That’s what today’s personal update is about; struggling between faith and fear. That’s kind of where I’ve been the last week or so. Enough so that I’ve really struggled to put words to “paper” about it and thus been absent here as I struggle to find my footing.
I should start where I last left off I suppose. 🙂 Even before my last post, I’d been picking up little messages here and there urging me to shake off the slump I was in. A Buddha quote in a blog post, the underlying theme in Cobra Kai (which we’ve been watching), etc… I could make a whole series of posts about how neither Johnny nor Daniel are balanced emotionally until the end of season 3, but that’s another story…
More to the point, all these messages got me to see two important truths:
No matter how bad my life has gotten, in the end every situation resolved itself in an essentially positive manner
There’s truth in the adage that there’s no point in worrying about problems because either they can be corrected and thus solved, or they’re completely out of your control anyway.
Perhaps stress and suffering (partially) come from not knowing the distinction between the two and thus categorize one’s problem.
At any rate, I’ve found a great deal of peace in the combination of those two realizations. I’ve accepted that whatever comes, we will get through it and eventually get back on our feet. It’s always happened, no matter how dark the moments in my life. Funny how much things have changed in the last week also. I’m thinking more clearly and FINALLY noticed that a bog contributor to my back pain issues has been my stubborn refusal to wear shoes. Circumstances required shoes for 3 or 4 days though and I noticed how much better my feet and back felt vs wearing sandals.
On a level that could be written off as coincidence, but I’m choosing to attach some spiritual meaning to, we also had a minor breakthrough on our legal case; our lawyer found out that the home inspection company we were referred by our realtor wasn’t licensed to do inspections in Georgia. If true, that’s going to leave them open to a legal broadside.
I have a habit of searching for deeper meaning in things, and part of me wonders if all the bad experiences weren’t used by (not orchestrated by) God to try to teach me I’ve got the strength to overcome all of it if I had faith in myself, AND to teach me to have faith in Him since I always landed on my feet.
Am I in a perfect place now? Far from it. Fear of everything that could and might go wrong is still warring hard against my new sense of calm. I’ve had so many things go wrong in the past after multiple times taking a step in this direction that I’ve been outright afraid to even make this post. Maybe it’s time to stop looking for the other shoe dropping though and try to get on with life.
This was actually about a week ago. Things have just been a mess here, and I didn’t get around to this sooner.
It’s hard to believe I’ve actually been here this long, and how little I feel I’ve accomplished beyond dealing with a never ending, ever escalating series of disasters that keep me from doing any real writing.
I’m battling to get back to a normal routine the past few days. Part of that is I did make a concerted effort to create a nice dinner for us last night. That offering was Fettuccine Alfredo (with my homemade Alfredo sauce) topped with steak. Note the sauce recipe is towards the bottom on the linked to post.
As always start with fresh pasta:
Wow, focus was off there. 😦 Oh and that’s a loaf of Rosemary Parm Bread next to the pasta, courtesy of Costco. Not as good as homemade, but decent.
While the water was heating up, I stared the strips of steak sauteing in butter and garlic:
two in a row, so much for the high end camera on the new samsung
I’m throwing in the above picture primarily to show off that colander. This was right before I dumped the water. It was a Christmas present from my mom a couple years back. Super handy as it holds tight to the pot, is heat resistant silicone, and is much easier to clean up than a full colander.
Beyond that, since the camera was acting up, I’ll cut this a little short. Aside from the bread and pasta dishes, I also cooked up some butternut squash and added a touch of cinnamon to it. Viola; one almost gourmet meal:
Otherwise known as a Czerka Corp Crate-O-Matic in Star Wars, The Old Republic.
I scored one yesterday!
What is it, you ask?!? A curiosity primarily, BUT it’s also the absolute most rare item in the game. It allows you to disguise yourself as a shipping crate, which supposedly will let you not be detected by enemy non-player characters. I have yet to verify that claim. At any rate, it’s potentially handy for stealth based characters at the very least. 🙂
So yes, FINALLY a bit of good luck. If the thing was sellable, I could write my own check for an obscene amount of in-game currency via the game’s trade network. One does not simply SELL a crate-o-matic however. It’s a rare goodie.
The Actual Update:
Beyond that, there’s not much to report. We’re in a holding pattern until we talk to a termite inspector and a lawyer so we can better plot a path forward. Right now, there are so many variables flying our way from out of left field, it’s hard to formulate any sort of a plan.
We did find out today that the roof on the new place is indeed older than disclosed and in worse shape than the initial home inspection said.
We’ll see how much, if any, of that is from termites.
As I’ve hinted at a few times, things have been going… rough with the new house. I’m finally ready to begin to tell the story here.
So, where to start? We looked at several other houses even after putting in the offer on the cinder block place. Suffice it to say that nothing under $350k here is problem free. We ended up following through on the block house after all. In case you’re wondering, the law here gives you a limited window to back out of a Real Estate purchase on top of the normal contingency windows (inspection, loan approval, etc…) before closing.
I’m still not sure if that was a mistake. It’s been a running battle with the seller and his agent ever since. First it was getting concessions on repairs needed, which needless to say is normal. Then we couldn’t get them out after closing paperwork was signed. It took a $500 a day occupancy fee to get them to clear out. And clear out they did at that point, like greased lightning. After that was where the real fun began.
Of the three repairs we asked for 1 was technically done, 1 was done half-assed and will need to be redone, and the third was not done at all, BUT it did have a work order falsified by a local contractor to say it was done.
Technically done was the side door to the house. The framing at its base was unfinished, and it was allowing water in under the door and along the slab. Did I mention it rains so much here that it makes the tropics look like New Mexico? He put in a sill plate to seal off the door entrance, but didn’t concrete over the area he’d carved out of the slab to install the door. End result; there’s a ditch under the carpet in front of the door.
Half-Assed done was the roof. It’s 8 years old and not in bad shape, but the major swings in seasonal temperatures here have created “nail pops“, where the nails back out of the roof a bit. That in turn can push up shingles partially and cause them to curl. All we asked for was that they drive back down the nails and throw some sealant under the loose singles. Easy job, even if a little time consuming. Well, they did maybe 2/3 of it and used low grade silicone sealant to (sort of) tack down the shingles. End result; it needs to be done all over again to keep the roof intact.
NOT Done was the house electrical system. It was built in 1959, right at the start of “modern” (ie the last version of) two wire systems that are now retired in favor of 3 wire, fully grounded systems. So, no knob and tube or aluminum wiring at least, BUT nothing is grounded, which is horrible for modern electronics of any sort. The seller had already upgraded the circuit breaker box to current standards and had installed 3 prong outlets in the entire house. No ground though; he just hooked the two wire wiring to the three wire outlets and tried to pass them off as properly updated per NEC code. Our home inspector caught that they weren’t, so we said that we wanted those outlets properly grounded as a condition of sale. He agreed, then apparently had a contractor friend forge a work order saying that the work had been done. “Trust but Verify” as Reagan said. After we FINALLY got them out of the house, I went through with an outlet tester and found the only areas properly grounded were the kitchen and bathroom where he’d ran new wiring to for previous remodeling work.
Same general idea with the other two jobs, once checked up on. Partially my fault for allowing closing to go through before they were out of there. I’m going to plead detrimental reliance however, since our own realtor assured us this guy was a well established contractor with a sterling reputation, and a virtual pillar of the community (huge town of 3600 there, lol).
Side Note: Trying to translate from Legalese to English, detrimental reliance in this case means the victim followed the bad advice of an expert professional on a given matter. Such as an electrician telling you it’s OK to stick a fork in an electrical outlet, with wet hands no less. A few other circumstances apply but it’s essentially malpractice for professionals other than doctors and lawyers.
Then when we got a chance to thoroughly look the place over, the exterior windows (all but two of them were unsealed on the outside. One of them even had ivy growing into the gap. Personally, I can’t believe I missed all of that either. I saw new windows, and new looking bricks with clean, well formed mortar though. I didn’t think I had to worry about if he’d finished the job and fully sealed the exterior of the windows:
He also left two holes in the exterior walls where the old, in-kitchen hook up for the washer and dryer used to be:
Fortunately, I have many talents:
It’s actually amazing what one can do with a YouTube video or two and simply RTFM 😉
Yes, that’s patched with actual concrete for a proper, similar materials patch. Same with the smaller nearby hole that I patched. There are other, smaller holes that I still need to patch though. These two holes were hidden behind furniture and boxes to deliberately conceal them.
OH, I forgot to mention that the sellers failed to inform us of a roach infestation as well. When they finally got out, and we went to look at the place, the house reeked of cheap carpet shampoo and roach spray. There were dead roaches all over the carpet also. Unfortunately, this area only requires disclosure of wood destroying pests. Ergo there’s not much we can do on that specific one. Despite apparently cleaning the carpets, they also managed to leave the house filthy. Even the aforementioned carpets don’t feel anywhere near clean.
What really set me off regarding the entire situation is that when the violations of the closing contract came to light, EVERYONE involved with the transaction (including our own agent) just threw up their hands and said “oh well”. They got their money, so they don’t care. Take advantage of my good nature and risk my possible wrath. Rub it in my face that you did so, and guaranteed it’s going to get ugly. So, I’ve spent the last two weeks going through real estate laws and building codes online at night after working on the house all day. What have I found, you ask?
Well, first the renovated bathroom, all the exterior windows, the new side door, the new electrical panel (circuit breaker box), and hell maybe even the new-ish A/C system were all done without the required building permits. The holes in the wall, the unfinished windows, the improperly wired / switched out electrical outlets (along with several other things) are all building code violations. Digging into some of the outlets to check the wiring turned up things like this:
That’s the hired electrician sitting there, staring in disbelief
Yes, that’s gravel pouring out of the outlet. I wasn’t sure what to make of that at first, but a little research turned up that cinder block walls sometimes use “aggregate” (pebble) material as insulation in the hollow center portion of the block. This jabroni doesn’t even know how to keep the crap out of the ‘gang box’ for the electrical outlets though. I found jury-rigged, mismatched and spliced together wire in other outlet boxes and wood chips from the wood paneling in others. The electrician that looked over the house recommended a whole house rewire. The previous owner also left uncapped gas lines where he had his grill tied into the house gas system, where there was a gas powered space heater that he removed and where the dryer was.
Sooooo… long story short, we went from something that could have been settled easily with a “My bad, we ran out of time. Take care of it and send me the bill”, to escalating this up to the point where I’m out for blood. We’re going to sue the previous owner for breach of contract, fraud and misrepresentation. I’m also going to do everything I can to get his contracting license, and that of his electrician friend, pulled for the building code violations and fraudulent work order as well. Oh yes, and go after his realtor for the same reasons as well as acting in bad faith. Somebody’s losing their real estate license or is at least going to end up with one hell of a fine to the state department of real estate and Realtor’s Association.
SICK Cat Too…
And if all that wasn’t enough… One of our two cats got really sick and turns out to have a massive internal cyst in her abdomen area which will require surgery. The HIGHLY reputable vet hospital (extreme sarcasm noted, I hope)only took $1500 dollars to make the diagnosis of a cyst. We haven’t even gotten to treatment yet.
So yeah… It’s been a hell of a month. And there’s no resolution in sight for ANY of it yet…
A friend recently posted in her blog about “letting it go”. Normally good advice but…
OK, it’s been a long while since I’ve write anything here. As usual, reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated though. 😀
I’ve had a TON going on at a personal level. Most of it I’m still debating if or how much to tell. On a bigger front, the house sale went through two days ago now, and I have been up to my armpits in projects. The previous owner left the place utterly filthy and we even found roaches. They took past closing to get out also. We were nice and gave them an extra day but they made zero progress packing. At that point we hit them with a $500 a day fee to stay and miraculously they were out of there like greased lightning.
Aside, from the dirt, grease and roaches, they also hid an old dryer vent hole in an exterior wall behind a bunch of crap. We have to patch that…
They also lied about claiming to have several bad electrical outlets in the house repaired. The outlets work, but the ground side of the outlets tests bad. The seller *apparently* had a contractor friend forge a work order saying the work was done, and apparently didn’t think we’d come behind and test them ourselves.
Well… As a wise president once said:
We’ve got the home inspector returning for a reinspection later today. Once it’s in writing that nothing was done, there’s going to be hell to pay. We’ve got a contractor that willfully and deliberately committed fraud to aid the seller in fraudulent representation of the condition of the house, and they both lied on legal documents. Fraud in the inducement.
So, to paraphrase Patrick Swayze… It was time to be nice, NOW it’s time to NOT be nice. It’s not like we redheads are evil though…
Beyond that, there’s a bajillion projects to do. I’ll document the progress as time allows. 😉
I’m LONG overdue for a food post here, and even this meal was a week ago this evening.
For those who have been following long enough, AND actually reading (RARE), you’ll recall that last weekend was my 2 year anniversary. Thankfully, it was SLIGHTLY less hectic than the actual day.
We had family over and I cooked a big meal for everyone. MOST of it turned out too.
First was homemade Tex-Mex guacamole with tortilla chips as an appetizer:
The main course was Ribeye steaks, slow smoked on the Rec-Tec and then reverse seared on the Weber charcoal grill:
There’s some (turkey) bacon on the top rack that was going to be chopped up and added to the steamed green beans but…
It’s hard to see from the pic, but some of the green beans were bad and turned brown while steaming. So, the beans went into the trash and the bacon got saved for later.
Luckily I had another vegetable in the works at the same time, a combination dish really. I took zucchini and yellow summer squash, sliced them into rounds, seasoned them with a little salt, pepper, garlic, oregano and rosemary, then topped them with Parmigiano Reggiano.
I’ve said it many times but it bears repeating; Parmigiano Reggiano is WORLDS better then plain old Parm cheese and Infinitely better than the gunk in the green can.
The basic recipe i found online just said to go with the cheese only but I knew a light bit of seasoning would help also. Once you throw the cheese on, just bake at 425 (or 218 degees C) until the cheese turns golden. Oh yes, cut the veggies 1/4 inch or .635 cm thickness. The summer squash turns out a little watery, but everybody loved both:
I also had some sliced baby potatoes for a carb:
Oh and if you’re wondering how those steaks turned out:
That’s as close to I got to a picture of a fully plated meal. It kept saying “Eat Me”, so I put down the phone and did. 😀
BUT… Then There was Dessert:
And this was a bear. The core of the dessert was individual sized, double chocolate mini bundt cakes. It took 3 tries to get cakes that would come out of the molds properly, and I had to thicken the batter almost to the point of being brownies:
BUT, we weren’t done there, nooooo. Next I took some Godiva chocolate, and melted it into a ganash, topped the cakes with Mayfield Cookies and Cream ice cream, and then drizzled the ganash all over them:
We ate good, and I think I’m turning my in-laws off the local restaurants with the quality of my cooking, lol.
This post inspired by our battle with our own bed and Sleep Number’s customer non-service department.
Image from Businesswire.com
As you doubtless guessed from my opening and previous post about sleep quality, I have some real gripes here. I’m going to be fair and talk about the pluses we experienced while we owned the bed also. It’s probably easiest to work through things in a chronological order.
We started out looking for a new bed about 5 1/2 years ago when my back was probably at it’s worst, or at least during one of several truly bad points over the years. The advertised fact that the bed could adjust to conform to the needs of a sleeper, and even that sleeper’s changing sleep needs was a powerful selling point for us. You could make it firmer or softer if you had a physically demanding day, etc…
Resting on the bed at the store, it was just as comfortable as a foam mattress like a Tempur-Pedic, but seemed to adapt and support even better as our sleep numbers were dialed in. And that’s the trick; Sleep Number beds are great when you first buy them.
Purchase is where we hit our first snag or grumble though. When you see the commercials and they say “Only X Dollars”, they’re only talking about only the mattress assembly itself. The base costs more, with an adjustable base potentially more than doubling the cost of the bed. Then there’s the topper that goes on top of the air chambers. The more plush or heat dispersing you go, the price goes up, but the topper is disguised as a different model number. “Oh no, the super plush cooling top? That’s our i12 model, not this i8… It’s much more.”
To be fair, the vast majority of manufacturers of numerous products play the “different model” game. Even with other bed manufacturers though, there’s more of a difference in material construction than with a Sleep Number bed. Many of those beds won’t cost you upwards of $3000 out the door either.
Sleep Number Construction:
Let’s get into how the bed is made so that we can actually start talking about where the real problems begin.
Above is our (former) Sleep Number bed. It was a little over 5 years old when we got rid of it. That is about the shelf life for a poor to middle quality inner-coil spring traditional mattress. The reason we bought this bed though is that it came with a 20 year pro-rated warranty. We figured in the end, we’d come out ahead vs buying 3 or 4 supposedly lesser quality beds over that same time period.
If you notice above, the topper or “pillow top” already looks pretty shabby in terms of holding it’s shape, particularly on the right side. The problem is that the topper is primarily just cheap foam:
It’s got the sleep number logo all over it though, so that must make it high end, right? LOL.
Aside from that foam, there’s about 3/4 of an inch (1.9cm) of not very dense or supportive padding in the upper casing. The problem with the foam is that it loses support without you even realizing it IF you’re only judging it’s condition based on it returning to a normal shape after you get off of it.
As a side note, this is an issue I have with Tempur-Pedic; to get warranty replacement of their mattresses, the foam has to show a full 1 inch (2.4cm) of sag or indentation before they’ll replace it, per some internet sources. Foam, even high quality stuff like Tempur-Pedic uses, loses support well before it shows that kind of sag.
Same problem with our topper there. It looked OK if you unzip it, but NO support. Why does that matter? Because the rest of the bed is a glorified air mattress:
Or in the case of our Queen sized bed, two air mattresses connected via a zipper so there’s no gap in the center. This allows each side of the bed to be adjusted to varying firmness levels independent of the other side. If you’re wondering, the construction there is a combination of cloth and some vinyl-like material. Not much different from a decent quality camping air mattress that you’d buy from a department store.
Needless to say, the potential for leaks is there. Unlike those camping air mattresses, these held pressure pretty well up till our move out here from California. More on that in a minute or so.
Oh and of you’re wondering, YES, that IS just a foam block border around the air mattress, on all four sides. The outer fabric shell is primarily what holds the bed together. NOW, for the sake of being complete, here’s what’s under the air chambers:
First, we have about 3/4 of an inch of more foam to act as padding for the air chambers. THEN we have the bottom of the outer shell, secured to the adjustable base via four bolts anchoring wide plastic hold downs:
As you can see, it’s a fairly simple design overall. The air bags provide the firmness level of each side of the bed, and the topper helps the bed conform to your body and feel softer than a basic air mattress would. The hold downs keep the mattress from going anywhere while the adjustable base is in anything other than a flat position.
The air pump’s hoses hook into the head of the air mattress, and keep the mattresses at the desired setting, at least in theory.
Our Actual Problems:
Aside from the topper’s foam wearing out without us being fully aware of it (the air chamber softness can make this harder to notice than with an all foam mattress), the big problem was with air pressure. Customer (Non) Service as well, as you’re about to read.
Twice in the last 4 months we’ve had my side of the bed alternate between not holding pressure and just slowly being completely random in what it would be. I might go to bed at my ideal sleep number, wake up 2 hours later and have the pressure maxed out, and the next time I wake up, it could be nearly flat. This played hell with my back and neck as well as my already very poor sleep quality.
The first time, we called Sleep Number’s corporate customer service. We got told that we could throw parts blindly at it, OR have somebody come out and diagnose the bed. That would cost $100 though. Cheaper than just guessing and going through a pile of parts, right? We went that route.
It took a week and a half for them to get somebody out. We were stuck on our old inner spring guest bed during that time.
Two young guys that barely look out of high school show up, unzip the topper from the main body and take a quick look at the mattress, looking lost the entire time. They call the same 800 number we did, and talk to corporate. Perhaps unknown to corporate, we can hear the other end of the conversation, and they tell the kids to just label it the air chambers and get on to the next call. They sounded quite annoyed that the kids seemed to want to actually do the diagnosis we paid for.
Unsure what to do at the moment due to fatigue and not knowing how to check the other parts ourselves, we throw up our hands and say “fine”.
Here’s the kicker for this first call: Not only did we get charged $100 for a diagnosis that was nothing more than a blind guess, our 20 year pro-rated discount price for the new air chambers was another $200! Being pro-rated and only 25% of the way through our warranty, that means the parts should have been 75% off. MEANING, Sleep Number prices their air chambers at $800 MSRP.
The replacement parts order was also botched, and when we called back a day or two later, the order had never even been placed. THEN it took almost two weeks for the new air chambers to arrive. Yes, if you’re doing the math, that’s a month without the high priced bed. We also told them we’d install the new parts ourselves (it’s really pretty simple). Another three or four weeks later, Sleep Number has two new guys knocking on our door at the crack of dawn saying they were here to install the new parts we’d ordered.
SO, if we’d waited for them that would have been almost two months with no bed.
We put everything together though, and for a short while everything seemed OK. We figured that MAYBE the fluctuations in air pressure were caused by the pump trying to compensate (poorly) for a previous leak and we were good.
Three months later, we were back exactly where we were before.
THIS time, I spend a couple of days online researching things. YouTube and other review sites have several irate reviews about the pump systems on these beds being complete crap, and Sleep Number allegedly deliberately making them that way so they can sell a steady stream of replacement parts.
The crappy pump in question
Between the cost of the parts last time, realizing finally that the topper is worn out also, and feeling very burnt over the diagnostic fee, we had enough. We figured we’d be paying the same inflated prices for a replacement pump and topper, AND that we’d have NO idea how long before those parts or something else gave out again. That was when we opted to replace instead of repair.
Sleep IQ and Questions of Privacy:
Another thing to consider with a Sleep Number bed is their “Sleep IQ” phone app. First, the app is going to want access to quite a bit of your phone’s system. It’s also not just tracking your sleep via pressure sensors in the pump, it’s reporting that info back to Sleep Number’s computers. It will also pressure you to allow the app to monitor your wi-fi enabled thermostat, “to help avoid you sleeping hot or cold”.
All in all, there’s a ton of data about your sleep habits, sleep schedule, and home energy usage, along with God only knows what else from the other phone permissions, that the app data-mines and reports back to Sleep Number. I guarantee you that info is getting sold to third party marketers.
Since the app also claims to stop snoring by detecting it and elevating the upper portion of the bed, one can assume that the app is also using your phone as a listening device. How else is it going to detect snoring after all? Tossing and turning might be detectable via minor, brief changes in air pressure, but snoring??
Needless to say, we never installed the app. WAY too “Big Brother” for us.
Final Thoughts:
First, let me be fair: Our Sleep Number bed was pretty comfortable when we got it. It really helped with my back. MY big issue with the bed is the lack of long term quality and the piss-poor customer service with the company at the corporate level. When one pays a premium for a product, it’s naturally expected that performance and longevity will above average, ideally well above average.
Most fair, independent review sites will show that the Sleep Number bed is at the top of the charts for long term cost of ownership with beds. Even the custom fitted sheets designed to stay put on the unusual construction and movable base are around $250 for a queen set. Sleep Number is as much in business to sell you parts as they are an actual bed.
As you can see from the pictures above, the bed is really just an air mattress surrounded by foam as well. Nothing that justifies a nearly $4000 price tag for the newest models. In short, in my opinion, not only is the quality not there to justify the price, it’s long term costs are too high, AND the combination of foam and air mattress also make it hard to recognize when some parts are wearing out.
It’s also pretty lousy for sex as well. Too much give, and neither side is intended to support the weight of two people.
Buy ANYTHING else, but save your money here. It’s not worth the aggravation.
Before anybody panics, I’m taking the words literally, NOT metaphorically as Hamlet did. 🙂
image from thetalko.com
I’ve been meaning to get back to writing here for over a week, but lack of sleep… or quality sleep rather, was doing a number on me. I didn’t realize how bad the problem was, or how much it was contributing to my brain fog until our Sleep Number bed broke for the second time in a few months.
The air pressure was unstable on my side of the bed, resulting in it going from too firm to too soft and back multiple times a night. I’m going to do a separate post detailing the workings of a Sleep Number bed, and why they’re a bad buy in my opinion. For the moment, suffice it to say we got fed up and went shopping for a new bed over the Fourth of July weekend. Yay for sales that commercialize and monetize a holiday celebrating freedom. Sarcasm duly noted, I hope.
We tried different manufacturers and models, and ALL of them felt better than our old bed, which convinced us we were making the right choice to replace vs repair. We decided on a Purple brand Model 4 mattress, with Tempurpedic coming in a close second. The Purple brand had better lower back support, although the Tempurpedic with the new cooling technology was a bit cooler (I sleep HOT).
Purple 4 mattress deconstructed. Image from Sleepsherpa.com
We got the new bed yesterday afternoon, and last night was probably the best night’s sleep I’ve had in YEARS, if not my life. I’m not ready to outright endorse the mattress YET. It’s expensive, and I want to see how it’s going to do over time. I’ll keep reporting on it occasionally however.
Quality, REM sleep time was off the charts for me though, and I awakened feeling mentally and physically recharged. I expect to be doing a good deal more writing in immediate future if I keep getting this level of rest. 🙂
Those of you who think that you’re managing some sort of life hack by cheating yourself on sleep, especially quality REM sleep… You’d be amazed how much better you feel with REAL sleep. A saw has to be sharpened regularly to work at it’s best (as Stephen Covey liked to point out). Your mind and body are exactly the same in that regard.
Silk Chatters 