I’m waiting for my bed.

I moved, on April Fool’s Day of this year, 2016, to an apartment in Baltimore.  Many of my friends have interpreted that the fact that I was the one who moved out meant that it was my idea to leave my family.  It wasn’t.

But, the fact was, I have been commuting to Baltimore from suburban Rockville (which is really a suburb of DC, not of Baltimore) – a distance of 36 miles – for the past 10+ years.  Our home is not my first choice.  I frankly hate living in the suburbs – I hate no sidewalks, the push of the environment to drive everywhere, and the disincentives to walking or biking anywhere.  Hate may be a strong word, but years of commuting lead to a lot of frustration.  And, I’ve always been the member of the couple, in both of my marriages, to be the one with the long commute.

So, when it came time to part ways, I figured it was logical for me to be the one to vacate the premises.

It wasn’t an easy decision.  I love my boys.  I want to remain an active presence in their lives.  But, I also acknowledge that my husband, their dad, was the primary mover in our project to adopt them.  So, I didn’t want to make it harder for him to be their primary caregiver, or at least 50% caregiver, by making him move out.  Besides, he likes the house and neighborhood more than I do, and his commute is reasonable.  If he had moved out, we would have both been miserable, since I would have been stuck in a home that I never really wanted to live in, in the first place.

Ironically, the best feature of our home was the element that my husband liked the least – the pool.  I do miss that.

Anyway, when I moved, I took with me the furniture that was mine.  My desk, the IKEA futon sofa that was in my “office” in our home, and the rocking chair that was given me by my first MIL, when my daughter was a baby.

My “bed”, for the past 8 months, has been my futon-sofa, which is fine for a night or two, but my back has been protesting for the past 6 months or so. But, buying a bed seemed daunting.

I bought beds for the boys – that was a no-brainer.  They needed comfortable beds to sleep on when they stayed with me.  I wanted them to be involved in choosing their space, as much as possible, and we shopped at the local furniture store, Shofer’s Furniture, a family-owned business that has been in Baltimore since 1914.  We shopped in the clearance section, but still ended up spending a LOT more than I intended on a bed/trundle bed set.  The boys are happy with their bedroom, so I’m happy.

And, I waited on getting my own bed.

This past couple of weeks, while I was away in England visiting my daughter, I finally decided to buy a bed.  I had been eyeing the Casper mattress ads, promoted by many of my favorite podcasts.  In fact, I saved $50 by using the code “WAIT”, courtesy of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, one of my favorite podcasts.  And, while I was away, I looked at various bed frames at Wayfair – and finally selected:

And, I was so happy to get notified that both the frame and the mattress were going to be delivered today!!

I got through my full clinic schedule this morning, and I made it home by 1pm, in time to get on the phone and attend a meeting remotely.  At about 3pm, my doorbell rang, and my bed frame got delivered.  The Fedex delivery guy left it at the bottom of my staircase, in the box, and I brought it up the two flights of stairs in pieces, and assembled it in my room:

And, then I waited for the mattress.

And waited.

And waited.

UPS had sent me a notification that it would be delivered between 10:30-2:30 today.  But they apparently deliver until 7pm, and there is no way to contact the driver to find out when he/she will arrive.

I cancelled my evening with my boys, hoping that the mattress would arrive.

And now, it is past 10pm, and I am hoping the mattress will come tomorrow.  I won’t get a chance to sleep on it until Wednesday night, since tomorrow is my night to stay overnight with the boys in Rockville (more on my complicated weekly schedule in a future post).  So, I’ll just have to wait.  I’m annoyed with UPS, for making me think I would get my bed tonight.  I’m eager to try out the Casper mattress!!  But, it’s not the worst thing that could happen.

In a way, it may be a blessing, because I have decided that I will crash tonight on my kids’ bed (one or the other), which will likely make my newly adopted cat, Bean, happy.  He is clearly eager for company, and my old cat, Lior, can cope for a night on her own in my room.

Here’s Bean:

And here’s Lior:

Night-night!