Sleep Tight...

There is one phrase I will never, ever, EVER utter again, as long as I live.

"Sleep tight...don't let the bed bugs bite!"

When you're a kid, you think it's cute; funny, even.  I remember my Grandma saying to me, "Don't ever say that!  You don't want people to think we have bed bugs!"

Well, here I sit.  With a bed bug infestation.

It has been the worst few weeks of my life.  This is worse than when my ex-husband left.  Although, honestly, when he left, I cried for one whole day and then pulled myself together and went into survivor mode for myself and my kids.  I could have handled this bed bug thing if it only required me crying for a day and then going into survival mode.

The quick recap is this:  We had some neighbors living next door who weren't exactly clean.  To make you understand what I mean, once I was sick.  I mean, I was SICK.  I could NOT be away from a bathroom for very long.  On that same day, the toilet needed to be repaired because it was leaking through the ceiling in our kitchen.  So, I couldn't use the toilet here.  I asked our neighbors if I could use theirs.  I only used theirs once.  Every other time, I went down the street to the gas station to use the bathroom.  THAT'S how bad their apartment was.  It smelled.  Everything was just filthy.  The toilet didn't flush and it HADN'T been flushed.  There are just no words to truly describe what I saw over there.

We were elated last month to find out that our neighbors were being evicted.  They hadn't paid rent and had seemed to disappear from the apartment.  It took about a week and a half to get the key from them, at which point, our landlords started moving things out of there that they had left behind.  It was mostly garbage and nasty furniture.  It took all week long, and they took out several pick up truck loads a day for the entire week.  In the meantime, I began noticing little bites showing up on my arms and legs when I would wake up in the morning.  They looked like mosquito bites.  I had just installed a mosquito repellant app on my phone and I thought that it was malfunctioning.  So, I uninstalled it.  The bites continued.

One night, Craig killed a bug that was crawling on our headboard.  He showed it to me and I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  It was a bed bug.  I told Craig I was not sleeping in the bed that night.  I was sleeping on the couch.  He could either stay in the bed or sleep on the other couch.  He slept on the other couch.

What ensued after that was a battle with our landlords over what was going to be done about the bed bugs.  (This is the short version)  I began washing all of our clothes and bagging them.  We cleaned out all of the bedrooms, encased all of the mattresses and put our headboard outside.  The headboard ended up disappearing.  We don't know if it was stolen, or if one of the guys who was cleaning next door took it to the dump.  But it's gone.  We vacuumed constantly.  We pulled all beds away from the walls and, in various ways, fixed it so that any bugs could not climb up the legs of the beds.  The bites stopped for a few days.  And then they started again.  This time, they were biting Matthew.

Our landlords insist that this problem is not THEIR problem.  They told us that they would take money off of our rent but that they weren't going to pay to have anything done in the house (like heat treatment or an exterminator).  They say that there's no way to prove that it was our neighbors who brought this problem on.  But I know.  And I know they do too.

It's been really tough.  I feel like an outsider.  I haven't hung out with my friends because I don't dare to have anyone come over.  I haven't been able to make much money writing because of all the time I spend doing laundry, cleaning, etc.  I haven't been able to go to church during the week.  I've had to say no to two other jobs that would have earned me some money.  Not to mention the psychological toll this has taken on me.  My nerves on constantly on edge.  Every time I feel anything (example:  Dust particle) fall on my skin, I jump, thinking it's a bug.  I just started going to sleep at night without tossing and turning for two or three hours first.

Yesterday we used a product our landlords bought us from Home Depot in an attempt to get rid of the bugs.  I doused the entire house in this stuff.  I was declaring Bible verses all through the house, casting out demons and telling them that our family was highly favored and Satan had to leave us alone.

I believe my God is bigger than this.  I believe we have beaten these things and we are going to be free.

I'm so tired of dealing with this and I believe God has taken care of it.  I don't believe this problem is going to stay with us forever.  I believe God is more concerned about this than we are and that he has delivered us from these monsters.  I BELIEVE.

Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me...

Why is it that when we quote certain Bible verses, they sound better or even just happen to come out in King James?  Oh, well...I'm getting off track with this before I even start...

So, it has been brought to my attention (again) that I have a problem.  I love sleep.  I mean, I LOVE sleep.  During my single days (both in college and after my separation) people would say to me, "Why do you sleep all the time?)  It wasn't that I was depressed, although there might have been a point in my life when I was and sleep was a welcome escape...at least for a little while.  Now things are much different.  It's very rare to find me napping in the middle of the day when Caleb naps only because that's become the time I usually try and get my work done for the day.  Now, my love for sleep has become pushing the snooze button a hundred times or telling myself at night that I'm going to get up nice and early so I can have some time to myself, only to re-set the alarm for the last possible second after it goes off the first time to help Craig get up for work.

I knew that this behavior had to stop.  Not only was I standing in my own way of getting a lot of things done around the house, but I was also putting sleep into a position of being an idol in my life.  So, Craig and I had a conversation about my wake up schedule the other night.  He suggested (once again) that I get up when he does.  That way, I'd be okay with going to bed when he does and I might actually learn how to fall asleep at a decent hour.  It actually sounded pretty good to me.  So, I agreed that he would wake me up in the mornings before he went downstairs to get ready for work.

Today was day number one of my early wake up mornings.  When he woke me up, he turned the light on (I told him to do this ahead of time) and it took all of my might to make myself sit up.  Because we had an interruption of our sleep last night (a pipe broke next door and we were jolted awake by loud banging on our front door at midnight so they could shut the water off), I was SOOOO not feelin' the early morning.  But, I reminded myself that I could do anything one time, even if it meant waking up at 4:30 just to see how it goes.

"You need to get out of that bed.  Don't sit there too long or you'll go back to sleep."  Roger that.  I got up and went downstairs.  Craig was gone when I got downstairs and I was struck with a few thoughts:

Wow...it's peaceful right now.
That coffee smells great.
I need to do my devotions while it's quiet.
How much of my OWN writing can I get done in these early morning hours?

I fixed a cup of coffee and began spending time with Jesus.  That time was sweet, indeed.  It felt like the most absolute perfect way to begin my day.  It had been a long time since I've sought the Lord in the early morning hours like that.  After I had finished my breakfast, I started writing and I actually got two chapters finished--all before it was even time to wake the kids up for school!

This has been a great morning, so far.  Yes, I'm a little tired.  I might sneak in a tiny snooze this afternoon due to my abrupt wake up call last night at midnight.  But...I might not too.  I'm going to spend the rest of the morning hanging out with Caleb and doing a little bit of housework.

And I'm definitely going to look forward to these early morning hours from now on.  This was a great idea, Honey.