers or anything important, just minor irritants that grate along the way. We've had 2 related "problems" since moving back to VA. The first: we gave away our queen sized bed frame/unit before leaving AL. We weren't sure where we were going or what would fit in the moving van, so we erred on the generous side and gave a bunch away. We kept our queen top mattress and have been sleeping on the floor since end of last July. Minor irritant #1: wifey doesn't like to sleep on the floor, and does she like the 'freshly moved' look. Nor is it good to sleep on the floor when you suffer a knee injury from biking (me), a car wreck that hurts your back/neck (still me) or when you're weak from a SIX WEEK recovery period from pneumonia/blood infection (hubby).

Finally, in January, we found a nice king size bed frame at a consignment store. It's nice looking, yet manly enough and we scheduled a time to pick it up. We couldn't afford a king mattress now, but we were at least moving in the right direction, right? Well, we went to pick it up and they said, "Oh Yeah, the mattress conveys." Yippee!! I thought this was an answer to my prayers until I laid down on it. I've slept on rocks that are softer. My hubby was in heaven! He said the seemingly brick lined mattress helped his back and gave him better sleep than he's had in years. So now, he slept on the king bed and I was still on the queen mattress on the floor. This went on for 4 months! Minor irritant #2: We both hate having 2 beds in our room, but we hate being tired even more.

So last Friday night, while we were discussing what to do about our 9 month long mattress conundrum and our lack of extra money to fix it, I half jokingly said, "It's too bad you can't cut my squishy queen bed and your rock solid king and make one king size mattress with two equal parts."

...............5 seconds of silence...........

His eyes got "that look" and I knew I had struck gold. The next day, my hubby spent about 8 hours hand cutting our mattresses and fitting them back together with a custom industrial sewing job. This took a lot of precision and patience, but the end result was 2 equal sized mattresses on one frame. And it simultaneously fixed Minor Irritant #3: I'm a bed hog. Hubby swears I take 75% of any shared bed. Now there is a definite line where my side ends.

So, after months on end, last night we both finally got to sleep in a comfortable bed together!! It was the best night of sleep we've had since moving here! Yay for ingenuity saving our backs and our wallets. Now we're taking suggestions about how to BEST USE for all the leftover parts. We've had many good suggestions~~ like moon shoes, rocket launchers and the like. I'm sure there will be a "post mattress" post sometime this summer. We tend to get really creative when the kids are out of school.

Or perhaps we'll incorporate it somehow into Punkin Chunkin' 2012?
Time will tell. Blessings!

Picture 1: Travis enjoying the fruits of his labor after a Sunday hike!

Picture 2: some of the extra parts!

Come on in! (but watch your step!)

hos·pi·tal·i·ty
noun.
1. the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers.

This was a rough morning. On Easter morning, when it seems most people don their new outfits and perfect hair, anticipating their Norman Rockwell family gatherings, our clan was struggling just to be vertical. I didn't brush my hair before our church service (headbands are awesome), my son wore camo shorts with a mismatched top, my daughter in jeans that she pawed through the dryer to get, and my husband was in shorts. Nope. No new outfits or decorated houses on this end. And things got progressively worse as the morning drew on. Church was a challenge for us today and we pretty much limped home. (Disclaimer: We love Jesus and his resurrection, so no problems there). The state of our house pretty reflected the mood of the day. None of us bothered to clean up after our light lunch, the kids haven't done their weekend chores yet, and 4 loads of laundry that had been folded, but not put away.....all stacked in the middle of our living room floor. Instead of pushing through, Travis and I decided to throw in the towel and just go lie down.

Glory day! Don't you wanna hang out with us?? So upstairs: Travis and Emily are reading, and I'm trying to sleep and my son is lying beside me talking. Knock, knock, knock. I told my son to go get the door, thinking it may be a child he can play with outside. He yells back up, "It's some guy I don't know." So Travis and I went to answer the door. There stands a spiffed up young man in a suit and tie. He says to my husband, "Mr. L****, Sorry I didn't catch you at church, so I found out where you lived and decided to stop by. Can we talk?"

Ack!

For a brief moment, I was embarrassed and had thoughts of hiding. But after that split second, the truth of this reality sunk in: He's just a person, a fellow sojourner in this life, standing at my door, asking for some time and help. I invited the young man in. My hubby seamlessly stalled a tad by chatting in the foyer while I took 15 seconds and piled the laundry in a corner. (Hmmmm, we seem practiced at this maneuver. Wonder why?) Then we sat down in our living room in the midst of our chaos and gave him our undivided attention. When it became apparent that he only needed to talk to my hubby, I politely excused myself and came back up to lie back down.

This isn't big news, but it reminded me at least one area where I'm improving. 10 years ago the above scenario would have bothered me. I may have asked him to come back at a better time, or tried to speed clean throughout the visit to bolster appearances. But now I more quickly see the real truth: appearances aren't what matters~~ the heart is. By the time he finished talking, this young man walked away from our house smiling and encouraged. Not because he was in a perfect looking house, or because he caught us on a good day. He walked away encouraged because he was welcomed in (friendly reception)and loved to the best of our ability (treatment of strangers) for the time he was here.

So I guess that's my nugget of the day: Hospitality is not complicated. Yes, we live in an appearance oriented culture, but we don't have to have it all together to show love to a stranger. All of us can smile, invite someone in, be attentive to their needs and give an encouraging word. ~No matter if we're having a hard day, or surrounded by a bit of clutter. We all have gifts, talents, and love to share. Thankfully, this is not an isolated occurrence. The more we practice our open door policy, the more people seem to just show up. And we wouldn't trade it! We like it this way.

Now we're off to visit another family who invited us to their house for this holiday. It'll be nice to be on the receiving end of hospitality today too.

Blessings to you all this Resurrection Sunday!

Virginia ERs: the 2012 tours have begun. :-/

I'm writing today to update everyone (It's been a while! So, Hi!) and give a PSA about a new medical deception out there.

But first things first. We've had a pretty quiet first quarter of 2012. Everyone has been relatively healthy, all the jobs are steady, kids are enjoying school, the weather has been great, our friends are wonderful, etc etc. We were having a great Sunday yesterday. A few families came over to do lunch and let the kiddos play. In the evening, my son was playing with some boys in our unfinished basement. Na was doing amateur kung fu when he decided to punch the insulation. It's fluffy, right? Well, he quickly found out there's a concrete wall behind the soft stuff and broke his hand. Nice. So sent Emily home with the other family and packed up to visit our friends at Lee's Hill ER.

We arrived to a packed parking lot, so we went in and asked their wait time. 2hrs. Yikes! So we called Spotsy Reg. up the hill. They told us on the phone and had a sign outside their ER that said "28 minute wait time." So we signed in and broke out the UNO cards. 2 hrs. later, they brought us back, just to register us. Travis was kinda snarky about it being 2 hours and us not having a room or being seen or X-rays or anything with the "28 minute" estimate. The receptionist lady piped up and said, "Oh that? That's intentionally misleading just to get people here. The 28 minutes is our best guess at how long it will take you to be seen once we get you assigned to a bed." Then she proceeded to tell us that after we registered, we'd be back in the waiting room.

We decided at that point to just go home, get some sleep, and try again in the morning. We used our own moldable plastic (my hubby's a designer) and made a personalized splint, wrapped his hand, and Na was sound asleep before I got home with our daughter. We did go to Prime Care, see a doc and get X-rays confirming the break today. We're off to see a specialist this afternoon. So if you pray, please pray for my little guy. And if you find yourself in need of an ER, remember the "wait time" signs are intentionally misleading and find out what the estimated REAL wait time is. (There's my PSA!)

More later after we see the specialist.
#neveradullmoment