Sometimes it's better to show as well as tell

This is how I look when I wake up...

...in my dreams.

This is how I look for real:

Mr. Sandman and I got into a scuffle. He won.

Due to a drop in temperatures, our house stays at a balmy 60 degrees at night, because our poor little heat pump is fighting a losing battle with Mother Nature's son, Jack Frost. As is the Ford Focus ZX3, which this morning I mistook for an ice sculpture. I'm just praying that neither gives up the ghost anytime soon. This whole "winter weather" charade would be less annoying if we actually had some substantial snow to show for it--and from what I hear, you people up North have plenty to spare.

So, our sleep this week has been less than slumberlicious what with a chilly, teething, growing boy protesting loudly thrice nightly from the nursery. I don't blame him, though. I'm grumpy about it and I have all my teeth, a generally full belly, and an enormous Mexican blanket* thrown over the comforter for extra warmth. Of course, the Mexican blanket has a disturbing tendency to smell startlingly similar to dog butt whenever it gets damp, which is often because despite our attempts to train him to wipe his feet before coming in, Cody's favorite place to dry off from a winter frolic is on said blanket.

*This isn't one of those cool, multicolored handcrafted Mexican blankets. This is a mammoth, burgundy and beige San Marcos debacle emblazoned with an eagle.

This is how our bedroom is supposed to look:

Relaxing, isn't it?

This is the truly offensive reality:

As a bonus, this morning I got some insight into why it takes Noah on average twice as long as me to get ready, when I walked into the bedroom and found him doing jumping jacks in front of the mirror while wearing a full-body suit of skintight navy blue long johns.

But I can't complain about everything. Last night we scored a sheepskin rug at Sam's Club for just $30. It reminded me of the one I had adored as a kid:

And it truly brightened my whole week to see that Ethan loves it too: