Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep - Pillow Forts & Tree Houses (Encore)

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Originally presented March 13th, 2022 as Season 9, Episode 11 Our story tonight is called Pillow Forts and Treehouses and it’s a story about a rainy afternoon tucked into a hideaway. It’s also about the big ideas of children, a bowl of pretzels and apple slices, and remembering that you are never too old to enjoy a fort. Visit moonbird.life/nothingmuchhappens to save 20% Go to Cymbiotika.com/Nothingmuch for 20% off + free shipping. Visit bioptimizers.com/nothingmuch and use code NOTHINGMUCH for 10% off any order

I was a full-time yoga teacher for over 20 years, and I know the power of intentional breathing. It's why our two deep breaths have been part of our bedtime routine since episode one, and that's why I want to introduce you to Moonbird. Moonbird is a handheld breathing device designed to comfortably fit in the palm of your hand, which may help people living with stress, anxiety, insomnia, autism, ADHD, or burnout. When you shake it, it will start inflating and deflating. So in your hand, it will feel like you're holding a little bird that is breathing in and out. And the only thing you need to do is breathe along with it.

When moon bird inflates, you breathe in. When moon bird deflates, you breathe out. Simple, intuitive, it takes all the effort and thinking out of your breathing exercises. It's the perfect companion to your bedtime ritual or use it when you're meditating, when you're stuck in traffic, anytime you need an assist and feeling calm and focused.

Listen, I know how to breathe to feel better, but still I use Moonbird. Because when my mind is racing or wandering, I need a little guidance and it makes my deep breathing more effective. So when you wake in the middle of the night, don't reach for your phone unless it's to restart your bedtime story. That's fine. Reach for Moonbird. Visit

moonbird.life slash nothing much happens to save 20%. We've got it linked in our show notes. Welcome to Bedtime Stories for Everyone, in which nothing much happens. You feel good, and then you fall asleep. I'm Katherine Nicolai. I write and read all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens. Audio Engineering is by Bob Wittersheim. We are bringing you an encore episode tonight, meaning that this story originally aired at some point in the past. It could have been recorded with different equipment in a different

location. And since I'm a person, and not a computer, I sometimes sound just slightly different. But the stories are always soothing and family-friendly, and our wishes for you are always deep rest and sweet dreams. Now, let me say something about how this works. Your mind needs a place to rest, and without one it's apt to race and wander and keep you up all night. The story I'm about to tell you is a landing spot. Let your attention linger on the sound of my voice and the soothing details of the story. Doing so will actually shift your brain activity from default mode to task-positive mode, which just means you'll be able to sleep. I'll tell the story twice, and I'll go a little

slower the second time through. If you wake in the middle of the night, turn your thoughts right back to whatever you can remember about the story, or even just the details of a pleasant memory, and you will drop right back off. Our story tonight is called Pillow Forts and Tree Houses, and it's a story about a rainy afternoon tucked into a hideaway. It's also about the big ideas of children, a bowl of pretzels and apple slices. And remembering that you are never too old to enjoy a fort. Something I have gotten so much better at in the last few years is taking care of my

body, lovingly nourishing myself, getting all the sleep I need. I even floss now. And Symbiotica products are a big part of this grown-up self-care. Whether you're trying to boost your energy and mood, improve digestion, or just function like a human, Symbiotica has something for you. I've been taking their vitamin C every day. In fact, my wife and I went on vacation and we packed their liquid travel size packets in our carry-ons.

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Go to symbiotica.com slash nothing much for 20% off plus free shipping. That's symbiotica.com slash nothing much for 20% off plus free shipping. I care about your sleep. It is always my first thought and priority in making this show. And sometimes you need extra help. Sometimes, even when your sleep hygiene is top tier, sleep doesn't come. Some nights, you might struggle to fall asleep, or wake after a few hours and toss and turn. I get it. When paramenopause hit me like a wrecking ball, it threw my sleep cycles so far off course that I felt like a different person.

And sleep breakthrough drink from bioptimizers has really helped. I fall asleep when I want to, and I sleep through the night, without that 3am panic wake up that had been haunting me. When I wake in the morning, I feel good, not groggy. I'm rested. My days are better. Bioptimizers has flexible dosing, which I really like. My wife needs just a little bit, and I take a little more. And for folks looking for an option without melatonin, this is it. Ready to transform your sleep and wake up feeling refreshed? Visit bioptimizers.com slash nothing much and use code nothing much, and use code nothingmuch for 10% off any order. Don't settle for another restless night, my friends.

Try Sleep Breakthrough Drink risk-free with Bioptimizers 365-day money-back guarantee. And this is all in our show notes, if you forget. Visit bioptimizers.com slash nothing much and use code nothing much for 10% off any order. Okay, it's time. Put down whatever you've been looking at and switch off the light. Slide down deep into your sheets and make your body as comfortable as it can be. There's nothing you need to stay on top of. No one is waiting and you have done enough for today. You're safe. Take a slow breath in through your nose, and let it out with a sigh. Nice. Do one more. In and out. Good.

Pillow Forts and Tree Houses When I was a kid, playing with my friends, it seemed like our constant ambition to build a fort, to make a clubhouse, somehow to construct a space for ourselves that could only be permeated by grown-ups when snacks were handed through a flap in the blankets. The best version of this dream we could imagine was a tree house. And I remember sketching out plans with the stub of a pencil in a spiral-bound notebook with most of the pages ripped out. As long as you're dreaming, you may as well dream big. So our treehouse would have retractable stairs to keep out siblings who might try to take over the place, as well as, um, maybe bears? We were kids. It made sense at the time. We'd have a fridge, stocked with drinks and and snacks. Where would we plug it in? Maybe a knot in the tree? Maybe we could figure out how to turn sap into electricity? Yeah, I'd make a note to invent that later. We'd have binoculars for spotting friends in their trees a few yards away, a

slide or, better yet, a zipline to carry us back down. And we'd hold our meetings up there. About what? You know, nine-year-old stuff. Very important, you wouldn't understand. We never achieved our ambition of a tree house. The logistics quickly overwhelmed us, and when our friends, who claimed to have a cousin in the country who had one, we looked at them with a good deal of skepticism. Maybe treehouses were only in movies or adventure stories. Still, we kept attempting to make forts wherever we could. With school canceled on one sunny snow day, we met up at the end of the block, where there was an

empty lot full of knee-high snow. It was late winter, and the deep chill was giving over to slightly less frigid temps. So the snow packed together nicely. And we had a genius idea to shovel it into milk crates. The plastic kind, with faded writing on the sides. All garages have them, though they aren't acquired in any way that I know. They just appear in a corner or on a shelf and get filled with battered soft balls or swim goggles. We found when they were packed with heavy snow, they turned out perfect blocks to build with. We shoveled a flat space and started to lay them. First a foundation and then rising walls. When the walls got to their third or fourth layer of blocks, we realized we'd

forgotten to leave a space for the door and had fun kicking one out. Also, a ceiling stymied us, and as we started to make plans to swipe tarps from our sheds and basements, we got hungry and all trudged to the nearest of our houses, to be fed soup and sandwiches, while our snow pants dripped dry by the back door. Overnight the snow turned to rain, and by morning our ice palace was a lake with a few small, square icebergs floating in it. I'm sure we hadn't given up, just changed tactics again. After all, what's better on a rainy day than a blanket fort? Are sure we'd regrouped in someone's basement or living room and stacked couch cushions into a frame and draped blankets and coverlets over the whole thing. We'd probably had enough room to set out a board game and huddle around it, to roll the dice and mark down on the tiny pads of paper if we thought it had been Professor Plum in the conservatory with a lead pipe, or Mrs. Peacock in the billiard room with the candlestick. Years later, when I was a teenager in the last year of high school,

I'd been on a hike through the woods in the back acres of my grandparents' farm, and found a tree with flat wooden rungs nailed into the trunk like a ladder. I'd looked up and seen a little house, a platform balancing on a broad branch, with a few walls of mismatched lumber nailed together, and a small square window cut out. The wood was bleached by the sun. And when I reached up to test the strength of one of the rungs, it came apart in my hand. So, tree houses were real. Someone had made this one and played here. And though I couldn't I bet there was, in a corner, under a pile of dried old leaves, a toy or a book or a box of treasures. Even now, I'm still looking for those little places to tuck into. Maybe less a clubhouse and more a nest.

Today was a day like the one that had turned our ice house into slush. Rain coming down over the crunchy drifts of snow that were slowly shrinking. Water ran off the roof, drumming in the gutters and rushing in rivulets down the sidewalk and into the storm drains. I'd wanted to get out for a walk, but it would be a chilly, muddy mess. And so I'd reframed my thoughts a bit. If I couldn't go out, could I make staying in even more tempting? Was I too old to make a pillow fort? It turned out I was not. I chuckled to myself as I took the cushions off the couch and spread a tartan blanket over the living room rug. It took a few tries, and I had fun along the way. But soon I had a little structure, with cushions as walls. I got creative and wedged a broom between two chairs so it stood

upright. Through the hole at the end of the broomstick, I threaded a strand of dental floss, which is sturdy stuff, by the way. When you need to hang something heavy, get thee to the medicine cabinet." And stretched it from the broom to a nail that usually held a painting behind the couch. Then I crossed my fingers and flung a top sheet over the floss. It made a draping cover, a tent to my little nest. I took the comforter from my bed and crawled inside with it, added more pillows and laid back and looked up at the tented ceiling. I let out a slow sigh. I felt a little giddy, so glad now to not be going out. to not be going out. I could stay in here all afternoon, but first, snacks. I wriggled back out and padded to the kitchen, where the rain was thrumming against the window over the sink. Snow was shrinking fast. At this rate, we'd wake up tomorrow to bare lawns on clear roofs.

My neighbor still had a few reindeer and a light-up snowman in his yard. And I had a feeling this weekend would be the one that saw a lot of us, apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon, a glass of grapefruit soda, and a bowl of those little peanut butter filled pretzels. I slid my tray into my hideaway along with my book. I could watch movies, listen to music, read and nap. Or just watch the light change through the walls of my fort. We would come out of hibernation soon, but not quite yet. Pillow forts and treehouses. When I was a kid playing with my friends, it seemed like our constant ambition to build a fort, to make a clubhouse, somehow to create a space That could only be permeated by grown-ups when snacks were handed through a flap in the blankets.

The best version of this dream we could imagine was a tree house. And I remember sketching out plans with the stub of a pencil in a spiral-bound notebook, with most of the pages ripped out. As long as you're dreaming, you may as well our treehouse would have retractable stairs to keep out siblings who might try to take over the place, as well as, um, maybe bears? We were kids. It made sense at the time. We'd have a fridge, stocked with drinks and snacks. Where would we plug it in? Maybe a knot in the tree? Maybe we could figure out how to turn sap into electricity.

Yeah, I'd make a note to invent that later. We'd have binoculars for spotting friends in their trees a few yards away. A slide, or, better yet, a zip line to carry us back down. And we'd hold our meetings up there. About what? You know, nine-year-old stuff. Very important. About what? Um, you know. Nine-year-old stuff. Very important. You wouldn't understand. We never achieved our ambition of a tree house.

The logistics quickly overwhelmed us. And when our friends who claimed to have a cousin in the country who had one, we looked at them with a good deal of skepticism. Maybe treehouses were only in movies or adventure We kept attempting to make forts whenever we could. The school canceled on one sunny snow day. where there was an empty lot full of knee-high snow. It was late winter, and the deep chill was giving over to slightly less frigid temps, so the snow packed together nicely. We had a genius lights, the plastic kind with faded writing on the sides. All garages have them, though in any way that I know. They just appear in a corner or on a shelf and get filled with battered softballs or swim goggles. We found when they were packed with the heavy snow, they turned out perfect We shoveled a flat space and started to lay them. First a foundation, and then rising walls. When the walls got to their third or fourth layer of blocks, we realized we'd forgotten

to leave a space for a door, and as we started to make plans to swipe tarps from our sheds and basement, we got hungry and all trudged to the nearest of our houses to be fed soup and sandwiches while our snow pants dripped dry by the back door. Overnight, the snow turned to rain, and by morning our ice palace was a lake with a few small square icebergs floating in it. I'm sure we hadn't justed in someone's basement or living room and stacked and bed pillows into a frame, and draped blankets around it to roll the dice and mark down on the tiny pads of paper if we thought it had been Professor Plum in the conservatory with a lead pipe, or Mrs. Peacock in the billiard room with the candlestick. Years later, when I was a teenager in the last year of high school, I'd been on a hike through the woods and the back acres of my grandparents' farm and found a tree with flat wooden rungs nailed into the trunk like a ladder. I looked up and seen a little house, a platform balancing on a broad branch, with a few walls of mismatched lumber nailed together,

and a small square window cut out. The wood was bleached by the sun, and when I reached up to test the strength of one of land. So tree houses were real. Someone had made this one and played here. And though up to see it myself. I bet there was, in a corner, under a pile of dried old leaves, a toy, or a book, or a box of treasures. Even now, I'm still looking for those little places to tuck into. Maybe was a day like the one that had turned our ice house into slush. Rain coming that were slowly shrinking. Water ran off the roof, drumming in the gutters and rushing in rivulets down the sidewalk and into the storm drains. I'd want it to get out for a walk, but it would be a chilly, muddy mess. And so I'd reframed my thoughts a bit. If I couldn't go out, could I make staying in even more to make a pillow for it. It turned out I was not. I chuckled to myself as I took the cushions off the couch and spread a tartan blanket over the living room rug. It took a few tries, and I had fun along the way. But soon, I had a little structure with cushions as walls.

I got creative and wedged a broom between two chairs so it stood upright. Through the hole at the end of the broomstick, I threaded a strand of dental floss, which is sturdy stuff, by the way. When you need to hang something heavy, get thee to the medicine cabinet." And I stretched it from the broom to a nail that usually held a painting behind the couch. Then I crossed my fingers and flung a top sheet over the floss. It made a draping cover, a tent to my little nest. I took the comforter from my bed and crawled inside with it, added more back and looked up at the tented ceiling. I let out a slow sigh. I could stay in here all afternoon, but first, snacks.

I wriggled back out and padded to the kitchen, where the rain was thrumming against the window over the sink. The snow was shrinking fast. At this rate, we'd wake up tomorrow to bare lawns and clear roofs. My neighbor still had a few reindeer and a light-up snowman in his yard. And I had a feeling this weekend would be the one that saw a lot of us taking down our decorations and twinkle lights. I made myself a tray of treats. Apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon. a glass of grapefruit soda, and a bowl of those little peanut butter-filled pretzels. I slid my tray into my hideaway, along with my book. I could watch movies, listen to music, read and nap, or just watch the light change through the walls of my fort. We would come out of hibernation soon,

but not quite yet. Sweet dreams.