THRIFTING AND A SON COMING HOME

 Last Saturday we went thrifting.  Knowing my son would soon be coming home on leave motivated us to finally get out and look for a bed for the spare room.  We went to a new thrift store and hit pay dirt as far as we were concerned.  Matt found this cute little wooden cardinal tealight holder originally marked 50c which rang up for 13c!!!  It's an adorable addition to my growing cardinal collection. 

We also picked up two more of the Harry Potter series, both hardbacks, for $10 each.  The books looked like they were in brand new condition.  I think we just need two more books to complete the entire collection.  Matt's been waiting for us to pick up book three so he could continue the series in the correct order so now he has reading material. 

I also found this beautiful headboard marked down to $9.99.  With a bit of cleaning up it looks very nice - not to masculine, not to feminine, and not to childish.  I apologize for the disorder in the picture.  Matt had been putting in the molding around the floor so we had pushed everything to the middle of the room.  It was fortune that we went thrifting because Wednesday my son informed me he'd be home the next day!  Wow, talk about very little warning.  Matt and I managed to pull the room together and he has a peaceful place now to rest and sleep.  Matt even managed to get our old tv brought in and hooked up the cable for him. 

On a serious note, I haven't posted regarding my oldest son being injured in Afghanistan as it was very personal for me and I was very emotional for a while.  About a month ago he was shot multiple times while on patrol.  He was extremely lucky and none of the shots caused any serious injury.  He's been in a hospital in Qatar since and wasn't sure they'd let him come home on leave.  Thankfully they did because mom really needed to see her son to make sure he was okay.  Creating a sanctuary for him was my labor of love and a way to focus my energies.  His Purple Heart Medal is beautiful BUT I wish he'd never gone through what he did to receive it.  I was one of the fortunate that when I got the call it was from my son and not a stranger.  My heart and prayers goes out to all those moms who aren't so lucky. 

MOTHER'S DAY FIND

Sorry for the delayed post but I've been down with bronchitis and just haven't had any energy to get these finished. 

Our thrifty finds for the weekend continued through Sunday.  My oldest son who is in the Army gave me his flat screen TV before he left for Afghanistan which won't fit into our entertainment center.  Matt wanted to watch the Red Wings Stanley Cup Playoffs on the larger screen and suggested we try looking at Pier 1 for a new TV stand Sunday afternoon.  I will mention here that we have looked at several Salvation Army stores and several other thrift stores along with Big Lots and Ikea without finding anything we liked or were comfortable paying.  My son gave us the TV back in March so it had been sitting around unused for a while and the box was becoming a cat perch and dust/cat hair magnet. 

So Sunday we went to Pier 1 and were checking out the furniture.  Ended up back in the clearance section (gee, surprise there).  I was looking at a TV unit that had a definite Chinese/Zen look when Matt noticed a price tag under it that was marked down from $599 to $149.  Intrigued at what could be marked down 70% and why it was marked down, we decided to investigate.  There were tables in front of it so we had to do some moving to get to the unit to see what it even was - I initially though it was a table that you would put behind a couch.  What we found was a TV unit that was nearly perfect for what we wanted and we both were agreeable to the price.  I would have preferred a dark brown but we both were tired of looking and this was as close as we'd gotten to something we liked without spending our retirement funds to pay for it.   Upon asking we found out that the unit was marked down because it had been a floor unit and there was a ding on the top about the size of a pencil eraser.

Other then a few small issues like my son forgetting to give us the remote and our having to run to Best Buy to get a universal, set up was pretty easy.  By the end of the night the old entertainment unit was in the garage waiting to be put up on Craigslist and the new unit was dusted and all the equipment was connected and working.  All the DVDs, CDs, and VCR tapes that had been in the bookcase are now housed in the new unit (well most of them at least) and the games and puzzles we'd stored in the old unit were now in the bookcase. I continued with my spring cleaning and washed down the wall behind the unit along with half of two other walls.  I was also able to sweep and mop where the larger unit had been.  We were able to watch the Red Wing game that night and several since Sunday on a nicer TV.  The new unit really opens up that wall and makes the room look larger, which I'm really liking.  Now if only the new couch would arrive!