Out with the old, pt. 2...and in with the NEW

We're moving (although we have no proof, but I'm hoping the rumor is true!) so it's time to do lots of movey stuff, like gather all of my personal items from my classroom (check!), sell things at a garage sale (check!), roll up all of our Yen coins and deposit them at the bank (partly-check!), and sell our cars (half-check!).

For some reason, my car was the first to go. A new guy coming into David's office needed a car (mostly because he was driving the poor guy who was driving him around absolutely crazy), so I suppose it was easier to sell to him than to go through all the hassle of putting it on the lemon lot, getting phone calls about it, going out to the lot to let people drive it, etc. Unfortunately, had we gone through that hassle, we might have gotten a couple-hundred more dollars. Thank you, blabbermouth in David's office for sharing the "lowest price we'll accept" with the person who is interested in buying the car.

I was really very sad to see my car go. David moved his car into my parking space before the engine was even cold and I certainly didn't appreciate that. But, a few hours later, David brought me home something new that made me very happy. It wasn't a puppy. I don't have to walk it or feed it or put gas in it or do anything really, except maybe dust it once in a while.

It's a step tansu and I {heart} it! We went out a few weeks ago looking for one at a furniture store and a bazaar and couldn't find one. After the garage sale, I went to the Korean furniture store and they didn't have one. The lady called her other location and told me that in fact, they did have one, but someone else had looked at it and wants to buy it but needs to bring her husband back to look at it and so if I want it, I should go RIGHT NOW and buy it and make sure you go to Event Room # 1, because Event Room #2 is their competitor.
I almost felt like I was being coerced into buying a piece of furniture, so I didn't go "right now", I waited for over 48 hours. David and I went out to the other location (at the Marine base) and while David was in the PX, I went to scope it out. There weren't any step tansus in Event Room #2, so the lady didn't have to worry about me patronizing her competitor after all. There were 2 in Event Room #1, but one had already been sold. That's okay, because I didn't really like that one anyway. I liked the other one though! It was perfect for me... it's a style that is popular here and will remind me of our time here, but it's still "rustic". I'm not really into the ornate "Asian influence" style. Lots of the other furniture there had gold accents etc. but this one is just right. Fairly plain, but incredibly wonderful. I was afraid to walk away from it, because I kept imagining the girl coming back with her husband to show him. I stood right in front of it until David came back from the PX.
As I stood there, I began to wonder if there really was another girl who wanted to buy this, or if I had almost been tricked. The tansu was marked down over $200 from the original price--the price the lady in the Kadena store had quoted me. So I wonder if she was hoping I would buy it before it went on sale. Either way, I wanted it, and it was a good deal...and $50 knocked off the price if we paid cash.

And, as luck would have it, we had plans to sell my car for cash the very next day! We put down a deposit, the furniture man set to work making sure all the doors & drawers worked properly, and we went out to dinner to celebrate our 2nd grown-up non-particle-board furniture purchase. Or maybe we just went out to dinner because we were hungry and had been planning to go out to dinner anyway.

Today David went to pick up my tansu after work. I mean OUR tansu. We decided that this is our anniversary present "to each other". I had to BEG him to bring it home instead of taking it to his office, where they have some storage space. I had to make a space for it where the fan & dehumidifier used to be. And let me just say, it fits perfectly!

Here's the tansu with some Christmas decorations on it:

It's actually bigger than it seems in the picture, but our chairs are in front of it and it would be a pain to move them to get a picture. David only moved one chair to get it back there and I was out running at the time, so I didn't get a pic. Anyway, imagine it even bigger...there are 3 more "steps" going down and the tallest part is maybe 5.5 feet tall. And the coolest thing is that it's 3 pieces and all of the drawers/doors are accessible from both sides (so it can be against a wall or used as a room divider). So it can be a giant step, like it is now, or it can be set up so it's flat on the top with the steps on either side. Or so the steps are together and the flat section is separate. All 3 pieces can be used separately, or the steps can be turned upside-down and nestled together to make one tall chest or one wide chest.

I haven't put anything inside it yet (and don't know if I will before we leave, since I'll just have to take it out anyway!) but there are 9 drawers of various sizes and 3 sets of sliding doors and I'm thinking of what I will want to store in there! I love it, love it, love it! I think I will go look at it for a few minutes before I go to bed.