Is this weird?

Quick note to Anonymous: Thanks for the tip about your blog. I won't publish your comment so we'll keep that nasty breach of anonymity (and your password) under cover. I'm enjoying keeping my own anonymous diary (or diarrhea) so I get it.

Okay, I've got another weirdness to report. I've always been fascinated with the idea of feng shui, probably because I like to arrange furniture. Usually when I'm working in a room, I have a knack for knowing what works where and what doesn't. I have an eye for mixing heights, sizes, etc., in the furniture and accessories which is funny if you know me. I'm one of the least girly girls you'll meet. I think my knack comes from my mother who is also good at that. It doesn't always come to me immediately, but I do know immediately when something works.

The other day I was checking out the HGTV website and they had an article on 9 ways to introduce feng shui to your bedroom. I haven't really read much on the subject, but I was familiar with some of the premises. I clicked on the article, and as I went through each of the 9 tips, I was amazed how many of them I had already incorporated into our bedroom, some purely by accident. In fact, there were only two things I could change: 1. The TV in our room which is a big no-no; 2. The photos of my children, also no-no.

I have recently added black out shades to our room (a room that can be sufficiently darkened at night is important) and my bed is positioned correctly (there's really only one spot for it), my mirror is not facing the bed (don't know why this is important, but again there's only one spot...) and more stuff like that. I needed to pay attention to clutter which I can do but don't always.

So anyway, before I went to bed that night I moved the picture of the kids to another room. I picked up the dirty clothes and threw them down the stairs, and shut the closet doors so the clutter in there wouldn't show and also so they wouldn't suck out good energy (or something like that). I couldn't get rid of the TV (husband issues) but everything else was pretty good. I went to bed and proceeded to sleep like a log.

For the past few years, I've had less than adequate sleep most of the time. I usually wake up once to use the bathroom which is not a big deal, but then I have trouble getting back to sleep. That's super annoying when I wake up at 3:00 a.m. but I can handle it when it's about 5:30 or so. I fall asleep when I first go to bed like nobody's business, but I just don't stay asleep very well.

After my first feng shui night's sleep, I thought it was unusual so maybe I should keep it going and see what happens. That morning I made sure to tidy up my room and make my bed AND open the black out shades so the sunlight could come into the room during the day (another feng shui tip). The next night I also slept well. Hmmm. Again I tidied up my room in the morning, tidied it up before I went to bed, and I've been sleeping well ever since. This has been almost two weeks now. I still wake up to pee but now I go right back to sleep.

I'm a tidy person at heart, so maybe the extra effort is just playing to my natural inclination. However, one night I left a pair of pantyhose on my dresser rather than throwing it down the stairs to take it to the dirty clothes in the basement in the morning, and I was kind of fitful that night. The next morning as I was tidying up, I saw the pantyhose there. Now I make sure I get all dirty clothes out of the room, my shoes put away, and the closet doors shut.

It's not out of the realm of possibility that an untidy room clutters my mind and makes it hard for me to sleep. It's nuts, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Maybe feng shui is really about calming our environment to calm our thoughts. I hope blogging about it doesn't ruin it, but the room feels better when I pay attention to it each morning and night.

And it's free with no side effects. Take that Ambien!