Sleeping Like Kings

Our beloved neighbors, The Cooks, are in their last few weeks here on this street... in this town... in this State... and I guess they're in their last year of living in this country! Because they are going to New York in a few weeks to live in a furnished apartment, and then to Abu Dhabi, they are getting rid of all their stuff. I mean, ALL THEIR STUFF. Including their ginormous bed, which they generously gave to us! It's a platform bed that comes apart into tiny pieces, so they put in our living room one day while we were gone, then we (Martin) moved it upstairs and reassembled it. (but I fixed the zipper and put the sheets on!) This is how we have come to having no bed at all to having a King Sized bed in our tiny upstairs bedroom, which now is tinier than ever. I'm not at all joking when I say that this bed takes up half the room. This thing is HUGE. It's so big that we kind of don't know what to do with all the space. Last night when we crawled in, we both said we felt like we were sleeping in a hotel! Martin slept on King Sized beds when he would travel for Wabash, but this is just the second time I've slept in one, the first time being our honeymoon. It's quite a step up from a Queen! I am kind of amazed. I don't remember it being so big over at Tara's house.... Tara's house, which, by the way, is absolutely adorable. We are so sad to see them go.



And while we're on the subject of sleep, I was amazed last night that Anja slept the entire night through for the second time ever! Go Anja!! Sadly, our "good sleeper" was up half the night, so I still didn't get any sleep. Ironically, the night before it was Greta who slept twelve hours straight and Anja who was restless all night long. They are working together, plotting against us! Still... I am hopeful for tonight.



Tomorrow I'm hanging out with Anne and Laura in the morning and I really can't wait. When I was young and slim and hip and single (and almost never covered in spit-up), I'd go hang out at Vienna and a little group of moms would often be there in the mornings with their babies and toddlers. I always thought that looked like the perfect life! Hanging out with your friends and all your cute, well-dressed, well-behaved children. Well, that's the West Side for you. Painting a glamorous and somewhat unrealistic picture of motherhood for all the 21-year-olds working on their English assignments. This paragraph sounds bitter. It's not meant to be. I'm just saying that I almost never leave the house, and none of my closest friends live in this town anymore (don't suggest sisters and sisters-in-law, they don't count as friends because they are family) so to be going out for coffee with a couple of mom friends and our kidders is kind of a big deal! Funnily, I don't even know if we're going out for coffee. I invited them to my house... I guess I'm just hoping that I'll be able to successfully drag them down to K.Dee's. Ha!



Oh my gosh! So I think the old location of River City Depot might now be a Great Harvest Bread store! How cool would that be? I still get a terrific craving for a Chicago Dog every time I walk past the corner of 4th and Main.... but bread is a good enough substitute. I love bread, and I can see a bread store located that close to my house being a very bad thing. A veerrrryyy bad thing.



And speaking of bread, yesterday I made Beer Bread, this morning I made Zucchini Bread, then I made a quiche with the leftover pie crust I had in the fridge from the weekend, and right now I've got Berry Pudding Cake in the oven! It's been a productive day in the kitchen, that's for sure.



I also took a walk this morning with the girls and we got Martin a birthday gift from Anja and Greta. I hope he likes it. His birthday isn't till Wednesday. I'll make a pie. Oh, how I do love pie.



Neither of the girls has found sleep very easily tonight. That's unfortunate.