New Furniture!

Once upon a time, along about the year 2005, my daughter and her then-husband decided to move from the Camby, IN, area to Muncie, IN, so Nathan could take a better job in order to support the family.  Things were looking up for them!  My grandbabies weren't much more than toddlers.  They had lived within a stone's throw of my house for the duration of their young years, but Muncie was one-and-a-half hours away.  Of course, I cried for three days but finally decided that it was time to suck up and get with the program to help them as best I could.

They bought a 3-bedroom Bedford Stone house in Muncie.  Compared to where they had lived in Camby, it was pretty nice although seriously outdated in a lot of things.  The living room was quite large.  Meg and I--and virtually everyone else in the expanded family--launched into cleaning/decorating mode.  Repairs were made.  Things were replaced.  And living room furniture was purchased.  They bought a brand-new wooden-framed futon couch with a matching futon chair, and a squarish end table to put in between them in an L-pattern.  The futon covers were like brocade in appearance--mostly deep orange with gold Oriental motifs.  We painted one wall in persimmon paint and another in tan to match...and when it was all clean and picked up, it looked great.  (The futon was necessary in order to have a place for Grandma Peggy to sleep when she was there...darn near twice a month for awhile.  I practically wore out two cars going back and forth from Muncie!)

Then, one day--which seemed suddenly to me but probably not to them--the marriage ended.  Megan and the children came for a weekend to help celebrate my birthday, but never left.  I had no idea about any of this, but did what I've always tried to do--just dig in and do what has to be done in any given moment.  Damn the torpedoes, etc...   In short order, her former husband asked that she come to get all of her stuff.  Flying on a wing and a prayer, she got a couple of helpers and I managed to snag one of my radio friends, and we rented a U-Haul to go up to Muncie to retrieve her things, including the futon furniture.  In one long, stressful day, we got her things out of Muncie and into a storage unit near--guess where?--Camby!  We had so many people to thank that day, including the cook and wait staff at Bob Evans who stayed open past closing time just to feed five very hungry and very tired people, and my friend who paid for it all, including a tip for the waitress that must have been huge because she asked, "Are you sure?" as we were leaving.  (Adam, you'll never know how much you did for this old woman and her daughter that day!)

 Meg got a job, enrolled in school, and arranged for day care for the children.  I was still teaching then so was somewhat strapped for time.  So was she.  We did what we could, but I felt that I was doing all of the cooking, shopping, laundry, and housework, and felt--well--I was worn out.  Please don't get the opinion that Meg was skating.  She handed me a pretty healthy check every month to ease the financial burden, and more.

Every weekend, the children went to Muncie to be with their father.  Meg did college class homework.  I did laundry and grocery shopping and housework, plus did what I could to assist with moral support when she was ready to drop courses because she felt overwhelmed.  We were both running full tilt just to stay in one place.  It was exhausting, frankly.  So one day, I asked her to please do more around the house to help out.  She said, (and I'm paraphrasing), "I don't know what to do.  It's not my house.  My stuff isn't here, so I don't feel all that comfortable."

I was stunned.  Back in 1992, when it was just the two of us and our two cats, I bought this house for us.  I never, ever, thought of it as just MY house.  She belonged here, as far as I was concerned, and so did my grandchildren.  What I hadn't counted on was that she had grown up in the years since. She had become the matriarch of her own home and her own family, and all of the "stuff" that she had accrued in that time was gathering dust in a storage unit in Camby.  A storage unit that she was paying for every month.  That day, I declared that we would incorporate her belongings into this house, one way or another.

Again, we enlisted friends to help.  (Thank you, Travis!)  My kitchen/dining room table and chairs went to Goodwill.  They had been my grandparents', but were quite well worn, although functional.  The living room furniture--couch, loveseat, and small swivel rocker, were sold for next to nothing.  They were getting threadbare anyway.  And in their place came the kitchen table/chairs that used to belong to Meg's McNary grandparents, and the futon couch/chair, and table.  Plus many other things, but these were the bulkiest.

My house is very small.  The futon furniture filled up the living room and made it all look quite wooden.  I did what I could to decorate around the orange/gold colors, and we made do.  We also remodeled and redecorated the rest of the house so that everyone had a bedroom of his/her own.  Once in a blue moon, it came in handy to have a futon bed in the living room, but most of the time, it just served as a couch.  An uncomfortable couch, as I got older.

And then, in 2009, right after I retired and had a heart attack, Meg fell in love with her now-husband.  In a series of events that are too sensitive to talk about right now and are resolved anyway, her children were sent to Muncie to live with their father, and she left with her Russian Hunk for California.  When they departed for CA, they went in a mini-van with not much more than the shirts on their backs, determined that they would buy new when they got to Sunnyvale.  I was left with the futon furniture...and the longer I had it, the less I liked it.

Most recently, I came to hate it, actually.  It took up sooo much space in my tiny living room.  I could barely sit on it with my bad back, but couldn't nap on it because of the angle of the seating.  For my disabled condition, it just wasn't functional for me, yet I had no money to buy new and--at my age--couldn't really justify such a purchase, even though I was considering what I could do to fix things.

And then, out of the blue, came an email from one of my Sunday school friends offering her couch and love seat to anyone interested.   I didn't see the email at first but was talking to my friend Judy on the phone when she told me about it, so after we hung up, I went to the computer.  I expressed interest and made arrangements to look at it the next day (along with picking up Sunday school materials for teaching purposes).  Apparently I was the first to respond (thank you, Judy!)  One look at what they were offering told me it would be perfect for my living room...and the price was right.  I went over the very next day with cash in hand to buy.

I had a few days of wiggle room.  I needed someone willing to take the futon furniture, then find a truck and a couple of young bucks to help move the new stuff to my house.  (A distance of maybe 1.3 miles.)  I got on Facebook and hit the mother lode.  My stepson's widow, Diana, had just read a post from one of her friends who was looking for a couch for one of his college kid friends.  She put me in contact with him.  They were prompt to pick the stuff up on Saturday, and I felt wonderful about giving college student Darius a couch, chair, and table for his apartment in Decatur, IL.  My friends Judy and Phil offered their truck, unsolicited, for moving the new stuff.  I had a former student who responded that he'd be here to help and could bring a friend.  (That story is a little more complicated than I am describing, but this guy really came through for me!)  At the appointed hour on Sunday, everyone gathered and carried my "new" couch and love seat to my home.  Absolute perfect fit!!  With the new to-scale furniture in place, my living room looks sooo much bigger and sooo much homier.  I think I'm in luuuuuv!

In the process of changing the way my house looked, I spent a whopping $145--$100 for the furniture, $40 as "tips" for the young men who did the moving work for me (and were not, at first, willing to take the money), and $5 for the overage of the gift card for Panera Bread that I got from the young man that took the futon furniture...which I spent on my friends Judy and Phil for letting me use their truck for the move.  (Plus their fellowship over lunch.)

As stupid as it may sound for someone who is considering a move in 12 months to spend money on "new" second-hand furniture, it feels like money well-spent.  I don't often do things just for me.  This purchase, however, is a blessing.  It makes me happy, however long it lasts.  It all came together fairly easily (but not without my worrying that it wouldn't).  God is good, all the time!