Well it has been such a busy week and I haven't posted a blog in over a week!! There is so much that needs to be said and so much to do it is overwhelming. First off, my honey is home for the holidays so it is hard to steal time away from him to get on the computer, I know we need another one. Then he got a bonus at work so he said we should get a new sofa with it, the one we currently has "eats" everyone who sits on it! There is a huge tear in the deck and the springs are broken so it does not sit well. Sounds great right, WRONG. First he only bought the couch 6 years ago and expected to have the thing for about 20 years after paying $1000.00. The problem we found out after extensive comparative shopping for the last 5 days was that the construction on a couch that costs $1000.00 is no different then a couch that costs $400.00. We did look up what to look for in a couch and the tips said kiln dried hard wood frames at least an inch and a half thick, test the fabric by pulling on it, the fabric should be strong and hold tight, put your knees into the cushion of the couch check for sagging, and there was a certain way to the springs so they don't sag and they should be a certain amount apart. I won't name names on the bad, they are all cheaply made today, but I will say you get a lot of static electricity climbing on showroom furniture. I had all the sales people looking at me like I was crazy, while I was jumping on furniture, pulling at fabric, taking off cushions and feeling the frames my hair kept flying around from the static. My honey talked to the sales people while I did the fun stuff. Then we go into this one really nice commercial showroom and the lady there was so frazzled, she really was working on a commission with the wrong customers!! She tried to sell us a $700.00 couch that the construction was the same as the cheaper places and then try to say it was "layered hardwood frames" and I said oh you mean "plywood" and she said no it is not plywood it is "hardwood, layered with laminate. and I said yeah, plywood. The real deal breaker, well when she finally gave up trying to sell to us was when she came out of her office with the paperwork on the constuction of the couch she was trying to sell us. The name of the manufacturer was Allen White, when we had gotten there we told her our woes of our couch and the cost not giving it value, when she showed us the paper we said oh, that's the couch we own now!! I will say we went into a specialty shop with very expensive furniture and it actually had thick kiln dried wood, everything we were looking for in construction and the cost was $3000.00 on the low end. We went to every single furniture store in town. I feel I have wasted so much time because here we are still with the broken furniture. You know my honey does not like to make money decisions quickly and I understand that I very much appreciate it. However, after exhausting all our options he still does not want to buy the low end furniture with the extended store warranty. Well we cannot afford the good furniture, no one in our neighborhood can. I don't even own a MAC, I'm a PC girl. I have an 8 year old van I have never bought a new car, never. It is not beneath me to purchase a $600 sofa and love seat over just a $600 sofa with no love seat not to mention the $3000.00 sofa. Really folks I gave up, I thought when he said new couch that we would have it by Christmas, but we may never have it, and I am OK with that. My Christmas will be here tomorrow and I am so excited!!! I have been baking tons of goodies and my crazy sister and her family might come over tomorrow. Her husband doesn't like to come over so I told her we could do our gift exchange after Christmas since Thanksgiving was not so great. She was horrible because of her husband not coming so I just said that we were going to have a small family Christmas and she was good with that. Well let me tell you, reverse psychology does work, because she called today saying her husband wanted to come over tomorrow!! Huh, well if they come over cool, if not, oh well and that is the power of recovery today. Because her chaos is not mine. I love the holidays, yes I miss my Mom and Dad, and I miss my brother, but the magic of kids is irreplaceable. They are so into the Christmas spirit that they are making gifts and decorating cookies for Santa Claus!! And when they are older, we are going to start some community service efforts for the needy as part of the Christmas tradition. I feel it will help to teach them gratitude and the true meaning of giving back. You knowI have been so busy that some things on my list of "to do's" have simply not gotten done, I completely missed the convention committee meeting because I got the flu so bad last week. And I have not been bothered by my own self will. I have gotten some more work done on my 6th Step and I got the deep cleaning done in my house and you know I am ok today. I do apologize for not reading everyone's blogs, my honey is out today doing last minute shopping so I am taking this time to wish all my bloggers a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to you and yours and may you find time for your moment each day to pause and be thankful. Todays thought; "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin -- real life.
But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life
would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles
were my life." --Alfred D'Souza