In the Poor House, But Feeling Rich

Well, we finally did it. After months--nay, years--of talking and mulling and hoping and dreaming, we finally bought new living room furniture today! Yesterday afternoon, "Grandma" Phyllis invited the kids to her house for a hot dog roast (in the fireplace!) , and then they toasted marshmallows and made s'mores. What would we do without her??? She is so busy taking care of Jim and trying to keep up with all of her responsibilities, yet she STILL makes an effort to stay close to the kids. I wondered how the day would go now that her basement has been taken over by Cozy, JD's dog. (Since at least two of the four kids are allergic to dogs, they are no longer allowed to go downstairs where the "big" TV is and where JD makes his home). As it turned out, I don't think they watched much TV (or at least they didn't tell me about all the TV they watched!). Aside from eating the hot dogs and s'mores, they played Uno Attack and read lots of books (There Goes a Dump Truck, There Goes a Bulldozer . . . please don't make me go through this again!). They did carry along a video of an IMAX movie called T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous that Sawyer had been dying to watch but I'm not sure if they saw the whole thing.

At any rate, while the kids were living it up at Grandma Phyllis' house, Randy and I took the opportunity to get serious about sofa-shopping. We had taken the kids along several weeks ago when we went shopping but the problem was that to them, each sofa was better than the last! "Oh, I love this one! Let's get this one!" Next: "Oh, this is the most comfortable couch I've ever sat on--let's get it!" Next: "Oh my goodness, you could sleep in this chair! Can we get this one?" You get the picture. I actually thought we had pretty much narrowed our choices down to two different sets but last night we went to a couple of stores we hadn't visited the first time around. And I will say right now, I am big enough to admit that the store we ended up making our purchase from is the very store that I very nearly refused to go in last night. Randy has miraculous powers of persuasion!

Because we don't know how long we're going to be in this house we didn't want to go crazy and order a whole room full of furniture; indeed, we looked at coffee tables, end tables, occasional tables, etc., but ultimately decided to hold off for a bit. We ended up ordering a sofa and two rocker/recliners and now must wait impatiently for delivery! We chose a color that is "custom" so it will be coming from the factory as opposed to their warehouse. But we did take the kids back to the store today to make the final purchase and they gave our choice their blessing! To see a photo of our new living room furniture, click here. We did not get the chaise lounge that is pictured in the photo--simply imagine a second rocker/recliner in its place. Oh, the girl sitting on the sofa doesn't come with the package either.

I must point out the absolute selling point for me: the sofa isn't extra-long like some we looked at, but notice the recliners--there is room for two pairs of feet on each! All four kids can sit on the couch at once, two to a recliner, and nobody will feel squished!

So now here we are going on 5:00 on Saturday afternoon, and this furniture-shopping has consumed nearly our whole weekend. I'm not sure how it will close, but my weekend opened on just the right note (no pun intended): Friday morning as I was in my bathroom preparing to go to the dentist, on the other side of our paper-thin wall I could hear Sawyer lying in bed, obviously just waking up to a new morning, and I listened to the beautiful sound of him humming and singing to himself. It just doesn't get much better than that.