Goodwill Substitutions
My sister-in-law and I ran an errand last week for her mom – we flew to Florida to pack up the few personal belongings left behind at a winter home they recently sold lock stock and barrel, as-is. The real estate agent stopped by to cheerily threaten us if we took anything out of the house. Sue was tempted to offer to let her paw through the garbage, which was all we’d removed at that point.
However, we did steal a few items: two cheap Arizona sand prints hanging in matched frames on the wall; a cross-stitch beer tray that Sue’s mom had taken hours to make; a golden music box from their 50th wedding anniversary; some junky red sox plastic cups, ticket stubs, etc. This left an empty spot (with two nails) on the wall and some blank spaces on the living room shelves where the missing knick-knacks (and junk) had been. We also found, rolled, and cashed in $26 in coins.
We took the $26 to a Goodwill store and went on a treasure hunt. We did great! Matched vertical golf prints to replace the Arizona sand prints. Since the narrow wall where they hang is between a sliding glass door and a window, beyond which is an actual golf course, just steps away from their back door, with no fence in between, obviously the golf prints make much more sense than anything from Arizona.
On the shelves, we stood up the binoculars and pretty bird book, ready for action. (There are a lot of birds there still, they did not fill in all the swamps.) The matched Serenty and Harmony blue vases are from Goodwill, as is the red bowl bottom right. Mother-in-law wants us to go back and bring her that bowl!
The replacement for the tray has to be the most fun item though. It is somewhat beat up, but hey, that just makes it look more like a treasure. It came with all the dried bits of nature rolling around loosely on it, too. We don’t even know what they all were. We added a bit of shell to the collection.
Last picture related to this trip was not in Florida at all but a pleasant surprise that greeted me the morning after I got home. When I left, there had been one single bloom on this nastrutium, which I started from seed to hopefully fill in after the annuals I’d planted from small pots were gone by. So this profusion was an unexpected delight.
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