The Hospice Store

Posted on September 19, 2013 by TJ

Today was a splendiforous day. I love that word. It just rolls off the tongue. It means magnificent and wonderful.

After JJ had left for school, EJ and I set off to the hospice store in a nearby town. The hospice store is a thrift store which raises money for the hospice. There are actually two hospice stores in the same town run by the same organization. One store has smaller items like clothes, books, toys, dishes, and knick-knacks. The other has larger items like couches, tables, dressers, beds, and exercise equipment. We enjoy them both. Today we set off for the second store to search for a couch to replace the one our cat, Annie, ruined.

I love thrift stores and yard sales. I love that shopping at thrift stores is a lot like treasure hunting. We never know what we might find. We might find nothing or we might find something totally unique. Often we can buy good quality items for not much money. Also, I love that I don’t stress if a secondhand item gets stained or ripped, which is important if there are pets in the home (or small children). I mean, it’s one thing to have a cat pee on a $10 couch and quite another to have her pee on a $1,000 couch that has to be replaced with another $1,000 couch.

The hospice store has rooms filled with furniture. Sometimes we go there even when we aren’t shopping for furniture. We just like to browse. But today we went there hoping to find a couch. I have missed having a couch. I tried to get used to sitting in the wingback chair, but it just wasn’t as comfortable. And I couldn’t curl up and fall asleep in the chair if I got tired while waiting for EJ to get home from work.

EJ and I wandered through the rooms and found a lot of couches. The style of many didn’t suit us. Some weren’t comfortable. Then we found a couch that would work AND it had a matching loveseat. It had a few flaws–it is, after all, a used secondhand couch–but it was in good condition. We kept looking…because you never know what other treasure there might be. We found another couch that would also work that was in even more excellent condition. We considered them both and decided to get the couch and loveseat. It just appealed to us more. Together they cost only $185.

We loaded up the couches and took them home. We had fun putting them in place. The amazing thing is that they match our curtains really well. When we first moved into our house, we had furniture with blue accents so we bought blue curtains. However, we bought our previous couch (the one Annie ruined) at a neighborhood yard sale in a lake community for only $10. I think the owners were moving across country and needed to sell everything. The couch was high quality and in absolutely excellent condition. Never again will we find a used couch as good as that one for such a low price. The same day, we bought an excellent recliner that exactly matched the couch at a different sale for $5. They were both green. They did not match our curtains. When you treasure hunt, you can’t always choose color or pattern. However, the couches we bought today are blue and match our curtains as if we had specifically bought them with the curtains in mind.

EJ’s recliner is getting worn out, but we couldn’t find any recliners that we liked at the hospice store to replace it. We will keep checking the store to see if they get one in.

The love seat. We were planning on building bookcases on this wall. Now we have to brainstorm what to do.

The only dilemma we have now is that EJ was planning on building us ceiling-to-floor bookcases on one wall of the living room so we can bring our library downstairs where it’s more accessible. However, we have placed the loveseat along that wall. So now we have to re-think our plan. We have to decide whether we want to still build the bookcases there or, if we do, how we will place our furniture. Every dilemma should be so enjoyable.

Before we left for the hospice store this morning, I walked into the bathroom and saw someone peeing in the toilet. My first reaction was to say “Oops, sorry” as I backed away. Then I realized that it was our cat, Luke. He was actually using the toilet. I was so surprised. We didn’t teach him this. He has been isolated in the bathroom while we give him meds for a health problem. I have a litter box in the bathroom for him, but apparently he decided to use the toilet. EJ and I were so surprised.

We had such a fun day today. It was a gift.