Just One of the Things My Husband Does

This is off-the-beaten-path of all my previous blogs. If you've read them, you will notice that my husband, Matt, appears in all of them. Today, August 28th, 2014 we are celebrating our 10-year anniversary! I can say, with certainty, that I married better than I deserve! He takes prodigious care of me, and I love him more than I can say!

There is one thing though, that used to bother me. He snores from time to time. He has told me that if his snoring wakes me, I can wake him up and ask him to roll over. Which is really kind of him, I know. And I used to do that, I don't any more. The "Why of it" follows.

In the summer of 2010 we went to Hong Kong on a missions trip. It was quite a growing experience for both of us, but the biggest change in me, toward him, also happened there. We were assigned rooms by our host group, and the rooms had bunk beds. The comparable American size bed on top was smaller than a twin and the bottom wasn't quite a double, maybe a twin plus 6 inches in width. Matt is 6' 4" the bed was almost that long. He had to sleep corner to corner or "Cattywampus". Even if I could fit in the bed, the temperatures were in the 90s with 90% humidity. Even if there was room for me there's no way to sleep together in that.

I slept in the top bunk. It was my first group mission trip and, believe it or not, sleeping separately is the one thing I needed to prepared myself for, but didn't. This was the first time we'd slept in the same room in different beds. It was mind-blowing, as I look back on it, how devastated I was by this aspect of the trip.

The days were grueling, and by the night I was exhausted. I was homesick, a bit emotional and by the third night I was so irritated by Matt's snoring that I was about to get up and tell him to roll over. And then it hit me... Matt is here, in this room, with me. I can hear his snoring, just like at home. Comfort and peace washed over me. I realized that there may come a day, when I no longer hear his snoring and I'll wish I could hear it one last time to know that he's with me.

To this day, when his snoring wakes me up, it makes me smile. I love hearing it. I usually tear up before I drift off to sleep. It reminds me too, that there are so many wives that can no longer hear their husbands snore.

I am truly blessed when my husband snores!

Battle of the Box

It's been a while since I've blogged about this quest to Reformat our Lives, but people are asking me, "How's it going?". So I'm jumping back in, with the bane of my current existence - My cat's Litter Box!

Everyone in the family had to downsize, including the cat. His name is Slate and his old litter box was HUGE! 

Check out this blog I found about the old (Wonderful, Magnificent, Fabulous) litter box we used to have.

It was the best litter box EVER!

Those days are gone for all of us, Slate too, and he's making me pay for it!

We have a very small area for his new litter box in our main floor bathroom. I thought it would be cool to turn an old piece of garage sale furniture into a new, two-story, food dish/litter box, much like the fellow bloggers pic above.

I started with a piece of furniture.

 

I needed to add a back - I chose bead board. I chose wrong!

My original intent was to cut a hole in the shelf and insert the litter pan into it. Cut a hole in the side for entry. It seemed simple enough. Then the suggestion came up to put the litter on the shelf and the food underneath with a hole in the shelf to go between. I was concerned about over-spray on the wood (By the cat) and bought RedGuard. 

It dries pink.

Wow, is it expensive! I should have stopped right there. The expense, not the product. It was four times the cost of the piece of furniture itself!

Fast forward to the finished product (Painted everything white)... and the cat was constantly peeing over the edge of the box! I was cleaning up a mess almost every day. The RedGuard worked perfect and the smell never lingered since it wasn't making it to the wood, but the lines on the bead board had the pee running down. It was a complete mess!

We removed the furniture (leaving the litter box) and put the food on top of the clothes dryer. The cat still pees over the edge of the box and I'm so frustrated!

It's time to think outside of the box and into "The Bubble". It was a huge splurge, but we got a Litter-Robot!

Slate has no idea what's in store for him in that box!

Once we decided to get the Robot, Matt went to work. He was determined that we wouldn't pay full price ($389 - Bubble Model).

• He called the company and asked if they would give us a 10% discount since they have offered that in the past. No go, said the company. 
• There were no coupon codes that worked.

Then the weird question was asked of me, "Is Skymall real?"

•  Skymall.com was offering 15% off to new customers! BINGO (Maybe).

For those of you who don't know, Skymall is that ridiculously over-priced catalog available on airplanes that you've always wanted to order something out of, but didn't because of the "ridiculously over-priced" aspect.

It was listed on Skymall at $359.99, then you add shipping, $36.35. You end up over list at $396.24. Ugh! But wait, there's 15% off to new customers! When we ended up at check-out, I'm not sure how it all worked out, but with shipping and tax and any other additional fees they tacked on we ended up paying $366. Yes, that's still a ton of money on a litter box, but I'm at my wits end. The constant clean-up is driving me crazy.

There is a 90-day money back guarantee if we can't get him to use it - as long as you keep all the label protectors on - so we'll see how it goes.

2016 update - Skymall has gone out of business (Not because of us).