Out with the Old, In with the New...Ideally

I'm so happy it's Friday.  This has been a super long week. Though not without high points, it has just been crazy busy.  Work has both ups and downs (am on a very exciting project that I have a lot to contribute to, but have to deal with a difficult co-worker), and home life is non-stop as usual.  We went furniture shopping yet again, but with different results this time.  Woohoo!  We found a living room set that we could agree on that also fits in our budget! I was beginning to think it would never happen and we would be sitting on the floor after the old sofa finally gave up the ghost...which was very close to happening.  It started to feel like buying a car.  On the final visit Wednesday night, we had it narrowed down to two almost identical sets.  Then came the sitting on one, moving to the other.  Rinse and repeat.  This went on for an hour easily, as my husband wanted to be sure about which one he liked better.  Factor in 3 trips to the potty for our 22 month old.  Oh, and of course the sets we were looking at were at the farthest part of the store away from the restroom.  Other than the trips to the restroom, she did great, happily sitting on the furniture in the showroom, playing with a balloon, and eating the non-staining snacks I brought along.  Then the signing and initialing 6 copies of paper work.  We finally got out of there at 9:15.  So that was a long, though victorious, evening.

Happily, they scheduled the delivery very quickly.  Sadly, that meant scrambling to get the old sofa out and the love seat temporarily parked in the living room to another temporary holding spot upstairs.  I was the only one around to help my husband with this.  Hmm.  We do not have a good history with moving furniture together.  Every time we attempt it, I remember that I never ever want to move again.  I do fine with other friends, but he and I do not do well in this particular arena.  I think the fact that I am 5'1" and he is 6'2" has a lot to do with it.  Our daughter got very upset when we started to move the sofa, which surprised me.  She sat in the dining room pointing to where the sofa had been and saying, "No, sofa back!"  Other than that, we did okay, got everything moved without any muttering about divorce and no trip to the ER.  Always a plus.  

I figured today would be easy, my husband will take delivery of the furniture, I'll call for bulk pickup of the old sofa and carpet.  Easy peasy.  Ha.  I should have known better.    

I called the town to schedule a bulk pickup and the lady who answers the phone tells me that I have to wait until January because they discontinue bulk pickup to do leaf pickup.  Okay.  For 3 MONTHS!?!  I'm thinking that my neighbors probably do not want to look at the 10 year old blue velvet sofa out in front of my house for that long.  The more she insists that I can either bring the stuff to the dump myself or have to wait til January, the more frustrated I become.  Putting aside the fact that almost no leaves have actually fallen from the trees yet, our town has very high taxes and it is becoming clearer by the day that residents get almost NO services for them.  We have to pay for weekly trash pickup, for sewer service, trying to get get permits to get work done is a challenge (and don't get me started on the time a township inspector lectured me that the town is involved in my addition to protect me, but missed the fact that there was no structural support designed for our new second floor), and I could go on and on.  And now I can add to the list that the first time in the 11 years that we've lived here and needed bulk pickup, they aren't doing them.  I asked the woman on the phone what services I get for the $xx,xxx tax dollars I pay every year.  She told me I was being nasty to her.  I really wasn't.  I didn't threaten her, get aggressive or curse at her.  I just asked her questions she couldn't answer.  She, however, was snide to me from the minute I said the words, "bulk pickup".  When I said I was going to just put it out at the curb and leave it there, she demanded my address.  I wasn't sure whether that was because she was scheduling me for a pickup after all or if it was so she could send code enforcement to give me a ticket.  Thankfully, she deigned to schedule a special pickup for me.  Whew.  I am relieved that I don't have to look at that thing for 3 more months.  

The fun continues.  Our house has three doors.  The sofa won't fit through two of them.  (I again curse the architect who designed our addition.)  The third one has a 90 degree turn immediately and this thing can't possibly make the turn.  So they have to bring it in through the kitchen window, over the island, through the dining room and finally make it into the living room.  Am I the only one who is happy to not be present for things like this?  I get so stressed by stuff like this.  It's just better if I'm not even there.  I'm not sure why I get so worked up.  Not being home is better.  I do something else to take my mind off of it and I get a call after it's all over.

And I just got that call.  Hooray!  Bring on the weekend, I am ready to collapse onto the new sofa!