Like many Americans, I received an “economic stimulus check” from the US government in May. And I’d like to think I did my part to keep the economy moving — we bought something from a local business with it.
Steve and I will have been together for 20 years in 2009. We will have been married for 14 in September. And we have NEVER had a new mattress for our bed. That all changed in May when we received our “economic stimulus” check.
Last summer, Steve landed on his butt when riding a dirt bike. This should not be confused with the summer of 2006 when he hit a tree while driving his dirt bike. The butt-landing left Steve in pain for a while, and he went to see a chiropractor. It turns out he has a (I’m not sure of the proper terms) but the stuff that is supposed to be in-between the bones of your spine (spell check keeps yelling at me about the way I am trying to spell vertebre, and I am trying to avoid being a member of the “spelling iz optional” club now that I have a master’s degree in English, but there you go) isn’t between two of those bone thingies that I can’t spell. This is painful.
Our mattress wasn’t helping things. We knew something was up after we bought our camper in 2006, and Steve preferred our camper’s mattress to our own bed’s mattress. We added an egg-shell thing and a padded whatever. It helped, but our mattress was sad. It looked squished. It had what had once been a pillow-top but now usually looked like we were trying to build the Great Wall of China in the middle of our bed.
Still, mattresses are expensive. We shopped for one more than once and never actually purchased one. When we stayed in hotels, if we liked the mattress, we would check out the name brand. We’ve talked about buying a mattress since early 2006. In March 2008, we actually made it to the furniture store and tried out the various options. We even considered buying a new bed too. We found one we liked, and the price tag said just $199. It sounded like a steal until we realized that was just the headboard. The footboard and siderails were more. Is that anyway to sell a bed? It sounds nuts!
The mattress situation and Steve’s back wasn’t getting any better. The “economic stimulus” check made it possible to splurge. Keep in mind our idea of splurge is not what most mattresses cost. We did not spend over $1,000 on a mattress. We managed to keep the price under the $600 stimulus payment for joint filers.
When I came home, and the new box spring and mattress was on our old bed frame, it was much taller. You had to crawl UP into the bed. Steve has to reach DOWN to hit the snooze button on our alarm clock. Steve still says the camper mattress is better, but I am sold on our new mattress. The other night I was stiff and achy and didn’t even realize I was stiff and achy until I crawled up into bed and began to relax. It was wonderful.
Less than a week later, Steve arrived home to find a new headboard and footboard on our bed. I have a history of doing this kind of thing. He leaves for work and arrives home to find something major has changed. He groaned in response. He liked it, but he was also imagining what I spent since it was nicer than the $199 headboard we’d looked at.
But my sharp looking new headboard and footboard was just $25. I bought it from a local Habitat for Humanity restore. On sale the same day, but I didn’t buy, was a gorgeous Ethan Allen queen-sized canopy bed. It was something like the bed at this link, but chunkier and a dark (almost black) color. Even at Habitat, it was selling for several hundred dollars.
Now that I’ve bought my new mattress, the economic stimulus keeps on going because none of my old queen-sized sheets fit the new mattress. Oh, they will go on it. They just don’t cover the sides completely. I bought one 300-thread count fitted sheet that fits, and I am going to have to get more. Did you know some stores do not sell JUST fitted sheets?
We also bought an antique cedar-chest that has a family connection. It is gorgeous, and it now sits at the end of the bed. I haven’t put anything in it yet, but it looks nice.
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Speaking of the economy, Michigan’s economy is in pretty dire straits, and the local economy where I live depends a large part on tourism, which is weak right now. Still, an article in Crain’s Detroit Business was out of line and some of the interpretations by the author were completely erroneous. I especially like the line that said, “Their home also has central air and a real furnace — also rare for Houghton Lake.” As a spot-on editorial in the Houghton Lake Resorter pointed out, it makes it sound like Houghton Lake is some backwoods area where the average home doesn’t even have a “real” furnace. Is there such a thing as an “unreal” furnace?
In addition to the editorial, the Resorter did a front-page story about the Crain’s article too. You need a subscription to read it online now, but it will be available in four weeks to those who don’t subscribe.
I checked into the writer of the story and expected to find a freelancer without any solid education, but I was surprised to find he does have a degree in journalism and some respectable positions in the Detroit area. It seems he came to the article with a specific slant, and he starts the article with a statement that I don’t think anyone who lives in the area ever considered — that Houghton Lake was supposed to be the next Traverse City. He wrote that it was just in the last few years that people from down state bought “hovels” in the Houghton Lake area and replaced them with “lakefront housing to die for.”
People from downstate and Chicago have been buying and building vacation properties in Roscommon County for over 100 years. If he had looked into the history at all, the author would have known this wasn’t a new trend in any way. Other proof he offers, such as the tax listings printed in the paper, isn’t proof at all. The number of listings in the tax sale hasn’t increased.
What bugs me the most is if the people being quoted knew the angle on the story. I know some of them can’t be happy with the way they were portrayed.
And now the burning question of the day, what did you do with your economic stimulus?
