You’ll find this hard to believe, I know, but I did something a bit… silly.
When I set my mind to accomplishing a task, I am loath to admit defeat.
Pig-headed it may be called.
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You see, I have a notion one ought to be comfortable in one’s bed. This is a challenge for me because my personal thermostat is extremely sensitive.
Mostly it reads Too Hot or Too Cold.
Additionally, bedding needs to be lightweight so as not to press too hard upon my tender body.
Washable because of the dear little darlings.
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For many years, I used a duvet but eventually I got tired of struggling with the covers.
So, I went back to blankets, which with trial and error I found could only be cotton, due to all those sensitivities!
Then I remembered why I had liked the duvet. Blankets require tucking in!
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Arthritic fingers and a crook back don’t particularly enjoy this task and stubbornly, I cling to having the ability to make my own bed. Once you start giving in it’s a slippery slope.
My bed, which I purchased with the house, is very large. I think it’s a California King although I have not been able to work out the difference between that and a regular King.
All I know is that sheets and blankets never fit properly.
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Whichever kind of King it is, the bed takes up a lot of room and my feline friends must have their various beds, blankets and trees available to them throughout the house, so my sleeping alcove is a bit crowded.
The bed has a solid frame with edges that jump out and bark my shins no matter how I try to avoid them.
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It’s hardly earth-shattering. But why not simplify things?
Perhaps what I needed was a quilt.
Shopping has never been a favourite occupation. I get overwhelmed by choices and online, there are hundreds.
So I did what I too often do and made a bad choice.
.
Nothing wrong with the quilt. It may be just right in almost every respect, but seeing me unpack it, Grant offered:
“That will kill the washing machine.”
Oh. He had a point. Why didn’t I get a much smaller quilt?
It only needs to cover me.
“Cut it in half and make two.”
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Grant has industrial sewing machines and this would be a simple job. But he’s not much taken with the idea.
No big deal. It can go back.
The thing came in heavy plastic wrapping, inside a zipper bag.
When I cut into the plastic, it was an explosion. The quilt kept expanding.
Now I had to re-insert it.
.
“You’ll never get it back in!”
said the man.
Some other drama was developing at the time, so I found a big garbage bag and shoved the lot out of sight in another room. I have till February to return it, so why worry now?
.
But when something needs doing, I want it done now.
Every time I went to that room, several times a day, there was that box with the quilt-in-a-bag sticking out of it as if to challenge me:
“You won’t get me back in!”
.
Like to bet?
Yours truly, as a matter of necessity, became an expert packer. I could always fit one more item in my suitcase.
“You’ll never get it shut!”
My only concern was that if one of the locks popped, my belongings would be strewn far and wide. I invested in a heavy duty strap. No problem.
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The surest way to get me to do something is to tell me I can’t or that I am not able.
That quilt had been in that zipper bag, therefore it could go back. It just needed a little persuading and this morning I took the challenge.
The quilt had been vacuum-sealed into the original heavy plastic wrap which was now torn and useless.
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But the zipper-bag was intact. All I had to do was get the quilt in and zip it up.
Have you ever tried to fit 10 pounds in a one-pound bag?
The bag has two short sides and one long. If I could just get the zip round that first corner…
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Getting a zip round a sharp corner is not easy at the best of times. Try doing it with a large volume of quilt fighting your efforts. It kept sliding back.
This annoyed me.
“You will not get the better of me!”
If it wanted a struggle, we’d get down on the floor so I could sit on it, the way I always sat on my suitcase lids.
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Except this wasn’t quite like a suitcase. It was soft-sided and slippery and now the zip was getting stuck… and sliding back.
It occurred to me that I might have to accept defeat for once, but I persevered.
At the same time, I realised that it was probably more than a little ridiculous for me to be on the floor wrestling with a plastic zipper bag, an exercise that was bound to result in pain.
.
All the more reason not to give up!
If my shoulders were going to hurt, there needed to be a positive end result.
By now my fingers had perforated the zipper-bag in a couple of places and I half expected the whole thing to rip apart.
But it didn’t. And I didn’t.
Give up.
.
Now all I have to do is send the box on its way.
What happened in the middle of my floor exercise is far more interesting. Proof of something I wrote about a few days ago.
Talk about animals, and they show up.
But I’ll save that for tomorrow.
I am glad, Carolyn, that you are still alive!
Joanna
There are zippered duvet covers. 😉
Here is an example found in a French store, but it must exist in the USA :
https://www.francoisesaget.com/fr-fr/p/hdc-zippee
There is a short explanatory video a little further down.
Thank you! That looks just the job. I’ve never seen anything like it here but I’ll have another look.
Never give up. When you give up, you might as well give in…
Did you count the cats after you’d zipped the bag up?
Congratulations on your perseverance, I would have probably given the quilt away as a Christmas present.
I haven’t had blankets for decades, after getting my first duvet in 1977. We recently stayed in a hotel room that had ‘tucked-in’ sheets and blankets on the bed, and the first job before bedtime was ‘un-tucking’.
Best wishes, Pete.
Ha. Yes. I have to have my foot free so I can regulate my temperature. Also, I don’t like feeling bundled!
We also found out that quilts are the better option when it comes to bedding. But it is indeed too big for the washing machine and I have to take it to the laundry every time. I concede, you don’t give up easily … I would have called for help a long time ago!