Furniture shenanigans

The furniture industry surely does have a huge markup. We went shopping for a sofa today, at what was advertised as a "half price sale." Of course, the fine print clarified that--half of the MSRP, and only on certain brands of sofas sold in the store. Hard to tell which was which. Also, the price tags on them were already about 40% off the MSRP, so you thought you'd be able to afford one piece at half of the tagged price, only to find out that you were looking at nearly the final price anyway. Suffice it to say we wasted about an hour trying to decide which sofa we wanted before we realized we couldn't afford any of them. I'm not about to pay over $2,000 for a sofa. Not with 2 kids and 2 dogs.

The experience makes you realize how nice it is to repair and renew old items. I'd love to learn upholstery, but when would I have time for a class? And most classes for technical skills like that are far from where I live. As my dad used to say, "When I retire, I'm going to do . . . " fill in the blank. Problem was, he died 2 months before his retirement date.

I guess I just have to learn to make time for what's important now. Squeeze out some hours somehow. I'm already getting as little sleep as possible, and suffering the consequences. If I could just quit my job, now THAT's the way to go! Who needs a paycheck???? LOL