Is that a blanket on her head??

I cannot believe how fast two days off can go. What did I do? I slept in both days, but I have to say that the sleeping-in quality was far better yesterday than today. I was thinking about what made that true and I came up with the following: Yesterday the temperature in my room was just a bit on the cold side (which you know makes for better sleeping), and I had wrapped my head in a down blanket and fell into the most peaceful, lovely sleep that I have had in quite a while. A little background regarding the blanket-wrapped-head thing: Back when I lived in South City in St. Louis, Gianluca and I arrived home one day after lunch to discover that we had been broken into. The thief took some DVDs and some of my then roomate Karen's jewelry. At first, we thought it was just a random opportunistic crime. Then, after calling the SLPD, we realized it was much more than that. It turned out that the thief had hidden his own key outside our apartment, and was probably responsible for a number of suspicious happenings that we had always passed off as coincidence. The police thought that we were probably being stalked, given that the obvious theft occured on the only day that I had taken my dog Maddie to the groomer. They also thought that, given what we told them had happened thus far (i.e. suspicious nightime noises in our apartment with my dog getting upset), that this person has let himself in on numerous occasions while we were sleeping at night. Now, at the time, there were five of us roommates- myself, Karen, Gianluca, Marco, and Claudia. But Karen and I were the only occupants of the lower level apartment, and we were the only ones whose residence had been invaded on what turned out to be multiple occasions. At first, we all slept together in a couple rooms in the upstairs apartment. But Karen and I quickly realized that this could not be a permanent solution, and that we could not function in our daily lives paralyzed by fear as we were. We chose to move back downstairs (after the landlord changed the locks and barred all the basement windows). My dad even bought me window alarms for our whole apartment and the basement, a tazer, and a foghorn (why the foghorn, I'm not sure, but it sure startled us when we tested it). Our situation was not helped, however, by the fact that in the following weeks we must have called 9-1-1 at least 3 times due to suspicious sounds/events (including our apartment side door hanging wide open to the side yard after some scary noises at 3am, despite the fact that that particular lock had been changed). Anyway, that was the scariest period of my life (the second was the time period in Columbia, Missouri when my life was threatened repeatedly by some heroine addicts who were sure that I was invading their lesbian love triangle), and the only reprieves I had at the time were work and sleep. The only way I could get to sleep, however, was by wrapping my head in a blanket so that I could prevent myself from hearing every little noise and then freaking out. Ever since then, if I want to be sure of a good night's sleep, I wrap my head in a blanket and fall into a blissful state of oblivion. So now you know.
The other things I did today were to make some more yogurt (we go through it so quickly), and go to the store to buy more purse-making supplies. I also got another rental car for tomorrow and Thursday. It's nothing exciting like last time- just a small black Ford Focus, but it suits me just fine.

A small reminder: Friday will be the first day of the rest of my settled life, whether the decision turns out that I am going, or that I am staying here in the U.S. I cannot wait...