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Freecycle.net is supposedly a way to stop filling landfills with perfectly good stuff. And, honestly, I have picked up some amazing things when I've used it. Shelves and a table for the garden, and a rock tumbler, that was never used, (and still is never used. 
)
So, now that we've received a good clean-out of our house, (thank you, Ed, again), I've been in a throw-it-out phase for stuff we haven't seen in years. (Thus also meaning, we haven't needed it in years.) BUT, some of it is good stuff! Rarely used to never used. It's just been sitting around for years. So, why throw it out? Freecycle it!
First thing to go was a Walmart bookcase, so unused it wasn't even out of its packaging.
And my first response was, "Will it fit in my car?"
Think about that for a couple of seconds.
Got it yet? Yeah! Really? How do I know if it fits in your car? I don't know you. I don't know your car. AND I did give rough dimensions so you can figure that out yourself. Dimwit (Is it Christian like to call a dimwit a dimwit?) was passed and I made contact with the second person on the list, who came to get it, saw it, and immediately asked me, "Will it fit in my car?"
Granted, I lived in the burbs and the sticks before, so I remember when you might see 0-1 cars on the street per square mile, but this is Philly. We think we've won the lottery if we can park on the same block. We think we've won the lottery three times in a row, if we can park relatively close to home after shopping. (And, I won that triple lottery today! Thank you, Lord.) We know chances are very good that we won't get a ticket if we park on a corner, (not near a corner, on a corner), or outside of five feet from fire hydrants. Double parking is an art. There is a difference between "parking space" and "parking spot," in Philly lingo. We assume driving around the block three times for a spot, because there is no space.
Oh! He parked on the corner facing the wrong way on a One Way, AND three feet from the fire hydrant. Not a problem. He was driving a boat. ("Boat" -- any car big enough to fit 6 or more people in it and still carry all their luggage for a month-long vacation in the trunk.) The bookcase fit.
So, this last week I was fixing up the front porch, and came across an old Food-Saver, meat-grinder, a push broom that's sturdy but wobbles at the head, hubby's old traditional 35 mm. camera in a case with accessories and a tripod, a Chinese writing set, (Why in the world do we have a Chinese Writing set? Apparently, I was supposed to be making my own ink too. What? Where was my mind for that one?), and a tomato crusher funnel.
Yeah. Probably a better word for that last one, but it looks like this.
View attachment 171736
I live in a Italian-American neighborhood so just about everyone can remember their Nonna (Grandmother) had one of those growing up. (We can't. The Italians just let us move into the neighborhood, even if we aren't Italian. I think we passed the real test, when they could smell hubby's red gravy though.
)
Every single one of those things was either never used, or used once or twice. (Well, the camera went on a cruise with us once, but then digital came along, so...)
I made the mistake of posting all those things as separate offerings on July 3rd, the day before we celebrate Independence Day. But, boy! Everyone wanted them! One at a time! As fast as their fingers could fly. Lucky me! The first person wanted all of them! Great! This is going to be easy.
Not so easy. Apparently, the first thing people do on Independence Day in Philadelphia is check Freecycle. I'm being flooded by more and more requests, while I wait around for first person to get back to me.
She changed her mind and wanted none of them.
So, the fourth is a holiday, and I figured most people would find it easiest to pick up on a day off or the evening. Half the holiday is over by now, so off I go to find who else wants them.
Sure enough, someone just wrote to tell me her Nonna had the tomato crusher.
The first person for the camera tells me she's away for the week on vacation, at the shore, Wildwood, as I recall, because, you know, we all need to know the personal lives as we're exchanging this kind of information, but she really really wants it.
Really really. Because her next email asks me for a picture of it. (So. You really really want it, but what is it?
)
Finally, I get enough people to tell them it's waiting for them, just tell me when they'll pick it up.
Three people actually. All three are women. All three have names that start with Ma. (Mariam, Mary, and Maria.) Peachy keen. I'm not good with remembering names, and I find out I quickly forgot who I offered what to. (And now a table is needed to figure that out.) Little did I know, the first person I then offered the camera to is the same one I offered two other things to. (She asked twice for everything from two different email addresses, and then responded only from one.)
So, Mariam promised to come by on the Fourth in the afternoon -- the same time we're planning on grilling a whole chicken in the back garden, so I told her I'd leave the Food-Saver on the front porch and unlike the door so she can get it. I locked that door at 8 PM. She calls at 9, because "she was busy." (She had no plans for the Fourth. She told me.) I really am a jammie girl. I only wear clothes when I'm going out, so I locked the door and then put on my jammies. Nope. 9 PM is too late, so I heard the message on the answering machine.
Meanwhile, Mary comes by when she says she will, the next day. Yay for Mary!
Maria promised noon today, and I told her we were going shopping but I could hold off until she comes.
And, maybe Mariam really did have some emergency come up. So I call her on the 5th, and she promises she'll be around after the mechanic is done inspecting her car that afternoon. Getting car inspected in Philly means dropping it off the day before, and pick it up between 3-5:30 the next afternoon. I water my garden between 4-6, so I can get ready for dinner in time for Jeopardy. (7 PM in Philly.) And, because of the Fourth, that was also trash night, where I had the pile of junk that wasn't worth giving away ready to haul out too. (Ever pick up a box of kitchen tile? Man! Those suckers are heavy! But the tile was sitting for too long to be worth anything to anyone else.)
And, hubby wasn't feeling good, so I made dinner too.
He really wasn't feeling good.
He had a stomach bug hit. He needed me to run around the corner to our local drug store to pick up something that settled him down. So, I was in my jammies, and had to get dressed again. And, I locked the door when I came back home. If you live 5 miles from someone, even if it's in Philly, it does not take 3-5 hours to travel that far. When I came home, Mariam's first message was, "I'm sorry I'm late, but I'm coming." (Hubby was not in any condition to pick up phone.) Her second message was, "I was lost, but I think I found you." (I'm upstairs getting changed into jammies again.)
Nope. Never found me. Ed could find me! Ed does not live in Philly, and has the same fears of coming here that I had before moving here, so I get how he could have been nervous coming here, but it's really easy to get here. We have places in this city where you have to make five right hand turns to get up the right street. (Not exaggerating. I'm remembering going to my in-law's home. lol)
So, two no shows for Mariam.
Maria, who was coming today at noon, knowing we were supposed to go shopping after she got here!
By now, I'm annoyed. It's raining today. There were two hours where it wasn't going to rain. 10 to noon. But Maria is coming, and I feared she might come early, so I didn't go shopping then. I went shopping at 1! She never showed up. (Or she did, but I was out.) Hubby is recovering, so I went shopping by myself.
AND, I will never offer another thing on Freecycle.
Something worked better. When I cleared out the porch to put wheelchairs and walkers on it, I tossed out some brass fire extinguishers, cat toys, and a cat carrier. The porch is the first thing into our house after leaving the sidewalk, and yet, those fire extinguishers disappeared while I was still clearing it out. Trash picked! (How did I not see who did that? It was five feet from me. lol) The cat supplies was a way to meet a neighbor. She rang the door later to see if it was okay to take them. (She works for a cat rescue place. Yay!) I thought she was sweet to ask. The next day the pile I put out was nothing but real trash. All the rest was taken. Great!
And, a few years ago, I had an aloe who kept making babies enough that I had 25 small aloes to sell at a flea market. None of them sold. BUT, when I left them on the sidewalk outside with a "Free to good home" sign under them, 23 were gone by that evening. The two left fell over. They're my aloes today. (One had a baby last winter.)
We have our own Freecycle in this city. Leave stuff outside with "Free to good home" sign nearby, and they always find a good home.
(Rant done!)
)So, now that we've received a good clean-out of our house, (thank you, Ed, again), I've been in a throw-it-out phase for stuff we haven't seen in years. (Thus also meaning, we haven't needed it in years.) BUT, some of it is good stuff! Rarely used to never used. It's just been sitting around for years. So, why throw it out? Freecycle it!
First thing to go was a Walmart bookcase, so unused it wasn't even out of its packaging.
And my first response was, "Will it fit in my car?"
Think about that for a couple of seconds.
Got it yet? Yeah! Really? How do I know if it fits in your car? I don't know you. I don't know your car. AND I did give rough dimensions so you can figure that out yourself. Dimwit (Is it Christian like to call a dimwit a dimwit?
) was passed and I made contact with the second person on the list, who came to get it, saw it, and immediately asked me, "Will it fit in my car?"Granted, I lived in the burbs and the sticks before, so I remember when you might see 0-1 cars on the street per square mile, but this is Philly. We think we've won the lottery if we can park on the same block. We think we've won the lottery three times in a row, if we can park relatively close to home after shopping. (And, I won that triple lottery today! Thank you, Lord.) We know chances are very good that we won't get a ticket if we park on a corner, (not near a corner, on a corner), or outside of five feet from fire hydrants. Double parking is an art. There is a difference between "parking space" and "parking spot," in Philly lingo. We assume driving around the block three times for a spot, because there is no space.
Oh! He parked on the corner facing the wrong way on a One Way, AND three feet from the fire hydrant. Not a problem. He was driving a boat. ("Boat" -- any car big enough to fit 6 or more people in it and still carry all their luggage for a month-long vacation in the trunk.) The bookcase fit.
So, this last week I was fixing up the front porch, and came across an old Food-Saver, meat-grinder, a push broom that's sturdy but wobbles at the head, hubby's old traditional 35 mm. camera in a case with accessories and a tripod, a Chinese writing set, (Why in the world do we have a Chinese Writing set? Apparently, I was supposed to be making my own ink too. What? Where was my mind for that one?), and a tomato crusher funnel.
Yeah. Probably a better word for that last one, but it looks like this.
View attachment 171736
I live in a Italian-American neighborhood so just about everyone can remember their Nonna (Grandmother) had one of those growing up. (We can't. The Italians just let us move into the neighborhood, even if we aren't Italian. I think we passed the real test, when they could smell hubby's red gravy though.
)Every single one of those things was either never used, or used once or twice. (Well, the camera went on a cruise with us once, but then digital came along, so...)
I made the mistake of posting all those things as separate offerings on July 3rd, the day before we celebrate Independence Day. But, boy! Everyone wanted them! One at a time! As fast as their fingers could fly. Lucky me! The first person wanted all of them! Great! This is going to be easy.
Not so easy. Apparently, the first thing people do on Independence Day in Philadelphia is check Freecycle. I'm being flooded by more and more requests, while I wait around for first person to get back to me.
She changed her mind and wanted none of them.
So, the fourth is a holiday, and I figured most people would find it easiest to pick up on a day off or the evening. Half the holiday is over by now, so off I go to find who else wants them.
Sure enough, someone just wrote to tell me her Nonna had the tomato crusher.
The first person for the camera tells me she's away for the week on vacation, at the shore, Wildwood, as I recall, because, you know, we all need to know the personal lives as we're exchanging this kind of information, but she really really wants it.
Really really. Because her next email asks me for a picture of it. (So. You really really want it, but what is it?
)Finally, I get enough people to tell them it's waiting for them, just tell me when they'll pick it up.
Three people actually. All three are women. All three have names that start with Ma. (Mariam, Mary, and Maria.) Peachy keen. I'm not good with remembering names, and I find out I quickly forgot who I offered what to. (And now a table is needed to figure that out.
) Little did I know, the first person I then offered the camera to is the same one I offered two other things to. (She asked twice for everything from two different email addresses, and then responded only from one.)So, Mariam promised to come by on the Fourth in the afternoon -- the same time we're planning on grilling a whole chicken in the back garden, so I told her I'd leave the Food-Saver on the front porch and unlike the door so she can get it. I locked that door at 8 PM. She calls at 9, because "she was busy." (She had no plans for the Fourth. She told me.) I really am a jammie girl. I only wear clothes when I'm going out, so I locked the door and then put on my jammies. Nope. 9 PM is too late, so I heard the message on the answering machine.
Meanwhile, Mary comes by when she says she will, the next day. Yay for Mary!
Maria promised noon today, and I told her we were going shopping but I could hold off until she comes.
And, maybe Mariam really did have some emergency come up. So I call her on the 5th, and she promises she'll be around after the mechanic is done inspecting her car that afternoon. Getting car inspected in Philly means dropping it off the day before, and pick it up between 3-5:30 the next afternoon. I water my garden between 4-6, so I can get ready for dinner in time for Jeopardy. (7 PM in Philly.) And, because of the Fourth, that was also trash night, where I had the pile of junk that wasn't worth giving away ready to haul out too. (Ever pick up a box of kitchen tile? Man! Those suckers are heavy! But the tile was sitting for too long to be worth anything to anyone else.)
And, hubby wasn't feeling good, so I made dinner too.
He really wasn't feeling good.
He had a stomach bug hit. He needed me to run around the corner to our local drug store to pick up something that settled him down. So, I was in my jammies, and had to get dressed again. And, I locked the door when I came back home. If you live 5 miles from someone, even if it's in Philly, it does not take 3-5 hours to travel that far. When I came home, Mariam's first message was, "I'm sorry I'm late, but I'm coming." (Hubby was not in any condition to pick up phone.) Her second message was, "I was lost, but I think I found you." (I'm upstairs getting changed into jammies again.)
Nope. Never found me. Ed could find me! Ed does not live in Philly, and has the same fears of coming here that I had before moving here, so I get how he could have been nervous coming here, but it's really easy to get here. We have places in this city where you have to make five right hand turns to get up the right street. (Not exaggerating. I'm remembering going to my in-law's home. lol)
So, two no shows for Mariam.
Maria, who was coming today at noon, knowing we were supposed to go shopping after she got here!
By now, I'm annoyed. It's raining today. There were two hours where it wasn't going to rain. 10 to noon. But Maria is coming, and I feared she might come early, so I didn't go shopping then. I went shopping at 1! She never showed up. (Or she did, but I was out.) Hubby is recovering, so I went shopping by myself.
AND, I will never offer another thing on Freecycle.
Something worked better. When I cleared out the porch to put wheelchairs and walkers on it, I tossed out some brass fire extinguishers, cat toys, and a cat carrier. The porch is the first thing into our house after leaving the sidewalk, and yet, those fire extinguishers disappeared while I was still clearing it out. Trash picked! (How did I not see who did that? It was five feet from me. lol) The cat supplies was a way to meet a neighbor. She rang the door later to see if it was okay to take them. (She works for a cat rescue place. Yay!) I thought she was sweet to ask. The next day the pile I put out was nothing but real trash. All the rest was taken. Great!
And, a few years ago, I had an aloe who kept making babies enough that I had 25 small aloes to sell at a flea market. None of them sold. BUT, when I left them on the sidewalk outside with a "Free to good home" sign under them, 23 were gone by that evening. The two left fell over. They're my aloes today. (One had a baby last winter.
)We have our own Freecycle in this city. Leave stuff outside with "Free to good home" sign nearby, and they always find a good home.
(Rant done!)
Now I shudder at the thought of parallel parking.... We are so spoiled out here in Cali when it comes to parking, although I hear its really bad in downtown LA.