A Promise and A Dream

A couple of posts ago I promised to post pics of the new furniture we got at a bankruptcy auction last weekend.

Slugbo and I, while no means poor, tend to lean towards the IKEA scale of furniture pricing when we are looking to replace pieces in the house.

About 75% of our furniture is IKEA or second hand stuff. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But you tend to get what you pay for most of the time.

Needless to say, like most males, Slugbo has a LOAD of electronics equipment in the living room and the old IKEA entertainment center just didn't let us put stuff in it neatly. Now hubby does the computers for a local auction house and he found out about the auction before most of the general public. So we got to go in early and scope out what they had in the way of stuff we wanted. He fell in love with this:

It also has the matching hutch over there on the right which fit perfectly on it's wall and we didn't have to move the painting up (though we might anyway).

Another thing we wanted was a set of bunkbeds for the new kids room. We didn't get our first choice, but managed to get our second choice:

The top is a twin and the bottom is a full, and obviously both mattresses are new. We also got what Slug is calling 'The Lifesaver Lamp' over there on the nightstand. We might need to build a rail for the bottom bunk, but we will see. Now I have to pick out bedding.

So those were the two MUST have items (the hutch was a bonus with the lot - there was a matching gun case which is currently in the Pennsylvania room while we figure out what the h* to do with it). The other nice to have was a new sofa.

It needed to be long enough for Mr 6'+ to lay out full length on, and for me to be able to cuddle up next to him no matter how many of the fur babies decide to join us. There was a black sectional leather (7 furbabies equals LOTS of fur) that was perfect for the room. You have to remember that our living room used to be the house garage. So it's 24' by 24'. That makes for a huge room. So a huge sofa will fit. We managed to get it and the first thing hubby said when we got it in the room, was 'Boy that's big!' But we made it work. We also picked up two coffee tables that have storage in them and we decided to use both. So the house is almost 100% done as far as furniture goes.

Now you might remember that the same post that promised the furniture pics, talked about a mini dream list. One of those items being that someone hand knit something for me for a change. Now I didn't mean the remark to be snarky, but it has always struck me that most people that make handmade stuff tend to NOT give them to people that know how to make the items themselves. This isn't always the case.

If you look closely at the sofa pic above you will see the absolutely beautiful handknit shawl I got from the wonderful Miss Cookie. Now I love Cookie's blog and it is one I check everyday. I love how she says that the she hates people, but you can see the love she offers towards those she doesn't lump in with her definition of 'people'. This is the shawl she smoked her friend Manise making middle of last month. I fully admit that I saw the shawl on her blog and thought it was gorgeous, then I got an email asking for my snail mail address and I tentatively began to hope that just MAYBE that shawl could be mine. Granted I'd take anything Cookie was willing to send me because she does such beautiful work no matter what she's knitting.

I got an IM from hubby yesterday that a box had arrived. I IM'd back: Open it! Open it!. So he did and then wouldn't tell me what was in it. Gr. So I called him and sent him the link to the blog post and he said yup. I have to admit I was crying. I mean I knit. I don't necessarily knit well or fast, but I know what goes into a shawl like that. Cookie sent it as a hug that she wasn't able to offer in person since she's a couple of hours north of here. It was her way of offering support and solace for our failed IVF.

I had hubby open it because I wasn't going home before knit group (would have had to back track and we aren't wasting gas right now), so he met me on the way to his gig for the evening with the shawl so I could take it to my knit group.

I have it with me at work today. I won't let it out of my sight and I promise you Cookie I'll take really good care of it so I can give it to a daughter some day or a son's wife if we are lucky to finally adopt, or my nephew's wife or daughter if we are not thusly blessed. It will be cherished forever. More importantly it will be used.

Thank you for the hug Cookie and for helping make part of my little list come true. XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

PS - my pictures suck but the color is true.