Mary Bellamy

After careful consideration (which means about a week of turmoil), I chose the new furniture for my living room. on Thursday night, MNB, his truck and I went to the furniture store. As we were walking up the steps, I looked through the window where the couch used to be and remarked, "Oh, they must have rearranged." When we got inside, it became evident that not only did they rearrange, but that in the intervening 7 days since we'd been there, the couch I wanted had disappeared.

I'd had a sinking feeling all day that the sale from the previous week would be over, and the price would be jacked back up. I figured I could talk my way back into the lower price. But how can you talk your way into a non-existent couch? I flagged down a saleswoman we had chatted with last week, and she got on her little walkie-talkie to figure out if there were any more of the couch left. And the couch? Well, it turns out that while I was at home pondering, it had been discounted and moved next door into the clearance section. We hurried over, and there it was! On clearance!

Alas, only the couch was there. The loveseat, chair and ottoman were nowhere in site. Undaunted, I asked yet another salesperson if they had any loveseats left. After conferring with her walkie-talkie, she told me they had the matching loveseat in Anchorage and they could ship it up for free. Furthermore, the price for the couch and loveseat was now the same price as just the couch would have been last week. Score! Even better - they have one more of that couch in the warehouse, so I can get the brand-new one as opposed to the floor model.

So on Saturday, I will be getting up early to bring my old couch and recliner to the UAF Really, Really Free Market. I will then scrounge the market for any power tools I can get my grubby hands on. Then MNB and I will go pick up the new couch. And then I should worry about doing construction or cleaning, but I will instead go for a hike and a soak in the hotsprings. This is my only free weekend this month and is also the last weekend MNB is here before he heads back to Anchorage for the summer. So screw it, I'm relaxing!

And since I haven't mentioned it recently, remember that tiny little hole we cut in the wall to find the broken pipe? Well, the plumber finally came to fix it on Monday. (Hooray for home warranties, which covered the repairs. I only had to pay the $75 service call fee.) In order for him to fix the pipes, we had to make the hole slightly bigger. Maybe more than slightly. And since I'm going to start ripping the walls down in about a month to renovate the bathroom, it made no sense to patch them up again. All of this is my long-winded way of saying we have bathroom walls that are covered in black plastic. Staple-gunned in place, of course. It gives the place a very rustic charm. I can't wait to start ripping down more walls.