Want to hear something funny?

I'm about to make you feel a whole lot better about yourself....

If you can believe it, these babies just came down yesterday!

Just curious, does anyone else still have Christmas to remove?

Christmas Morning for Junk Collectors!

My favorite time of year!

Not only is it the start of garage sale season, it is spring clean up week.

In our community we have a city wide garage sale weekend one each year.

The city wide garage sale is meant to get rid of as much as you can for profit before you start to bring your unwanted items to the curb.

For one week you can drag anything that you don't want and that can't fit into your garbage can to the curb and the city will come and take it away for you - for free!

What I love about this is that a lot of people (including myself) drive around

and find perfectly good, reusable stuff and save it from going to the local landfill.

I'm always amazed by what people throw out.

Last year the highlight of my spring clean up week was a perfectly good industrial sewing machine.

The owner of the sewing machine saw me hauling it away and came out with spare needles.

It works great once I played with the tension a little

and it really helps me sew through all those thick wool sweaters.

Here are a few of the free roadside finds that I've picked up this year.

This old wooden bankers chair - in great condition!

I've always wanted one of these. The little case beside it is a roadside find as well - I love collecting old suitcases.

My boys needed a dresser big enough for the two of them to share and I spied this baby on the side of the road just waiting for me.

I couldn't lift it by myself so I took the drawers and put them in my van.

(I knew nobody else would take a dresser with the drawers missing!)

The little desk has already received new knobs and a new paint job - I'll show you that soon.

I also picked up this solid oak mantle with the intentions of turning it into a headboard for a king size bed. It is the perfect width and height for it. Sadly I don't have the bed yet and I don't have anywhere to store it so it may end up on craigslist we'll see.

My sister and I had a super fun day. She is single again and in the process of decorating her whole house so she really picked up a fabulous haul. Between the two of us we had three full van loads, and a ton of laughs trying to fit this stuff in. In addition to my free finds I spent a total of $28 on a few other bits and pieces. And my sister has got a super good start on her decorating for $120.

A Quick Halloween Mantle

My Daughter asked if I could please do a better job of decorating for Halloween - so I decided this is the year that I do more than just carve a pumpkin!

The pumpkin patch is the perfect place start.

Hard to get a bad shot a the "punkin" patch!

My middle child is the last of my kids to make it onto this blog.

He's a cutie don't ya think?

Simple! ... but nice.

Pesky little creature!

Halloween and costumes are keeping me from my other passions - sweaters & junk.

I hope to return to these passions soon,

but in the meantime stay tuned for more Halloween decorating!

My Nature Girl!

Most of friends do not know that I was once part of a club called "Nature Girls". Why we called it that I don't know because my cousin Fred (clearly not a girl) was also in the club - it doesn't seem fair. I must call and apologize - poor Fred! As you might be able to guess this club was formed many years ago and no longer exists today. It was fun while it lasted though. My sister, cousins and I would hide from cars (they were unnatural), we'd build forts in the woods, give ditches beautiful names such as "Walking Waters", and the ultimate nature girl right of passage - go pee in the woods.

My daughter seems to be carrying some of the nature girl genes. I am often inspired by her creativity and her delight with nature. I think she often switches into a right brain mode and will come back into consciousness only to realize that she has smeared mud all the way up her arms. She's quite a little dreamer.

She amazed me with her little dragonfly picture. The wings are made from maple seeds, the body is a twig and the head is a little tuft of moss. I was blown away and had to frame it!

Ok, this is really not a good photo, but this is her first ever oil painting. She brought this for show and tell and had a crowd of moms around her saying, "Your kidding me right?"

On her ninth birthday she wanted to have a tree planting birthday party. I have to say it was such a great day. All her friends came and some brought their parents and siblings to help. Collectively we planted one hundred seedlings to reforest an area where a wind storm had blown down a good portion of the forest. It felt much more like a community event than a little girls birthday. Afterwards we barbecued hotdogs and drank hot chocolate, and everyone took home a packet of forget-me-not seeds (her favorite flower), and a green dog tag necklace that had the words "I helped make the world a little greener", and a few other goodies in a brown paper sack with a peace sign and a daisy painted on it. She is through and through a nature girl and always her own person - and for that I am very proud!