I should've posted about three times by now, with all that has been going on here at the Smith house, but I have just been too pooped!! I guess I'm going to have to sum up last week's events in this one post.
First of all...note to self (and any others of you who may have such a crazy notion)...If it suddenly strikes you that it might be a fun idea to fix brownie banana splits for your family for dinner... just DON'T!! In an attempt to be fun and spontaneous, the kids and I made brownie sundaes with bananas,ice cream and all of the trimmings for a dinner surprise. Josh, who I'm sure wasn't really thrilled to walk through the door and see his meal, was gracious and ate it all up, without a complaint.
What I hadn't thought of was that Josh had a softball game only an hour after our little ice cream fiesta. We all went out to watch him play. Right after the game, Josh got sick. His stomach just couldn't handle my tasty ice cream surprise. (The kids sure loved it, though!) So, don't try this at home. It might work, though, if the dinner was followed by a leisurely night at home instead of a night of softball in the warm outdoors.
I have been running all around this town like a madwoman, desperately trying to furnish Josh's office. Not only do the items have to be attractive, they also have to be affordable, all while looking professional. I have been trying my hardest to find pictures, furniture, and other odds and ends to fill up the seemingly neverending space that is his office. This is not something that I think I am especially talented at, anyway, so I'm sure it takes me twice as long as someone who actually knows what they are doing. Also- seeing as how we've always been broke, this is my first time to go furniture shopping--ever.
This is what I have discovered... I really really love to shop IF I actually need things. I don't think I will ever be in danger of being one of those credit card toting women who shops her life away. I do, however, like the feeling of putting a room together and decorating it according to my tastes. It is somthing that I've never done with my own house. Thus far, my house has been decorated with a mixture of hodge podge, consisting of garage sale items, hand me downs (not that I'm not extremely grateful for the the twenty year old sofa with the pen markings and missing arm),and of course, the things that we received as wedding gifts eight years ago. Put this all together and you have a great big mess. I don't like the "big mess" look, but also don't like buying something beautiful on credit, so I've chosen to embrace "big mess" look for now. My point is how fun it has been to have my husband tell me to go shopping, and how exciting it has been to actually get to shop for things. Those bargaining skills gained by years of garage saling and estate saling have really come in handy in my furniture shopping, though. Just today, I used my sneaky skills to get a lady to reduce the price of a desk by about $50. I am always looking for a great deal. Oh, and another weird thing.... about the lady who sold the desk to me. She was an eighty or so year old lady named... "Pony". Pony??? What is that name all about?
I happened upon a VERY NEAT store yesterday. It is the El Paso Import Company. They carry an assortment of unique looking furniture that is reasonably priced. Now, of course, you can definitely find cheaper furniture at a place like IKEA, TARGET, or WAL MART (and at garage sales of course). This furniture is definitely higher quality than some of those other places. I visited several chain furniture stores and found this place's pieces to be much more interesting and far better priced. If you like unique pieces, I would highly recommend checking this place out.
My mother and I went to the store on what happened to be their first day open. We arrived around 5:50 or so and wandered around the store, looking at all of the treasures. We were taking our sweet time, measuring and checking and rechecking. (My mom has an office to decorate as well, so we both have big projects.) We kept asking the woman who was working there questions about where things were, etc. We finally realized that the store actually closed at 6:00. It was probably about 6:20 or so. As soon as we realized that the store was closed and that this lady was probably waiting to go home, we apologized and rushed to leave. The woman was very sweaty due to the fact that she had been moving furniture around all day (Remember it was their first day open.) She told us that she was going to meet her boyfriend at Chili's for dinner and then would be back around 7:30. She informed us that she had a lot to do to get ready for tomorrow and would be there that night from 7:30-very late, probably til midnight. She told us that if we would come back at 7:30 she would let us in and we could walk around the store all night if we wanted to, because she would be working. We told her thanks and left to get some dinner. We went to Pei Wei and met the family for dinner. We were finished around 8:00, so we headed back to the store. When we got there, there was another couple walking around the store and looking at things. I just figured that she had let them in too, and we were both looking around. We were there for 20 minutes and still, there was nobody in charge anywhere around the store. Picture this, a large warehouse type furniture store--FULL of furniture, with nobody ANYWHERE around. After about 20 minutes we were starting to get worried. After about 10 more minutes, we called the police. We locked the doors to the furniture store and sat down on some leather chairs with the other couple who was in the store. While we were sitting there, we heard two knocks on the back door (the alley door where you pick up your furniture). They weren't friendly knocks, but weird knocks. They were more like the sound of a bang or a beat than a knock. Then, less than a minute later, we heard one more knock. Weird again.
We thought it was so strange that this lady we had spent so much time with earlier that day was nowhere to be found. She seemed to be so intelligent and responsible. She was also tall, young, good looking, and blonde. She didn't seem like the type to leave the job. I did some investigating and found her Chili's cup behind the counter WITH ice in it. My resourceful sleuth work told me that she had indeed been out to eat with her boyfriend and had, in fact, returned. This made us all more worried that she had been abducted. The police arrived. We told them some of our story. I don't think they were worried, but promised to check it out. I found it odd that they didn't take our names and numbers, considering they knew that we had seen her and talked with her earlier. Mom and I left. We had gone about a mile or so, when we remembered some details that we had forgotten to mention. We returned, realizing that those policemen probably thought that we were crazy women, and told the rest of the story. We just wanted to make sure that if she was missing, they would have all of the facts, (dinner with boyfriend at Chili's, good looking woman, etc.) The policemen gave us a look that said, "Whatever", but at least our consciences were clear. I didn't sleep very well last night. I just knew that those knocks were that woman in the alleyway. Perhaps she had been beaten up or left for dead. We consoled ourselves with the fact that the policemen most likely checked the back door and would have been idiots to have left this undone.
This morning, I drove up to the store. There was the woman, AND her manager. I breathed a sigh of relief. When the manager wasn't around, I asked her what the deal was.... WHERE in the world she had been the night before? She looked puzzled. I explained the story to her, how the store had been left unlocked for at least a couple of hours, how the police had been called, how we had all been worried sick that she was hurt or abducted or worse. She was super worried and slightly embarrassed, claiming that her dinner took longer than she'd anticipated and that she had returned at about 8:30 and we must have barely missed her. Yeah right. We left closer to 9:00 and the policemen were still there. She thanked me for being cautious and calling the police and thanked me for not embarrassing her in front of her manager. I really don't know what was up with this girl, or what was the deal with her leaving the front door unlocked, but she better get her act together...and soon. Despite this strange woman, this was an awesome store!!
One more thing that I have to put down. Josh's mom, affectionately called "Nonnie" at our house, watched the kids today so that I could get some serious shopping done. When she left, Mary Alice was very very sad. We told her that Nonnie would be back next weekend and that she could see her then. When we came home, after leaving Nonnie, Mary Alice went up to her room. I thought she was going upstairs to put on her pajamas or something. She didn't know that I was listening, but I heard her crying and, with all of the passion a four year old could possibly have she said, "Lord, I praise you!" "Lord, I worship you!" "Please, please let Nonnie come back!" I stood outside her door, listening to her sweet little prayer. I went in to find her down on her knees. I asked her what was going on. She said, "I am just telling God what I need!" Very sweet. I think she really believed with all of her heart that if she prayed really hard, then God would bring Nonnie right back to her, instead of her having to back home. What a cutie pie! Isn't she sweet?
I have had some life changing events going on this week--major stuff. I can't blog about it, but it would suffice to say that I can see God working this week in TREMENDOUS ways, both in my life and in the lives of others. I am amazed by this whole crazy week. It is one of the strangest weeks of my life, but has been a good week. Very good.
