One Man's Junk, Another's Treasure

This is the season, yes especially before the Passover Holiday, when the local email list/group has lots of letters offering "come and take it." It's a time many try to clean up by getting rid of things, or fix up and buy new. But the result is the same, there's lots available to give away for free.

Last week I sent out an announcement/offer for hangers, and within minutes three people contacted me that they wanted some. I must have gotten rid of at least fifty 50. None of the hangers had cost me any money, since they came from the "dry cleaners."

Yesterday, I took advantage of the extra week of Passover Vacation I had from work and made some changes in my room. You probably don't know, but when I worked in Yafiz, for six years, we got no special time off before the Passover Holiday. Actually, there was pressure to work more hours especially us part-time workers, because that is one of the big busy seasons in the store. And last year, when I did manage to get a good schedule with three days off just before, my father died that first morning, so I was in mourning, not cleaning mode until the Holiday.

In Israel, for good and for bad, depending on whether you're a teacher or parent of young active kids, school closes for Passover a week or more before the Holiday. In the high school where I teach, they take the students on the big annual trip the week before that, so our vacation starts a week earlier.

WOW, what a fantastic deal for me! So, I decided to make some changes in my bedroom and get rid of the bamboo shelves.

I'm not a great housekeeper at all, so these shelves had been storing all sorts of things for up to at least twenty years, since one of my daughters had given them to me. She had used them in her apartment, and they weren't new then.

So, yesterday I very slowly, so I wouldn't panic and give up, bit by bit took everything off and sorted through what I found. I threw out tons of makeup I'll never wear and was probably long past any "safe to use" date. Other things found "new homes" in the house, and the garbage can needed to be emptied a few times.

When the shelves were finally bare, I took them to the front door and sent an email to my neighbors, with a photo, of course, offering "first come first serve." Just take it!

Within minutes my phone beeped with a reply:

Oh wow I want that!

So, I spoke to her and had my husband move it to the merpeset, terrace, and wrote back to the list that they had already been reserved.

Call this a "win-win situation." And now that I've begun making some sort of "improvements" in my room, I'm getting the urge to have it painted... It's looking more and more possible that I could handle that sort of "challenge." Remember that to paint a room you have to clear the junk/possessions out first. Fly Lady would be proud of me.