Is there anything more luxurious than staying in bed until 1 PM? Well, I'm sure there is, but it doesn't feel like it this morning. Instead of getting up to paint the house we stayed in bed, snoozing, mostly. (We've been getting ready to paint, or painting, since last October...)
Although you can sleep in anywhere, it's more satisfying to sleep in when you like where you're sleeping. I love my bed. It's a waveless extra-king waterbed. For those of you who have visions of the 70's style "balloon" waterbeds, with the mirrored canopy, and the automatic disco-ball strobe going as Barry White plays, our bed is nothing like that. Although, it would be fun to do that as a joke....
Long ago, we decided since we spend 8 hours (well, with luck) a day there, we should get a bed we liked. The current matress is our fifth one - not too bad in 23 years, pets mostly allowed. Waterbed technology gets better all the time - if you tried our matress out you wouldn't know it was a waterbed unless you looked under the sheets. I also like being able to turn up the heater a few degrees in the winter, so it's nice and toasty when we crawl in.

Our bedroom set is solid oak. Not laminated oak - very important to The Saint (aka my husband) , who is from a family of woodworkers. The bed is on a pedistal with drawers where I keep extra blankets, heating pads, and a few other items. The headboard is tall, the upper part has lighted glass shelves displaying my pig banks; the lower is wood, with a night stand top, and drawers. Sufficient room for piles of books, a flashlight, and numerous other things. On each side there are electrical outlets. On my side The Saint installed a power strip; so I have outlets for my laptop, recharging Game Boy, etc. There is also plenty of room for alarm clocks, phone, etc. He gets the side with the phone, because I am known for having phone conversations while asleep - and no memory of them later.

I spend a lot of time on the bed. I am a lay-down reader as opposed to a sitting-up reader - and my favorite place to read is on the bed.
I mentioned pets are also allowed. The cats, of course, sleep wherever they choose to sleep, and mostly it's on the bed. Our big dog gets on the bed a lot too, although technically he is not supposed to be on the bed when we are both in it. You would not think a 180 lb dog could sneak onto a bed with three cats already arranged in their respective spots - but he can.
It is very funny to wake up, pinned in bed by a dog on one side, and two or three cats in various positions. Well, I find it funny, The Saint not so much. The cats are very particular about where they lay, and it can be disconcerting to wake up at two am as a dispute breaks out. I will say, the dog does sometimes detract from sleeping in, when he clambers over us to escape the feuding cats.

Back to the luxurious side, we discovered higher thread count sheets a few years ago, and they really DO make a difference. They are well worth the extra money, although we don't get all crazy. I recently read an article that said those ulta-expensive 1,000 thread count sheets are misleading, that the manufacturers count the threads in each thread. I'm not paying that much for sheets anyway.

Still, there are some days when it feels good to indulge; waking up at six-thirty am, looking at the clock, smirking, and going back to sleep. Waking up at eight, reading for awhile, and going back to sleep. Some people (those wierd morning people) would say we have wasted the day, but I think it's good to be wastefully luxurious once in awhile. At least when it comes to sleeping in.