In Other News....

No, I'm not much better. I'll be sad a long time. The house felt so empty today. It really struck me how much Gidget influenced the vibe, the energy, whatever you want to call it. She wasn't noisy or intrusive or anything but a sweet, smart little dog, but damn, she had presence, even when she was snoring in her bed in my office while I worked. Her absence is felt so much.

Eddie went to the groomer today, and the groomer, who has been grooming my dogs for, damn, 13 years? Hugged me, and again I had to try not to cry when she said how much she loved Gidget and how she was truly a special dog. She lost her dog to a random cancer too, and yeah, it sucks so very much. 

Eddie is of course a joy, but he's adjusting too. It's really noticeable in the morning. We had a morning routine - I turn on the coffee maker, the dogs go out for o-dark-thirty morning walks. We come in and I get coffee and they get treaties. 

For the last few days, Eddie was at sea. He didn't know what he was supposed to do at first. Are there still treaties? I had to tell him yes, he gets morning treats! She was his leader, all nine pounds of few teeth and deafness and cataracts, she was small and in charge, and now he has to figure it out. We both do.

Anyway, in other news...

My new bed was delivered last week, while the world came crashing down. I didn't actually get an uninterrupted night's sleep until the weekend. 

Damn, I love this bed! Yes, it was expensive, but the best money I've spent in forever! I have a sleep app on my Apple watch (not the one included in Health, this one is more detailed) and I now have days of evidence that my sleep has vastly improved, even with the sadness and stress. 

My app has a bar graph of sleep, it shows restful, restless, and interrupted. My bar graph was always colorful, basically half restful (darker blue), half broken (lighter blue), with some interruptions (shown in red) - all three colors were always represented, in little stripes. My resting heart rate wasn't restful, it's now much lower. I honestly had no idea how that ancient bed (and then the Fail Bed) was fucking up my sleep. It was bad, and now I have evidence of how bad. 

If you have sleep issues, don't assume it's your subconscious or your diet or your chakras aren't aligned or whatever. They may be a problem too, but your first suspect should be your bed. 

Now I get enormous stretches of restful sleep, with the occasional and totally normal moments of restless, like a flicker here and there. No interrupted sleep, for the first time in forever.  So, definitely money well spent.