Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Here it is mid-November, and it is finally getting cold. 'They', the local weather reporters, are saying that we can kiss warm weather good-bye and finally welcome some cooler temps. We were beginning to think that wearing shorts and flip-flops were going to be our normal attire, here! Yesterday, it was 71 degrees outside, breaking records for high temperatures in the Salt Lake Valley. By last night the winds kicked up and brought in the Alaskan flow of cold air, dropping us down 40 degrees! Tonight, as I type, the temp is 31 degrees outside. Now if only we could get some rain with that, we would have us some snow!

So, as we wait for the cold nights to settle in, we have the challenge of getting used to a new mattress. This will be our fifth attempt at finding one that provides us with the comfort we would like to dream about, if only it weren't so elusive! In our (choke, choke) advancing ages, our aches and pains are increasingly so bad that to get a good night's sleep is becoming what we want for Christmas...forget the teeth, stuff!

Aaron had mentioned to Steve about the memory foam-type mattress that he had slept on at a hotel and it provided him with the best night's sleep he has had. Then one of Steve's workmates told him the same thing. So, it was off to Costco to buy the memory foam mattress and pillows. It took Steve all day to readjust the bed frame to hold the mattress and it took over an hour for the mattress to remember how to come back to full life after having been tortuorously rolled and bagged and put into a box the size of a trunk. (The boxed mattress was so heavy that Steve and I were barely able to get in up the stairs into our house!)

It was with a bit of trepidation and distrust that we crawled into bed that night. The first thing that I found out is that I could no longer sit on the edge of the bed. My bum began to sink and slide off the bed because the edge disappeared under my weight. This means no more sleeping on the edge of the bed, which is my habit. So, getting into bed can no longer be a lingering experience! Wherever you rest, you sink!

So, we quickly and gingerly scooted our bodies into the areas of the mattress which we felt was the safest, which was toward the middle. That was a mistake, too, because the bed had been folded and rolled up, the main fold having been in the center of the mattress. This meant that the middle of the bed seemed to be fuller and higher than the rest of it. So, not only did we slowly sink but we sank a bit sideways because of the uneven distribution of the mattress foam.

Now that we were in bed and sinking down to a depth that created a mold of our bodies, we discovered that to change positions, we must now throw our bodies into rolling over with a new and heightened intensity. It bought back memories from the days of the water bed except the mattress does not go into a convulsionof waves afterward. After much experimenting with finding 'just the right position' we finally settled in, literally, relaxing, taking in the odd sensation of being half-enveloped by foam! It was actually a cozy feeling. And a side benefit of sleeping below the surface of the mattress, is that there are no side drafts; a plus now that the temps have dropped outside.

Now, I bet you want to know how we are adjusting to our new mattress? Well, believe it or not, it seems to really help diminish much of our body pain. I have not had any pain at night now for three nights. Last night, Steve, slept so soundly that he did not even move, as evidenced by his hair that stood up on one side of his head while the other was undisturbed when he woke up! It is still an odd sensation to feel like you are slowly sinking to the underside of the bed when you first get in but, thus far, we have always stopped at the first floor and not the basement! And a side benefit is that the mattress does not squeak which means that I can sneak out of bed and not wake Steve up doing so. All this to say, that the memory foam is not a bad way to go if you are in the market for a mattress. However, realize that though you may be able to return the mattress if you don't like it, you will not be able to. It is so heavy and cumbersome that in order to move it off the bed, you will have to take a chain saw to it and move it in pieces! There is no way you will be able to refold and squish it back in the box it exploded from! It gives new meaning to 'Life-time guarantee'!!