Hi, my name is Jenny and I have a couple of new addictions that I'd like to share with the group today:
First up is www.freecycle.com. Freecycle (they're localized, so I'm a member of Houston Freecycle) is a website where you post things that you have to offer up (everything is free--hence the name). When someone emails you with interest, you tell them where to pick it up and you're done. I was initially hesitant to join Freecycle because you have to be "approved" and that just seems like too much of a hassle when you're ready to get rid of stuff. I'm much more of a "just get it out of my house NOW" type of person, so we've dumped all manner of good stuff at various charitable drop-offs--which isn't a bad thing by any means (see my next addiction)--it just isn't very personal and then you wonder if your stuff is really getting a good home. Well, after cleaning out the B.G.R. last weekend, we were left with lots of odds and ends that we had no idea what to do with--stuff that almost seemed cruel to give to a charity and let them try to find a use for. Case in point: The cumulative collection of me and Kevin's cassette tapes from the 1980's and 1990's. Kevin has a strange sentimental attachment to them, so we've been moving them along with us from apartment-to-apartment-to-townhome-to-house for years and years now...even though we haven't owned a cassette player in the entire time that we've been together. So, over the weekend, he picked out a few that he just couldn't bear to part with (most of them "mix-tapes" and recordings from his various bands) and we kept those. The rest, I just posted on Freecycle this morning. There has been a virtual feeding frenzy over them on the website. I've lost count of how many inquiries I've gotten about them. The first person to respond came and picked them up from my front porch on her lunchbreak. I just got an email from her, telling me how excited she is to have them and how she can't wait to get home from work and listen to some music. What a good home for our old tapes.
Also up for grabs is a box of assorted trophies from our childhoods. Some of them are sports-related (thanks to Kevin's most successful soccer career back in elementary school--think David Beckham but with shaggy brown hair, thick glasses and about 3 feet 4 inches tall) but most are academic-related (thanks to Kevin's even-more-successful number sense skills in Junior High). I have someone coming tomorrow to pick those up from me. Apparently, this person is the coach of a children's chess club and he pops off the name plates, replaces the figurines and gives them to his chess club champs. Yet another fine use for our discarded stuff.
How cool is that?
On the flip side of this, there is some interesting stuff that other people are giving away--always lots of baby and kids stuff so I'm keeping an eagle-eye on Freecycle for anything that looks useful to us.
On that note, my next addiction of late is thrift store shopping. Yep. I've succumbed. I knew I was headed down this path due to my obsessive scouring of the mom's group marketplace that I belong to--looking back on it, this marketplace was a "gateway" for thrift-shopping for sure. Well, a friend recently introduced me to a certain thrift store here in town (I've been to a few others and nothing compares to this one). I've scored some good things. I've also learned some lessons. Thrift stores aren't always the cheapest way to get stuff--you have to know what things cost and know what brands are good. I only buy brands that are good and I have no problem paying a little more (say, $1.80 as opposed to $.40) for something that's a good, name-brand. I've always enjoyed buying things...be it cleaning supplies or clothes. This just fuels my fire--to come home with treasures and to have gotten a really good deal.
Good meeting today! Should we end with the Serenity Prayer?
2 comments:
Oh my...... you and my friend, June, should NEVER be in the same room!!!! Actually, you need to go to "Castaways" with her just one time. She could teach you soooo much about thrift store hunting. I, too, know the 'high' you get when you've discovered something valuable, that no one else has seen!!!! What day and time is your meeting? I think I need to join!!!! xoxoxo Hattie
I actually belong to two Freecycle sites as I am in-between CC and Aransas. I posted "small miscellaneous" cardboard boxes that I had torn down flat. A lady came and got them...she was thrilled because she needed some small boxes to help her with moving...AND for the moment they were kept out of the landfill.
In Utopia, can you imagine where we might all swap necessary items as needed, cut down on unnecessary trash and disposables and quit being so excessive?
Of course, that "recycle" mentality contributes to the economic crash we are seeing that is based on our "excessive" lifestyles, but after all what good is excess when the world is no longer inhabitable?
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