The crazy continues....in a good way!

I got so wrapped up in creating "Mary's Retreat" that I failed to come up with the most brilliant idea of all.  Last week we brought up a chair from our TV room that fit the space beautifully but after spending some time in the room I decided it needed an ottoman so I could put my feet up when I read.  I told R that maybe a leather storage cube would work well in the space and that's when he spoke brilliance:  How about a recliner?

I was amazed at the excellence and perfection of the idea.  I typically don't love recliners but there are some out now that look like chairs and are not the over-stuffed space hogs of recliners past.  We went out today to look around and I spotted perfection within 20 feet of the entrance in the first store we visited.  I'm not a ditherer, it was already marked down plus an extra 10% off and it was less than what I'd seen online at La-Z-Boy's website.  We went for it.

Then the best thing happened.  We sat down with the very nice young saleswoman and she asked if we'd purchased from the furniture store before.  We bought a coffee table there a couple of years ago so our name was in the system.  When I spelled our last name she asked if we knew "R" which we told her is our son.  She smiled and said he is her children's pediatrician, then told us she really loves him and is so grateful to him because he saved her son's life.

Oh my goodness!  I've always been proud of my kids, but having a chance to hear about the difference they make in someone's life is an amazing gift.  She went on to tell us about how her son was diagnosed with a heart problem when he was a baby that was akin to a murmur and was told he would probably outgrow it.  After he turned four she changed pediatricians to our son who read his history, listened to his heart, and asked when he last saw a cardiologist.  He sent him to a cardiologist at a nearby university hospital.  After several hours of tests it was found  his heart function was just 16%, perilously low for anyone.  She said a man at her church had a heart transplant because his function had dropped to 12%.  Her son was sent to a regional children's hospital where he had surgery that saved his life.  He is now six, his heart function is healthy, and he is even being allowed to play baseball this summer (with the cardiologist's permission).

She said she thinks our son is wonderful and caring and a very good physician.  She told us we raised a wonderful son and just couldn't say enough about him.  We thanked her for sharing her story with us.

When she was ringing up our purchase, she said she was increasing the discount from 10 to 20 percent.  We thanked her and she thanked us and it was a pretty amazing afternoon.

So now I'm sitting in my perfect, beautiful, Mary-sized recliner in a fabric I adore in my own little retreat.  R said something else very astute this week when he told me that my upstairs office had always been a work space that wasn't fun to hang out in because there was always work to do that made it impossible to relax.  Now that I don't do his shop books and I gave up my last contract client, it was able to become a room for me to use for reading, watching TV, or surfing on my iPad.

Here is my chair, but all of the goodwill and love today makes it even more special.