serendipity and other weird things

When Jay moved into his own place last fall I transformed his bedroom into my personal retreat/guest bedroom. I kept his old desk, one of his chest of drawers and one of the beds (yes, he had two....one in his bedroom at home and one in his apartment when he was in college). I needed a nightstand so I looked in some of the thrift stores but couldn't find anything.


So I purchased this one on-line from Target. Basket not included.

It arrived on a Friday and I set it up, but I still needed some kind of stand or table for the TV. Saturday morning I made a trip to the Farmer's Market and on my way home just two houses from my house


this perfectly wonderful shabby chic nightstand was sitting by the road in wait for the garbage man or garbage picker. I instantly snatched it up (this wasn't easy as it is fairly large and very heavy) and carried it home. How serendipitious was that?


my reading nook

We had a small TV that I placed on the black nightstand and started using the white nightstand by the bed. When we got our big 52-inch for the family room in December we took the old family room TV to the basement, but we already had a nice TV in the basement that we had bought to watch while working out. What to do with two nice TVs? Jay came home to visit that weekend and turned on the little TV in the guest room. The picture was all black and not visible. Serendipity again. The little TV broke right when we we wondering what to do. The old basement TV came up to the guest room. Since it is big I had to switch out the black nightstand by the bed again and use the white one for the TV.


a really neat chair I found at the the Salvation Army to use for my desk chair and round out the room

Isn't it funny how things happen like that? Little things happen all the time that leave me wondering why? Like I logged on to my e-mail a few days ago to e-mail my friend Donna in Chicago and there was mail from her. We don't e-mail one another often so how did it happen that we were thinking of one another at the same time? And do you ever notice how you might say a word or phrase in conversation with someone and then someone on the TV says the same word or phrase right after you do? Or the day I was thinking about a friend that I haven't seen or heard from since college. I googled her and that very day an article had been published in the New York Times about how she was involved in a video that helps woman make a choice about how to treat their breast cancer. She is a breast cancer survivor.
Or the morning B & I dropped off our car to have a cracked windshield replaced and then went to the Pancake House for breakfast. Who should be there but a guy I work with who doesn't even live in my area. I went over to say hi and ask him what he was doing up this way. He said he and his son had just dropped off his car to have a cracked windshield replaced and had come to have breakfast while they waited.
And then the dishwasher incident. The spring on the door to my dishwasher broke a few days before Christmas. B ordered a new spring and replaced it. A few days later he asked me if I'd like to go shopping for a new dishwasher. Our dishwasher was 25 years old and B is handy and has always repaired it every time it broke. But it was really looking old inside and out. We shopped on Saturday and picked out a beautiful new stainless steel inside and out dishwasher and set up delivery for the the following Saturday. On Sunday I filled up the old one, poured in the soap and cranked her up. Smoke started billowing out the bottom and up through the sink drain. I quick turned her off and an investigation by B revealed that her motor had burnt out. B's theory was that she was saying " F you, I'm not washing one more thing. All these years of service and you go and replace me." I think he was right.