We have just over a month to go till Christmas. Are you ready?
The Starbucks cups were out on the 1st, St. Paul’s Lights of Hope turns on next Thursday and the Christmas Train starts up on December 2nd, Each unique event reminds us of how close we are coming to the family holiday.
And there’s so much to do…
The cleaning is what stresses us out. Vacuuming, scrubbing, dusting, polishing – it all must be done before the family arrives.
Then there are the lights to be hung, the tree to buy and the sweets to be baked.
Finding time to rest over the holidays can be a chore in itself. To improve your horizontal hours, purchase a Simmons Beautyrest mattress from Vancouver’s mattress store. It will be a gift that you can enjoy every day of the year. You can’t say that about the Rudolph-themed slippers you received from Uncle Rob.
It helps to have connected friends, especially friends who speak your language. Anthea Poon, Vancouver’s Top Multi-Lingual Realtor, is a valued friend of Simmons Mattress Gallery. We recommend her work for any potential buyer or seller actively looking for a Vancouver realtor – especially if they speak Mandarin or Cantonese.
Anthea’s main focus of work is Vancouver’s West End, but she also services the Greater Vancouver area. She has built her own West End database for potential buyers. This is a invaluable resource for potential condo owners.
You may recognize her face from her prominent bus advertisements that have been circling the city. With a B.A. in marketing, Anthea knows how to get your listing in front of the eyes of potential buyers.
Selling or buying a home can be the most important decision you make. Let Anthea aid the process.
To enlist the service of her real estate team, call or email her company. She will gladly reply in English, Mandarin, Cantonese or French. That’s the benefit of talented friends.
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is an area of the city that many of us choose to avoid. The poverty level scares us, the open drug market makes us nervous and the prostitution reminds us of the dangerous hold of addiction. So we divert our travel routes, choose alternative venues and leave the issues for the community to deal with on their own. It’s a coping mechanism that most of us subscribe to.
One thing we can’t forget, even if we choose to turn our backs, is that the DES is full of people. People who have a past, present and future. People who value the community they live in. People who are artistic, creative and passionate.
As a part of Vancouver’s 125th Anniversary Celebration, the DES community will be celebrating the ‘Heart of the City Festival.’ The festival will showcase the talents of many of the area’s current citizens, as well as document some of the rich stories from the neighbourhood’s past.
Events are running all week. For more details check the festival website:
Our rhyme scheme might stray, but our love for the mattress is unwavering. Come visit one of our two locations in the Lower Mainland to sample the large selection of Simmons mattresses on hand.
Language is a toolbox from which we borrow implements to cut, shape and model our thoughts. From Facebook posts, to journal entries, to private poems, our soul is portrayed through the words we connect together.
This month, writers and readers from around the province will have a chance to celebrate the expressive power of writing. The 24th Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival will be held on Granville Island from Tuesday, October 18th to Sunday, October 23rd. It begins with an interactive session with the children’s author, Paulette Bourgeois. Bourgeois is the creator of the ‘Franklin’ series that adults and their children have enjoyed since 1986. The discussion is aimed at young readers. Primary teachers and encouraged to bring their classes down for this midmorning discussion.
The final event of the festival is the Governor General’s Award Party, where four previous recipients of Canada’s highest literary achievement will discuss the award and it’s social merit. The four writers, Nino Ricci, John Pass, Joan MacLeod and John Vaillant, will each read a short passage from their decorated work.
In between these bookends, will be a number of author seminars, publishing and writing workshops, poetry slams and literary debates.
The Vancouver festival will also host a short story and poetry contest for emerging writers. Deadline for submissions is October 23rd.
But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. -Lord Byron
Inventors, artists, musicians and thinkers throughout history have reported that some of their biggest breakthroughs were the products of dream world experiences. Rene Descartes came up with the concept for the scientific method after something he experienced in a dream. Paul McCartney has said he heard the tune for the famous song, “Yesterday,” in a dream. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” was inspired by a dream. Elias Howe got the idea to invent the sewing machine in a dream.
Dreams can be a great source of inspiration, but only if you remember them when you wake up. To increase the chances that your next great invention doesn’t slip away into your subconscious, it’s a good idea to write down what you remember about your dreams as soon as you wake up. Keep a notebook by the bed and jot down anything you remember, even incomplete images, occurrences or thoughts that don’t seem to make sense. Some people believe it’s easier to remember dreams that occur during the daytime while napping, although this idea is impossible to prove.
The quality of your sleep can increase the quality of your dreams. And the quality of your bed can increase the quality of your sleep. That means you might want to invest in a new bed. Visit Vancouver Mattress Store Simmons Mattress Gallery to check out the best brands at the best prices. Start dreaming up your next great idea tonight.
You wouldn’t think the airport would be a weekend destination spot, but YVR has other plans. This summer, experience ‘Take-Off Fridays’ at the Vancouver International Airport for games, family events a live DJ and multicultural mingling.
The final Friday event is August 27th. The fun starts around eight in the morning and wraps up around four at night. The festivities are spread out over both the domestic and international terminals.
Activities include face painting, dancing, food specials and the ‘money machine.’ The latter offers each contestant a chance to grab as many YVR bucks as they can. The catch: you need to grab them while standing in a closed wind cylinder. Each ‘buck’ you grab can be used towards purchasing items at stores around the airport.
The backdrop to this event are the finely carved and crafted First Nation artifacts that routinely offer travelers a glimpse at the beautiful history of the first West Coast peoples.
Come and enjoy the richness of YVR with the whole family. Your kids will love it and you will be reminded of how lucky we are to have such an amazing airport to welcome and bid farewell to travelers from all over the world.
The Vancouver Art Gallery is currently hosting “The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art.” The exhibition began in May and will run until September 25th. Simmons Mattress Gallery encourages you to inspire your own dreams by witnessing the amazing works on display at the VAG.
Surrealism was a reaction to Sigmund Freud’s investigation into the meaning of dreams. André Breton wrote the manifesto of the movement in 1924 and encouraged artists to create works that focused on the unconscious mind over perceived reality.
Part of the exhibition highlights the connection between Pacific Northwest First Nations art and the Surrealist movement. Apparently, many of the contributing artists looked to First Nations art for inspiration.
Kwakwaka’wakw Headdress from Alert Bay
Another theme of the exhibition is the influence of cinema. Still a relatively new medium in the early half of the 1900s, film was able to put images in motion and create a fluid canvas on which perspective could be manipulated. From avant-garde films to Charlie Chaplin, to Betty Boop, cinema created a fictional world that the surrealists saw as similar to their own artistic ambitions.
Artists on display include: Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Alberto Giacometti and many more.
This Saturday, the sky will once again be lit by exploding pyrotechnics, as the Celebration of Light returns to English Bay. This will be the twenty-first year Vancouver will host the event. It has become one of the must-see spectacles of the summer and major draw for tourist booking their Vancouver holiday.
The organizers of this year’s event are hoping to make a little more revenue by selling grandstand, V.I.P. seating at English Bay. The tickets are $45. The early bird seats have already sold, but Tickets Tonight is still selling.
Other changes include a shorter program. Instead of the standard four nights of explosions, this year’s festival will have only three; July 30, August 3rd and August 6th. Canada will perform on the final night.
A panel of judges chosen from the events corporate sponsors will evaluate the competing countries.
For more information on the Celebration of Light, check out their website. There is a really interesting section on the history of fireworks. There is also a full explanation of how the barge is loaded and prepped for each night of action. Apparently it takes a crew of 16 people, three days to prepare the show. There may be 2,000 to 4,500 bombs (that’s what they call them) used in one night’s performance. That’s a lot of gunpowder.
And just remember, if you are coming down to watch the fireworks downtown or at any of the beaches around English Bay, leave the alcohol at home. This is a family event and we want to keep it going for years to come. Enjoy Vancouver.
Summer is the perfect time to curl up with a good read. You can spread out on the back lawn, take in the sun and be transported to the Manchurian plains. At night, while the cushioning coils of your Simmons support your lower body, you can flip through the new bestseller and walk the back alleys of nineteenth century London.
Finding an appropriate book, that won’t be a waste of time, can sometimes be a task. To aid you in this process, Simmons Mattress Gallery has two suggestions for summer reads.
1. Various Positions
Dance positions…
This is a novel by a Canadian author living in Toronto. With similarities to last years Oscar darling, Black Swan, Various Positions, explores the physical pressures and suppressed sexuality of the ballet world. Like Swan, the protagonist is a young girl striving to make an impression on the artistic stage. She falls in love with the artistic director, but decides to hide her feelings and focus on her craft – the one thing she can control.
2. The Help
Almost every book club in North America has added this title to their list. The Help is set in the 1960s, in Mississippi. It revolves around a young female writer who returns to her hometown around the time a law is set in place forbidding black workers (the help) from using the bathrooms of their employers. Skeeter, the protagonist, exposes the absurdity of this bill by writing a novel about the many essential services provided by the black women who raise the children of white families. The movie will be out on August 12th.
The Queen of pop, Rihanna, has released a brand new video on a subject close to our hearts. Rihanna’s new single, “California King Bed,” details the relationship between two lovers who, even though they share a bed, are separated by an emotional distance.
The red-haired singer laments, “It feels like more than distance between us / In this California king bed / We’re 10,000 miles apart.”
In the video, directed by Anthony Mandler, Rihanna is seen lying in bed with a muscular model. As the song progresses, the bed widens and a physical separation appears between the couple.
Ironically, a California King, the largest mattress in the Simmons Beautyrest line, is four inches longer, not wider, than a regular king size mattress. Our Simmons’ mattress professionals recommend this mattress for individuals taller than 6’’.
The Barbados pop star measures in at 5′9”, a height that probably does not require the extra four inches in length. Our suggestion for Rihanna, go with a Queen size. It will bring you and your significant other closer and still allow for extended, after-hours play.
We understand her choice though, as ‘California king’ works more effectively as a symbol for her conflict and her lover.
The official video was released on Monday, May 9th. The single, we’re sure, will be the radio hit of the summer, adding to the list of hits that Rhianna’s Loud album has already generated.
Vancouverites will be able to see the singer live when she performs two sold out shows in June. We already have our tickets. Fingers crossed she encores with “California King Bed.”
Why is it important to get a full night’s rest each and every night?
Here are five firm reasons to secure at least seven hours a night.
Falling asleep at work could cost you your job. If your boss happens to catch you taking a power nap, you better have your desk cleaned out by the end of the day. Drool is also terrible for keyboards.
Falling asleep at the wheel could cost you your life. 17% of fatal car accidents involve a sleepy driver. Turning up the radio or opening the window won’t help. If you are consistently experiencing drowsy conditions on your daily commute, it’s time to put aside more hours for sleep.
Your health. Simmons Mattress Gallery has written numerous articles on the negative health effects of limited rest. From diabetes, to heart failure, to lower life expectancy, there is a long list of sleep related health problems that occur with individuals who neglect their downtime.
Your mood sours dramatically when you haven’t gotten enough shut-eye. People who are sleep deprived often are quick to lose their temper and are less able to deal with pressure situations. Their mood often sours their relationships at work and at home.
Our brains need a break. Even if your other organs could handle continuous nights of less than three hours of sleep, our brains would eventually slow down to a crawl. Each night when we doze off, our brain reverts to an energy-saving mode. Different areas are called upon to fuel our subconscious, but the area we count on for our most intense processing is given a break. Run anything for 21 hours a day and it will eventually self-destruct.
They deserve it. They’ve been through a lot, but they stuck together and always supported you. Now is your chance to repay them.
You will look like the golden child. Those memories of when you wrote-off the family car will be magically erased. In its place will blossom years of ‘thank you’s’.
You can purchase their new mattress at our Broadway location in Vancouver or at our Schoolhouse store in Coquitlam.
Not sure what mattress to choose. Make an event out of the gift. Tell them you need their help picking out a new hardwood floor. Drive them to either of our locations and have them spend an afternoon trying out our beds.
This Wednesday, April 6th, marks the official start to Vancouver’s 125th Birthday celebration. There will be an all-day event at Jack Poole Plaza, the site of the Olympic Cauldron. The festivities will begin at 2pm and continue until 10pm.
The opening event will be a drop-in street hockey tournament. This will be followed by an organized youth tournament featuring teams from Thunderbird, Sunset, West End, Britannia, Riley Park and Killarney communities.
From 6:00 to 7:00 will be the Official Ceremonies, with a giant birthday cake and speeches by Mayor Gregor and other dignitaries.
The big draw will be a performance by Vancouver’s own classic rockers, 54-40. They will hit the stage around 8:45 and will play until 10:00. During the performance, the plaza will become the backdrop for a video and light installation titled Time Drifts, by Berlin-based artist Phillipp Geist.
In the spirit of our ever-loving cycling mayor, there will be a bicycle valet option for those of you choosing the two-wheeled commute.
Gregor has also promised to unveil other events as the year progresses.
The Olympics were just the beginning Vancouver! Let’s celebrate who we are and where we came from!
So we covered the Kings pretty well, but what about all the Queens? How many royal ladies are currently holding power in the world? Do they sleep on King size mattresses? Well we couldn’t come up with that information, but we did find a little info on a few of the world’s most powerful women:
1. Elizabeth II – Queen of the United Kingdom
-She is all over our money and for many Canadians, an important link back to European ancestry. Elizabeth is wort $650 million US. She is currently 84 years old and a mother of four. She is head of the Commonwealth
2. Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard – Queen of Netherlands
-Beatrix may not be Queen for much longer. It is rumoured that she may step down to make room for her son, Willem-Alexander. Her net worth is in the 300 milion US$ range. Fact: It is illegal to quote any statement that Beatrix utters. This law was put in place shortly after her inauguration. (Maybe she stutters? Geoffory Rush might be able to help her.)
3. Margaret II – Queen of Denmark
-Margaret is the first Danish monarch to be female. She has ruled since 1972. Margaret is fluent in Danish, English, French, Swedish and German. She is an established painter and costume designer. She also is said to have a strong addiction for nicotine. This is very evident on her teeth. You think a Queen could afford a better dentist.
4. Oprah Winfrey – Queen of American Media
-Well not quite royalty, Oprah is the reigning leader of a commercial empire that has its fingers in almost every form of media there is. She was the world’s first black billionaire and is rated by many to be the most powerful woman in the world. An endorsement from Oprah is more valuable than a 30 second Super Bowl spot, 2 million YouTube views or top spot on Google. But like the rest of us, she puts her pants on one leg at a time. She also needs a good eight hours of sleep each night to keep her head in the game.
“Think like a Queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone towards greatness.” – Oprah
You grew up with little, but you dreamt of a better existence where money was not a concern, just a commodity that trickled in as a result of your hard work. You paid for school on your own, worked harder than your classmates and graduated at the top of your class. You spent years as an associate and finally earned a partnership.
The house you live in is bought and paid for, your children are almost through school and retirement is edging closer.
You have proved your royal worth over and over. You are the benevolent ruler who leads your household. You have an army of staff below you at work. You have succeeded in climbing to the very top of your profession.
It’s time to spread out and enjoy your nights on a king size bed. If anyone has earned the space and comfort that a king size mattress provides, it is you. Treat yourself at Simmons Mattress Gallery and buy a new bed for you and your Queen to spend your nights.
Dreams. They come to us at night while we sleep soundly. They float into our minds while we spend the day doing simple tasks. They infect our soul and force us to face the question: “What if?”
But for many, these questions, brought on by dreams, are stifled with the so-called ‘realistic advice’ of friends or family members. This is discouraging.
Dreams come to us because we know there is a better way to live, to enjoy each day, to find employment and to act on our passions. Don’t be discouraged by others. And never settle for average.
John Maxwell, a leadership author, claims, “being exceptional demands extra effort, sustained inspiration and uncommon discipline.” Fulfilling our dreams is never easy. So be prepared to fight for them. Your soul will thank you.
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