Redecorating on a dime

We put an addition on our house about 3 years ago. It's still not finished with some trim needing to be added and a punch list of a bunch of little things. However, all that time, our walls have been white. We actually still don't have the final inspection completed on our addition yet either. My brother in law came up last week and finished off a bunch of drywall and painted my parents hallway. His painting inspired us.

We made an impulse decision to take a little money out of savings and do a quick face-lift on our family room area. I'm so excited because it is looking so good.

We've also been having issues with our couch. The springs have broke and the fabric under the cushions is ripped. It really is in bad shape. Considering we bought this couch about 4 years ago from Sams club for $300, we didn't have high expectations for it.

I decided to go looking on Craigslist for a nice used couch. Buying other people's old stuff can be quite a risky deal. While outward appearance is important, so are things like smell, etc. We also needed it to be CHEAP! Most of what I found in our price range out there was hideous! I mean UGLY!!! I started to realize also that TONS of stuff is available out on the west side. I wanted something on the east side a little closer to home. I started looking more at locations and then at price and then at pictures.

God totally blessed us because I found this little gem of a couch about 10 minutes away from our house. My husband and I went to look at it the other day and thought it was perfect. No smoking, no pets, and the couch had no smell. It of course is worn, but for the $50 we paid for it.... it is in NICE shape. We are picking it up today! I will post pics in another entry once the painting and couch are in place.

So blessed

Yesterday a friend gave me 4 free tickets to go see a screening of the new movie Rio. It doesn't come out until next Friday. We had to be at the theater an hour early because they typically overbook the screenings to ensure they have a full house. We got to the theater. There was a truck from a local radio in front, so I knew we were at the right place. I told the ticket lady that we were there for the screening of Rio. She said there was a line down the hall to the left. We went and got in line. There were about 15 or so people in front of us, so we were definitely getting in. About 10 minutes later, a person came up behind us in line. After standing there for a few minutes, I realized she had a ticket for a screening Soul Surfer in her hand. I thought it was odd that we would both be in the same line. After another few minutes, I asked the lady, "are you here to see Soul Surfer?" She said "yes". I said, "that's odd because I'm here to see Rio. Do you think they'd have us in the same line?". As I was talking I was pulling out my tickets. I looked closely at the tickets and realized they were for next week, April 14. UGH! We drove 45 minutes to this particular theater and the movie was next week!! AAaaah! I had taken my three older children because I knew they would love seeing it. Now we had to drive back home completely empty handed. As we were walking out, my older son kept saying, "please make sure mommy". I was sure. The date was right there on the tickets. I asked the "ticket taker" in the front if Rio was definitely next week. She said she didn't know, but all she was getting was Soul Surfer tickets. I asked if by any chance she had any extra Soul Surfer tickets because we had driven all the way out there. She said she didn't. The movie theater does not control those tickets, nor have any. So we started walking back to the car. About half way out in the parking lot, I had an idea. I asked my older son if he wanted to go back to the table where the radio station was and ask if they had any extra tickets. He said, "YEAH!". We went back in and I asked the ticket taker if my boys could go see if the radio station had any tickets. She said that was fine. The boys took off around the corner. We waited the few seconds. And they came back holding two tickets (each admitted 2)!!! YAY! We didn't go for no reason! So we got to see Soul Surfer which was an AWESOME movie. Highly recommended to anyone! AND we get to go see Rio next week. I kept telling the kids, "We are so blessed!!". We made sure to all thank the Lord for his blessings!!!