Well, by some miracle we made the right decision to keep the "on the fritz TV" as a backup. Our other TV bit the dust yesterday. Yeesh!!

It's ironic, because we have never had so many conversations about how it could last "5 more minutes OR 5 more years," until deciding what to do with our other bad TV. The reviews on bulb life were mixed, so we knew this was a possibility.

*Fingers crossed,* but dh found the usual $300 part/bulb to fix it on amazon for $50. We already ordered it. It had some mixed reviews, but figured it was worth a shot. Even if it buys us a few months or a year would probably be nice. Since we *just* bought a new TV. !!

I had envisioned putting the "newer with a lot more problems" TV in the closet or something, but since it seemed to be working okay again, dh wanted to get it all set up with his old game systems. (To replace the old 10-incher he has been using). IF we were keeping it, he wanted to use it. He wanted to buy a TV stand in December or January and I asked him to wait a few months. Anyway, we decided we could afford the expenditure this month, and he ended up finding a stand for just $50. We just put the TV up on the stand Wednesday night. Got everything all setup. & then the other one goes kaput within about 24 hours. HA!! So, basically, if this happened 2 or 3 days sooner, we may have just moved that TV into our bedroom and be done. & crossed our fingers that it would work for a while. But, now we have put all this effort getting it set up for it's temporary use. Will see...

As long as dh has one "precious," he doesn't really care about the rest. I am surprised he is willing to keep this TV - the one we will try to fix - it has had other issues and he has disliked it for a long time. But he is also disgusted by the disposable-ness of these TVs. I am sure even he envisioned just buying a nice TV and keeping it "forever." Not having to replace "every 3 years, which is totally ridiculous. So if I am happy, and it can be fixed reasonably, he will keep it for the less picky of us in the house.

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As far as FREE stuff?

The other reason we got the TV all set up in the spare room is that my dad brought up his musical keyboard last weekend. We are "borrowing" it. (Yeah, I think he is giving it to us). So, dh felt pressure to work on clearing that room and moving the TV out of the way, etc.

He was stressing out about where to put the keyboard. I figured we'd make do or buy a stand. Well, it fits *perfect* on my old desk. We had already bought a new tuner for our main living area and put my OLD one up to use with the keyboard. Dh has some speakers from childhood. So, we were able to scrounge up everything else we need. That is how we do it around here. We may spruce it up in the long run, but in the short run there is plenty to make do.

We have a home theater in our house that started with the purchase of a projector. IT still has the original surround sound that dh bought as a teenager. We now have a ceiling mounted projector, a screen and some nice seating. I don't think we really give a flip what the room looks like with the lights on. But you know, the giant screen, the awesome sound, the comfy chairs. What else do you need? Someone just recently asked why we didn't just buy a large TV. Well, it would be big and heavy and it would cost about 10 times as much!?! IT's hard to compete with a 12-foot screen.

So, our music room will evolve the same way. It's starting small with the purchase of a tuner, a hand-me-down (it's really old) and some repurposed furniture. But it will eventually be pretty sweet. For reference, we have many friends and relatives who have gone bankrupt buying this kind of stuff. You just don't have to spend a gazillion dollars to enjoy these type set ups. This keyboard is *really old* and my dad replaced it a long time ago, but didn't really want to let it go. I think he will be happy that we get more use out of it. I think it came up because I asked for his help in evaluating a keyboard to buy, for LM. & he said, "Forget that, I have one you can borrow."

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The "free" does not end there. I was driving home from work and saw a pile of fairly nice furniture on the sidewalk a few doors down. I walked over and saw that it was free for the taking.

Dh had been talking about getting some shelves for LM. For books more than anything. We decided this would do:





LM did not want to put it in his room but we have tons of room in the hallway. Good storage for joint books and games, so maybe it's best to just put it in the hall by their rooms.

Score extra points since it "hides" all their crap.

What had caught my eye was this:



I did not even realize, but I guess bottom glass piece was missing. I do not care, as I like the way it looked. I like the open bottom shelf.

I put it in my bedroom to replace the shelves I used to have in there:



We moved these shelves downstairs at some point, to house our growing book collection. I had taken the opportunity to declutter. But in the end, I couldn't sell everything, and I can certainly fill up the shelves. It's a little smaller than the old shelves, and I like it. This will probably give me another opportunity to go through my things and purge some more. & maybe I will give up on some of the trinkets I couldn't sell and will just enjoy them.

Oh anyway, dh moved a heck of a lot of books and games from this big shelf to the new little one for the kids. So we will have to go through all that stuff some more. Will be doing some spring cleaning, I suppose. OF note, there is now room for everything sitting on the floor "in front of the shelves."

Frankly, this is how we furnished *most* of our house. Hand-me-downs and such. Though I must admit I never saw furniture so useful and nice on the side of the road. Usually it comes from a friend who is moving or something like that.