For his birthday this year, Jynx got a new bed. When he is downstairs, his favorite places to sleep are on the couch, on a blanket wherever it lay, or on the dogs’ bed. These are all places that the dogs can bother him. Besides, we removed one of the couches from our living room to give him even less room just for him. Hence the need for another spot of his own. 

We still haven’t figured out a good spot for it. We don’t want it where the dogs can get him nor use it instead of him. At first, we have it parked in the middle of the dining room table. I think he liked being there in part because he can see everything going on in the living room and was just a hop away from his food on the bar counter (we just have pretties, a beta fish, and his food there). We ended up putting it down at the end of the loveseat and have it blocked by a coffee table. The dogs can’t get to it and he is using it there.  

I mentioned that this is for when he is downstairs. He does like hanging out downstairs when we are down there. If we are upstairs or if he is wanting to get away from the dogs, he is sleeping on the bed or in his suitcase. That’s right, I said suitcase. He loves getting in suitcases and even laundry baskets or boxes. We have a small suitcase that almost never gets used, so he commandeered it after the last time we used it. We’ve since added a blanket to help him be comfortable. Oh, and we put it on top of the dresser so he can watch us sleep. Of course, he still comes cuddling up to me when he wants attention. He’ll step on my wife’s head on the way by, but he’ll find his way to me. If I’m not around (like after I’ve gone to work) and he wants attention, he’ll cuddle with my wife. I’m the preferred cuddler, though. 

I haven’t been getting very good quality sleep lately. In part, I blame the time change, but really this has been going on even before that. Plus, it’s been almost a month since the time change, so I should be acclimated to it by now. Part of it is nightmares, but also other factors like Zailey or Milo waking me to let them out in the middle of the night. Nightmares I don’t mind too much as I can sometimes get a good short story or novel out of them. I’ve done some research into nightmares and I know it is anxiety in my waking life that is playing into the nightmares. The thing is, I tend to oversleep or am half asleep during the day and that adds to my anxiety. I’m in a cycle that won’t quit. 

Being tired has made it tough for me to be motivated to sit down and write. I’m doing a lot of novel work at the moment where the idea for whatever I am working on was done previously, so I’m not doing a lot of hard thinking here. Just putting my outline or storyboard into fruition. I’ve got to flesh out the details and that isn’t too hard for me. I’m almost on autopilot doing this. The biggest issue is that I am usually lacking emotion and depth to my characters writing on autopilot. Those I can add later, but it is nice to have on the first pass rather than down the line. 

Jynx’s anxiety has gone way down having his new bed. I wonder what will make mine go down? I’m thinking a vacation, but that costs money that I don’t have. So, I guess I just need money. And to get money, I just need to sell more books! Problem solved!