Curb Alert! Curb Alert!

I LOVE Freecycle although this post has nothing to do with Freecycle.

For those of you not familiar with the site it is a "gifting" group that offers free items. You can get anything from boxed cereal to chickens to generators for absolutely nothing. You can also make "offers' of items you have that you would like to get rid of. I recently cleaned out my fabric scraps and crafting items and rather than donate them to a thrift shop where they would probably get destroyed before they were even unwrapped I put them on Freecycle knowing someone out there would want them.

You remember this guy from this post?

"hey i'm wondering on the sizes of scraps? are they in odd shapes? i'm in need of curtains and ceiling covers. are they very "girly" colors? i am a guy but not opposed to all floral patterns. hope to hear back thanks"

I have visions of being 93 and mumbling, "ceiling cover...ceiling cover....what is a ceiling cover...."

The same week as ceiling cover man I met a 70 year old retired nurse who had just begun pursuing her life long dream as a collage artist and who gleefully grabbed up my vintage sheet music. We had the BEST time talking about art, nursing, and long lost dreams come true I almost forgot to see my next client.

The older I get the more i love re-using and re-cycling and re-purposing and people who re-use, re-cycle and re-purpose.

Of my five beautiful children when it comes to thrifting and freebies two of them are like me, digging through trash like puppies on steroids.

Can you guess which two?

And that brings me to "curb alerts."

Three families have moved out of our neighborhood recently. I was happy to see the lunatics next door go even though they left their teenagers behind in the house. As it turns out the teens are much more responsible than the parents ever were. And even thought there are usually a minimum of 6 cars on any given day parked in front and sometimes on my lawn, it is so nice not to wake up to the sound of the mother spewing the "f" word and/or the husband apologizing for bashing the wife's head into the pool, the wall, the tree...whatever.

Good riddance. God is merciful. I have no desire whatsoever to deal with someone afflicted with borderline personality disorder. If I did I would have been a psychiatric nurse not a pediatric nurse.

The next two families didn't bother with bagging their left behind trash. They just threw it out on the street and split. This clogged up traffic one day as the trash men took forever picking up their crap.

Yesterday another pile appeared a few doors to the left. What is wrong with these people? Haven't they ever heard of Hefty bags?

Enter The Boy. He comes through the front door all excited having found an in line skate in the heap.

"Look! I found wheels for our chicken coop!"

Even though the wheels were way too small for our chicken tractor I just wanted to squeeze him he was so darned cute.

And then I took a good look at the skate.

"Is there another one, " I asked nonchalantly?

Those suckers were PERFECT and are going right on Craig's List. Call me a dumpster entrepreneur but I am making money from these things not chicken wheels.

So I meandered down to the pile with The Boy and began picking through the items in a lady like manner.

Like any of my neighbors peeping through their curtains bought that one.

I found this:
A book I have always wanted to read! I know nothing about sports. I don't watch sports. The closest I ever got to anything football was dating two foot ball players in high school. But I have always loved two football figures, Tony Dungy and Lee Roy Selmon. Both are such men of honesty and integrity in a sports world gone mad

Rest In Peace Lee Roy. You are sadly missed.

And then The Boy found these:


And this:


I end this story with something that happen this week at The Boy's school. I was putting The Boy's wheelchair in the back of the van when Mrs. Needs-To-Be-Canonized spotted a vintage oil paining that i had in the back. She informed me her daughter collected old paintings and I gladly gave it to her. It was kind of a school parking circle pick-up "curb alert." She was thrilled. I was thrilled and apparently her daughter was thrilled until she realized out loud...

"She must think I'm such a loser shopping out of the back of her van!" And then Mrs. Needs-To Be-Canonized informed her who owned the van.

"Oh! It was The Boy's mother? Ok!"

I am still laughing.

Oh and before I forget...can anyone guess which one of my other children loves to dumpster dive?