Who’s ready for some happy news? I know I am.
Just before I got my MS diagnosis, we got a new couch.
This is a huge deal. J and I have been married 25 years and never owned a new couch. For the record, I am a sustainability weirdo. I actually never wanted a new couch. I prefer to shop previously owned for a lot of reasons. However, after YEARS of looking at thrift stores and Facebook Marketplace, we could not find a used leather couch that fit in our living room. We have a very long and narrow space upstairs and most couches are not built that way. So J found this faux leather couch on Amazon where each piece is its own “chair” and you can arrange them in any shape. So we pulled the trigger.
As the text above indicates, I was over the moon and suggested doing a photo shoot for our Christmas card, but J was hesitant.
I had other ideas for a card, but then my whole world blew up on October 21st. There were a lot of things I had to miss out on, but I was especially heartbroken about not feeling well enough to create one of our “Busch original” annual Christmas cards. It’s my favorite tradition.
As I was lamenting to J about the situation, he suggested doing Christmas PJs. We didn’t need to shop (other than ordering a matching set online). We wouldn’t have to go anywhere or get dressed up. We aren’t the matchie- jammie type, so we decided as a family to go all out with these tacky festive onesies.
The boys took the couch apart to make one cozy piece. Then I set my camera on a tripod and J pushed the shutter with an app on my phone (you can see him clicking it in the photo above). I am so thankful we were able to check this off of my holiday wish list!
Sure, they went out later than usual, but most of them will arrive before Christmas.
The upstairs couch went downstairs and the infamous yellow couch is currently on our trailer in the driveway, giving a “white trash” aesthetic to our curb appeal which I am sure the neighbors love. Hey, we have an excuse. Our lives have been crazy.
If you haven’t read Hope at the Threshold, well, you should go read it.
It’s available on Amazon or pretty much any online bookstore, or Salt and Light Wellness in Milford, or even the library in Milford. The reason I am doing a random impromptu sales pitch is because if you haven’t read my book, then you don’t know the significance of the old yellow couch. Here is an excerpt: “For our Christmas card that year, I suggested we drag our snotty, old, yellow couch to a field and take pictures on it. Then we could just trash the couch so that we didn’t have to haul it to Kentucky. Jeremy reluctantly agreed. The photos were of the four of us posed on the retro couch out in nature, and our cards that year were adorable!
However, my full plan did not come to fruition, never managing to dump the ugly, old couch afterwards.”
That was 2011! The couch was mentioned other times throughout the book as it continued to travel across the country with us.”
It even made it into another Christmas card in 2018.
The couch served us well, but I am happy to see it go. I will be even happier when its carcass is no longer haunting me from the driveway, but you know what? I actually don’t care. I am thrilled to pieces about my new couch. J says the new one isn’t as comfy as the old one, but after 25 years of “comfortable and ugly,” I’m ready for “new and pretty!”. So Merry Christmas and happy anniversary to me.
And a very Merry Christmas to all of you!!!