Every once in a while, (and I do mean rarely here), I get the urge to do something productive that will benefit me. Well, okay, let’s be honest. I did it partly for Taz and Cally, but also for my sanity.
There’s a common misconception out there that blind people are organized because they have to be so that they can find things. Well, that’s not necessarily true. Blind people are no more, or no less organized than sighted people. And, admittedly, I’m no exception. Then, there’s the difference between dirty and cluttered. I like to surround myself with “stuff”. I’m not, by any means, a neat freak, and I don’t think I ever will be. i’ve tried, but it just never works. This is how I’ve always been, and it’s just a part of me. I’m not, however, dirty. In fact, I can’t even stand having my hands dirty for very long so I couldn’t stand living day after day with dirt.
Every once in a while though, I get this urge to make a change. Long-time readers of my blog will remember that sometime back in late September or early October my computer and other equipment was moved into our second bedroom, and the room was converted into my office. But, in addition to being my office it is still partly a bedroom. It’s cramped, with a table, my desk, and my poor broken-down braille embosser along one wall, my 11-year-old TV that I bought just before I graduated from high school in front of the windows, and a queen-size bed and a small refrigerator that I had with me since the one semester I lived in the dorm after high school along the third wall. The fourth wall is a closet and the door to the room. So, between the desk and the bed is a very narrow path, which is usually taken up with my desk chair. So yes, it’s rather full. And yes, I still do intend to use this as a guest room when people come to visit. SMILE!
Anyway, there is a point to all of this. When I moved all my stuff in here I also found cable long enough to hook up the TV for cable. It was the only room that wasn’t connected, and the jack was just sitting there calling to me, telling me that it wanted to be used. Four out of four cable jacks in this apartment are now full, but that’s another story. I hooked up the TV figuring that I’d be in here enough and having the cable would be a good thing. I figured that I’d be able to lay down during the day, be in the room with my computer and my business phone, and watch TV when I wasn’t working. It was a great idea in theory, and it worked for a while. Lately though, the bed started to become a storage center for all my junk. If we didn’t know where else to put it, it went on the bed. There were two large cardboard boxes that took up quite a bit of space, and Cally considered one of them to be her bed. She’d curl up in there and sleep for hours. Taz on the other hand would shove things off the side of the bed and make his place at the head, close to the windows. Between all this “stuff”, I didn’t have any room for me. I got sick of sitting in my chair all the time, so I started carrying around two cordless phones; one business and one home, so that I could sit in other rooms and watch TV or whatever. This was okay, but there have been times when I’ve really wanted to lay down in here. And, a lot of times if I can’t sleep at night I come out and sleep on the recliner because then I’m not laying flat and can usually breathe better. Sometimes though, I just want to spread out, or I get pushed out of bed by one or both of the cats, and think it would be nice to have an alternative option.
So, this evening, I came in here, turned on the TV, and shut myself in. I cleaned off the bed and cleared a path to the fridge. Then, Jim helped by putting sheets on the bed. I am now sitting here with the ceiling fan going above my head, enjoying the fact that I can, (at least for the time being), move around the room, sleep on the bed, and access the things I’ve got in the fridge. My goal is to keep it this way.
One thing I know for sure is that the bed absolutely can not be used for storage anymore. It’s actually an air bed, similar to the select comfort beds that cost thousands of dollars. However, I’m cheap, so I won’t, (and can’t) pay that much for a bed. I found this bed on accident while I was looking for a replacement for what we had a couple of years ago. This bed came complete with frame, matress, duel channel pump, and a layer of memory foam for the mattress. I like a soft bed and Jim likes a firm bed. And, back in the summer of 1995 I was hit by a car and my left hip sometimes likes to act up now, so being able to adjust the firmness of the bed has become really important to me. We originally bought one of these beds from WalMart, but we liked it so much that a couple of months later we bought a second one for our bedroom. They’re made by Body Impressions. They’ve been great. Unfortunately, in putting all sorts of strange things on the bed, I managed to create a couple of tears in the memory foam layer. I noticed when I unzipped the mattress liner to check to see that the foam was still centered on the mattress. I was quite shocked to see that this part had started to rip. I don’t want to cause any further damage to the bed, so, as Jim so aptly put it, the only thing we’re going to store on the bed from now on are humans.
Anyway, I’ve really rambled tonight, and I’m going to do the unthinkable since it’s getting so late. I’m actually going to post an entry without spell-checking and proof-reading it! I absolutely never do that, but I’m tired, and I think Jim’s all ready in bed. Oh, and one of the cats just made a mess by knocking something over. I’m out of here! I’ll proof-read in the morning and repost if necessary.
Update:
Well, I did make a couple of changes, and now I’m much happier with this entry. It helps that I feel almost human again myself. SMILE!!!
