Free Stuff ROCKS

It’s no secret that half of my house is decorated by items I picked up at garage sales. I love the thrill of the hunt, and even more, I love to not pay retail. I just don’t get how, wait… I just don’t get WHY anyone would want to pay $500 for a wallet from Coach. It is beyond me. I probably get a little bit of this from my upbringing; I mean I have a father who never bought anything new. Ever. (He also never gets rid of anything, but that is a post in and of itself.) When I was growing up, if we had a refrigerator that was going kaput, my dad would get another used one, usually free from some place or another, and use it until it went kaput. Our second-hand TV would sometimes go fuzzy, but no worries, I was taught where to hit it with a hammer to get it working again.

Thankfully I’m not THAT bad. Really, I’m not.

A couple of weekends ago I hit the mother load of garage sales. It was just around the corner, and I literally had to make two trips with my car filled to the brim back to the house with all of my new loot. I got so much great stuff, my head was spinning. I picked up six beautiful, lined curtains for my front room that couldn’t have been more perfect for the colors of our walls. I got three ceramic, blue outdoor flower pots, new kids craft materials, an amazing wall clock with exposed gears, three nicely crafted shelves, two dog beds, several decorative wall hangings, and many more things that I don’t want to bore you with if I haven’t already. And the ticket price for all of this? $18.50. Seriously. It was so great that a little later when I was out with the whole family, we drove back by. Greg and the kids got out and started poking around, and the folks having the garage sale started handing us stuff to take for free, including two kid dirt bike helmets. And here, you can see how those are used at our house:

Yeah, digging in the dirt for ants has to be much better wearing that helmet. Free stuff rocks.