My sleeping habits have become strange to say the least. 10 pm is not an okay time for a nap, body, that is when we must go to sleep for the night. Foo.

*

A series of lucky chances led to my roommate and I purchasing lotto tickets on saturday night. We didn't win, but I think you'll understand why we thought we should take the risk.

Thursday, our next door neighbors started keeping a green sofa and loveseat in the building's garage, right near our parking space. "Hmm," I remarked to poor Stan, my roommate. "I wonder if they'd sell it for a couple hundred."

Not that I had a couple hundred just lying about, but still. It was nice furniture, and leather to boot. Stan just shrugged, because she knows I am crazy, and then I forgot all about it. Come Saturday morning, as we left to celebrate my uncle's 50th birthday, a sign was on the couches: Free, we just need to get them out of the garage!

I looked at Stan and she looked at me and I think you can tell where this is headed. We were the proud new owners of far too much furniture to fit in our apartment. (Before you call Hoarders on us, we are long-term-lending the sofa to my brother and only keeping the loveseat for ourselves.)

So, joy in Mudville, all right. Had a nice celebration for my uncle, who was kind enough to haul the sofa across town to my brother's place. As we step in for the night, our sweet first-floor neighbor lady joined us in the elevator. I once helped put boots on her dog and have been on top of the "good neighbor" list ever since. She looked at us for a second, then said. "Say, would you girls like a TV? My son bought us a new one, we're giving away the old one."

Stan and I looked at each other. Did we need a new TV? Not...really. But. Free TV!

We agreed to take a look at the thing, and it turned out to be nice, several inches larger than our current one and a couple years newer. Finally we said yes.

"Can we just roll it up on this, and then bring it back down when we're done?" I asked, gesturing to the wheeled table the TV was on.

"Oh, you can just take the table too. We don't need it!"

...

And that's how I ended up with two extra couches, one new TV, an extra black end-table, and two losing lottery tickets. The more you know.