FitBit and Sleep

I wear my FitBit all the time, including at night.  It has a neat little feature for tracking sleep and heart rate along with steps, mileage and calorie burn.  Every day, I check the previous night's sleep pattern.  And overall, I'm getting just over seven and a half hours each night.  The goal of course is eight hours, but that works.  However, age has a funny way of it, because those 7+ hours are not all in a row.  They're interrupted by bathroom dashes and let-the-dog-out's.  And the usual tossing and turning that occur as well.  

Because I've been wearing it nearly 2 years, there's a lot of data to digest.  I know that I sleep better in winter than in summer.  Part of the reason has to do with blankets.  As a kid, my mom made me a hand made quilt.  I'm not sure what was inside, but it was a heavy quilt.  I like to think it "grounded" me -- or at the very least, held me in place so that I'd sleep.  And in winter here, I put a good heavy blanket on my bed for that very same reason.

Have I mentioned I'm ready for this heat wave to end??   Hurry up, September!

I find that I can somewhat simulate winter sleeping by lowering my thermostat to 74 degrees (yes, for us in the desert, that can be quite chilly, we reach for a sweater or light jacket when it reaches 70. haha)  Another thing that helps is I keep a squirt bottle of water nearby, soak my jammie shirt and hair, let the AC and the fan cool me down and I get another "chunk" of sleep.  

But the one factor I haven't been able to control are dreams.  I dream very vividly, I remember many of them, sometimes enough of them to be able to share.  Last night, I dreamed I was in a BigBox store, and a crew of us were painting walls.  One of the gals from my last store in Ohio was there, as was another gal from my first store in Ohio (odd to be dreaming of people I haven't seen in 10+ years!)  We were laughing and joking, rolling paint on the walls.  A quick break in the cafeteria and as we were leaving, a man with a gun in the far corner of the room stood up and hollered "Freeze!"  The girls dashed out in front of me, I was slowed a bit because I was trying to close the glass doors when he fired.  I heard the shot ring out as it hit the frame of the door.  I ran fast, dashed into a bathroom.  Waited until I heard some hollering, and slipped out quietly.  The doors to outside were just across the foyer, and as I dashed out, there were stairs all the way to the street.  The front of the building looked as if it were the steps to a fancy courthouse or something.   I'm not sure what happened with the shooter, or who he really was, as that's when I woke up.  *smh*  Such crazy weird thoughts that tumble around in my crazy weird brain! 

My FitBit showed that I was asleep for 3 hours, 14 minutes in this segment of my sleep, and with that amount, I should have felt quite rested this morning!   But then again, dreams can make you feel very tired the next day, as if it had truly happened!  

Of course, I like to try and figure out what a dream might mean:  

• To dream that someone is shooting you with a gun suggests that you are experiencing some confrontation in your waking life. You feel victimized in a situation or that you are being targeted.

Of course, my question is this:   Does it make a difference if you know the shooter?   If you can identify the person?  

• The colors in your dream of decorating are important and have various meanings. For example, if you are painting white walls then this shows how you can be pure and selfless. If the walls are painted in yellow, this represents self-pity. Decorating in blue means easy-going feelings. If you dream of decorating with paint rather than wallpaper, it usually means that things are going to become difficult with a close relative.

The source goes on about decorating or painting a house, furniture, yourself ... but doesn't mention anything about work related painting.  It was baby blue paint ... does that mean I have easy going feelings about work???   I don't think so!   And something going to become difficult with a close relative... well, duh, as I get older, so do my relatives and ... yeah, things get difficult with age! 

So much for trying to have an overall interpretation.  I can make several guesses as to the dream source and what it's trying to tell me.   And I can tell you this for certain:  If I'm ever involved in some kind of painting at work, you can be sure I won't be sticking around to see if this dream comes true!!!   hahahaha

Painting!

So nice to relax after a weekend full of workin' on the house!   I got a "bug up my butt" and headed to Home Depot after work Friday and bought a gallon of paint.  When I woke up Saturday, I got out into the backyard and started painting.  It went faster than I anticipated, but it was still quite a project!   The second coat had to go on Sunday morning, but now that it's done.... ahhhhhh.   It's amazing what a coat of paint can do to spruce things up!
















The window and french door trims are painted in "Bleached Spinnaker" - sort of a light cream with a hint of sage.  The walls are a sandy shade called "Casual Khaki".   Both are a satin finish, and in the right light, there's a sheen, but not a shine.   Perfectly suits me!



What makes me a little disappointed is that I didn't get in very many steps this weekend.  I was up and down the step ladder, but that doesn't seem to count up in miles very fast!   I'm sure it will show on the scale on Weds, so I'll have to up my game on Mon and Tues.



Work in progress, the old color on the left below the window..... I can't be sure how long ago this was painted - I'm thinking it hasn't been painted since it was built?  Perhaps once but many years ago!  Because the boards are so rough, I brushed the paint on by hand.







Finished today,
and I'm happy with results!










One reason why I like "hands on" so much when it comes to doing things on the house is because of the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".  When we touch things, fix things, we leave a little piece of ourselves behind, a little piece of our soul stays with our works.

“The way to see what looks good 

and understand the reasons it looks good, 

and to be at one with this goodness as the work proceeds, 

is to cultivate an inner quietness, 

a peace of mind so that goodness can shine through.” 

― Robert M. Pirsig, 

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Kitchen Changes

After living in my house for more than two years, I am finally at a point where I want, and need, to decide about the kitchen cabinets.  The baseboards and kitchen are the two things that didn't get painted before I moved in, and lately have begun to paint around the baseboards.   Funny how you don't realize how many there are until you are down on your hands and knees, getting them painted!

My kitchen is L-shaped, and yes, somewhat boring and awkward in its placement, so the color scheme can't be too far off the rest of the look of the house.  The open ceiling plan means the rooms need to flow together, as there are no good breaking points for paint colors to stop and start.  It's taken me forever to find an idea on how I want to do this.  And after hours and hours of perusing the internet, I think I've finally stumbled on to a plan.

As you can see in this picture, 
the lower cabinets are darker 
than the upper cabinets. 
I like that a lot.






Here's my kitchen as it looked before I moved in... the main back wall is now a creamy beige.  (Isn't it funny how it looks so much bigger before all your stuff is there??)

Here are the colors I'm leaning towards right now.  The darker tan on the bottom, the lighter on top.  The red is an accent color that may or may not fit in to the scheme, depending on how it looks after the cabinets are painted.  there are some very small half inch trim boards across the top of my cabinets that may look good with that red trim across it....  Gotta love experimenting!

 

 Thoughts?  Ideas?  Opinions?