Furniture!!!

I have the same couch my parents had when I was a teenager. I have a love seat that belonged to my friend Mike about five years ago, when he decided it was ugly and he needed a new set of furniture. The recliner met a horrible death by sledgehammer about two months ago after it started to fall apart in numerous places. If you go further afield in the house, we have a table from a grandma, a chest freezer from my brother, a fridge from my brother's brother in law, cabinets from a grandma, and a table from the Nurses' union board room. Furniture has never been a priority for us, other than beds - we have a few of those we've purchased, as well as the frame for the one in the master bedroom. When the recliner broke, however, my mother was annoyed. She felt there was no place, within the three households of her children, that she could comfortably sit. So she made us promise to find a new recliner before Christmas. Last weekend we went to Schneiderman's and found not only a recliner, but a matching couch which, when you look carefully, reclines on both ends. There are three reclining spots in the frontroom now - only the bad person has to sit in the center of the couch and not recline. We could have bought a love seat with a dual recliner as well, but that really seemed like overkill. It would have looked like the world's laziest book group with five people sitting in a circle reclining.

The furniture came today while Eryn and I were at the Original Pancake House with my brother (they didn't call our name - it was a 60 minute wait for breakfast - but they comped us free strawberries with whipped cream), so it was ready when we got home. Here's Eryn enjoying the fact that she is no longer, under pain of...something, we're not really a punishment family, we'd have to come up with a new paradigm...never, ever allowed to eat shredded cheese or spaghetti sauce on the couch again. It was a non-issue with the 25 year old couch. Then again, we have accident insurance (if we don't use it, it becomes a credit at the store), so maybe it wouldn't be the end of the world.

For the purposes of full disclosure, we didn't get rid of the old couch. It moved onto the porch. And the porch loveseat moved to the basement red room. Next up, a dishwasher that doesn't leave more residue on the dishes than it removes.