melannen | (no subject)

(no subject)

Finally re-made my bed today!

Weight of the 'anti-anxiety' weighted blankets they are now selling in local stores for people my size : 12 lbs
Total weight of my usual winter bedding (flannel sheet, 2 fleece throws, hand-made vintage quilt, Southwestern-style woven cotton blanket or doubled woven wool blanket) : 11.8 lbs.

...oh.

Well, there's another thing to go on the list of "what do you mean, coping mechanism for non-neurotypical people? That's just how we've always done it here!"

Also went to the thrift store for the half-off sale. Bought:
-sealing wax
-mini basketweaving kit
-beading wire
-necklace clasps
-2 yd plaid flannel
-2 small blank sketchbooks
-hedgehog kitchen timer
-steampunk aviator goggles
-'popcorn rocks'
-pack of vintage Crayola
-2 8-oz Coke glasses
-handheld electric bubble maker
-pad of watercolor & charcoal paper
-15 books.

....I need to be kept away from thrift store.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

-hedgehog kitchen timer
-steampunk aviator goggles

♥ (Your thrift store sounds so cool!)

It is mostly just REALLY LARGE. :D And it has a lot of things like what I bought bagged up and hung on hooks, so if you don't take the time to look at every. single. bag. you miss things, so sometimes there's really interesting stuff up there that's been missed.

Ha, I had the same reaction when I got my weighted blanket. "Oh, you mean I don't need to sleep under four quilts anymore? All this time I thought I just really liked being warm while I sleep!"

I was mostly just surprised at how light they are when I played with them in the store! I was thinking more like 'chainmail quilt' and instead it was just 'normal bedding' weight. :D (I would absolutely use a chainmail quilt in the summer.)

(I think you can get heavier ones if you order online, but the standard seems to be 12-15 for adults.)

Now I wonder if part of the rise in anxiety and depression is that climate control and new materials means bedding is getting lighter! (And clothes - I hit 12 lbs easy on most of my period clothing outfits; my cloak by itself is more than 3 lbs.)

Edited 2019-02-18 02:22 (UTC)

A fascinating question. I know that clothing that's more restrictive in narrow bands (waistbands, bras) is much more anxiety-inducing for me than wearing a corset. On the other hand, I find the physical effect of wearing heavy winter gear is also pretty rough on my mental health; by this time of year, I'm craving not only sunlight but being able to freely swing my arms and stand up straight instead of hunching against the cold.

My weighted blanket is 15 lb., handmade by an etsy seller, and I'm considering ordering a second one—not to layer, but to sew together along the long edge. Mine's narrow and it keeps sliding off when I roll over. But I loooooove it.

I vaguely remember at one point a Victorian society arguing for women's clothes to be less heavy. I know when I was doing 16th century I'd be exhausted and ready for street clothes by the end of the day, and they're nowhere near as heavy as a fancy Victorian woman's getup.

(I hate feeling restricted by bedding, though - can't stand sheets tucked in, prefer comforters to quilts, have to stick my feet out so I don't overheat. I prefer the focused weight of being cat furniture.)

....omg what does the hedgehog timer look like. And can it niver be bovvered?

It looks like a pomodoro timer except it's a hedgehog. :D It doesn't seem to be bovvered by its alarm going off, anyway!

But I approve of your life choices! Traditional crafts and hpusehold tactics are a rich vein of possible solutions to modern absurdity, though one has to pick and choose with care.

(I should also be kept out of thrift stores; I have locked my wallet in the truck and then gone back to get it after finding ‘just a few’ things on no less than five occasions.)

(This post brough to you by cleaning with soapy water, white vinegar, and baking soda, and also by mint tea, and sauerkraut.) ((( :) )))

I also was having fun with vinegar and baking soda this weekend! My bathtub drains now! \o/ Hooray for housekeeping.

Yeah, my bed usually has:
a topsheet
a medium-weight cottom blanket
a queen-sized Maine wool coverlet, fold in half
2 comforters

I might like to nest? The Maine wool goes into storage in summer, and I trade the flannel sheets for modal jersey.

That sound about right - in the summer I usually drop down to just the cotton blanket and a plain sheet and maybe a thin cotton coverlet. (....we don't have A/C.) I definitely sleep better under all 12 pounds, though!

As a child I would have loved one of those frames to defend feet from blanket weight. Because, forced air and no ducts to the second story bedrooms=lots of blankets.

My mom grew up in a house like that - there was one heater on the first floor, and a big open grate in the floor of the second story hallway, and that was it. So many blankets!

It was a furnace but yeah, it had the combined big bore blast vent and the drop 'return' on the first floor. The bedrooms had grills for the heat to waft to.

omg they make frames for feet defense?? I might need one and will have to investigate.

Extra space for cat!

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

They're sold (or were) so patients in beds don't get their feet smushed. But you may be able to find at least a picture. It's basically a frame you slip between the mattress and the boxspring and it holds the mass of blankets up above the toes.

There are a few other ways that can be managed.

Your thriftstore sounds AWESOME. I need to find myself a timer!

(Also /nosy/ what books did you get?)

All my books go up on my librarything account immediately, so, the most recent ones here: https://www.librarything.com/catalog/melannen/yourlibrary (I buy weird books)

This could well be confirmation bias but I feel like I have fewer nightmares when my tower fan is on, even if I don't need it for the weather. *bemused shrug*

Could be operating like a white noise generator, maybe?

That's some good quality thrifting! The one right close to me is small but filled with fascinating knicks-knacks. It's hard to walk away sometimes. My weakness is small, pretty boxes for "organisational purposes."

That's also a bad habit of mine. It doesn't count as more junk if it's an empty box for putting other junk in, right??

Sounds like my sort of place. I love those sorts of stores, although I have to limit myself to only visiting occasionally (otherwise, I drown in thingamies).

I might have to look into a weighted blanket or sheet for summer sleeping (on nights where it's so hot that even a cotton flat sheet is "too much bedding", I have trouble getting to sleep. Until very recently, I've thought this was due to the temperature; now I'm starting to wonder...)

I learned pretty quickly as a kid that I needed at least a sheet over me to be able to sleep well (via me whining I was hot, my parents telling me to get out from under the covers then, me whining that I can't sleep, repeat for approx. 8 hours) but I'm wondering if a glass-bead one for summer would be a good idea, too. My woven cotton southwestern one manages to be fairly heavy while not heating me up too much, so I've used that the last few summers, when it was tolerable.

What I want is a warm, gently vibrating cat-sized weight that I can sleep with but that doesn't leave or decide to wake me up by biting me when it feels crowded.

I would also need to stay away from your thrift store (we have a craft/art supply focused thrift store here and it's BAD NEWS FOR ME).

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only