1. It allows us to be good stewards with our finances. Since we aren't spending all of our money on these material things, we can tithe our 10% each week as we are called to, and are free to give to other people who need it more than we do. God is so good with His blessings.
2. It keeps what might otherwise end up in a landfill...well, out of a landfill. Like this ladder.
3. It gives us lots and lots of PROJECTS! (Insert spastic interpretive happy dance here, and then insert Rick giving me a sidelong glance and reminding me not to quit my day job.)
A couch, though, was one of the items that was on the top of my "Things to purchase straight from a store and not a store named Goodwill" list.We ended up at a Raymour and Flanigan Clearance Center and not only met our future couch, but also a completely bald little salesman named Gary who brought us complimentary bottled water and took off his shoes so he could jump on couches in a real-life demonstration of their strength and resilience.
I demonstrated how to not wet my pants from all that water because I was laughing so hard.
Blatantly disregarding the fact that I couldn't take any more laughter because I was about to have an extreme accident, Rick began finding the weirdest pieces of furniture (a dime a dozen in a clearance center, let me tell you--have you ever seen a couch upholstered in red terrycloth?), plopping himself down in them, and then posing with a face that he apparently deemed to be appropriate for the given piece of furniture. For example, we affectionately began referring to one sad leather couch as "the ball of dough." It was a nondescript, saggy thing with little beige "dough balls" as armrests. It seriously looked just like this:
Only with a price tag on it.
Unfortunately, since I failed to bring along my camera (who knew that couch shopping could provide such photo-rich opportunities?), I'll have to leave Rick's "dough ball" pose and face up to your imagination.
We did manage to move beyond the dough ball to find and purchase a couch that met our requirements of:
- comfort (my sister-in-law said, "I'll spend the night on this anytime!"),
- quality (Gary did, after all, successfully and without injury jump on the base and the arms, which bodes well for all those future sets of boisterous twins that our mothers plan on us having),
- size (we squished 7 people on it when our families came to gaze upon it after church yesterday--which also bodes well for all those twins),
- attractiveness (I wanted something classy with nice lines),
- color (light blue-gray for something neutral but not boring), and
- price (we paid about $600 below retail and $300 below our budget (!) by A) purchasing a couch that has a you-practically-need-a-microscope-to-see-it-on-the-back-corner-of-the-couch tear, B) avoiding delivery fees by picking it up ourselves, and C) asking our friend Gary "Is this the best price we can get?" to which he responded, "Well, I'll give you $50 off, but only if you let me jump on your couch one more time.")
I don't have a picture other than the grainy one on my cell phone, but this is our new couch (except not the right color) that is currently residing in the maintenance room at church because we have no other place to put it:
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| Our new couch! |
Today, I'm praising the Lord for providing the means to buy a brand new piece of furniture as well as providing a day off, thanks to MLK Day: His timing (as always) was perfect to have a long weekend follow a rough week. It was just what I needed. :)
